Witchpolice Radio

Now with repaired audio! Veteran Winnipeg MC Len Bowen has been steadily releasing inspired hip-hop since his early days as a member of local icons Shadez. In our latest (of many over the years) interview, we talk about his new record ('If You Don't See Me, You Saw Me'), representing Winnipeg on a larger stage, getting recognition for his efforts, his songwriting process, and much more!(Note: there was some weird echo/distortion on one half of of the conversation, so if you downloaded this when it first came out and haven't listened yet, go with this version instead. Thanks.) Need more Len Bowen in your life? Check out episodes #805 (June 2023), #647 (Dec. 2021), #475 (April 2020), #207 (Nov. 2016) and episodes #355 (Feb. 2019) and #101 (Nov. 2014) with Shadez. This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening in the podcast's 13th year (and it will continue forever because I can't stop).

I listen to a pretty wide variety of music, so it’s rare that I get stumped on a genre, but J-Rock was a new one on me!Tune in for my conversation with locals Solaire about anime and video game music, Paramore tribute sets, their upcoming EP release (Feb. 7 at the Handsome Daughter), and much more! This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening in the podcast's 13th year (and it will continue forever because I can't stop).

This episode features an interview with singer-songwriter Kris Rendina, who you may recognize from previous projects like Gold Mountain!  We talk about his imminent solo full-length, The Moonflower Express (which will be released Feb. 5 at Sidestage), as well as peaks and valleys in songwriting, deciding to come back to music in an uncertain time, and much more. Need more from Kris? Check out his appearances on the podcast with Gold Mountain: WR104 (Dec. 2014), WR264 (Jan. 2018), and WR498 (June 2020). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening in the podcast's 13th year (and it will continue forever because I can't stop).

If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you're probably familiar with my year-end rundowns of my favourite local (and local-adjacent) releases of the year. Usually it's this big, lengthy thing over multiple episodes, but this time I tried to keep it nice and concise.   Here are just a few of the 2025 releases I really dug last year. Some are full-length albums, some are EPs, one, I guess, is technically a two-song single, and one is even a collection of songs recorded years earlier, but it's all really good stuff. Of course, I listened to way more local music in 2025, a lot of which is also fantastic, so this is just scratching the surface. Along with songs from each of the releases, you'll hear clips from interviews I did with the artists -- or relevant clips from other interviews -- from 2025 or earlier.  If you need it in list form, my favourite records (from #1 to however many I did... I think nine?) were:Propagandhi - At Peace, Rob Crooks - Unhomely, JayWood - Leo Negro, Orelands - Secrets and Select Missions, INGIA - Genesis, Claire Morrison - Where Do You Go At Night?, Scott Nolan - Man on a Wheel, Irvin Miller - Make Room For..., and Uncle Sinner - Everybody Wants to Know How I Die.  Dig deeper: Propagandhi (episodes #922, 624, 100)/ Greg Soden (988, 620); Rob Crooks (#1013,  968, 916, 853, 773, 657, 527, 346, 285, 189; JayWood (#1007, 824, 708, 589, 308, 255), Orelands (#965); INGIA (

Banjo-slingin’ death-song enthusiast Uncle Sinner is back with his first album in five years, the excellent ‘Everybody Wants to Know How I Die’. Listen up for a great chat about the record, taking cover photos the old-fashioned way, Manitoba’s influence on musical bleakness (and rebirth), and much more!Need more Uncle Sinner in your life? Check out episode #483 (May 2020) and episode #600 (June 2021), which is about his Star Thistle side project. This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening in the podcast's 13th year (and it will continue forever because I can't stop).

Folk artist Ben Stopfel spent the majority of his musical career here in Winnipeg, before decamping to Nashville a couple of years ago and plying his trade as a songwriter in Music City. He’s back home for a show at Public Domain on Dec. 28 (which means this one is time-sensitive and jumped the queue).Here's our conversation about the two cities, coming back to Winnipeg, the differences between being a songwriter and a performer, and much more. This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening in 2025 (and beyond)!

Just over a year ago, folk singer Fernanda appeared on the podcast for the first time. We caught up to talk about her newly-released concept album, ‘Deer Trails’, the name change from her previous Julie Fern identity, working with field recordings, experimenting with new genres, and much more! Need more Fernanda? Check out episode #953 (November 2024). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

It's another 'Manitoba-adjacent' episode! Shoegaze-inspired singer-songwriter Kevin MKAI may be based in Toronto these days, but he cut his teeth in Winnipeg’s music scene of the early ‘90s. Here's our conversation about his new music, his early experiences here in his hometown, poetry open-mics, having to change the spelling of his own name due to a DJ issuing a cease and desist, and much more! This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

For various technical reasons, no new interview episode this week... but I'm not gonna leave you hangin'. Instead, here's a bonus episode that was originally released exclusively on the Patreon page back in 2022: it's, essentially, the full discography of my old punk/noise/space music trio The Mouth-Boat, complete with my rambling recollections about the songs and recordings, etc. The Mouth-Boat was definitely not a successful band, per se, but it was a lot of fun. This Patreon bonus episode initially came out around the time of the Happy Days tape -- a collection of songs from all three Mouth-Boat EPs (and then some), remastered and re-released by Gimli cassette label Ancient Raven Records. Thanks to everyone who supports the show on Patreon, including the most recent patrons, Terrence and Maxfield, who signed up recently. There's all kinds of crazy bonus shit like this on there, plus you get advance versions of each interview and lots more.  Back to regularly-scheduled interview episodes next week, and we'll close out the month with my traditional rundown of my favourite local records of the year. Thanks, as always, for listening!

The new record by rapper/producer/singer/songwriter/Winnipeg expat Rob Crooks is a layered, cinematic meditation on grief. Here's our conversation about the four-song ‘Unhomely’, taking creative liberties with deeply personal stories, sonic experimentation, Winnipeg from an outside perspective, and much more.Need more Rob Crooks in your life? He was an original co-host of this podcast way back in 2012-13, but he has appeared on the show as an interviewee more than pretty much anyone else as well. Check out episodes #968 (Feb. 2025), #916 (July 2024 with Epic), #853 (Dec. 2023 with Kitz Willman), #773 (March 2023), #657 (Jan. 2022 with Yy and Gruf), Bonus election episode (Sept. 2021 with Cam Scott), #527 (Oct. 2020), #346 (Dec. 2018 with Bazooka Joe), #285 (May 2018), and #189 (July 2016). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! I have some new patrons to thank, so stay tuned for that next episode!As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

This is a bit of a different episode than you're used to on the podcast. As many of you know, in addition to releasing new interviews every week, I also have a Patreon page. Basically, that exists as a way for people who want to support the show, throw me a buck a month or whatever they want to donate, and they get to help out the podcast, keep the lights on, keep things afloat, but they also get access to a bunch of bonus content.  The type of bonus content I post there changes now and then, but one of the things I liked to do for a number of years was to ask an extra question in most interviews that didn't make it into the main podcast. When I started doing these extra questions around 2022, I was asking people for recommendations of Manitoba-related albums that really meant a lot to them, their favorite records that were put out by local artists or artists with a local connection. This episode showcases a small selection of those answers.A similar episode came out in June of last year. This one features bonus clips from artists including Pink Snot, JayWood, Desiree Dorion, Pip Skid, Tod Hughes, Jerry Sereda, Freddy and the Fire Nation, D.B. and the Deadbeats, Satanic Rites, Fox Lake, Patrick Michalishyn, Car287, Shay Wolf, The Thrashers, Stiff Wiggle, Begonia, Campfire Sigh, Adele M. Wilding, and JP Hoe.Back to regular episodes next week! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

Last time Show Pony was on the podcast, they were juuuust starting out, and in those early days, they were playing alt-country… but times have changed. I sat down with the band’s core members to talk about the shift to high-octane rawk sounds, harnessing their live energy in the studio, their excellent merch designs, and much more. Need more Show Pony in your life? Check out episode #560 (Feb. 2021). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

Really interesting conversation on this episode with Good + Plenty Arts Collective's Amber Neufeld and Mckye Hildebrand, all about the upcoming ‘Music Cocoon’ show at the West End Cultural Centre (Nov. 16)!The event, which features performances by local artists (and past Witchpolice guests) Ila Barker and Two Crows for Comfort, is a family- and sensory-friendly matinee. We talk about the show, creating inclusive, all-ages opportunities within the local music scene, some of Good + Plenty’s other initiatives, and much more! Because of the time-sensitivity of the upcoming show, this episode jumped the queue and is coming out now! This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! Shoutout to our latest patron, Chris!As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

Country singer-songwriter Chris Micheal was on a path to success a few years ago, until the momentum he had built was suddenly derailed and he all but disappeared from the music scene.  Tune in to our conversation about the way back from health problems and addiction, and his newfound vulnerability as a songwriter and a human being. This is the first in-person interview I've recorded for the podcast in quite some time, and it it includes a couple of live performances! Need more of Chris? Hear his previous appearances on the podcast on episode #388 (June 2019) and #590 (May 2021). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company. Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

Gettin' spooky on this one (just in time for Halloween) with Trevor and Mike from Omens!Check out our interview about the (deliberately) slow roll-out to their second album, navigating the world of streaming and weird Google censorship, emerging from the Jet Set Satellite shadow, Halloween songs, and much more!Need more Omens in your life? Hear Trevor on episode #904 (June 2024). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company.    Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

One of the coolest things about doing the show for eleventy trillion years is I get to watch interviewees’ careers grow and develop, and in some cases — like with JayWood — I get to see that hard work pay off with well-deserved critical acclaim and success. JayWood sat down for a fifth Witchpolice interview (six if you count his appearance at a 2017 live event) and we talked about his new ‘Leo Negro’ LP, musical nebulousness, all roads leading back to Winnipeg -- where the album will be released Oct. 20 at the WECC -- and much more.Note: A battery issue meant about halfway through the interview I had to switch to my backup recording, but it's not really all that noticeable. Hooray for technology!Need more JayWood in your life? Check out episodes #824 (Sept. 2023), #708 (July 2022), #589 (May 2021), #308 (Aug. 2018), and #255 (Nov. 2017). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company.    Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

It's a return appearance on the podcast by singer-songwriter Doug McArthur! Tune in for a great conversation about collaborating with other writers, shifting his sound away from the alt-rock thing, unconventional ways to promote his new single, and much more!  Note: early on in the episode there are a couple of weird artifacts -- sounds almost like a weird computer voice muttering some gibberish. No idea why that's there, but it doesn't take away from the conversation and is very brief. Need more Doug? Check out episode #830 (Sept. 2023)  This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company.    Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case! As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.  

Caught up with the fellas in Car287 to talk all about the new record, ‘Through the Lens’, the band’s recent upward trajectory, navigating acoustic versions of their songs, and much more! Note: this was recorded a couple of weeks back, so some of the things they mention have already happened... like the new record, which has already been released. Get it now! Need more Car287? Check out their previous appearances on episodes #757 (Jan. 2023) and #931 (Sept. 2024). This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company.   Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case!As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening. 

Great sitdown on this episode with the big homie Jeff Darichuk of new Portage la Prairie folk-punk outfit Chucky and the Cheapskates! Tune in for a chat about getting back into the game in your 40s, the imminent new Cheapskates record, three chords and the truth, his old band the Naked Midgets, and much more! Need more Chucky? He was on episode #561 (Feb. 2021) with the Naked Midgets! This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company.   Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case!As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening. 

I sat down with BreakOut West executive director Michael Dawson to talk about the festival/awards show/music industry conference, which will take over Winnipeg beginning later this week!Tune in for all the details! This episode brought to you by our pals at Devine Shirt Company.   Huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. You can help out for as little as a couple bucks a month if you like the show and want to throw some change in the guitar case!As always, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or 20! Rate and review on your podcast player of choice! Word of mouth is still the main way Witchpolice Radio reaches new ears. Thanks for listening.