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Poor Choices just getting started Yellowknife songwriters forge musical styles
Daniel Campbell
Northern News Services
Published Saturday, July 27, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
They already had songs -- lots of songs -- they just needed a place to play them.
Jeff Stewart, guitarist, singer and songwriter with Poor Choices, takes us for a trip at Yellowknife's Folk on the Rocks music festival last Sunday. - Daniel Campbell/NNSL photo
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It all started in a houseboat on Yellowknife Bay last winter, inside singer-songwriter Jamie Wolowski's floating home. Jeff Stewart, on guitar, Brian Weadick, on bass, and Walter Girrior, drums, huddled together and decided to put a show on at the Snow King winter festival in March.
Poor Choice's debut took place on that icy stage inside the snow castle.
It was their first and only show (excluding unofficial house parties) the band played before getting the chance to hit the Beer Garden stage at Folk on the Rocks this year.
"We scammed our way into the festival," Stewart jokes.
While the band didn't have a big resume of shows to back up their bid for a spot, they had plenty of music to play. All the guys in Poor Choices write music, leading to the band having an impressive 25-30 song repertoire—a big list for a young band that only started last January.
"We could play nights and nights worth of music," Stewart says.
"But we're just a hobby band, we do it for fun and we have fun with it."
While many casual bands spend time perfecting cover-songs, the guys in Poor Choices pride themselves on writing, experimentation and creativity.
Their sound easily transitions from toe-tapping country-styled beats to longer psychedelic sessions as Stewart makes his guitar speak in long psychedelic waves. True writers, each song is a story and a provoking one at that.
They style themselves as a rock band, but their style might not be that simple.
"We're old school," Stewart says. "We do anything that isn't hip really, but we're gonna make it hip."
Hints of jazz and folk with strong country and rock tones permeate their tunes. They don't so much as separate the styles between songs as meld them together so one song has a bit of each style.
"The blend happens seamlessly," Weadick says, "we're all songwriters so we all know where each other are going with their music."
The band mates will be splitting ways for the summer, but hope to regroup by the fall to book some new gigs.
Poor Choices hasn't done any recording yet, but might do some "casual" stuff in the near future. If their "casual" recording is anything like their "casual" shows, it won't be something to miss.
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