Winnipeg Buzz: Festivalmania Running Wild

With my visit to Toronto over, I come to you from Winnipeg this week in a mildly saddened state. However, I am full of news of summer festivals, record releases and award shows!

The Jazz Winnipeg festival starts up tonight (June 14) and runs until June 22. Perhaps the largest Jazz Fest yet, this year's celebrations include a vast variety of acts, including The Herbaliser, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Ivana Santilli and Bullfrog f/ Kid Koala w/ Parkside Jones. The site www.jazzwinnipeg.com has all of the event info.

The Winnipeg Folk Festival is celebrating its 28th year as one of North America's largest genre-specific outdoor festivals with a stellar mainstage line-up that includes Ron Sexsmith, Oscar Lopez, Mason Jennings and Ellen McIlwaine. All the action happens July 11-14 at its usual location in Birds Hill Park.

While promoters still seem to be wanting to keep the 2nd annual Get Together Downtown festival under semi-wraps, we do know that Remy Shand and Los Lobos are among the headliners who have already been announced for the day-long event. Local favourites The Weakerthans will also play a set; warming the stage for them will be Endearing artists Paper Moon. The brainchild of Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray, last year's premiere event saw the majority of downtown Winnipeg's main strip (Portage Avenue) closed off to traffic and overrun with thousands of people out to soak up sunshine and take in some primo bands. While this year might not be hosting the same types of musical talent that injected a fury of excitement into the youth of the city (coughSloancough), the broadened eclectic line-up is sure to widen the appeal to more citizens of our city. That social commentary being delivered, let's move on to our last event, shall we?

As ChartAttack told you recently, Winnipeg's turn to host Prairie Music Week has once again arrived. Four years have passed since my city hosted the first ever PMW and this year Winnipeg is set to do it up bigger and better than ever. For three nights in September, our city will be mad with talent from the three prairie provinces. The festival shows begin on September 26 and continue for three nights before the whole 'do is capped off by the Prairie Music Awards on September 29. Let's hope the awards committee decides to skip over The Guess Who this time, thereby saving them the trouble of waddling into the event mere moments before being called up on stage to accept some sort of achievement award.

Anyway, band line-ups have yet to be announced and organizers are still accepting submissions for nominations and applications for the festival. Now pay attention, this is important for those wheat-dwelling folk who are all gung-ho to make their way to Winnipeg in September: showcase applications and nominations for the Prairie Music Awards MUST be in by June 28. All of the necessary information is on the website at www.prairiemusicweek.com. Good luck!

Onto some other business now... the aforementioned Paper Moon will be releasing their first full-length album in Winnipeg June 14 at the Pyramid. One Thousand Reasons To Stay... One Reason To Leave doubles as not only a nice summer listen, but a nice summer activity as well. My eyes will get plenty of exercise watching it burn up the charts! (bring on the cheese, KD).

Hey! Peanuts & Corn Records has more news for us! It seems McEnroe and Pip Skid, two of P&C's veterans, are about a week's worth of sleeps away from heading out East to pull off a little touring action. Go out and support these awesome hip-hop artists! Please and thank you:

June 20 Charlottetown, PEI @ TBA
June 21 St. John, NB @ The Guild
June 22 Halifax, NS @ The Marquis
June 23 Halifax, NS @ The Pavillion - all ages
June 25 Ottawa, ON @ Babylon
June 26 Guelph, ON @ Ed Video
June 27 Toronto, ON @ Hooch
June 28 London, ON @ The Embassy
June 29 Montreal, QC @ TBA
June 30 Quebec City, QC @ TBA

And lastly, from the "what?!" file, comes a kooked out website that was recently created (anonymously, it seems... hmm) in an effort to convince Darryl Shave not to leave Girls. You may remember the guitarist had planned to depart from the other lads in Girls after the band's NXNE festival birth. Well, the show went well and now someone is intent on making the guy stay. Take a look at the much-needed mop-top here: http://savedarrylshave.tripod.com.

Bingo Bango,

Kari D.

Kari D keeps us in the know about all things 'Peg. Her column appears bi-weekly.