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To celebrate their 15th anniversary, Home Routes is rekindling the 1980 tour that started it all, The Travelling Good Time Medicine Show.
Proudly presented by Home Routes: The Travelling Goodtime Medicine Show, a series of 5 concerts each featuring a variety of amazing Canadian talent
Traveling Goodtime Medicine Show - A History [Transcript]
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[00:00:00] Jaxon Haldane: Welcome to the Traveling Goodtime Medicine Show Podcast brought to you by the good folks at Home Routes
We're celebrating. Yes we are we're celebrating some people and we're celebrating some culture and we're doing it with a string of five concerts airing every Friday in April, 2022. We're doing it on side door, so you can enjoy it from the comfort of your own living room. And we're putting together 15 of Canada's world-class musical talents.
We're putting them on stage together to collaborate a little bit. They're doing it like in the round and workshop style. It's going to be fun. You don't wanna miss it. So we'll have more information about that later in the show. It's all inspired by this event from 1980, a wild traveling folk festival went all around Alberta.
We want to take you back there and tell you the story. So just settle back and we're going to transport you back to 1980,
to the original travelling good time medicine show.
[00:01:13] The Pitchman: Gathered around, gather around kind people gather around. I've got good news for you. Yes. Good news. Music is medicine. That's right. Music is medicine. Healing can be derived from music in many ways. We all need healing. Don't we, I look at you here, right here in the front, sir. You need healing. There's no doubt about it.
You would like your healing to come from something as enjoyable as music, would you not? Yes. You don't need a snake oil tonic dude. No.
The body moves as we know in involuntary ways when encountering an agreeable beat. Lost memories are triggered by rediscovered songs. I suggest modern science is just beginning to discover the ways that sound effects matter; how vibrations impact our bodies.
Yes. Yes. The effects of music are physical. They're emotional and they're psychological, but they're also cultural. It's very important, the cultural aspect. People we bond through ceremony. That's what brings you here today, sir? That's what brings you ma'am here today. You have come to enjoy connection with your fellow people through ceremony, by sharing experiences.
So community ties, strengthen and expand while we celebrate here today. This is the patent treatment we dispense at the Traveling Good Time Medicine Show, it's a trusted remedy, wholesome and natural, and we're pleased to be with you today. Pleased to make good on our commitment to provide quality musical entertainment for the whole family, a history of which goes back decades you know, thank you, decades.
[00:03:15] Jaxon Haldane: The story centers around an Intrepid, married couple from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Mitch Padolic and Ava Kabrinsky . They possess the drive vision and skills to create iconic venues and festivals that would blossom into cultural institutions like Home Routes, the Winnipeg folk festival, and Winnipeg's Western cultural center.
Just to name a few, the legacy goes beyond bricks and mortar. It's more important than just tents and stages. Let's begin back in 1980, when Mitch hatched an ambitious plan to spread the gospel of folk music across the Canadian Prairie's. Holger Peterson, Edmonton based radio host, longtime influencer, and someone who helped shape the world of Canadian music reflects on what the folk music scene was like in 1980.
[00:03:59] Holger Peterson: Well, a lot of it came down to a radio station CKUA, which is incredibly important to this community and the arts and the culture of this, this community, CK UA had been playing folk music in various forms and, and alternative kinds of music. We also had a history of having a wonderful folk club here called The Hobble, which was more than a folk club, but that was the stop
that traveling folk artists, blues artists, some jazz artists, you know, there was like a Wednesday or Thursday beer night there and we'd have a blues band there and be able to sell beer. And there was just a lot of underground activity and there were some folk clubs in Edmonton as well that were run by some really dedicated people.
And they would bring in Celtic artists and, and this and that. So I think the environment was pretty ripe.
[00:04:50] Jaxon Haldane: It was fertile ground for establishing some permanent folk music infrastructure. Six years prior in 1974, Mitch launched the Winnipeg folk festival, which had become a popular and recognized event locally across Canada and abroad.
He knew well enough that they had developed a very scalable, sustainable festival model, but the primary obstacle of repeating it, was the sizable financial investment required to launch an initiative the magnitude of a music festival. The folk community had few private benefactors that could donate or sponsor such an endeavor,
so the obvious place to seek startup capital for a folk festival was, and still is from the public side. Enter Alberta 75, the lavish diamond Jubilee celebrations to mark Alberta's 75th year as a province Alberta's government set aside the modern equivalent of over $250 million to fund projects ranging from commemorative coins to temporary waterfall installations, and even a traveling folk festival. Holger Peterson discusses the significance of the good time Alberta medicine show and traveling folk festival.
[00:05:58] Holger Peterson: It was really the foundation of the first Edmonton folk music festival. Of course, Don Whalen had the vision of having a folk festival in Edmonton and it happened to line up with the 75th anniversary of the province. Mitch through his generosity, came out here a few times and Don and I and Mitch met with various people at levels of governments, including the city.
And then we met with Horace Smith who was the minister of culture for the province. And it was a, it was a really funny meeting. We walked in and Horace was a bit of a character. He played polka music and various bands and worked with Gabby Hawes and very approachable, friendly guy. So we got into his office at the Alberta legislature.
And the first thing he said, was it, how much is it that you guys are trying to screw me out of? And that kind of broke the ice. And we told him what the vision was. Mitch of course was, was great because he had already been through this. He really kind of made it all happen at these meetings. In the end, I think we got $89,000 from the province.
And so that was, that gave us the money for the infrastructure and the first year of the Edmonton folk festival, which included all those people that, that were part of the traveling folk festival
[00:07:20] Jaxon Haldane: Suze Casey, who was responsible for artist's hospitality on the original traveling folk festival recalls this:
[00:07:26] Suze Casey: as I remember there being a letter in the mail, you know, coming from Mitch Padolok to Menzel Davies, who was our then artistic director for the Calgary foot club saying, I have this project called the traveling good time medicine show.
And I'd like to bring it to Calgary. Would you folks be interested in being the boots on the ground to start it up? And there was big conversation about it and I was quite young and quite naive and I was like, well, I was at the Mariposa folk festival. I mean, how hard can it be? And so we just kind of, you know, I mean, that was my perspective.
We didn't do it cause I said that, but I mean, that was where I was kind of coming from him. How hard can it be? And so. So that's where it began.
[00:08:13] The Pitchman: Are we intrigued? Do you want more? Yes, of course you want more, but before we get on with the story, let's hear from our musical guests, Burnstick appearing April 1st on the Traveling Goodtime Medicine Show!
[00:08:31] Jason Burnstick: Um, okay, ladies first. Me first. Yeah. All right. Hello everyone. My name is Jason Burnstick I am one half of the group Burnstick
[00:08:42] Nadia Burnstick: and I am Nadia Burnstick the other half of the group Burnstick. We've told the story before, but we met in a Iqaluit Nunavut, but Jason was playing music for Aboriginal day live and I was on the production team.
And so we met up north, but then we like re met like several months later and realized we lived like only a few blocks away from each other and Winnipeg. And then our first date, I, we wrote a song. Yeah. We wrote a song. Yeah. We have it have a little paper with like chords on it that I have in a frame that was from like our first date kept it, kept it.
[00:09:23] Jason Burnstick: Yeah, that was cool. We were both kind of solo artists as well. So we kind of did our own thing, but I was kind of getting to that place where I just wanted something different and maybe Nadia did too. And then we just jammed out and played together a bit and wrote a song and, um, it sounded nice. It just worked and it was really effortless, but we realized that there was something there and I was like, okay, well let's just let's do this.
Cause I didn't really have any interest in going on in my own. Quite honest thing, we
[00:09:52] Nadia Burnstick: still do like solo things, but it's not as fun. I would much rather sing together and tour together and play together and write together. And all of that is so much more fun. Yeah. It gets also become clearer what we are and who we are in what we're putting out there.
When our son came into this world, like I know for me, my priorities changed, but that also made it a lot more clear as to what I want to do with our music and what kind of message we put out there and what we write about. And so, I mean, it's super hard having, having a toddler, um, but I also think that there's something magical about that.
Leonard from Home Routes contacted us to be part of a, another sort of in the round life show at the Western cultural center a few months or a few months ago, I would say, um, it what like this Blues thing and it was super fun. And so that's where we met him and he was like, I want you guys to be part of this other show.
And he told us who would be playing with, with small glories and Arianne, who I've known for a really long time. And we were, we were just thrilled to be part of that.
[00:11:03] Jason Burnstick: Both times that we played a super good time. It was just felt good to get out there and play. Yeah, good energy on stage. It was good times.
[00:11:12] Nadia Burnstick: I had done the, uh, home roots, but in French as a solo artist several years ago, um, with Chemin Chez Nous, so I was already aware of, of Home Routes, but we've never done it as burn stick yet.
So the actual, the actual Home Routes tour, hopefully we get to do that. I feel like every, everyone went to the pandemic and had nothing to do and was able to write. And we went into the pandemic, like with a toddler and it was impossible to do anything. So, so we haven't written in like three years.
And so we just got back to writing, which is super, super fun. And we have some new material and very excited to start recording.
[00:11:53] Jason Burnstick: But definitely. I think we're looking to put a lot more energy and driven songs into this next project, I think is what we're looking at doing.
[00:12:03] Nadia Burnstick: Like, I think that when we were writing for the first album, I would just write a song and it would become a Burnstick song or Jason write a song and it was just kind of become a Burnstick song.
Whereas now I think we have this focus of, we know what works for us and we know how to build those songs right from the get-go as these burn stick folk roots songs. And I, I like that focus. And I think that we can already hear that focus in, in all, in all of the songs that we've written so far for the new album.
It sounds like us. Whereas like, I feel like on the first album, there was a little bit of, you know, some songs that were more like, oh, those are Nadia songs. And some of the songs that were like, oh, those are Jason's songs. And we kind of made them Burnstick songs, but here they're really like, these are, these are the duo.
[00:12:50] Jason Burnstick: Creating something with somebody it's just like, it's not all like sweet, you know, cause it's pretty intense passion stuff, you know, but we also have a lot of respect for each other. So
[00:12:59] Nadia Burnstick: like we have different writing styles, mainly so when we, when we do set out to sort of write a song, it doesn't always gel really easily.
But I think that we're getting the hang of it. That's fun.
[00:13:11] The Pitchman: What's that you say? Oh, April 1st is when Burnstick performs. That's right. Good question. My good sir. Good question. April 1st. You'll want to get your tickets at homeroutes.ca.
[00:13:24] Jaxon Haldane: 1980s Good Time Alberta Medicine Show and Traveling Folk Festival featured acts, including Stan Rogers, Sylvia Tyson, Connie Kaldor, Jim post Valdi and others.
This rolling stable of talent served pop-up folk festivals across the province that summer, in some case, leaving a lasting impact.
[00:13:44] Suze Casey: I will always remember Stan singing, Mary Ellen Carter, in the pouring rain and the steam coming off his head, you know, this halo of steam around him. Um, you know, or, or, uh, one of the crew piggy-backing Valdy through the mud to get him to his side stage, so he could do his workshop and he didn't get his white pants dirty, you know, like with mud, like you just did what you had to do to make it happen.
You know, and, and like backstage hospitality that first year literally was a couple of rented coffee urns and a hibachi, and some in some coolers,
[00:14:23] Jaxon Haldane: Valdine Sico, a co-producer of the event, recounts her involvement with the show.
[00:14:27] Valdine: There were nine acts on the tour. Eight of them were on the evening concert stages and every night was closed by somebody who was on the traveling folk festival in good time medicine show.
So it was a big deal because it, it was, it was the, the anchor that started the Edmonton festival in a sense, it kind of was the thing that got it going, even if it was just Calgary and Edmonton, the fact that those two are still running all these years later, is pretty great.
[00:14:52] Suze Casey: There probably would have ultimately been festivals in Western Canada, but for sure, Calgary, traces its roots to the traveling good time medicine show
[00:15:01] Jaxon Haldane: this act of bringing music to the people would affect Mitch profoundly. And he would routinely recollect the joy of producing this event, dreaming, scheming and conspiring to one day recreate it.
[00:15:14] Jason Arkley: My name is Jason Arkley and I'm the head of production for Home Routes.
Well Mitch and I used to go out for breakfast and lunches quite a bit, and a very consistent theme in our conversations for, I would say the majority of our 20 year relationship together was talking about reconstituting a traveling festival, uh, because he had done this one in Alberta and had been a part of a few of those things.
He saw the power of them and was always looking at all of the different events that he was putting on, um, kind of through that lens of building community around it. And he really, really wanted to go out and do another big traveling festival across the county. Mitch was really into the Chautauquas tours that would go from town to town, by train and come in and set up the big Chautauqua tents and, you know, have the snake oil salesman and, you know, have musicians, but also have like preachers preaching at them.
It would have university professors talking about archeology and, you know, in Egypt and like these big shows. Um, but I think for the main part, it's also just, you know, trying to get as many musicians. Uh, as much work as possible, which I think is always been kind of at the core
[00:16:20] Jaxon Haldane: The desire to break down barriers between artists and audience, a compulsion to refine the experience and reduce it to essential elements.
These are guiding principles of what we at home roots are all about. It's the Padolic-Kabrinsky way. And it's been life enhancing for a great many people over the decades.
Mitch died in 2019. In the months that followed his passing Home Routes found itself in a very uncertain, confusing, and challenging position. The world had some curve balls to throw at our team and they would discover a new method to help navigate the bumpy road ahead. I encourage you to tune in next episode and we'll tell you just how those challenges were met.
So you having fun yet? You ready for episode two? Well, in the meantime, if you'd like to explore the music of home roots and the traveling good time medicine show, we've created a playlist of featured content available for listening on Spotify or Apple Music. Just search for the Traveling Good Time Medicine Show playlist, follow ,then press play.
Now would also be a good time to go purchase your tickets for the Traveling Good Time Medicine Show streamed events. There's five shows. Remember you can buy them as a package or take them individually. First show is april 1st, Burnsitck, Sala, The Small Glories, some of the absolute best singers we have in Winnipeg.
You're going to want to check that out and the rest of the shows. Visit HomeRoutes.ca for tickets and more information. I'm your host Jaxon Haldane, our producers are Jordan Moore of The Pod Cabin, Tim Fraser of the Murdoch Podcast Network. Our executive producer is Jason Arkley of Home Routes. Big shout out to our staff, Leonard, Ava, Cathy, everyone working so hard at the office.
Thanks so much. If you want to be a host and bring live music into your home, we can facilitate house concerts puts you on a circuit, get some of Canada's best artists coming through, perform for you and your friends. Contact us. We'll let you know. Thanks to factor in the Canadian arts council for funding this project and to you for listening.
See you next time for another dose of the Traveling Good Time Medicine Show Podcast. .