Gouchie gang takes stage Friday night
Every member of Northern Sky has their own solo career. Two of them already have a joined project called Power Duo. Yet all of them have huddled up for an even more powerful music enterprise, where the only limit is the northern sky. Naomi Kavka, Corbin Spensley (the aforementioned Power Duo), Danny Bell, Jeremy Pahl and Amy Blanding (those three all Black Spruce Bog alumni) together form the stellar band that surrounds longtime local music star Kym Gouchie.
Their full synergetic effect glitters on Friday night at the Prince George Playhouse.
Not content to end the collaborations there, the night will also feature two solo performances, one by Marcel Gagnon and one by Saltwater Hank.
“I am still really surprised by all this. I mean, it was a big, big surprise,” said Gouchie about the formation of this all-star alliance.
“It was inspired out of the Heatwave Festival (the summer extravaganza celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary). I had the luck and good fortune of some great backup musicians that show, and we just got talking about if everyone was available, if everyone wanted to get together for more of this, and everybody said yes, so that was rare and felt pretty awesome.”
In past collaboration events in the city, like when popular roots-rock band Black Spruce Bog hosted the First Waltz concert event in 2015, many of these same Northern Sky musicians made it an open secret that they greatly admired the likes of nextlevel performers like Gouchie and Gagnon (Murray Gable and The Pucks were also on that list) so it’s not exactly a sudden revelation. But having admiration is one thing; putting in the effort and sacrifice to coordinate a band is quite a higher thing. Gouchie knows it and she is overwhelmed at these other acts’ gesture.
Gesture might be too weak a word. They have turned Northern Sky into a full scale ensemble project.
They recorded demo tracks with producer Rick Irvine at his Cheslatta Records facility, and this week’s concert is being filmed by a whole-scale crew from 6ixSigma Productions to compose a film.
“As far as we know, this is the first live concert documentary in Prince George history,” said Kavka.
“You always wonder what will really happen when different people say they want to work together on something, but when they make this a priority, it feels super awesome. And we are all good friends anyway, so this is working on so many levels.”
The highly respected Salmon Arm Roots & Blues Festival has already booked them for a future appearance.
A tour on Haida Gwaii is also in formation stages. The production company owned and operated by folk sensation Rae Spoon is also in talks with Gouchie about signing on under that Coax Records label.
Even their name came from the input of larger music forces who caught their drift early. Singer-songwriter Andrea Ramolo of Scarlett Jane was listening in to their conversations in the greenroom back stage at Heatwave, where the official billing was for the generic Kym Gouchie & Friends. Ramolo, impressed by their sound and inspired that it was their first show as a group, threw out a name she felt reflected their style. Northern Sky instantly stuck.
This concert, and everything about it, is born from Danny’s desire to do something for the Indigenous community.
— Kym Gouchie
Bell, a drummer (and other musical talents) for a number of local music projects, is also the city’s busiest impresario. He was thrilled to get called into the Northern Sky family, and Gouchie wouldn’t have considered anyone else after watching Bell’s business ethics putting on previous concerts and arts events.
“This concert, and everything about it, is born from Danny’s desire to do something for the Indigenous community,” said Gouchie, a high profile member of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation on who’s territory Prince George is located.
“He has done so much already for the culture of the Prince George area, and he was super aware about reaching out to the Lheidli community before making any plans, just asking about how to do that. There are a lot of protocols around that kind of thing, a process for it, and by doing that it tells me that Danny is going to go far, in that sense, because he understood he had to be respectful in his dealings.”
Gagnon is also one of the seminal members of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation. Saltwater Hank is a longtime resident but has aboriginal roots from the B.C. north coast.
The event will also include Sabina Dennis doing a traditional Dakelh (the traditional language and cultural term for the people of the broader region) welcome.
“I’m a big fan of Marcel’s music, and obviously a big fan of Kym’s music, and I love that Jeremy (Pahl, aka Saltwater Hank) has a new album out right now so he had the opportunity to join us,” said Bell.
“It really is going to be a very special night.”
The collaboration is so wide ranging and the theme so encompassing of local First Nations talents that they have entitled this event For The People.
Tickets are available online at the Central Interior Tickets website, at Books & Company and Handsome Cabin Boy Tattoo, or at the door if any remain by showtime at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.