Former local musician wins Newfoundland music awards

A Prince George expatriate just got honoured in Newfoundland and Labrador for doing what they do best in that province.

Josh Sandu took home the hardware for that other thing they rock on The Rock. He is one half of the duo Rube & Rake who were shortlisted in two categories at the MusicNL extravaganza. They were up for Folk/Roots Artist of the Year and Rising Star of the Year, and they won both categories.

Rube & Rake is a collaboration between Sandu and Andrew Laite.

Their duo is now five years old, based in St. John’s.

“Often described as a darker Simon & Garfunkel, Rube & Rake’s performances engage audiences with a mixture of stories, intricate guitar work, and rich vocal harmonies,” said MusicNL in their description of the act. “Their music is an exercise in creating something beyond the sum of their parts.”

It’s a complex calculation indeed, when you consider Rube & Rake won the Folk/Roots category up against some of the genre’s best-known artists like Rum Ragged (one of the Coldsnap headliners last year) and The Ennis Sisters (they have three CCMA nominations, a collaboration with The Chieftains and a Juno Award under their belt), Dave Whitty, Quote The Raven and LeRiche.

Sandu was the only one involved in these collective acts who wasn’t raised on the east coast.

In the category dedicated to new talent, Rube & Rake was nominated with LeRiche again, and also Property,Carolina East, Mallory Johnson, and Weary. The Rube & Rake debut album Back And Forth, which includes some artistic musings on the Canadian distances, prevailed for the trophy.

Sandu moved to Newfoundland & Labrador to attend the music program at Memorial University. He stayed and descended into the famously ample music scene in that Atlantic province.

“I feel like a Newfoundlander now,” he said. “I don’t really know what that means in actual terms, but I know I say car and bar a bit different now – caaerrr and baaerrr. I have some cod in the fridge, so that changed.”

The Rube & Rake album speaks at least subliminally to that transition from Canada west to Canada east.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but when you look back when its done, homesickness was a subtle common thread, and I was fortunate that it was a strong enough emotion and I had the tools and the good company to be able to talk about it,”

he said.

The public reaction has been strong and positive. Rube & Rake is so well known on the island that they’ve had to carefully ration their concert appearances so as not to saturate their own home market. Instead, the two of them gathered three friends into a fivepiece cover band to play whenever and wherever possible in order to keep their musical muscles exercised.

Winning these two awards means their profile is going to grow, which Sandu hopes will translate into more nationwide performing. They have a goal of playing at least 150 concerts per year. Getting the attention of tour promoters and festival organizers is helped by having these two trophies as affirmation.

The awards event was held in the picturesque outport town of Twillingate, about five hours’ drive from St. John’s, located about in the mid-point of The Rock’s east coast. Sandu said the event was worth it just to spend time in that beguiling place and hearing their band’s name called out twice was admittedly surreal, but true to the nature of Newfoundland & Labrador, the best part of all was the sociability of it.

“The most fun was hanging out with all these other musicians,” he said. “You’re always doing your own thing, and you sometimes cross paths, but this was a time when everyone got to be together and hang out.”

Some of them even knew where he was from.

“I’ve met a number of Newfoundland acts that have played in Prince George over the years,” Sandu said. “One guy told me he got punched in the face by a girl at a bar in Prince George. I told him yeah, that was my sister.”

He hasn’t been back to perform for his sister, family and friends since 2014. Rube & Rake have a followup album in the early stages of preparation, but he hopes to be back this Christmas to at least perform a bit on his own to stoke those home fires again.

Perhaps some of those feelings of hometown affinity will marinate into the next album as they so successfully did on their awardwinning debut.