Winnipeg music & culture since 1989
by Brandon Bertram
Phoebe Bridgers doesn’t remember a time she wasn’t into music. “I listened to a shit ton of music when I was a kid, I went to concerts all the time when I was a teenager. I can’t remember not playing or not wanting to be a musician,” she tells me over the phone from L.A. Continue reading “Phoebe Bridgers”
by Sheldon Birnie
It’s been a busy year for Drive-By Truckers, both present and past, even though 2012 marked possibly their least active road-schedule since the early days of their 15+ years out on the Hillbilly Highway. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – DBT, Haulin’ Solo”
by Sheldon Birnie
Bookworm is the one-hour, one-man show written and performed by Toronto’s Corin Raymond. An engaging meditation on reading, childhood, family, school, the Twilight Zone, and Ray Bradbury, Bookworm has been drawing crowds during its run at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and is totally worth seeing if you have time before the Fringe winds down on Saturday. Being a bookworm myself, and a young acolyte of Bradbury, Stephen King, and the Twilight Zone, Raymond’s monologue had me laughing, moved, and goosepimpled throughout the whole hour. Stylus sat down with Corin after his Monday afternoon performance for a couple beers at the King’s Head to talk about the play, his music, and to nerd out on books for a while. Continue reading “Hillbilly Highway – Toronto Troubadour shares Bookworm with the Fringe”
By Whitney Light
“My songs are sad to the point where we joke about it all the time,” Amelia Curran says only half in jest. At the Winnipeg Folk Festival, where this interview happened, the Newfoundland native and Halifax-based singer-songwriter performed in a workshop called “Woe is Me” with some kindred musicians strumming tunes about heartbreak and hard luck. Whether she’s playing alone or with a five-piece band, Curran’s songs compellingly mix a comfy guitar with her seasoned and deliberate voice. A talented and practised creative writer, she released her first album, Barricade, in 2000 and her most recent, War Brides, received wide critical acclaim. Now Hunter Hunter, her second album with Six Shooter Records, is ready for release this September. Continue reading “Amelia Curran”
By Jonathan Dyck
“I’ve always thought of Winnipeg as a place that has distinct boundaries, like you get with the Perimeter Highway,” Del Barber says, sipping a drink at popular Wolseley watering hole Cousin’s. Last May, Barber sold out his album release party for his debut, Where the City Ends, at the Park Theatre. Since its release, Barber and his backing band have been playing local gigs and, most recently, Barber set out on his own for his first tour north of the border. Continue reading “Del Barber”
By Jenny Henkelman
Ingrid Gatin’s got a piano, an accordion, and a tear-jerkingly beautiful voice. All of these things are perfectly suited to the average living room recital or concert at the café down the street. But something in Ingrid Gatin keeps pulling her out of her comfy Wolseley environs. To a cabin in the Saskatchewan woods; to a train crossing the lonely stretches of Northern Ontario; to a transformed gallery space in the Exchange.
Gatin’s first migration took place when her family moved from small-town Saskatchewan to Brandon, where started up in the musical way early. She’s studied piano since age four, and says she’s always benefited from a “hugely musical” family. “There’s always singing and music playing going on on both sides of my family,” she says. “I was always involved with choirs. A good, wholesome music upbringing.”
With that groundwork laid, Gatin was soon sucked into the music scene in Winnipeg when she moved here after high school two and a half years ago. Her friend Ida Sawabe played stand-up bass in a bluegrass band, and soon dragged Gatin along to practice. “They gave me a mandolin and they said, ‘Here’s how you play C and G and D. There, you know every bluegrass song!’ Ting, ting, ting! And then I was in a bluegrass band, the Magnificent Sevens.” Continue reading “Ingrid Gatin”