Barber Shop Podcast

The guys in RFU have been on this show a couple of times before, their story and legitimate claim to groove rock supremacy well established in the years covering that time span. This time, the magical third appearance, has the honor of showcasing the band in a rare stripped down acoustic version for only the second time ever, but also heralds the release of their latest CD Casa del Diablo as a full length, full bore record of monumental riffs and big league vocals riding on a powder keg beat. When you have the right formula, it's only a matter of time before the world beats a path to your door and Radio Free Universe has made that secret blend of rock and roll a standard that they are willing to fight for. This fine summer night we welcomed George, Marcus and Ashton (sans Ryan) to the studio to do what we do best. Never short on insight and opinion, George is as honest and passionate about discourse and discussion as he is about his songs. Marcus is as spot on as ever providing the ideal foil and Ashton makes

Like it or not, music is art. Some is fine art, some street, but in the end it is absolutely the product of the fertile mind and busy hands of an artist. Cory Mercer is the kind of guest we dig at the Barber Shop, possessing both the steady eye, deep thoughts and properly good songs. Throw in a solid, soulful voice and a bonafide degree in chops, Mercer stands comfortably in the genre, just hip enough to not be hip but cool, comfortable in his own shoes - if he's even wearing them. This show in particular came about because our scheduled guest had to back out and Cory was totally into it. - and he got the slot. Undeterred that he had no current recorded material, the short-notice impetus had him book studio time and record three beauties just for our viewers and listeners. Making it happen on a Wednesday night Gary takes control of the show for the first time while Ryan oversees the great hour of music and talk on this edition of Barber Shop Podcast.

When it comes to music, the Golden Horseshoe is more than adequate to describe the vast riches that fill the land along Lake Ontario from Oshawa to Niagara. Sure, we here in Hamilton can clearly see that geographically speaking, we are the gem in the middle, it is our big, shiny sister city of Toronto that has always been the rich pretty one. Many Canadian artists move to the Big Smoke, and many homegrown sons and daughters cut their teeth and thrive in that hottest of markets. The Kat Kings are one of these wonderful groups, a veteran crew of positive energy who play a form of dance friendly roots called jump blues. The infectious riffology and period pageantry hark to an era of early freedoms and lyrical entendre that somehow never really goes out of style. Kevin McQuade lays down the sound of Memphis ghosts and belts out some great snappy numbers that swell and ride to a big finish like sweaty teenagers going to town at the drive in. The rhythm section of Rob Clark on bass and Adam David on bass keep thi

We are all the sum of our parts, a product of genetics and environment. Nobody gets here alone, and the brief time we shine on this earth is finite, the marks we leave are testament to our worldly influences. Brian Andreas is such a wonderful amalgamation such heady influences born of his era, his fathers era and the random happen-chances that dot our collective landscapes. The music seemed at once familiar, giving voice to the words that would follow. Exploring possibilities and opportunities saw a few good mates and a few more lessons about the life in music he was now seeing appear. Being blessed with a voice that can carry a note to the mountaintop and soar above the electric cacophony was his ticket - the rare bird whose words become instrumental music in its own right. Sewing these seeds lead to the band ANDREAS, a five piece that were as big and bold as the space would allow, the pageantry served accordingly. Today ANDREAS consists of Brian and the sweet keys of fellow alum Jenny Lockwood, providing

The journey from Northern Saskatchewan to the big smoke has been as interesting and enlightening as Jacqui Brown herself. Born with the spirit to perform and the unwavering support of her family, she was singing early and often with the ability that makes its case immediately when you hear it. Finding her place belting out all the great tunes of rock, metal and blues of the heroes and heroines, her star shone bright enough for her to have her pick of bands with the discipline and professionalism required to truly become schooled in rock science. Years of learning her strengths and the sage lessons required to advance in this game. Touring Western Canada meant putting the countless hours and untold miles to good use, sharpening the point on what had become a very effective weapon in the war against apathy. There eventually came a time where the calling to create from a deeply personal place grew too strong to ignore and at the same time her senses were telling her to head east - to the musical milieux that is

It was a bittersweet Wednesday last year when yours truly was nursing a broken heart and flagging hopes when we first featured Will Gillespie on our little show. The north Ontario troubadour delivered a sage and steady presence along with some beautifully reflective sings that hinted at the artist behind them. Gently relentless in his pursuits, both that episode and the year since have seen Gillespie continue to evolve, continue to develop his craft and his fan base at the same time. Being an artist comfortable in many genres means you get to play with a lot of different kids and have more tools at your disposal to flesh out an idea. The shapes and colours of his thoughts and memories became the groundwork for "Kings Of Summer" a bona fide snapshot from a bygone time in history, a personal postcard from the past when youth and beauty ran the dirt roads and played all night for awhile. Eschewing the plaintive chord progressions and thought rendering word play, "Kings Of Summer" hits the nail on the head with

You can take the boy from The Hammer but that patina never fades once it's in your blood. Jay Pollmann was born in Steel City to a musical family, the healing and community aspects of the arts re-enforced on a daily basis. Learning by ear and hungry for knowledge, his teen years and young adulthood featuring all the ingredients necessary to build a career in music. Joining forces with like minded fellows out Cayuga way to make original music is always a pretty heavy commitment - doubly so when rural considerations are factored in. Forming the group GRUVE with Brad Jackson and Eric Pollmann in 2014, enjoying the rocking ride the entire trip. The writer in Jay continued to work and churn out more and more music that had its own unique voice, his voice. Dedicated to forging something solid, the wise man continued to wood-shed and play his compositions out, building a story that was destined to become his new record, destined to be the sharpest point on his favorite pencil - destined for another solid brick in

Laura Cole has the world by the tail these days - and rightfully so. Riding the commercial and critical success if 2014's "Dirty Cheat", Cole has parlayed her success into a bona fide career in music. Many awards and accolades, guest appearances and tours later, she is very much in the cat bird seat, a Cheshire cat's smile spread across the most beautiful of faces. Emerging as predator and not prey in this business means making your own decisions about what you do, when you do them and with who. This business is a mine field for a pretty thing, and one develops a strong sense on who is predatory and who is legitimate in their reverence. When a total stranger from England by the name of Harvey Summers called her up and asked her to make a music baby - well, you could excuse her and beau/bassist Chris Chaircos for bring somewhat skeptical. Surprisingly enough, the dude checked out as completely legit and so they flew to the great island and hopped right into bed - musically speaking. 7 songs in 7 days made H

There exists both a fine line and a huge chasm between The Hammer and Hogtown, the grit and the polish, the slick and the greasy. Musically speaking, both Hamilton and Toronto share so many common roots and spurs born from the TH&B railroad of yesteryear. So many great blues, jazz, country, soul and rock n roll icons visited the clubs and venues between Stoney Creek and Streetsville that the Golden Horseshoe became an incubator for some truly great home-grown music with these genetic markers. Growing up in Southern Ontario, guys like Jason Sewerynem saw first hand the mojo that filtered down to the British Invasion icons and traced back the lineage to arrive in Toronto fronting a completely honest evolution for the blues in the form of The Jim Dan Dee band. Now, we don't get cats from T.O. Calling us up to book an appointment very often, so after insuring it wasn't a trick, we looked up these guys and were duly impressed by the sheer professionalism of this unit - sharply dressed and tight as a drum head. T

Michael A.M. is a fave around The Barber Shop, a rare breed who can hang with the old dudes as easily as the young turks and tattooed poseurs you find all around the scene. Born of good Polish stock and Canadian street schooling, the role of the cock-sure introvert drafted by music began to develop. Playing bass for the highly acclaimed 40 Sons led to many gigs and opportunities to prove his mettle in all genres. A while back he began fleshing out a series of songs that paint a very artistic cornucopia of a tapestry, the originality and burgeoning songwriter was now fronting. Using some great friends and musicians to craft his debut here at BOXO Studio, the project FÜNYBOHT is an homage to, but not limited to, an inside wink that everyone can get. He's brutally and hilariously honest and a hell of a player in a world of insipid music, he's a worthy ambassador of millennial music for the century. Going solo tonight, the heart of this sonic voyage is helming a great trip on the FÜNYBOHT express. We couldn'

Blues music is remarkable because it's humble roots in the call-and-response cotton fields have grown to an omnipresent worldwide phenomenon. From the wood and steel basics to the classic rock, metal, roots and kid pop you hear on AM radio, the patterns and modes are everywhere. We've had a bunch of good ones on this show over the years, and no one ever complains about what it does or doesn't sound like, for every blues player is putting his own stamp on the tradition. Playing and paying homage to the greats while still writing original music is what Julian Pail Band do so very well. Take some old friends reacquainted with and mix in some Texas boogie ala' Stevie, smooth blues like Robert Cray and the Banasamanian groove and you're getting there. The trio of Julian Paul, Kevin Voutour, and Armand Faguy show the chops and discipline that years together produce, yet still have the youthful enthusiasm and unity of long trusted friends that you don't often see. They play a style that people can relate to, provid

Eclectic. Whenever I see that word I'm filled with equal parts of anticipation and dread. To me, it means an art form based on a widely accepted model that has been heavily modified with the uniquely personal in such a way to attract as many converts as it manages to alienate the comfortable. This I believe, is the case with C.A. Smith. Growing up with a dad who worked at a top 40 radio station, C.A. was surrounded by the trappings and the wrappings of the business. Ever present in his burgeoning musicality was the formula for pop perfection. As healthy as you want to make it, including some fat and sugar in the mix never hurts when it comes to winning over the crowd. Because he was and is a soulful individual with a genuine concern for his fellow man, the power contained in the simplest of tunes made his style come to the surface with a surprising control and confidence, assured and unhurried. Beginning his mid career journey with the well respected inde band GORP as a drummer who wrote, C.A. Smith began

There are few originals in the arts as the art form almost always supersedes the individual. I'm music, the early influences that shape a performer are themselves an amalgamation of the ethos personified in the ones who went before. Jake Heibert was and is one of those special cases where the ear worms and status quo of his formative years were a sonic jambalaya of punk, ska, blues, rock and new wave music that challenged the status-quo of the day in the most frenetic manner. Determined to make a passion into a calling, Jake set about learning the lessons and climbing the steps necessary to turn the melodies in his head and the stories he was writing into something unique but familiar, something personal yet universal. Dedicated and focused, Jake sought out the music teacher who could teach him to play in the style and with the aplomb he required, nothing less would do. Digging deep into the mystic musical history book, his love of early New Orleans Jazz and the children it fostered became his personal road

On this very night the most famous female singer in the world was performing her sleight-of-ear in Toronto and Ivy James couldn't care less. Oddly at odds with the stupid and banal, this Oakville chanteuse has more rings on her tree of life than seems possible, an artist building her stage brick by brick with no blueprint in sight. In an era of likes and follows where talent show results and raw nepotism are often mistaken for talent, she is the real deal. For those of you new to this forum, the "real deal" means believable. Honest, committed songwriting with crafted word play, crisp, impassioned playing with a definite groove and a voice both fierce and fragile add up to something wonderfully refreshing indeed. An early knack for rhythm and melody served Ivy James well, and the shiny sneer of mid/late 90's pop punk sparked the real fire in her to perform and soon she was forming the relationships that led to the creative collaborations - that led to the band - that allowed the simmering creativity escape

When it's metal you want, Steel City has a shitload of it - all kinds of it. This town likes it rough, tough and real, no quarter either taken or given. Within the genre, the brand that sells best around here has its roots in the classics, the masters and the halcyon days when Seattle was only known for coffee and hippies. SINBURN has worked the formula of a cocksure frontman in Squigg, the prerequisite axe ripper played by Brad Foisy, the metal money thunder bass courtesy Dave Green and a hard driving, ass kicking drummer by Billy Spencer to perfection - a very real shout out to all that is proper in the hard rock universe. Working hard on arrangements that swirl and build to frenzies, sweat soaked and wild eyed, anthemic rockers with hooks galore, the nuance of the ballad, the infectious drive of SINBURN have made them many fans, loyal fans who like what they see and love what they hear. Recording some of the best for a record at Junction and BOXO Studios has yielded a great record that hits all the spots s

Sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the good, new, original music out there these days, what with all the choices we can find on the web. Like it or not, the Internet is today's record store, library and fan mag all in one. If you want to get noticed, want to get heard, want to break out to the world, you've got to have something really cool and the ability to share it with us. Skater punks and video gamers in their youth, the sage wisdom of time showed these boys that the natural abilities could easily be transferred to instruments and the collective sound that began to emerge marked this foursome as one of the ones to watch. Justin Ross had the songs and the gumption and sorted out the missing pieces with Nic Kozel on lead guitar, converted Andrew Parkinson to a drummer and finally got the right bass player in Lorant Polya to create The Bandicoots, a name that means as much or as little as you want it to. Together the mad fusion of rock, jazz, blues and good old Guitar Hero gelled into carefully craf

Music can be in the background, it can serve as a fanfare - or it can be front and centre as is the case with Colour Film, the Kodachrome vignette from Matthew de Zote that is at once both a vehicle and an identity. Drawn from the spools of cellulose that captured the ghosts of the past in a familial landscape with songs rich in poignant imagery. Long a darling of the thinking-mans songwriting school, de Zote has toured extensively and has wasted no time or effort in making the world his stage. Crafting tubes that hark to a traditional time and sensibility, the new world crooner can whisper or murmur a passage rich with history lessons that must be given, open voicing a to a tale both real and surreal. Take a moment and consider the musician, the tone crafter, the sound shaper within the poet. For him, the palate that holds the words can never reach the audience without the canvas, without the brush, without the eye. Likewise, the music needs the hooks and lines a true musical empaths empaths on the tale. Not

Rock and roll is both a fantasy and a vicious game, and it's a long way to the top if you want to do it. Born from the mixture on American culture and music forms, evolving from the gyrations of Elvis to the myriad of styles in the sub-genre. We love to rock here at Barber Shop Podcast and when we heard about a great late April date at The Molson Canadian Theatre at Hamilton Place, well, we had to jump in with all six feet. Brighton Rock was a band hailing from these parts who connected all the dots in the 80's, resplendent in their high hair and spandex attitude - a brilliant hybrid of female-friendly ballads and love songs combined with the driving guitars and drums of the dude army, a mix and match that saw many songs, records, videos and tours - they were indeed young wild and free. So it was a strange and wonderful happen chance meeting between drummers Mark Caverzan and Black n' Red's Jack Rogers that the convergence of the 30 year anniversary of that song, newly remastered and packaged with new mat

We've seen Jo Boudreau a couple of times on the show as the front man for the sweeping opus that was The Monarch Project. Comprising six or seven members, the band served the pageantry and splendor of Boudreau's arrangements well and the interplay spoke to audiences as strongly as the words, each providing a rare glimpse into the creative mind at work. The problem with any mechanism that complex is that one or two wrinkles can lead to the whole thing either crashing or grinding to a halt - and after a couple of productive years and excellent recordings - The Monarch Project ceased to exist. What did not cease to exist - and prosper - was the mind of Jo Boudreau, alive and more awake than ever. Upon meeting a sweet little thing by the name of Sarah Ivy Hardy, Jo was inspired to lend an ear and a hand in her professional progression - and in doing so, saw and heard something very special indeed. Their relationship bore fruit, and the scenic sonic layers and flavours she provided on keyboards, flute and glocke

Every once and awhile we have a show that shines for all the right reasons - and baby, this is one of them. Sarasin has been making heavy metal thunder in the Hammer for 30 years now, a band of brothers steeped in the blackest of sabbaths and bluest of cults. If you wanted to be heard in this town, you'd better be good - and loud - and they were. Now, three decades is a long time and over the years the members changed but the credo did not. Always held high amongst their peers, the band never broke nationally in an analogue world on the precipice of the digital age. As good as it was, the limited venues, labels and opportunities saw them play fewer gigs and saw some extended hiatuses until the death of the heart and soul of the group seemed to spell the last chapter in this saga. Except it wasn't. Final wishes and a blessing to continue meant the last original member, Greg Boileau was on a mission to make Sarasin echo a generation of positive energy with the people and the punch necessary to get the job done