Upcoming Folk Fest concerts at WECC! Read: AWESOME.
Bahamas
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Bahamas is the musical pseudonym of Toronto-based singer-songwriter-guitarist Afie Jurvanen. Despite his tropical title, Afie (pronounce AY-fee) isn’t from the Caribbean, but from little Barrie, Ontario.
His lastest album Barchords, released back in February of this year, offers 12 compelling new examples of Afie’s distinctive song craft that includes uncanny knack for combining subtly indelible melodies with lyrics of uncommon insight and vulnerability. The songs’ eloquent evocations of longing, loss and regret are supported by Afie’s sublimely expressive vocals and subtly inventive guitar work.
Shane Koyczan
Monday, November 5, 2012
I attended Shane’s last sold-out performance at WECC, and it was incredible! Go, go, go!
In a world where poets rarely intersect with stardom, the Opening Ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics introduced us to Shane Koyczan. With a collective “wow” across Canada, we found the poet of our generation. And we weren’t even looking for one. Powerfully engaging and authentic in attitude, his explorations are relevant to our times in the way that Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Downie and Leonard Cohen are to theirs. But unlike the musicians that he’s often compared to, poets rarely infiltrate pop culture. Shane emerges in a new wave of 21st century poetry that dares to belong to the people and speak directly to them in their own voice.
With his rhythmic verse in high gear, he navigates his audience through social and political territory with a furious honesty and a tender humanity that has brought audiences to their feet in New York, London, Edinburgh, Sydney and Los Angeles. Winner of the US Slam Poetry Championship and the Canadian Spoken Word Olympics, Shane is truly an extraordinary talent that has blown the dust off of the designation “poet.”
The Tom Fun Orchestra
Saturday, November 17, 2012
With outrageously immodest and ambitious beginnings, The Tom Fun Orchestra sauntered into the Canadian music scene the way an Italian funeral saunters through a mountain village. That is, with many loud instruments, casks of wine and complete irreverence for everything happening around them.
A year into the band’s life, they travelled the country with eighteen of their friends in a school bus. It suited the band’s affinity for spectacle, noise, and gas fumes. Such was that affinity that the band went on playing a well worn ribbon, as they say from St. John’s to Victoria and further to old world haunts like The United Kingdom and Ireland. Much to the band’s delight, these tours increased in size and ambition as growing audiences applauded their approval.
2008’s You Will Land With a Thud received an East Coast Music Award as the Galaxie Rising Star Recording of the Year 2009, it inspired three wildly successful music videos domestically and internationally (ECMA 2010 Video of the Year, 2009 UK Music Video Awards nomination for Best Animation), and garnered support for their 2008 Music Nova Scotia accolade for “Entertainer of the Year.”
