Riverfest is back again this Monday, with ourselves and transatlantic duo C Joynes (guitar, Cambridge, UK) and Mike Gangloff (fiddle, Southwest Virginia, USA) playing.
Lucky for us, these two compelling sonic explorers are making a stop on their Canadian tour to play Riverfest. Come out to hear some jaunty frolics, improvisation, with touches of drone, psychedelia and other fun stuff in the gorgeous ambience of Pangishimo Park overlooking the river.
PANGISHIMO PARK is a new-ish gem of a lookout point between Chaudière/Akikodjiwan waterfall and the War Museum. Here’s shot of how things can look there:
We’re playing a concert Thursday, February 8, 8pm at House of Targ!
Targ has perogies & pinball, Scrip Issue will bring their shoegaze punk (spotify), Preloved will serve up beautiful homemade dreampop (bandcamp), and bring the blackgrass, of course.
In particular, if you like watching us fight with pedals – and sometimes produce wild and beautiful sounds –this’ll probably be the show for you.
We’ll be playing two sets this weekend on short notice.
First, we’re opening for Benj Rowland at 9pm, this Friday Oct 6 at Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank St.
Tickets are $15 in advance on Ticket Tailor and $20 at the door.
If you’re unfamiliar, Benj has been the main driving force behind the Mayhemingways and has recently released a great album, Community Garden, under his own name. If you like your folk to be a little quirky and to feature offbeat instruments and effects (and if you don’t, why are you signed up for this list?), you’ll enjoy Benj’ live show. He’s been a bit of an inspiration for us, so we’re stocked to have been asked a little last minute to join the bill.
We’re also gonna play a set starting at 11am at the Art Market organized by our pals at the Arlington Five coffeeshop (5 Arlington Ave, just off Bank St) .
Ethan & Maddy will be playing at 1pm, so the music alone – nevermind the art – should be more than enough to guarranttee a good time. If we’re lucky, there will be some crossover between their songs and ours.
If it’s raining, the music will be inside the the Arlington Five coffeeshop.
If you find Valentine’s Day to be a) icky b) annoying c) a scam or d) all of the above, you’re welcome to come join us for an Anti-Valentine’s Day Show/Get Together this year.
We share your aversion to this rather weird holiday where you’re supposed to prove your love by buying stuff and where the “love” that’s idealized is a really specific, exclusive kind. It’s not that we don’t believe in love; it’s just that there’s so much more than one kind of emotional attachment or one relational ideal to celebrate. If you feel skeptical or excluded by V-Day, consider this an antidote, a show/get together featuring music from us and Libby & Cal.
Wychwood, the world’s first blackgrass band are excited to play a bunch of old songs about rejecting or escaping conventional romance (sometimes tragically but more often happily).
Libby & Cal, purveyors of jangly strings and smooth harmonies, will play songs about alternative love. In response to popular lyrics about self-sacrifice and unrealistic devotion, their new album proposes something different: a step off the relationship escalator. There are many roads to Happy Ever After and marriage is only one possibility. You can listen to Libby & Cal’s album “If You’ve Given Up on Love then Let’s Call it Something Else” on Bandcamp,
When: Tuesday February 14, 2023 When exactly: Doors 7:30pm~ Show 8pm Where: Avant-Garde Bar ~ 135 Besserer St.
Tickets: $20 in advance on eventbrite or at the door $15 in advance if paying direct via e-transfer to info@wychwood.xyz
No one turned away. In other words, Pay-what-you-can options are available (send an email to info@wychwood.xyz or direct message us on socials to arrange a PWYC ticket)
There’s a party coming up to celebrate the release of Wychwood’s first “proper” album and you’re invited. Come celebrate our new Blackgrass Harvest album with a combination concert and listening party. We’ll be playing songs from the album with an assortment of guest musicians including Oddeline, David Jackson (Day of Niagara, IMOO), Haley Wolk (Rubber Roses), Justin Dickie (Daipth, Obsidian Will) and Jack Pyl.
There will also be some trippy videos and at least one game to keep things interesting. It should be a good time.
(And just imagine – if you come, you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren “I went to the album release for the first proper blackgrass album ever made!”)
When: Sunday November 20
What time though?: Doors 7:30pm, start 8pm
Where: Spark Beer – 702 Somerset St. W. It’s cute, comfy, and conveniently located in Chinatown
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door (Pay-what-you-can at the door or in advance by sending an email to info@wychwood.xyz or direct message us on socials.)
Accessibility note There’s one 6-inch step to get into Spark (and our attempts to borrow a stopgap ramp haven’t paid off, sorry) and a couple doors that aren’t automatic. The bathroom also isn’t accessible.
Covid note As much as well want to pretend that the pandemic’s over, there are more people in the hospital in Ottawa with covid than any other autumn. If you want to come to this and haven’t got your booster yet, please do so! Not to be melodramatic but we don’t want anyone to die or be debilitated because of a fun time celebrating a little Bandcamp album. Let’s take reasonable precautions, look out for our neighbours, and have fun living life.
About Blackgrass Harvest
Although we have a soft spot for the raw live recordings and demos we’ve shared to date, Blackgrass Harvest is truly a milestone. It’s the first well-recorded album we’ve put out, in many ways our first real album, and the first fully realized demonstration of this “blackgrass” idea that’s motivated Wychwood from the beginning.
Blackgrass Harvest is an album of mostly dark traditional folk songs played mostly acoustically, but blending in some black metal, ambient, drone and noise music, samples, and other experiments. It was recorded in Tim’s bedroom between the 2nd and 7th wave of the pandemic.
Blackgrass Harvest is out on Bandcamp on 20.11.2022 Have a listen at wychwood.bandcamp.com (samples before that date and the full thing after).
We look forward to sharing these sounds and sharing the evening with you!
We’re going to playing Libby & Cal’s album release this Hallowe’en weekend – October 29 – it’s gonna be great spooky fun. There will be candy, there will be prizes for best costumes… also: music.
All the fun details & tickets magically appear by going to bit.ly/libbycal.
If you wander over to Libby Hortop on Faceborg, she’s been posting about creating an album of alternative, non-prescriptive love songs, the joys and challenges of recording an autoharp, and other genuinely interesting things.
Traditional folksongs and our set will do a good job warning of the dangers of conventional, possessive love – also, how to avoid being misled by a demon lover (look, forewarned is forearmed). Libby & Cal’s set and album will point to more open and diverse ways of loving.
Kick off spooky month in Ottawa with us this Saturday – and a host of musical friends! Once again, the tunnel supplies natural reverb and amplification, the fresh air provides pleasant safety, we’ll supply the songs, you can make it special.
Saturday, Oct 1, 6pm, at the tunnel to the Library & Archives parking lot (behind the library, towards the river – here’s the spot on google maps.)
If you came to previous tunnel shows, this tunnel is directly below the bike tunnel we played in before – the bike tunnel which is closed for construction. This tunnel is bigger, more reverberant, and spookier. There will be refreshments to share and we encourage you to bring your own light to pool with ours – and whatever you need to keep warm.
Also, it’s kind of a secret (sshhhh) but Chrissy’s going to play some songs from her solo project and Tim’s going to play a little bit with Haley from Rubber Roses. AND David from Day of Niagara and IMOO (the Improvising Musicians of Ottawa and Outaouais) will be adding ambient burbles and spooky drones to our folksongs.
If you’re in Toronto, you should probably come see Tim try to keep with Alexis Castrogiovanni at the Canadian Music Centre, this Thursday June 16. There’s a livestream too! If you can stand another screen event.
CMC Presents: Alexis Castrogiovanni // The George Crotty Trio
There will be cello, there will be banjo, there will be dreamy-noisy effects, many feelings, and strange beautiful music.
If you don’t know Alexis’ music, it’s stunning, and here’s proof:
We’re going to be playing 6-7 pm on May 28 at Art House Cafe as part of Ottawa Drone Day. If you want to hear the saw (and other admittedly less exciting instruments) played through a bunch of dreamy-spooky effects and blended into old folk songs, you’ll like this.
Ottawa Drone Day has activities all day too… there’s a youtube livestream and the adventure of performances start at 5pm at Art House and run through the evening.
It’s going to be a fun adventuresome time, and we’d love to connect with you!
Blackgrass 