Edmonton based folk singer Ken Stead hopes this year will be just as busy as last year.
“ In 2014 I had a goal to play 100 shows and just made it by three shows,” said Stead, who plays the Lethbridge Folk Club Wolf’s Den, Jan. 30.

“ It was a pretty interesting experience,” he continued. He played several big festivals including the Canmore Folk Festival, Come By the Hills Blues Festival and eight others plus two Western Canadian tours.

 His most recent CD “Unfinished ” has sold over 1,500 copies and has charted on  college, university and community stations nationwide including  CKUA. He was on Andy Donnelly’s Celtic show on CKUA, Jan. 23.

 He writes about a variety of topics from cheesy love songs to Internet dating and social anxiety inspired by friends and family and people he meets as well as his own experiences.

 He noted this year will be dominated by recording a new CD in March for an ideal release in June or July.
“These are songs I’ve written over the past few years. This record will be the first one where I’ve been able to test the songs on the road to see which one work so I can choose the cream of the crop,” he said.
 He noted he’d like to be able to play music full time, but hasn’t reached that stage yet.

January 2015 has just flown by. And while the month has been relatively slow for live music, things start to pick up this week.

There are several different shows happening this week. On Wednesday, Jan. 28, Vancouver based indie soul and R and B band the Boom Booms come to Lethbridge to play the Slice.

 They are touring in support of their most recent Cd “Love is Overdue,” which they recorded with renown Grammy Award winning producer Chin Injeti who brings them back to their soul and R and B roots and a little bit away from the Latin and Caribbean sound they were exploring on their previous CD.
There is a five dollar cover for the show, which begins at 9 p.m.

 If you like the blues and perhaps a little bit more, New Brunswick bluesman Ross Neilsen returns to the Owl Acoustic Lounge for a solo show as part of his endless tour, Jan. 30.
He promised to play a little bit of everything from blues standards to original music. There is no cover for the show, which begins at 9 p.m.
And the Lethbridge Folk Club is trying something a little different this week.

 While they are holding their bigger shows at the Cave at Lethbridge College this season, they are also trying smaller scale shows at the new location of the Wolf’s Den at MJ’s Cycle (1502 -2nd Avenue South) where they also hold their open mics on the second and fourth Fridays of each month.

New Brunswick based bluesman Ross Neilsen isn’t being constrained by blues music or any other genre of music on his endless tour which brings him to the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Jan. 30.

“It’s been good. The shows right after New Year’s  have been a hard sell because everyone is still recovering,” Neilsen observed from Coburg, Ontario.

“ This tour has been all acoustic though i have me electric guitars but the first few venues were smaller, so they were acoustic shows,” he said.
“ I don’t really do a lot of acoustic shows, though I have my steel resonator guitar. It’s been a nice change,” he said .

“ Other times  I’ve tended to think I can’t play this song because it’s  not bluesy enough. I haven’t been constrained by it this time. I’ve been playing everything from  John Prine to the Grateful Dead. I‘ve been playing whatever I feel like and people seem be enjoying it. So I guess the variety is helping everyone,” he said.