The WildWorks Station

It was a great privilege to chat with Will Currie from Will Currie and the Country French on the weekend. The band has been around for a couple of years and I did not get a chance to do an interview them when they stopped by in Ottawa. The interview was aired on Wednesday’s show at CKCU-FM. It’s been awhile that I have done a music interview because it was a slow time during the holidays and up until January of 2012.
The interview with Currie was light-hearted at best and really wished that my co-host was there to help out as well. Overall, it was nicely done. Oh yes! Even though I rarely mention it on my show, I had cupcakes to bring along for Will Currie and The Country French and almost forgot that it was the lead member’s birthday at the time of the recording. The photo of the cupcakes is posted below.
Don’t forget to listen to the radio show and the interview at your own time.
The playlist for Wednesday’s show is over at this link. The Wild 10 Countdown summary will be posted later.

Audio/Interviews
The full February 15th show – Press play to listen.

The live part of the show – Press play to listen.

The Will Currie and The Country French Interview

Photo
The cupcakes to Will Currie and The Country French from Saturday, Feb. 11th

The second radio show of January 2012 were interesting and fun as I had some new tracks to play and the return of Lauren as she returned from her holiday. To start off, there’s a going to be a bunch of new albums coming out for January and February. On the live part of the show, there were new tracks by Sleigh Bells, The Wooden Sky, The Darcys (again), and Joel Plaskett Emergency.
Halfway through the show, Lauren and myself talked about the Coachella lineup and then ending off with the 2nd anniversary of Haiti earthquake. With the Haiti earthquake, I had the opportunity to give my support to the wonderful organization, Kanpe Foundation through DAVIDsTEA. Kanpe is really dedicated to help rebuild Haiti and they’re still continuing with the achievements to keep Haiti strong.
Back to the Coachella lineup, one song I played was pretty nostalgic as it was Fade Into You by Mazzy Star. It’s quite a surprise that the band is still around after all these years. It was fitting to play it even though it’s a bit sombre to listen to the song.
In other CKCU related stuff, my entry for the favourite artist of 2011 is posted at this link. It’s about Emmy The Great.
The playlist for January 11th’s show is posted at this link.
The Wild 10 Countdown summary is at this link.

Audio/Radio Show
The full January 11, 2012 show – Press play to listen.

The live part of WildWorks for January 11, 2012 – Press play to listen.

I can’t believe that November has gone by quickly and the odd thing has been the early Christmas specials being aired so early on the television. It’s a couple of weeks away until Christmas. My own festive mood will certainly kick.
Today’s radio show was 2 hours live on the airwaves in Ottawa. I was supposed to have guest co-host, Candice So, join me but there was a complication as she couldn’t help me on the show. At least she was able to drop by for a bit and gave her a lovely holiday tea as an early Christmas gift. No one is to be blamed with the miscommunication.
Saving the show was the return of Lauren as we counted down the top 10 Canadian indie songs.
The second hour of the show had the interview with The Darcys. They were in Ottawa recently and I had the chance to chat and talk about their new album.
Without further ado, the playlist is at this link.
The Wild 10 Countdown summary is over at this link.

Lastly, it was a privilege to have Candice So on the show for the previous two weeks. All I can say that you’re wonderful and awesome to be around. Wished you were there for the November 30th radio show. The photo of us is posted below as well as the interview and the radio show. Enjoy!

Audio/Interview
The November 30th radio show – Press play to listen.

The Darcys Interview

Photo
Lenny & Candice

Update on Sunday, November 27, 2011 – Added Friday’s radio show.

Today’s entry is brought to you by the object, snow. That’s right! Snow walloped Ottawa causing slowdown on traffic for Wednesday morning. The radio show and podcast was almost fallen into place because of the weather. Candice So made a return to the show and we had an enjoyable and funny time on the show, despite the gloomy weather. For this edition, So was the host and I was the co-host/sidekick. The recording for the top 10 songs got reversed because of the snowy weather.
Also on the show was the interview with Neil Haverty of Bruce Peninsula. The band was in Ottawa last week for a show. It was a nice opportunity to conduct an interview with the band and to my own amazement, I did a good job on the interview itself.
The audio is posted below. Have a good week!

The playlist of the radio show is at this link.
The Wild 10 Countdown summary is at this link.

Audio/Podcast
The November 23rd radio show – Press play to listen.

The Bruce Peninsula Interview

The November 25th Radio Show – Filling in for Friday Night Derailment. The playlist is at this link.
Press play to listen.

It’s been an exciting sixth season on the blog and a second season for the radio show at CKCU-FM. Apologies that it sounds confusing between radio and the blog.
On my radio show, I wasn’t sure about having co-hosts but it became helpful to myself as I didn’t have to mess up compare to hosting alone. I have to give credit to the Italian co-host who joined in the first half of 2nd season as she was able to broaden my music horizons. She was there for a couple of months and I still miss her presence. As for the second half of the season, I had a returning host from a former radio show and was helpful to my show. Then there was a new co-host as she’s studying in Journalism at Carleton University. It was helpful for her in gaining some experience and is into the Canadian indie music, which certainly helped on my radio show. How could I not forget about Digory as he’s appeared on and off and there were a few people who came on as well.
I could not forget about the countless of interviews I’ve done with musicians and bands. The people who inspired me to make the show interesting are Ellie Davis, George Stroumboulopoulos and Nat & Marie (second half of the season).
To clarify, I will still be on the air but airing reruns on the interviews. I didn’t explain on The Wild 10 Countdown as that will continue in podcast/pre-recorded form.
Speaking of The Wild 10, there were two debuts in the form of Matthew Barber and Graham Wright. For the third week in a role, Lose It by Austra is still number one.
For the second year to Cantopop listeners/fans, there was a tribute to the Hong Kong rock band, Beyond on the live part of the radio show.
Last but not least, the playlist for the June 29th show is at this link. The audio is posted below.
As usual, the blog will be on a Summer break, even though Ottawa has a bunch of Summer festivals happening. Don’t worry, there will be a few Summer special entries.
Have a great summer! New season (series 7) returns in September.

Audio/Podcast
The June 29th Radio Show (Season Finale) – Press play to listen.

The live part/second hour of the show is posted up on Podomatic. Click here to listen.

Due to circumstances, I’ve been under the weather as I caught a fever and a cold during Wednesday’s show. It couldn’t happen at a bad time when I went to air the Hey Rosetta! interview for my radio show at CKCU-FM. Since I had a special edition of WildWorks due to another radio show being on a short break. About two hours were on the airwaves. The live to air version is not it as I aired a dedication to a radio host on Wednesday nights who passed away. My condolences goes to the family and it’s a privilege to be great radio hosts at CKCU-FM.
The Wild 10 Countdown summary is over at this link. Apologies for the delay due to being sick.
For anyone who missed it live, songs I played were the new Radiohead song, brand new Adele as her album, 21 got released and a whole slew of Canadian music.

The blog finally hit 10,000 views. I know it’s a bit slow having to keep promoting it on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks a lot for supporting.
You can listen to the radio show from below. The playlist is at this link.

Audio – Radio Show & Hey Rosetta! Interview
Radio Show – press play to listen.

The Hey Rosetta! Interview – Press play to listen or download it.

Updated on May 26, 2010
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to chat with Leif Vollebekk at the 1st May Whee Festival at Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Wednesday’s radio show will be fully updated later but for now, the Leif Vollebekk audio interview is posted up. You should enjoy the interview as it became a hilarious interview. I even made some goof-ups on the interview. I apologize for messing up on the question about The Balconies. He didn’t form the band, he helped gave Jacquie, Stephen and Liam the name.
Also on the radio show was an expanded edition of the countdown. For this week only, my Wild 5 Countdown became the W10 Countdown.

The W10 Countdown for Week of May 5, 2010.
1. Fixed – Stars
2. Forced to Love – Broken Social Scene (new entry)
3. Your Hands (Together) – The New Pornographers (new entry)
4. The Right Time (feat. Tyler Bancroft) – Hannah Georgas
5. Laura Palmer’s Prom – You Say Party! We Say Die! (was #1 last week)
6. No Ghost – The Acorn (new)
7. Celestica – Crystal Castles (new)
8. Breakneck Speed – Tokyo Police Club (new)
9. Authentic – Young Rival (new)
10. Ghost Pressure – Wolf Parade (new)

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Friday night was probably one of those unexpected moments because I was at the Said The Whale, In-Flight Safety & Graham Wright concert at Zaphod Beeblebrox. Ottawa was the 2nd day of their 2010 Spring tour.
For the past weeks, I have been going to Zaphods for other shows and they were not packed compared to Friday’s show. It’s been awhile that I have attended a sold out show at Zaphods. It was awesome to see Said The Whale filled the crowds. What I also liked were the fans singing along to their songs and I basically couldn’t believe it. It was funny when Tyler Bancroft (guitarist and vocals) poked fun that at 11pm, Ke$ha would be played. Another funny moment was Ben Worchester (guitarist and vocals) threw a quarter and a toonie to packed crowd.

The opening acts, In-Flight Safety and Graham Wright were excellent. It’s my first time to check In-Flight Safety because the last time I went to another venue, I skipped them. Overall, they were rockin’ great and I interviewed the lead singer of IFS after all bands finished up. I got mentioned that the band is like the Coldplay of Halifax and asked about various Halifax bands in general.

As for Wright, he’s from Tokyo Police Club and he’s doing his solo tour. As for his other band, let’s say that I still haven’t seen TPC live yet. It’s still a shame but at least I got to interview one third of TPC. One irony being that the interview was short and compared it to TPC’s albums because their songs are short.
Expect all three interviews to be aired in sometime in April. Said The Whale’s interview is version 2.0 because I wanted to ask them about their experience during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
The video on top happens to be Camilo (The Magician).

Thursday night was pretty exciting as I went to Zaphod Beeblebrox for the 3rd week as I checked out Girl Party featuring Jas Nasty, Kool Krys and Jenocide. I decided to do an audio interview with Kool Krys because she’s been heard on other radio shows lately. There’s something unique about her music because Ottawa hasn’t really got a big hip-hop presence (my opinion, I don’t check out the 613 hip-hop scene very much). It seems like she’s my first “official” Ottawa artist to be interviewed for my radio show. The Balconies don’t really count because it was more of a Christmas theme when I interviewed them.
The show was great because Kool Krys brought excitement to her hip-hop music. She sang some classic tunes like Salt ‘N’ Pepa and Destiny’s Child as it reminded me of my teenage years when I listened to those songs on the radio. She brought the old school mentality and it certainly gave me a smile because I felt like it was the 1990s all over again.
Prior to Kool Krys performing, Jas Nasty was spinning tunes and she also played old school tunes from the 80s. The final act was Jenocide, from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her music was more on the electronic and thrash (as her MySpace page says it). I didn’t realize her style of music reminded me of Ruby Jean and The Thoughtful Bees, also from Halifax.
Overall, it was a good night even though I missed out on other events happening.
From cartoons to comic book heroes, we will go from Jem & The Holograms to Wonder Woman.
Played the Superfriends theme on the March 24th radio show because of Wonder Woman being in the cartoon. The Superfriends theme is played around the 17 minute mark.

Here’s the radio show and interview with Kool Krys in 2 parts. Playlists for hour 1 and hour 2 are available if you want to check what was played.
Radio show – Press play to listen. You can now listen to the show through iTunes as an audio stream.

WildWorks Extra – The new slot from 11.30am-12pm. Press play to listen.

Kool Krys Interview
Part 1 interview, press play or download it.

Part 2 interview, press play or download it.

This is not the end of Series 5 yet, as I didn’t expect to go over with the number of entries. Series 5 will continue with a new number, 5.2.
5.2 will possibly start with the Said The Whale/In-Flight Safety/Graham Wright concert or a yearly tribute to Leslie Cheung and the first time to dedicate it on radio after writing up for a couple of years since his death.

Other Loose Ends Before Ending 5.1
I did some video shooting for Bands Undone. I shot for Ottawa bands, Dave Norris & Local Ivan and Old Crowns on separate days. What made me excited was that the Canon EOS 5D Mark II got a new firmware update and I shot on 24p (24 frames per second, which they say is cinema look). A new method I tried was using the microphone and monopod as a boom mic. Instead of having Kara using a microphone, it was nice to have her not use a mic and have her chat freely. The one with Dave Norris was shaky because it was a first time but the one with Old Crowns turned out well.
Check the links provided from the Bands Undone site as it will include the videos I shot, Dave Norris & Local Ivan and Old Crowns. Both local bands were great and enjoyable.

Part 3 – November 7, 2009
After two nights at Mavericks Bar, the third concert I went was at Babylon Nightclub. I went to see Ohbijou with Silver Starling and Giant Hand. Before I write about Ohbijou’s performance, I went to Canteen Art Shop + Gallery for another Bands Undone session and it was none other than Silver Starling. In a way, I got see them two times. Silver Starling is a Montreal indie pop/rock band. I got to say that their music style is similar to Arcade Fire and Young Galaxy. After the session, I did not know that some of the members are closely linked to Arcade Fire and one was formerly with Young Galaxy. Oddly enough that Young Galaxy was in town for a concert. As previously mentioned that there’s so many great concerts in November.
All I can say that it was great to see the two Brian’s at Canteen. I couldn’t have been happy to see people around and have fun chatting.
I had the chance to interview two members of Ohbijou for another future airing on my radio show at CKCU-FM. There were a few goof ups during the interview, which will be edited out. Onto their performance, as usual, the crowd was packed and it was even hot (temperture-wise) during their set. Their encore set was excellent as Howie and Rolf of The Acorn helped out.
Overall, great show but the lightning was tough to shoot and I usually don’t use flash a lot.
You can view the photo by clicking to this link.
Now, I can finally rest up after three days of craziness and taxi riding late in the night.
Here is the video I taped when they sang St.Francis.

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