Blue Rodeo

On Thursday, April 21, Jim Cuddy, Oh Susanna, and a bevy of other famous Canadians, will be participating in the Toronto To Japan – Hope Blossoms charity event at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, ON.

Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Toronto’s Molson Canadian Amphitheatre has just released a sneak preview of its 2011 Season. We’re happy to announce that Blue Rodeo’s much-loved annual show will take place on August 20, with openers Steve Earle and The Dukes and Duchesses! So mark it down in your calendars, and stay tuned for ticket information.

Blue Rodeo has just confirmed that they’ll be playing on May 21 and May 22 at The Kee To Bala, in Bala, ON! These shows continue a cherished Blue Rodeo tradition, so be sure to purchase your seats before they sell out. Presale tickets are on sale NOW in the BlueRodeo.com Store.

Blue Rodeo will kick off this year’s Winnipeg Folk Festival by playing Five Days in July in its entirety. This is the 38th year the festival has taken place and it is now officially a five-day affair. Other acts include k.d. lang, Tegan and Sara, The Jayhawks, and many others.

Click here to purchase your tickets and here to learn more about the festival itself.

On Friday, March 25, at 7:30 pm, two of Canada’s favourite pastimes – hockey and music – come together for an all-out clash of the titans during Juno Cup, a celebrity hockey game in support of MusiCounts, Canada’s music education charity. Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor will be there alongside other musicians from bands like Sloan, The Sadies, Billy Talent, Down With Webster, The Barenaked Ladies, and more!

Some of the confirmed NHL Greats are: Mark Napier, Brad Dalgarno, Derek King, Gary Leeman, Gary Roberts, Mike Pelyk, Paul Coffey, Russ Courtnall, Troy Crowder, and Valeri Bure.

Tickets are on sale now through Ticketmaster.

March break is one of the busiest travel times of the year at Toronto’s Pearson Airport and to make your travel time as pleasant as possible, the folks at Pearson are putting together a number of fun performances and art pieces in various terminals starting March 10.

For the exhibit “Did Juno?” Blue Rodeo has loaned two original pieces of album cover art to Pearson Airport. Find out which ones as you go through Terminal 1 this March break.

The exhibit will run until early August. For more information, click here.

This Canada Day, Blue Rodeo will be performing at the 6th annual Canada Day in London celebration at Trafalgar Square, in London, England. This free show also features Jill Barber, The Mahones, and Karkwa, among others. Blue Rodeo will take the stage at 9:15 pm. For more on this event, visit the http://www.canadadaylondon.com/.

Greg’s March 6 date at Collingwood’s Historic Gayety Theatre has been rescheduled to Saturday, April 2. If you haven’t picked up your tickets yet to what’s sure to be a fantastic night of music, you can do so over here.

And don’t forget that Greg has his first solo date in some time this Saturday, March 5, at Peterborough’s The Venue. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door.

Travis Good from The Sadies will be accompanying Greg at both shows.

Blue Rodeo drummer Glenn Milchem will see his band The Swallows release their fourth album Demystified on March 1.  The band will be celebrating the release with an album launch at Toronto’s The Piston on March 3.

You can download the track “Shoot Out Sparks” here.

In truth, Milchem intended to make a sonically diverse, acoustic-based record when he first conceived of Demystified. Having collaborated with artists ranging from Change of Heart, Andrew Cash, and Holy ***, Milchem clearly has an eclectic array of musical interests and, as such, he needs an outlet to express them. So, when he gets the inkling to record his own songs, he usually does some multi-tracking and plays every instrument himself (including a yali tambur, a Turkish bowed instrument, featured on “The Day is Upon Us”).

That’s pretty much what happened with Demystified at first, but as the sessions at Twang Recordings with co-producer Carl Petzelt progressed, it got rockier and rockier and musicians like John Borra (bass), Andrew Innanen (drums, since replaced in the live band by Brad Kilpatrick), Jonny James (guitar, since replaced in the live band by Dean Drouillard), Michael Boguski (keyboards), and special guests Bob Packwood and Julie Fader were called in to bolster a couple of songs. Otherwise, all Milchem, all the time.

Milchem sees Demystified, as his most multi-layered record yet, both musically and philosophically. He can write an uncharacteristic love tune to his wife (“Shoot Out Sparks”), as easily as he can reconsider his perspective on war after Blue Rodeo performed for the troops in Afghanistan (“Outside the Wire”). Yet he does it all really artfully and deceptively, like only the best pop song writers really can. The Swallows may only appear sporadically but, as Demystified demonstrates, when they do, they’re here to leave a definitive mark.

Check out photos from the Juno Cup 2011 Training Camp here.