Five acts you must see at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival

If you’re heading to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this weekend, you may find yourself becoming far too comfortable – in the beer gardens. It happens to the best of us. After all, you might have to line up to get back in. And you can hear the music, after all – sort of, at […]

COUNTRY OR FOLK? Corb Lund comfortable in the middle

Corb Lund is writing a new paradigm for country music. Not to put too highfalutin a point on it, but it’s a direction that favours honesty and critical thinking to a level hitherto unseen in the redneck stereotype you hear in most popular country music on the radio today. In a world of polarized politics […]

FESTIVAL SCORECARD: Too many festivals? Not enough festivals!

Edmonton is unique amongst Canadian cities in that we have five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall and festival. Festival season is roughly defined as beginning with The Works Art and Design Festival and Edmonton International Jazz Festival in June, and ending with the Symphony Under the Sky near Labour Day. After that, it’s back to […]

Folk fest sells out in record time, Justin Bieber, too

Stop whatever has replaced presses: The Edmonton Folk Music Festival has sold out. Again. Like anybody didn’t see that coming. “It was crazy,” says producer Terry Wickham, who reports that 1,200 people showed up at the folk fest office to buy tickets in person at 9 p.m. Friday morning, where it’s usually around 400. Online […]

FOLK FEST 2012: Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, Emmylou and more – expect another sell out

The best things in life aren’t available online – like the first tickets to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Last year sold out in two hours, leaving hundreds of disappointed fans. So to make it fair, this year – featuring Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Arrested Development, Corb Lund and many, many more – […]

OBITUARY: Colin Lay a man of many gifts

As Edmonton’s music community remembers the great work of sound engineer Colin Lay, who died at home Monday at the age of 59 after a long battle with ALS, some of his “hidden” talents are coming to light. Musicians who knew him only as the unassuming recording arts instructor at Grant MacEwan University might have […]

FESTIVAL CITY SCORECARD – let’s build a dome over Edmonton

Consider that organizers of Sonic Boom might have actually been HOPING for lousy weather on Sunday, Sept. 4 and you’ll get a sense how ridiculous it’s been for outdoor festivals in Edmonton this summer. Let’s just build a giant dome over the city. It in fact turned out to be a beautiful day while an […]

REVIEW: 2011 Edmonton Folk Music Festival a blast and a gas

Too big? Stop whining! The Edmonton Folk Music Festival isn’t big enough. We won’t be satisfied until they annex a block of Cloverdale and tear down the homes to make room for another stage, until they expand the beer garden all the way into the Dawson Forest, until they extend the event to 1,000 performances […]

DAY ONE: No folk at the folk fest!

Thursday, Aug. 4 at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival: Read about Friday, Aug. 5 here. There was no actual “folk music” at the folk fest on opening night You say: What?! You read right. No. Folk. Now, don’t come back with the obvious “folk can be many things” argument to rationalize that any old sort […]

Rusty Reed’s House of Blues to get facelift, new name

Area blues fans may have noticed that Rusty Reed’s House of Blues is GONE – the namesake of the local harmonica master stricken from the marquee as his beloved blooze can revamps itself as NOLA (as in New Orleans, Louisiana) Creole Kitchen and House of Music. The grand re-opening will be Aug. 25. New owner […]

PREVIEW: A jaunt out with the little people at Folk Fest

Thank goodness Edmonton’s lowbrow summer festivals are out of the way. It’s such dreadful bore watching the rabble wallow in their corndogs and country western music. Ah, but with both the Big Valley Jamboree and Capital Ex behind us, the workers will be too tuckered out to taunt the polite, well-bred citizens attending the Edmonton […]

Folk fest sells out

The folk fest has sold out – in a good way. Weekend passes for the annual Happening on Hill Aug. 4-7 at Gallagher Park are gone. They went in the first two hours after they went on sale today (June 1). It is said demand was so great that the phone lines crashed, the online […]

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