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Creative Current - Guitar pickers and punks come to entertain

Nadine Davenport's bi-monthly column on arts, theatre and music in the local area.

Banjo, Mandolin & Guitar Oct 1st at UniTea

UniTea Tea Room invites you to an evening of ‘acoustic’ live music. This unplugged show will feature the Bluenose Pickers (Jude Pelley & Darren Arsenault.)

The pair have been pickin’ and grinnin’ together for more than 20 years. With elements of bluegrass, celtic, swing, jazz, and blues, they create a rich and unique sound that’s full of energy.

Come an enjoy some outstanding live music on Wednesday, Oct. 1. Doors at 6:30pm - shows starts at 7:30pm - at UniTea Tea Room (#100-210 Railway Ave in downtown Ashcroft). Tickets at the door or reserve your by calling (250) 453-9345. Limited to the first 30 people only.

Bob Bossin  shares the life of “Davy the Punk”

The Winding Rivers Arts and Performance Society is proud to bring Bob Bossin and Songs and Stories of Davy the Punk to Ashcroft on Saturday, Oct. 11. The show starts at 7pm at St. Alban’s Hall; tickets are available at the Ashcroft Bakery, Nature’s Gifts, and the Jade Shoppe. For more information visit windingriversarts.ca .

Songs and Stories of Davy the Punk is a one-man musical about cops and gamblers, grifters and grafters, fathers and sons. Indie music pioneer Bob Bossin’s hunt for his outlaw father is by turns fascinating, comic and poignant.

The father that Bob Bossin knew growing up in Toronto in the 1950s was a quiet, conservative booking agent for mainstream night clubs. The father who he later discovered was Davy the Punk, a pivotal figure in Canada’s gambling business of the 1930s and 40s. D-avy Bossin’s battles with the law created precedents that affect us to this day.

It wasn’t until after his father’s death in 1963, however, that Bossin learned his dad hadn’t just been a man who booked acts into Ontario nightclubs. His father had had another identity: “Davy the Punk”, a name given to him by members of the Toronto gambling underworld in the 1920s and 1930s. Bossin began doing some research.

Davy the Punk wasn’t the type to keep a diary; but his son soon found that the Attorney General of Ontario and the police, who had unsuccessfully pursued him from the late 1930s on, had written volumes about Davy.

Bossin was soon hot on the trail, talking to old bookies, cops, judges, and pals who provided information not only about Davy, but about the dark side of Toronto and its shadowy underbelly.

As Davy might say, odds are 5 to 7 on that you’ll be glad you met Davy the Punk.

Bob Bossin first came to musical prominence in the 1970s as the founder of Canada’s legendary Stringband. In the late 1980s, he toured his one-man musical, “Bossin’s Home Remedy for Nuclear War” for 200 performances across Canada, as well as in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. “Davy the Punk”, the book, was published this March by The Porcupine’s Quill.

“Only a handful of song writers have created a body of work that constitutes a portrait of our country. Stan Rogers did that. So did Gordon Lightfoot. And so does Bob Bossin.”  Stuart McLean

Author & Songwriter Tom Coles on Oct 18

UniTea Tea Room invites you to the first of many author readings. The night will celebrate the release of Tom’s new book Spirit Talker - The Legend of Nakosis in the first set - and in the second, Tom will share his great gift of music and songs. Come an enjoy songs and stories that will open your heart on Saturday, Oct. 18. Doors at 6:30pm - shows starts at 7:30pm. Drop by UniTea to buy your ticket or phone (250) 453-9345 to reserve. Limited to the first 30 people only.

Spirit Talker - The Legend of Nakosis is ‘set amid the verdant and primordial wilds of pre-contact era North America ‘Spirit Talker - The Legend of Nakosis’, tells the fantastical story of one young man’s induction into the mystique and magical world of the Shaman.

Tom has recorded two CD’s, his latest; A Brand New Day and previously, Rural Route. For more info about Tom’s music and writings - go to www.tomcoles.ca

Tom Coles is a Shamanic/ Buddhist practitioner and self-described explorer of creative expression. He lives with his wife, Sandy, and their dogs on their homestead called Ravenwoods Retreat amid the beautiful interior mountains of British Columbia.

Nadine Davenport