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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...’

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‘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.”

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Joni Mitchell at the 2026 Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario.
CARAS/Morgan Hotson

Joni Mitchell at the 2026 Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario.

Awards

Juno Awards Generate a Record $17.2 Million In Economic Impact For Host City Hamilton, Ontario

According to The Junos and CARAS claim, the March awards and surrounding events set a record for the host city.

Four months after Hamilton hosted the 2026 Juno Awards and Juno Week events, the numbers are in.

On July 23, Juno organizers CARAS (Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) released its figures on the estimated economic impact of the Junos on Hamilton, Ontario and the region.

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