The film is a documentary Doug and the Slugs and Me. The Me is Teresa.
The doc is working its way through film festivals and will eventually appear on CBC Gem.
It’s been said if there was no Doug and the Slugs there would have been no BareNaked Ladies.
Led by the charming and clever writer/artist man Doug Bennett, The Slugs cut a swath through a sea of really average 80’s bands to become the darlings of Canada’s music charts. Lots of hits. One after the other.
They sold out all 40 of their Commodore Ballroom gigs.
So….what happened to The Slugs and Doug Bennett? That’s the bittersweet and complex story of this film.
Doug Bennett died at age 52 in 2004. The music lives on.
Barney Bentall and the Caribou Express are touring through the West. Raising serious money for Food Banks and city/town support groups.
They do it every year. They have raised over 4 Million dollars!!
Barney says putting this group together and keeping it focused is “like a goat rodeo”
This year the goats are
Kirby Barber
Dustin Bentall
Ridley Bent
Wendy Bird
Stephanie Cadman
Wild Honey
Leeroy Stagger
Matt Masters
Geoff Kelly
Dates include
Calgary Friday Nov 4
Saturday Nov 5 St Albert (Arden)
Monday Nov 7 Lethbridge
Tuesday 8th – Sherwood Park
Nov 16/17/18 Sydney BC (Vancouver Island)
Nov 19 – Vancouver (Vogue)
Nov 26 – Kamloops (Barney and Dustin with Blue Rodeo)
Barney also brings tunes from his last two albums
Cosmic Dreamer and Ranch Writers (with Geoffrey Kelly)
Hour Two is a visit with Director Teresa Alfeld and original Slug Simon Kendall.
The film is a documentary Doug and the Slugs and Me. The Me is Teresa.
The doc is working its way through film festivals and will soon appear on CBC Gem.
It’s been said if there never had been a Doug and the Slugs there would have been no BareNaked Ladies. One of those speakers was Steven Paige former BareNaked Lady.
Led by the charming and clever writer/artist man Doug Bennett, The Slugs cut a swath through a sea of really average 80’s bands to become the darlings of Canada’s music charts. Lots of hits. One after the other.
They sold out all 40 of their Commodore Ballroom gigs.
So….what happened to The Slugs and Doug Bennett? That’s the bittersweet and complex story of this film.
Doug Bennett died at age 52 in 2004. The music lives on.
Director Teresa Alfred grew up next door to the Bennett household and watched the very beginnings of The Slugs. In making the film, she came to realize there was so much more to the story.
Jason Priestley and I were shooting year two of Hollywood and Vines with Producer Chad Oakes.
It was Jason who suggested Guadalupe Valley in Mexico, and Walla Walla in Washington.
So, I paid attention when he said.
Let’s head for the Gaspareau Valley…
Sure! Where exactly is the Gaspareau?
Just outside Halifax.
And they’re growing what wines exactly?
They are making sparkling wine and it’s getting local raves.
That was many years ago.
I was so impressed with the vineyards and the bubble they poured for us, I’ve stayed in touch with the story and the people.
Specifically the winemaker Jean-Benoit Deslauriers and the owner Gerry McConnell.
JB Deslauriers
So. Its been 3-4 years since we checked in with Benjamin Bridge and in that time they have become one of the best wine stories in all of Canada.
BB at dusk
In doing so, they have ignited not only the Gaspereau but the rest of the Maritimes and Canada. From coast to coast.
We welcome back Jean-Benoît Deslauriers and Benjamin Bridge
Jean-Benoit will be talking about
2018 Brut Rose.. 3 years on the lees beautiful colour, rose on the nose.
On the palate creme de cassis and brioche, creamy mousse…heaven sent!!
2017 Brut A beauiful straw coloured. Green apple, warm bread on the nose. In the mouth stone fruit, citrus, brioche and a lingering minerality. WoW!
2020 hand crafted small lot Pinot Noir – JB says there’s “a profound sadness to it’s delishiosness ” in this wonderful wine. Mainly because its thriving in the Maritimes because of climate change. Thriving it is…a clear nose of cedar box & ripe black fruit. The palete is fresh red fruit and classic tannins.12 months in barrel/12% alcohol.
We also talk about Nova 7, Tidal Bay and non-alcohol wines in the future.
Got my semi-annual invite from IVSA – The Import Vintners and Spirits Association..one of the largest representative bodies of beverage alcohol import agents in Canada.
The very people who seek out great winemakers and distillers and then represent them to our liquor industry and down the line- you the customer.
Sara Parkes
They’re not really set up for media, but I have always found the room to be filled with new wines and spirits that I know we’ll be talking about later in the year or next year. Best of all , they let me walk around and interview reps, who are mid-pour and telling the story behind the pour.
I can’t talk to everyone. For one thing, every table is filled with new releases and everyone has questions.. The reps have the answers.
But I do find friends in the room and they point out a table and say something like “check out those guys over there. Thats a rock and roll table:”
And it WAS…
So let’s take a walk around the room..at Delta Ocean Point, Victoria.
CAM DUKE – Representing Vintage West and Coastal Craft..
We talk about 2020 Ridge Three Valleys Zin
Justin Cab 2019 from Paso Robles
Boutinot whites
Bread and Butter Prosecco
Ben Marco 2020 Malbec
Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin
And Nemiroff Ukrainian Vodka, with the “can’t miss” distinctive national flag on the bottle.
In November, A portion of the sale of Nemiroff Vodka goes to United Way to support local Ukrainians.
It took me the whole of Summer 2022 to read and complete Tara McGuire’s book Holden After and Before.
I’ve known and really liked Tara for a long time.
We were in radio together and apart but – in radio. It’s a small community, at times.
I’ve written and said publicly that this was the hardest book to read and toughest interview in memory but that’s because of my friendship with Tara. I felt tied to the story and a cloak of guilt that I didn’t know what she was going through – after and before.
But that’s just me – please don’t let me steer anyone away from seeking out the wisdom of this book.
When her beloved Holden died from an overdose, she collapsed and it took many many months for her to stand up and just breathe. Then she decided to commit herself to tell this story but going back through Holden’s friends, reconnecting his texts and emails. Imagining how he handled certain situations and dealing with the guilt that came like a wave.
If you’re a Mother, or dream of being a parent or you currently are a parent, you will find yourself wondering “what would I have done?”
I did. For a whole Summer.
Holden After and Before is a brave, honest, unspeakably painful but simultaneously beautiful attempt by a ‘mother who was a light bulb striking pavement’ to come to terms with her young son’s life and death. Once I began reading, I could not tear myself from this account, which offers a rich tapestry of memoir and fiction – basically, anything Tara McGuire could recall, discover or imagine – about her son Holden, who died accidentally at age twenty-one after he ingested a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin. As I read, Tara McGuire enveloped me with her empathy, her desperate hunger to make sense of the senseless, and her humanity. She inspired me with her courageous and unflinching journey – in the wake of any parent’s worst nightmare – to become a writer as a means of honouring her lost son. –Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes
Susan Tedeschi co-partner with Derek Trucks in life and music is our guest this week.
We first talked to Susan in May when the first Moon album, Crescent was released. This is the rest of the story
Tedeschi Trucks Band has created “one of those albums” that will become the standard by which all other such albums are created.
It’s an amazing story and we are thrilled to have Susan share it with us. It’s our complete 30-minute interview – with the tracks from the first album.
The concept behind I Am The Moon, the GRAMMY-winning band’s fifth studio recording, was suggested by TTB vocalist Mike Mattison in May 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by the pandemic.
The 12th-century poem Layla & Majnun by Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, was the title inspiration for Eric Clapton’s 1970 double-LP with Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – an influential album for Tedeschi Trucks Band. Interestingly, Ganjavi’s source material resonated with Mattison and the rest of the band in an altogether different way. Finding complex themes and storylines that inspired their creative process, they forged a new, modern interpretation of the vast 100-page poem.
The thought that started the project was “Instead of Majnun, let’s see this story through Layla’s eyes.
Operatic in scope, Tedeschi Trucks Band explores romantic relationships, collective struggle, faith, and the human experience on I Am The Moon.
“It’s amazing,” Trucks says, “because we wrote most of this music in a pretty short time span. There are even chord changes that mirror other tunes on the albums – themes and variations, lyrical allusions, that pop back up.” He continues: “You always want to do something bigger and thematic. This is the first time it happened naturally.”
The decision to sequence and release I Am The Moon in four distinct episodes came “when we started thinking of records we love,” Derek says, citing Axis: Bold as Love, the 1967 LP by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
“It’s 36 minutes long. That’s the way to digest a record.”
With that approach in mind, TTB will also present I Am The Moon: The Film, immersive visual companions to each album. The corresponding films will debut three days prior to each audio release, offering fans an early opportunity to digest each album in its entirety as a communal listening and viewing experience via the band’s YouTube channel.
October 21 – Oslo, NO – Sentrum Scene
October 22 – Stockholm, SE – Cirkus
October 25 – Berlin, DE – Verti Music Hall
October 26 – Hamburg, DE – Edel-optics.de Arena
October 27 – Prague, CZ – Forum Karlin
October 30 – Rotterdam, NL – RTM Stage
November 2 – Dublin, IE – The Helix
November 4 – London, UK – The London Palladium
November 5 – London, UK – The London Palladium
November 6 – London, UK – The London Palladium
November 9 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
November 10 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy Glasgow
November 12 – Paris, FR – Le Trianon
November 13 – Paris, FR – Le Trianon
November 15 – Paris, FR – Bataclan
In early May, Tedeschi Trucks released a new album I Am The Moon. Amazingly, it was announced that Moon would be released as four albums.
Crescent
Ascension
The Fall
Farewell.
Susan Tedeschi and I had a great talk about the genesis of the albums.
Starting with playing the entire Eric Clapton Layla album in concert and discovering that the storyline came from a 12th-century poem by Nazimi Ganjavi: Layla and Majnun. But seen through Majnun’s eyes. What IF – TTBand redid the storyline through Layla’s character?
They wrote so many songs it became a four-album set.
I asked Susan in May if we could talk about the entire four-album set when they had released them all. Here we are.
The complete interview can be heard on the Mulligan Stew Podcast and seen on tdm YouTube Channel.
This weeks TRR didn’t start out as a bubble special., It’s just the way the boxes opened.
Mary McDermott – Winemaker Township 7 (Langley and Naramata Bench)
Before she arrived in the Okanagan Mary made sparkling wines at Peller, also spending time at Stratus and Cave Springs. Under her leadership Township 7’s Polaris was named Best Canadian Sparkling Wine at the Champagne and Sparkling Wine world Championships in London in 2016.
We welcome the much respected Mary McDermott. T7
(Mary McDermott)
In the Township 7 box were
seven stars Rigel – created from Riesling grown in the Fools Gold Vineyards in North Oliver. That’s the one originally planted by the legendary Richard Cleave. Now farmed by his son in law Mark Antonello. With all those names attached you know that the fruit and the wine will be award winning.
This is a bright and yummy sparkling wine. Perfect for oysters, blue cheese, mushrooms.
Only 399 6 bottle cases made. $36.97
2018 seven stars Equinox sparkling Brut Rose
100% Pinot Noir grapes went into this outstanding sparkling wine. They came from the highly regarded Stoneridge Vineyard in Okanagan Falls.
It overlooks the Okanagan River and Vaseaux Lake and because its sharing the valley with the river and lake, the heat of an Okanagan Summer isn’t as all consuming here.
Its tempered by the coolness of the elevation and proximity to the river. It shows. Equinox is rich and round. It’s glorious. 350 6 bottle cases. $57.97
And finally the 2019 Benchmark Series Cabernet Franc.
Produced from the Raju Vineyard in Osoyoos. I love Cab Franc and this one is Top 10. Fantastic wine.
Cassis, spice, silky and welcoming texture.
Medium to full bodied, this beautifully balanced blend of Cab Franc and a small percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon can be enjoyed now or celebrated years from now. It’s a wine club exclusive. They are very lucky people.
670 cases – $43.97
The second box that arrived was from Noble Ridge, Okanagan Falls.
Our guest is Noble Ridge winemaker Benoit Gauthier
It was Merlot harvest day at Noble Ridge. Ben came off the crush pad to walk us through these wines and when done, walked straight out into crush heaven. We thank him for the time. Positive he may not remember doing this interview.
(Benoit Gauthier Noble Ridge)
Leslie D’Andrea co-owner of Noble Ridge sent along a note that said “although we don’t make “champagne” per se, here’s some examples of BC Sparkling Wine to celebrate International Champagne Day Oct 28
There’s also another reason for celebration, as we participate in the annual ritual of Harvest and begin the cycle anew.”
The Fizzy One -NV $24.99
Frizzante style Pinot Gris and Kerner. Full of pink grapefruit and late fall peaches on the nose. On the palate, ripe berries, pear and light citrus.
The Pink One – 2018 $39.99
Smashing sparkling Rose. 100% Pinot Noir grapes. Method Traditionnelle . Only four hour skin contact.
The Pink One
The One – 2017 $39.99
A true Champagne style, comes entirely from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir estate grapes. Reflects the terroir around it.
Completely and totally Yummy. Notes of brioche and apple. Engaging texture. Generous and balanced. En Tirage 47 months.
HARRISON KENNEDY was awarded the 2016 “Blues Album of the Year” JUNO for his album “This Is From Here”. This was the 6th nomination for the Hamilton, ON. based artist.
Now comes his latest album Thanks for Tomorrow
Harrison Kennedy was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. His family had roots in New Orleans and Tennessee,[ Kennedy sang in the Stewart Memorial Church Choir as a boy, when childhood trips took him over the border to visit relations in Arkansas, Rogersville, Tennessee,[9] and Detroit, Illinois, United States, and all these experiences expanded his love of music., The other border his family crossed was the Canadian border. They decided to stay and live there.
Harrison grew up in a house filled with music and famous visitors such as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Lonnie Johnson. In 1969 he took a hiatus from college to become a founding member of the million-selling Detroit Soul Super Group “The Chairmen of the Board” with whom he toured the world, as well as appearing on Soul Train, American Bandstand, and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Harrison Kennedy has released almost a dozen internationally acclaimed albums and developed into one of the 21st century’s most insightful and original Blues singer/songwriters.
To quote my friend Tom Coxworth
For anyone not familiar with Harrison Kennedy, he has been nominated for
12 Maple Blues awards and 4 Junos and was touted by BB King as Canada’s
premier Blues performer
We’re going to talk to Harrison about his family, his spirituality and his music!!
It’s The Bartier Bros Show, starring Michael Bartier!!
Just one story today – Michael Bartier – GM and Director of Bartier Bros. Vineyards and Winery (South Okanagan)
What started out as a two segment interview with wine legend Michael Bartier almost immediately became this entire edition of Tasting Room Radio.
Why, you ask? Because he earned it.
From his beginnings in the wine business Michael Bartier has constantly moved forward. Learning his wine making trade at Washington State and UC Davis.
When he did start making wines – for others – he twice won white wine of the year in Canada. He specialized in Chardonnay. Then shifted to making red wines and won two Lieutenant Governor’s awards for his reds.
On to the famous Hawthorne Mountain, back home to Township 7 and Road 13.
And so, after years of making brilliant wines for others, It was only a matter of time before Michael would be making his own wine and best of all he did it with his brother Don. Both Bartier Bros were raised in the Okanagan. In 2009 they launched Bartier Bros.
Don and Michael – The Bartier Bros
I wanted to talk to Michael about the state of BC winemaking, the effect of climate change, how close winemakers came to not growing wine this year because of the wet and cold Spring. The Sun showed up just in time. It was close. How close? Have a listen.
Michael brings us new releases ready for tasting and a Brut tease that’s coming soon. Plus the new Bocce Court & food plans for next year.
The doc is working its way through film festivals and will eventually appear on CBC Gem.
The concept behind I Am The Moon, the GRAMMY-winning band’s fifth studio recording, was suggested by TTB vocalist Mike Mattison in May 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by the pandemic.
