Manitoba Live Music Event

About

The Perpetrators front-man and founding member Jay Nowicki is rated one of Canada’s tastiest guitar players. Together with the “meat-and-mashed-potatoes” rhythm section of Emmet VanEtten & John Scoles (or sometimes founding member Ryan Menard) they deliver a tight, raw and intense blues experience that is sure to make you get up and shake it.

The Perpetrators’ albums have garnered WCMA awards and Juno nominations. Their ability to stay grounded to their Winnipeg roots, coupled with the raw energy and extreme talent makes this one of the best groups to come out of Canada.

Once a not-so-well-kept-secret in their hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada – where they acted as house band for such visiting blues legends as Hubert Sumlin, Louisiana Red, Paul “Wine” Jones and others – The Perpetrators kicked things up a notch in 2006. A European Tour capped off a Juno Nomination and a win at the Western Canadian Music Awards. That decade, The Perps released two more albums, garnering various award nominations.

In late 2009, Jay Nowicki teamed up with Romi Mayes for extensive touring that saw them travel across the US, Canada, and Europe, and recorded the critically acclaimed live album “Lucky Tonight” in 2011.

2013 had Jay and The Perpetrators back in the studio to record their latest release, the long awaited “Stick ‘Em Up”, which Dr. Boogie (Classic 21 – Belgium) described as: “The dirtiest stuff you made [sic] so far, and the more accessible for my greasy ears…” Accompanying the release, The Perps returned to Belgium and Holland for the first time since 2009. "Stick 'Em Up" has been met with rave reviews, and the festival season of 2014 will take The Perpetrators across Canada, and overseas once again.

Ridley Bent is back with his latest release Wildcard the anticipated follow up of Rabbit on My Wheel showcasing the Western Canada based Country artist's keen fascination for characters whose life on the straight and narrow rarely lasts past the nearest exit to a short, crooked road. 

Ridley Bent continues to weave tales of wisdom and intrigue with titles such as 'Fill Yer Boots' about a truck driving card player, and 'Crooked and Loaded' written about a shoot out with a posse of outlaws. Produced by the John MacArthur Ellis and supported by an all star band of country musics finest Wild Card will take your mind away and get your toes tapping as Ridley Bent does what he does best..! 

On Wildcard the 2009 CCMA nominee and 7-time BCCMA winner's storytelling and songwriting chops are sharper than ever. Although the tales are still as tall as they come, and the characters as large as life or larger, the cast of hard-drinking, fast-driving characters Ridley unleashes on Wildcard tend to be a shade less hell-bent on self-destruction than they are with keeping their lives between the lines and out of the ditch.

Channeling the high-energy performance ethic of artists like Dwight Yoakum and Little Feat, Ridley and his band tear a deep strip off the joint with tracks like “Brooklyn Texas”. Of course these are love stories told the way only Ridley can; tracks that run the gamut from hard and bitter to hardly better, including a beautifully rendered, deliberately down-tempo take on the classic Tom Petty song , “You Got Lucky”

While much of Ridley's new material is drawn from real life experiences he's gathered up on the road, Wildcard still has its share of shady characters, jackknifing tractor-trailers and whiskey-fuelled bar fights. And for those who identify strongly with Ridley's less reasonable characters - the ones who tend to prefer to stir things up with a pistol in one hand and a bottle in the other - there's The Blood Trilogy. A companion EP recorded during the same sessions and co-written with Dunn - a highly satisfying three-song western epic of violence and vengeance informed by Ridley's ongoing fascination with the bleak worlds of writers like John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy.