Winterruption: Hannah Georgas

January 27, 2023 at 7:30 P.M.

This Concert is generously sponsored by SEIU West

Since Hannah Georgas' debut EP in 2009, she has evolved from a regionally based musician performing in smaller showcase venues, to a worldwide touring artist. Hannah has an endless capacity for crafting textured pop songs with evocative lyrics and catchy hooks. These efforts and works of art have pulled her career to headline major festivals and support the high profile acts of Sara Bareilles, The National, City and Colour, Boy and Bear and more. Hannah has won numerous awards which have paralleled multiple nominations. In 2020, Hannah teamed up with Aaron Dessner (member/producer of The National, producer of Taylor Swift, Sharon Van Etten) in upstate New York to record and produce her incredible fourth album All That Emotion. The album was just nominated for Best Adult Alternative Album at last year’s Juno Music Awards.

hannahgeorgas.com

Tickets to the January 27th Blenders show are $42 and are available at Swift Current Pharmasave or online at eventbrite.com. Doors at the Lyric Theatre will open at 7:30pm and the music begins at 8:30pm.

Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar

With Steve Marriner

November 14, 2022

Doors open 7:30 pm.
Music starts 8:30 pm.

Tickets: $40 until October 1st, then $42 after with the new pst.
Available at Pharmasave or online at eventbrite.com

With the worldwide pandemic wrecking utter havoc upon the careers of many musicians, Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar elected to use their time off the road to record, mix, and master their latest tour-de-force, the astonishingly powerful, funky, and deeply soulful album The Reckless One.

Martin’s first recording was an EP entitled Fade, issued in 2004. A year later she moved to Toronto and in 2008 released her debut full length album, Back Home. The eponymously titled Samantha Martin & The Haggard followed in 2012 before Martin decided to form the gospel and soul-based Delta Sugar. 

In the past18 years, Martin has gathered 11 Maple Blues Award nominations, is regularly featured on the CBC, tops the blues charts on  Stingray radio, and has graced the stages of all the major  Canadian festivals and clubs coast to coast. A Juno nomination (Canada’s Grammy Awards)  paved the way for Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar’s assault on  European club and concert stages. 

Martin is the lead singer, songwriter, and focal point of the group. A dynamic front woman, she possesses a stunning voice that is capable of summoning up tidal waves of spine-tingling emotion in one instance while delicately bringing out the nuances of a gut-wrenching lyric in the next. A torrid  force of nature, night after night she takes audiences to emotional peaks while leaving them stunned with her sheer pin-you-against-the-wall  power.

While Martin is a powerhouse unto herself, the vocal alchemy of Delta Sugar is  not the work of a single talent. In combination with what she likes to  term her “co-vocalists,” the vocal blend that Delta Sugar produces is  pure, unadulterated gospel-tinged, neuron-tingling magic where the sum is even richer than the already soul-melting parts.

The first single from Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar’s stunning new album, The Reckless One, is a four-on-floor stomping dance track entitled “Don’t Have To Be.”  Sporting a melody that will have listeners singing along, the track features swirling Booker T-inspired organ, a swaggering horn line and  Samantha Martin’s trademark hurricane-force vocals. Irresistibly catchy, the song has been filling dance floors every night since she started performing it.

samanthamartinmusic.com

Steve Marriner

One of Canada's busiest artists, Steve Marriner has proven himself to be a versatile and highly skilled musician,  songwriter, and producer. Previously performing at Blenders with  MonkeyJunk, Marriner returns to present his award winning solo blues tracks.

stevemarriner.com

Get your tickets before we’re sold out! Tickets are $40 before October 1st, $42 PST included after, and are available at Swift Current Pharmasave or online at eventbrite.com. Doors to the Lyric Theatre will open at 7:30pm and the music begins at 8:30pm.

Reserve tables of 8 are available for $80 plus ticket price on a first come first serve basis. Email culturalfest.swift@gmail.com or call Amanda at 305-536-0788 to book yours.

Winterruption: Julian Taylor

April 1st, 2022 at 7:30 pm

As per government regulations all patrons, volunteers, artists, and staff will be required to wear an approved mask and provide either proof of COVID 19 vaccination or a negative COVID test. More information is available here.

Blenders Special Concert
Doors open 7:30 pm.
Music starts 8:30 pm.
Tickets: $35 at Pharmasave or online at eventbrite.com

This concert is generously sponsored by
Evolve Fitness Inc and Embers Hair Design

Blenders Special Concert NEW DATE: Friday April 1st at the Lyric Theatre.

Only the best of artists are able to transition from being a soother one minute to a soothsayer the next with relative ease, confidence, and expertise. That’s exactly what Toronto-based singer/songwriter Julian Taylor has done with the eight deeply intimate songs that comprise his 12th and latest album, The Ridge.

Listeners will instantly notice the breadth of Taylor’s lyrical acumen on The Ridge, something born out of the more personal approach the man has taken toward the album’s core subject matter. “Words are very important to me, and I’ve worked really hard on my lyrics here as this entire album is about my family,” he reveals. “I would go for walks in the forest for meditation, and I made videos of myself talking to all the important people in my life like I was writing them a letter. I’d talk about the things they did that might have hurt me and vice-versa, as well as the things they did that were amazing. So, this record is really just like full-on confessionals to the people in my family.”

That particularly intimate touch lent some deeper weight to a number of the lines and vocal choices Taylor made to get his feelings across in each song. “Everything I write about on this album is a true story,” he confirms. “Yeah, I did make up a few stories on some of the other records I’ve done, but I decided to stop doing that. Everything since then is something that happened to me, or to people I know. Everything is true.”

Taylor’s inherently cinematic approach to his storytelling has a lot to do with his heritage and upbringing. “It’s an interesting thing to be part Mohawk and part West Indian, because I’ve always had this feeling that I never fit in anywhere,” he admits. “As a mixed person, it’s like, oh, where do you go, and how do you connect with people? That’s all I’ve been trying to do, and my life experience as a person who is mixed helps me do that. These stories are all coming from a person who tries to fit in, but doesn’t quite fit in. That’s really what my work has always been about — that longing to be a part of something.”

Ultimately, what the music within the grooves of The Ridge conveys is that you cannot label or confine Taylor to any given genre box — and that’s exactly what he prefers. “That’s always been my thing — not wanting to be put into a box,” he acknowledges. “My work has always reflected that. Once people find out how that thread runs throughout my career and with all my work, they’ll notice I never wanted to play the box game. They’ll find out I really love all kinds of music and I just want to make music that I love — and I think The Ridge brings all of those things together.”

Indeed, one could even say The Ridge has been Taylor-made for listeners to connect with songs and stories they already know instinctively by heart.

juliantaylormusic.ca

Tickets to the January 28th Blenders show are $35 and are available at Swift Current Pharmasave or online at eventbrite.com. Doors at the Lyric Theatre will open at 7:30pm and the music begins at 8:30pm.