Waverley Hotel and Pub, Vancouver Island

The Supersuckers are literally a human cartoon. They all grew up among the dead-ends and cactus needles of Tucson, Arizona and have known each other since grade school. They graduated from the same high school together at the same time (a school immortalized in the song “Santa Rita High”) and chose to play in a band together because they liked to hang out together, not because they were great musicians or anything.

The Supersuckers have always toured their asses off all over the world and that has never stopped. They hit the road with bands like Mudhoney, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, The Ramones, Motorhead, The Toadies, The Butthole Surfers, The Reverend Horton Heat, The Dwarves, White Zombie and Pearl Jam. They’ve played a few Farm Aid shows and backed Willie Nelson on The Tonight Show. Their music has appeared in T.V. shows (Beverly Hills 90210, Viva La Bam, Simple Life, Road Rules Challenge, Real World, all that crap), Movies (Baseketball, Hype) and commercials (Mountain Dew) as well as countless snow and skateboarding video compilations.

2003 unleashed the impeccably titled, Motherfuckers Be Trippin’ on the world. It was the perfect follow up to The Evil Powers Of Rock N Roll, it spent a couple weeks on the Billboard Independent Charts and songs from it have been featured on MTV’s Real World and Viva La Bam shows as well as countless ski and snowboard videos. Even managed to work a single (Rock N Records Ain’t Selling this Year) to radio where it was #1 on the RnR Specialty Charts for 4 weeks in a row (whatever that is).

"Get It Together" was the next brand-spanking new record from the Supersuckers. Once again teaming up with the man who brought "Paid" to life, the incomparable Mr. Billy Joe Bowers, the band has never sounded so good.

With special guest Lydia Loveless. Blessed with a commanding, blast-it-to-the-back-of-the-room voice, the 21 year-old Lydia Loveless was raised on a family farm in Coshocton, Ohio—a small weird town with nothing to do but make music. With a dad who owned a country music bar, Loveless often woke up with a house full of touring musicians scattered on couches and floors. When she got older, in the time-honored traditions of teenage rebellion, she turned her back on these roots, moved to the city (Columbus OH) and immersed herself in the punk scene, soaking up the musical and attitudinal influences of everyone from Charles Bukowski to Richard Hell to Hank III.

Loveless’s true-to-life testimonials hit and hit hard. Be it whiskey, men, god or alienation, Lydia takes them all on; they may kick, but she kicks back and, even though she stands 5′ tall, when the bar stools start flying, we want her on our side. Click here to view a video "Can't Change Me".

http://www.supersuckers.com>>

Cascadia SpeakEasy ElectroSwing joins us in presenting DJ Delay & DJ Eliazar.  With Electro Swing coming to every major festival in the EU this summer, we know it will only take a moment for folks on this side of the sea to find out why we are all working up a sweat about the sound.

DJ Delay’s spent the last 20 years DJing in Berlin, Osaka & Melbourne, gigging at the world's most excellent festivals (inc. Glastonbury Exit, Fusion), clubs and radio stations (12 years on PBSFM's Into The Groovy). He's released several albums in the global bass arena, with a focus on Jamaica, Eastern Europe and South America.

To date DJ Delay (and his alter egos Beam Up & Sonical) have released 4 albums & over 50 tracks on a wide range of labels in 6 countries.

DJ Eliazar is the founder of the Speakeasy Electro Swing nights in Montreal, which have now spread all over the continent with Speakeasy nights happening in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Austin, Houston, Mexico City, and Monteray Mexico. These nights have been at the forefront of the Electro Swing and Electro Blues sound in North America. He is currently putting together Vol. 1 of the Speakeasy Electro Swing compilation that will be released in April of 2013

From residencies all over the globe - Tocca a Te (Osaka), Ultra (Hiroshima), Heaven (Christchurch, NZ), Crush/Holocene/Aalto/Nightlight/Goodfoot (Portland, OR), Rialto (Long Beach, CA), Divan Orange/Sala Rossa/Blizzarts (Montreal QC), and gigs in places as diverse as Tokyo, Chang Mai, Punta Cana, Turks and Cacaos, Chicago, Vancouver, Minneapolis, LA, Victoria, Seattle, Montreal, etc, the sound has spread far and wide.

• Click here to listen to a Speakeasy Soundcloud.
• Click here to listen to DJ Delay on Soundcloud.

http://speakeasyelectroswing.com/home.cfm>>

This year's edition features a badass selection of guitar player/vocalists, with blues demon and Jeff Healey prodigy Jimmy Bowskill (Canada), the hot licks of Nashville's Bart Walker, and the First Lady of British blues, Joanne Shaw Taylor. The group is coming to western Canada as part of an extensive tour which started with shows across eastern Europe and Scandanavia in April, and will then wind down to where the heart of the blues started pumping, in the midwestern and south US, along Highway 61 and beyond. Each of these top notch artists have a CV worthy of raised eyebrows, and they prove their mad skills night after night.

Jimmy Bowskill has been onstage since age 11; discovered by the irreplaceable Jeff Healey, and folks have been watching his fingers fly across the fretboard since. At just 21, he has a a grasp on blues music more than most twice his age, not to mention his fifth release Back Number has been earning him much acclaim. It's seen him take the stage with the likes of Colin Linden, and collaborate on a track with Ron Sexsmith. Bowskill is also Canada's youngest Juno nominee, with his second album being nominated for the prestigious award in 2004. Together with The Jimmy Bowskill band the soulful singer and player is becoming one of Canada's blues greats.

Bart Walker might have well as been born with a telecaster in hand, as it was only the first four years of his life that he did not play the guitar. He's earned his chops in recent years the Nashville way, playing with country star Bo Bice, and releasing second album Waiting on Daylight with Ruf Records after his successful debut Who I Am, and touring through the south and midwestern US frequently. Walker is a bold young torchbearer in the international blues scene, with all the right ingredients to topple the ranks of history's greats.

Joanne Shaw Taylor wowed the audience in 2012 at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, when she burst onto the scene with a crushing guitar solo amid Annie Lennox's set; though her prodigal discovery by Lennox's guitarist Dave Stewart happened years earlier when she was only sixteen. Her latest pressing (and third album to date) Almost Always Never has blossomed the young guitarist and vocalist into a full-grown powerhouse, pushing her own boundaries with producer Mike McCarthy. Another young-starter, Joanne developed her love for blues rock around thirteen through the guitars "lying around the house", and a boss collection of records compliments of her folks, but she honed in her skills quickly and was on the road to stardom in just three short years.

No band is complete without a kick-ass rhythm section of course, and drummer Denis Palatin has been driving the Caravan for years. For this tour, he will be joined in the engine room by bassist Ian McKeown from the Jimmy Bowskill Band.

http://www.bluescaravan.com/>>

The three albums released over the past eight years by Taj Weekes on his Jatta Records label have established the St. Lucia born Rastafarian reggae artist as a compelling singer/songwriter/guitarist who eschews passing trends and disposable beats, favoring provocative messages set to the multi-textured rhythms intricately crafted by his pan-Caribbean band Adowa. “Hope & Doubt”, released in 2005, introduced Taj Weekes & Adowa’s distinctive musical brand, an amalgam of calypso, country and western, jazz, blues, and rock strains, anchored in skanking reggae guitars and drum and bass driven one drop rhythms. Their sophomore album “Deidem”, released in 2008, was honored as the Best Reggae Album at the Just Plain Folks Music Awards. Their 2010 release, “A Waterlogged Soul Kitchen”, which pays homage Hurricane Katrina survivors, ranked among many critics best-of lists for that year.

While radio airwaves are notoriously unwelcoming towards singer/songwriters with consciousness-raising messages, Taj Weekes & Adowa’s rapidly expanding fan base, extending from Eastern Europe across North America and throughout the Caribbean stems from the critical praise their three albums have received and, especially, audiences’ roaring approval of their enthralling live concerts. “I’ve always focused on reaching people, not just playing music; if you have a good product and don’t sell yourself short because you are not getting sufficient airplay, eventually the audiences will come and then something will happen; whatever happens, my intention is to remain true to the music,” Taj asserts.

Serving as a vibrant souvenir for listeners who have already experienced their concerts and an unforgettable introduction for those who haven’t, Taj Weekes & Adowa’s fourth album “Pariah In Transit”, due for release on April 9^th on Jatta Records, with distribution through Megawave, features 10 tracks recorded at their various performances over the past two years throughout North America and at St. Lucia’s world-renowned jazz festival in May 2011. The album’s curious title, Taj explains, reflects his position in the overall reggae narrative, “on the outskirts trying to get in but not really being allowed to. We weren’t born in Jamaica, reggae’s birthplace, which is one of the greatest adversities we face,” Taj remarked. Adowa, named after the first Italian-Ethiopian War that secured Ethiopian sovereignty on March 1, 1896, represents a broad swathe of the Caribbean archipelago with Radss Desiree, (Dominica) on bass; Adoni Xavier (Trinidad) guitar, vocals; John Hewitt (Barbados) keyboards, vocals and Cornel Marshall (Jamaica) drums, vocals. “People don’t listen to jazz or rock from just one place so why should we be looking to one geographic location for great reggae music?” Taj asks.

http://tajweekes.com/>>