Lost and Found Sound: Curtis Driedger at Artspace

Back in the early 1990s, I was Programme Director at Trent Radio, a campus-community radio station in Peterborough, Ontario. At the time, the station had a broadcast audio line running from Artspace, an artist-run centre downtown; this meant we could do live broadcasts of anything happening in Artspace’s performance hall.

On June 1, 1990, we organized an event called RadioMusic, and invited a wide variety of performers from the community to come and play for two audiences: people in the bleachers, and people listening in on their radios at home.

John Muir did the sound, and Ron Gaskin was up in the studio acting as a virtual host and technical man.

One of the highlights of the evening was a 25 minute set by Curtis Driedger.

Criticized once by my father as “having a total absence of musicality,” Curtis has always been one of my favourite performers. From the presciently-named 1980s band the CeeDees to the various and wonderful musical projects he’s done since, Curtis is (my father’s protests notwithstanding) a great musician, and an insightful songwriter. He’s also a really nice guy.

I was going through my archives the other day, and found a tape of Curtis’ set from that night, 13 years ago.

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