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Welcome to carcast 3, my dudes and my 40th Graventown episode! WOOOOT! This was a more recent snapshot of my mindscape after a hardcore storm almost suspended myself and my bandmate Tom in Peterborough, Ontario in early March. I hope it finds you well. I don't really remember what I said. These carcasts are as fun for me to play back as I hope they are for you. Maybe you hate them. Or maybe you curse my name from your window balcony every morning. Or maybe you have posters in your bathroom of my head airbrushed on to Schwarzenegger's body (I mean, I know I do). At any rate - be good to yourself. I love you. Enjoy another carcast for your soul blast. More new podcasts coming soon!

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

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Carcast number two comin' atcha - red hot and ready like a little caesars late night pretzel pizza with extra orange cheese drizzle. This carcast was from my ride out to Folk Music Ontario in London, Ontario (back in Oct 2022) for a weekend of connection and relationship building with lots of other rad musicians and festival runners. I didn't love everything about it - as one rarely does with anything - but I did make some great connects. And this carcast was a great way for me to work through some of my impostor syndrome on the way there. Hope you enjoy it! I love you.

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

Friends. It's really been a red hot chili peps hot minute since I've been anywhere near the podcast wheelhouse - and so I thank you for subscribing and being on this random roughshod journey with me. A recent sickness and eye infection has allowed me to rest and gather some files from the days of yore - and one thing I've wanted to pump out for a while is a "Carcast" series where I can skiffle some mind notes into the stratosphere from my automobile (usually while touring). This one is from June of 2022 when I was heavily in a seasonal touring zone and getting more connected with Wolfe Island (like I am right now) and it's nice to go back and compare where I was at then with where I'm at now. I hope you connect with Carcasts. They are a fun way for me to be less formal and to still put some intimate content out there into the Graventown zone. I love you.

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

Friends. Welcome back to Graventown yet again. I don't always pod, when I do, I pod with the gods. Here's another one for your content wood-chipper. Drive it into your ears to lessen your fears. Today's guest is one of the most prolific songmakers I've ever met and I was lucky enough to have a nice intimate chat with him as he drove around the countryside shoreline in his lovely home province of Prince Edward Island. Dennis Ellsworth is a songwriter, performer, sideman, and record producer from Charlottetown, PE. His songwriting career started in high school, filling notebooks with lyrics and poems. He grew up on the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles, Kris Kristofferson, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. His tastes evolved in grade 6 and he began collecting cassettes. His personal music collection is stylistically expansive. Some might call his love for music an addiction, but whatever. Over the years he has collaborated with Josh Finlayson and Andy Maize from Skydiggers, Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip, Joel Plaskett, Donovan Woods, Rose Cousins, John Smith, and David Barbe (producer of Drive-by Truckers and bass player for 90’s alt rock band Sugar.) In 2015 Dennis signed a publishing deal with Cymba Music Publishing in Toronto and has since written songs in a wide variety of styles His music has appeared in television shows for CBC, Netflix, HBO and was featured in the award-winning film, The New Romantic. Ellsworth has released 2 full length albums with his previous group, Haunted Hearts, an album as a duo with Kinley Dowling, two EP’s and 10 full length solo albums, including his most recent triple album project called Bound by Love.

Dennis is releasing a single on every Bandcamp Friday this year, so be sure to follow along in support on his bandcamp page and find him on instagram or on his website. Watch for our shows together in Montreal, Ottawa and Wolfe Island in late May.

UPCOMING GRAVEN SHOWS:
MARCH 3 - JETHRO'S (PETERBOROUGH, ON) - TICKETS
MARCH 4 - ACOUSTIC GRILL (PICTON, ON)

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

My golden goose of a wild creative energy guru guest today in Graventown almost needs no introduction, but he's gonna get one anyway. We talked about music, art, creative forces, manifestation and the modern age of content creation and it was a real lovely chat. Stephen Paul Taylor is a Neo-Synthpop-Punk, genre-hopping artist who graced hundreds of stages all over Europe, went viral (10 million views across all platforms) and had his music featured in a commercial for Spotify. His shows are electrifying, energetic and colourful and he has attracted attention from the likes of Dieter Bohlen (Modern Talking) and Dick Valentine (Electric Six). After playing with the duo Trike (Taylor and Xania Keane) for five years, Taylor decided to strike out on his own in 2013. Armed with his keyboard and a handful of songs he began playing in the streets of Berlin, Stephen immediately began booking shows. In November 2014, he was filmed briefly playing his song EKSF and went viral. This virality led to him getting booked all over Europe (touring 23 countries - Russia four times), playing on Das Supertalent and being interviewed from Arte, RTL2, RBB, Joiz.de TV and many more. He’s released a few albums, including 2020’s “Synthpop is Dead” (produced by Marco Haas aka T Raumschmiere) which garnered plenty of positive reviews. Stephen is currently working on a new album which features the talented Preston Heyman (Kate Bush, Terence Trent D’Arby) and Derrick McIntyre (Jamiroquai). His shows are known for being extremely energetic and lively, involving glitter, face paint, very catchy pop songs and a lot of love for his craft. He’s definitely quite a phenomenon. As Dick Valentine (Electric Six lead singer) stated “(SPT is) a firecracker!" I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Follow Stephen's wild creative journeys on his youtube channel and on insta here.


UPCOMING SHOWS:
MAR 3 - JETHROS (PETERBOROUGH, ON) - TICKETS
MAR 4 - THE ACOUSTIC GRILL (PICTON, ON)

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

This episode is a little different from other Graventown formats but I really felt the need to talk in depth about death and grief (as both entities have been around me a lot lately). I spend a lot of time in this episode talking about two special people connected to me who both suddenly passed recently named Willy and Kyle. Please listen to get more of the specifics of the story, but both of them have GoFundMe's where you can contribute to their families costs. Please help. I hope that this episode brings you some peace and that you find a way to live your life with love.

WILL NORCROSS GOFUNDME: https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-donate-in-memory-of-will-norcross

KYLE ANDRADES GOFUNDME: https://www.gofundme.com/f/kyles-memorial-costs-for-his-family

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

Gadzooks - this is one gold nugget of a special Graventown episode as my guest is a songmaker who, in my mind, makes music that is not of this world. Having spent the last 20 years playing nearly every folk and jazz festival in Canada and captivating audiences across the globe in Japan, Europe, Australia, Mexico, South America, the USA and the Middle East, JUNO and ECMA award winning Jill Barber, with her new album "Homemaker", delivers ten quietly profound songs about the complexities of motherhood, marriage, and the struggle to feel at home in one’s own identity. Homemaker is a return to Jill’s folk roots. Whereas her most recent albums have been bathed in lush string arrangements, Homemaker sees emotions laid bare, with a stripped-down production style reminiscent of her acclaimed debut Oh Heart and double Juno Award nominated follow-up For All Time and it drops on February 10th. We had a real deep and all-encompassing convo and I hope you enjoyed listening as much as I did. Much love, pals.

UPCOMING GRAVEN SHOWS:

FEB 4: 27 Club (Supporting The Killjoys + Pkew Pkew Pkew) | Ottawa, ON | TICKETS

FEB 17: The Rod and Gun (Songwriter Series) | Toronto, ON

FEB 18: Free Times Cafe (Music City North Showcase) | Toronto, ON | TICKETS

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

Pals. Just wanted to hop on the mic for a solo wonky-donkey ride through the dead neon sign landscape of my mind and talk about some of the inside baseball mental health of being a music maker, and how this year was sort of a rough start for me. If you're not having a great start to this year, please do yourself a favour and reach out and talk to someone you care about (and who hopefully cares about you). Thank you for listening and if you have podcast ideas, or if you'd like to be interviewed, drop a line to [email protected] and I'd truly love to hear from you. And please please PLEASE check back for Episode 34 because it is going to be a DOOZY. I have a wonderful top shelf guest lined up and I'm so excited to share that one with y'all. Be excited. 

UPCOMING SHOWS:
Feb 4 - 27 Club (opening for The Killjoys and Pkew Pkew Pkew)
Ottawa, ON (Get Tickets Here)

Feb 17 - The Rod and Gun
Toronto, ON

Feb 18 - Free Times Cafe (presented by Music City North)
Toronto, ON (Get Tickets Here)

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

Graventowners and Quarter Pounders: Let's put some cheese and sauce on season two and catch the intellectual train to flavour country. With me today is someone who I'd call a musical hero, but he's far too humble and grounded to accept that title. I actually got to open a few shows for him this year when he performed with a trio called Brown Hawkins Stanley, and I had one of the loveliest tour experiences I've ever had - and I get to open for him again this weekend on two dates and I couldn't be more over the musical moon to have him on the pod. Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist Stephen Stanley is best known from his many years as a founding member, lead guitarist and vocalist with the vibrant alternative rock band The Lowest of the Low. After many song hits, years of touring and sharing the stage with the likes of Billy Bragg, Bob Mould, The Violent Femmes, The Jayhawks and Lloyd Cole, a gold record for their “genuinely timeless album” (Exclaim!) Shakespeare My Butt, Stanley is back on the music scene with his own band, The Stephen Stanley Band, and an internationally acclaimed record Jimmy & The Moon, (2017), produced by Hugh Christopher Brown. Jimmy & The Moon received considerable radio airplay, raves and features from Canada (Now Toronto, Exclaim!, Spill Magazine, Fervor Coulee, FYI Music News, etc.) to the USA, Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. Stephen and I play together this weekend in Toronto and Wolfe Island (show info below). Thank for your listening ears! Graventown is you and me. It's a community. Yer loved.

Catch Tom and I on tour this weekend, as the gritty Graven duo, opening the ra-ra radical Stephen Stanley Band:

DEC 9: Linsmore Tavern - Toronto, ON
opening for Stephen Stanley

DEC 10: Hotel Wolfe Island - Wolfe Island, ON
opening for Stephen Stanley

Info, tickets and times here.

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month. 

Send us Fan Mail

Today's golden goose of a Graventown guest is someone who has been involved in my life in many different iterations. As a kid, I would hear my friend Stu regale tales of a hilarious guy named Sean Cooley, and their adventures around the Kanata/Nepean/Bells Corners corridor with another young wild funny human named Tom Green. Years later in life, when my daughter was on the way, in a small world 'ah-ha' moment, Sean was actually my boss at Beau's All Natural Brewing in Vankleek Hill and was always a kind and welcoming force in my life. Sean has been a lifelong lover of and creative contributor to radio (as the host of epic community radio shows in Ottawa like "The Midnight Caller", "The Breaks" and "Moonrappin"), rap and hip-hop and comedy (inadvertently because he's so funny)  with an avid interest in boxing and animals of all kinds,  and has one of the best logistically sharp minds of anyone I've ever met. Today, he is the Supply Chain Manager at Montebello Packaging. It was rad to connect again with him in Graventown.

Catch Tom and I on tour this weekend, as the gritty Graven duo:

DEC 9: Linsmore Tavern - Toronto, ON
opening for Stephen Stanley

DEC 10: Hotel Wolfe Island - Wolfe Island, ON
opening for Stephen Stanley

Info, tickets and times here.

#graventownpodcast
#SeanCooleyWasMyBoss

My new album "Geographics" is out now on all platforms. You can buy the digital, cd and vinyl versions of the album on my bandcamp page, (which helps me greatly) but I understand that cash is tight all over the map, so you can also order a five dollar Geographics sticker. 5 beans! This album is really special to me (as my friends Melissa Payne and Charles Austin played all over it) and I hope you'll come along for the supersonic ride. Follow me @gravencanada on all the socials, and check my website to see when I'm playing live in a town near you. Join Graventown today to support yours truly for only 8 clams a month.