Gigs This Week: Jim Bryson at Kops Records Oshawa Thurs Nov 17

By Will McGuirk

Singer slash songwriter slash producer slash hired hand Jim Bryson heads to Oshawa for a rare gig. He will be playing in-store at Kops Records in Oshawa Thursday Nov. 17 2022. Sagen Pearse of Hollowsage will open. The gig runs 7 to 9 p.m. Doors open 6:30 p.m.

Bryson has released several albums since he departed the band Punchbuggy in the late 1990s, the most recent one is ‘County WiFi’, recorded at his own Fixed Hinge studio. has worked with many artists including The Weakerthans, Kalle Mattson, Kathleen Edwards; he is the subject of Edwards's song "I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory." Edwards album ‘Total Freedom’ was produced by Bryson.

Slowcity.ca reached out to Jim by email for a catch-up.

Slowcity.ca: As you haven't played Oshawa before can you pinpoint some of your career highlights for the good folks here, and tell me why you chose those highlights?

Jim Bryson: “I have actually played here. . . in the 90's at the Moon Room but more recently somewhere like 2014 with Jenn Grant. . . Career Highlights? Hard to say. . . Had a song on the CBC top 5. . . have an old record recently mentioned in the UK as a top record of the 2000's in the Americana Genre. . . helping others make records and doing my own is a nice balance for the most part. I find myself feeling a sort of personal return in that I think my shows are better, I think I'm finding ways to be more consistent with the shows and just finding this community and friends are all coming out of the caves of Covid and looking for connection.”

SC: Country WiFi, what a fab little album, and I mean that in the intensity of its intimacy - tell me about the production on it and what you were trying to capture?

JB: “I think the idea was to make compact songs that carried their power in a subtle way vs yelling from the hilltops. I was making songs over last year's winter when the lockdown had us mostly home and no one on the songs were actually ever in the same room with me. . . it was all remote collaboration.”

SC: I hear something similar to Steve Lambke in your work; very personal, great beauty, - have you worked with Steve at all and is there any cross-over in your work and his?

JB: “I adore Steve and his Baby Eagle songs and way of presenting songs and kind of have always thought I'd be nice on his label, but I never asked except once a 1000 years ago. Hehehehe.”

SC: There are habits which built up during the lockdown for all of us, some of us were happy to withdraw, how have you been moving from the shut-down, in a certain isolation, and now being back on the road in front of people?

JB: “It was and is def a transition to be out in the world as I found myself, despite the public idea of me being very outgoing, of not being that way. . . texting and messaging friends but talking to people face to face much less and not meeting up or being out def had an impact on me where I find it a little harder to get the energy going, but I'm always up for some shows and moments like this. . . then I can just go back inside after hehehe”

SC: Tell me about some of your projects over the past couple of years as things were disrupted - you worked on Kathleen Edwards' Total Freedom, how was that to facilitate?

JB: “Kathleen was interesting because I wasn't initially involved, but got brought onboard when her initial Nashville sessions weren't exactly the sound that maybe she was seeking. . . I think it was easier for her to come over and work out ideas and such here and bring her dogs and leave when wanted etc. to get back to feeling more motivated to get the songs done.”

“Super happy with records from Ken Yates, Caroline Marie Brooks (The Good Lovelies) and Suzie Ungerleider which were made in a strange and different ways due to the constraints of the lockdowns, but oddly, they feel really refreshing to me in that they were made in a less tradition beginning / middle / way of working.”

Kops Records is located at 156 Simcoe Street South in Oshawa. This is an all ages show with a suggested donation of $20.

Below for your further edification is a fab long form interview Jim did with David Myles.

Outliers and outlaws; Mavis Staples, Kathleen Edwards, Tami Neilson, The Weather Station at Mariposa

By Will McGuirk

For two years festivals have been cancelled. And now they are back. On one level its a return to normal. There’s the normalcy of geography. Mariposa for example, the Grand Old Dame of Festivals, will take place July 8, 9 and 10 at Tudhope Park again, as it has for many years. There will be a familiarity to the infrastructure, but if you look closely you will see a difference. Things are not the same. It is subtle but it is there, just as it is in your own life. There’s change, a change you can’t quite put your finger on but you sense intuitively. 

And if I may suggest if there was one place you want to go to to pause and consider and contemplate the passings of time, the passings of these pandemic times, it is without a doubt Mariposa. This folk fest in particular, is as entertaining as visiting an elder but also as enlightening. Mariposa has seen more than you have, it has been around longer, it has experience and wisdom and perspective and will be, no doubt about it, a balm for the past two years.

I have been fortunate to attend Mariposa for many years and this pop-up community of like-minded folkies, have always given me respite from my personal storms. And this year with 60-odd years of experience of providing respite Mariposa as a salve against all that all having been enduring for over two years will be invaluable, its impact incalculable, yet nevertheless felt. Mariposa is comfort food for the soul and right now the soul really really really needs some soul food. 

And thus on stage the personification of soul salvation Mavis Staples. No-one should dismiss any one person’s suffering but it make take a civil rights activist born in 1939 to add some perspective to the hurt. She is a witness.

The hurt perspective runs through the output of Kathleen Edwards, one of the great artists but another unsung CDN singer/songwriter. Professional and personal hurt got her to the point where Edwards threw in the proverbial towel and took up the tea towel, opening her own coffee shop, poignantly called Quitters. But here we are, praise be whatever forces forced her out of retirement with a tour and an album ‘Total Freedom’. It would seem the restaurant rest did its job and time has tempered the fuck it but fortunately for us listeners not the fuck u attitude.

There’s a lot Kathleen Edwards independent streak also to Tami Neilson, plus a whole lotta of Mavis Staples, some Shirley Bassey, some Wanda Jackson  and then again none of it. Neilson, a Canadian in the land of the Kiwi, combines all the edginess of roots music, with a take no prisoners voice as voluminous as her beehive. She is startling, subtle, traditional and wholly original - listen to Neilson duet with Nelson, the Willie is the ground to her electrifying vox.

The Weather Station has electrified her voice moving from the acoustic croon of her early recordings to an easy intensity on her self-titled, an intensity and self-determination that led to a determined take on the disasters looming just beyond the horizon on the next release. The world is changing, we are changing it, its not going to turn out well, but this dread gave up ‘Ignorance’, a sinewy dance on the doom and gloom, and perhaps we can weave our way out with art as material.

Kathleen Edwards, The Weather Station, and Tami Neilson, as artists are on different paths. I imagine however those paths will converge, should demands permit, right around the time Mavis Staples steps on the Main Stage.  ’Respect Yourself’ 

Mariposa returns Jul 8, 9 and 10, initial line-up includes Lennon Stella, Kathleen Edwards, and Mavis Staples

By Will McGuirk

The Great Dame of Folk Festivals will be stepping out this year after sitting out the past two. The festival was first held in 1961 thus last year would have been the 60th anniversary. Those celebrations will carry over of course, and as the initial line-up announced reveals, its going to be some celebration.

Lennon Stella leads the line-up but its Mariposa so there’s no headliners as such, and not when you have such others in the line-up as the iconic Mavis Staples as well as Kathleen Edwards, The Weather Station, Serena Ryder, Allison Russell, Lido Pimienta and Tami Neilson., plus Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, plus JP Saxe. And there are more TBA!

Food and Artisan opportunities are available until Feb 7 here
Food Vendor information and applications available here
Artisan Vendor information and applications available here

Volunteer Registration Open Now!
More info and registration link available here

and Tickets are available here.