Prairie Rocks

Tallgrass, fescue, wheat, barley, oil . . . and great music. The Prairie Provinces are rich in all these assets, and sitting proud towards the top of our collection of native sounds from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are the region's veterans — the rock 'n' roll groundbreakers — including Winnipeg heavyweights the Guess Who ("American Woman") and Bachman-Turner Overdrive ("Takin' Care of Business"). The indie spirit is strong among the prairie rockers of our Next Steps.

The current crop of prairie troubadours is well represented here by the likes of Feist ("Mushaboom"), who was born in Nova Scotia but raised in Calgary, where she cut her teeth in a punk band called Placebo (not to be confused with the U.K. outfit with the same name), as well as Saskatoon-based Wide Mouth Mason ("Midnight Rain") and Winnipeg's the Weakerthans ("Civil Twilight"), founded in '97 by John K. Samson after he left Propagandhi ("Back to the Motor League"). You'll find experimental prairie-land hip-hop and electronica in Deep Cuts.

Here, we've cast out nets into the buzzin' backwaters of rock's prairie lands and come up with the Wailin' Jennys ("Devil's Paintbrush Road"), formed in a Winnipeg guitar shop (Sled Dog Music) in 2002 when a trio of solo performers decided to pool their talents, plus the free-flowin' aboriginal hip-hop of Saskatoon's Eekwol ("Reluctant Warrior") and Bryce Kushnier's Winnipeg-based electronic project Vitaminsforyou ("Six O'Clock Whispers").

It's no great surprise that rock 'n' roll took such a strong foothold in the Prairie Provinces — the region's anti-elitism lends itself to independent thought, and the fire of rebellion has been in the prairie blood at least since the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. You might be surprised to find out that, given the band's association with Vancouver, Loverboy has its roots in Calgary, where former Streetheart member Paul Dean first hooked up with Mike Reno at the Refinery club. But we'll wager that you won't be at all surprised by the range and quality of these prairie sounds, taking in the best of indie rock, hip-hop, new folk, electronica, punk, and good ole rock 'n' roll. Listen up — the prairies are calling.