Artist: Album (Label) *JR
AoM: Bobby Long: A Winter Tale (ATO) JR
2. John Bottomley: The Healing Dream (self)
3. Paul MacLeod: Gauge (Busted Flat)
4. Harlan Pepper: Young and Old (self)
5. Danny Schmidt: Man of Many Moons (Red House)
6. Shannon McNally: Western Ballad (self)
Our favourite co-host, Carter, joins us for the first time in our fancy new studio, and for the first time in 2011. We’ve got some great new music and some great requests courtesy of our listeners. We send some birthday greetings out to the great Jon Dee Graham, and look forward to the upcoming shows by Jim Bryson & The Weakerthans!
2:00 – 2:30 pm
Jim Bryson & The Weakerthans – Wild Folk – The Falcon Lake Incident – CDN
The Civil Wars – I’ve Got this Friend – Barton Hollow
The Head and the Heart – Cats and Dogs – The Head and the Heart
The Swell Season – Feeling the Pull – Strict Joy
Paul MacLeod – Be My Girl – Gauge – CDN
Lucinda Williams – Buttercup (kitchen tapes version) – Blessed
Lori McKenna – The Most – Lorraine
2:30 – 3:00 pm
Fish & Bird – Winnipeg – Every Whisper Is a Shout Across the Void – CDN
John Bottomley – With a little Help from Heaven – The Healing Dream – CDN
The Decemberists – This Is Why We Fight – The King Is Dead
Nathan – Casserole – Casserole EP – CDN – WPG
Carolyn Mark & NQ Arbuckle – Passing Dream – Let’s just Stay Here – CDN
Gurf Morlix – Baby Can I Crawl Back to You – Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream
3:00 – 3:30 pm
Ben Nichols – The Last Pale Light in the West – The Last Pale Light in the West
Corin Raymond – Blue Mermaid Dress – There Will Always Be a Small Time – CDN
Jonathan Byrd – Chicken Wire – Cackalack
Indio Saravanja – Nothing Can Be Done – The Caravan Sessions – CDN
Leeroy Stagger & The Wildflowers – Carol – Live at the Red River Saloon – CDN
3:30 – 4:00 pm
Jon Dee Graham – $100 Bill – Escape from Monster Island
Jon Dee Graham & The Fighting Cocks – My Lucky Day – It’s not as Bad as It Looks
Jon Dee Graham – Laredo (Small Dark Something) – Hooray for the Moon
Punchbuggy – Pat Benatar – All Nite Christian Rollerskate – CDN
Jim Bryson & The Occasionals – Impaler – The Occasionals – CDN
Jim Bryson – Feel Much Better – The North Side Benches – CDN
Jim Bryson & The Weakerthans – Metal Girls – The Falcon Lake Incident – CDN
The arrival of the new Stan Rogers “Best of” collection got us started on a set of new music and and clever cover versions. We heard some classics from Lyle Lovett, and a great set of music requested by one of our most loyal listeners.
2:00pm – 2:30pm
Willie P. Bennett – Willie’s Diamond Joe – Tryin’ to Start out Clean – CDN
Fred Eaglesmith & The Flying Squirrels – Rough Edges – Things Is Changin’ – CDN
Fred Eaglesmith – York Road – Official Bootleg Series Vol. 2 – CDN
Prairie Oyster – Long & Lonesome Old Freight Train – One Kiss – CDN
Stan Rogers – Forty-Five Years – The Very Best of – CDN
Stan Rogers – Barrett’s Privateers – The Very Best of – CDN
2:30 – 3:00 pm
Stephen Fearing – Early Morning Rain – unreleased outtake – CDN
Bruce Cockburn – Driving Away – Small Source of Comfort – CDN
The Wailin’ Jennys – Asleep at Last – Bright Morning Stars – CDN – WPG
The Good Lovelies – Crabbuckit – Let the Rain Fall – CDN
The Secret Sisters – Something Stupid – The Secret Sisters
Romi Mayes – Hand Me Down World – Guess Who’s Home – CDN – WPG
Brandi Carlile – Dreams – KGSR Broadcasts Vol. 18
Bob Schneider – The Bringdown – KGSR Broadcasts Vol. 18
3:00 – 3:30 pm
Lyle Lovett – Closing Time – Lyle Lovett
Lyle Lovett – Just the Morning – I Love Everybody
Lyle Lovett – Private Conversation – The Road to Ensenada
Matthew Ryan – Dam – May Day
Matthew Ryan – Me & My Lover – East Autumn Grin
3:30 – 4:00 pm
Jim Bryson – Fleetwood – The North Side Benches – CDN
The Cash Brothers – Nebraska – How Was Tomorrow – CDN
Shannon Lyon – Naive – Wandered – CDN
Leeroy Stagger & The Wildflowers – Sleep Alone – Live at the Red River Saloon – CDN
Steve Earle – You Belong to Me – Copperhead Road
Mike Plume Band – She’s Still Everything to Me – Fools for the Radio – CDN
Today, it’s our Blue & True Valentine’s Day special! We start off in Blue Valentines mode, as we celebrate the great musical legacy of the late, great Willie P. Bennett, who left this world on Feb. 15, 2008. We sure do miss him, but luckily he left behind some amazing music. Sadly, his music is not available for purchase or download ANYWHERE, which is absolutely criminal, so it’s more important than ever that we keep his music on the radio.
For our second hour, it’s some of what you might expect a sappy singer/songwriter show to do on Valentine’s Day Eve (as well as a few oddball selections, right Ron?). We delve into the huge category of Love Songs, and pull out some gems.
Today, it’s our Blue & True Valentine’s Day special! We start off in Blue Valentines mode, as we celebrate the great musical legacy of the late, great Willie P. Bennett, who left this world on Feb. 15, 2008. We sure do miss him, but luckily he left behind some amazing music. Sadly, his music is not available for purchase or download ANYWHERE, which is absolutely criminal, so it’s more important than ever that we keep his music on the radio.
Artist – Song title – Album Title – CDN=Canadian – WPG=Winnipeg artist
February 15 is the third anniversary of the death of one of our guiding lights on Tell the Band to Go Home, the great Willie P. Bennett. If I can do one good thing with this show, and in the world in general, it’s to share Willie’s music and let people know how amazing it is. Sadly, you still can’t buy it ANYWHERE (a heinous crime that the RCMP needs to relentlessly pursue), so hearing it on TTBTGH is one of your only avenues.
Today, we will do our duty and play you a bunch of songs by and about Willie.
We’ve posted a few things about Willie since he’s been gone. I thought it might be fun to provide links to them here:
One for Willie. I wish that I didn’t have to do this show, because man, do I miss the guy, but I think that given the fact that we all gotta go some time, I think we paid him a proper tribute. With some words from his friends and fans, and a bunch of great music, this may be my favourite episode of TTBTGH of all time. It’s certainly my most planned and passionate episode, and I hope that you might listen and enjoy it (again?).
My thoughts on hearing that Willie had died.
On that sad silence at the Fred Eaglesmith show
Our Willie tribute (and Valentine’s Day show), 2009
Our Willie tribute (and Valentine’s Day show), 2010
Our Willie tribute (and Valentine’s Day show), 2011
Fred Eaglesmith, performing Willie’s classic “Country Squall” live at the Park Theatre in Winnipeg
Just got in from a screening of the brilliant film “I, Curmudgeon,” by the equally brilliant Allan Zweig. It’s an examination of curmudgeonly people and their negativity, and the effects that it has on their lives, and all such things.
I’ve wanted to see the film for years. I wanted to see it because it was the follow up to Zweig’s breakout film, Vinyl, one that has inspired and moved me over the years, but also, because I knew that I would relate.
I always knew that I was negative, but I come by it honestly, I think. I suppose I have a predisposition to being difficult and angry. My closest male role model growing up was my grandfather, who was the very definition of a curmudgeon – think Archie Bunker, only angrier. I know that a lot of people found him a miserable SOB, and I suppose that at many times I did as well, but, somehow, I understood it in a way that others didn’t. I actually found him rather hilarious, most of the time, so I started picking up mannerisms at an early age. I was a precocious curmudgeon, you could say.
In later years, I’ve come to recognize how being negative and brutally honest and somewhat intolerance of the general idiocy of society and the world at large have set me apart. I see that somehow I’m the exception to the rule, and most people are uncomfortable with that. Most people don’t like it when someone constantly reminds them that the world is full of stupidity, and that it’s all annoying and unfair. There was a long time where I felt badly about that, as society tells me I should.
But society is totally messed up. I’m sorry, it just is. I mean, how do you explain the phenomenon that is the TV show Glee? How is it that, in a world that is so clearly, visibly, irreparably, honestly screwed up, Glee has become the norm? Seriously? The world is full of sadness and horror and injustice and flat out stupidity, and our society is swept up by the most nauseatingly happy phenomenon since the Monkees. It’s disgusting.
Are we that incapable of dealing with reality that we have to block it out with a heavy dose of Glee? Those annoying, perky, perfect kids with their perfect hair and their dorky clothes, singing peppy versions of songs that were annoying in the first place, only to be made infinitely more annoying by their saccharine sweet and technologically aided delivery?… yuck. But, too often, that’s our way of dealing with reality – go as far in the opposite direction as possible. I guess that’s why the world is, and shall remain, completely messed up.
So I suppose that people like me who stare the brutal, harsh, completely screwy reality in the face all the time, are doomed to be ostracized. Luckily, in the past few years, I’ve been able to embrace being a curmudgeon, instead of being shamed by it. If being brutally honest and pointing out how stupid people and situations are is so bad, then consider me guilty and hand me a life sentence.
It’s much better than a life of Glee.