All in a Day Songwriters Night hosted by Alan Neal

In Person Music

Thursday

Apr , 2015

8:00pm

Eastern

Christ Church Cathedral

414 Sparks Street • Ottawa

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All in a Day Songwriters Night hosted by Alan Neal

RANDOM PLAY IS BACK!

What does Alan Neal have planned for Writersfest on April 23rd? Well, we know that somehow a cartoon from the 1970's is involved. And the following amazing songwriters will be on stage:

CRAIG FINN of THE HOLD STEADY
ELLIOTT BROOD
ROSE COUSINS
BONJAY
ISKWE
our house band, THE SPLIT

..and a few surprise guests!

So what will they be doing?
Well, it's the latest edition of RANDOM PLAY: Yet another Songwriters Event put together for the Festival by Alan Neal.

See, back in 2013, Alan Neal, host of ALL IN A DAY on CBC Radio One, took on an interesting challenge for Writersfest: He took his i-pod, of over 13,000 songs of folk, pop, rap, jazz, rock, soul, showtunes and superhero children's stories...

And put it on "random".

He picked the first 10 songs that came up and made it his job to find out everything that he can about how those songs came to be... and analyze what messages are in the music.
And so it was we witnessed Jim Bryson, Jenn Grant, The Acorn, Measha Brueggergosman, Kellylee Evans, Hilotrons and the Souljazz Orchestra all on stage with wild interpretations of not only their own songs but covers that no one had expected.
(Jenn Grant performing a song from the Dallas TV soundtrack, The Acorn performing Michael Penn, and then that bizarre Aquaman radio play with Measha as Hydro The Dehydrator... we will never forget any of it.)

Well, two years later, Alan's doing it again... (and his iPod is up to 15,000 songs) and he has assembled another all-star cast of musicians and is doing an insane amount of musical detective work to track down the stories behind the songs.

It's an evening that's conversation mixed with storytelling, a blend of delving into the musical past with a cavalcade of musical talent from the present.

Tickets are being given away on ALL IN A DAY (3-6 on CBC Radio One 91.5FM) this week.

But we suggest getting tickets NOW!

Fanmail we received in 2013 about Alan's last Random Play event:

"This is not typically my genre of literary interest - I was transformed...a truly memorable evening of entertainment and literary revelation."

"Tickets could have been $300 apiece - what an evening. I have watched musical theatre in London, Paris, New York, Stratford in England and other places and I have never seen anything like what you did last night. Truly amazing"

"It was intimate and casual and hilarious, and then, lulled into this sense of comfort by the intimacy and casualness and hilarity, you're hit by these stunning musical performances... Seriously, one of the best nights out I've had in a while."

The Authors

Alan Neal

Alan Neal is host of Ottawa's favourite drive home show All in a Day, on CBC Radio One, 91.5 FM. In addition to hosting All in a Day, Alan is now a published author, releasing his first children’s book Ava and the Little Folk in 2012.

Bonjay

Heavy, heavy bass. Static, propulsive rat-a-tat beats. Spacey future soul classics. The sounds of Toronto-based duo Bonjay set your spine a-tingle with basement-rattling tunes and vocals that stand hairs on end. Drawing their name from Spice Island slang for “good god!”, singer Alanna Stuart and multi-instrumentalist Ian “Pho” Swain marry dancehall innovation, twisted indie sentiments and soul hooks. It’s an unlikely mix, but one that makes sense coming from two strong, contrasting personalities in one of the world’s emerging melting pots.

Craig Finn

Craig Finn is frontman of the critically acclaimed group The Hold Steady. The Hold Steady played their first show in 2003. They are entering their second decade as a band, and has been cited as influential by numerous rock acts such as Japandroids, Titus Andronicus, Frank Turner and many others. THS has toured heavily, and has played at least one show in all 50 states.

Elliott Brood

For their fifth album, Elliott Brood wanted to break things. 2008's Mountain Meadows was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize, and the band's last record, Days Into Years, won a 2011 Juno award for roots album of the year. Now was the time to smash the precedents, break the mould. To withdraw to a farmhouse in Bath, Ontario, hammering out nine songs in two weeks. For the first time, Elliott Brood decided to work with an outside producer: Ian Blurton, who has helped make roaring records for the Weakerthans, Skydiggers and Cursed. And for the first time, the group's two songwriters decided to mine the bare histories of their own lives: penning verses about the ends of relationships and the tests of adulthood, long drives, childhood retreating in a rear-view mirror. "Work and Love will make a man out of you," the Constantines sang; and so here is Elliott Brood's Work and Love, their most personal album to date, the sound of a grown-up band searching their hearts for all they've lost and gained. Casey Laforet, Mark Sasso and Stephen Pitkin recorded Work and Love in the cold spring of 2014, as the ice was coming apart on Lake Ontario. They deserted their families and holed up in the Tragically Hip's Bathhouse studio, scarcely emerging - waking and playing and playing and playing, one song a day. The magic usually happened some time after midnight, when they were "just tired enough". Blurton would come out and lure them into a new place: a different, even truer landscape. They called him "the Wizard". Blurton the Wizard and engineer Nyles "the Mad Scientist" Spencer, filling the corners of songs with burred effects and tape loops. Elliott Brood had "played it safe" for four records, they claim: Blurton sharpened their sound, weathered and interrogated it, forced the three musicians to confront their own habits. And it made for a full-length that gestures toward the Hip and the Cons as much as it does to Richard Buckner and Whiskeytown. Adding dimension to select tracks on the album, the band is joined by Aaron Goldtein (City and Colour, Daniel Ramano) on Pedal Steel and John Dinsmore (Kathleen Edwards, Sarah Harmer) on bass (for 'Each Other's Kids). These songs are loud and quiet but mostly loud, and always reaching toward something. First loves, lost loves, fuck-ups and young men's just desserts. Laforet has called Work and Love a "lament for youth", but it's also a eulogy for the moments that came just after, on the doorstep of manhood. It's music of remembered abandon, new burdens, and those nights, years ago, when the moonlit fields seemed to go on forever. It's Elliott Brood at their sheerest, facing forward and backward at the same time. Formed in 2002, Elliott Brood (the name, a bastardized homage to the fem fatal character in the 1984 Baseball film 'The Natural') united teenage pals Sasso and Laforet over their grown-up love for Neil Young, the Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Pitkin was an accidental miracle: he fell into the group after working sound at one of their earliest concerts, offering to record their first EP. Tin Type was a college radio hit and soon this compact trio was making some big noise. Across five subsequent albums, sharing vocals and trading instruments - each of the band-members seems to play everything - Elliott Brood have become one of the premier acts in Canadian roots music. Work and Love is out October 21st, 2014 on Paper Bag Records.

IsKwe

Called ‘One to Watch’ by The Grid TO and one of the ‘Top 10 Canadian MusiciansYou Need to Know’ by CBC Music, Iskwé’s cross-cultural aesthetic is as strikingas her tripped-out blend of soul. The name Iskwé (pronounced iss-kway) means‘woman’ in her native language. Iskwé’s debut album weaves together her Irishand Cree/Dene roots with hip hop breakbeats, left-field R&B, and traces of pianopop (Think Esthero meets Alicia Keys). The album incorporates an amalgam of sonic techniques that embrace mood andatmosphere while echoing traditional pop codes. Vintage record crackles anddowntempo undercurrents on “So Over You” bring to mind the trip hop ambianceof Portishead, seguing into the hip-swaying beats of “Recycle,” featuring a cameofrom M1 of Dead Prez, and shaped around Iskwé’s smooth-as-butter vocals.The pop/soul diva tries her hand at electronica on “Wandering,” a cut that swirlsinto club-banging territory with its massive dubstep drops. “One Better” is a call-to-action break-up anthem sung with the pain of pastexperience, while the equally empowering closing track “Slack Jaw, whichfeatures crawling electro-fused basslines and scorching guitars courtesy of DonnaGrantis (current guitarist for Prince), Iskwé can’t hide her apathy to try and fitinto the current pop landscape with lines, such as “I ain’t got no energy to make itas a pop/rock star. Even though I’ve been dreaming that I’d go far.”“Slack Jaw” was also recently listed as #1 on the National Aboriginal MusicCountdown, and was voted regional finalist of CBC Music’s Searchlightcompetition. The Winnipeg-bred, Toronto-based singer-songwriter, who has also had stints inLA and NYC, has performed alongside Motown greats The Funk Brothers andelectronic DJ crew A Tribe Called Red. Singing about her struggle to fitinto/break away from Western archetypes, Iskwé’s connection to her roots andtraditions is an important part of her artistic vision. With her debut effort, Iskwécarves out her own musical identity, bridging her modern and cultural influenceswhile challenging the current mold.………………………………………."Iskwé’s self-titled debut album is as beautifully written as it is executed. Hervoice is both wonderfully smooth and commanding of attention. The smokefilledjazz-room feel is a breath of fresh air in a stagnant Canadian pop scene" -Dee Jay NDN, A Tribe Called Red." “Empowerment R&B and diva-in-the-making soul-pop swoops, from one of thecoolest looking women in Canadian music. Ke$ha only wishes she could pull offthis style.” – Andrea Warner, CBC Music “Of Cree and Irish descent, Iskwé’s soulful, powerful vocals hit a classic tone inthe vein of Shirley Bassey or Amy Winehouse. Here, they’re complimented 2014-style by R&B and trip-hop beats.” – Grant Lawrence, CBC Music

Rose Cousins

The voice of Rose Cousins is unmistakable. Originally from Prince Edward Island, she lives in Halifax. She has released three albums We Have Made A Spark (2012), The Send Off (2009) produced by Luke Doucet, and If You Were For Me (2006) produced by CBC in Halifax, as well as singles and recordings in collaboration with artists across Canada, the US, Ireland, Australia and beyond. She has garnered awards including the JUNO for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year, 2 Canadian Folk Music Awards for Best Contemporary Singer, 6 East Coast Music Awards, 3 Nova Scotia Music Awards, 3 PEI Music Awards, and a Polaris Prize long list nomination. In America, We Have Made A Spark was named to NPR’s Top 10 Americana & Folk Albums of 2012, and recognized by USA Today, Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Folk Alley, Sirius XM, WFUV, WXPN and other media outlets. The spirit of collaboration is in everything Cousins does. Her firm roots in two vibrant music communities (Eastern Canada and Boston Massachusetts) fuel her music with an evolving cast of talented fellow artists. At any show, anywhere Cousins travels, recruits from the local music scene appear with her on stage, be they emerging or well known. CBC debuted her short film IF I SHOULD FALL BEHIND about the community in Boston where her album We Have Made A Spark was made ( rosecousins.com/film ). Equally unmistakable is the devastating emotions her music evokes. Her songs have appeared in climatic scenes in television shows including Greys Anatomy, Rookie Blue, Heartland, Hope for Wildlife and Drop Dead Diva.

The Split

For many of us, soul music is a fondness we just can’t shake, and finding “new” soul music often means digging deep into the crates for something fresh -- if you’ve found yourself in this situation, might we recommend checking out THE SPLIT (www.thesplitsoulmusic.com). For the 7-piece ensemble homegrown in Canada’s capital, new life is breathed into the soulful sound you’ve been yearning for by stark ingenuity. The band’s break-out project Can’t Get Enough is energetically infused with guitar parts, horns and bass reminiscent of 60’s soul rock and 70’s soul funk, and features dreamy synth sequences that render its sound euphoric and entirely distinct.THE SPLIT's original songs are both vivacious dance tunes as much as they are melancholic reflections on life and love. Lead singer Matt Chaffey’s smoky timbre elicits memories of Chess Records’ golden era, while poignantly expressing thoughts of loss, stress, heartbreak, and starting over. In sum, if you’ve been searching for a sound that reflects and distinctly re-imagines the best of soul music, look no further than THE SPLIT.? Working with the talented and experienced Ken Friesen (MonkeyJunk, The Tragically Hip, Great Big Sea et al.) and Phillip Victor Bova (Feist, Bahamas, Hilotrons et al.), THE SPLIT's debut EP Can’t Get Enough combines the mind-blowing vocals of frontman Matthew Chaffey, hard-hitting bass lines, and incredible horn tracks laid down by the legendary Texas Horns (Austin, TX). Can't Get Enough was released in March 2014 under Label Records (Ottawa, Canada; www.labelrecords.ca).