The Guest List
Thursday November 15th, 2018 with Joe Reilly
Interviews with Danny Michel, Cloud of Rock, Stiff Little Fingers, and Shad

Some great conversations about great music on today's show - all with artists you can see in town in the next week. We open with Danny Michel - who we haven't had on the show in a while, but he's always a pleasure to talk to. We talk about his new 6-track e.p. titled White and Gold. We talk about songs inspired by young people standing up to violence and about songs that will hopefully inspire young (and old alike) to stand up for themselves. Danny talks about how he likes to release an album that is project with a specific focus and then follow it with an album of songs from anywhere and everywhere and how he enjoyed creating this new release with a focus on only 6 songs and how he may release more albums with fewer songs as he moves forward. See Danny at the National Arts Centre on Sunday - for an afternoon matinee and an evening show - that's November 18th (Danny is also great with calendars and dates as you will hear at the start of the interview... haha.) https://www.dannymichel.com/ https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/19789 We were supposed to talk to Yukon Blonde next about the group's upcoming show at the Bronson Centre on Saturday, November 17. We tried to track someone down but our calls went nowhere so we squeezed in Ottawa's own Dave Bignell to talk about his Cloud of Rock project and about the fact that the group is playing at Irene's this weekend - Saturday, November 17th - partly to celebrate the release of an album on vinyl and partly just to unleash some fine rock music on the Glebe!! Thanks to Janis for jumping in to keep the conversation going with Dave while I dealt with some technical issues around the Stiff Little Fingers interview. https://www.facebook.com/cloudofrock/ http://irenespub.ca/events Then we talk to Ali McMordie who plays bass with the seminal Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers. Ali talks to us about the song "Dark Places" which lead singer Jake Burns wrote about his own bouts of depression and how he overcame them. It's a song from the group's 2014 album No Going Back and McMordie tells us how he helped convince Burns to put this important song on a Stiff Little Fingers album and how songs like this might help those who are also dealing with mental health issues to feel like they are not alone. McMordie also talks about what brought him back to Stiff Little Fingers after some time away (playing with artists like Moby!) and how the song Alternative Ulster takes on new meaning during the current debates about BREXIT and the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. See one of the original punk bands when Stiff LIttle Fingers are at the 27 Club on Friday, November 16. https://slf.rocks/home-base https://www.spectrasonic.com/event/1751074-stiff-little-fingers-ottawa/ Finally we talk to Shad about his amazing new album A Short Story About A War. The album is timely and poignant as Shad explores a myriad of challenges that face our world today in engaging hip hop songs. It's a deep work that deserves a lot of attention and one that Shad hopes is seen ultimately as a hopeful message. He is mixing up the new songs with the old on this tour and will be playing at the 27 Club on Thursday, November 22. https://www.shadk.com/ https://www.spectrasonic.com/event/1728456-shad-ottawa/ Get out and see some live music this week.