A band from Kentucky, a band from Nipawin and a band from Prince Albert will be representing Saskatchewan and North America at the Rock Trout on Thursday night.
Prince Albert’s Cupid’s Heart, Nipawin’s Psycho Hillbillees and Doom Gong from Kentucky will be playing a triple bill.
Cellist Stacey Dunn of Cupid’s heart said Doom Gong reached out to the band online, which created an opportunity for the show.
“Doom Gong is on tour. They’re on a very large tour spanning the eastern United States, all the way through coming up into Canada, they enter Canada and Winnipeg and then they are touring the Prairie provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta,” Dunn said.
Cupid’s Heart is always excited to play in their hometown.
“Prince Albert is a smaller community, so we know we have to be playing other communities too,” Guitarist Emma Jean said. “It cannot all just be in Prince Albert. But at the same time, this is our home base, these are our home fans, so we want to make sure that we play semi regular.”
Doom Gong is playing more than 20 shows on the tour and had initially contacted Prince Albert’s Threadbare Productions.
“They had interest themselves to come up to northern Saskatchewan and then Threadbare put us in contact with them. The way it worked out, we ended up taking over the show,” Dunn said.
Cupid’s Heart wanted to keep the show going and Threadbare involved, so Threadbare owner Clay Cottingham will be running the soundboard for the show. Dunn and Jean said having Cottingham involved shows how tightly knit the Prince Albert music scene is.
Dunn was also pleased that Cottingham could remain involved.
“I’m glad that this show was able to go on because there was a lot of work put into organizing it and bringing these guys up from Kentucky as well, so (we’re) very excited to have the show at the Rock Trout now,” Dunn said.
Jean said the show will provide audiences with plenty of musical variety.
“We’re taking you all on a sound journey, a little taste of this and a little taste of that,” Jean said.
Doom Gong is an interesting act with a sound to match, in promotional material the members all dress in denim and describe themselves as music school nerds. Descriptions include psychedelic rock, jazz, fusion, bedroom, pop, lo-fi contemporary and even classical.
“Doom Gong describes themselves as denim psych fusion and I believe that the denim part of that is kind of their words that they’ve come up with themselves to describe their genre … and so I think that the music will be voraciously technical,” Jean said.
The other band on the bill, Psycho Hillbillees have played with Prince Albert bands such as Dirty Sanchez Orchestra in the past.
“I think they described themselves as a heavy, heavy, melodic jam. I think that’s also a pretty good fit for their music,” Dunn said.
Both Dunn and Jean think that having an American band coming to Prince Albert is also a great networking opportunity for people who are in the scene.
“We’re excited to host them. We’re excited to introduce them to the community and excited to share them with Prince Albert,” Jean said.
“I think that having international US musicians come up also opens up some opportunities for conversations and connections with people in a different country. That could also be good for other music people who are making music. If they get a chance to chat with these guys, I think that a lot of cool connections could come out of this show.
The show is Thursday, Sept. 5 at Rock Trout Cafe with doors art 7 p.m. and the show at 8 p.m. The show is all ages and the cost is $20, if you see a poster for the show there is a tickets QR code on that as well.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
