This Friday, Nov. 11 is the last pre-season Safety Meeting of 2016. This time we’re excited to host Speaker Face (Toronto), with Blocktreat opening the night. Speaker Face takes the masterful violin work of Trent Freeman, and runs it through the electronic wizardry of Eric Wright. The duo makes danceable grooves with dark, catchy melodies on violin, vocals, and keyboards.
Trent and Eric played together for years in the acclaimed string band The Fretless, even coming through the Cariboo on occasion to teach at various fiddle camps. While The Fretless were on tour in London, the two began experimenting with a mutual love of electronic music. Before long they had a whole repertoire under the name Speaker Face, and were ready to take it on the road. I first caught them at Tiny Lights Festival in 2014, and immediately started plotting to get them on the Safety Meeting lineup. To get an idea of Speaker Face’s beautiful esthetic, check out speaker-face.com.
Opening the night is my own project, Blocktreat. It seemed like a natural fit, given the shared ethos of traditional bluegrass instrumentation through a kaleidoscope of electronics. When performing as Blocktreat, I play effects-drenched mandolin and samplers, and Brent Morton plays drums (and occasionally a few electronic devices of his own). Since our album release at Xat’sull in the spring, the new Blocktreat album has earned nods from Vice Noisey, The Nest HQ (Skrillex’s blog), Indie Shuffle, and received steady airplay on CBC’s The Signal. So long as I’m bragging, we also sat at the number one position for three weeks on Cfur Radio in Prince George. Performing live, the songs take on a whole new energy, never coming out the same way twice.
Providing some analog/digital projections for the evening is David Harder from Wells, B.C. Folks who came to our album release in the spring might recall how Dave’s projections lit up the whole Fraser River valley of Xat’sull with a warm, nostalgic glow.
Pick up tickets for this Friday’s Safety Meeting at Red Shreds for just $15 suggested.
We’re almost ready to announce the 2017 Safety Meeting winter concert schedule! In the meantime, I am very excited to announce that Arts on the Fly 2017 is set to go off, July 14 and 15 in Horsefly B.C! After taking a year off, our returning volunteers are feeling refreshed, and we have plenty of new recruits for 2017. The current team includes:
• Reina Barnes – director, assistant treasurer
• Marla Barrett – treasurer
• Oliver Berger – director
• Troy Forcier – president
• Matt Granlund – director
• Brandon Hoffman – artistic director
• Ingrid Kallman – director
• Katherine Kleine – director
• Brent Morton – Director
• Marin Patenaude – artistic director
• Ray Robert – director
• Caleb Sanders – director
• James Still – secretary
• Mike Upton – vice president
We are now accepting applications from performers, volunteers, and vendors. To apply, or for more information, visit artsonthefly.com or follow us on Facebook.