L.A. Beat

Elena Yeung is a Creston B.C. banjo player/guitarist and singer /songwriter who plays bluegrass and folk music. When you first listen to one of Elena’s performances, you will probably wonder from which old or folk record or songbook she dug her repertoire. Following the leads of Elena Yeung is an active contributor to the “new traditional” sound, echoing the folk, bluegrass and mountain traditions of Pete Seeger, Ola Belle Reed, and Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, emphasizing her driving banjo style.

Yeung’s song “On That Good Road” was recorded by the Vancouver bluegrass trio Redgrass and is featured as the title track on their 2007 debut CD. She was featured on CBC radio’s North By Northwest on August 17, 2008 and has since enjoyed national airplay on CBC's Radio 2 Drive, as well as local and provincial stations across western Canada and Ontario. Elena is currently on a national tour.  Hear her at http://www.myspace.com/elenayeung

Neil Conway is  friendly and engaging, The Newfoundland musician knows how to play for his audience. This compulsive lyricist gets his inspiration anything and his imagination may take him anywhere. Equally adept at writing folk, rap, rock, reggae and more; themes range from the political to the personal, serious to satirical. You never know what will come next from this startlingly diverse artist and neither does he.

A creative fixture of the St. John's, Newfoundland arts scene for over 10 years, he has remained prolific and provocative through good times and hard times. He is a founding member of popular townie reggae group "Skank" and leader of freakish groove dance machine "The Discounts" as well as folk-swing ensemble "The Somethin' Family." For CBC Television, he wrote and performed a music video/comedy sketch mocking the 2006 Canadian election and in 2008 he was commissioned to write a song about Newfoundland premier Danny Williams for national radio show "Go." Though widely know in his own community, he is only now emerging as an artist to the rest of Canada and beyond. http://www.neilconway.ca

In 2004 he released "The Somethin' Family Album" and has since toured from coast to coast several times as a solo song maker; frequenting pubs, cafes, community centers, living rooms and the like for small but always impressed audiences. His second folk album, Roadblock, was praised for its witty take on current events and saw considerable college radio play and swell reviews. With the recent release of "The Discounts - Part One" another side of Neil Conway is finally exposed outside of Newfoundland. This Hip-Hop/Funk/Reggae project takes on many sounds but it's the tight delivery and quirky lyrics that ties it all together into one cohesive dance party. With at least three more albums ready to record and new songs arriving in his head all the time he plans to remain busy for years to come.