Tell the Band to Go Home  proudly presents:

Jon Brooks
at The Sunset Saloon (house concert in Westwood)
Saturday, November 11, 2017
8:00
Suggested donation $20 (price flexible, all proceeds to the artist)

If you wish, bring a drink for yourself, and/or a snack to share, but we’ve always got plenty of all of those on hand!

All are welcome (bring the kids, friends, family, people off the street, whatever)! Our house is family friendly (we’ve got 3 kids, a trampoline, and plenty of room, so feel free to bring the family), easy-going, friendly, and open to all! If you don’t know us yet, come on down and make some new friends!

The Sunset Saloon is a house concert venue in Westwood (near the YMCA on Portage.) We’re open to all. Feel free to pass along the event info, bring friends, bring your kids (our kids will thank you), or just come by yourself and make some new friends! Admission is by donation, which goes directly to the artists. Most folks pay $20, but any hard-working musician wouldn’t turn down more and will take whatever is comfortable for you to give.

Please RSVP for the address and more information!

Questions? RSVP? Fill out the contact form below! Forward this to a friend!

Every once in a while I run across a songwriter who scares me. It’s a rare breed who’s so intense and powerful that it leaves me shaken, changed somehow. Jon Brooks did that for me & to me last year at Mariposa Folk Festival.

It’s funny because I’d listened to Jon’s albums for a long time and was already a big fan of his songs. I already knew that he was a top-notch songwriter. His powerful song/performance “Gun Dealer” was one of my favourites of 2014. I was moved by Corin Raymond’s impromptu performance of “Mimico” in my car on the way to the airport one time. I knew his resume as one of the country’s most respected writers.

But I’d never seen him live until Mariposa, 2016. That’s when it really hit me. Hearing the stories behind the songs and feeling the impact of one man accompanying himself on guitar and percussive tapping really impressed upon me the depth of his skill. I left his solo concert breathless, moved, and excited. Each of Jon’s songs is a detailed snapshot of a life that I couldn’t have understood previously but was suddenly transported into. I felt like I’d walked a mile in the shoes of soldiers, gun dealers, cage fighters, and more. Each song is a carefully detailed – and extensively researched – novel. He’ll take you to new places and vividly see new lives. You’ll feel like you’ve gone somewhere and everywhere at once. I immediately knew that I had to share this experience with my family, so we followed Jon to Toronto the next day and walked the busy streets of downtown Toronto to get to The Cameron House for one of his regular “Sad Monday” gigs. Yeah, the songs may lean toward the darker, sadder places, but the experience is exhilarating and oh so rewarding.

Here’s his official bio:

“I write songs to calm those who’ve looked into, and seen, what is in their hearts.  I also write songs to terrify those who have not.” – Jon Brooks

It’s a perilous and irresponsible life that pursues an ancient vocation incapable of modern recompense.  I’m at once consoled and terrified by Leonard Cohen’s comment that ‘songwriting is not a vocation, but a sentence…’ It’s true that fame and money are the jurors and legislators of success in the current age; and at the mercy of such a court I am unanimously judged a failure.  But I can’t help but question such narrow measures of success.  Since 2006 I have released 5 albums I remain wholly proud of; I’ve enjoyed the outrageous honour of being blessed to perform for thousands of open hearted and friendly souls the Western world over; as well, The Canadian Folk Music Awards has deemed me worthy of being nominated – a record 4 times – for ‘English Songwriter of the Year’ (2007/2009/2012/2015); in 2010, I became the 4th Canadian since 1975 to win the prestigious Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival ‘New Folk Award.’ And yet still, on my best day, The Song is woefully all I know.  And on many more days, I don’t feel I know The Song at all.  Like beauty, The Song remains an eternal mystery to me; and, as often as I chase it, I spend my time considering dropping the sad pursuit altogether for something more secure, more ‘responsible.’  But I’m stuck.  The irreconcilable problem is this: I know no other thing more intimately than The Song – and outside of kindness, it’s the one thing in the mournful world I’ve occasionally touched that ascends with purpose, force, and love and so I stay seeking it more or less blindly.

All of these descriptions – and the video clips below – perhaps tell you part of the story, but you can’t really, truly understand until you’ve seen Jon Brooks live. This is a VERY rare opportunity to experience a singular talent in Winnipeg, and almost impossible to believe that you could do it in someone’s living room.

Never before have I brought you a show that I just knew that you needed to see. I really hope you’ll take me up on the offer to see something special and join us when Jon drops by on Remembrance Day.

Have a listen here: https://jonbrooks.ca/music

Feel free to fill out the contact form below if you have any questions or if you want to reserve your seat (your details aren’t public, just emailed directly to me.)

Comments left below are public and are much appreciated as well:

Bidiniband will be doing a special early show at Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club on Saturday, February 18 where they’ll do a set of their music as well as a set backing up NHL legend Bryan Trottier! Tickets for that one are only $15 and are available online via Ticketfly OR I have an exclusive, limited supply of tickets that can be purchased for $15 cash with NO FEES. You just need to let me know how & when to get one in your hand or pick one up when Bidiniband plays The Sunset Saloon on Friday, February 17!

Holy Mackinaw! One really big and very excited nerd presents:

Bidiniband (www.rheostatics.ca/bidini)
at The Sunset Saloon (house concert in Westwood)
Friday, February 17, 2017
8:00
Suggested donation $20-$25 (price flexible, all proceeds to this amazing band!)

If you wish, bring a drink for yourself, and/or a snack to share, but we’ve always got plenty of all of those on hand!

All are welcome (bring the kids, friends, family, people off the street, whatever)! Our house is family friendly (we’ve got 3 kids, a trampoline, and plenty of room, so feel free to bring the family), easy-going, friendly, and open to all! If you don’t know us yet, come on down and make some new friends!

The Sunset Saloon is a house concert venue in Westwood (near the YMCA on Portage.) We’re open to all. Feel free to pass along the event info, bring friends, bring your kids (our kids will thank you), or just come by yourself and make some new friends! Admission is by donation, which goes directly to the artists. Most folks pay $20, but these hard working guys wouldn’t turn down more.

Please RSVP for the address and more information!

Questions? RSVP? Fill out the contact form below! Forward this to a friend!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. In 1992 I had my great musical awakening. I’d loved music all my life, but it was entirely music that I heard on the radio and in parents’ & grandparents’ music collections. And although they are/were great people, they weren’t that cool. The music was good, but not that adventurous. And that’s all that I knew. I had no idea that there were other kinds of music out there.

And then I heard The Lowest of the Low and Rheostatics. And my life was forever changed. The Lowest of the Low was pretty easy to get into. I became a life-long fan in one night. But Rheostatics music is a little more challenging and very different from everything that I’d ever heard before. It confused me. But it intrigued me. I didn’t understand it at all, at first, but I knew that I wanted to. There was something in there that kept drawing me in, over and over again. Soon, I figured out that I was obsessed. But I don’t think I truly understood it until I saw the band live. Then I got it. And I got it in a big way!

Dave Bidini has been the driving force behind Rheostatics since he was just a kid in high school with big dreams. From 1987-2004 Rheostatics released 9 studio albums, and the tone, sound, and vision of those albums was all over the map. They made a children’s album, a soundtrack to Group of 7 paintings, and a bunch of amazing and diverse rock and roll. They played folk festivals, art galleries, concert halls and dingy bars across the country. They even did some really big shows with The Tragically Hip (and others.) They never got rich or famous, but they are revered among musicians, open-minded fans. In 2007, they called it quits. Or so they thought.

By the end of the initial Rheostatics run, Bidini was already gaining acclaim as an author and newspaper writer. His books are often about journeys (starting with his first book, On a Cold Road, about travelling with The Tragically Hip and the realities of touring in Canada) and often about sports, mostly hockey. He’s won awards and been a finalist on CBC’s Canada Reads competition. Bidini is the only Canadian to have been nominated for all three of Canada’s main entertainment awards, the Gemini Award for television work, the Genie Awards for film work and the Juno Awards for music.

But he certainly wasn’t done with music after Rheostatics were put to rest. He soon formed Bidiniband along with former Rheostatics drummer Don Kerr and two Manitobans, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Paul Linklater and bassist Doug Friesen. They’ve released 3 albums of the same type of thundering, imaginative, interesting rock that he’d been known for with his other band.

Bidiniband has never toured extensively and has never played in Winnipeg. Until now!

Bidiniband will be doing a special early show at Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club on Saturday, February 18 where they’ll do a set of their music as well as a set backing up NHL legend Bryan Trottier! Tickets for that one are only $15 and are available online via Ticketfly OR I have an exclusive, limited supply of tickets that can be purchased for $15 cash with NO FEES. You just need to let me know how & when to get one in your hand or pick one up when Bidiniband plays The Sunset Saloon on Friday, February 17!

Word is getting out about this show, and it’s starting to fill up. With a full band setting up in the living room, SPACE AND SEATING ARE VERY LIMITED! We will fit in as many people as possible, but we may have to cut out some chairs to do it. So reserve your spot early and get there early if you want a seat!

Please, friends, this one is absolutely a dream come true. Heck, it’s a dream that I never even would have dared to dream or even imagine. I may cry or embarrass myself somehow. Actually, it’s almost guaranteed. Please come and see how it goes!

Feel free to fill out the contact form below if you have any questions or if you want to reserve your seat (your details aren’t public, just emailed directly to me.)

Tell the Band to Go Home & Steel Belted Radio proudly present:

Tony Furtado (www.tonyfurtado.com)
at The Sunset Saloon (house concert in Westwood)
Friday, November 11, 2016
8:00 pm
Suggested donation $20-25 (price flexible, all proceeds to this artist!)

If you wish, bring a drink for yourself, and/or a snack to share, but we’ve always got plenty of all of those on hand!

All are welcome (bring the kids, friends, family, people off the street, whatever)! Our house is family friendly (we’ve got 3 kids, a trampoline, and plenty of room, so feel free to bring the family), easy-going, friendly, and open to all! If you don’t know us yet, come on down and make some new friends!

Questions? RSVP? Fill out the contact form below! Forward this to a friend!

Please RSVP for the address and more information!

Tony Furtado is a major musical force without a doubt. He has his black-belt in voice and bottleneck guitar and his banjo playing scares the crap out of me.”
– David Lindley, musical adventurer

Very few musicians of any stripe so personify a musical genre as completely as Tony Furtado embodies Americana roots music. Tony is an evocative and soulful singer, a wide-ranging songwriter and a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist adept on banjo, cello-banjo, slide guitar and baritone ukulele who mixes and matches sounds and styles with the flair of a master chef (he’s also an accomplished sculptor, but that’s another story). All of the music of America is in Tony’s music. Relix hit the nail on the head when writing of Tony: “True talent doesn’t need categories.”

A native of Pleasanton, California, who now makes his home in Portland, Oregon, Tony Furtado took up the banjo at age 12, inspired by the Beverly Hillbillies TV show and a sixth grade music report. He first attracted national attention in 1987, when he won the National Bluegrass Banjo Championship in Winfield, Kansas. Not long after that, Tony opted for the life of a full-time professional musician, joining Laurie Lewis & Grant Street. A second victory at Winfield, in 1991, bookended his years with Grant Street.

In 1990, Tony signed a recording deal with Rounder Records, one of the country’s preeminent independent record companies. Beginning with Swamped in 1990, he recorded six critically acclaimed albums for the label, collaborating with such master musicians as Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien, Stuart Duncan, Kelly Joe Phelps and Mike Marshall. During this period, Tony also performed and recorded with the band Sugarbeat and the Rounder Banjo Extravaganza with Tony Trischka and Tom Adams. Tony has recorded and produced almost a dozen CDs for various labels such as Dualtone, What Are Records and Funzalo Records.

Beginning in the late 1990s—influenced by such musical heroes as Ry Cooder, David Lindley and Taj Mahal—Tony added slide guitar, singing and songwriting to his musical toolbox and began leading his own band. He is a tireless road musician who performs in a dizzying variety of formats: solo, in a duo or trio or with his full five-person band. He especially values the opportunities he has had to tour with such legendary musicians as Gregg Allman and with such esteemed slide guitarists as David Lindley, Derek Trucks and Sonny Landreth.

“I love playing live,” he says. “All my energy is focused on the love of playing music and rolling with the moment. It’s a give and take from the audience to the stage, and back. And the music that is created is something that otherwise might not occur without that flow.”

Feel free to fill out the contact form below if you have any questions or if you want to reserve your seat (your details aren’t public, just emailed directly to me.)

Tell the Band to Go Home and Steel Belted Radio excitedly present:

Luther Wright & the Wrongs with Rueben de Groot and Colleen Brown

lutherwright.com / ruebendegroot.com / colleenbrownmusic.com

Thursday, November 3, 2016

7:30 pm

$25 suggested donation

If you wish, bring a drink for yourself, and/or a snack to share, but we’ve always got plenty of all of those on hand!

All are welcome (bring the kids, friends, family, people off the street, whatever)! Our house is family friendly (we’ve got 3 kids, a trampoline, and plenty of room, so feel free to bring the family), easy-going, friendly, and open to all! If you don’t know us yet, come on down and make some new friends!

Questions? RSVP? Fill out the contact form below! Forward this to a friend!

Please RSVP for the address and more information!

Wait! What? Seriously? Nah, can’t be…

Yes, THAT Luther Wright & the Wrongs! Remember that pioneering country/roots-rock combo that took the world by storm with their bluegrass version of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall?” Yeah, the one that made them big stars, had them travelling the world, recording for big labels, and even getting positive feedback from the Floyds themselves! Remember how they packed The West End Cultural Centre, wowed huge crowds at The Winnipeg Folk Festival and every other major festival in Canada? Did you know/recall that Luther was part of successful and acclaimed indie rock combo Weeping Tile, the band that launched the career of Sarah Harmer? Did you know that Luther and Sarah are pals to this day and she appears on all of his albums? Now consider how crazy it is that you can have the opportunity to see Luther and the band in the intimate confines of The Sunset Saloon with a select few of your new best friends!

Holy cow!

Sample & download some of Luther’s music here!

Rueben deGroot

As if that weren’t enough, we’ll also be getting a set from rising star singer/songwriter/bandleader Rueben de Groot! Rueben has released 3 CDs of his own acclaimed songs, and a brand new live CD with a band called Rocket Surgery, which was recorded during that band’s weekly residency in Toronto, but the CD was compiled and put together without Rueben’s knowledge! He’s aware now, and the world is catching on to this great performer and songwriter. His song, “Savings and Loan,” was used by Oh Susanna and Jim Bryson on the album “Namedropper,” which also featured songs by folks such as Jim Cuddy, Ron Sexsmith, Joel Plaskett, and many others? Nice company to keep!

Colleen Brown

And Colleen Brown! Collen kind of sounds like Joni Mitchell on steroids. A powerful, powerful voice, coupled with some soulful, beautiful songs, makes for a combination that you do not want to miss! Colleen has received major airplay on the CBC, toured alongside Buck 65 and many others, and

“The talents of this Edmonton-based vocalist shine like a beacon. Her boldly written originals…have the good bones and great melodic rhythm of classic big-screen pop songs”

– Robert Everett-Green, Globe & Mail

‘One of Canada’s premiere songwriters. With a voice like a clarion call she’s one of our premiere singers, too.’

– Judith Lynch, CBC’s First Play

Feel free to fill out the contact form below if you have any questions or if you want to reserve your seat (your details aren’t public, just emailed directly to me.)

Tell the Band to Go Home & Steel Belted Radio proudly present:

Jim Bryson (www.jimbryson.org)
at The Sunset Saloon (house concert in Westwood)
Thursday, August 11, 2016
7:30 pm
Suggested donation $20-25 (price flexible, all proceeds to this artist!)

If you wish, bring a drink for yourself, and/or a snack to share, but we’ve always got plenty of all of those on hand!

All are welcome (bring the kids, friends, family, people off the street, whatever)! Our house is family friendly (we’ve got 3 kids, a trampoline, and plenty of room, so feel free to bring the family), easy-going, friendly, and open to all! If you don’t know us yet, come on down and make some new friends!

Questions? RSVP? Fill out the contact form below! Forward this to a friend!

Please RSVP for the address and more information!

Jim Bryson is an Ottawa area based singer songwriter, instrumentalist and producer. He has released 5 critically acclaimed solo recordings, including a brand new album, “Somewhere We Will Find Our Place,” which was produced by Charles Spearin (Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think, Feist).

Jim also has spent a fair amount of time in recent years recording and producing projects, among them Oh Susanna‘s “Namedropper,” and songs for The Skydiggers “Angels”.

Oh and just cause you are asking, Jim also enjoys riding in the musical sidecar, having played and toured with Kathleen Edwards, The Weakerthans and The Tragically Hip.

Jim lives outside of Ottawa with his partner, two daughters and a newly built recording “shed” called Fixed Hinge.

Jim is also one of my very favourite artists in the world. He’s definitely one of our most played artists on the show (tied for 9th most played with Del Barber, at last count,) and his 2003 album, The North Side Benches is our most played album of all time (at last count.) I LOVE Jim’s music! He’s a tremendous songwriter who has a real gift for capturing scenes and places in song. He is also my very favourite guitar player in the country – just listen to Kathleen Edwards‘ album “Failer” to see why. He also happens to be a hell of a good guy.

Thanks to the amazing Devin Latimer (Professor Nathan) who booked Jim for the wonderful Trout Forest Music Festival, Jim will be in Winnipeg in August, and I’m absolutely thrilled that he’ll be able to stop by The Sunset Saloon before heading out to Ear Falls the next day! Folks, you REALLY don’t want to miss this one!

Feel free to fill out the contact form below if you have any questions or if you want to reserve your seat (your details aren’t public, just emailed directly to me.)