If you were among the handful of people at the Tongue N Groove last  summer for an unusual show full of horns and monsters and horny monsters from Winnipeg’s Flying Fox and the Hunter Gatherers, you can expect more of the same when they return to Lethbridge to play the Slice, March 25. If you haven’t  seen them, you are in for a treat. The band is getting their road legs back after a brief break. This tour is taking them west from Regina to Vancouver and back through Saskatoon. Then they are gearing up for a massive Canadian tour in the summer.

“We were busy with non -band related things. Half the band got married last year and we needed to settle down and take a break anyway because we hadn’t had a day off in two years, so this tour is  sort of picking up the pace again,” said Jesse Krause, the band’s lead singer/ guitarist and violinist.

He is looking forward to being back on the road.
“My day job is teaching guitar to mostly children. So most of my day is spent  in a room with one child, so I’m trading that for a smelly van with six guys who act like children,” laughed lead singer/ guitarist Jesse Krause.
 The band recorded a rock opera or ‘sound drama,’ of popular children’s book ‘Where the Wild Things Are,” which incorporates a variety of crazy costumes into the live show.
“We don’t wear the costumes for the rest of the set. We ease the audience into it, so by the time we put them on, they say ‘oh yeah, that makes sense,’” Krause said.

Buckman Coe will be combining a lot of soul with a little bit of blues and a touch of folk when he makes his first visit to Lethbridge, March 24 at the Owl Acoustic Lounge.
He is touring for five weeks on the re-release of his  CD “By The Mountain’s Feet.’
“It  was released last year. It was my first solo record,” said Coe from Vancouver.
 The CD sounds like it came right out of the late ’60s, early ’70s folk scene, with touches of soul and a little bit of Canned Heat.

“My music is totally soul music and a lot of folk. Though I’m more into the lighter folk sensibility, there is almost less Celtic influences with banjos and more Americana,” Coe said of his music.
“But it changes a lot,” he continued.

He is excited about the upcoming five week tour on the repackaged CD. “The first one was a soft release. This one is  more professional. We’re actually going on tour for it,” he said. The new CD features the same music, but with new cover art and liner notes.
 He will be playing his way across the country with several different musicians. The Lethbridge stop will include bassist Michael Rush who plays the gigs up to Regina and drummer Adam Parent.

“I’m very lucky I ’ve got to know a lot of people all across the country,” he said adding he has met a lot of  fellow musicians who are eager to play with him by going to festivals and conferences like the recent Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis a few week ago.
“The Canadian music scene really is like a fraternity,” he said.

Andrew and Zachari Smith make their Lethbridge debut at the Lethbridge Folk Club Wolf’s Den, March 24.
 The father and son duo from Kelowna, British Columbia stop by Lethbridge in the midst of a three week tour of the prairies, including folk clubs and other listening rooms.

“Well, it’s kind of a mix of contemporary alt folk and country. My son and I both play guitar and some dobro and mandolin,” Andrew Smith said.
They have never made it to Lethbridge, though they have played the Tongue on Post winter festival in Medicine Hat.

“And my son plays suitcase snare drum. He went through a lot of Value Villages looking for just the right sounding suitcase,” he continued.
 The other big part of their show is tap style guitar, which is similar to Eddie Van Halen style fretboard tapping, but is a lot more percussive, using the body of the guitar.

If an awesome show happens and there is no-one there to hear it, did it really happen, or was it just a figment of your imagination?
 Calgary blues-rock trio Bluessmyth returned to the Slice, March 8 to play a wicked couple of sets of carefully crafted original blues-rock for about a dozen people.

The low attendance may be due to the fact that Lethbridge has been inundated with awesome shows over the past couple months with more to come. Nonetheless, Bluesmyth brought a lot of big riffs, sexy slide guitar and didn’t play a note out of place in their solos — and all three, guitarist vocalist Chris Yaholkoski, bassist Jason Yaholkoski and drummer Celene Yohemas got to solo.

They added a lot of three part vocal harmonies as well as a sultry blues groove to get the feet moving.
 Chris Yaholkoski played some sweet slide and added tasteful wah wah, while Celene Yohemas kept the time like an expensive Swiss watch.

Jason Yaholkoski got lost in his intricate bass groove.
 While they played a few blues standards, most of their set was original including their epic Emmett Till trilogy about the rise of the American Civil Rights movement after Till’s death. There was plenty of intricate playing and multiple time changes.

“Rosemary’s Blues” was another uptempo highlight of a set which featured a lot  tasteful and groove filled playing.
 They also introduced a brand new song. “You’re only the second audience to hear it,” Celene Yohemas said.