I caught the end of an exceptional Windy City Opry at the Slice, Wednesday, Oct. 10.
 While I unfortunately missed opening act Belle Plaine’s set, I was in time for another great show from Yukon musician Gordie Tentrees and Winnipeg’s Jaxon Haldane, who hadn’t played together since April, according to Tentrees.

 You wouldn’t have known it  if he hadn’t mentioned it.  Tentrees played a few old blues/folk flavoured originals and a great cover of Steve Poltz’s  “Hey God ,I’ll trade You Donald Trump for Leonard Cohen,” which included lines about trading Trump for numerous  artists who have passed on over the past couple years including Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen, Prince and David Bowie. That drew lots of applause from an attentive crowd who has started to trickle home by the time I arrived.

 Tentrees sang most of the vocals, though Haldane sang a couple verses of the Trump song, and also played hot, bluesy slide guitar.

 Haldane played a couple different cigar box guitars,banjo, mandolin on a song and the saw on the last song of the night. Tentrees played  brand new music, Haldane had never heard before, but effortlessly picked them up.

“Deadbeat dad” was a highlight, which wound down their set as was a new song, “Ringside Seat” about Tentrees’ 17 year career in boxing before he took up music, which he noted, got him a free education and the opportunity to tour around the world.

A close to sold out, and, more importantly attentive crowd got blown away by Australian talent as Daniel Champagne stopped by the Slice, Saturday, Oct. 6.

 He was brilliant, he played a heavily percussive style of finger-picked guitar, slapping and pounding, tapping and rapping and flicking his guitar’s body in various places to elicit a variety of different percussive sounds in between plucking pretty melodies on the strings.

  The end of  his set was an inventive and innovative jam on blues classic “Spoonful.”

He battered his guitar so throughly, I’m not sure how it didn’t just fall apart in his hands.
 He sang in an appealing tenor voice like an Australian John Mayer.

 The next set focused a little more on vocals, though it still had it’s share of percussive pyrotechnics. He played a little more blues and sang more pop influenced music.

 He wound up his set by covering an Ed Sheeran song and ended his set by dropping his guitar on the stage.

It was Thanksgiving weekend, so that might  be why not a lot of people were around to hear  John Creeden and the Flying Hellfish at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Friday, Oct. 5. There was also a lot of other things happening including CD release parties for Jon Vornbrock’s new rap project Bomb Hugg and Paul Kype’s CD release party at Honker’s pub.

 I was there for the  Hellfish, because who can resist a band with a Simpson’s reference in the band name. And also because I missed Calgary Celtic  rock band the River Jacks the last time they were here.
 So it ended up being an intimate show with a lot of prominent local punks all clustered in front of the stage sitting at most of the Owl’s tables all pushed together.

I caught the last couple Jon Creeden and the Flying Hellfish song aka Ottawa musician Jon Creeden backed by half of the River Jacks and Medicine Hat bassist Jeff Barrett.

 They played a tight set including most of the songs from Creeden’s last CD “Stall” and a few tracks from his previous EPs. They wound up their set of spirited emo tinged punk with “Sensible Underpants.” They also played an excellent new song called “GT Storm Racer.”

A stripped down four piece RiverJacks were up next for an all too brief set of uptempo  Celtic punk. I missed hearing their accordion player who had to work. They played a few older songs plus a couple of the highlights from their latest CD “Strange Adventures,” including “Dollars and Cents”  and “Cut the Power.”

 They also added a covers of  the Dropkick Murphy's and even one of the Beastie Boys more punk numbers and of course plenty of Celtic punk tinged drinking songs.

The set was almost over before they began, it seemed that fast and they called it a night well before midnight.

It is another great week for roots and blues music in Lethbridge, not to mention a great week to hear Edmonton musicians play Lethbridge.
 Edmonton blues and folk musician Kat Danser and the Tall Tales plus Steve Dawson play the Geomatic Attic, Thursday, Oct. 18. Tickets are $37.50. The Edmonton musician just finished her PHd and has released a long awaited new  CD “Goin’ Gone.”
Carter Felker returns to Lethbridge on Tuesday for a special show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Oct. 16.

Also in the county vein, Winnipeg’s Sean Burns returns to Casino Lethbridge with Grant Siemens and the Windy City Band.
 Burns sticks around town for Sunday, to play a matinee show the Owl Acoustic Lounge.
The Slice has a big blues show on Saturday with Colorado’s Johnny O Band beginning at 8 p.m.

 But it’s not just about blues and roots this week. Both the Slice and Owl Acoustic Lounge are holding pot legalization parties on Oct. 17.
The Owl features a prohibition party including a screening of “Reefer madness” followed by a the jazz jam hosted by HBO3 and Josh Davies.
 The Slice goes rap for their pot legalization party as SDKs Blaze ON3 with Katy L and NKI Louise plus local support from Sammy and the Fiend, Heavy Knowledge, Trey Mark, HayZe, Vosh, War Ready and DJ Stevie Heavy and host F Bomb. Admission is $10.

Thursday will be fun. With Kat Danser at the Geomatic Attic. But the Smokehouse features a big punk show with Victoria’s No Liars and local band the Hockey Moms and metal band Chernoff. There is a $10 cover.
 And the Zoo over at the U of L starts a new Thursday night open mic beginning at 8:30 p.m. Ian Morrice host the Slice’s Thursday open mic this week.

 The Slice features a slice of Edmonton rock on Friday, Oct. 19 with Edmonton rock band Upsidedown Town with Nicholas Rage and the Beaumont, Alberta punk band Gentlmans Pact.