The Marti Party

May Davis has a new name, a new single, a new music video, and a new album. I, on the other hand, have a new scrunchie, a new favourite ice cream flavour and a new stain on my couch. To each their own pandemic, I say!

Scotty Hills is, at bare minimum, a legend. The Juno nominee plays drums like the dickens, sings like an angel, and whistles like you would not believe. In this episode, we chat about exercising our humanity in the face of a pandemic, live performance vs. performative culture, and whether or not Neil Young is still alive. (Relax. He is.)

Ellen Braun was living the dream as a singer-songwriter. She wrote and played with some of her musical heroes in Nashville, Tennessee, was invited to attend the prestigious Banff Centre's Writing Residency in her own backyard, and recorded and released a full-length studio album with her band, Trundled. Things were moving in all the right directions... and then, COVID. Nothing pulls the world back into perspective quite like a global pandemic.

Tanya Boteju is an author, an educator, and a fiercely devoted advocate for equity and diversity in literature (and in general). Her debut YA novel, Kings, Queens and In-Betweens, has been accurately billed as Judy Blume meets RuPaul, and her much-anticipated second novel, Bruised, is hot off the press as we speak. She also happens to have the best drag king/roller derby name I have ever heard.

Miranda Currie is on a mission to create northern Indigenous content that is accessible to kids and families. Putting her trademark spin on traditional narratives, she uses music, film and crafty storytelling to educate the rest of us about everything from sled dogs to scat.

While the rest of us spent much of 2020 baking sourdough, doom scrolling and learning to play the flute, East-Vancouver folk-rock duo A Million Dollars In Pennies released a new album and adopted a baby. Typical.