It was worth the three-hour drive just to hear "What the... " when Kramden's frontman Craig Norris saw us, and well worth the price of a hotel room and dinner to hear three 45-minute sets that included much of their forthcoming album. Their roots rock is like comfort food: just what you wanted, seasoned with plenty of talent; guitarist Steve Knox deserves to be mentioned with the best.
 |
| The Kramdens at The Shakespeare Arms. |
You can hear Norris weekdays starting at 6 a.m. on CBC Radio One Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition, its top morning show. The former CBC Radio 3 host will be celebrating 7 years on the air there and loves it. "I get to curate my own playlist," said Norris. "It's the closest thing there is to Radio 3."
That's one of the things we miss the most about Radio 3: the luxury of playlists curated by people with diplomas in great music, not algorithms. A while back we wrote about alternatives we've been relying on to fill the Radio 3 void. We've been remiss in not adding to that list.
icimusique.ca: Earlier this year, we discovered we're not geoblocked from CBC's ICI Musique. We've been taking full advantage of the many radio streams, especially the Franco Indie stream under Folk/Rock. It's already introduced us to Corridor and The Peptides.
Soul Possession: You may know him as the author of Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line; we know Ben Hamper as host of, to quote S2W, "the best fucking two hours of Friday night radio." Although Hamper raises his weekly roll 'n' roll ruckus from Northern Michigan College's "DAW-bull-yew NMC," his wide-ranging show includes plenty of Canadian artists; King Khan is a favourite. If you like vintage country music with your Sunday morning pancakes, check out Hamper's other show, Head for the Hills.
Rock-n-Roll Crazee: We got to see Radio Red, the station where vinyl DJ for life Boogaloo Pete/Bayamon City Roller (aka as Chopz87, Chopa and Pedro A. Acosta Perez) broadcast for most of the year, when we visited Puerto Rico in March. His shows Bang Bang Shang-A-Lang and Reggae Recipe were great listening during the work day; now he's spinning an hour of vinyl Monday nights at 6 p.m. ET on AZ Rock Radio.
The Basement: Darbar (Special!) is another Radio 3 pal we tune in, on Sundays from 8 to 9 p.m. CT. A frequent contributor to ourbasement.ca, her all-Canadian show features indie, alt, rock, pop, hip hop, electronic, instrumental, folk and "you name it!"
