Witchpolice Radio

This week we have a special episode dedicated to Winnipeg's 35th annual Black History Month celebrations. Big thanks to past guest Kumaran Reddy, who provided the interview recordings with members of the Black History Month committee, performers at the upcoming musical celebration and others involved with the events throughout February. The Black History Month Celebration of Music Showcase takes p...

After a long history in the local music scene as a sideman, backing up some of Winnipeg's finest on saxophone onstage and on record, Casimir Gruwel is going solo. With his debut single, "Winter," generating some buzz and a debut album in the works, Gruwel is stepping to the front of the stage for the first time.

This week's live performance-heavy episode features four members of pop/rock/alt/folk gang Tin Can Bandits. Ian (guitar/vocals), Ryan (guitar), Peter (keys, vocals, trumpet) and vocalist Sabrina -- who has since parted ways with the group -- sat down to discuss the upcoming Rushing River EP, "dad" songs and much more.

This week, we're talking about the fourth edition of the Polish Music Exchange, a semi-annual 'celebration of popular and contemporary music with an Eastern European twist'! To promote the event, we hung out once again with Arturo of Polish-Canadian dub wizards Hypernashion alongside Unkl Elephant's Maclean, who represented the non-Polish (or "exchange") part of the upcoming gig.

We kicked off 2016 with a bang at Winnipeg's Handsome Daughter with our second (of what will hopefully be many) live podcast in front of an audience. For our "Holiday Hangover" show Jan. 3, we hung out with ukulele-slinger Erin Shorten, country singer's country singer Quinton Blair and psychedelic organ magician Smoky Tiger. Each of our guests performed three songs and sat down for a conversation!...

Things get a little cosmic this week as we sit down with Kumaran Reddy of psychedelic jam collective Cilly Cyb Fung High and the LSD25 Records label. We talk "attention" songs, reggae, Kumaran's YouTube strategy (it's the only place his music is available), overdubs and a lot more!

Building on the success of this spring's fantastic OK Night cassette, rising Winnipeg indie rocker Micah Visser has been generating a lot of buzz lately, especially around his new single "I Will Not Return As A Tourist". We hung out with Micah to talk about his first-ever tour, his formats of choice, his new material, "fence" songs, and much more!

We sat down with most of the gang from Bearfight for this week's episode to talk about "bush" songs, the trials and tribulations of playing heavy music in Winnipeg in 2015, the future of music consumption and much more. These guys are working on a new record and playing a can't miss show Jan. 8 at the Park Theatre!

When we first stumbled upon the Winnipeg Music Project, there was something very recognizable about it. A blog/radio show that features interviews with local musicians? Sounds like something we might be into ...so we sat down with its creator, Ashley Bieniarz (also a musician in her own right) and compared notes about the ins and outs of interviewing local artists, discussed her reasons for starti...

We cover new territory on this week's episode in a sit-down with four members of Amnesiac, Winnipeg's finest Radiohead tribute band. Far from just a cover band, the Amnesiac boys talk about the business behind tribute acts, taking on such a challenging songbook, and their upcoming gig at the Pyramid on Dec. 18.

Occasional co-host Rob Crooks is back for an outernational conversation with his Sugar Pill Gang cohorts Pip Skid (Winnipeg) and Tom De Geeter (Kortrijk, Belgium). They talk European tours, Tom's local connections with the Marathon of Dope label, and most importantly, the new album by Tom's Zucchini Drive project.

Once a year, we help out our pals at UMFM 101.5 during their Pledge-O-Rama fund drive and head down to the UMFM studios to record a live on-air episode. We've done it in 2013, 2014 and now 2015 as well. This episode was recorded about a month ago, on election night, just minutes after we watched Stephen Harper's concession speech on live TV. Our guests were Daniel Peloquin-Hopfner of excellent roo...

This week's guests, Futurekids, were on the podcast in late 2014. They're back again about a year later with a drastically different lineup, a new sound and a new album coming out Nov. 21 (CD release party at the Windsor!) We talked to 3/4 of the new-look Futurekids about 'mixing' songs, working on the forthcoming This is Everything, going shoeless and a whole lot more. Check it out!

On this week's episode, Sam and Ryan hang out with Chantel Emond, better-known as chanteuse-in-chief behind Winnipeg alt-pop act French Press. We talked "riot" songs, Chantel's jazz education, her love of backing vocals, the new album she's finishing up, and her current tour (happening as you read this!) with fellow local artist Micah Visser.

Gearing up for the Nov. 6 release of their debut full-length, When it Was (10 pm at the Good Will in Winnipeg), the hard-to-define alternative pop/rock/folk/whatever foursome in Autumn Still sat down for a return appearance on the podcast. We talked "dictator" songs, synthesizers, nostalgia and more. Also, gourds were involved in one way or another. Check it out.

For the triumphant return of powerviolence ("Euro-violence"?) maniacs Terrorist, we bounced around quite a bit. This podcast started off being recorded in Ryan's living room, then moved to a van -- sorry, a Toyota 4Runner full of Canadian Tire money -- then to the parking lot of the vendor at Winnipeg's notorious Sherbrook Inn. We talked to the fellas about "lung" songs, the new full-length they'r...

On Sept. 27, we pulled out all the stops for our first-ever (and hopefully first of many) live onstage podcast. The show, celebrating our milestone 150th episode, featured interviews and live performances with old friends and collaborators Rob Crooks, Nestor Wynrush, Country Steve and first-time guest Mona Mousa. Although the turnout wasn't record-breaking, the crowd more than made up for it in vo...

Sheldon Birnie -- Winnipeg writer, journalist and frontman for cow-punks Cheering for the Bad Guy -- guests on this week's episode to talk about his upcoming new book, Missing Like Teeth: An Oral History of Winnipeg Underground Rock 1990-2001, which hits stores and the Internet Oct. 24.

Our pals in 'Peg-centric punks Union Stockyards are back on the show for their first appearance since episode #79! The fellas are old(er), wise(r) and working on a new record. They joined Ryan and Sam to talk "mask" songs, the state of the local punk rock scene and the Winnipeg accent (among other topics).

On this week's episode, Ryan sits in the host chair all by his lonesome for the first time ever! He delivers a loose, profane chat about "speed" songs, prairie resilience and more with Winnipeg pop-punkers Triggers!

It's a change of scenery this week! Instead of talking to musicians, Sam hung out with some of the minds behind Zell-Koj Studio's excellent made-in-Manitoba horror flick Dark Forest. Producer/writer/director Roger Boyer, producer/camera/editor Craig Guiboche and actor Dennis Scullard (who plays the bloodthirsty maniac) sat down to talk about the indie movie biz, the process of getting a project fr...

Toronto (via Winnipeg) vocalist Iswké has been the subject of a lot of buzz in the Canadian music biz lately -- as much for her uniquely soulful, jazz-inflected, trip-hop-inspired sound as her willingness to speak out on modern-day protest songs like "Nobody Knows," which addresses the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women. This was sort of a last-minute 'hey, you're in town and our sched...

Grand opening, grand closing. Winnipeg's formidable (and foremost) drunk metal choir act The Legion of Liquor is releasing its debut album the very day the band calls it quits. (That CD release/band death show, by the way, is being presented by our good pals at Team Steve Radio and takes place Sept. 4 at the Park Theatre!) Sam sat down with three members of the Legion's choir -- White Dawg, Garry...

For this week's episode, Sam and Ryan talked "sweater" songs, '90s throwbacks, vocal warmups (brrrrrrruuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrpppptttttthhhh) and more with the self-described tone perfectionists in Winnipeg foursome **[Solhounds](https://solhounds.bandcamp.com/)**.

This week, Sam and Ryan are joined by comedians **[John B. Duff](http://oddblock.ca/speaker/john-b-duff/)** and **[Chantel Marostica](http://oddblock.ca/speaker/chantel-marostica/)** , along with **Erick Casselman** (owner of the Park Theatre), to talk about the upcoming **[Oddblock Comedy Festival](http://oddblock.ca/)** , Aug. 27-30 in Winnipeg's South Osborne neighbourhood. Recorded in the spac...