BeatRoute Magazine AB Edition November 2018

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CAPTAIN TRACTOR 25 years of cranking up the Celtic By Mike Dunn It took a few kicks at the putting-a-band-together can for Captain Tractor when they started out in the early ’90s, but luck and good nature, as much as anything, may have led the band into forming a now veteran Alberta group with eight full-length records and a slew of well-known songs that took the band across Canada and around the world. “We had a band called The Brave And Foolish, and would open our own shows with this joke band playing Irish drinking songs, called Leona Braslin’s Boyfriend’s Band, because James Morrisey, the leader of The Brave And Foolish, was dating Leona Braslin at the time,” says Captain Tractor vocalist and guitarist Chris Wynters. “After a while, we started to realize more people were coming to those shows than to The Brave And The Foolish shows because every time we’d go to headline the show, people would already have left.” At the time, there wasn’t exactly a Celtic rock style like there is today, which gave Tractor some originality in the mid-90s to embrace all things grunge, punk rock, and alternative. “I loved The Pogues, but Celtic rock wasn’t really a thing. So we thought we could add the rhythm section from The Brave And Foolish to Leona Braslin’s Boyfriend’s Band, and out together a rock band with this stuff. We came up with Captain Tractor because with The Brave And Foolish we were trying to take things very seriously, and we wanted something that would always have a fun, less serious air about it.” Though the band was thrown together as a bit of a lark, things progressed rapidly when Captain Tractor started playing shows with the revamped lineup, leading to national and European tours, a number of singles, and a recording career that has the band looking back in fond nostalgia with their new 25th Anniversary retrospective double-LP, 25 Years On. The record is comprised of fan and band favourites through the years, as well as four new cuts. “Things have definitely changed. We’ll be flying to most of the dates, but we are getting in the van, and driving to Saskatoon, to Winnipeg, to Regina and then home to Edmonton, so it’s gonna feel like the old days again. Like every western Canadian band, driving across the prairies in November. Back in those days we got lucky. We put the band together, and we’d caught on with a bunch of people. We put out a CD and sold a thousand copies within a couple of weeks, so things got serious really quickly. It was too late to change the name, though.” Captain Tractor celebrate 25 years of rolling with the good times at Station On Jasper (Edmonton) Nov. 16 and 17. 26 | NOVEMBER 2018 • BEATROUTE ROCKPILE
THE SEWING MACHINE FACTORY launching inclusion residency Spoken word artist Nisha Patel and musician Mustafa Rafiq. MARK MUZ portrait artist puts a new twist on wildlife After his high school commissioned Mark Muz to create a mural, he envisioned a career creating visual art. When Muz turned 30, he turned to artwork full-time and set out on a 10-year plan with the intention of making a living between music, art and film by the age of 40. “I was an old punk rocker, so I’ve kind of always had a DIY mentality about everything,” explains Muz. “I’ve always tried to do things, maybe not smarter, but different from more traditional routes, and it’s been rewarding in its own way because I’ve done a wide variety of things using different mediums, and experimenting a lot.” Muz says that while he always considered himself self a portrait artist, “After years of questioning my feelings towards paintings of animals, I decided to challenge myself by creating a series of paintings that blended my portrait work with wildlife art, which was something I’d always disdained.” Although he abandoned the series at one point, he returned to the concept with a series of paintings connecting bodies of iconic figures with the heads of birds. For example, Muz recreates ’60s fashion icon, Twiggy, with the head of an albatross. Muz will feature the new series at The Aviary within three different groups of art: 1.) a wall of paintings that span Muz’s career as an artist, 2.) another exhibit of smaller stenciled and screen-printed pieces, and then 3.) the centrepiece of the show, the series of anthropomorphic birds that has been Muz’s focus most of the past year. Mark Muz’s exhibit will be on display throughout November at The Aviary, featuring music from The Holy Drone Travellers. Showing a true commitment to Edmonton’s art scene, on November 4 the Sewing Machine Factory (SMF) will launch their first artist in residency program. The program will run for six months featuring author and spoken word artist Nisha Patel, and musician Mustafa Rafiq, who owns and operates Sweaty Palms, an endeavour that curates live music for events that focus on creating inclusive environments for voices that aren’t easily heard. While the residency is set up for Patel and Rafiq to work on their individual projects, SMF booker Tab CA explains it will also be used as an open-hours drop-in centre. “A lot of the time spent will be Nisha and Mustafa individually working on their craft, but we’ll also be making time for them to mentor members of the community who want to learn more about aspects of the medium from Nisha and Mustafa. So, it’s essentially like a drop-in every week for six months, and we’ll do a couple shows throughout the residency to showcase what the artists are doing, while bringing in outside artists for a series of workshops, and giving them an opportunity to teach.” Due to the venue’s licensing limitations, the residency program By Kennedy Pawluk is restricted to individuals over 18, but both Patel and Rafiq are accepting appointments to meet upstairs at the Mill Creek Café for those under 18 seeking mentorship. Every Sunday afternoon, Patel and Rafiq will be working within SMF on a body of work that will culminate in a final showcase at the end of the residency. Rafiq plans on writing and recording an album released as the debut for their project Family Injera, while Patel intends to concentrate on writing a book. Tab CA hopes the time will also be an opportunity for individuals beyond the traditional community that attends SMF to access the space and experience the venue outside of the typical atmosphere of a show. “I’ll always be there, so if people want to look at the venue or talk about booking shows or if they’ve may be never been to a music venue and they want to come in and just check it out, they can do that.” The Sewing Machine Factory’s Artist Residency Program launches Nov. 2 with a show featuring Nisha Patel and Timiro Mohamed performing spoken word poetry, a set from Family Injera, and a performance from multi-media group X-Quartet. By Kennedy Pawluk ROCKPILE BEATROUTE • NOVEMBER 2018 | 27
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BeatRoute Magazine AB Edition November 2018

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