Author: Carey Rutherford

Swallowed by the mutual loves of words and music (but far too chicken-shit to perform them with a band), Carey’s writing career started slowly as a freelance writer in 2003, starved him nearly to personal bankruptcy until 2008, and changed directions while writing for FastForward, Beacon Calgary, GayCalgary, and Examiner magazines. With the death of many old-school periodicals, and the explosion of musical diversity in Calgary, the modern approach to writing about live music performance in the Calgary region presented uncluttered landscapes for the focussed passion that Carey’s conversations with musicians, drag queens, festival producers and small animals has uncapped. He was moulded by the brilliance of paper-based periodicals old and new (Life, rolling Stone, Swerve! and Adbusters etc.), and sees the info-verse as needing creative, empathetic, but clear-eyed Agents to communicate these performances.
Categoriesfolk

Having fun: Tom and the Orchestra still defy East Coast classification

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In the best interviewing tradition, the first thing I do when speaking with Tom Fun Orchestra’s frontman, Ian MacDougall, is remind him that I offended his sensibilities in our first conversation (following the Orch’s first CD tour in 2010). At that time he responded to my simplistic interpretation with, essentially, ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ kitchen party!’

Essentially.

“I don’t think I’d be nearly so (concerned) about it now,” he says on the phone, while wandering the streets of Vancouver during their current tour last week. “I don’t even think I was then.”
… Continue Reading >Having fun: Tom and the Orchestra still defy East Coast classification

Categoriesreggae

Reggae at the Stampede? A brilliant mix in the heat of summer

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Yup. Not exactly the standard fare for the ‘Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth,’ but you have to admit if there’s a music that belongs outside in the popular psyche, it’s Reggae. Does anyone even listen to reggae inside?

Except in Canada, of course. Otherwise there’d be an 8-month hiatus every year from the rasta riddim.
… Continue Reading >Reggae at the Stampede? A brilliant mix in the heat of summer

CategoriesSound Art

Soundwalking With Hildegard Part 1: The depth of Acoustic Ecology

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What would you do if you were sitting in a formal concert hall, dressed for a night of highly educated performances by acclaimed composers, and you began hearing a cricket, very clearly, and no-one seemed particularly perturbed, and it began to develop harmonically and chronologically, transforming into something quite beyond the normal sound of a single cricket, developing rhuythmically and musically until it swims through your awareness like a goldfish? Or a horse-sized cricket.

Losing your mind? Acid flashback? Another dream like those you’ve been having while driving (I’ll just get out here, if you don’t mind . . .)?

Or, Hildegard Westerkamp’s famous “Cricket Voice” (1987), intended to draw your awareness to the subtleties of sound and silence which most urban dwellers … Continue Reading >Soundwalking With Hildegard Part 1: The depth of Acoustic Ecology