Prairie Pop
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop

An interview with Michael Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies

by Kembrew McLeod

To paraphrase Grand Funk Railroad, Cowboy Junkies are a Canadian band—and a family band. It features siblings Margo Timmins on vocals, Michael Timmins on guitar, Peter Timmins on drums and longtime friend and collaborator Alan Anton on bass. Their quiet, hypnotic sound (imagine the Velvet Underground backing Patsy Cline) was cemented on their breakthrough 1988 album…

Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop

Prairie Pop: Mobb Deep’s past, present and future

by Kembrew McLeod

“I got you stuck off the realness / we be the infamous”—Prodigy rapped in the opening verse of “Shook Ones, Part II,” Mobb Deep’s classic 1995 single—“you heard of us / official Queensbridge murderers / the Mobb comes equipped with warfare, beware.” Grimy, blood-soaked and unrelentingly bleak, Mobb Deep’s albums were filled with first-person tales delivered over menacing beats and minor key samples. Prodigy and his partner-in-musical-crime Havoc sounded like they had roamed the mean streets of New York since they were old enough to lift a banana clip. The reality, however, was a little more mundane.

Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop

El-P Interview: Lucy in the sky with dizzle

by Kembrew McLeod

Last year, Killer Mike and El-P steamrolled their musical competition with their respective albums R.A.P. Music and Cancer 4 Cure. Both artists have garnered plenty of attention over the years—Killer Mike made his initial splash on Outkast’s 2000 album, Stankonia, and El-P began in the early 1990s with the late, great Company Flow. But in 2012, their profiles skyrocketed. The outstanding Cancer 4 Cure further developed the producer and MC’s singularly dark, claustrophobic musical vision, but El’s production work on R.A.P. Music was the knockout punch.

Gift this article