Boy Golden’s time to shine

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This article was published 22/07/2023 (1140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A substitute often means party time for students happy to escape the watchful eye of their regular teacher.

The same goes for substitute music acts, if the 2023 Winnipeg Folk Festival was any indication.

On July 8, organizers called Manitoba country-folk act Boy Golden off the bench to pinch-hit for American country singer Sierra Ferrell, who had cancelled her Saturday evening mainstage concert at the last minute.

The folkies in the field at Birds Hill Park whooped it up when Liam Duncan, the singer, songwriter and keyboardist behind the Boy Golden persona and his band took the stage, knowing the group would get the party started.

It was quite the musical pulpit for someone who describes himself as the minister of the Church of Better Daze, the title of the 2021 debut record from Boy Golden.

“It was a dream come true for me,” Duncan says. “You realize how big that festival is, they say 75,000 people come through, so there must have been 15,000 out there.”

The short notice and the huge crowd actually made it easier to cope with the usual pre-show nerves.

“It’s almost a little easier when there’s so many people, because you turn off the part of your brain that knows you’re being perceived,” he says.

Young teachers often begin careers by subbing to gain experience and get a foot in the door to help land a full-time job when one opens up.

Boy Golden approached the folk-fest opportunity the same way.

While he sang tunes from Church of Better Daze, including KD and Lunch Meat, which has become a cult favourite after reaching No. 1 on Canadian alternative radio, Duncan also gave fans an early listen to four of the six tracks on Boy Golden’s EP, For Jimmy, which came out Friday, as well as songs by his bandmates, Fontine Beavis (who performs under the mononym Fontine) and Kris Ulrich, who were also playing the festival.

“I think it went really well. I’m really happy with it. It was a total win for me,” he says.

Among the songs played were the EP’s opener, Mountain Road. It has a similarly catchy hook to the tracks on Church of Better Daze, thanks to duelling baritone guitars that create a distinctive opening to the tune.

The heavy guitar riffs obscure Mountain Road’s introspective side, which reveals a bit about Duncan, who grew up in Brandon before moving to Winnipeg and joining the indie group Middle Coast.

“Mountain Road is Highway 5 in Manitoba and I write about that area a lot because that’s a road I (drive) most often,” Duncan says about the highway that runs north from the Trans- Canada Highway and around the eastern boundary of Riding Mountain National Park, before winding westward towards Dauphin.

“It’s a beautiful road and to me it symbolizes all the journeys you end up taking in your life. That song is about finding yourself and finding out who you are, being whoever you are.”

Towns along Highway 5 include Neepawa, Carberry, McCreary and Ste. Rose du Lac, but perhaps the smallest one on the road holds the greatest significance for Duncan.

“The most important town to me off Highway 5 is the town of Eden, not because I have connection to it, but it’s part of the story I’ve been working on,” he says. “The word Eden has so much wrapped up in it. It’s a beautiful name — it could be a name for a person but also the Garden of Eden. It feels really peaceful and I always get this feeling of home there.”

Duncan has tried to push the success achieved by Church of Better Daze into his rearview mirror and focus on his songwriting, although that hasn’t been easy after a lengthy tour supporting the Sheepdogs in 2022 and another Winnipeg breakthrough, opening for Burton Cummings at his namesake theatre last December.

When he wrote and recorded For Jimmy, he followed the same low-pressure process of creating the debut record. He wrote two albums’ worth of heartfelt songs that were distilled into For Jimmy’s six tracks — the product of two years of songwriting.

“I was sort of aware of the external pressure to live up to that first album, but I made that first album for myself, for fun. I didn’t intend it to become (such) a part of my life,” the 26-year-old says.

“I have very little to do with how music is received. All I can do is make music. We just tried to continue the path and push ourselves artistically instead of trying to aim for some commercial success. I think that is just a pointless endeavour.”

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall