{"id":9681,"date":"2014-11-13T16:02:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9681"},"modified":"2014-11-13T16:02:37","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:02:37","slug":"shakey-graves-here-to-retrieve-a-lost-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/11\/13\/shakey-graves-here-to-retrieve-a-lost-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakey Graves :: Back to Winnipeg to retrieve a lost soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dyc-shakey-gravesc-03\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Anastasia Chipelski<\/strong><\/p>\n

He\u2019s followed the railroads back and forth across the US and held forth at the Sidewalk Cafe as part of New York\u2019s storied anti-folk scene, but Shakey Graves is returning to Winnipeg to collect something he couldn\u2019t find anywhere else: his best friend\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

Alejandro Rose-Garcia, who performs as Shakey Graves, hails from Austin, Texas. The city has held him dear enough that it proclaimed an official \u201cShakey Graves Day\u201d in 2012. Rose-Garcia took it as a kind of birthday: \u201cI figured if I got a day, I might as well use it as a birthday [..] so I got all my friends and we went and played laser tag.\u201d Though it was technically a one-day proclamation, Rose-Garcia has since taken the opportunity to \u201creally make it rain as much as I can,\u201d throwing a big show featuring local Austin bands, paying them out handsomely, and also releasing all of his own music for free online for a brief period.<\/p>\n

Rose-Garcia has built a name and a reputation for himself as a dynamic performer, holding the stage with just his guitar and a kick-suitcase at his heels. In the pre-dawn of his career, he took his \u201crambling guy with a guitar act\u201d to New York, seeking out the poor songwriter experience. He fell in with the anti-folk crowd in Alphabet City, with the Sidewalk Cafe as their nexus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just kind of a big messed up family that paid attention to what each other were doing. And I was lucky enough to be there for a small blip on the map, and it was really formative. It taught me to kind of put my money where my mouth was,\u201d recalls Rose-Garcia. \u201cThe concept of if you ask me to play you a song I can do it, I really learned how to do that there, cause people would ask me and I\u2019d be like \u2018yeah yeah, I can play you a song\u2019 and then I\u2019d mess it all up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, you\u2019re not likely to see Rose-Garcia shaking or messing up on stage, and he\u2019s moving along from the archetypal rambling man act to develop his skills as a collaborator. \u201cWhen I\u2019m playing with other people and I have to lead, I get a little nervous,\u201d he confessed.<\/p>\n

The honour of leading was bestowed on him at last summer\u2019s Winnipeg Folk Festival, where he hosted a workshop also featuring Shinyribs, Sharon Van Etten, Hiss Golden Messenger, Daniel Bachman and Reuben and the Dark. This collaborative workshop style was very new to Rose-Garcia. \u201cThe workshops always crack me up,\u201d he reports. \u201cStateside, I haven\u2019t played any festivals that do that. The first time I went out I was like \u2018What the fuck is going on? What is this, like, what is happening to me right now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He also fondly remembers the Folk Fest as the place where he watched the final games of the World Cup, huddled in the woods with \u201ca bunch of random Canadians\u201d hooting and hollering over the match being shown on a little iPad. Some of his fellow football fans started a wee gambling party, and while Rose-Garcia was happy to stick to \u201cthrowing coin money around,\u201d one of his tourmates decided to up the ante.<\/p>\n

That weekend, their Canadian booking agent had been making a game of gambling for people\u2019s souls, which he then took to the Trading Post in the campground to barter for goods. Rose-Garcia\u2019s best friend (and tour manager), Wesley, had his eyes set on the booking agent\u2019s soul and made a dangerous wager, placing his own soul on Argentina.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course we\u2019re all like, \u2018That was a horrible idea! Haven\u2019t you ever watched the Simpsons? It\u2019s like the worst idea ever.\u2019 Don\u2019t gamble your soul.\u201d recounts Rose-Garcia. That night, Wesley lost his soul in a most authoritative manner: \u201cThey sent over official paperwork and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wesley, soulless, continues to accompany Rose-Garcia along on tour, but a return stop scheduled for Winnipeg in November brought an unexpected opportunity. When the soul-gambling Canadian booking agent told Garcia that it looked like the Winnipeg show was going to sell out, and asked if he would play a second, Rose-Garcia made him a proposition: \u201cI\u2019m not going to play another show UNLESS we get Wesley\u2019s soul back to play the second night in Winnipeg,\u201d he countered. There was one stipulation, though. If the first night didn\u2019t sell out, the deal was off.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo by Winnipeg supporting the music, I got my best friend\u2019s soul back AND I get to play two nights,\u201d says Rose-Garcia, triumphantly. \u201cThey\u2019re sending over the contract as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides the victory of Wesley\u2019s soul, Rose-Garcia will also be celebrating the release of his latest album, And the War Came<\/i>, featuring many stunning vocal collaborations with Esme Patterson. Rayland Baxter will be touring alongside Shakey Graves, and there\u2019s a chance he may join in for a few songs.<\/p>\n

Those holding tickets for the Nov 24 or Nov 25 shows at the Park Theatre are in for a real treat. If you\u2019re ticketless, well, there may be this one Canadian booking agent lurking about, looking to collect a certain soulful something from you (though Shakey Graves would advise against that).<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Anastasia Chipelski He\u2019s followed the railroads back and forth across the US and held forth at the Sidewalk Cafe as part of New York\u2019s storied anti-folk scene, but Shakey Graves is returning to Winnipeg to collect something he couldn\u2019t find anywhere else: his best friend\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1105],"class_list":["post-9681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-winnipeg-folk-fest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}