Photo courtesy Blurasis on Flickr
Earlier this week we announced the lineup for this year’s Jazz Festival – an impressive scattering of artists (like Elvis Costello, Shad, and Bela Fleck for starters) drawn from genres across the musical spectrum. Today, however, Apartment613 is turning its attention to the festival many Ottawans consider the crown jewel of the summer music scene.
Bluesfest will be unveiling its 2011 lineup April 26th with a fancy-schmantzy gala at the new Ottawa Convention Centre. In anticipation, we’ve been chipping away at the brains of our writers and editors – the curators of all that is awesome in Ottawa – in an attempt to pry out their opinions of who should take to the Lebreton Flats stages this July. The results include artists both Canadian and international, obscure and well-known, boisterous and contemplative.
So read on, music lovers. We think the list we’ve come up with is pretty stellar. But if you want to put forth your own recommendation – perhaps that 12-person metal-klezmer collective you saw in that tiny NYC club last fall, or your cousin’s roommate’s nose flute quartet – leave us a comment!
Andrea Grant
I need Iron and Wine to play Bluesfest again. I’m normally a scattered socialite at festivals, but Iron and Wine’s 2009 Bluesfest show was the only one that ever made me stop, listen, and ignore my friends. Lead singer Sam Beam’s voice and lyrics are so powerful that I have to be careful about when I listen to them – they take full control of my mood and thoughts.
Francois Levesque
I’d love to see the Black Keys. I know they were there in 2009, right before they put out their amazing album Brothers. Those tunes sound great on CD and I think it would make for a pretty awesome show. And I want to hear Dan Auerbach’s bluesy falsetto! The band has a nice big gap between their July 7 Toronto show and their July 10 show in Québec City, so I can’t see this not happening.
Gloria Song
I’m treating this as a fantasy question because I don’t think this would actually happen, but if we’re allowed to go as obscure as we want, I’d love to see Korean indie band The Black Skirts play Bluesfest. I discovered the Black Skirts while I was visiting the homeland – part of my pleasant surprise at finding great bands there beyond the K-pop stuff that everyone knows Korea for. There’s a fantastic growing indie music scene in Asia in places like Singapore, Seoul, and Tokyo, but we don’t really hear much about it on this side of the ocean.
Bluesfest offers a great opportunity to promote some of these different sounds here in Ottawa – in fact, I really like the fact the festival works hard to showcase international and multicultural talents. But it doesn’t always have to be traditional music: it’s really awesome to see how other cultures adapt and develop modern music trends and make them their own. Songs like the Black Skirts’ “Antifreeze,” for instance, successfully combine Western elements of shoegaze and dance pop with poetic Korean lyrics. Failing that, I’m pretty sure the Wonder Girls would probably draw a huge crowd.
Residents around Lebreton should definitely have a say in Bluesfest lineups, since we’re pretty much within earshot of the entire festival. And so, speaking on behalf of my neighbours, I’m going to suggest that we should be seeing Spoon. And it’s not just because I’ve never seen them live and they apparently put on a rockin’ show. Their great beats and dance-around-the-kitchen tunes will be a perfect addition to a summer’s eve, whether you’re sitting on the festival grounds or straining to hear them from your backyard patio. Short of that? Well, I’d take MGMT or Hannah Georgas. Both have been on my top 25 most played list for a few months, and with songs like this and this we just can’t go wrong.
Kim Bosch
If I have only one vote, Josh Ritter would get it. He brings an energy and humour to the stage that I think would change up the prescribed big-boxiness that the festival can take on. Sure, he’s a bit folksy, which can be problematic in a festival format (anyone see Swell Season’s set last year?) but I think he is more than capable of belting it out when he needs to. With a few additional votes, I’d include Said The Whale (for some west coast representation), Radiohead (because I wanna see that sexy Thom Yorke slither in the flesh!), Neko Case (mmmmmmm indeed) and Lykke Li (OH MAMA!). And if I had a time machine and could bring someone from the past to the future to perform at Bluesfest I would choose James Brown (circa 1976), because the festival needs more sweaty soul.
Lidija Rozitis
Trying to pick just ONE of my favourites to play Bluesfest is a difficult challenge, even though I know my opinion won’t really influence the Bluesfest decision makers. Personal favourites like Magik Markers, Jeff Magnum, Toro y Moi, and Ryan Adams come to mind, while bigger-names like Fleet Foxes, James Blake, and Sonic Youth also seem good. But fuck it — I know this a typical (even typically feminine) choice, but I’m going to go with my heart here. I want to see this man and his beard: I want Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) to play Bluesfest 2011. If Bluesfest could get Bon Iver out of his little cabin in the Wisconsin woods, I would forever be grateful. Seeing Mr. Vernon play beside the Ottawa River during sunset and singing “Skinny Love” sounds too good to be true. And it probably is, but I’m throwing this request to the Bluesfest gods anyways, with the hopes that someone gets my transmission.
Megan Taylor
When The Cat Empire came to Bluesfest last year, the Australian group faced the daunting prospect of playing during the same time slot as Canadian indie giant Arcade Fire. But I, along with a huge host of others, had no problem forgoing the strains of our grammy-winning countrymen in favour of the jazzy reggae beats, the funky latin hip hop, in short the crazy dance tunes of the Cat Empire. That’s my idea of a perfect festival band: one that makes you glad to be on your feet. Hopefully they’ll get invited back – and this time, get a more favourable time slot.
Phil Castro
I guess if I had to pick just one artist, it would be the most underrated man in music today: Raphael Saadiq. If you’ve not heard his music, well, you’re welcome. His entire 2008 album The Way I See It is incredible. Otherwise, Neil Young is also a natural choice – it almost happened last year, and he has a house just down Hwy. 7.
Ryan Saxby Hill
My pick for Bluesfest is Neko Case. She’s perfectly Canadian and there’s no one whose voice I’d rather hear floating over the banks of the Ottawa River. I also missed her last time at the festival, so there’s an element of regret here.
Trevor Pritchard
It was my birthday yesterday, and what better gift could Bluesfest give me than to book southern U.S. rockers the Drive-By Truckers for the 2011 festival? After all, I’ve been to enough outdoor shows to know pretty well what I like in my festival musicians: they should be popular enough to draw more than a dozen die-hard fans, exclusive enough so that catching them feels like a once-in-a-lifetime event, and – most importantly for Bluesfest – loud enough so that I don’t have to filter out sounds from other stages. LCD Soundsystem was going to be my solid pick for this year, but since James Murphy has placed his band on indefinite hiatus I humbly put forward the Truckers in their place – partly because it seems like they never play Canada. Perhaps they feel their geographically-specific tunes about alienation and poverty south of the Mason-Dixon line won’t resonate north of the border? I’d love to hear Patterson Hood growl out killer tracks like “Sink Hole” or “Puttin’ People on the Moon” as the sun sets over Lebreton Flats, and it’ll probably take the cache of a big-name event like Bluesfest to bring the Truckers to the capital.
This year I want to see two bands that have something to prove – well, at least to me. James Mercer (The Shins) and Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) came together in 2008 to make the psych-pop super group Broken Bells. They’re planning to put out a second album this year, and since bands tend to experiment with their new sounds at festivals, I’d love to see whether Burton has been able to bring some of his Gnarls Barkley, hip-hop vibe to Broken Bells. But even more, I want Montreal indie legends The Dears to rock the Bluesfest stage this year, if only to see if the generally horrid reviews of the band’s latest album Degeneration Street hold true. Having seen the band live several times, and having loved every second, I want to experience their fifth album live before I make a judgment on a dearly beloved band.
