This past weekend marked the start of the Nature City Festival in Saskatoon, which runs until this Friday. Produced by volunteer collective Wild about Saskatoon, the festival explores some of the natural wonders going on right in our own back yards and parks.

CFCR correspondent Franny Rawlyk will be attending as many events as she can, doing interviews with event organizers along the way. Join her on her daily adventures by tuning into The Buzz from 5-6pm to hear her latest 5-minute review.

Franny is also writing a blog about her adventures, which you can check out here.

To learn more about the festival and what events are taking place, visit their official website.

Missed The Buzz? Well, you can stream the feature below each day after The Buzz has aired.

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Episode 1 (Monday, May 27th) – Franny Rawlyk chats with Candace Savage, one of the main organizers for the NatureCity Festival about what festival goers can expect from the various events happening all week long (the festival runs May 25-31). They also talk about tonight’s free keynote lecture featuring the award-winning landscape architect Douglas Olson, happening at 7pm at the Broadway Theatre.

Listen to Episode 1

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Episode 2 (Tuesday, May 28th) – On today’s episode of the NatureCity Review, Franny interviews Gary Pederson, the naturalized area supervisor of the parks branch with the City of Saskatoon about Donna Birkmaier Park and other initiatives the city is taking to incorporate more natural areas in the city. She also speaks with Allyson Brady, the executive director of the Saskatchewan Environmental Society about the event that took place at the Mendel Art Gallery in tribute to Stan Rowe and his work on ecology in the city.

Listen to Episode 2

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Episode 3 (Wednesday, May 29th) – Franny speaks with Penny McKinley of Slow Food Saskatoon. Slow Food Saskatoon and CHEP hosted a delicious local food dinner earlier this week and we hear all about it. We also hear from a local woman who keeps chickens in her backyard year-round, as a bit of urban agriculture.

Listen to Episode 3

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Episode 4 (Thursday, May 30th) – On today’s episode of the NatureCity Review, we go back to the beginning of the NatureCity Festival and hear a bit about one of the seven opening ceremonies of the festival. Franny interviews Elizabeth Bokelay, the community garden coordinator for the Caswell Hill community garden. We also hear a bit of a song that was performed at the opening ceremony.

Listen to Episode 4

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Episode 5 (Friday, May 31st) – On the final episode of the NatureCity Review, Franny interviews the owner of Wild Birds Unlimited, Keith Gerue. Keith gave three different presentations about birding in your backyard throughout the festival. We also hear a short clip from the festival’s keynote speaker, landscape architect Douglas Olson.

Listen to Episode 5

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Over the past months, Saskatoon’s newest pan-genre music festival MoSo has been revealing acts playing the 2013 edition of the fest one little morsel at a time. Termed “MoSo Mondays,” the festival has been announcing acts online to whip the collective masses into a frenzy.

Well, today they collected everything together with their official full line-up announcement. The festival will host over 60 bands at 7 official venues around town, along with a number of shows and events at less traditional venues as well.

Bands & musicians like The Deep Dark Woods, Ladyhawk, The Highest Order and UBT will be hitting the various stages, among many others from June 12-15. For a complete list of the bands, as well as ticket info, visit MoSo’s website. Schedule info will be available soon.

CFCR will be presenting a bunch of shows during MoSo Fest, so check back here to find out more about that!

With the weather warming up, Saskatoon-area summer festivals are starting to kick things into high gear with some big announcements!

The Sasktel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival announced their full lineup and schedule on Friday, with additions such as Lee Fields, Michael Franti & Spearhead and John Scofield. There will once again be shows going on at a variety of locations around central Saskatoon, as well as free shows at Club Jazz in Friendship Park and on 21st Street. You can check out who is playing where and when by checking out the Jazz Fest website. CFCR is very proud to be presenting the festival’s Groove Series, as well as the Ziggy Marley’s main stage show on Saturday, June 23rd in the Bessborough Gardens!

And this morning on The Ness Creek Radio Revue (the 10-11am hour of the first Tuesday So Many Roads of every month), many of the artists playing this year’s festival were highlighted, including recent Juno-winners Elliott Brood, Petunia & The Vipers, The Midnight Roses and lots more. You can visit Ness Creek’s website for a more complete list of bands. Once again, CFCR is excited to be presenting the Friday night lineup on the main stage at Ness, so stay tuned to 90.5FM and CFCR.ca for more details on that soon!

After whetting appetites from here to Timbuktu with an initial announcement that included bands like legends The Jesus & Mary Chain and Swans to relative newcomers Metz and Divine Fits, The Sled Island Music & Art Festival has done it again, throwing another 50 or so bands our way today.

Similarly, the list includes more bands with legendary status among newer groups on the map and everything in between.

Namely, indie rock royalty Superchunk and Canadian hero John K. Sampson have been added to the lineup along with influential DJ The Gaslamp Killer, psych-pop buzz band Unknown Mortal Orchestra as well as The Night Marchers, featuring members of Hot Snakes, who were favourites of Sled’s 2012 edition.

Sled once again showed its diversity with this announcement, adding everything from punk wunderkinds (White Lung, Iceage) to hip-hop/jazz experimenters (BadBadNotGood) to doom-pop (Torche).

For a look at the full lineup of bands, and to get your early bird festival wristbands, head on over to Sled’s website right now! The festival takes place from June 19-22, 2013 in Calgary, AB. For the fourth year in a row, CFCR is proud to be involved in the festival as an official media sponsor, and for the third time, we are excited to be putting on a showcase of Saskatoon bands at the festival, so keep your eyes & ears peeled to find out more info on that. For a glimpse into CFCR’s Sled experience at the 2012 festival, full of words, pictures, videos & sounds, check out our “Sled-trospective.“

MoSoFest 2013 has posted the first wave of bands slated to play this year’s festival, and again, it’s shaping up to be a doozy! Check out the artists below and see what Saskatoon has in store for themselves this Summer.

Adolyne (Saskatoon, SK)
Astronautalis (Minneapolis, MN)
Ben Caplan (Halifax, NS)
Close Talker (Saskatoon, SK)
Code Orange Kids (Pittsburgh, PA)
The Deep Dark Woods (Saskatoon, SK)
Factor & The Chandeliers (Saskatoon, SK)
Marissa Nadler (Boston, MA)
Ones (Saskatoon, SK)
Paper Beat Scissors (Halifax, NS)
Rah Rah (Regina, SK)
Renny Wilson (Edmonton, AB)
Slow Down, Molasses (Saskatoon, SK)
UBT (Montreal, PQ)
The Weir (Calgary, AB)

Additional bands to be announced until the festival kicks off from June 12-15th, 2013. MoSoFest takes place over seven venues in the greater Broadway area, and will feature over sixty bands.

Advance festival wristbands and information can be located HERE

And if that’s not enough fun for you, MoSoConf will again be taking place alongside the music side of things. This year’s confirmed presenters include:

Ambrosia Humphrey – Hootsuite
Sean Lynch – Dropbox
Collin Douma- BBDO
Stephen Hepting – Yammer
Cap Watkins – Etsy
Mark Rabo – Gamercamp
Heather Payne - Centre for Social Innovation
Best-selling author – Julien Smith
Serial entrepreneur – Dan Martell
And word-of-mouth marketing genius – Saul Colt

MoSoConf passes can be purchased HERE

CFCR is excited to once again be a media sponsor for this years Saskatoon Blues Festival, taking place at multiple venues February 25th – March 3rd.

Heading into its eleventh year of celebrating the blues, the Saskatoon Blues Society is gearing up in anticipation of once again presenting some of the best musical artists the local, national and international music scene has to offer.

One artist of interest is Marcia Ball, an American blues singer and pianist who was born in Orange, Texas and grew up in Vinton, Louisiana. She is a five-time Grammy nominee, a nine-time Blues Music Award winner and has two recent wins for Best Contemporary Blues – Female Artist of the Year. Ball is the “real deal” and will bring equal parts of New Orleans, boogie woogie, swamp music and Texas soul all wrapped up into one package to the Electric Blues Cabaret Room stage at the Odeon Event Centre.

The Saskatoon Blues Festival Winter Meltdown is THE place to be for Saskatoon and area music lovers. You can check the full festival lineup at www.saskatoonbluessociety.ca

The Saskatoon Blues Society promotes, fosters and celebrates blues music in Saskatoon. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the blues.

Yesterday afternoon, host Don Kossick came by CFCR’s studios to record an episode of his program Making The Links with U of S professor and activist Dr. Priscilla Settee and Idle No More co-founder Sheelah McLean. On top of the 30-minute interview for MTL, Settee and McLean also spoke about the Idle No More movement for a video segment, which you can watch below:

Be sure to tune in to Making The Links on CFCR from 6-6:30pm (CST) tonight to hear McLean & Settee speak about Idle No More and the core issues they wish to bring to light. To read more about the movement and their mission, visit them here.

Another year is in the books and the dust has settled on the holidays, so it’s time to check out some of the favourite releases by a few of CFCR’s hosts!

Host: Chad Munson
Program: Sound Dust (Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30pm)

Top 10 albums of 2012:

1. Swans – The Seer – The most challenging and frightening record of the year. 2010′s “My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope To The Sky” was just a warm up for the recently reformed Swans. Clocking in at almost two hours, The Seer it’s a difficult but worthwhile listen that encompasses the full spectrum of the Swans sound over their last 30 years. Their finest, most accomplished work to date.

2. Lee Ranaldo – Between The Times and The Tides – On Lee Ranaldo’s first solo “rock” album he shows us who was the most sonically important member of Sonic Youth.

3. Beak> – >> - Geoff Barrow of Portishead fame gets his Krautrock on, doing some of the finest Can and Neu aping you will ever come across!

4. White Hills – Frying on the Rock - White Hills return in all their psych rock glory with a much more straight forward record channeling some early Alice Cooper moments.

5. Ringo Deathstarr – Mauve - On Ringo Deathstarr’s third release they perfect the 90s shoegaze indie guitar swing sound! Recommended for those of us who “Never Lose That Feeling!”

6. Disappears – Pre Language – Disappears take huge strides forward on their third release. Acquiring Steve Shelley (formerly of Sonic Youth) has made their repetitive motornik rock meets Joy Division sound more vibrant and engaging than their previous outings.

7. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend - After nine years of silence GY!BE return with the best record of their careers.

8. Laetitia Sadier – Silencio - Being a total sucker for all things Stereolab this is a no-brainer for my top 10 list. If you like analog synths, organs, french socialism and samba this record is made for you!

9. Old Man Gloom – No - This album makes me happy Isis broke up. Aaron Turner creates much better music with these chaps!

10. Camera – Radiate – Carrying on in the Krautrock tradition these German gents produce some of the finest locked jams since the 70s.

Host: Aaron Scholz
Program: Former host of TV Party Tonight (Saturdays, 10pm-12am) and go-to fill-in host for pretty much any program.

Some cool releases of 2012:

Lotus Plaza – Spooky Action at a Distance – Put on your cool-guy shades for these hazy jams. Shimmering guitars, relaxing rhythms, and a singer who sounds like he was taking tranquilizers during recording make this a very unique, yet accessible listening experience.

Audacity – Mellow Crooners – Slacker punk vibes from young boys who are championing this scene in California. Could this be a modern-day Pinkerton?

Spacin’ – Deep Thuds – Distorted psychedelic rock that is equal parts atmosphere and structured riffage. Lyrics are sometimes distinguishable, but mostly, the vocals seem to be used as accents over top of Ron Asheton-like guitars and restrained drumming.

Terry Malts – Killing Time – Bop and sway! Bop and sway! Architects of traditional pop structures and catchy hooks create masterful debut of fuzzy power-pop.

Stalwart Sons – Stay Cold – Sincere patriotism oozes optimism through a gruff collection of melodic punky Can-rock anthems. This encouraging sophomore album shows growth and cohesion for the Calgarian trio.

Scott Walker – Bish Bosch – Truly masterful work. Walker’s goat-bleating vibrato is haunting, and with lyrics about severing genitals and the melodic use of recorded human flatulence, this is the definition of outsider genius.

Mac DeMarco – 2 – Pure sleaze. Elements of jazz, surf and adult contemporary creep from this creep.

Fist City – It’s 1983, Grow Up! – Saying that this is a cool garage record is a total understatement. Fist City slam through pogo-inducing jams containing a slight surfy bend and snotty attitudes. Total toe-tapper.

Richard Papiercuts – A Sudden Shift – Some songs are bizarre deconstructionist rock ‘n roll. Others are simply idiotic. A challenging consideration, but one of the more personally rewarding listens of this year.

Host: Jay “The Jay Of Spades” Allen
Program: Pirate Radio (Thursdays, 7:30-9pm) and CFCR Program Director

Some of my favourites of 2012, in no particular order:

Beachwood Sparks – The Tarnished Gold - This California band return after an extended hiatus with a beautiful album of sunny-but-somehow-sad twang-pop.

Grizzly Bear – Shields – The most ‘rock’ and maybe most accessible (in a good way for me) album to date by this Brooklyn band.

Feral Children – Sunson EP - The stellar swan song release from a great Saskatoon psych-pop band.

Shooting Guns – “Down And Out In Detroit” - Saskatoon doomy instrumentalists, from a split 7″ with UK band Cult of Dom Kellar.

These Hands – Aquatic Blue - Another great bunch of songs from Saskatoon/Prince Albert experimenting singer-songwriter.

Peace – The World Is Too Much With Us - New-wavy psych-punk-gaze from Vancouver, with a healthy dose of Mark E. Smith.

Ladyhawk – No Can Do - Vancouver stalwarts return from a 4-year hiatus with a fantastic album of blistering mid-fi rock jams.

Needles//Pins – 12:34 - Vancouver pop-punk, channeling Teenage Head and other great late 70s punk bands.

White Lung – Sorry - More great stuff from the West Coast, this is easily one of the absolute best punk releases of 2012, this album is tough to keep up with but easy to love. Killer guitars, iron clad backbone and incendiary vocals.

METZ – S/T - Another ridiculously good punk release. Toronto’s METZ is an audio assault, channeling all the best parts of 90s punk & even grunge, with a distinctly new twist.

Ketamines – Spaced Out - Just haphazard enough without being sloppy, this is a fantastic release of weird pop/punk/garage-rock from Lethbridge (now Toronto).

Teenanger – Frights - Great album of garage-punk from Toronto. Combining garage rock with the bratty-ness of early punk from the 70s.

Ty Segall/Ty Segall Band/Ty Segall & White Fence - This was the year for prolific California garage protege Ty Segall. His 2011 release Goodbye Bread was the prequel to a trilogy of amazing 2012 releases, including Hair, his  eclectic collection of 60s-influenced pop & rock released White Fence (aka Tim Presley of Darker My Love), Slaughterhouse, on which he breaks away from his (also fantastic) frantic garage rock, channeling that energy into a more cohesive, band-based release. And finally, Twins builds onSlaughterhouse and keeps charging forward.

Mac DeMarco – 2 – After the demise of Makeout Videotape, it was nice to see frontman Mac DeMarco start a solo project. Luckily, his tongue-in-cheek debut release Rock And Roll Nightclub was picked up by Captured Tracks, because it allowed him to put out 2. Still maintaining his piss-taking attitude, his second effort is something the listener can take a bit more seriously. At least it seems like Mac is.

King Tuff – S/T – Catchier-than-shit pop-punk-rock.

Tame Impala – Lonerism – Probably my favourite album of the year, these dudes from Perth, Australia really nailed it with Lonerism. This album derives its sound more from the 70s than the 60s, as their previous album Innerspeaker did, but succeeds in combining Todd Rundgren-y pop, rock and psychedelia to create something worth listening to on repeat. Also, check out Beard Wives Denim by Pond, a sort of sister-band to Tame Impala. Pond’s sound is a bit groovier/funkier, while maintaining that similar tunnel-vision guitar sound.

Photo by Michael Raymond Clarke

Toronto-based dreamy shoegazers Beliefs are about to release a single on Toronto boutique label Hand Drawn Dracula, and are getting ready to release their first full-length release since forming in 2010. Saskatoon native Jesse Upton Crowe along with Josh Korody make up the core of Beliefs. They share a love for 90s droners like The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, and these influences are definitely evident in their fuzzed-out guitars and Upton Crowe’s sleepy, reverberated vocals.

CFCR Program Director Jay Allen caught up with Upton Crowe via email to find out what it’s like for a prairie kid making a go of it in Toronto, how the new album is coming along and why cassettes are the way of the future.

CFCR: You’re originally from Saskatoon. How long has it been since you moved to Toronto? Was it a ‘musical move’ originally or for other reasons?

Jesse Upton Crowe: I’ve been living in Toronto since I was 22, which is about five-and-a-half years now. Before coming to Toronto I was living in Vancouver for three years. I moved mainly to find a more populated city to further my hair styling career and to eventually find serious people to work on music with. While Vancouver was bigger than Saskatoon, I found it harder to find motivated people to work with musically at the time so I left for the even bigger Toronto. Within two weeks of living here I was trying out for bands and meeting musicians left right and center. It was very obvious right off the bat that Toronto was an intensely musical city where no matter what style you wanted to play, there were people to play with and people waiting to watch you do it.

CFCR: Did you find Toronto easier or more difficult to crack into the music community than Saskatoon?

JUC: It’s hard to compare my experiences with in the music scene of both of these cities as I was at a very different point in my life living in Saskatoon. I’ve always found Saskatoon very, very supportive, but it felt like there was a bit of a glass ceiling. It’s not that bands in Saskatoon didn’t want to operate on a big scale, but it’s incredibly difficult to do so when the closest major cites are all more than five hours away. Within itself, everyone was always amazing and some of my absolute biggest influences are still making music in Saskatoon. If it weren’t for people like Chad Munson and Chris Laramee, I likely would have terrible music taste, but I personally find it easier to work in a central hub where people are always touring in and out of. I find the challenge of breaking into such a big scene invigorating and exciting.

CFCR: How did Beliefs get started? I read something about a chance meeting at a party, but did something click where you said ‘Let’s make a band’ or did it just sort of happen?

JUC: Josh Korody and I met at bassist Pat McCormack’s birthday party a couple of years ago. It’s true that something just clicked. Josh was new to the city and was looking for the right people to start a band who shared the same love for shoegaze and early 90s music as he did and I was coming off of the break up of my last dreampop band Heaven, so the pairing was natural. We started writing really quickly after that. The band has gone through a few ling up changes as well but everyone has left on good terms, people in Toronto just play in a million bands.

CFCR: You’ve gotten some pretty high-profile opening-slot opportunities (A Place To Bury Strangers, The Men, Disappears, Moon Duo, etc). Is that a product of living in a market like Toronto or is it tougher to get good gigs like those because there is more competition?

JUC: While there are more great gigs rolling through a city like Toronto, there is heavy competition. That being said, there are also so many great shows going on at once, that I think bands get paired accordingly. You have to work hard to have the right promoters see your band play and build trust and confidence with them in order to secure some of the more sought after spots.

CFCR: You have a new cassingle coming out on Hand Drawn Dracula. Is this your first foray into this new/old world of cassette-dom? Whose idea was that? More and more bands are releasing cassettes. Are they the way of the future?

JUC: The cassette has become a really accessible and affordable way for bands to put of a small run of something physical so that they aren’t sinking 1000s of dollars in 7-inch singles or falling solely into the digital world. They are something tangible, a keepsake, something for people to remember you by rather than just a download code.

CFCR: How is the full-length release coming along?

JUC: We actually just finished our first album. It’s a record that Josh and I wrote quickly and seamlessly through the first year of being a band. We recorded in three sessions at two different studios with Josh producing and engineering for the most part. It’s dear to us because it’s all of our first thoughts and ideas, in fact the first song I ever wrote on guitar is “Gallowsbird,” the last song on the record. The record will come out on Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada, No Pain In Pop in the UK and Manimal Vinyl in the US in early 2013. We are currently writing our second record now and are very excited.

CFCR: Do you have touring plans after the record is finished? Would you be keen to come through Saskatoon? Does a hometown show make you feel excited or anxious?

JUC: Touring plans are always up in the air until they are completely locked down. We’re looking at the earlier part of our year being pretty North America focused. We are hoping to head to Austin for South By South West in March and tour around the US then. Hopefully we get some cool Canadian dates after that. I’ve always wanted to come back and play Saskatoon. I’m really looking forward to visiting and playing for people who are really important to me. That said, Canada is a big, scary country to tour. We need to do it when the timing is right and likely under the wing of a bigger band so we can make the best of it and all keep our sanity on those long drives. I’m really looking forward to showing the boys in my band where I grew up and making them eat at Amigos. I’ll only come back if we can play with Golden Smoke. 

CFCR: Anything you’d like to add?

JUC: Hi Mom.

You can check out one of the tracks from Beliefs’ upcoming Untitled single. The track, entitled “Violets” joins “Catch My Breath” on the cassette, and will be available very soon on Hand Drawn Dracula here (you can already download a digital copy of “Violets”):

Hot off their recent appearance at Pop Montreal this fall, Saskatoon lo-fi bedroom popsters Caves are preparing to release a new EP on local record/tape label Leaning Trees. The EP, entitled Secretly Dead is comprised of five tracks and will see physical release on a limited-edition green cassette tape. Though the project has become a full-band unit, these are tracks recorded by Caves mastermind Peter Grier in his parent’s bedroom back in 2010 but are just now seeing the light of day. Grier used only analog methods, recording the EP to a cassette 4-track without any computers, synthesizers or samplers.

Leaning Trees has made the first edition of 50 hand-stamped professionally duplicated cassettes available for pre-order, so visit them here to get your copy. To check out the songs before you buy, see them all streaming via Leaning Trees’ Soundcloud: