Steve's Blog
Wednesday November 9, 2011

Hi everyone

It's another exciting week at The Rogue! I'll be at St. James for the Bassekou Kouyate concert on Thursday - we're running the bar and the sound, and there should be a big crowd to see one of Africa's finest bands.

On Friday, which is a holiday, of course, there should be a good fly-past at 11 minutes past 11 on the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of the new millennium to commemorate the anniversary of Armistice Day in 1918 - which was signed in the 11th railway carriage on a train!

1. Doug Cox & BettySoo, plus Ivonne Hernandez and Jeremy Walsh, Friday November 11th, 8pm, St. James Hall, 3214 West 10th

This is going to be a tremendous concert, mark my words. We have two of Canada's most impressive instrumentalists, each accompanying a fine singer and songwriter, with music crossing many styles and genres from Blues to Celtic and a whole lot more besides. Doug Cox has played at The Rogue on numerous occasions, and can often be heard playing Indian blues and ragas with Sahlil Bhatt and Cassius Khan in the project Slide To Freedom. he also played here with April Verch and Tony McManus in a trio called Strung. This time he's bringing a fabulous singer from Austin, BettySoo, a Korean-American singer with a much bigger voice than you might expect on such a diminutive frame. Together they make up a duo called Across The Borderline, and they released a superb CD earlier this year, called Lie To Me. They have toured extensively in Europe and the USA, but this will be their first show in Vancouver. I am really looking forward to seeing people's reactions when she starts singing! She is such a fabulous singer! www.dougcox.org

Opening for them will be Victoria duo Ivonne Hernandez and Jeremy Walsh, who have also just released a CD. Ivonne - whose sister, Kalissa, plays with The Paperboys and Locarno - was last at The Rogue as a member of the Folk Arts Quartet, comprising four young women who recently graduated from the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston: a sort of Celtic string quartet. Ivonne was a champion Canadian fiddler at a very young age, and continues to enhance her craft and reputation with each new project. She will be joined by singer Jeremy Walsh, who was the lead singer in Winnipeg's Scruj MacDuhk, before relocating to Victoria a few years back.

So it will be another evening on the cutting edge of Canadian roots music excellence at the Rogue on Friday night. Hope to see you there!

2. The Edge On Folk, Saturday 8am to 11am, CiTR fm 101.9, Shaw Cable 88.5fm, Telus TV Ch 3717, and streamed live on www.citr.ca

Only a three hour show this week, due to live coverage of Media Democracy Day on CITR. it's also the last show before our annual Fundrive, so next week's show will be the Spruiking Edition, and I'll have live music from Tim Readman with Jennie Bice and Ed Weaver, and plenty of surprises. Over the years you've given wonderful support to CiTR and my show, and it's great to be involved with one of the station's most popular shows, I must say! Thank you!

This week I've got more new music from Tim's new CD, plus the likes of New York's Tribecastan, Polish / American combo Dikanda, Ireland's Alan Kelly Gang, American bluesman Skip McDonald aka Little Axe, and Matuto (At last week's April Verch show - which was fabulous! - her guitarist Clay Ross played some Brazilian tunes. He also leads Matuto, a remarkable band based in NYC which blends Bluegrass with Brazilian forro music. The accordionist in that band is Rob Curto, who has played at Festival du Bois a couple of times.) I'll have concert previews and maybe a chat with The Once from Newfoundland. Please join me for 3 hours of the best in Roots music this Saturday morning. www.citr.ca

3. The Once, Saturday November 12th, 7pm, CBC Studio 700, 700 Hamilton Street

The Folk Festival presents this wonderful trio from Newfoundland on Saturday. They are one of my favourite bands. A sort of latter day Figgy Duff / Fairport Convention sound, but totally new and exciting, and Geraldine Hollett is an amazing singer. (My cousins in Nova Scotia classify things as Good, Some Good, A Might Some Good, or A Might Some Jesus Good. She's of the latter variety!) It's not one of our shows, but I wish it was! www.theonce.ca