Meet the Musicians—Kate Boothman

Kate Boothman performs onstage at the Ganaraska Hotel

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture, so the saying goes. It can be hard for a musician to describe what they do, which is why Kate Boothman invented a new genre to describe her latest album, My Next Mistake. “It’s a really relaxing record about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, so we called it massage rock,” she says, laughing. “It’s versatile—it can be played acoustic, it can be played loud electric, but I’m a singer-songwriter, essentially.”

Meet the Musicians—Beau Dixon

Beau Dixon performs on a grand piano, and is partly reflected in the glossy raised lid

At the start of 2020, Beau Dixon wasn’t sure where his career was headed. Even as a multidisciplinary artist with credits in music, theatre, and television, the closure of so many performance venues was nerve-wracking. “The first few months were very scary—how’s this going to work, what am I going to do, should I go back to school, you know, take up plumbing,” he recalls. In one of the pandemic’s many unpredictable twists, he found himself working on two prestige TV productions instead. “Weirdly enough, this has been the most successful two years of my life, my career, primarily because I landed a TV series called Station Eleven. I had a substantial role in that and another series, a sci-fi series called The Expanse. So that helped during my rainy days.”

Meet the Musicians—Close Kicks feat. Louwop

We’re used to seeing far-off places in our media. New York lofts, tropical beaches, Icelandic vistas—all perks of living in the Internet age. But it can make it all too easy to forget about the scenery and stories in our own backyard. Darryl James’ Close Kicks project is unabashedly local, and there’s a thrill of recognition in his music videos to seeing our landscapes and streets not as stand-ins for another place or era, but as themselves. Speaking to James and his collaborator Luis Segura, aka Louwop, at Lindsay’s Academy Theatre, it’s clear their commitment to nurturing the local scene runs deep.

Meet the Musicians—Cale Crowe

Cale Crowe performs onstage at Victoria Hall

A mark of professionalism in music is control over dynamics—the understanding of how to move between quiet and loud for maximum impact. Watching Cale Crowe perform, one thing that stands out is his ability to glide smoothly from a whisper to a roar. The singer-songwriter looks relaxed and comfortable onstage at Cobourg’s Victoria Hall, even as he plays stripped-down acoustic versions of his songs without the loop pedals he usually employs to build more complex arrangements. When he steps off stage, he gives credit to the venue for being especially conducive to live music.

Meet the Musicians—Kelly Burrows

Music scenes don’t happen automatically. They must be nurtured, week after week and month after month, by disciplined and passionate individuals who offer their energy to the community. They might be musicians themselves, leading a jam or bringing out crowds to a regular residency, or they might be venue owners opening their space to artists. As one of Bobcaygeon’s most active songwriters with a full-time music teaching schedule, Kelly Burrows easily qualifies as a prime mover in the Kawartha Lakes scene.

Outside the Box: An Interview with Northumberland’s Cardboard Reality

Four felt puppets play in a jazz quartet, in a still from a Cardboard Reality video

What do permaculture farming and animation have in common? Plenty, if you ask bekky O’Neil and Keith Del Principe, co-owners of Northumberland’s Cardboard Reality Farm & Studio. As animators, they’ve created award-winning stop-motion and 2D animated short films on their farm outside Roseneath. On the same property they’ve grown flowers, raised ducks, and experimented with a range of sustainable agricultural practices, making them the rare business whose output is equally at home at film festivals and the Cobourg Farmers’ Market.

Halloween Haunts: Lore and Legends of Kawarthas Northumberland

An image of the Peterborough Lift Locks, treated with vignettes and aging techniques to appear spooky

It can take the better part of a century to rack up enough stories for a spooky reputation. Fortunately for lovers of a good ghost yarn, Kawarthas Northumberland is rich in historical sites that—at least according to those with an inclination towards the supernatural—resonate with the spectral echoes of years gone by. As Halloween approaches, … Read more