advertisement
FYI

Early Days When Cowboys Found KD Lang A Bit Too Strange

Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC wasn't always the perfect singer and the toast of Music City. In fact, in her backyard in early days she was a force to reckon with, and some of the forces she had to reckon with weren't warm to her punked-up hillbilly persona. Ross Perlmutter explains.

Early Days When Cowboys Found KD Lang A Bit Too Strange

By External Source

Ross Perlmutter Facebook


“I have a very special board tape of kd getting fired, by the crowd, onstage at the Ranchman’s in Calgary.

The short story is that Neil McGonnigal and I booked her into the Ranchman’s for her Calgary debut. The place was packed with cowboys and local music people, and the first set went swimmingly. Halfway through the second set, some drunk cowboys thought: ‘Hey, waitaminute. This woman is a gawdamn punk rocker, and she’s making fun of our music!’ And they approached the stage. On the tape, you can clearly hear them say ‘you have to leave!’, and kd responds by saying ‘OK, we’ll just finish this set...’

advertisement

‘No, NOW!’

“Kd apologized with an ‘OK, buckaroos and buckarettes’ and that was it. We pulled her from the Ranchman’s and booked her right next door at another club called Longhorns, and that was the start of her rise to fame. That tape remains one of my most prized possessions.”

advertisement
Music News Digest: CRTC Aims To Fill a Gap for Indigenous Radio in Toronto and Ottawa
Photo by Will Francis on Unsplash
FYI

Music News Digest: CRTC Aims To Fill a Gap for Indigenous Radio in Toronto and Ottawa

Also this week: Sled Island reveals initial lineup curated by clipping., Truro hosts Nova Scotia Music Week and more.

The CRTC recently launched a call for applications for FM radio stations to serve Indigenous communities in Toronto and Ottawa. Broadcast Dialogue reports "the call follows the demise of First Peoples Radio’s ELMNT FM stations, which went off the air on Sept. 1 last year. Launched in the fall of 2018, the stations had a goal to 'fill the gap' for urban Indigenous listeners under-represented in the radio landscape. They carried an 'Indigenous-variety' format, featuring both English and Indigenous-language spoken-word and musical programming, with 25% of the playlist dedicated to Indigenous talent.

In its call, the commission says in its view, "there is a need and a demand for radio stations to serve the needs and interests of those communities."

keep readingShow less
advertisement