From Nov. 24 to Dec. 3, many items of Canadian indie rock memorabilia will be up for bids on eBay, with all proceeds going to Kids Help Phone, the Canadian organization that aids youth in crisis.

The marquee item is the Ace Tone Top-5 organ donated by original Blue Rodeo keyboardist Bob Wiseman. It was used during his five-year stint with the band, and became a signature part of their sound on the hits "Try,"…

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Rob Picott

Welding Burns

(independent)

 Admittedly I’m playing a bit of catch-up here, because technically Welding Burns was released at the tail end of 2011. Still, this time next year, anyone reading this can feel free to remind me that I predicted it would emerge as one of the best roots/folk/Americana efforts of this year. Picott’s been plying his craft for quite awhile now, and sadly, too few people have taken notice. Which is all the more reason why this…

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There’s been a lot of celebration for Blue Rodeo’s seminal album, Five Days in July, this summer.  This was initiated by the Winnipeg Folk Festival, who asked the band to play the album in its entirety when they appeared at the festival in early July.  Inspired by the request and by frontman Greg Keelor’s recent ear trouble, Blue Rodeo decided to feature the largely acoustic album, or at least excerpts of it, at most of the shows they played over the summer.  Five Days is…

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FTB podcast #124 features the new album by BLACKIE AND THE RODEO KINGS called Kings & Queens.  Also new music from GARY NICHOLSON, HEATHER MYLES and THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS.  The full playlist is posted below.  Check the artist's websites and order their CD's or downloads.  Please … Continue

A note to CBC’s Laurie Brown: if you are given the opportunity to host a discussion about songwriting with two Canadian music icons, could you come up with better questions to ask?



The second instalment of the If You Could Read My Mind singer-songwriter series put on by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame featured “Four Strong Winds” author Ian Tyson and Blue Rodeo frontman Jim Cuddy on October 21. Intended to attract an intergenerational audience and stir up the dreary and… Continue

Brooks & Dunn w Merle Haggard

Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

August 26, 2010



Brooks & Dunn came to represent the machined honky tonk of the post-Garth Brooks country explosion as much as any act that emerged in the ‘90s. But what that oversimplication missed as two men – both in their 30s when the record deal came – who had punched it out in icehouses, chicken-wire protected honky tonks and the occasional dance halls on their way to fame and… Continue

It is commonly accepted that the word Rodeo is a Spanish word. It´s true but is not a Spanish original, it came from Asturian language verb “arrodiar” which literally means to round and catch cows or bulls in open field with the “lazu”. Asturian “Vaqueiros” (cowboys literally translated) and Cantabrian “Pasiegos” were specialized on moving great cow herds from the plain prairies on winter to higher grazing on summer. This culture starts on the epipaleolithic period and subsist… Continue

The brakes of the train groaned under me as we slowed to a halt in a field just north of Rouses Point, NY and the border patrol agent took to checking the documents of the rumbled, weary travelers in the Amtrak car. All four of us. What brings you to Canada, he asked, looking at my passport. Going to see some concerts, I replied. A band from Toronto, Cowboy Junkies, I added. No response. Have a good time he finally offered, satisfied that I posed no threat to US-Canadian relations. With that, I… Continue