The 12th annual Discovery Coast Music Festival will be held in Bella Coola on July 23 and 24.
This is an intimate, multi-cultural, family-friendly experience.
What began as a local and regional affair in 1998, has grown into a highly regarded event featuring award-winning performers from across the province and the country.
This welcoming community is always pleased to share its spectacular scenery — and local food specialties such as salmon and Indian Tacos with visitors from around the world.
You’re in for the usual high calibre of musicianship for which this festival is known.
A free concert with Scott Cook and The Long Weekends on Friday night at the Valley Inn Pub will kick-off the weekend-long event.
Volunteer firemen will be serving up a free pancake breakfast on site at 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning, so you don’t have to miss the opening act at 11 a.m.
Vancouver’s ODDS will rock out the first night.
A special inter-active Children’s Site is open on Sunday, with story-telling, cedar weaving, and a featured performance by Juno award nominees, The Kerplunks.
Several other acts include:
The New Odds: In 1987, four highly individual Vancouver musicians put together a guitar-based, power-pop strike force to write catchy melodic songs built on crunchy rock guitars, full-voiced harmonies, and walloping drums.
Known then simply as The Odds, their tongue-in-cheek video shoots included an outer space-themed storyline for I Would Be Your Man and outfits for Heterosexual Man, which featured members of the comedy troupe, Kids in the Hall.
In 1995, they produced the platinum-plus selling album, Good Weird Feeling, featuring Truth Untold and Eat My Brain.
Someone Who’s Cool, from the 1996 album, Nest, enjoyed eight weeks as the Number 1 song at Canadian rock radio, and went Top 40 in the U.S. Their upbeat sound became synonymous with CTV’s comedy smash “Corner Gas,” for which they provided the theme song. In 2008, they reorganized as The New Odds and produced a new album, Cheerleader.
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Labess: (which means “all is well” in Arabic), originated when veteran Algerian guitarist Nedjim Bouizzoul moved to Montreal in 2003. Quickly noticed by other professional musicians, Nedjim teamed up with a trumpet player, bassist, and percussionist to accompany his French and Algerian lyrics. Singing of freedom and tolerance, Labess melodies are reminiscent of Spanish Flamenco and Gypsy Rumba, mixed with the sounds and rhythms of North Africa. Their first album won the 2007 award for Best World Album from ADISQ, the organization that represents the music, entertainment and video industry in Quebec.
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Nice Verdes: Nice Verdes is a duo who began collaborating in Australia in 2003. Since then, they have travelled to study and perform in many parts of the world that have inspired and informed their traditional and acoustic musical style, including Cuba, Senegal, and Central America. Playing guitar, the three-stringed Cuban tres, harmonicas, percussion, accordion, and piano, the duo are drawn to collaborating with artists wherever they go.
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Eekwol: a.k.a. Lindsay Knight, hails from the Muskoday Cree First Nation of Saskatchewan. Knight took the stage name Eekwol because she didn’t “want to be categorized [as] female, or aboriginal. I wanted to be recognized for my dedication, talent and love for this hip hop art.”
She was the winner of the First Nations Award for Arts and Entertainment in 2008. A prolific artist, Eekwol has recorded and produced seven albums and EPs, and appeared as a guest on many compilations, including one in Japan.
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Digging Roots: Winners of a Juno for their 2009 album We Are, Digging Roots’ almost indefinable sound is blurred somewhere between the lines of roots, rock, hip hop, and blues. Attesting to their cross-genre chops, they won both an Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Award for Best Blues Album, and a Native American Music Award for Best Pop Album in 2010 – for the same recording. Lead singer ShoShona Kish’s sometimes throaty vocals have been likened to Janis Joplin, and talented guitarist Raven Kanatakta plays with reference to his influences (think, Hendrix meets Sun House meets Derek Trucks), while still shaping an entirely original sound.
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Jason and Pharis Romero: Jason and Pharis Romero hail from Horsefly and make music and banjos together. The couple produced Shout Monah in July 2010 with The Haints Old Time Stringband and another CD — Back Up and Push with Jason and Pharis Romero and Friends — made in 2010 while driving from Vancouver Island to Oakland California and playing old time tunes with a few fiddling friends alone the way.
Whether your taste leans to the groovin’ Afro-beat of Mr. Something Something; blues by Digging Roots; hip hop by Eekwol; the country/blues guitar of Joel Fafard; the jazzy Andrea Koziol Trio; or the old-timey strings of Pharis and Jason Romero, the Discovery Coast Music Festival will tickle your eardrums.
And the price won’t break your pocketbook, either.
A one-day pass for adults is only $25; for students and seniors it’s $20.
Children 12 and under are free.
Find performer links and schedule details on the web: www.bellacoolamusic.org.