Toronto trio's singer has true Prairie pride

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Rural Alberta Advantage

HOSTING one of the most poorly attended open-mike nights in the history of Toronto paid off huge for the Rural Alberta Advantage. 

With no one to jam with on stage, singer/guitarist Nils Edenloff and drummer Paul Banwatt were able to practise for hours weekly, getting paid in beer while working on their stage presence.

"It was one of the saddest open mikes ever, which was good for us -- we had to have hours and hours of material," Edenloff says. "You could do so much practising in front of nobody, and even if there's only one person there, you put yourself all out there."

The bar the pair jammed at is a Tim Hortons now, but the friends continued playing music together, filling out their lineup in 2006 with Amy Cole, who handles keyboard and percussion duties.

The rootsy indie-rock trio started building a buzz in Toronto on the strength of its live show. The 2008 debut album, Hometowns, was a featured release on the subscription-based online music store eMusic and named as one of the albums of the year on music blog Chromewaves.

An American booking agent who read the reviews contacted the Rural Alberta Advantage and put them in touch with Nebraska label Saddle Creek Records, which re-released the album last year. North American tours followed and the band finally got to visit the province it's named after. The group is on its way there again, stopping off in Winnipeg on Tuesday for a show at the West End Cultural Centre with the Wooden Sky and the Great Bloomers (tickets are $12 at Ticketmaster, Music Trader and the WECC).

Edenloff grew up in Edmonton and Fort McMurray and moved to Toronto in 2002 after graduating with his computer science degree.

"It's funny, I moved from Alberta and I'm going to this big city and getting here, I realized how much of an impact Alberta had on me," Edenloff says. "It's something I know. It's my own perspective. I don't think I could write a political song; I'm more about sappy songs that are personal to me."

The material on Hometowns deals with small-town stories, heartbreak and memories. There's an element of prairie romanticism throughout the album, but the themes of love and loss have struck a chord with people no matter where they're from.

"It was funny playing New York and someone saying, 'The music speaks to me. I don't know anything about Alberta, but I identify with what you're saying.' At the heart of the songs it's about moving out and growing up and losing love," Edenloff says.

"When we were playing shows in Alberta, the songs took on a whole different life. It was a sense of pride: these are ours. These are things we know. "

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Time has no meaning for P.J. Burton, yet here he is celebrating 25 years as leader of Winnipeg rock band the Chocolate Bunnies from Hell.

"I'm against time; I'm protesting against time," he says. "Forget about it. We refuse to bow to the tyranny of time. It could be 25, 15, 35, 105 -- who would care? You want the Bunnies, you get the same Bunnies, it won't matter if it was 2010 or 2210. I also will still be 23 or 24 years old."

They have no time for time, but Burton and his seven-member band will mark their 25th year at the Zoo on Friday with a number of special guests, including local dance troupe L.U.S.H., a fire juggler, belly dancer and Red Seed handing opening duties. Admission is $5.

"We're very happy to be carrying the torch in the tradition of western Canadian prairie rock.

We're doing this Zoo gig as an unofficial addendum to the Manitoba Homecoming 2010 fiasco -- the theme would be: Come on home to the Zoo to see the Bunnies. The Bunnies are well deserving of that kind of attention because we are as Manitoban as the Golden Boy's balls," he says.

Burton is the only original member remaining from the 1980s, when the band was a regular presence both locally and throughout Western Canada. The Bunnies released two albums and members have come and gone, but Burton has kept on almost continuously.

The current lineup has been together eight months and is working on a new album for a summer release.

"We're going to take it all the way. We've set the controls for the farthest reaches of rock 'n' roll. We're on a ride, baby, and we're never coming back," Burton says.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2010 E9