If you hear gunshots  and cannon fire echoing over the coulees,  every Friday and Saturday beginning this Friday, don’t worry, it’s just Fort Whoop -Up under attack by Fred Kanouse and his whiskey trading band of scoundrels.

Don’t call the police though, because Northwest Mounted Police officer Cst.  Arthur C Tabor, Fort Whoop Up manager David Akers and his friends already  have things under control. Because in the world of theatre, the good guys almost always win.

Siege at Fort Whoop-Up is a production of local improv group Drama Nutz in conjunction with  Fort Whoop -Up which runs every Friday and Saturday from July 24 to Aug. 28.

 It features some familiar faces and several newcomers.
“I’ll say it again and again, never let history get in the way of a good story,” said Drama Nutz director David Gabert , who also plays Dave Akers in the production, adding all of the characters are based on real historical characters, though the events transpiring are fictional.

 The play takes place in 1877 at the wedding of  Marcella Sheran (played by Bev Stadelman) , older sister of Fort Whoop Up coal mining mogul  David Sheran (played by David Adie), and Fort Macleod area rancher Joseph MacFarland (played  by Richard Amery). The wedding is unfortunately timed as Cpl. Tabor ( Terry  Edwards) has just apprehended murderer Fred Kanouse (Jon MacBurnie) and Kamouse’s men are planning a jailbreak.

 The actors are using real rifles and pistols, filled with real black powder ammunition (firing blanks of course). All of the actors completed and passed a government  gun safety training course.
 Calgary’s Guns of the Golden West add extra firepower.
 To make each show unique, all of the dialogue is completely improvised.

“Rather than writing a script, we wrote detailed character descriptions. Fortunately I’ve  had the honour of working with four or five members of the cast before. We found when you add extra elements, like guns, you don’t know what is going to happen, guns jam and safety becomes paramount ,” Gabert said adding a written script can quickly go by the wayside.

“We’re interested in  portraying interesting events rather than  the characters, which we admittedly don’t know a lot about. We’re bringing the Fort to life , so to speak, and using theatre is a great way to do that,” he said adding the Siege evolved from previous activities at Fort Whoop -Up including  the ‘Wild West Weekend.”

If you haven’t seen the Australia based blues rockers Mason Rack band rock out yet, don’t miss their show at the Slice, Aug. 4.
They  have just returned from six months at home in  Australia  and are in the midst of their fourth Canadian tour, mostly of summer music festivals.
“You  guys have so many music festivals  here. It seems like every town has a music festival in the summer,” observed guitarist / vocalist Mason Rack from a stop in Edmonton.
“It’s so cool. I’ve played about 120 shows in Canada and I’ve never seen one fight. In Australia, I’d play 120 shows and there’d be  about 50 fights,” he continued.
“Everyone is so friendly and nice in Canada,” he said adding he  enjoys the live performance.
“We might not make thousands of dollars tours , but we  make thousands of smiles, and that’s the real payoff of playing live,” he said.

I  had never seen the United Steelworkers of Montreal before, so I was impressed with  the Montreal based roots/rock/ folk band’s supercharged performance at the Slice, July 26.

Each song was prefaced with a long, extended and usually  hilarious rant/story, while the band rocked it folk style on  guitar, tenor guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, stand-up bass and accordion.

 Band members Gern F, Felicity Hamer, Matt Watson, Shawn ‘Gus’ Beauchamp, Phil ‘Flipper’ Frumignac and  Dylan Perron traded instruments and lead vocal duties, though most of the vocals featured the wonderful contrast of Gern f’ Howlin’ Wolf meets Tom Waits gravelly growl with Felicity Hamer’s Macy Grey meets June Carter jazz/country tinged melodies. Some of the duets sounded like June Carter singing with Tom Waits instead of Johnny Cash.

They had a good sized crowd, especially for a Monday night, who were digging and dancing to an intense variety of songs about relationships and murder, unions, relationships and poutine, murder, guns, robbing banks in small towns and a Celtic flavoured, pipe powered song about rioting  when the Montreal Canadiens win a hockey series.

Most of their set was blazingly fast, though they slowed down slightly for a beautiful jazz tinged song called ‘Little Girl.’
Gern F was an big, gruff, affable host on stage and their musical chops, combining folk with roots, bluegrass and rockabilly with punk energy, were unstoppable.

It is a great week for music leading up to the August long weekend.
There are phenomenal shows this week beginning tonight at the Slice with Said the Whale, Aidan Knight and We Are The City. Tickets cost $10.

Maria in the Shower, an unusual roots  band from Vancouver who features horns and harmonica and a variety of influences in their music. They were at the Slice, July 19 and are back, July 28.
 Another cool roots band, the Sunparlour Players are also back at the Slice, July 29.
There are a couple great shows , July 30.

The Slice is going rockabilly with  Hurricane Felix and the Southern Twisters, with special guests, Bent 8, while around the corner, the Mocha Cabana has  a special show with Whitehorse  based singer/songwriter Jude Waldeman, who had one of his songs recorded by Ronnie Hawkins. He will be playing from 6-9 p.m.
Five Alarm Funk also returns to the Slice, Saturday, July 31. For something a little more country, Karen Romanchuk plays the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Aug.