Golden Famile

Pack enough staid, stuffy and stupid politicians into one city and you're bound to create a vibrant counterculture. I vote for Golden Famile to lead it. This quintet is Ottawa's answer to Vancouver's Radiogram with a whole lot more campfire and bug spray added. Epic instrumental tone-scapes coloured with harmonicas, organs, banjos, slide guitars, mandolins and the occasional fuzz are the foundation for the drifting melodies of Darrell Spencer Angus's folk songs. A case in point is "Olympic Athlete," a sea-swaying crooner that digresses into distorted guitar madness and general sonic debauchery making for one powerful blast of song-smithery — order and mayhem, all at once. But goddamn, why'd they have to put a song about California on it!