Kelowna live music blog presents…. Countdown to the Rockanagan Music Festival (September 28^th and 29^th). Get your tickets now at the five participating venues.

Rockanagan Featured band of the day – Kim McMechan (folk)
Friday night @ Sturgeon Hall

Kim McMechan spent most of her childhood years pretending to practice her minuets when what she was really doing was writing terrible songs that fell somewhere in style between John Denver and Abba. (You can’t imagine what a terrible combination this was.) She was also obsessed with the Minipops for probably much longer than should have been allowed. Her first attempt at forming a band was in grade 5 when she gathered some of the neighborhood girls together to teach them 3-part harmony to “We’re the Kids of America” even though they were all Canadians.

Things have improved a great deal since then. Kim received some notable success a few years back when 12 of her songs were included in a series of 5 compilation albums through Vineyard Music Group. The records went on to collectively sell over 75,000 copies worldwide, and garnered Kim radio play on stations across North America & Australia and fan mail from around the world.

She writes, she’s been told, “beautifully wrought tunes”, often described by critics as “haunting” and “open-hearted”, which have gone on to receive high praise. Her voice too, has wowed audiences, teetering somewhere between gritty and lonesome, & full of folk-like purity. In 1999, a reviewer from Toronto hailed Kim and her songwriting as “Canada’s best-kept secret.”