Witchpolice Radio

This week’s episode features a live performance by Winnipeg two-piece  VAMPIRES , who are preparing to play their first show in a year. They’re joined by returning guest  Darryl Reilly  of the  Guerrillas of Soul  to talk about the “advertising” theme.   Check out previous recordings by both bands on Witchpolice:  a single by GoS  and a  Tales From CKUW   session by Vampires.

Witchpolice Radio went outernational this week! While we've talked to out-of-town guests on the show before, this episode marks the first time we've had a guest from overseas. Joining us on the line from Bristol, UK, to talk about this week's "alarm" theme -- and his righteous new album  The Great Escape: Season Two   -- was  Buggsy #1 .   Buggsy talked at great length about England's rap scene, t...

Welcome to 2014! To start things off the right way, we’re joined this week by folk-punk touring machine  Greg Rekus  (ex- High   Five   Drive ) as he prepares for the release of his second solo record,  Punkoustic,   which comes out tonight at a CD release show !  Greg talked the “money” theme with all three hosts and performed live at the end of the episode.   We've been familiar with Greg's musi...

The gang’s all here for our last new episode of 2013: all three hosts are together in a room for the first time in months.    We’re joined by Winnipeg Free Press music critic and feminist blogger ( Screaming in all Caps )  Jen Zoratti , along with call-in guest  Pat Book  of Regina’s  Sound Salvation Army  music blog. The randomly-generated theme this week is “comedy,” and while the subject matter...

This week’s guests are Winnipeg graphic novelist and  comic book creator   GMB Chomichuk  and electronic bleep n’ blooper  Mike Zastre , a/k/a/  The Iron Buddha .   The episode’s theme is “sailor,” but the fellas go deep on comic books, field recordings and the DIY punk rock aesthetic. The Iron Buddha performs live and gives a mid-show demonstration of how he uses a cell phone to construct beats. 

Rob’s back this week! Co-host Rob Crooks makes his triumphant return after three months away from the show. This episode, he solo-hosts with guests from a couple of buzzy Winnipeg indie bands.  Cole Woods  of  Cannon Bros  and  Marie-France Hollier  of  Haunter  (both are also in a ton of other projects) join him to talk about the awesome “deformity” theme.

It’s a reggae-heavy episode this week as  Rastamils  frontman  Franklin Fernando  joins us to talk about the “empire” theme. Franklin, originally from Sri Lanka, has rejuvenated Winnipeg’s reggae scene with his group’s mashup of Caribbean and South Asian sounds.  We’re also joined by Rastamils bassist  Christian Devoin , who has a history in the local reggae scene dating back to the early 1990s, v...

Returning guests  Adam Parsons  of  Up n’ Atom   and  Ryan Sanders , formerly of  Knifeinmyback  and  BSY  (expect music by both of these groups on Witchpolice soon) join us to talk about this week's randomly-generated “snake” theme!    This episode includes some news about Up n’ Atom’s upcoming LP, a ‘weird animal facts’ quiz game and lots of great ‘snake’-themed song selections, including a choi...

A milestone! We've hit 50 episodes! To celebrate the occasion, we've put together an unintentionally slapdash episode that ended up being really, really solid. Due to a last-minute scheduling conflict with our anticipated guest (who will be on a later show, so stay tuned), we turned to past guest  Sam Koulack  of the  Wet Bananas , who also happens to be co-host Jon's roommate. Sam was, thankfully...

Things mellow right out this week with Anne-Marie and Patrick from the excellent franco-folk group  Chez Willi , who showed up with accordion and upright bass for one of the best live performances we’ve had on the show (see video below) and a good discussion. This week’s theme is “snow,” determined, as usual, by our trusty random word generator.

After last week's  special UMFM Pledge-o-Rama episode , we're back to our regular programming with episode #48 (which is what it  should  say on the image above). This week, our guests are  Terrance Williams  and  Devin Bray  of "Winnipeg's Worst podcast,"  Couch Surfin'.   They joined Sam and Jon to talk the "Satan" theme in a fittingly Halloween-friendly episode. It was our first time meeting th...

This week's theme is "gunslinger," but it might as well have been "wrestling" as our guests -- pro wrestler  "Outlaw" Adam Knight  and rapper  Employee of the Month  -- found a lot in common on that topic.   In addition to 19 years in the rasslin' biz, the Outlaw is also a published author, with a new book on the e-shelves,  Cowboy Ending . Employee, who records for our pals at DEAFWISH, has a new...

This week, it's a Sam solo-host job, with three guests: the brain-wizards behind DIY t-shirt manufacturers/filmmakers  Big Flaming Pile.   In a rare remote show, this time from BFP Headquarters in Winnipeg's West End, the trio of  Derek Heaman ,  Alex McPhaden  and  Brian Griffith  talk band merch, rural metal shows and this week's randomly-generated theme word: polar. These guys are best known to...

Jon, solo-hosting this week, is joined by two Jesses: returning guest  Jesse Matas  of the  Crooked Brothers  and  Jesse Warkentin  of Mahogany Frog. They talk the "sushi" theme and listen to a ton of crazy Japanese music.   Matas, of course, is a long-time friend of the show who appeared on a  two-part episode  of the podcast earlier in the summer, and has a bunch of  music on the blog . Warkenti...

This week's episode comes to you from deep in the toilet (doo deep doo) of Winnipeg punk rock. Our guests are  Adam Parsons  of local band  Up n' Atom  alongside " Fuck Face " of amazing Winnipeg hardcore monsters  Terrorist . We talk about skateboarding, going to local shows, Canadian horror movies and this week's theme: "cube."   Adam -- who performs a live song at the end of the show -- is actu...

After the success of our  special Wu-Tang episode , Witchpolice Radio is straying from the usual random-theme format again this week. For episode #42, Rob Crooks pulls a solo-host job alongside guests  Elliott (Nestor Wynrush) Walsh  -- threepeating here as the guest with the  most appearances  -- and fellow Winnipeg rap artist  Yy . This time, the focus is on Winnipeg's  Gruf the Druid , a mainst...

This week's episode features a couple of out-of-town guests, former Winnipeggers  Goldwyn Millar  and  James Requeima . While they're now in Ontario and Quebec, respectively, doing math-related work (hence the theme of "mathematics"), these fellas started out back in the late 1990s as members of  Grandpa's Army   (with Witchpolice Radio co-host Sam and a million other people), and Goldwyn went on...

40 episodes! This week, the fellas talk to Darryl Reilly of CKUW's venerable Peg City Groove and excellent band the Guerrillas of Soul about the "Agitator" theme (easily confused with "Alligator").

If you've been listening to this show for a while, you may remember our guest from episode #26, Pip Skid. He's back again, as a fill-in host this time, and he forms like Voltron with our own Rob Crooks to talk with this week's guest, filmmaker Mike Maryniuk, about the "soldier" theme. This trio has worked together before, kind of, on Pip's "I Never Knew" video, but Mike's best-known work is probab...

This week, Rob and Jon talk about the "bumpy" theme with local musician Sam Koulack of the Wet Bananas and Bronze Kneecap. Sam (not to be confused with Witchpolice Radio's co-host Sam, who is wasn't there for this episode) happens to be Jon's roommate, so this one was probably a little easier to schedule.

This week's li'l slice o' Witchpolice magic features Rob and Jon talking about the "alley" theme with Winnipeg filmmakers Aaron Zeghers and Rhayne Vermette. Lots of discussion about poorly-attended shows, sunglasses, etc. Jon makes an ill-advised decision to read some poetry. You know. The usual. Aaron may be familiar to some of you as 1/5 of Sit Down Tracy, but films are the name of his game thes...

If there's such thing as a "very special episode" of Witchpolice Radio, this is it. When we realized #36 was coming around, we temporarily scrapped the regular format of a randomly-generated theme word and decided to make a one-off (for now, anyway) episode specifically about one group: the Wu-Tang Clan. To help us nerd out about the Wu, we invited past guests Elliott Walsh, a/k/a Nestor Wynrush,...

It's the long-awaited Jesse Matas episode! Jesse, whose music is on Witchpolice as a solo artist, as a member of The Pookies and as a member of his current group, The Crooked Brothers, was at the top of our must-have guests list when we started this show. We've all known him (and played music with him) since at least 1995, so this episode went extra-long. As a result, we had to split it into two p...

We're back to full strength this week, with all three hosts and guest Rob Nay of the excellent Winnipeg garage rawkers Microdot (who just put out the also excellent Middle Age Dating on Dub Ditch Picnic)! Rob talks tape labels, Saturday morning cartoons and the mid-90s with us as we get "groovy" with our randomly-generated theme!

Jon's back as co-host this week for the first episode in a while. For #33, we talk "tapes" with Simon Thibaudeau, a/k/a Winnipeg-by-way-of-Montreal noise artist Kvik. This episode marks the first major technical difficulties we've had in the show's history (not bad for 33 episodes), where the memory card on the recording unit conked out partway through a key part of the show. As a result, an entir...