Lawnya Vawnya has been consistently been voted “Best Music Festival on the Avalon” by readers of The Overcast. Today they announced their lineup for 2016’s festival, May 4th - 8th.
Headliners …
This year’s headliners will be Braids, “a Polaris Prize and Juno nominated experimental pop band, whose powerful and serene songs evoke a sense of strength and vulnerability, reflecting the peaks and valleys of the human experience.”
Yonatan Gat, “formerly of the wild garage rock band Monotonix, who weave together a mix of Brazilian, African rhythm, jazz and Middle Eastern influences, discretely hidden under a layer of straight up punk rock.”
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Toronto’s Polaris Prize nominated Jennifer Castle “whose music channels a brooding mysticism, creating ghostly and haunting desert folk.”
East Coast sweetheart and indie rock legend Shotgun Jimmie, “whose sing-a-long anthems charge the mundane and incite nostalgia, making the everyday feel special and good.”
And a favourite find on Overcast Radio this year: Partner, designated “the best new band in Canada” by the Globe and Mail and described by You’ve Changed Records as “genre-defying and terrifying: part musical act, part teenage diary and 100% Queer.”
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Other performers …
Sackville’s Julie Doiron, “coined as a national treasure, whose sparse guitar playing and unadorned vocals will penetrate deep into your heart as if she is airing out your most intimate feelings.”
Fake Palms of “Buzz Records (the same label that brought us Weaves) who craft gritty, distorted and swirling noise-pop tracks. Simone TB, festival alumni and drummer extraordinaire is behind the kit!.”
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Toronto’s neo-soul queen Charlotte Day Wilson, “a producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer whose smooth, warm vocals run through R&B, jazz and pop influenced tracks.”
CATL, “a raucous and rowdy roots duo.”
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Zachary Lucky, Blimp Rock, Weird Lines, Psychic Fair, Year of Glad, Heat Vision, Hudson Alexander and Eytan Tobin (of Bedroomer), Greville Tapes Music Club vol. IV - Whoop-Szo & Jon Mckiel.
Local Bands …
“St. John’s ex-pats Chess Club, who produce chill, almost ethereal beats layered underneath smooth and expertly delivered rhymes and Derm Kean and an Incredible Woman, who deliver trance inducing thunderous music with chaotic and droney undertones that conjure an unexpected physical and emotional response.”
Derm and the band have an album being mastered at the moment, and it’d bound to be one of the best albums of the year:
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“Additionally, we are ECSTATIC to announce a very special headlining reunion show with Trailer Camp, whose influence is still audible today in the fabric of the St. John’s music scene.”
Other local bands will include Eastern Owl (an all-nations, all-women group making waves by combining First Nations drum music with heartfelt ballads), Wunderstrands, Pilot to Bombardier, Hard Ticket, Branch Ricky, Sleepy, Lady Brett Ashley, Bridges, Allie Duff and the Happy Campers, Sinews, Dope Piece, Peter Willie YoungTree, & The Blooms, Mary Dear, Dame Nature and Punch Table.
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Panels and Other Festival Events …
“We are also proud to expand our panel discussion series, focusing on the music industry as a career choice and with topics including gender in top level industry roles, inclusivity, and making space for women beyond performance, collaboration, DIY touring, self-management and more.”
“Also on the agenda are the annual record and small press fair, pop-up shows and our well loved, all-ages, family friendly music crawl.”
“Keeping with exciting local announcements, we are incredibly happy to announce a very special artist talk with DA SLYME, Newfoundland and Labrador’s FIRST EVER punk band formed in 1977, whose self-titled album is considered one of the first full length punk releases in the country, and arguably the first punk band to ever release a double LP. DA SLYME represent an important piece of Canadian music history and we are so glad to welcome them.”
Stay tuned for more information Festival passes, individual ticket info, official schedule and exciting partnerships coming soon. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage, ArtsNL, the City of St. John’s, SOCAN and the generous support of Rocket Bakery, Print 3, Molson Coors, The Overcast, Mightypop, Mallard Cottage, Eastern Edge Gallery and many more community organizations and businesses whose support goes above and beyond each year.
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Overcast readers consistently vote for Lawnya Vawnya as the “Best Music Festival on the Avalon”, as if it were one festival in a field of hundreds, when in reality it’s one festival out of about three, voted such by about fifteen readers who are probably members of bands who play in it?