Sled Island - June 20 to 23, 2012

If you don't know what Sled Island Music Festival is about, you should read the paragraph below:

 Founded by Zak Pashak in 2007, The Sled Island Music and Arts Festival is an annual independent festival held in over thirty venues in downtown Calgary, Alberta. Sled Island allows many generations of festival goers to gather for four days each year to celebrate the wealth of creative talent that exists within Calgary, and experience an array of music, film and visual art. The mandate of Sled Island is to celebrate, showcase, and nurture emerging and established local talent alongside national and international music, film, and visual art in an inclusive, engaging setting.

Wikipedia

Now that we're all on the same page, I would like to talk about this years festival. Matt and I had the privilege to take in about 15 shows this past week and it did not disappoint.

Wednesday

We kicked the festival off at Theatre Junction Grand to watch CFCF and Timber Timbre. CFCF's show was not overly engaging and I would attribute that to the presentation of the music. There was little acknowledgment of the crowd and it made the audience feel awkward. No one knew if the sole member of CFCF, Michael Silver, even knew that we were there. To put it short, I would say... Music Good, Presentation Bad.

The mood of the night changed once Timber Timbre took to the stage. The theatre was completely silent for every song as everyone soaked in every note of the spook folk. Timber Timbre had a way of commanding the stage without any antics or tricks, they simply knew their craft and played it well. One of the highlights of the set was when front man, Taylor Kirk, looped different noises to make it sound as if we were outside with owls, coyotes and other animals. I almost forgot we were inside at one point when a lone moth came into the red light that was covering the stage and fluttered around. Overall, Timber Timbre put on a great show and the whole theatre made sure they knew it with a big standing ovation at the end.

CFCF



Thursday

Unfortunately, our personal and volunteering schedules kept us away from seeing shows on Thursday night. However, Matt got his share of bleep-bloop knob twisters while helping out with security at the East Village Block Party.

Friday

On Friday, we started our night off at The Ironwood and took in shows by Forest Tate and Shotgun Jimmie who was playing with the Polaris Long-Listed Canon Bros. It was great to see both of these bands in a space like the Ironwood. Both bands played great sets and had everyone bobbing their heads. Stream Forest Tate, Shotgun Jimmie and the Cannon Bros.

Check out this pop-up show of Shotgun Jimmie playing near St. Patricks Island:



To finish the night off Matt and I cruised over to Palomino to see Cowpuncher rock the late night crowd. Their brand of garage country rock was great party music and I suggest you go see Cowpuncher if you get the chance. Stream their new album below:



Saturday

Saturday brought the last day of the festival and a lot of rain. Our day of sledding started out by checking out Jon Mckiel at the Palomino. I really enjoyed his album Tonka War Cloud, but his live performance was nothing to rave about. The sound was crappy, the set was very short, and Jon didn't even try to engage the afternoon crowd. Nonetheless, I still suggest you check out his Bandcamp Page to stream some of his stuff.

In the evening we went and caught the indie staple Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, at the Olympic Plaza main stage. They put on a great set and helped keep the rain drenched crowd into the show. It would have been nice to see more people show up, but Matt and I got a great spot.

After the show we cruised over to The Area in Inglewood to catch Indie Rock/Alt Country locals, The Bitterweed Draw. If you want to catch a local band and be guaranteed a good time, you should go see this group. They rocked out hard and played a good 20 minutes over their allotted time.

The Bitterweed Draw



These were some of the highlights from the Sled Island Music Festival 2012. I hope I helped you discover a couple new bands.

- Bryce