Regional rockers

 IT’S April. The snowline is finally receding, laying bare crushed lawns and sidewalks sticky with mud.

The flood threat has ebbed. Winnipeggers are finally packing up their parkas and feeling, for the first time in seven months, fresh air on their arms. Another sign of spring: Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson just got his bike tuned up at Natural Cycle.

"Spring itself is a great inspiration here in Winnipeg," he muses, relaxing at home during a break from a marathon Canadian tour. "It was a hard winter. It just seemed especially hard for everyone. I think there's some self-congratulation in order that we all deserve as Winnipeggers. And I feel that this is the month for that. Or maybe next month."

Let's just make it this one. After all, we have the perfect opportunity to celebrate this weekend, when Samson and his cohorts (Stephen Carroll, guitar, pedal steel; Jason Tait, drums, percussion, banjo, etc.; and Greg Smith, bass, keyboards) bring their Rolling Tundra Revue tour to the Burton Cummings Theatre.

The hometown shows offer a brief respite from a huge tour. Rolling Tundra got started in St. John's, N.L., on March 19, and will wrap up with two shows in the oft-ignored Whitehorse, Yukon, on May 4. Part poet, part journalist, Samson is looking forward to it.

"We've never actually played in Whitehorse. But I like it. The people who end up there are generally just by nature very interesting people."

But does Samson actually get a chance to tip glasses with the locals?

"I get a pretty good chance. More than you'd think. We get to hang out," he says. "Now that we're touring on buses, we have more time in cities than we're used to. We arrive early in the day and get a chance to see more than the inside of a bar for eight hours. We're really enjoying it."

As peripatetic as he may be, though, Samson is in no danger of running from his prairie home. As a songwriter, Samson and the city could be a perfect couple: both love murky blue-collar backwaters and impotent longing.

The world doesn't know Winnipeg. But more and more, it knows the Weakerthans, and finds us through the songs. This ain't Spirited Energy, but it's a tagline nonetheless: From Montreal to Melbourne, fans chant "I hate Winnipeg."

And I've taken foreign friends into the bowels Winnipeg Square to see the "thousand sharpened elbows in the underground," and up to Confusion Corner where, on 2007 album Reunion Tour's first single, Civil Twilight, "the commuters are cursing the cold away."

I can't be the only one who does this.

But Samson demurs at the thought of his band as an unofficial tourism agent. Yes, the Weakerthans' songs are enmeshed in Winnipeg; but Winnipeg, he points out, is similarly woven into a bigger picture.

"When people from other places relate with songs about Winnipeg, what they're actually relating to is the specificness of their own homes," he says.

"That's one of the powers of regional writing, and I am a regional writer. We all have these specific and unique places and people in our lives. And they're valuable because they don't always fit into the larger culture, they're sometimes ignored. That's what people are relating to when they do relate to things we write."

There's the underpinning of the Weakerthans' success since 1997: Finely sketched portraits of humanity, described by prairie tokens but not beholden to them. That, and the gentle but unmistakable calls for a Better Way of Doing Things.

As the world painfully weans itself from false wealth, those calls may be being heard more clearly.

"It's interesting to be a leftist and an artist right now," says Samson, who spends his spare time (ha!) working at progressive publisher Arbeiter Ring. "It's interesting now that it presents some opportunities for change. It will be interesting to see whether theories can be put into practice that haven't been before."

What? Winnipeg change?

"Winnipeg is a bit of an oasis sometimes. That's a nice way to put it," Samson says with a laugh. "But Winnipeg's already a very divided and poor city. We've had many of these issues we should have been dealing with for a long time. Maybe now we'll finally deal with them."

The Weakerthans' Rolling Tundra Revue tour hits the Burton Cummings Theatre on Friday and Saturday. The Constantines and Oh Susanna are also on the bill. Tickets are $29.50 at Ticketmaster.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Win John K. Samson's guitar, support a great cause 

YOU know those rock bands who talk the social justice

talk, but just swagger the walk? Yeah, the Weakerthans aren't one of them. This weekend, the band is plying its trade to support Macdonald Youth Services (coincidentally, the same charity Metric played for at their December show).

The benefit is called One Great Contest. The scoop? Frontman John K. Samson will be playing an Epiphone SG guitar at the Burt shows this weekend. The guitar will be autographed and awarded via a ticket draw on Sunday at noon.

Tickets for the contest are $2, available at MYS headquarters at 175 Mayfair Ave., their second location at 226 St. Mary's Rd., the University of Winnipeg Info Booth, and Citytv at The Forks. There is also an early bird draw, held at noon today, for dinner for two, a Weakerthans meet 'n' greet and tickets to the show.

Founded in 1929, MYS provides a wide range of services to support at-risk youth and their families, including a youth crisis shelter and support services in Winnipeg and The Pas. Check out mys.ca for more information.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 16, 2009 E10