Witchpolice Radio

Our pals at DEAFWISH are represented on Witchpolice Radio for the third consecutive week, this time in the person of Drew Diduke, a member of Deafwish band Up n' Atom. He joined hosts Sam, Rob and fellow guest Steve Jowsey -- ex-Up n' Atom drummer and current member of Clipwing and Prophet) to talk about the "hostage" theme. The result is a totally gnarly high-five pop-punk fest, dudes. Check it o...

Here's the second Deafwish episode in a row! This week featured Deafwish CVO (Central Victory Officer) Rock Trembath (a/k/a DJ Found Dead) as a last-minute guest when one of our scheduled people had to cancel. He joined guest Natalie Haines-Wallace to talk about the "tomb" theme... something that worked out pretty well, considering the rushed circumstances. It's also the third episode in a row wit...

We managed to (unintentionally) arrange things so we have three weeks in a row of guests connected to Winnipeg's Deafwish record label, kicking off with episode #30 and Michael "White Dawg" Johnson, a/k/a Durrt Dawg a/k/a Dirt Swan, hypeman for Deafwish artist Employee of the Month, spelling bee champ and all-around good guy. He's joined by Kent Davies, who is very familiar to most of Witchpolice'...

Our guests: Sandy Taronno, a/k/a indie-pop wizard Indicator Indicator and frontman of the on-hiatus Quinzy. He was also in the mighty Del Paxton and many other projects, dating back to the mid-90s or so. Jenny Henkelman is a CKUW radio host ("The Book of Right-On," Thursday afternoons), a podcaster ("Fatties on Ice"), a Polaris Prize jurist and a past editor of Stylus Magazine. This week's theme w...

For episode #28, Winnipeg filmmaker, music video director and DJ Damien Ferland stopped by the basement to talk about the "tooth" theme. This was another four-person episode, and it was a pretty animated discussion. Lots of talk about Bjork. Damien, apparently, loves Bjork. We talk about other things too, of course, including a whole lotta tooth songs.

I've been a fan of Greg Milka Crowe's music since way back in the 1990s when he was the frontman of Winnipeg ska legends Whole Lotta Milka, so we were really excited to have him on the podcast -- especially since he did a live performance at the end of the show. Greg's currently a member of The Scarlet Union, but he's been involved in a ton of other local ska bands, including The Wedgewoods and Th...

This week, Pip Skid chatted with the fellas about "faith." Not to be confused with episode #2's theme of "spiritual," this one runs the gamut from atheism to childhood church experiences to philosophical musings on love and life. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be a part of this episode, so it's the first Rob + Jon + guest show. They acquit themselves quite well without me. Hopefully we can get th...

This week: we talk with graphic designer extraordinaire Allan Lorde about paranoia. This is probably the most rap-heavy episode we've done so far, but Al provided solid bookends at the beginning and end of the show with some filthy garage mayhem. It's a rambler of an episode, though. Right from the get-go, we start talking completely off-topic and eventually meander our way back on point. Although...

This week on Witchpolice Radio, we tackled songs about lawyers with our guest host Garrett Everett. Garrett is familiar to regular Witchpolice readers as one of the people behind the Orange House shows, all of which he's performed at, including the recent Dish Aid. I also played a bunch of loud music with him last summer that never resulted in any serious recordings or shows, but it was good times...

This week's guest, Jessika Ellement, was the drummer in Filtered Reality way back in 1995 -- the first real band co-host Rob Crooks and I were ever members of. I've known her even longer, though, since way back in kindergarten, so it was awesome to have her on the show to talk about the (randomly-generated) "bleeds" theme. Jessika doesn't play drums anymore, but she's still muscially inclined, bac...

This week, the fellas were joined by the one and only John Draper Perrin IV, who stopped by the basement to discuss the "thief" topic. You may know Johnny from his involvement in such local bands as Grandpa's Army, the Brat Attack, TBA, Den of Iniquity, and most recently, Up 'n Atom. Despite being a last-minute guest, Johnny's appearance was actually one of our better episodes, with some legitimat...

Our old pal Allan Koehler stopped by the basement to talk about "prostitution" (randomly generated word of the week) songs, eat some "pink goo" and generally hang out. If you don't know Al, he was the dancing robot for the Mouth-Boat, pretty much the fourth member of the band. He sheds a bit of light on this program about the "Sebastian the Robot" silliness -- basically saying he knows nothing abo...

This week's episode features guest host John Kendle, former editor of Uptown magazine. It's a really good listen -- pretty heavy on old war stories about the Royal Albert and Winnipeg's scene back in the mid-1980s. Of course, all of this ties in (somehow) with this week's randomly-generated theme, "Chicago." Despite Uptown's format change, John's still involved in the music journalism thing and oc...

This week's guest is Nestor Wynrush (aka Elliott Walsh), a familiar face (and voice) in the local music scene. Elliott helped us -- in another four-host show -- talk about the "Paperback" theme. This episode is a little more sprawling and off-topic than usual, but it's pretty great, and is one of my personal favourites of the year so far. Get literary with Witchpolice Radio. If you're unfamiliar w...

As we inch ever-closer to 20 episodes, Winnipeg filmmaker Ryan Simmons stopped by the basement to discuss the "Cannibal" theme. This is another three-hosts-n'-a-guest format, and I'm really liking the way these ones are sounding. Ryan has been working on a new video for Witchpolice Radio co-host Rob Crooks, but he's also done videos for local bands like KEN Mode and This Hisses that we all know an...

Behold! The Witchpolice Radio train continues a-chuggin' down the tracks (and a day ahead of schedule, too!) with our 17th majestic episode, this week featuring a live performance by our guest host, local rap impresario Birdapres. Perhaps you are familiar with some of the multitude of releases Bird (government name Dane Goulet) has appeared on, dating back to the mid-90s (seriously, the man's cred...

Witchpolice Radio continues in guest mode with this week's instalment, featuring none other than Mas Steve in Jon's usual spot. Rob Crooks is back from Europe, too, and the three of us put our heads together to create a pretty grim episode of the show. When the theme is "traumatic," it's not like there's much of a choice. Steve played a new original song at the end of the show, "Lowdown Manitoba B...

Our guest this week was Damian Purdy, whose excellent album as Ripping Hammer has been consistently popular here on Witchpolice and is one of my personal favourite recordings on the entire site. Download it. Seriously. It's great. This week also marked the first four-host episode, with the original three (me, Rob and Jon) back together again alongside our guest. Expect more of this, as we're movin...

While last week's excellent episode -- the most-downloaded Witchpolice Radio show to date -- focused mainly on old-school country, this one, featuring the inimitable Ryan Sanders (Knifeinmyback, the Brat Attack, a bunch of other cool bands), is somewhat... louder. Aside from Jon's opening selection, everything here is fairly heavy n' distorted. It's a really awesome playlist, coupled with one of t...

As Rob Crooks finishes off his European tour, Witchpolice Radio soldiers on with yet another guest host. This time, it's JD Ormond of the redoubtable Ultra Mega. JD joined us for a chat about "Failure," which resulted in a lot of old-timey country stuff getting played, and he capped off the show with an excellent solo performance of Ultra Mega's "Hamburglar Blues."

This week's episode is all about being "Dependent." Along with guest host **Shauna Alcorn** , Witchpolice Radio regulars Sam and Jon discussed synth music, record collection, Jon's innate ability to encourage others to drink to excess, and more. Oh, and we played some great songs, too, based on the randomly-generated theme.

Since Rob Crooks is still in Europe, we brought in another guest host this week -- Tim Haverluck of local bands The Stabs, the Smash Brothers, the Red River Ramblers, and awesome back-in-the-day punk bands like Kirby and Gherkin. In a first for this program, Tim performed a live song at the end of the show. It was meant to illustrate a particular guitar style he was talking about, but I really lik...

This week's episode of Witchpolice Radio features special guest host Greg Arcade (filling in for Rob). All kinds of madness ensues. The theme for episode #9 is "Ruined," which seems weird until you realize it can from a random word generator. We try our best to associate songs with the theme and ended up playing some really good stuff. Lots of reminiscing about the good old days on this one

Jon couldn't make it to the recording session, so he was temporarily replaced by Mr. Dave Halcrow, of local bands like The Brat Attack and Talk City (who had one song on the Be Our Friend compilation, but I'm hoping to get more of their music on here.) Dave was a good substitute, and played stuff that neither Rob nor I would have otherwise listened to, so it was cool. Expect more guest hosts in fu...

The fellas and I took a break from Witchpolice Radio over the holidays, so our loyal listeners (all 10 of them) had to go without the dulcet tones of our voices for two whole weeks. I imagine the withdrawal must have been terrible. Anyway, we return with episode 7, themed around fire. If it sounds like we're just getting these themes from a random word generator... well, we kind of are. As usual o...