Fish Griwkowsky

Lucky Show | Carolyn Mark tests out the Empress' piano as Sara HArt joins the jam on the fiddle.

John Woroschuk is such a nice guy that he completely held back promoting his new disc. And why did he do that? The multi-instrumentalist, being an integral third of Robin Hunter’s band, “didn’t want to steal any of his thunder.” But CKUA-loving Woody, as he’s also called, is ready to push now.

“The band will be gigging soon,” he says, “with Robin, myself, and a drummer to be named later. We’ve been getting together to suss it out. He’ll be playing bass and singing, as well as myself. It’s more of an electric show, with new material and songs from Slight O Hand [the neglected disc] as well.”

“I recently received an e-mail from a magazine in the states all about dobro players called Resonance. I get to do a phone interview. Go figure! Me in with the likes of Jerry Douglas and Co. Chalk one up for us Canucks, eh?”

I wonder if Woody gets a pullout centrefold with a tastefully-placed wood instrument? Um, as it were.

Speaking of double entendres, Hot Panda hot sauce? Chris Connelly explains: “This company in B.C. makes hot sauce and they let us use one of them. It’s got a smoky taste to it with a strong pineapple flavor that comes on later. It’s called Hot Panda Volcano... Bloody Volcano, which is what the name of our album is gonna be. Hopefully it goes over well at SXSW this year. We’re selling it at shows and apparently the Blue Plate is actually ordering a case of it. We’re pulling a Paul Newman.”

Carolyn Mark blew through like a rainstorm this week, literally spraying herself with liquids in a killer set that she was supposed to merely headline, not play solo. NQ Arbuckle went home, unfortunately, after the convoy tagged a highway moose with their van — a deer got worse treatment awhile earlier. As we joked with Mark, nature was certainly making a rebound in Alberta until they hit the highway. Tolan McNeil was also a no-show, hitting that “I’ve had enough point,” as Mark put it, heading back to his utopian life of construction on the coast.

Bringing back memories of Pembina River Nights, Sara Hart ran from the Empress to Acoustic Music Shop, borrowed a fiddle and wiggled onstage for the second set. Man it was a good year for live music, but we’ll look into that in the next couple issues. It ain’t over till it’s over, homies.

Still. Jumping the lemming line so you can support your local record store before XXXmas, here’s my “twenty-nothing-eight” favourites, in order of hottest love. CanCon quotient is a complete fluke.

(1) (TIE!) Chad Van Gaalen, Sort Airplane/Cadence Weapon, Afterparty Babies

(3) The Dears, Missiles

(4) Metallica, Death Magnetic (reburned w/o two terrible radio songs)

(5) Ladyhawk, Shots

(6) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

(7) The Whitsundays, The Whitsundays

(8) Robin Hunter and the Six Foot Bullies, You Just Gotta Get Used to It

(9) Black Mountain, In the Future

(10) Stereo Image, S/T

(11) Bison B.C., Quiet Earth

(12) Mudcrutch, Mudcrutch (Tom Petty! Whoo!)

(13) Various Artists, Give Me Love: Songs of the Brokenhearted — Baghdad, 1925-1929

(14) Waylon Jennings, Live from Austin TX ’84

(15) GTA IV: Vladivostok FM (unofficial release, torrent-only Russki rap)

Special Mention: BBC’s Ashes to Ashes soundtrack, as fine a DJ tool as is imaginable, and Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals, which, like most things these days, is all about stealing and personalizing music — an ever-expanding practice despite all industry doomsday warnings.