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Downland/Trower play the Gumboot

Two acoustic evenings with Downland and Pete Trower at the Gumboot Café in Roberts Creek are set for Friday, Oct. 1 and Saturday, Oct. 2. The shows celebrate the release of new CDs by Trower (Kisses in the Whiskey: Raincoast Rhapsodies Vol.

Two acoustic evenings with Downland and Pete Trower at the Gumboot Café in Roberts Creek are set for Friday, Oct. 1 and Saturday, Oct. 2.

The shows celebrate the release of new CDs by Trower (Kisses in the Whiskey: Raincoast Rhapsodies Vol. 1) and Downland (Downland). Admission is $5.

Internationally recognized Canadian poet/author Trower follows up last year's critically acclaimed album of jazz poems, Sidewalks and Sidehills, with Kisses in the Whiskey, a raucous and rollicking 11-song romp through 73 years of hard living. In his tar-and-gravel tenor, Trower croons, chants, howls and holds court before a coterie of Vancouver perennials, including past and present members of Payola$, Pointed Sticks, the Art Bergmann band, Modernettes, Lost Durangos, Bughouse 5 and Downland. The album was co-written and produced by Downland's Mark Fancher and Greg Potter, and its release coincides with the publication of Trower's most recent book, Haunted Hills & Hanging Valleys: Selected Poems 1969-2004 (Harbour).

Downland, the self-titled folk-rock debut by Vancouver singer/songwriters Fancher and Potter, is a cathartic collection of old wounds (self-inflicted and otherwise) since healed.

Co-produced by Downland and Juno Award-winner Paul Baker, the album features guitarists Robbie Steininger and Jim Woodyard, keyboardist Darryl Havers, fiddler Gary Comeau, vocalist Megan Metcalfe, bassists Brain Newcombe and Miles Hill, and drummer Jerry Adolphe.

The album's release coincides with the publication of Backstage Vancouver: A Century of Entertainment Legends (Harbour), a hardcover tome of celebrity anecdotes and photographs by Greg Potter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame broadcaster Red Robinson.