What’s up

Ariel Posen goes global on Downtown

Monday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m.

Park Theatre

Tickets: $30.81, including fees, at myparktheatre.com and ticketweb.ca

A new EP from Winnipeg singer-songwriter Ariel Posen that was recorded in two countries and mixed in a third comes together for a launch party Monday night at the Park Theatre.

Posen had written songs while touring in Europe and North America in 2021, and he put the final polish on five of them for Downtown in Winnipeg. Producers in Montreal and Norwich, England, also helped with the package. The result was shipped to Los Angeles for mixing.

“Although we were all afar when we recorded this project, I feel like we could not have been more in tune with each other and understood the assignment in serving these songs to bring a musical and lyrical theme to fruition,” Posen says in a release.

His guitar-playing has got him attention from rock magazines such as Rolling Stone and his last LP, 2020’s Headway, earned him a Western Canadian Music Award nomination for Breakout Artist of the Year.

The slick six-string work still shows on Downtown, but it is his souful singing that is the centre of the five songs on the new recording.

Manitoba alt-country artist Del Barber, who opened for Posen on many of his shows in Europe and the States this year, is also a special guest at Monday’s gig.

— Alan Small

East meets West End

Saturday, 8 p.m.

West End Cultural Centre, 586 Ellice Ave.

Tickets: $35.26, including fees, at eventbrite.ca

The East Coast converges on the West End Cultural Centre this Saturday with a trio of bands from Atlantic Canada.

The local stop on the national Anchor’s Up tour promises a night of lush harmonies, foot-stomping banjo and melancholy melodies with sets by the Fortunate Ones, Old Man Luedecke and the Once — three groups with JUNO noms and awards to their names.

Hailing from St. John’s, N.L., the Fortunate Ones are a contemporary folk duo made up of partners Andrew James O’Brien and Catherine Allan. The group is touring new music from their latest album, Was You and Me.

While Old Man Luedecke, the stage name for singer-songwriter Chris Luedecke, takes inspiration from the twangy lilting traditions of his adopted Nova Scotian home, The Once (Geraldine Hollett, Phil Churchill, Andrew Dale) offer a new take on Newfoundland roots music.

Visit wecc.ca for more information.

— Eva Wasney

Tasha Spillett-Sumner launches new picture book

Thursday, 6:30 p.m.

McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park, 1120 Grant Ave.

Free admission

Following up on her bestselling picture book I Sang You Down from the Stars, Winnipeg author Tasha Spillett-Sumner launches her new book for young readers and parents, Beautiful You, Beautiful Me, on Thursday at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location.

I Sang You Down from the Stars, illustrated by Michaela Goade, is a touching love letter from an Indigenous mother to her new baby, a picture book that caught the eye of readers around the world and landed Spillett-Sumner on the New York Times bestsellers’ list.

Beautiful You, Beautiful Me — illustrated by Sri Lankan-born, Toronto-based Salini Perera and published in October by Owl Kids — is the story of Izzy, a young girl in a multiracial family who looks different in some ways from Mama, their skin colours not quite the same. Izzy yearns to be beautiful like her Mama, but realizes she looks different; her mother, meanwhile, finds lessons in nature and offers affirming messages to her child that she, too, is beautiful. Spillett-Sumner mined her own upbringing in a Cree and Trinidadian household as well as her experiences raising her daughter, Isabella, for the book.

The Winnipeg launch of Beautiful You, Beautiful Me sees Spillett-Sumner joined by Winnipeg Cree author David A. Robertson. In addition to the live, in-person launch, which is free, the event will be streamed to McNally Robinson’s YouTube page.

— Ben Sigurdson

Mobina Galore releases new live album

Friday, 9 p.m. (doors 8 p.m.)

Park Theatre

Tickets $20 at the door, $15 in advance at Eventbrite

Back in July 2020, Winnipeg’s premier power-chord punk duo Mobina Galore — Jenna Priestner (guitar/vocals) and Marcia Hanson (drums/vocals) — played a couple of special shows at the Park Theatre.

Pandemic restrictions were making things impossibly tough for Winnipeg music venues, but there was a vanishingly small opening that summer in which indoor venues could host limited-capacity, seated shows. And so, Mobina Galore — along with their pals in The Ripperz — squeaked through that tiny window and played two back-to-back, sold-out gigs, and donated all the money to the Park Theatre. Those shows would become the only shows the band played all year.

It’s a good thing, then, that they were recorded for what would become Mobina Galore’s first live album. Part pandemic posterity and all punk rock, the resulting 12 tracks capture the blistering energy that has sustained the band since it formed in 2011. (The album also documents the very first time the band played Whiskey Water, which would be released as a single in 2022.)

And now, Mobina Galore is officially releasing Mobina Galore: Live from the Park Theatre live at the Park Theatre on Friday night, with Edmonton’s Audio/Rocketry and Winnipeg’s Screaming at Traffic. Visit myparktheatre.com for more information.

— Jen Zoratti

Manitoba Antique Association fall sale

Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Viscount Gort Hotel

$5 admission, kids 12 and under for free

I personally have to try to stay away from the Manitoba Antique Association’s fall antique sale, on this Sunday at the Gort. Not because I don’t want to buy any more knicknacks, paddiwacks or give-a-dog-a-bones, but precisely because I often can’t resist a tiny purchase that sparks joy. But I can’t control you or how you spend your hard-earned cash, and will not judge you if you end up leaving the sale Sunday with a bunch of things — Pyrex, mid-century decor, Christmas decoarations, jewelry, farmhouse antiques — you never knew you needed … If my will-power isn’t sufficient, I might see you there.

— Ben Waldman

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