photo taken at the Gladstone by Marc Hodges.

Hey everyone. I hope you all had a smashing Canada Day. To celebrate I’m going to give a quick shout out to a great, Canadian band, The Rural Alberta Advantage, who shared the bill with Entire Cities at The Artel. Going into this show I had a passing familiarity with The RAA - I’d heard a song or two - but hadn’t investigated them in any serious way. Man, I was missing out. They are top-to-bottom amazing on record and live. The RAA feature powerful lyrics & delivery by Nils Edenloff; flawless, frenetic drumming by Paul Banwatt (who was pulling a double-shift as he played with EC earlier); and sublime backing vocals and killer glock work by Amy Cole. They kept up an amazing pace, blasting through the better part of the stellar album Hometowns. The album is dark and sweet and evocative and very very wonderful. They don’t look to be on tour at the moment but be sure to catch them if you have the chance. As usual, here are a few songs from their set in february. Enjoy.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Artel, Kingston, 16 February 2008

* The Ballad of the RAA

* Don’t Haunt This Place

* Frank, AB

Do yourself a huge favour and pick up Hometowns, it may be your favourite album of 2008. It is undoubtedly gonna be one of mine.

Hey folks,

Its official. The line up for the 2008 Wolfe Island Music Fest has been announced. Mark your calendar, grab a hat and a blanket, and get ready to have your socks rocked off. Here it is - the lineup:

August 8th (8:30pm)

The Town Hall Hootenanny featuring Carolyn Mark, Jenny Whiteley, Joey Wright, Luther Wright and friends and The Abrams Brothers.

August 8th (10:30)

Flying V Productions showcase at The General Wolfe Hotel

The Handsome Furs with special guests Magic Jordan

August 9th (1pm start)

Featuring (in reverse order):

Wintersleep

Cadence Weapon

Land of Talk

Jason Collett

Plants and Animals

Tony Scherr

The Acorn

The D’Urbervilles

Music Maul

P.S. I love you!

Excited? of course you are. Weekend passes available May 1st at MapleMusic. I’ll be doing another ‘Count down to Wolfe Island’ starting in June so you will be hearing a great deal about this in the coming weeks.

[post updated to correct the dates: It is August 8th & 9th, not 9th & 10th. sorry about that]