EP 368 | Mariel Buckley releases New Album Strange Trip Ahead /Complete Canadian tour with Matt Anderson
Release Date: 10/19/2025
EP 378 | A very personal reconnect with Sarah McLachlan. Lilith / Fumbling / Motherhood / Thailand and first new album in 11 years Better Broken
Mulligan Stew
We’ve all been in the right place at the right time. For me, one of those times was to be hosting and producing MuchWest in Vancouver when Sarah McLachlan moved from Halifax to Vancouver to begin what would become an amazing career. Sarah ended up on the West Coast because in Halifax, her home, she had opened for a band from Nettwerk Records in Kitsilano. They wanted to sign her immediately, but Sarah’s parents insisted she finish her schooling. It felt like she came to Vancouver with songs already written and ready to go. It wasn’t long before Sarah released her...
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EP 376 | Master Storyteller Alan Doyle presents his latest book & journey The Smiling Land
Mulligan Stew
The Smiling Land is a celebration of Alan's Newfoundland, in its legendary past and brilliant future. The music, the bays, towns, villages, and 12-hour ferry rides to get you halfway to where you're going. Alan is the tour guide, something he's actually done! Besides the reader, along for the drives are his beloved wife and teenage son. To go camping, they're pulling a small trailer home behind. FYI - Alan hates camping and driving. I swear, many of us will find a way to take the same drive - just once in our lives. The history, the legends, the forming of the first...
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EP 376 | Master Storyteller Alan Doyle presents his latest book & journey The Smiling Land
Mulligan Stew
The Smiling Land is a celebration of Alan's Newfoundland, in its legendary past and brilliant future. The music, the bays, towns, villages, and 12-hour ferry rides to get you halfway to where you're going. Alan is the tour guide, something he's actually done! Besides the reader, along for the drives are his beloved wife and teenage son. To go camping, they're pulling a small trailer home behind. FYI - Alan hates camping and driving. I swear, many of us will find a way to take the same drive - just once in our lives. The history, the legends, the forming of the first...
info_outline
EP 376 | Master Storyteller Alan Doyle presents his latest book & journey The Smiling Land
Mulligan Stew
The Smiling Land is a celebration of Alan's Newfoundland, in its legendary past and brilliant future. The music, the bays, towns, villages, and 12-hour ferry rides to get you halfway to where you're going. Alan is the tour guide, something he's actually done! Besides the reader, along for the drives are his beloved wife and teenage son. To go camping, they're pulling a small trailer home behind. FYI - Alan hates camping and driving. I swear, many of us will find a way to take the same drive - just once in our lives. The history, the legends, the forming of the first...
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EP 375 | Vancouver's Biggest Non-Alc Wine, Beer, Spirit & Cocktail Tasting! Free Spirit Vancouver
Mulligan Stew
No/Lo spirits, wine, cider, and beer have been "trending" for many years now. The search for wine and beer replacements has always been there. A number of producers began to find results after they made their wine and beer, then stripped the alcohol out and substituted the taste with other elements. Fruit, tea, spices, etc. Suddenly, some of the replacements tasted even better than the originals. Kurtis Kolt, sommelier and wine educator, wine judge, and co-founder of Top Drop Vancouver, has organized a second Free Spirit Vancouver. The first...
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EP 374 | Forty Years of Blue Rodeo With Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor
Mulligan Stew
How do you celebrate a 40-year music career? If you're Blue Rodeo, you tour Canada in 40 dates, and the last two are in Massey Hall. We're showcasing Blue Rodeo with separate one-on-one interviews with co-founders and co-writers/singers Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy. , Blue Rodeo and the guys have multiple Junos, Hall of Fame inductions, Songwriters Hall of Fame, Canadian Walk of Fame Orders of Canada, a really good documentary and just this year, a stamp and a beer. To me, I hear the sound of Canada in their high harmonies. They started out as a hot bar...
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EP 373 | The Bros. Landreth bring Dog Ear with Bonnie Raitt
Mulligan Stew
The amazing story and success of Winnipeg's David and Joey Landreth continues with the release of their 9th studio album, Dog Ear. The brothers join us from home base as they prepare for a full European tour and select key American dates this year. The new album deals with finding a balance between making music and raising their families. In the music business, with all its touring, it can be really hard on the whole family. After having a Grammy hit with the Landreth's Made up Mind, their music hero, Bonnie Raitt, asked the boys to send her songs from their new album. She...
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EP 371 | After 5 years away from his career, Royal Wood returns with Dear John
Mulligan Stew
Following a celebrated national headline tour and a wonderful run supporting the legendary Bonnie Raitt, Dear John sees Royal Wood collaborating with five-time Grammy-winning Mixer Ryan Freeland (Bonnie Raitt, Ray LaMontagne). Royal describes Dear John as a "letter to a younger Royal". The album captures both his sincerity and artistry. Royal Wood’s music continues to resonate worldwide, amassing over 30 million streams. Royal stepped away from the music business and his strong part in it, to have 2 sons and...
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EP 370 | Juno Winner Aysanabee heads west on The Way We're Born Tour
Mulligan Stew
Juno Winner Aysanabee headlines his first national tour. Two-time JUNO Award-winning Oji-Cree artist Aysanabee has been riding a powerful wave for over three years, and this fall he’s bringing it coast to coast. Following the release of his June release album Edge Of The Earth on Ishkōdé Records, Aysanabee kicks off The Way We’re Born Tour on November 6 in Edmonton, with more than 20 dates across Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario. Tour Dates: Aysanabee once again announced that each...
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EP 369 | Bahamas New Album 'My Second Last Album'
Mulligan Stew
Afie Jurvanen (aka Bahamas) has announced My Second Last Album, his seventh studio release and the follow-up to Bootcut. The record arrived everywhere on October 24, 2025 and finds Afie back in Nova Scotia, trading Nashville’s storied studios for the coastal quiet of a backyard shed. Recorded at DreamDate, the compact studio built by friend and collaborator Joshua Van Tassel, My Second Last Album was shaped almost entirely by the two musicians, who played every instrument across its 10 tracks. The result is one of the best Bahamas albums yet. The first listen to My Second Last Album comes...
info_outlineAmericana singer-songwriter Mariel Buckley announces her just-released album – Strange Trip Ahead, out Friday, October 17, 2025, via Birthday Cake Records.
It finds Mariel venturing into new sonic ground for her, embracing an indie-rock song box that leans away from her country and Americana roots. The album reveals a deep dive into themes of adolescent shame, secrecy, and queer longing. With complex songs that take the listener through the emotional turbulence of youth, crafting a listening experience that feels like floating in uncertainty, suspended one moment, crashing the next.
Mariel begins a bold new direction with this Strange Trip Ahead.
“I was itching to try something a little heavier than my previous stuff,” she shares. “I wanted to move away from synths and keys in general, citing references from indie rock, pop music, and alt-country.”
The album offers an honest portrait of empty hotel rooms, long stretches of highway, and the quiet loneliness found in mundane rituals like pumping gas and loitering around with a bad cup of coffee. Almost Nomadland-like, it feels like a slice-of-life vignette; a glimpse into the less-than-glamorous underbelly of being a working artist.
Our interview starts with talking about our favourite track from the album. We both picked the last track.... Lucky. (A complete gem.) It also includes the album title in the lyrics.
Nashville Now - Builds slowly and gets darker with every bar and chord.
Somewhere else, which mentions drinking a $13.00 wine
Vending machine - glorious harmonies smothered in beautiful dark lyrics.
"Dreaming and drowning, disdain and devotion to a career spent adoring travel and the limelight. Packing and unpacking. Feeling sorry for myself." Mariel calls these songs her most honest work to date. There is a glimmer of light, I hope you can find and shine on the corners of your mind.
That feeling is too dark to bear. Hang on, buddy - the best is yet to come."
Mariel starts a complete coast-to-coast tour with Matt Anderson Jan 24 in Glace Bay, NS and finishes in Victoria, BC March 2.
(Feb 25 Calgary - Feb 26 Edmonton)
@mariel_buckley