Lollapalooza emailed the complete festival schedule to its mailing list subscribers today, and although Perry has once again put together what looks like it will be a great festival, I want to bring your attention to another festival happening the same weekend, August 7th-9th. Now in it’s eleventh year the Wolfe Island Music Festival will once again feature festival favourites and big names like Holy Fuck, and the usual smattering of the local Kingston scene with acts like P.S. I Love You, The Rural Alberta Advantage who we’ve talked about before and a personal favourite of mine Ohbijou.

So if you’re low on funds, don’t want to drive the twelve hours from Toronto, or like me currently don’t have a passport, why not come down and camp on a beutiful rural island where lake Ontario meets the St. Lawrence seaway. It’s only a twenty minute free ferry-ride from downtown Kingston. This is the music festival equivalent of giving up the fast pace of the city for some relaxation in the country; you won’t have to rush between the stages (there’s only one), so you won’t miss a beat. Plus I plan to bring lots of wine to share.

Here’s a sampling of the festival’s performers to listen to while you plan your trip to the nation’s first capital:

Ohbijou – Black Ice from the recently released Beacons LP

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Woodhands – I Wasn’t Made for Fighting

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PS I Love You – 2012

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Full lineup after the jump…

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To start off I just wanted to bring to everyone’s attention a very good piece Sal has over at Ca Va Cool about Kingston’s very own Grad Club. It has been nominated for best live venue on by CBC Radio 3 listeners, and now it is in the top ten, you can help it out by voting for it. I was conducting an interview with Julie Fader today for The Queen’s Journal and since she’s playing at the club on Friday this fact came up over the course of our conversation, she told me how great Virginia and the staff are, stuff that as an avid Grad Club frequenter I already know of course.

What I didn’t know, was that Julie, previously unbeknownst to me, actually makes a part of a network of many artists very familiar to me. I can’t divulge too much of the rest Julie’s story before I write my Journal piece, which I will link to when it’s up, but I can update you on a few of the band’s in her universe, a universe mostly centred around acts affiliated with the Hand Drawn Dracula imprint.

A couple members of Holy Fuck are helping out with the album, and since they are a perennial favourite of mine I will grace you with one of my perennial favourites of theirs.

Holy Fuck – Lovely Allen

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Brian Borcherdt is the main guy behind Holy Fuck and has a long history in Canadian music dating as far back as acts like By Divine Right, that’s, like, before blogs existed. His album, Coyotes, released last fall is his first release under his own name. Although, he previously released material under the moniker The Remains of Brian Borcherdt, I suppose that makes Coyotes the first-helpings of Brian Borcherdt.

Brian Borcherdt – Coyotes

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Mike Bigelow, a former/guest member of Holy Fuck, has gone on to a project known as Contrived. I have not yet determined whether the name or the band itself is a joke. To make matters worse their third album is dubbed Blank, Blank, Blank, perhaps indicative of the expression on a listeners face after the first listen. There’s nothing technically wrong with this album, but it just doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done before, and better by another of Bigelow’s projects: Wintersleep.

Contrived – Firing Squad

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This track by that same Halifax Band recently evoked spontaneous singing and dancing from a small group of us gathered on the second floor of the Grad Club so even though it’s not quite fresh, it is at least topical.

Wintersleep – Weighty Ghost

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Finally, no tour of this corner of Canadian indie would be complete without a checkup on Great Lake Swimmers, Fader has toured with them extensively in the past, and will be continuing to do so on the lead up to the release of their new album, Lost Channels, which she also guests on. The album is due for release March 31st on Nettwerk, but they’ve made one track available on their website. There’s nothing new here exactly, but the strange blend of down-tempo folk and hushed choir refrains remains somehow compelling.

Great Lake Swimmers – Everything Is Moving So Fast

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UPDATE: Here’s the online version of my piece for the Journal, also another writer did a great piece on Brian Borcherdt.