Blog Archives

grandson, along with local openers Open Air and Crooked Spies, absolutely packed The Rec Room in Calgary Friday night (Sept 7th).

It was a slushy Friday night in Calgary as punk rock fans invaded the University of Calgary’s MacEwan Hall.

Local openers Bayonet took to the task of warming up the crowd. Delighting the crowd with tunes like Shit Hawks and Cougar Bait – which I believe could easily be an autobiography.

MacEwen hall was chalk full of rockers on Saturday night, the industrial looking college venue in Calgary making a perfect escape from the cold. An enthusiastic and heavily branded crowd greeted us as we walked into the large room, fired up from openers eyehategod and eagerly awaiting Corrosion of Conformity. There was puke on the floor, the beer lineups were ridiculously long, and the women were as pretty as the beards. It was it was the kind of show where everyone was there for the music. Like, there was this beautiful, unspoken sense of camaraderie. One dude just going around and taking selfies videos with everyone, I don’t even know if he realized BLS was playing but he was super stoked about the whole thing. It’s like we’d just gotten home.

As we say farewell to another year we thought it would be fun to look back at 20 (in no particular order) of our favourite moments, in pictures, from across Canada.

The day after a show – or in this case the 2 days it took for the fog to clear from my head – I always enjoy going back to go over my notes from the evening. It’s a pretty good gauge on how my night went, where it ended up, and if I was still coherent by the end of it. The neater the notes, the tamer the evening. When it comes to our freshman night at Dicken’s in Calgary to check out The Wild! and CKY, I managed to make out about 3 pages before my notes became ineligible so I’ll be re-telling the later events of the evening from what blurry memories I have left. If you’ve never seen those God Damn Wild Boys in their element, spoiler alert: it was a night of unadulterated, debaucherous rock and roll.

For the third year in a row, Coors Banquet is looking to name Canada’s top One Horse Town and award them with a legendary country music concert.  Last year’s winner, Truro, Nova Scotia, was treated to the biggest concert the town has ever seen, featuring Dean Brody, Chad Brownlee, and the River Town Saints.  The 2017 contest, which officially opened April 17, boasts the biggest country music acts in its three year history: multi-platinum Grammy winning superstar Darius Rucker will be headlining the concert joined by 2017 ACM New Male Vocalist Award winner Jon Pardi, three-time reigning CCMA Female Artist Of The Year and 2017 JUNO Award winner Jess Moskaluke and hot newcomers James Barker Band.

We’ve developed a close relationship with the folks at Warner Music Canada and the artists that they represent. It was an honour and thrill for us to be invited to the Lowertown Brewery in downtown Ottawa for their JUNO After Party to celebrate 50 years of Warner Music in Canada.

Last Friday, two of my favourite things about Canada came together in one venue, rock ‘n roll and hockey. Whether you’re a sports fan or not, there’s just something about hockey that bring all Canadians together. A collective sense of pride, if you will.

It’s a difficult task, getting a crowd out on a Monday night in Ottawa. Especially when it’s a freezing rain kind of night. As I arrived at Barrymore’s on an especially miserable winter evening, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ottawa was pumped and ready to party on a school night.

20 years ago I was a student at Canadore College in North Bay. We had this bar, called The Wall. It was a small venue but in its 20 year existence hosted some of the finest musicians Canada has ever produced.  It was also where I was first introduced to Jeff Martin and The Tea Party as they rolled across the country promoting their new album Transmission.