Innovative Vancouver based blues/ rock duo the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer make their South Country Fair debut this year.
They are the Axe Murderer” Matthew Rogers, playing guitar or murdering this axe and playing percussion and drums with foot pedals. Vocalist/ harp player, Harpoonist Shawn Hall also play
s rhythm on a variety of foot pedals. The band took their name from a line in Kris Kristofferson‘s song “Me and Bobby McGee” ‘I took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana.”
“We’ve heard so many things about the fair. It sounds like it will be a good time,” said axe murderer Matthew Rogers over one of many banjos playing at the Dauphin Country Festival.
“ All of our friends will be at the Fair this year,” Rogers observed.
“ So we’re excited about hanging out with them,” he continued.
They released their last CD “Checkered Past” in 2011 and are working on a new album they hope will be released next winter.
“We’re just fine tuning things. We’ve started to refine the music. it has been a real exciting past couple of years. It’s been very inspirational,” he said.
They are helping record the new CD by Miss Quincy and the Showdown who are returning to the Fair, but will not be joining them on stage.
“They’re wonderful people. They’re pretty adamant about remaining a girl group,” he chuckled.
“They are wonderful people and wonderful girls,” he said adding the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer are just about as adamant as remaining a duo though they will expand their band when necessary.
“Sometimes we’ll hire a bass player and a drummer. But the core is the duo,” he continued.
The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer want to convert people to the blues.
“We aim to convert people who didn’t know they liked listening to the blues and show them the blues doesn’t have to be the same old thing,” he said.
“ We just want to make as much noise as two people can,” he said.
The are playing the South Country Fair at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Friday night
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
