Edmonton Folk Music Festival 2026 - My Three Faves

I love volunteering at Folk Fest and have done so almost e3very year they have had one since 2016, but most years, at some point, I hit a wall. And after hitting the wall, I have to actually consider if this will be my last year volunteering.

This year it was Friday. Not even a long day! Start at noon, the corral for the tarp lottery at Stage 1 is still up from the day before, no delays in marching the groups of 30 patrons on to the field so they can set up their tarps for main stage (unlike the day before as they scrambled to get more sand and rig mats laid over the soggy ground).

But it was hot. 26 degrees and I was still tired from the extensive standing Glory (my crewmate!) and I had done during the delays of the day before. I also don't think I hydrated enough; by the time the two of us marched off to the dinner line, I was a shambling wreck, cowering from the merciless sun in the shade of teh umbrella I had brought for rain.

But a great dinner (beer braised Alberta beef with garlic, Moroccan spied carrots, potatoes, three different salads) and a little time in the shade left me in a better state to see a couple of the Friday night main stage acts. We couldn't stay for Of Monsters & Men, the big draw that evening, since we had to be back on site at 6:30 the next morning, and since there is no longer a volunteer shuttle, that trip is about an hour now.

But Saturday morning was cool, and Glory and I had already decided that we would only watch a couple of afternoon shows and then head home to nap. We went to bed early and this meant we could see all the main stage acts Sunday, and even stay for the traditional singing of Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" that closes out the festival.

By that point, both sleepy and exhausted, with aching feet and knowledge that my physically demanding teardown shift was a little more than 12 hours away, I was still at a point where I could say: I can't wait for next year.

So what did I like most about Folk Fest this year?

 1) The Workshops

I had wanted to see Nova Scotia storyteller Adam Baldwin in his own concert. I'd told Glory how great his stage banter was when he'd opened up for Alan Doyle at the Jube the year before, but the schedule didn't fit our needs.

So we went to a workshop called Tall Tales that included him, a trio called The Pairs and 'cosmic folk' artist Sister Ray, and it was fantastic. From his rejection of the term workshop in favour of "drinking in the kitchen" to the interactions between songs to the incidental accompaniment by the artists to the songs of others (perhaps hearing them for the first time), it was a great hour spent in the shade of Stage 7.

My favourite bit was Baldwin talking about how his tragic crime song "Lighthouse in Little Lorraine" was based on a true story, but because he could figure out neither a Nova Scotia community that rhymed with 'hashish', nor a narcotic name that rhymed with Louisbourg, he was forced to change both. And then the song got made into a movie! Which he says you can now watch on WestJet and "should be on a DVD in Giant Tiger any day now."

Similarly, the If You Could Read My Mind workshop featuring The Milk Carton Kids, Fantastic Cat, and The Brudi Brothers was full of great tunes, good humour and tremendous interaction as well.

2) My Crew

People are probably tired of hearing me quote my own maxim, "It's less about what I do and more about who I do it with," but it is true. And nowhere is is more true than when working with the Greetings East crew.

We run the tarp lottery, a somewhat arcane and counter-intuitive randomization system that allows 1000 or more dedicated patrons to enter the field prior to the public gates opening for optimal tarp placement. For our part, this includes building an enclosure (corral) that can hold 2000+ people out of fast fence, handing out 2000+ colored tags with the names of performing artists on them to the patrons as they enter, trying to keep them moving towards the back of the corral instead of crowding around the entryway, announcing an artist's name and then lining the people with matching tickets along the sidewalks up and down the neighbourhood, sometimes stretching further than three city blocks.

At the appointed time, usually 30 mins to an hour but sometimes two hours or more, some of us serve as human pylons, dividing the line into groups of thirty, then marching them through main gate and handing them off to security so they can race safely up the hill and place their tarps. 

After that, we (usually) take down the fast fence and stack it, then place our own tarps. I wouldn't call it easy, and sometimes testy patrons can make things more challenging than they need to be, but it is generally a smooth operation, and our duty is done before the first act hits the stage.

There were 19 of us this year (then team was less than a dozen when I started!), mostly ladies, all but a handful are much, much younger than me, and all of them are great. 

Different people are going to be great at different things, but there are no shirkers. Everyone understands and appreciates what we are doing and why, and we get on fabulously with all but a handful of the patrons. And even those ones should get the benefit of the doubt - who hasn't had a bad day outdoors in a crowd?

Having Glory as a crewmate in 2023 and this year has been an extra delight, and out leadership is smart, funny (like most everyone on this crew!), open minded and attentive. And they even bring cinnamon rolls and rice krispie treats for the early weekend shifts!

My crew are a big part of why I will come back next year.

3) The Music

I have been a fan of Corb Lund since 2007's Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier!, and Thursday night I finally got to see him live for the first time. He was sandwiched between two soul music acts, The Womack Sisters and Thee Sacred Souls, both of whom sounded amazing. 

Friday night we saw Irish trio Amble and enjoyed them immensely. Wonderful voices, great musicianship and tremendous stage presence from their frontman (but charm from all). Apparently when the lead singer told his family he was quitting his job as a teacher to play music full time, his father told him, "throw out the trout to catch the salmon," which is maybe the most Irish thing I have ever heard, and you can apparently see it written on a bunch of their merch.  I expect to be hearing more about them in the months to come.

Trousdale is a country/rock flavoured trio from California with a great sense of humour and absolutely heart-stopping harmonies. I am disappointed the studio version of their cover of Neil Young's "Old Man" sounds so tame compared to the version we heard on the hillside of Stage 5 that raised the gooseflesh on me.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones are hard to describe, but soul ensemble with the energy of a Gospel revival service probably comes close. Paul Janeway was perhaps the most dynamic frontman we saw all weekend. At one point he guided both the band and the audience through a 1-2-3 rhythm game ("That was good. Real good!  But we did not come all the way to Edmonton to be good. We came here to be great. And doo you know what separates the good from the great? No? FRACTIONS."), and at another, he clised ski hill on his belly. I will never miss a chance to see this group if I can help it.

At any rate, a week later the exhaustion and foot pain are forgotten and great memories of music, people and food (the volunteer kitchen still puts out simply amazing meals 3000 plates at a time!) are what remain.

I can't wait for next year! Hope to see you on the hill.

BONUS REFLECTION: THE TEEPEE TEARDOWN

At about the midway point of my teardown shift, as we used a rickshaw/wheelbarrow to move a heavy pile of fence posts and post-puller from one spot to another, someone told my crew boss Ross that the Nikawomin crew needed help taking down the 30' teepee from their cultural area.

"These three fellows would be only too happy to help," he said, before wandering off to supervise another group back of mainstage.

One of the Site Crew and a Nikamowin volunteer explained that it was not difficult work but it required multiple, steady hands and a respect for protocol. For instance, stepping over the supporting poles once they were laid down was considered disrespectful.

So began by folding the covering material onto itself, one team on each side of the opening, until it was all gathered at the back, then lowered it folded it some more and placed in on a bench someone carried over to keep it off the ground.

Then we worked as teasm to lower the various poles leaning against the tripod of lashed poles at the center. Working carefully from both a safety and respect perspective, two fellows steadied the pole while lowering it, and others like me moved to catch it once with in reach and then walk to the end until it was carryable.

At one point the volunteer showed us a "cheat" wherein you could use a still standing pole to slow the descent of one being lowered, which worked pretty well. 

Finally we steadied the legs of the tripod, lashed together at the top with a long cord, brought the three poles together one at a time, and then slowly lowered the bundle and caught it like one enormous pole.

"And that's it!" grinned the Nikamowin volunteer. "It's not hard, it just helps to have more hands."

The Site Crew worker nodded. "And you are all teepee certified now, so we'll see you next year, eh?"

And the volunteer grinned and nodded when I asked if I could put "Indigenous housing experience" on my resume.

A Warriors Musical Comes Out to Play

By the end of junior high school, there were two pieces of popular culture that made a considerable number of middle-class suburban lads my age think that joining a street gang was a pretty cool idea: S.E. Hinton's 1967 novel The Outsiders (part of the school curriculum for a lot of us!) and the 1979 Walter Hill movie The Warriors. 

And I recently discovered this foundational film of my youth has been adapted into a concept album by none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and could now be headed to Broadway as a full fledged musical.

The Warriors tells the story of a 7-member delegation of the titular NYC gang trying to make their way back to Coney Island following a failed midnight peace summit at Van Cortlandt Park that ends in chaos. Wrongfully blamed for the murder of Cyrus, the visionary leader of the Gramercy Riffs who called the summit, the Warriors have to run, sneak and fight their way across an entire city of enemy territories run by gangs that are united at last...against them. 

Warriors (1979) trailer

The movie is based on a 1965 novel by Sol Yurick, who based it in part on Xenophon's Anabasis, but I am not going to pretend The Warriors is a piece of classic cinema. But it would be just as wrong to categorize it solely a guilty pleasure.

The film was green lit because the studio was desperate for 'youth films.' Walter Hill was intrigued by the classical core of Yurick's novel.  He also appreciated a screenplay that, that unlike every other film depicting street gangs as a scourge to society or a problem to be solved, this screenplay instead treated them as another part of the urban ecosystem to be explored.

Shot at night on the streets of New York with a modest budget, the producers paid actual gang members to be 'security.'  The cinematographer successfully campaigned for a scene with a rainstorm at the beginning of the film, so he could wet the streets for better lighting in the subsequent shots. The review in The Village Voice declared, "Much of the movie looks as if Fritz Lang had directed The Wiz, with occasional contributions from Sergei Eisenstein and Bruce Lee," which is about as apt an encapsulation I have ever read.

Paramount pulled most of the advertising for the film after vandalism and violence (including three killings) were associated with showings on both coasts. As Walter Hill observed 35 years later, "I think the reason why there were some violent incidents is really very simple: The movie was very popular with the street gangs, especially young men, a lot of whom had very strong feelings about each other. And suddenly they all went to the movies together! They looked across the aisle and there were the guys they didn't like, so there were a lot of incidents. And also, the movie itself is rambunctious—I would certainly say that." Like most cult films of that time, The Warriors found its eventual (and incredibly loyal) audience through VHS and television showings.

Sure, the dialogue can be pretty stilted in places, some of the gang costumes are both impractical and outlandish (hey, did you know the beloved Baseball Furies wore war paint to cover up the non-youthful faces of the stuntmen portraying them?), and you might well wonder why they didn't just steal a car to make up time. But I was amazed to discover there was an actual gang meeting in 1971 with 200 delegates from dozens of gangs in attendance - so maybe the story isn't quite as far-fetched as we think?

The Warriors is still a compelling, if straightforward, story of survival that also has some poignant things to say about loyalty, courage and even class struggle. The latter comes most notably near the end of the film when a group of upper class teens in suits and dresses board the same subway car as Swan and the rest of his ragged warband, and it is difficult to determine which side is made more uncomfortable by the contrast.

The movie made quite an impression on me and many of my friends, and apparently Mr. Miranda as well, who claims the film "has been on two stone tablets in his head ever since" after seeing it on VHS at an inappropriate age. He initially dismissed the idea of adapting it when suggested by a friend in 2009, but after Hamilton's opening in 2015, realized he hadn't stopped thinking about it. He suggested a collaboration to Eisa Davis, a playwright and actress (and Pulitzer prize finalist!) who had never seen the film.

In a major departure from the film, the album Warriors are all women, which gave me pause but I have to admit works out really, really well for the story overall. It removes the trace homophobia and misogyny that were endemic to pictures of this type at that time, and an all-female crew adds a whole new level of both fear and triumph to surviving the night, a major theme of the album. 

The opening track, Survive the Night, does a fantastic job of recreating the film's opening exposition and montage (honestly a masterclass in tight storytelling) in sound only.

[DJ LYNNE PEN]
Hey boppers
At midnight
There's a gathering after dark
In Van Cortlandt Park

[DJ & CLEON]
Hey boppers
Cyrus needs five boroughs to see this through
This means you

[DJ, CLEON & SWAN]
Hey boppers
The truce is on
No weapons but your fists, she insists
Hey boppers
Keep your radio tuned tight

Rather than showcasing individual gangs, each of the five boroughs gets a shout out courtesy of some legendary names in hip-hop, like Busta Rhymes, Cam'ron, and Mas. My personal favourite is Ghostface Killah and RZA of Wu Tang Clan repping Staten Island with this crisp lamentation:

So how do we make it back home alive
When we gotta leave our crib at 9:45
For a midnight meeting, word up, what a fuckin' pain
Takin' a train to a boat to another train?

Cyrus is also a woman, voiced by the legendary Lauryn Hill, but her song "If You Can Count" maintains a tremendous amount of fidelity to the source material:

Can you count, suckas?
Yeah, right
I said, can you count, suckas
Yeah, right
The future is ours, the future is yours if you can count
Can you dig it?
You've got the Moon Runners right by the Van Cortlandt Rangers
Got the Jones Street Boys by the Turnbull AC's
And nobody's wastin' nobody
And that's a miracle
A miracle
And miracles are
The way things ought to be
Can you dig it?

Gender-swapping the protagonists makes a good character better in the case of Ajax (played by James Remar in the film and Amber Gray on the album). A violent and ambitious, well, a-hole in the movie, musical Ajax is just as rough and loyal, but instead of being lured away following a fight , siren-like, by a pretty lady on a park bench, she instead responds to catcalls from a creepy old man (played by James Remar!) with an entirely different motivation, but similar consequences. The Park At Night is probably my favourite track on the album, despite being less than three minutes long.

The Park At Night lyric video

The rest of the changes are pretty mild, overall, and the timeline is again astonishingly faithful to the movie. There is a great mix of musical styles across the 26 tracks, emerging from its hip hop base to find expressions of salsa, ska and even K-pop and metal-tinged pieces. 

The film's outlandish design, pronounced dystopian elements, bold costume choices and synth-based score give it a sense of enhanced reality and an almost cyberpunk veneer, like it is taking place maybe two weeks into a more troubled future as opposed to a present-day 1979 (even though things were getting pretty dystopian in NYC at that time!). It is hard to tell from listening alone if the album version of The Warriors is a period piece or not, but there are clues: the presences of only a single gun in a story full of violence and hierarchy, as well as a bit of exposition presented by a pay phone call. Most critically, news about the hunt for the Warriors is not shared by social media, but by a radio deejay (Jamaican singer Shenseea).

But this NPR article makes it clear that the project is not only set in but also a hymn of praise to that period. "We were inspired by the concept albums from the '70s that we love," Miranda said, "where you would sit on your living room floor and read the liner notes to your vinyl. And we wanted to create that feeling."

In truth, the product as a whole is probably a bit too musical theatre/ hip-hop for most of my circle, but I am desperately hoping my Hamilton-loving daughters give it a listen before too long. I've streamed the album a few times now since discovering it and enjoy it a lot. There is probably a lot of nostalgia behind my affection, but so what?

If you are the least bit intrigued, my suggestion is to check out this YouTube playlist of official lyric videos, which lets my eyes helps my aging ears to catch some of the more rapid-fire lyrics. Miranda and Davis suggest listening to the whole album at one go (about an 81 minute commitment with no ads) and if you can manage that, more power to you.

The stage adapation of the album is only in its earliest stages yet, with hopes of staging it on Broadway by perhaps next year. It is doubtful I will get to see it there, but if a touring production north of 49 gets anywhere near me, you can pretty much sell me a ticket.

Can you dig it?

a cool artifact from the long departed Coney Island Candy on Whyte Avenue

Livin' On the Dial...

Like a lot of people my age, I have an enormous soft spot in my heart for the sitcom WKRP in Cincinatti. It ran from 1978-1982, and like Star Trek, enjoyed greater success in syndication than it did in its original airings. 

Set at a midwestern radio station transitioning from an easy-listening to rock radio format, the show had so many great characters and interactions that it is hard to have a favourite. The writing was sharp, self-aware, and shifted from laughs to pathos without missing a beat, like when black disc jockey Venus Flytrap, coming to face the music as an army deserter, introduces the white station manager who's joined him for moral support as his father.

And the music! Rock that ran the gamut from classic to new wave, and all legitimate tracks by known artists. Debbie Harry's band Blondie actually credited the show playing their single Heart of Glass with helping to break it out, and presented the show with a gold record.

But that same verisimilitude was what ended up costing WKRP syndication immortality, as rebroadcast rights shifted or lapsed, and made it impossible to show the episodes without frankly brutal and nonsensical edits, and nixed home video releases.

With syndication now replaced by streaming, and access being limited wither outright piracy or the DVDs released a decade ago by Shout Factory with most of the original music (ooh, and on sale for $59.00 CAD as I write this! hmm...), I am surprised how WKRP remains relevant and maintains a fandom, but somehow it does.

In fact, one of those fans has done something marvelous as part of their Radio Retrofit project: they have stitched together three hours of ersatz radio content, hosted by the show's morning DJ, Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) working a simulated triple-shift. It opens with the choppy dial tuning and static from the show's intro ("-but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity-") before launching into the wonderful theme song.

The other music is eclectic and solid, the intros and outros funny ("That's Bo Diddley playing a song called Bo Diddly, and why not? I can't imagine anyone doing it better..."), and best of all, they've included advertisements and news breaks with Les Nessman "...WINNER OF THE BUCKEYE NEWSHAWK AWARD," (Richard Sanders). 

It is a real labour of love that the individual has made available to play or download for free from their blog here. I listened through it today while we had company, and but even that intermittent exposure was enough to convince me to buy the producer a cup of coffee via PayPal. 

Music streaming means I don't listen to the radio a whole lot any more, and when I do it is often news or the listener-supported stations like CKUA with their extremely eclectic mixes. I still tune into the local modern rock/alternative station periodically but their playlist comes off as fairly repetitive even with my limited listens.

Make no mistake, listening to a fake DJ spin real music is nothing if not nostalgic, but maybe that's okay once in a while. The songs played range from 1955 to 1982, and both the time range as well as the variety of styles and tones remind me of a radio ecosystem that simply hasn't existed since. I'm amazed it existed at all, actually, and feel privileged to have experienced it.

In the meantime, I am fully aware of the irony of using a pocket digital computer to digitally play analog radio wirelessly in my vehicle, but that hasn't stopped me from doing it, and looking forward to my next long drive.

More Folk Than Fest

As I write this, literally thousands of people on Gallagher Hill have probably just finished singing Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" to bring the 2025 Edmonton Folk Music Festival to a close. 

Not only was I not there for it, this year was a low-water mark for my participation, having only stayed for one main stage act (Aysanabee, who was wonderful).

I had a very hard time keeping my energy and mood up this year. This is probably due in part to having had a fractured molar extracted two weeks ago on Thursday, then having the resulting dry socket (ugh) treated twice last week. Don't let anyone poo-poo it, the dry socket experience is generally a miserable one.

To cap things off, I had brought clothing on the first day to sort out being cold or being wet, but was one layer shy of being okay with cold and wet. Once I established that this was my condition (midway through Aysanabee's set), I resolved to go home early to prevent getting miserable or ill early in the festival.

I didn't even bring my tarp on Friday, intending to hit the sack early so I could rise at 5 am for my volunteer shift and see all the main stage acts on Saturday night. But then I forgot to bring my tarp on Saturday, and after returning home for my traditional Folk Fest siesta, I lacked the energy to return. 

And with Glory just starting her orientation shifts (and first casual call-in), I missed having my hill-buddy with me. Hopefully she is able to get back on the team next year.

Wih rain predicted for Sunday (which turned out to be quite the deluge!), I decided this year would be less about music and more about service, and you know what? That worked out just fine.

Heading home early Thursday meant I could see Fenya for the first time in three weeks as she returned from Japan. My early morning shifts on Saturday and Sunday wern't nearly as debilitating as they have been in some prior years, with 3-4 hrs sleep at best.

Friday morning, I saw a coyote traipsing languidly through the parking lot at Re/Max Field where I catch the volunter shuttle.

The food is still amazing, especially considering they feed about 3000 per meal in what is basically an army kitchen.

And most critically, the team I work with (Greetings East) is full of great people who are easy to work with. All hackers, no slackers, and the new crew took to the work very quickly - setting up fencing for a corral for the tarp lottery, managing a crowd of up to 2000 people for a couple hours and then lining them up for three city blocks so they can get marched on to the field and place their tarps before the public gate even opens.

It's very tiring work (more so every year, it seeems!) with early hours on the weekend but that means we are done before the first acts even hit the stage - and next year I will be sure to see more of them!

A Real Gem - Hans Zimmer & Friends: Diamond in the Desert, Reviewed

I can't recall how but a few years back I stumbled across an excerpt from the Hans Zimmer concert film Live in Prague (2017). It featured some of the most dramatic music from Christopher Nolan's Batman film, The Dark Knight, and was filmed like a rock concert in an arena, with multiple cameras and moody, dynamic lighting. Not long afterwards our whole household watched the concert in its entirety and enjoyed it immensely.

We've returned to it periodically and screened it for visitors a few times and everyone seems to have enjoyed it, and it has yet to become tiresome despite mupltiple vieweings. So when I learned that a new Hans Zimmer concert movie was being released to a handful of theatres, I was very grateful that Audrey and I were able to go to a Sunday matinee showing.

Hans Zimmer & Friends: Diamond in the Desert is as good a concert film as the Prague one (shot in the Dubai Coca Cola Arena), with three music video-style sequences shot in other venues including the desert and the top of the Burj Al Arab. The best part though are the interstitial discussions between Zimmer and a handful of associates: Chris Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, Pharrell Williams, Billie Eilish, Johnny Marr and more.

Shot in b&w and in a different aspect ratio, they are so casual and personal that I hesitate to call them interviews. These amazingly frank discussions about the challenges of the creative process, remaining motivated and what it took to get Zimmer on stage the first time ("bullying" by Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr, according to him...) and why he finds himself spending so much time there all come across as honest and unforced.

I was afraid these would be a distraction from the music I had come to hear, but all of these insights enhanced the movie tremendously and entrenched my impressions of Zimmer as not only a brilliant film composer but also jsut a solid, gracious and frankly delightful human. 

My favourite bits were Billie Eilish's producer brother Finneas asking if Zimmer cherry picks the best instruments to play when performing orchestral pieces live, and Johnny Marr (guitarist from The Smiths) marvelling at Zimmer's commitment to live touring, calling this charmingly awkward man a composer with the soul of a rock star.

At another point, Timothee Chalamet calls Zimmer (I believe) the greatest living composer, and it took me out of the film for a bit. 

Like a lot of people my age, John Williams' soundtrack to the first Star Wars album (and the accompanying liner notes!) was my introduction to film scores, and from 12 years old I began paying attention to the credits and film scorers. In addition to his tremendous accolades, including 5 Oscars and an astonishing 54 (!) nominations to date, he has scored some of my favourite films of all time. I mean, just from memory I am thinking Superman, Close Encounters, Raiders, Jaws, and Harry Potter.

In terms of recognizable movie themes, he is likely to be unequalled in my lifetime, while very few of Zimmer's compositions have that innate catchiness or stick in one's memory the same way. But then I asked myself: beyond nostalgia, how many of Williams' pieces have the same emotional impact that Zimmer's does?

While the rest of  Diamonds in the Desert played on (2:38 in total) I found myself catching my breath or dabbing my eyes at various points - of Williams' music, I think only the Schindler's List theme has had the same effect on me.

(I just played it to make sure, and yeah, there is definitely someone cutting onions somewhere in this house.)

The final piece of Zimmer's Gladiator suite ("Now We Are Free") chokes me up in way that has little connection to the bittersweet ending of that movie, and likewise for the intensely powerful "Time" that wraps up Inception. I don't have to think about my own late father to find "He Lives In You" from The Lion King: The Musical so emotionally resonant.

But thankfully there are other emotions to be triggered by Zimmer's repertoire: the building tension of Dunkirk, the fearful apprehension from The Dark Knight's "Why So Serious?", the adrenaline rush of Inception's "Mombasa" chase music.

And while I don't have a lot of time for Zack Snyder's take on my beloved DC superheroes, Tina Guo's blazing cello on Wonder Woman and Guthrie Govan's soaring electric guitar on Man of Steel are still exemplary compositions that clearly depict these legendary characters in my mind's eye as surely as George Perez or Curt Swan drawing them while simultaneously stirring my heart, and are even better live than on a studio recording.

If you are a fan of movies, music, movie music, the people who make movies and/or music or just creative staging and an exploration of the creative process, Diamond in the Desert is worth seeking out. Beyond even his music, Hans Zimmer is a gem beyond compare: warm, gracious, self-effacing and grateful.

Honestly, I think ranking musicians of composers like horses in a race is kind of a rube's game, should I hear anyone else describe him as the greatest living composer, I wouldn't be inclined to challenge them on it.

Can You Handel This? (Our First Time at The Messiah)

As the holiday season shifts into a higher gear, this weekend featured multiple excellent visits with dear friends and family, but we kicked it off with an elegant night out.

Yet another friend was able to gift us tickets to Handel's Messiah at my favourite music Venue, The Winspear, but we decided to extend the experience by dining out at Continental Treat Bistro.

I love my family and appreciate children, and enjoy a fun casual night out where the food is good, but I can't remember the last time we dressed up for dinner in an almost child-free space. The bistro is on the corner of Jasper Avenue and 97th street (where Hardware Grill used to be) but the flagship location has been on Whyte Ave since 1982. 

In addition to a diverse menu featuring a lot of German and Czech dishes, they also have a creative cocktail menu and stellar beer list (including Westvleteren XII, 'the world's rarest beer'!). Our server was wonderful and we enjoyed escargots, a shrimp salad and rouladen for dinner, and added tiramisu, streudel and a maple whiskey coffee simply because it was too early to walk to the venue.

A jazz trio serenaded us and it was only afterwards that we realized the entire menu is gluten-free; we will have to come back and try their schnitzel, which they claim is best in the city...

After a short walk to the Winspear, we picked up our tix from the box office, checked our coats and made our way to the third floor gallery. I maintain that there are no bad seats in this place, and even two rows back on the highest level, we could still see and hear everything clearly.

'Everything' in this case includes a 27-piece orchestra, The Richard Eaton Singers (a 90+ voice choir), 4 vocal soloists and the enormous Davis Concert Organ.

Now, like most people, I am familiar enough with the famous Hallelujah chorus from The Messiah, and recognized another piece from Audrey's extensive collection of Christmas music, but neither of us had ever heard it all the way through before, and it is spectacular.

I wish I had thought to bring a libretto or whatever you call the lyrics and liner notes for an oratorio because despite being sung in English, I could discern very little, but can tell you it all sounded marvelous. Handel was born in Germany but composed the Messiah 15 years after becoming a naturalized British citizen, but I honestly thought I had heard at least two other languages on Friday night.

My lack of understanding did nothing to hamper my appreciation though; just watching the conductor weave together so much instrumentation and so many voices was completely spellbinding to me as a layman, and the beauty of the performance spoke for itself.

I don't know that I would go every year, as I know some people do, but I am confident we will return!

Lined Up

Sure,Folk Fest is about music, obviously; but at its core it is undeniably about lineups as well.

When greeting patrons outside the corral by Stage 1 a little before 7am, I said “welcome to the first of many lines.” And it was true!

They lined up to get in the corral for the tarp lottery, where we draw tickets to determine the order they will leave the corral and line up by the sidewalks around Gallagher Park until they can place their tarp on the hill.

I follow them on afterwards, and before my tarp is tacked down, there is already a lineup of 60+ people waiting to get into the music and merch tent and pick up CDs and t-shirts and the like.

And even if that's not your speed, you will be lining up for food, to go to the bathroom, to fill up your water bottle, or, if you have the stamina (and many, many do) there is an enormous but surprisingly quick line for the beer tent.

And tonight when it is all said and done, I will join the processional of tires but happy listeners moving slowly and carefully down the ski hill, and then join another line of volunteers waiting for the shuttle to take them back to the parking lot.


But until then, this is the lineup occupying the most space in my mind:

Yet Another Ring Story - Das Rheingold

Back at the end of May, Audrey took me to a Wagnerian opera for my birthday.

Apparently I have stayed on the mailing list for the Edmonton Opera Company ever since Fenya sang in The Magic Flute with them back in 2015. We also saw Carmen that same year and enjoyed it as well, but when I stumbled across the announcement that, for their 60th season, they would begin an annual adaptation of Richard Wagner's famous (and infamously difficult to stage) Ring cycle: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Gotterdämmerung, I was tremendously excited I hadn't missed an opportunity to this legendary opera in my own city.

I have been a fan of this music since before I knew it was even from an opera, encountering Ride of the Valkyries in the movie Apocalypse Now (and also The Blues Brothers), Siegfried's Funeral March in Excalibur and much of the rest in What's Opera Doc? featuring Bugs Bunny.

During my university years, a co-worker at the airport named David mentioned this when I complained about there not being a soundtrack to the film Excalibur. He patiently explained how much of the music was in the public domain, such as the haunting O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and the dramatic Wagnerian music when Excalibur is returned to the lake, Siegfried's Funeral March. 

Before David moved to B.C. for school, he generously suggested a trade of two replica samurai swords and all 4 Ring operas on cassette, with librettos, in exchange for my 12 (first printing but definitely not mint) issues of The Watchmen. 

I loved reading the epic story of mystical gold being made into a magical ring whose story runs through 15 hours of operas before climaxing [SPOILER ALERT I guess] with a grieving magical Viking shieldmaiden riding her horse into a bonfire and exploding while Wotan's castle Valhalla collapses in the background. Watching the Metropolitan Opera stage this scene on PBS years ago, I was thoroughly disappointed in the scale of pyrotechnics and lack of equestrian drama, but appreciating that it is kind of, you know, a lot.

But David's collection was a lot of tapes to go through, and I really began to appreciate Wagner when I purchased Telarc's amazing CD, The Ring Without Words during university - a symphonic presentation of the scores for all four operas woven together as a seamless tapestry and fitting them all together on a single disc as a single 69 minutes performance.

I can't tell you how many bootlegs I made of this disc onto cassette for classmates who heard me listening to it, and it was in regular rotation for me for many, many years. The Amazon reviews suggest many, many experiences similar to mine too.

Knowing all this, Audrey was only too happy to buy the tickets for this scaled-down 'chamber' version of Das Rheingold - running only about 100 minutes compared to the usual two-and-a-half hours and with an 18 piece opera instead of the usual 85.

I was slightly disappointed to learn of these changes but excited at seeing the story unfold in the intimate environs of the Maclab Theatre, where the performers have an audience on three of their four sides and in much closer proximity than usual. There is also no orchestra pit, with the musicians all situated above and behind the tiny stage.

I have to say though, in that space, the orchestral prelude sounded just as rich and full as anything Telarc ever offered. I was thrilled to hear the familiar openings and other musical cues, like all the dwarfs smithying away in their underground mines. And the close quarters made all the singing and drama that much more fulsome as well. 

In this stage design, a 1930s hotel replaced Odin's hall, with Wotan the tormented, one-eyed boss who is yet as much larger than life as the Teutonic deity he represents. I mean, watching Donner the thunder god pull back his suit jacket and pull out a literal hammer made me wonder why they didn't sub in a nickel plated .45 automatic (which even has a hammer so the wording still works when he threatens the giants with it later ("Fasolt and Fafner, know ye the weight of my hammer's heavy blow?"), but that feels nitpicky.

An absolutely tremendous experience that made me incredibly reflective about my childhood, my youth, my family, Robert Duvall, Bugs Bunny, Thor comics, King Arthur and a great many other things, making it the perfect outing for my birthday - thank you Audrey!

I already have tickets for next June's production of Die Walküre on my wishlist...

Numanoids, et al

 It has been my best March ever in terms of live music. Today we saw the U of A Concert Band show "The Old Sod" (featuring Rhondda, the daughter of our dear friends Shari and Dave, on flute) at the Winspear, wherein I learned that Dutch composer John deMeij wrote a Lord of the Rings-themed symphony.

Last week Audrey and I saw Alan Doyle (formerly of Great Big Sea) who is an exuberant and charismatic performer, and also deeply enjoyed the banter and dark yet often funny ballads from his opener, Adam Baldwin.

The week before that, the Rare Hipster was nice enough to take me along to Midway Music Hall to see '90s industrial music legends Ministry along with Front Line Assembly and Gary Numan, and I was a little surprised that the act I enjoyed the most was Gary Numan.

I mean, of course as a fan of new wave and electronic music I love "Cars", his signature tune, as well as a couple others from his early days and time in Tubeway Army like "Are Friends Electric" and "Down In the Park." I had come across his 2017 album "Savage (Songs for a Broken World)" and liked a couple of tracks from it, but since the show Mar 6, I have been streaming a fair bit of his material.

I was unsure how what I thought of as Numan's electro-pop sound would fit in with the hard-edge music of FLA and Ministry, but the man is nothing if not adaptable. He came out rocking hard, with the synth tones still present but masked a bit by a mix that really gave center stage to his two guitarists. 

It was kind of a short set for a man with 21 solo albums to his name (that is a new album almost every two years on average!), favouring tracks from his last few releases (Savage in particular) but still making room to fit a guitar-forward "Cars" into the middle for an appreciative crowd.

When the album featuring that track, "The Pleasure Principle" came out in 1979, most critics piled on pretty relentlessly, mocking the synth tones he pushed through guitar effects pedals, calling his music pretentious and inhuman. He was even accused of taking jobs away from "proper" musicians.

Obviously he hung in there, and today he is not only recognized as a pioneer in electronic music, but maintaining a cult following for his recent releases, which feature not only catchy hooks and powerful, dramatic rhythms but also soulful and insightful lyrics.

My Name is Ruin (probably my current fave)

My name is ruin, my name is vengeance

My name is no-one, and no-one is calling

My name is ruin, my name is heartbreak

My name is lonely, my sorrows a darkness

My name is ruin, my name is evil

My name's a war song, I'll sing you a new war

My name is ruin, my name is broken

My name is shameless, I'll tear your world open

When the World Comes Apart

And when the sun fell down

And when the moon failed to rise

And when the world came apart

Where were you? Were you with me?

When my light burns out

And when my fire is cold

And when my breath is the wind

Where will you be / I will find you

Dear God?

The End of Things (Live)

Everything I work for

Everything I long for is always just too far

Everything I hope for never comes to me

Everything I bleed for burns a scar on me

Everything I fight for leaves a bitter taste

Everything I cry for laughs into my face

Everything I scream for barely knows my name

Everything I'd die for will die just the same

In here

With me

Dude has led an interesting life (flying aerobatics, racing formula cars)  and I am glad he is still putting out music, and that I had the opportunity to see him perform live. All 91 minutes of his 2018 concert film Live at Brixton Academy can be streamed on YouTube and I have watched it twice now, but I will leap at a chance to hear him in person again.

Neon Style and Surprising Substance - Unicorn by Gunship, Reviewed

It’s funny - when I was a teen in the 1980s, watching people evoke the ‘50s and ‘60s in their clothes and music, I remember wondering aloud if people in the future would do the same for the decade we were in at the time.

“I doubt it,” my friend Dave gamely assured me. “It’s just too conservative a period; there’s not much to latch onto.”

Maybe he was right about the quantity, but the 80s resonance did indeed persist. My daughters in their twenties are fully conversant in bands of the period, it showed up a surprising amount in last year's TV hit “The Last of Us”, and there is a whole musical subgenre dedicated solely to the electronica of the time which is still going strong.

One of the seminal bands of this synthwave movement, Gunship, recently released their third full-length album, Unicorn, and since their excellent previous release Dark All Day was one of the few releases I have bought on CD in the past few years, I was anxious to give it a listen.

A half-dozen or so videos were released before the album came out, and although all were catchy, none of them grabbed me the way that “Art3mis & Parzival”, “When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies”, and the title track did from Dark All Day. Even the first couple listens of the album left me thinking, “well, it’s no DAD, but new Gunship is always good.”

Repeated listens, however, have given this collection time to really grow on me, and if you are a fan of synthwave or any danceable keyboard music at all, I can wholeheartedly recommend Unicorn. And Gunship even pushes the envelope a little bit on this record, venturing out into broader EDM territory, as well as some metal-sounding and even pop-like tracks. Rest assured, your 808 tones and drums full of gated reverb are all still here though.

This variety is very credibly supported by a solid stable of collaborators, including Gavin Rossdale of Bush, Carpenter Brut, Lights, Health and the inimitable Tim Capello, the jacked sax man from The Lost Boys who plays "I Still Believe." In fact, Tim gets to wail on four different tracks (!) so if you are not a saxophone fan, proceed with caution, I guess?

Unicorn, an album whose tagline is "Imagination is a weapon," scratches a lot of itches for me. A lot of it is upbeat, high-tempo stuff like "Blood for the Blood God" (40K fans, represent!) that makes a great soundtrack for getting stuff done. Other tracks are more dramatic and powerful, like "Ghost" or my current favourite, "Tech Noir 2", which features legendary director and synth afficionado John Carpenter (!!) reprising his role as intro narrator from the original "Tech Noir," but updated now with some post-apocalyptic optimism.

I'm recording this because the survivors no longer envy the dead
The final war is over
Its architects forever entombed in melted glass and steel
I watched the efforts of our species dance away on the radioactive wind
Civilisation retreated by millennia
All of human history wrought to dust
Our cities, now scorched black mausoleums serve as a reminder
There can be no victory in war
Birth is the answer to the question of our mortality
With resolute defiance we choose to grasp at the delicate thread of life
My son, the gift of survival is yours
Please, may you never submit
There will be more...

Cinematic and TV references abound in Gunship tracks, another treat for yours truly. "All roads paved with crushed-up skulls" should bring anyone who's seen it back to the opening of 1984's Terminator. I know "It is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven," is a quote from Paradise Lost, but I also know most of us nerds first heard it on Star Trek. And cueing in Tim Capello's first sax solo on the album right after the lyrics "surrounded now but no surrender/ the odds against the betting man/ beyond the odds but I still believe" on "Monster in Paradise" is cheeky and perfect and I will never not love it. Even their logo looks inspired by the old Golan Globus logo from so many VHS viewings.

Cyberpunk overtones abound as well, as the '80s vision of the future lives on as depicted in "Taste Like Venom" as well as in the Edgerunners Netflix series and video games. Speaking of video games, "DooM Dance" (with its significant capitalization) talks about "raising hell" while "Empress of the Damned" includes a reference to "the cake is a lie" in a song where the chorus testifies "I can't be killed with conventional weaponry."

And just to make sure my enjoyment is not solely nostalgia-driven, I calibrated with Glory, after she came through the kitchen while I had the album blaring and said, sadly, "I wish clubs played music like this." She thinks it is a great album, particularly for this time of year, with multiple candidates for various Halloween or spooky season playlists. The darkness and adventurous violence are offset by brilliantly positive nuggets like "don't cry because it's over/ smile because it was" ("Run Like Hell").

Just like cyberpunk depicts a sci-fi future through an extremely 80s lens (presumably both mirrored and louvered), Gunship's strength is club music that probably hasn't been played in too many clubs, tragically. (If I am wrong, I am begging you to let Glory and I know!). And while there probably aren't too many raves in my future, I hope the band follows through on their plans to start touring and playing their music live. 

In the meantime, anyone interested in a semi-nostalgic look at a future that never came from an '80s that never was should give Unicorn a listen - there is a lot to like.

A Rusticated Perspective

There are a plethora of musical genres encompassed by the expression "folk music" and why not; it is all music by folk, right? But at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this year, it was country(ish) music that caught my ear the most. Which was a little surprising to me, but maybe it shouldn't have been.

Saturday was a long day for Glory and I, but we were intent on staying for at least part of the closing act, Old Crow Medicine Show. They didn't take the stage until nearly 11 pm, but opening up with two high-energy renditions of songs about cocaine, of all things, really enervated the crowd, us included. They were "Cocaine Habit":

Well, that cocaine habit is awful bad
The worst doggone habit that I ever had
Hey, hey, honey take a whiff on me

And "Tell It To Me":

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink your corn liquor, let the cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead 

Glory was convinced that live-wire frontman Ketch Secor had to be speaking from experience due to a dynamic 110% effort that would put most pro athletes to shame, but that is neither here nor there...

In the weeks afterwards I would often prompt music from the Google Home speaker by requesting "Cocaine Habit" or Tell It To Me and then seeing what sort of selections might follow them up, a technique we call "seed music." Sometimes it would be old-timey country from my "Rusticated" playlist, at others more modern but non-mainstream artists like Corb Lund that I have listened to previously, but on occasion it would pull something delightful from way out in left or right field, or possibly underneath the bench in the dugout.

And I was surprised and delighted to find these slices of Americana incorporate all sorts of themes beyond the truck-driving and freedom-cheering that dominates C&W radio. Consider the environmental apocalypism outlined by The Devil Makes Three in "Allelu":

What will it take to have this place on bended knee 
You run to the forest, you can bet I'll burn the trees 
I will poison the water 'cause it's only getting hotter 
And we came for sons and daughters 

Hallelu

(chorus)
Hallelu, Hallelu, praise the lord and pass the ammunition too 

They say Jesus is coming, he must be walking, he sure ain't running 

Who can blame him, look how we done him, Hallelu 

Or the lament of poor choices by Billy Strings in "Dust In a Baggie", performed here at the Grand Ole Opry (wait, for real?):

I ain't slept in seven days, haven't ate in three
Methamphetamine has got a damn good hold of me
My tweaker friends have got me to the point of no return
I just took the lighter to the bulb and watched it burn

(chorus)
This life of sin has got me in
Well it's got me back in prison once again
I used my only phone call to contact my daddy
I got twenty long years for some dust in a baggie

I mean, the Opry has a long tradition of musical exceptionalism, but I was not expecting something so - I dunno, sordid? - from a genre so strongly associated with conservatism, y'know?

Before Old Crow Medicine Show took the stage at folk fest, we had our first chance to hear Nick Shoulders, probably my fave artist of the whole weekend. In addition to being a tremendous vocalist, whistler and yodeler, he also took pains to share his educate his audience about just what "country" music is, and it might not be what most of us think.

The cartoons permeating this post are from his comic-style essay "Country Music History" which I highly recommend. His position that what was once called "hillbilly music" has more of its roots in geography and poverty than it does with rurality is real food for thought.

Hearing these other "hellbilly" artists talking about the squalid underbelly in rustic settings makes me think of Albertan Corb Lund who has described his style of music as "agricultural tragic" as opposed to country, despite his upbeat and generally humourous takes on that lifestyle.

And some of the darkest musical corners appear to be in Saskatchewan, courtesy of artists like The Dead South:

My life's a bit more colder 

Dead wife is what I told her 

Brass knife sinks into my shoulder 

Oh babe don't know what I'm gonna do 

I see my red head, messed bed, tear shed, queen bee 

My squeeze 

The stage it smells, tells, hell's bells, miss-spells 

Knocks me on my knees 

It didn't hurt, flirt, blood squirt, stuffed shirt 

Hang me on a tree 

After I count down, three rounds, in hell I'll be in good company

...or Colter Wall, who sounds maybe 30-40 years older than he actually is:

Well the raven is a wicked bird
His wings are black as sin
And he floats outside my prison window
Mocking those within

And he sings to me real low
It's hell to where you go
For you did murder Kate McCannon

Of course, every genre of music has its sub-genres (and sub-sub-genres, ad infinitum) and his kind of boundary-crossing is hardly unprecedented, even within country & western music; it is amusing now to recall how Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash were once the standard bearers for "outlaw country."

But hearing twangy music that discomforts more than it typifies, and that sometimes brings an honest outsider's perspective is a great reminder that honest, heartfelt expressions don't need to be pigeonholed or boxed up - just listened to and appreciated.

Like Nick Shoulders said on stage when we saw him, "If you ever wonder why so many punks and goths and metal heads and weirdos seem to be getting into country, don't forget that the fiddle was once referred to as the Devil's instrument. This genre has its roots in rebellion and we are never going away." Or as he sings in "All Bad":

I grew a little into deafening rage 

Every hometown is a well built cage 

Be it high iron, highway or stage 

Don’t let it be all bad 

I’ve been indebted to a surgeon’s blade 

Probation officers and nerves that frayed 

Only the choiceless every gladly stayed 

Refuse to be all bad

Ayreon Effect

Back in 2019, Fenya and Bobby and I went to see Delain at the Starlite Room, and Anneke van Giersbergen was one of the opening acts. We adored her, especially when she  got a crowd of riled-up metalheads roaring out the chorus to Dolly Parton's "Jolene."

She mentioned working with a live show for something called Ayreon that I was unfamiliar with, and did an acoustic cover of "Valley of the Queens" which was beautiful and haunting. I looked up a few Ayreon songs and enjoyed them, but noticed the majority of their videos came from what turned out to have been a rare set of live performances from 2018.

Ayreon is a music project led by Dutch songwriter/composer/musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen since 1995, but similar to the Alan Parsons Project, was always intended to be a studio endeavour, focusing on rock opera-style concept albums. Their music is a rich melange of sounds, with their Wikipedia listing including descriptions of "progressive rock, progressive metal and power metal sometimes combined with genres such as folk, electronica, experimental and classical music." 

Intrigued by the few performances I had seen and the one album I had streamed ("Into the Electric Castle") I finally sat down and watched the entire Ayreon Universe concert, a 'greatest hits' live show from 2017 that included a tremendous range of musicians (most of who are Dutch and only three of which I recognized immediately, including Marko Hietala, formerly of Nightwish.

The entire concert can be viewed on YouTube and is a worthy evening for anyone who likes Nightwish, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and/or 70s-inspired space rock, or if you are just into a comprehensive survey or "Who's Who" of Dutch Rock/Metal Performers. It is wonderfully staged and features an astonishing 16 different vocalists who have all worked with Arjen before, and who vary greatly in style but are all tremendously gifted singers.

Highlights for me included the aforementioned "Valley of the Queens" with Anneke reprising her role from the album while joined by Marcela Bovio (MaYaN) and the incredible Floor Jansen of Nightwish. The harmonies alone on this one are worth the price of admission as far as I am concerned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbebO5BZi-I

The concert's BluRay release was announced with an excerpted video of "Everybody Dies" which includes Hansi Kursh of Blind Guardian as well as Floor, Mike Mills, Maggie Luyten and Tommy Karevik (Kamelot). It is a tremendously upbeat and fun song considering the bleak prognosis of its lyrics:

Doom, gloom, the world goes boom
None will be spared, so don't assume

Not ragged clothes, nor silvers spooned
You're all the same when extinction looms

No food supplies (No water supplies)
No power supplies (Or other supplies)
No compromise (Just say your goodbyes)
And everybody dies!

No explanation (Or clarification)
No information (Or justification)
Forget the whys (Just cover your eyes)
And everybody dies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AAXtUdM7xE

The absolute standout for 14-year-old me was the raucous "Intergalactic Space Crusaders" (technically a product of a different Arjen Jucassen project, Star One). Not only does this song dramatize the discussion between two characters described as Loner and Idealist arguing between fight or flight regarding an impending space battle, it also includes tremendous backing vocals (one of whom is Floor's sister Irene!) on the chorus and is just too much fun, honestly: 

https://youtu.be/mDjomu33Xzc?si=uSZZwzBgjL8AFQmb

[loner]
I don’t care about your plans and schemes
Don’t give a damn ’bout your righteous dreams
All that I do, I do for myself
I never cared for anyone else

[idealist]
We have to save them, we have to try
We can’t just watch while the innocent die
Let’s steal this ship and start our crusade
Powerful allies will come to our aid

[loner] Seven fighters
[idealist] Navigators
[crew] Intergalactic space crusaders
[loner] Federation
[idealist] Dictators
[crew] No scruples, lethal traitors
[loner] Outriders
[idealist] Invaders
[crew] Intergalactic space crusaders
[loner] Domination
[idealist] Liberators
[crew] Fighting to survive

And not only is this song apparently an homage to the venerable British sci-fi tv show Blake's 7, it is specifically oriented around the second season finale - a tip of the nerd cap to you, Mr.. Lucassen; that is indeed a deep cut!

My final excerpt is "Theory of Everything" because of its amazing instrumentation, from the opening chords on a vintage Hammond B to the headbanging flute solo that surely made Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson gasp in admiration. Transitioning from the crunchiest power chords on guitar to soaring pianos and vocals from Mike Mills and later Marcelo Bovio - it is truly the most operatic feeling piece, at least to my untrained but appreciative ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3TxOaCZv0w

There is also a rare onstage performance by the seemingly introverted Arjen Lucassen himself, who says the only thing that scares him more than performing onstage is speaking in public. But this doesn't stop him from coming onstage to graciously and earnestly thank his fans and fellow performers. I think he can list me among those fans at this point too.

Like I said, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube, but I intend to pick it up on BluRay when I am next in the U.S. ($10 shipping to Canada? No thank you!) so I can listen to it at greater volume in surround sound.

If you happen to like what you hear and want to come over for a screening at some point, or want me to pick up a copy for you, just let me know!