“One of the best songwriters I’ve heard in quite some time.” -Ron Sexsmith

Toronto singer-songwriter extraordinaire Jerry Leger cites Hank Williams and Bob Dylan as his two main influences. It is hard to imagine two finer singer-songwriters to model one’s craft on. Born on April 19th, 1985, Leger came of age in the Upper Beaches area of Toronto. It was his grandfather who turned him onto Hank Williams, constantly playing the youngster a plethoraof the honky tonk master’s great recordings. Although Williams’ voice came from another world in terms of time, geography, and class, Leger was intrigued by the ways that Williams’ songs told a story and often conjured up mysterious images in his head. Dylan, likewise, animated Leger’s imagination. By the time, the aspiring musician reached high school, his horizons had widened to include Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elvis Costello, Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot.

It’s that time again. Jamming. You love it, I love it - we all love it.

Open jamming means that our host with the most, Dave Balfour, will play all night and will invite people up on stage to join in. It’s a great time for both audience and musicians!

Musicians: Bring your instrument of choice (including drums - small stage sized set please) and approach Dave to quickly let him know that you’re there and you would like to join in on the jam. He’ll do his best to rotate you in if at all possible. This is a great event and is catered to most levels of playing. Jamming is fun and helps build your skills. It’s great when it all gels together and it’s entertaining when it doesn’t (doesn’t happen to often!).

Audience: It’s a Wednesday night in the middle of October. It’s the middle of the week. You’re looking for something to do -maybe meet some friends or take in some entertainment. O’Reilly’s Pub in Perth has your answer. The Open Jamming experience with Dave Balfour is a night of amazing music and it’s all FREE. No cover. The music ranges from classic rock to folk to MILD country to blues to hits of today and beyond. It’s a night of fun and friends, music and mayhem.

The show starts at 8pm so both musicians and audience should arrive early for easier setup and best seating. There is a great food menu and drinks so don’t hesitate to come for supper or snacks and drinks prior to the show!

Thanks and see you there!

Mike

Sioux Newberry has been surprising audiences since she first cut her teeth as a hip-hop artist while attending University in Guelph, Ontario. Spending sleepless nights spitting, cussing and harmonizing her way through performances with prominent DJs in the Toronto area, she learned to find solace in the charms of folk songwriting and classical vocal training. “In fact,” says this small-town darling, “I have always seen hip-hop as a tool for learning to write better folk music.” Today, where the styles of jazz, country, folk-rock, hip-hop and accapella foot stomp meet, Sioux emerges as a student of reflection, offering songs and stories that consistently demand that her listeners look both inward and outward.

David Newberry has rock and roll in his heart, but somewhere along the way he found that folks like Woody Guthrie, Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt could craft a song and a story like no others. The result is a unique singer/songwriter with a collection of folk songs played by someone who learned his trade in the world of punk. Sweet country songs full of hardship and hope that are sung with the world weary tinge of alt-rock and whiskey. With each performance, David blends the energy and politics of punk rock with the storytelling and lyricism of American roots music.

Together, Sioux and David offer support on each other’s solo material, and present a batch of new songs co-written especially for this project. Their music reflects the realities of everyday life in Canada - highlighting ‘the regular’ in an extraordinary way. It also talks a lot about trains and boats.

While they are extraordinarily different musicians, their unique styles compliment each other, both picking up where the other leaves off. You’ll find their common ground to be both eclectic and coherent, and most of all, realistic and reminiscent of home.

Dave Balfour has the distinct ability to write excellent songs and to play covers really well.

Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac do their best songwriting in remote places and confined spaces. Caravan, their second album as the Toronto-based duo Madviolet, draws its title from a vintage motor home they occupied for three weeks in Byron Bay, just south of Brisbane, following the completion of their first Australian tour last year. With the Pacific crashing onto a white sand beach and cockatiels delivering raucous wake-up calls, the pair hunkered down with their guitars in the spring of 2005 and wrote many of Caravan’s ten songs. They’d surf, bike and play backgammon in the mornings, then begin work after lunch, pausing each evening to barbeque fresh fish and drink wine under the Southern Cross. Escaping the sun, they wrote in the dusky interior of the camper, a silver-with-maroon-stripe 1965 Morton Caravan they nicknamed Greta. “There’s something about a cramped van that works for us creatively,” explains Lisa. “It squeezes whatever’s inside of you out.”

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