Easter weekend rocks with Dave Chomiak’s  annual ultimate ’80s  Easter Weekend.

The weekend begins Thursday, March 28 with tributes to The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi and Alanis Morissette. The fun continues Good Friday, March 29 with tributes to Def Leppard, Dokken and Heart and the fun continues Saturday, March 30 with tributes to Van Halen, Motley Crüe and Judas Priest. Tickets are $60 for all three nights, $50 for any two nights and $30 for single tickets at the door or $25 in advance.

But that’s not all.

 The rock begins tonight, Tuesday, March  26 with Chinook  High School rocks  returning to the Owl Acoustic lounge and an all ages gig at the Moose Hall with death metal band Dying Remains, Calgary metal band,  Snakepit,  Edmonton/ Fort Saskatchewan  thrash metal band Pre Breaker and local metal band Drearius.

There is a $20  cover for the show which begins at 6 p.m.

 Wednesday is all about jazz music with Sheena Lawson and the LoveCats returning to the Watertower Grill. 

It’s the end of the month  so Teri Petz returns to the Owl Acoustic lounge to host the monthly  poetry open mic.

 Steve Foord hosts the Slice’s open mic on Wednesday, March 27 as well.

HBO 3 returns to the Owl Acoustic lounge on Thursday, March 28.

 As usual Gabe Thaine hosts the weekly jam for hunger at Theoretically Brewing beginning at 6 p.m on Thursday.

 Danica Sommer has a busy weekend as her Alanis Morissette tribute plays the Place on Thursday to  open the ultimate ’80s weekend. She is also playing an acoustic opening set with Austin Phillips on Friday at the Slice. They are opening for Wanda Krein -MacKay’s new project Wildflower Whiskey which features Jack Horne Jr, Kyle Horne Skye Hurd and Reg Osmond.

I haven”t  been to as many punk rock shows as I would have liked to this year, but there was no way I was going to miss No Means No Drummer Jon Wright’s new punk rock supergroup Dead Bob, who played a close to sold-out show at the Slice, March 16.

John Wright showed his jazz chops and howling punk rock  howling vocals from behind his kit, set to the right side of the stage. Byron Slack (Invasives)  and his partner Kristy Lee Audette (Rong) added  guitar. Ford Pier (Ford Pier and the Vengeance Trio, DOA, Roots Round up, Junior Gone Wild, Rheostatics) and his partner from the pub he used to run in Powelll River before Covid shut it down, bassist Colin MacRae, who used to play in Victoria math rock band  Pigment Vehicle laid down the bottom end.

Dead Bob worked through their debut CD. beginning with “Just Breathe.”

John Wright advised bringing ear plugs  for the show during his interview a few weeks ago, which is advice I wished I heeded.

 The band  was a force of nature and tight as could be not to mention as supersonically  loud as promised .

 They set down an intense groove throughout.

  Ford Pier jumped  up and and down playing his  keyboard set at the left side of the stage.

 He picked up a trombone and joined Audette’s trumpet  to add a whole lot of brass for a  couple of songs.

“ White Stone Eyes ” came early in the set.

 “ Party of One”   was another highlight.

The brass came back later in the set for a few extended jams.

In between leaping around and adding to the gang vocals,  Byron Slack also sang lead on a song.

 They wound down their set  with The album’s title track “Life Like” which showed off Audette’s vocals. 

 Of course, they were called back for an encore. A stripped down band retuirned to the stage including  Wright, Kristie Lee Audette singing and  Colin McRae settingdown a menacing bass groove fro NoMeansNo’s “Metronome.”

The rest of the band joined them for one more song.

 Calgary punk rock  Go Fuck Yourself played a surreal set of short, 10 to 20 second long songs, each punctuated with “ Go Fuck Yourself.

 Then they must have set  some sort or weird record  for longes song with the fewest. chords and fewest words— three chords and  “Go Fuck Yourself,” which they played for 20 plus minutes before making way for Dad Bob.

 I missed Queen of the Worms opening set, but they are always a fantastic.

— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor

Edmonton country rock band the  Denim Daddies are excited , not only about releasing their new album “Northern Goods”  today, March 20, but about returning to Lethbridge to play Shaela Miller’s “After the Masquerade” album release party, Saturday, March 23 at the Owl Acoustic Lounge with Carter Felker.

 “It’s always busy down there when Shaela Miller’s cooking up a new album, I’ll bet,” said Denim Daddies bassist/ vocalist Kurtis Cockerill. The Denim Daddies have played with Shaela Miller a couple of times including fo her Windy City Opry concert series.

“We did the opry a couple years ago and we played a crazy house party in Saskatoon with her in probably 2018. That was  really fun. She’s a friend of ours and we’re stoked to be on that bill,” Cockerill continued.

Calgary’s Carter Felker will be opening  the show with a solo set with the Denim Daddies on second and Shaela Miller closing off the night.

“He (Carter Felker) is one of our favourite folk artists,” he said.

 Cockerill is excited to release the new album ‘Northern Goods” which features more prominent steel guitar.

“Yeah, big time, the steel guitar is on every track except one. Booker (Diduck)’s really becoming a monster . He’s  gotten really good over the past couple years. He’s all over it.”

The Denim Daddies also feature  guitarist/ singer Andrew Brostrom, pedal steel /guitarist  Booker Diduck, drummer/vocalist/ guitarist Matt  King and Pianist/ organist Sahil Chugh.

 The album comes out Wednesday, March 20. They have released a couple singles from it including “Living on the Road” and “Seems To Me” are out on all streaming services.

“The records have come in so last night we did a fun little record listening party at Bent Stick Brewing in Edmonton last night ( March 13), And they actually brewed a beer of the same title. The album’s called Northern Goods  and we were crushing a lager all night of the same title and it was a great time,” he continued.

The album also features a cover of “Grandpa was a Carpenter,” a song by one of  the bands idols  John Prine.

“He means a lot. I think the first time I heard John Prine was, like, hearing his voice sealed it for me that I thought  that could actually sing and write my own songs. He’s a massive inspiration to us . Since we started the band we’ve always done at least one of his songs  per set. So usually we’re doing a couple of John Prines a night. That one really came together with our own flavour— up tempo , lots of harmonies. He’s a great guy. We all miss him. I never got to see him live. During Covid I lost my grandpa only a couple of weeks after we lost John Prine and it kind of felt like I lost two grandpas. It was a tough time but I got through it  And we’re really excited to have that song on the record,” he said, adding they chose that song  because they put their own stamp on it.

“It was more just how it came together. It wasn’t just like we were going through the motions , covering the song . We kind of made it our own with that fancy little  pedal steel intro and the tempo and harmonies. We felt like we were putting our own stamp on the tune,” he said.

 They also added a song about Cockerill’s grandpa,  relating a few of the stories he told Cockerill.

Shaela Miller releases her latest album “After the masquerade” this week with two sold out  release parties  at The Slice on March 22 and at the Owl Acoustic Lounge with Carter Felker and the Edmonton country rock band  Denim Daddies.

 She is also playing an all ages gig at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Saturday afternoon with Eilish Lazenby.

 But first Paul Holden and James Oldenburg return to the Watertower Grill on Wednesday to play some jazz music from 6-8 p.m.

 Aaron Phelan from New Autumn hosts the Slice’s open mic on Wednesday.

 Also Wednesday, Theatre Outré returns to the Owl Acoustic Lounge.  The show features Fawns at 8 p.m., Clover Overboard at 9 p.m. and Crown The Jester closing off the night at 10 p.m. Admission is by donation.

Gabe Thaine hosts  the weekly jam for hunger at Theoretically Brewing, Thursday, March 20.

 Theatre Outré returns to the Owl Acoustic lounge on Wednesday, March 20. 

The Slice will rock on a Thursday night  as they welcome Calgary  band Vogue Villains on Thursday with local  support from 4BPM and Alec Arms.

 Vogue Villains are supporting their  new album “Built on Bones.”

 Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

 Daylan Delaney hosts Honkers Pub open mic on Friday, March 22.

Mike Murchison  and guests play a free show at Central Church of Christ, March 24 at  7p.m.