All or nothing like the brewery, quiet weekend in the rock side of town, slim pickings, one could say but
among the best of the pickings is country music star Jason McCoy who will be hitching his wagon to the Regent Theatre on the evening of Friday, March 31, 2023.
The show is presented by Blackrose Entertainment, run by Scott and Christine Templeton, a pair of great local promoters bringing in some of the best for quite some years. They have some great shows coming up, including the fab Chilliwack in May, who has the best song ever in ‘Fly at Night,’ recently covered by Albertan alt-country act Jr. Gone Wild, whose album “Too Dumb to Quit” was produced by Bill Henderson of the aforementioned Chilliwack.
And as an aside, it was via bands such as Jr Gone Wild in the early 80s which turned by ear to the unique country sounds which seem to thrive here in Oshawa, a sound which, in my opinion, comes from people for whom the factory and the farm are not so estranged. We are lucky here in this city to have an urban core mere minutes from the country.
Fortunate too to have a local Country music station of the calibre that is KX96, a co-presenter of the Jason McCoy show.
All of this is fertile ground for a country music scene to flourish, and why Oshawa has a strong audience not only for punk and metal acts but also for country music. The city is changing and growing in musical tastes, but the roots are deep in the Bluegrass.
Anyway, we can rein that in for a bit and get back to Jason McCoy. As founder and vocalist of the Road Hammers, McCoy, along with his band mates, were among the first bands to take them blue grassroots and amp them up to rock band levels, becoming one of the progenitors of modern country, and breathing life back into some old classics of the genre, the road travelling outlaws in In particular, and here in Oshawa, we love our outlaws and trucks.
Along the way, McCoy has been filling his truck up with an assortment of awards, Juno, CCMA, CMA,
Gold and Platinum records quite the haul, and he also is a DJ on Pure Country 106 and the Nationally Syndicated radio show, ‘Nothin’ But the Nineties’ on I Heart. Good stuff; it will be a good night.
Anyway, back to the slim pickings this weekend; it’s somewhat of an error because there will always be music somewhere, always someone picking away at some old classic country tune in the neighbourhood bars and pubs and coffee shops, making it their own and making an evening out that much better.
And there are always tunes at the Atria, in this case, punkers, Black Budget, Strawberry Cough, and Downcast on Friday.