WHAT TO LISTEN FOR IN 2018
Upcoming events in Waterloo Region and artists to watch out for
There are a lot of exciting things going on in Waterloo Region’s nightlife be it people to watch, new arts and music festivals, more live music venues or sequels of successful shows.
Show sequels
Singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Rollo has just announced his Great Canadian Singer-Songwriters Volume II on Feb. 2 at The Registry Theatre with first guest, Ariana Gillis.
Marketing and communications guru Alan Quarry has announced Stone Soup Four which will be based on Hearts Beat Hate: Stand Up, Speak Up and Push Back, an inaugural event in September 2017 that featured musicians Joni NehRita, Peter Katz and Mandippal, in an evening dedicated to pro-diversity, antiracism, and anti-bigotry. The show also included guest speakers from the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre, UW Jewish Chaplain Rabbi Moshe Goldman, and Kitchener Centre NDP candidate Laura Mae Lindo. Stone Soup Four — Hearts Beats Hate is coming to Maxwell’s Concerts and Events Saturday, March 24. Proceeds from this show will go the K-W Multicultural Centre and Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region.
Noted singer-songwriter/producer Rob Szabo is bringing his Thursday-night residency back to Rhapsody Barrel Bar beginning in March.
Guitarist Chris Latta is now working on “Deep Tracks 2” — a sequel to “Deep Tracks” — Latta’s set list of all time faves that he likes to play with a host of local musical friends.
Continuing music series and festivals
The Kitchener Public Library, in collaboration with Centre in the Square, had two highly successful shows with Canadian music faves Hawksley Workman, plus Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson of Skydiggers. Look for more of those intimate live get-to-know the artist shows during the coming year.
There were some good new festivals in 2017, including Belmont Village’s daylong music fest Bestival and St. Jacobs cycling/ folk music festival Hold The Line, which celebrated Waterloo Region’s countryside line. Both festivals had successful turnouts and it would be good to see both of them return in 2018.
The Irish Reel Life Festival is another festival that is gaining momentum. The third year of the festival celebrating all things Irish including music, literature, storytelling, film, dancing, beer and whiskey tasting, and Irish cuisine, returns March 10 to18.
For more adventurous listeners, Open Ears returns May 30 to June 3 in conjunction with Kitchener’s biennial art extravaganza, CAFKA.
Other summer festivals including the ever-changing KOI Fest, plus Kitchener City Hall’s vintage motorbike display/outdoor bash Rock and Rumble, and high-octane music fest Ever After is returning to Bingemans in June.
Innovative music venues
Lauren Weinberg, founder of downtown Kitchener’s gallery/ avante performance space Open Sesame says live music concerts will continue this year. Electro space-punksters The Neutral Zone, stoner-thrash metal band Lotek Cruiser, and hardcore collective Demon Skulls perform Jan. 27.
And the gallery’s next art exhibit features the work of noted Canadian printmaker/painter Robert Achtemichuk, with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, Jan. 20.
Regional microbreweries Grand River Brewing, and Descendants Beer and Beverage will continue their weekly live music series. Descendants presents Friday’s Local Live series, and Sounds of Sunday. Both nights features local artists.
Tuesday’s TV trivia nights ranging from “Arrested Development” and “Friends” to “The Simpsons” and “South Park” are also very popular in addition to the brewery’s weekly Music Bingo.
Together We’re Bitter, a.k.a. TWB, has a Sunday afternoon series from 2 to 4 p.m. which has featured many local roots artists on the back of the brewery stage, including Richard Garvey, Blue Lobelia (now just Lobelia) and Vienna D’Amato Hall. In the summer they often open up the back parking lot for larger events.
Upcoming TWB concerts include Onion Honey, Lotus Wright, Anthony Damiao, and Candy Young, now collaborating with noted North American musician/ engineer/producer Robi Banerji who has recently made Kitchener his home.
People to watch for in 2018
Robi Banerji
Robi Banerji has many a story to tell from working with rock icons like Keith Richards to doing sound and actually singing along with his friend, the late actor Harry Dean Stanton, during his time at the legendary Mint Club in Hollywood, Calif., where he also worked with actors/singers Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr.
Banerji recorded many artists as owner/engineer of Toronto’s Reaction Studios in the late ’80s. His clients included The Rheostatics, Big Sugar, The Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo and The Tragically Hip. Thanks to his association with renowned producer and old friend Daniel Lanois, Banerji also worked with clients like Sylvia Tyson and Malcolm Burn.
At Manta Sound ad agency he worked with the late John Candy on his last movie “Canadian Bacon” as well as classic Canadian comedy “SCTV.”
In 1997, Banerji went to L.A. where he worked with the who’s who of stars from The Rolling Stones to Herbie Hancock.
Now he’s back in K-W “reconnecting with and helping local artists in any way that he can.”
That includes building a new home studio for Fog Blues and Brass Band, and old friend/vocalist and band frontman Hills. The band is playing Jan. 6 at Churchill Arms in Waterloo.
Another one of Banerji’s projects includes playing and producing a few songs for Kitchener-
based singer-songwriter/ukulele player Candy Young who plays TWB on Sunday, Jan 7.
“I’ll be doing some sit-ins as usual with people in addition to scouting and helping local artists,” says Banerji.
He is thrilled about another project which involves venerable rock and roll twins Brian and Brent Doerner from the original Helix.
“We are now recording new stuff for them. It’s still a bit rock like,” notes Banerji. “The Doerners are doing some killer material and I’m upping the game for them,” he adds.
“Brent is now flipping out. He is very excited so I’m sure a record is going to pop soon and some gigs. I’d play with them as they were the guys who played WCI (Waterloo Collegiate Institute) when I was in Grade 12. I started (playing music) because of them. Seriously. Full circle is the moral.”
Wayne Bond
Wayne Bond laughs out loud at the thought of trying to remember all of the people he has worked with over the past 20 years.
The British-born, Cambridgebased drummer/engineer/producer was part of three local artists’ independently released debut CDs in 2017 including singer-songwriter debut Corey Walton’s “We’ll Get There” (featuring the late Paul MacLeod), singer/keysmaster Luke Cyrus Hunter’s “Renew” and blues veteran Mike McDonald’s “Play This.”
Bond says he actually played in one of the first teenage blues bands in Kitchener called Rotary Ten.
“We got discovered by (late local blues legend) Mel Brown,” recalls Bond. “We played the blues picnic which became the blues festival and we started getting gigs through that, and then (Toronto’s) Grossman’s Tavern where we met guitarist Mike McDonald and bassist Leo Valvassori. Leo was hosting a jam in London. That is how it all happened really,” he notes.
“We were all good musicians for our age but we were really the first bunch of kids that were playing blues around the area. That was in the days of grunge where everyone was wearing pyjamas and Doc Martins but we weren’t,” says Bond with another laugh, adding that Rotary Ten opened for bluesmen Guitar Shorty, and Jordan Patterson.
“I met all of those guys as a teenager. This was the early ’90s,” notes Bond, adding that he also had a recording studio at home.
His studio included an eighttrack reel-to-reel-machine, a console, and “outboard gear.”
“If you had that at home back then you were doing all right,” he notes.
“Most people had a little fourtrack machine but I had all of that equipment so I had a lot of time to learn the craft of recording by listening and experimenting,” says Bond, adding he recorded for friend’s bands at school which led to 20 years as a mixing engineer/ producer.
He says 80 per cent of the time he ended up playing drums and other percussion instruments on records.
Bond has also engineered, mixed, produced records or played for K-W rockers Stone Prophets, and Stereola, in addition to afrofunk hip-hop band Jen Militia featuring DJ Mic Dainjah now known as John Orpheus. Bond has also worked with Toronto singersongwriter Rob Szabo, the late Paul MacLeod, and local alternative rock/folk ensemble The LoFi Mind.
He is also a member of psychedelic alt rock/pop project Full Length Mirror Music, whose 2005 release “Fabulous Fables and Other Tales to Tell,” is currently out of print. Bond says he and bandmate Cory Williams are working on new material for 2018. Bond is also recording with Toronto rock-and-soul singer Sandra Bouza, in addition to working on follow up CDs for Mike McDonald, Corey Walton, and Luke Cyrus Hunter.
He and Hunter are hoping to have a CD release party for “Renew” in the next few months. Bond adds he’s also working on other music projects yet to be confirmed.
“I can pick and choose who I work with these days as well. I am fortunate that way,” he notes. “I have always been active doing what I do but I have never really put myself to the forefront. It’s funny. When you get older you think more about it,” he adds with another laugh.
Rai Madge
In 2017, Blackball Comedy co-founders Rai Madge and Tom O’Donnell took their weekly comedy show at the Rhapsody Barrel Bar to a new level by recently presenting a larger show at Kitchener’s Taste at The Tannery which featured three comics including acclaimed funnyman Jeff McEnery. The two promoters plan to do more of these larger shows in 2018.
Says Madge: “In 2017, we noticed our fan base continuously growing, and reaching all kinds of people. That tells me that here in the region there is a need and want for professional standup. Moving forward into 2018, I would love to see more people who write and want to express themselves, come out to show, ask questions, and do it if that’s what they aspire to.
“Canadian comedy is hard and unlike the U.S., it’s sometimes impossible for these comics and comediennes to get that credit they deserve. I would love to build more platforms with more festivals, and more weekend shows, that showcase the talent that Canadian comedy has, because it’s really special. After all, you cannot beat coming out and laughing for two hours at someone’s experiences as you relate to their stories. There will always be someone you can identify with, much like music. Life is tough, but it’s OK to find humour in it.”
A final 2017 music note
For many, 2017 was a tough year because of great losses in the music world.
Fans felt profound and heartbreaking loss from the unexpected passings of rock royalty like Tom Petty and Chris Cornell, to Canadian drumming legend Skip Prokop of Lighthouse and the loss of The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie.
But there’s one good thing about musicians, be it iconic rock stars or local voices now gone, their musical legacy will live on.