Time: 9:30 p.m.

Cover:

http://www.flemisheye.com/ghostkeeper

Ghostkeeper Calgary-based Ghostkeeper produces raw and electrifying music. A colourful patchwork of heartfelt, outsider blues and noisy pop, perhaps their music can be best understood through the distinctive Northern Alberta origins of Shane Ghostkeeper (vocals, guitar) and Sarah Houle (drums, vocals).

Shane & Sarah spent their adolescence isolated by Northern Alberta's geography, listening to folk and blues records, slowly developing an admiration for individuals that had the ability to convey rich stories through song. When they later expanded their musical horizons beyond these roots, they found another world in the self-aware discordance of Pavement and the raw appeal of The Make Up. Here, they developed their own storytelling language with which Shane could voice the traditional songwriting he grew up with and Sarah could provide skewed drum patterns as a backdrop. The addition of Jay Crocker (guitar, vocals) and Scott Munro (bass, vocals), fleshed out the skeletons of Shane's songs into the extraordinary marriage of noisy blues and pop sensibility that became the band Ghostkeeper.

While traditional influences remain at the very core of Shane's songwriting, a healthy irreverence towards standard song structure and an idiosyncratic storytelling voice results in something undeniably Ghostkeeper.

MICHAEL RAULT http://www.michaelrault.com/

"The first mixtape I remember having, the two songs that kicked it off were "Wild Thing" by The Troggs and "I Want Candy" by The Strangeloves," Michael Rault says before laughing. "I haven’t gone too far past that." A telling, but not entirely true statement. For it’s not merely the past but the present and the future that are the signposts pointing to the music featured on Rault’s sensational debut for Pirates Blend record label MA-ME-O.
It’s an album stuck in time but pulled kicking and screaming and rocking and rolling and raw and beautiful into today, filled with the R&B and pop of a bygone era, infused with the lo-fi esthetics of a current crop of artists, and packed with songs so timeless, so utterly unfettered by an era or origin that all you can do is listen and get sucked in. "It’s influenced by an old sound," Rault admits, "but we tried to obtain it using modern techniques and make it applicable to what’s going on now."
Recorded in his hometown of Edmonton and featuring a dream team of local musicians, including his honey-vocalled sister Emily, MA-ME-O is a raucous, retro party record that burns with an energy ignited half a century ago by the surf and sockhop songs and the show-stopping tunes of Little Walter, Lee Dorsey and Bo Diddley — but in which new life is breathed by such contemporary acts as Black Keys and Beck. From the teasing, pleading teen dream opener "Call Me on the Phone" to the dirty, funky Dorsey homage "I Don’t Need No Help Gettin Down" and the sweet, wistful, nostalgia-driven slow-stepper "The Times When You Were Mine," the 10-track MA-ME-O is a deliriously loosey, goosey jukebox of memories and melodies, but that’s only a mere whisper of the history of the album and the artist behind it, and the past is more than essential to the exciting present and future in front of Rault.

Rault’s big break actually happened to be a handful of little breaks, beginning with his early incarnations as a punk rock performer in acts playing around his home town. One of those early shows included a gig alongside the band of former fellow ’Tonian Ben Stevenson. From there, he began to make a name for himself performing and recording with a constantly revolving group of musicians called the Mixed Signals. Flash forward several years, and Rault and his guitar are asked to back up his old pal Stevenson for a small-town tour opening for Canadian reggae rock heroes BEDOUIN SOUNDCLASH. During off-day soccer games, a friendship grows and the Bedouin crew lovingly dub Rault "maga spragga" (patois for skinny, skinny boy).
Soon after, Rault is on tour out east — staying with Stevenson who had recently relocated to Toronto — and he serendipitously downloads demos of songs he’d been recording for a new album on his host’s laptop. Forgotten by Rault, the tracks wind up in the ears of Bedouin singer Jay Malinowski, who immediately invites the Albertan to open for and backup Malinowski’s solo sojourn out west. More interactions, more discussions, including a meeting as both parties performed amid the volatile protests during the Vancouver Winter Olympics — "Like Beatlemania," Rault says of the experience, "but in reverse" — and soon, Rault finds himself being one of the early and most celebrated signings to Bedouin’s burgeoning Pirates Blend label. "It was a long chain reaction that took years to move from one part of the chain to the next but when it was all said and done this is where I ended up."
And where he ended up is here, ready to begin a rise up the ranks in this country’s talented music scene — albeit with a sound and an approach so unique his ascension should be as quick as it is deserved. For his part, the young artist is simply happy to be adding to the canon of a music he’s studied, loved and laboured over for much of his life, and thrilled to have the opportunity to get it out there to all the thirsty ears.
For Michael Rault there’s no looking back now. Except, of course, if it’s to help him move forward.