TRANSCANADARADIO is proud to celebrate Canada’s Current Cultural artists and their locations! Traveling across Canada’s vast surface and finding the best of the under and above-ground artists, and where to check them out in your favorite Canadian city! Pack your bags! We’re going on a road trip!
Benj Rowland busking at the corner of Hunter Street and George Streeet, in Peterborough, Ontario
Benj Rowland is a Peterborough area singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has worked in a wide variety of music projects. He has done numerous 4 track recordings, plays in a duo called Tin Can Chris + Bottle Neck Benj, and is a member of the Gin N Tonixxx. He’s also a visual artist, exploring pinhole photography, printmaking, screen-printing, graphic novel creation and super 8 filmmaking. His CD’s and merchandise (buttons, t-shirts, stickers, graphic novels, handmade instruments and more) always include his own original images and handmade works of art. He has performed live scores for his super 8 films and presented numerous multi-media performances using music, performance and super8 film. This past winter several local DJ’s got together for a night of Benj Rowland re-mixes.
Taking its name from a religious tract, The Burning Hell has been slithering around in the muck in one form or another since the dawn of the millennium. Fronted by the moderately agoraphobic songwriter and occasional history teacher Mathias Kom on electric ukulele, The Burning Hell currently features between one and twelve people, depending on the night.
The variable lineup promises a very different show every time: sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, sometimes rock, sometimes roll. Always folk, never anti. Quirky? Maybe. Cute? Never.
The latest Burning Hell album, Happy Birthday, celebrates the beauty of age, the joys of decay, the possibility of dating after death, and the inevitable repetition of mistakes. Combining happy little melodies and depressing Old World fatalism, the music of The Burning Hell is sure to make you smile and want to give up.
As far as being a “jazz performer”, Elizabeth does not count herself as one to be defined by a particular genre; her music comes straight from the soul, and is more than just what she does, but what she loves and who she is.
Ottawa based Anarcho-LoungeCore collective My Tiny Circus play ‘Loser Magnet’ live at Zaphod’s on 20th February 2008.
My Tiny Circus, as I’ve mentioned before, is a LoungeCore collective that’s a cool mix of swinging original jazz and Latin-jazz fusion tunes and has a fiendishly brazen vibe all of its own. Performed a la Las Vegas bar lounge, it’s a style that’s bound to both pleasure and tempt you with lyrics more reminiscent of heavy metal rock and head banging punk bands. This rare combination of silky smooth instrumental combined with contentious content is neither palatable for the religious nor resonates well with the politically correct. You’ll love it!
Bringin’ It Back: The latest video from God Made Me Funky’s latest album ‘Enter The Beat’ Available iTunes and CD.
These guys were a BLAST to hang out with at NXNE back in June — a total blast. I caught their show at Sunshine Records on Yonge and then followed up the show with burritos and story time down the street. All around great people and fantastic musicians! Sadly all of my hilarious video footage from that day’s been lost. I’ll sum it up for you: It started with awesome, awesome music and ended with a talking burrito and Coke coming out of my nose. Got the picture?
Now, these guys have a small request from us (you and me and all of you who love awesome music, that is): The latest GMMF single, ‘Too Shy’, has just been released to radio nation wide. Go, request the single (please?). Call into your college station mix shows and ask them for some God Made Me Funky! Shout it from the roof tops, etc. Give these guys some love!
(Wanna see another super cool video from GMMF? Check this out! I have this song in my head for days at a time.)
Rival Schools 2 break battles at TIMEKODE in Ottawa, CANADA, featuring some of the best bboys and bgirls in town. Ottawa University, Carleton University and Algonquin College were competing.
Sure, it’s an old video – but I never get sick of watching it! Go on. Press play to see why.
If you haven’t been to a TIMEKODE party, get there now! (And while you’re at it, check out Timekode’s profile on TCR here.)
26 Sep 2008 20:00 The Eri Café Pan-African Social Club Ottawa, Ontario
If you have any doubts about my high recommendation of Kellylee Evans (past or present) then I suggest you watch the above video. I think that should really solve everything, but if it doesn’t, I’m all ears!
She’s back with more concert dates and a new album! Monsters is set to be released on October 16th at Ottawa’s NAC!
Be sure to get out and show your support for fiery red heads and accordion music at one of the following shows!
13 Sep 2008 21:00 London Music Club London, Ontario
14 Sep 2008 20:00 Gladstone Toronto, Ontario
25 Sep 2008 20:00 with Meredith Grant, Carden Street Café (CD release tour) Guelph, Ontario
4 Oct 2008 15:00 Hair of the Dog @ Black Dog Edmonton, Alberta
16 Oct 2008 20:00 release of ’Monsters’ @ NAC! Ottawa, Ontario
18 Oct 2008 20:00 w/Jordi Rosen & Raylene Campbell @ St-Ambroise Montreal, Quebec
21 Oct 2008 19:00 Bywords Fifth Annual John Newlove Award Reading 2008 Ottawa, Ontario
The BoyScout Killers are an Ottawa band that I have a very hard time describing. They’re weird. Good weird… great weird – but so weird. They describe themselves accurately as IDM/Experimental/Psychedelic. Really, you have to see/hear them to really understand. They’re so much fun and unlike a lot of bands these days, they’re truly one of a kind.
They’re playing at the Mercury Lounge here in Ottawa on September 30th. And they put on an awesome show. Yes, that’s a big hint.
