Post-Everything May 30 '08 (showfill)

I filled in for Stan this week on his fantastic show Post-Everything (Friday mornings, midnight to 2 am)...

Stan does a great show, definitely one of my favourites on the station. Stan is off on a musical vacation to Montreal where he is attending Mutek arguably one of the world's finest if not the best avant garde electronic music festival and Suoni Per Il Popolo (Sounds for the People), a festival of "avant garde and experimental liberation music" put on by Godspeed You! Black Emperor bassist, Mauro Pezzente and his partner Kiva Stimac, founders of the infamous Casa del Popolo (The House of the People) and La Sala Rossa (The Red Room) clubs in the Mile End district of Montreal). Casa Del Popolo is a family-run neighborhood vegetarian restaurant, part fair-trade café, part music venue, part bar, and part art gallery. The Arcade Fire, Sam Roberts, Dears, Stars, Metric, and Patrick Watson and many other now widely-acclaimed Montreal acts played some of their first shows here. La Sala Rossa is just across the street and is a beautiful room in a historic Montreal building built by the left-wing Jewish community in 1932 and has also hosted an amazing array of musical performances.

Hopefully Stan won't have his mind so blown by the astounding plethora of incredible musical performances over the next few weeks (and by the beautiful city of Montreal) that he decides not to come back.

In Stan's absence, I played some Spring Heel Jack, Arve Henriksen, Bohren & Der Club of Gore, Kangding Ray, Murcof, Jacaszek, Klimek, Steven Hess & Miles Tilmann, Erik Levander, Christopher Bissonnette, Bersarin Quartet, Marsen Jules, Skyphone, Tim Hecker, Growing, Max Richter, and Sonic Youth. Sorry, I was not able to record the show as my computer is in the hospital.

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Sled Island 2008 (update)

Sled Island organizers have revealed the (almost) complete line up of artists playing this year’s festival June 25-28 ’08 at various venues in Calgary...

and it's very impressive! Along with many of the most exciting up-and-coming local & western Canadian underground/indie/whatever musicians some fantastic international artists will be performing such as:

Wire
Mogwai
Deerhunter
Yo La Tengo
Dan Deacon
The Dodos
Grizzly Bear
No Age
Jose Gonzales
Portastatic
Nina Nastasia
Tren Brothers (2/3 of the Dirty 3)
Scout Niblett
The Gutter Twins (Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan)
No Age
Of Montreal
Jonathan Richman

Go here for the full line-up.

This year it looks like many of the bigger shows will be at outdoor venues such as Mewata Field & Olympic Plaza, with the rest happening at various indoor downtown venues. With this many bands playing, there will probably be some agonizing decisions about which gigs to hit. Full armband passes are $190 plus service charges can be purchased at www.sledisland.com.

I've been underwhelmed with the line-ups announced so far for the inaugural Calgary Virgin Festival the weekend before and the Calgary Folk Music Festival happening the following month, but live music fans in Calgary will certainly have plenty to choose from this summer.

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Sled Island 2008

Sled Island organizers have revealed a partial list of artists playing this year’s festival June 25-28 ’08 at various venues in Calgary...

and so far it's looking great! Scott Kannberg aka Spiral Stairs (Preston School of Industry, Pavement) is the token guest musical curator and will be performing along with some fantastic artists that I never thought would ever make it to Calgary such as:

Wire
Mogwai
Deerhunter
American Music Club
Jose Gonzales
Portastatic
Miss Murgatroid and Petra Hayden
The Gutter Twins (Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan)
No Age
Of Montreal
Jonathan Richman

The full line-up will be announced May 1. Early bird armband passes will be $140 plus service charges up until May 1 and can be purchased at www.sledisland.com.

With the inaugural Calgary Virgin Festival the weekend before and the Calgary Folk Music Festival happening the following month it will be a busy June/July for live music fans in Calgary. If I had to choose to attend only one of these due to time or money constraints Sled Island would definitely be my pick.

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