A bit about Emily West
Hailing from Cochrane, Alberta, Emily is fully embarked on a twenty something’s journey of self discovery, guitar and notebook in hand. With a voice that is at once angelic and spirited, kind but also capable of great depth, she sings about the peaks and valleys of her mountain home, the misery of an empty gun, all the while making you feel less alone in your own moments of joy and sadness.

Come out the Habitat on Friday night to check out
Victoria’s Jon and Roy.

Jon and Roy have played all over England and Canada, highlights include a
UK tour with Buck 65, an ocean-side set at Victoria’s Ska Fest, performing at NXNE, and taking part in the COCA performance series in the nation’s capital.

“Jon and Roy are the perfect duo to bust some lazy chills with on a sunday afternoon.” Battle of the Midwestern Housewives

“Their music accompanies the end of summer particlularly well. I can imagine campers living out their last day fishing off of a small rowboat and reclining around the campfire until the remaining embers burn out.”
–AZLTRON

“Warm, laid back, and inviting acoustic roots music.” –Ick music

Yukon Blonde started all over and got things right.
Photograph by: Handout photo, The Province
Long-haired road warriors get it right after some hiccups
By Stuart Derdeyn, The Province
April 4, 2010

Yukon Blonde is not a northern strain of the legendary Lebanese blonde hash mentioned in hit songs from the psychedelic ’60s. It is the name of a smoking-hot band that plays some pretty trippy pop, though.

Since relocating to Vancouver from its Kelowna home, the trio of Jeff Innes, Brandon Scott and Graham Jones has been converting fans across Canada to its brand of buzz.

Since the February release of its self-titled Nevado Records debut, the long-haired road warriors have been touring relentlessly, hitting major markets such as Boston, New York and Chicago, as well as a stop in Austin, Texas, for South By Southwest.

The guys are getting lots of love everywhere they play, too. Like the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young style harmonizing on “Wind Blows,” the forecast is smooth sailing right on back to its hometown launch of the new disc. Also on the bill is Halifax’s buzzy In-Flight Safety.

“This tour is a lot better than any of the other tours we’ve had,” says Innes. “It’s our fourth time across Canada and the first one where people are showing up at all the shows.

“Before, we used to just book everything ourselves and do all our own promotion and it was pretty suicidal.”

Originally formed in 2005, the band was previously a quintet named Alphababy that released two well-reviewed EPs recorded at the Hive Creative Labs studios in Vancouver. Logging in 300-plus gigs supporting the likes of Women, The Constantines, Ladyhawk and Black Mountain, the name change came after one member departed in 2008. The attention factor rose incrementally after that.

“We got to a point where everything was stagnating and we had all this material that wasn’t coming together,” says Innes. “So we reassessed everything and decided to start from scratch with new songs that were about what we knew we did the best and it seems to really be working out in regards to morale and musical chemistry.”

All it takes to agree with him is a listen to tracks such as “Trivial Fires” or ” Brides Song.” At a time when so much indie rock is characterized by mediocre playing masked behind posturing or so-called lo-fiauthenticity, this band embraces big melodies, cascading choruses and an overall vibe that wouldn’t have been out of place in Southern California in the mid-1970s.

This doesn’t mean that the band can’t kick it up, but you can’t miss the influences of groups such as Big Star, Wings or Fleetwood Mac. The music bounces and makes you want to bounce along with it.

“The project really came together naturally and things have been coming to us that way,” says Innes. “We met Nick [Bernal] from Nevado when we played with his old band Riley and he told us that we should meet up when we played at the Horseshoe in Toronto. We’d just crashed our van, the name change was coming and we were in total disarray and figured he’d run from us. But he was right into everything.”

The luck has held out, too. Which is good, because things do have a habit of going wrong on the road for this hard-travelling unit. For the recent U.S. tour, drummer Jones couldn’t get across the border and labelmate and Fox Jaws member Brandyn Aikins was brought in as a ringer with two hours practice to complete the gigs. Andy Bishop from Red Cedar is filling the bass seat at the moment.

“It’s weird how it always works out,” says Innes. “Knock on wood that it keeps happening that way because we’ll be seeing an awful lot of home, er, the van, in the next few months.”

As to what the heck is in the water in Kelowna these days that leads to so many fine bands coming out of the lake-side town, Innes says he has no idea. But with Ladyhawk, We are the City, Bend Sinister, Sled Dogs and others hailing from the Okanagan burgh, it was a good place to get your chops.

Innes stresses that with no venues or any kind of real local support to speak of, bands have lots of time to practice and operate in the kind of vacuum that often spawns unique approaches to music making.

And the name? A former employer of Scott’s said “Yukon blonde” was a term denoting a denial of grey hair. It stuck.

IN CONCERT

Yukon Blonde
Where: The Biltmore Cabaret, 779 Kingsway St. When: Tuesday night at 8 Tickets: $12 at Red Cat, Scratch and Zulu

sderdeyn@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province

Saturday, April 10th in Kelowna at the Habitat w/ In-Flight Safety
$15 (+$1.50 tx & sc) Buy your tickets for this show here
Doors at 8pm

My live music blog for Kelowna, BC which has been up for 6 years at http://www.laner.ca/kelowna-live-music/ will be moved over to WordPress and will be redirected to the original domain location.

After a successful cross-Canada tour and tour of the US with stops in Chicago, SXSW in Texas, NYc and LA, Kelowna’s Yukon Blonde (formerly Alphababy – i’ve been blogging about them since 2005) are back home!

Featured by The Vancouver Sun, Billboard, The National Post’s Ampersand and CBC Arts as a band to watch in 2010, the anticipation for the February 9th release of Yukon Blonde’s self titled debut full length ran high. The build up was well warranted and in already typical Yukon Blonde fashion the band hit the road right after the album was released. With stops in Chicago, New York and Boston already under their belts since the album dropped and a show at CMW last weekend in Toronto that earned them the top marks of 96% for the whole festival on Chartattack’s CMW Report Card,  they are now ripping it up at SXSW. After that they make their way back to B.C. via the California and Oregon coast to what will surely be a triumphant return to B.C. After that of course, it is back in the van for a Canadian tour with Halifax’s In-Flight Safety.

Watch “Wind Blows” : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKUWpnQVZ0Y

See Yukon Blonde in Kelowna: April 10 @ The Habitat with In-Flight Safety

“It’s a wonderful mix of guitar-led intrigue, where Paul McCartney meets Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – somehow without becoming a retro act.” Billboard

“It’s rare and exciting to witness a group with such strong songwriting ability and instrumental talent as Yukon Blonde. The band’s ability to build acoustic soundscapes that are viscerally encapsulating and infusing is masterful, and influences exude from the songs so instinctively and freely fused that it seems a natural course of musical evolution. Yukon Blonde harnesses an organic, earthen energy and writes a warm, smooth and powerful aural experience, an album that is triumphant in its sound and vast in its scope.
***** Vue Magazine

“An infectious and ambitious first album, Yukon Blonde takes the genre to the next level with airy mystique and grand choruses. Guitar hooks in tracks like Kumiko Song and Ghosts on Film don’t stray far from the indie rock norm, but are guaranteed to be in stuck your head for days. Yukon Blonde should be compulsory listening for Canadian indie lovers” The Uniter

Yukon Blonde Tour Dates

04/01/10 Los Angeles, CA @ The Mint
04/02/10 San Francisco, CA @ Hotel Utah
04/03/10 Eugene, OR @ Muse Lounge
04/04/10 Portland, OR @ Backspace
04/06/10 Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore with In-Flight Safety
04/07/10 Victoria, BC @ Lucky Bar with In-Flight Safety
04/09/10 Courtenay, BC @ Avalanche Bar with In-Flight Safety
04/10/10 Kelowna, BC @ The Habitat with In-Flight Safety
04/12/10 Canmore, AB @ Communitea with In-Flight Safety
04/14/10 Grande Prairie, AB @ Better Than Fred’s with In-Flight Safety
04/15/10 Edmonton, AB @ New Haven Social Club with In-Flight Safety
04/16/10 Calgary, AB @ The SAIT with In-Flight Safety
04/17/10 Regina, SK @ The Exchange with In-Flight Safety
04/20/10 Winnipeg, MB @ Lo Pub with In-Flight Safety
04/21/10 Thunder Bay, ON @ Jacks with In-Flight Safety

If you missed Curtis Parry’s show at the Minstrel Cafe last month, you can catch him Friday, April 9th at the Green Room at 8pm.
101-1360 Ellis Street, Kelowna, BC V1Y 6A1

April 2nd, 2010
Myspace page

April 2nd, 2010
Myspace page

A bit about Emily West
Hailing from Cochrane, Alberta, Emily is fully embarked on a twenty something’s journey of self discovery, guitar and notebook in hand. With a voice that is at once angelic and spirited, kind but also capable of great depth, she sings about the peaks and valleys of her mountain home, the misery of an empty gun, all the while making you feel less alone in your own moments of joy and sadness.