Blue in the Face Podcast

Dawn Loucks is Calgary radio royalty and the driving force behind Saved by Vinyl, a vinyl-only record label. After a lengthy hiatus, the label returned in 2018 with three incredible releases. Chris sits down with Dawn (and her cats) and talks over a glass of wine about starting a record label despite seemingly insurmountable personal challenges, what she looks for in bands to sign, and what’s next for Saved by Vinyl.

The Shamrock, an abandoned hotel with a dark and sordid past in Calgary’s Southeast neighbourhood of Ramsay has been transformed and revitalized into artist studios and an event space known as nvrlnd (pronounced ˈnev.ər-lænd). nvrlnd is an artist-driven collective working together to provide affordable, incubational art and performance space in Calgary. In this episode, Chris sits down with 3 of nvrlnd’s board members in the former honeymoon suite to talk about nvrlnd’s past, present and future.

When it comes to making power pop/punk music, Calgary’s Pizza Bath doesn’t leave mushroom for improvement. The spicy brand of rock n’ roll that they deliver is hard to toppings. In this episode, Chris joins Sean Hamilton and Eric Svilpis at Erics’ studio to talk about the band’s beginnings and what they’ve got in the oven.

Bison have been brought back to Banff National Park, but will they stay there? Bill Hunt, Resource Conservation Manager with Banff National Park talks to Chris about the challenges of the project and Dr. Leroy Little Bear, Blackfoot scientist, professor emeritus, and distinguished scholar at the University of Lethbridge joins the show to speak of the importance of the project to local indigenous tribes and how the 2014 Buffalo treaty played a part in reintroducing Canada’s largest land mammal back to Banff.

Cookbook author, food writer, columnist, and CBC personality Julie Van Rosendaal talks about how cooking helps her feel grounded, reasons why people shy away from cooking and her experience meeting recently passed TV food and travel guru Anthony Bourdain. Chris and Julie talk over a freshly baked plate of her famous chocolate chip cookies. Of course, other topics come up: Beer, Bagels, Battlestar Galactica.

Alberta's exploding craft brewing industry is the focus of the episode featuring interviews with Heather Jerred, manager of The Brewers Apprentice and a craft beer educator, Graham Sherman, co-owner and brewmaster at Tool Shed Brewing Company, and Jordan Ramey, operations manager of the brewmasters program at Olds College. You'll need a full pint glass or a full growler to enjoy along with this episode.

No Roads In is the title of the upcoming album by The Blake Reid Band and a feature length documentary film that captured the process of recording the record in an abandoned house in the middle of an Albertan wheat field. The film became a film festival darling in 2017. The film's director, Josh Wong and sound recording engineer Adam Naugler join Chris in this episode.

Emily Hughes, producer, director and daughter of famed Canadian guitar legend Lenny Breau, discusses capturing and re-focusing her father's legacy with a new website and a new 5-part series to accompany her Gemini Award winning documentary, The Genius of Lenny Breau.