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.
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