Musical duo Brooks & Bowskill (Brittany Brooks and Jimmy Bowskill) are performing a number of shows in the Kawarthas during February — including three shows at The Ganaraska Hotel in Port Hope — having recently released their debut full-length album Too Many Roads.

The 12-song album is a rootsy mix of well-crafted songs, smooth vocals and tight harmonies, and precise instrumentation and production. It has both a classic and original sound that defies easy categorization.

The collaboration between the two musicians is described on the Brooks & Bowskill website as “the story of two old souls coming together through music and each bringing a wealth of unique experiences to the partnership that seems beyond its years.”

The “old soul” reference is especially apt when applied to Jimmy, who was described the same way when he first burst onto the musical stage at the age of 11. Born in Toronto in 1990 and raised in Bailieboro, Jimmy got his first guitar when he was 10 years old. Largely self-taught, he quickly mastered the songs of iconic American bluesmen like Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf.

In 2001, his father took him to Toronto where Jimmy hoped to demonstrate his guitar-playing prowess in an open jam at legendary blues guitarist Jeff Healey’s Bathurst Street club.

“They wouldn’t let an 11-year-old inside his club, so I started busking on the sidewalk outside,” Jimmy told Guitar Player Magazine. “Jeff heard about me, invited me in to play, and I did pretty well. I got a lot of gigs and exposure just from that one night.”

The following year, Jimmy recorded his first album — called Old Soul, of course — with contributing musicians including Jeff Healey, Alec Fraser, the Weber Brothers, Jack De Keyzer, and Jerome Godboo. When his second album, 2005’s Soap Bars & Dog Ears, was nominated for a Juno Award for Blues Album of the Year, the 14-year-old Bowskill became the youngest person ever to be nominated for the award. In 2005, he won a Maple Blues Award as Best New Artist of the Year.

Since those early days, Jimmy has continued on his musical trajectory, performing with The Jimmy Bowskill Band and Jimmy Bowskill and The Hometown Beauts, touring Europe with Joe Bonamassa and Jeff Beck in 2010, joining The Sheepdogs from 2015 to 2022, and joining Blue Rodeo in 2017. He currently lives in Cobourg, where he opened Ganaraska Recording Company in 2020 with Jim Jones of Zap Records.

Jimmy’s musical and romantic partner Brittany hails from St. Catharines and is now living in Cobourg. She’s also a singer-songwriter and guitarist who released her debut solo album Lend Me Your Hand in 2020. She previously performed in the folk duo Howler, which later became Creature Speak and released the full-length album Shadow Songs in 2015.

“Born with the gift of rhyme and storytelling, Brooks is known for her imagery-rich lyrics that pour from a direct heart line,” according to the Brooks & Bowskill website. “Her voice sounds as though she walked off a Greenwich Village stage in the 60s and was on her way to play the late set at a country honky tonk. Her buttery vocals have been described as a dance between Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Norah Jones.”

As well as being a musician, Brittany is a long-time multimedia artist specializing in graphic design, illustration, and animation. She has created album cover art and concert posters for bands and musicians including Blue Rodeo, John Borra Band, The Doghouse Orchestra, and Mike T. Kerr.

Brittany and Jimmy wrote all 12 songs on Too Many Roads, with Blue Rodeo’s Greg Keelor sharing a writing credit on one tune. Recorded by Jimmy at Ganaraska Recording Company and mixed by Jimmy and Steve Marriner, the album also features Kyler Tapscott, Ian McKeown, Steve O’Connor, and Wayne Deadder. Released on January 12, the album is available for streaming on Spotify.

VIDEO: “Too Many Roads” – Brooks & Bowskill

VIDEO: “Little Gem” – Brooks & Bowskill

Brooks & Bowskill opened for Blue Rodeo when the band performed at the Peterborough Memorial Centre on December 28, and they’ll be opening for them again at Blue Rodeo’s one-night-only “Seldom Heard Songs” concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall on February 25.

In the interim, the duo will be performing along with Greg Keelor, Matt Mays, Terra Lightfoot, Melissa Payne, and more at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre’s 25th anniversary concert celebration in Peterborough on Friday (February 3).

If you didn’t get tickets for that sold-out show, you can also catch Brooks & Bowskill at one of three concerts from February 17 to 19 at The Ganny in Port Hope, where they’ll be performing with their band The Hometown Beauts.

Shows start at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. Tickets are $20, available at The Ganaraska Hotel (30 Ontario St., Port Hope) and Zap Records (45 King St. E., Cobourg).

Brooks & Bowskill will also be performing at Campbellford’s Aron Theatre Co-op on Thursday, March 30th at 7 p.m. Tickets are $28 in advance or $32 at the door.

For more information about Brooks & Bowskill, visit brooksandbowskill.com.

Every Thursday, we publish live music events at pubs and restaurants in Peterborough and the greater Kawarthas region based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, January 26 to Wednesday, February 1.

If you’re a pub or restaurant owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our nightlifeNOW editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com. For concerts and live music events at other venues, check out our Concerts & Live Music page.

With the exception of karaoke, we only list events with performing musicians. Venues may also host other events during the week (e.g., dancing, DJs, comedy shows).

Dear ReFramers,

It is the other most wonderful time of the year: when the calendar moves forward, the hubbub of the holidays subsides, and the ReFrame program is ready to be peeped, combed, and devoured! From artists and activists to walruses and whales, ReFrame 2023 is a feast for hungry hearts.

This year’s program highlights the way art, music and the imagination resists and exposes the exploitation of power. The interconnected issues of the overdose crisis and healthcare, the environment and capital, policing and protest are not separate from each other. A film about the climate crisis is also about racial inequity; a film about violence against women is also about colonialism; a film about war is also about homophobia, and so on.

No one festival can break down all barriers, but many of the films in this year’s program seek to create throughlines.

The festival kicks off with what critics are calling the year’s best doc, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — a powerful way to return to in-person movie-watching after three long years! All the Beauty encompasses an intersectional lens, as does the life of Nan Goldin, the film’s fearless protagonist.

After an early adulthood as a famed photographer documenting and defending her queer community, Goldin’s life shifts when she becomes addicted to opioids. Following the money, Goldin recognizes that the millionaire family who created oxycontin are the same Sacklers whose name adorns major galleries and museums throughout the world.

Goldin’s persistence — using her own clout and story to engage a movement to challenge the pacificity of these institutions — is unwavering.

VIDEO: “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” trailer

From stories about inspiring artists, to important conversations surrounding climate justice and innovations in the documentary genre, the virtual festival carries forward many important themes that expand on the aforementioned overarching one.

As a global community we face an environmental crisis, and the ReFrame program responds to that imperative by sharing films that highlight discussions about climate justice.

The disruptive tactics of the UK-headquartered global environmental movement Extinction Rebellion featured in Rebellion are compelling in their immediacy and ability to stir public discourse, while the activists going the legal route in Norwegian Headache show formal processes inciting change. High Tide Don’t Hide follows several youth engaging in school climate strikes across New Zealand, and doesn’t shy away from important conversations including confronting racism, power, and privilege within their movements.

Joining Nan Goldin in the fight for justice are many critical artists challenging the status quo, profiled in films across the festival.

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On follows the incredible Cree songstress as she rises to fame, uses her influence to create opportunities for other young Indigenous artists, and explores what happens when her political commitments make her a target for US state officials. Eternal Spring features comic book artist Daxiong who illustrates his own story about hijacking a state TV signal in China.

Films by artists pushing the bounds of the documentary genre include Framing Agnes and Foragers, whose use of actors and re-enactments remind audiences that stories are constructed, and it matters who is telling the story, and how.

VIDEO: “Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On” trailer

An exciting series of in-person events at Artspace feature projects combine community creation, documentary, sound, and visual art. From fantastical to hyper-real to participatory works, they speak to the possibility art-making holds for community members to be seen and heard on their own terms in new, and perhaps surprising, ways.

The main exhibition includes What Fools These Mortals Be, an installation that reimagines Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a series of living pictures performed by formerly incarcerated women. The Dreaming, a companion piece to What Fools, is an interactive sound installation that recounts the dreams of those same participants.

Several special projects animate this main exhibition including Intravene, an immersive audio experience about an overdose prevention site, and valentine-making for Love Positive Women, an annual event that engages in public and private acts of love, and caring for women living with HIV.

Also at Artspace, the panel discussion “What Role Can Art Play in the Overdose Crisis?” features internationally recognized harm reduction advocate Zoë Dodd, artist and Peterborough city councillor Alex Bierk, founder of Tweak Easy overdose prevention site Mkwa Ghiizis (Crystal Hebert), photographer and community organizer Jeff Bierk, and artist and academic Brenda Longfellow.

This incredible group will offer insights into how they mobilize their art practices, their work, and their activism to speak out against the crisis and advocate for greater rights, supports and protections for people who use drugs.

On behalf of ReFrame staff and volunteers, including the Programming Committee and Board of Directors, I want to welcome you to the 19th edition of the ReFrame Film Festival. May ReFrame continue to incite discussion, inspire dreams, and instigate action for years to come!

With love and light and sincere gratitude,

Amy

For opening night tickets, virtual festival passes, festival ticket packs, and pay-what-you can tickets for individual films, visit reframefilmfestival.ca/festival/passes-tickets/.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be an official media partner and sponsor of the 2023 ReFrame Film Festival.

The annual ReFrame documentary film festival from January 26 to February 3 boasts over 60 international and local films. The local film Rewilding the Classroom, directed by local educator Cam Douglas and filmmaker Rodney Fuentes, is one of the many compelling stories playing during the festival and features young people from the Peterborough region.

Youth featured in Rewilding took part in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board’s integrated curriculum four-credit program based out of Trent University. This semester-long fall opportunity, called the Youth Leadership in Sustainability (YLS) program, involves unique environmental education opportunities for young people.

Amy Siegel, creative director of ReFrame, introduced me to two students from the YLS program as well as program director Cam Douglas, to shine a light on what it meant to be a part of this opportunity.

Here’s what they had to say:

Aisling MacQuarie (16 years old), Grade 11, Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School

Aisling was excited to tell me about how the YLS program created an atmosphere where they were able to strengthen their leadership skills, despite them already participating in confidence-building hobbies like choir, theatre, and rugby.

What made you choose to enrol in YLS?

I was told through word-of-mouth that this was an amazing experience. The hands-on style of learning in YLS is an untraditional method of teaching that I quickly came to enjoy.

Activities in YLS are a lot more empowering than reading facts about the city on our screens. As an example, we were able to bike around Peterborough for a field trip, seeing how we can make our transportation infrastructure more accessible for the community.

Did you face any challenges this semester?

One learning curve was leaving your comfort zone and your day-to-day routine for something more unpredictable. Our teachers encouraged our understanding of our comfort zone. They taught us that when we step a bit outside of the zone, we can do a lot of beneficial work.

How did you see you and your peers change through this semester?

This year, our class was able to chat with the Peterborough mayor about creating a local biodiversity framework based on what we learned attending COP15, the global biodiversity conference in Montréal. I noticed that many of my peers, although nervous at the start, were able to have the courage to speak at both events.

Noelle Bowley (16 years old), Grade 11, St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School

Noelle explained that she is an avid runner and loves being outdoors. She reflected that her experience with YLS was above-and-beyond. Sustainability has been ingrained in her lifestyle from a young age. She noticed that her peers in YLS have a similar mentality.

Do you think it would be a challenge for those who haven’t grown up living sustainably or haven’t gone through something like YLS to pick up this knowledge?

It would be difficult but not impossible. Being more sustainable is not often the easiest option out there. If you didn’t have an upbringing in making sustainable choices, it would probably have to completely change your perception of what you do.

What was the YLS experience like for you?

It was amazing to have community experiences throughout this program. For example, we met individuals protecting Catchacoma Forest while collecting data about the carbon sequestration of old-growth forests in the Kawartha Highlands. I’ve met knowledgeable community members and made great memories from this experience.

What is something you want people to know about Rewilding?

I think youth need to watch this documentary, so they can know they can make a difference too. Even though sometimes talking about the environment can be doom-and-gloom, it’s not always like that. If young people knew that their choices make a big impact, they may be more likely to change their actions or do what they can.

Cam Douglas, YLS Founder and Teacher/Coordinator

How does it feel to be running YLS for five consecutive years?

I am grateful to work with 20 to 25 young people and countless support volunteers and community experts each year. The student’s energy as they come to class is what inspires me to keep going. Every day, the students encourage me to challenge what I know.

What inspired you to work on Rewilding with (filmmaker) Rodney?

I can see Rewilding as a tool that will hopefully broaden conversations about how environmental education can be portrayed in the classroom and curriculum.

What made this year’s program special?

It was beautiful to help bring local environmental impact to an international stage. When you have your eye on a goal like taking young people to COP15 or coordinating a novel integrated education course, it can bring people together in subtle but profound ways.

Applications are now open for students to apply to the Youth Leadership in Sustainability program for next fall. View the YLS program website at yls.green for more details (http://yls.green).

Rewilding the Classroom is a 15-minute documentary that GreenUP is excited to sponsor in this year’s ReFrame Film Festival. The film is included in ReFrame’s “Confronting the Climate Crisis” shorts program, which also includes the documentaries In Love WIth A Problem, Haulout, and Imalirijit.

Audiences can purchase ticket packs of 5, 8, or 10, or a virtual festival pass for those who want to take in all the films. Pay-what-you-can standalone tickets are also available for every film. Purchase your ReFrame tickets at reframefilmfestival.ca/festival/passes-tickets/.