Local music the focus of new book

North End

Winnipeg

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This article was published 20/09/2023 (1093 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new book featuring reviews of Manitoba music is hitting the shelves later this month.

Bad Gardening Advice, a local music blog, has been publishing detailed, creative and sometimes confounding reviews of Manitoba-based music for years. Many of the posts eschew the traditional music review format in favour of creative explorations of the themes evoked by the music itself. The project is the work of Steve Schmolaris — a pseudonym, which the author insists he requires to keep an impartial distance between his writing and the musicians he covers, particularly in a scene as tightly knit as Winnipeg’s.

“I dive into, or try to, dive into every part of the Winnipeg music scene,” he said.

Schmolaris, who claims to hail from ‘East Schmelkirk’, can often be found hanging around the North End, and has also created a fictional annual prize for best local music — the Schmolaris Prize (clearly a play on the real-life Polaris Prize) — said he never runs out of material, considering the depth and breadth of Manitoba’s creative musicians.

“There’s some weird stuff out there and it never ends,” he said. “As much as one can try to write about all this stuff, there’s never any lack of material to prompt new articles and new ideas or new ways of presenting these bands to a wider audience — or not.”

Artists as diverse as Artst Redacted, Boy Golden, The Famous Sandhogs, Taylor Janzen, the Haileys, Christine Fellows, Zrada and more are documented in the Bad Gardening Advice online archive, which goes back to April 2020. Now, after writing in the ballpark of 1,000 reviews on his blog, Schmolaris has partnered with FriesenPress to publish Bad Gardening Advice, the book, a selection of his favourite posts from the blog.

“I always try to concentrate on presenting good writing. I decided I’ll select the best reviews and I’ll dump a pile of money into it, to have all these collected as something tangible.”

A review of local rappers Pip Skid and Rob Crooks’ 2020 release It’s OK, for example, dovetailed into a detailed analysis of references to American talk-show host Ricki Lake.

“They made a reference, and I hadn’t heard of Ricki Lake in years, so I wondered what she was doing,” Schmolaris said. “But it turns out there’s a history, particularly in rap music, of referencing Ricki Lake. So I categorized this, going back to the early ’90s, all the references I could find to Ricki Lake in pop music. It’s fun, and I think you learn something about not only the music, but I think it gets to a more insightful heart of what musicians are either trying to do or into the music itself.”

“ There’s some weird stuff out there and it never ends…

While Schmolaris is hopeful that readers will connect with his material, the writing itself is what he values most about the project.

“I really enjoy writing. It’s a fun thing to do,” he said. “This is not a money-making entreprise.”

To learn more, or order a copy of Bad Gardening Advice, visit badgardeningadvice.com