Exciting News Alert! Get ready to kick off spring in style at KickAX 2024!
Mark your calendars for May 4th, as this year’s KickAX fundraiser promises to be bigger and better than ever before! We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with the enchanting Cornhill Nursery, where we’ll be hosting a day of unforgettable festivities amidst their stunning gardens.
Join us for a day filled with delights, including homegrown house plant sales, delightful pop-up shops, delectable food and drink offerings, and mesmerizing performances by the sensational Montgomery Street Band and the renowned Old Man Luedecke, who will be gracing the Greenhouse Stage with their musical magic!
Stay tuned for more exciting details about the day’s events and our esteemed local partners. Tickets for this extraordinary event are LIVE, so get your tickets, mark your calendars and get ready to secure your spot for a day of joy, celebration, and community spirit at KickAX 2024! Don’t miss out – it’s going to be an experience to remember!
The Location
Cornhill Nursery
Cornhill Nursery
2700 Route 890, Cornhill NB, E4Z 1M2
Cornhill Nursery has graciously donated their space for the day. This will be opening weekend for them and Bob and his team will have lots of perennials for sale. The cafe will also be open for food and drinks. Visit their website to learn more!
Pilates at KickAX
Spin North Sussex will be hosting an outdoor mat pilates class at 12:30pm in the apple orchard! You will need to book your spot for this class and booking will be open on April 27 at 12:30pm!
Spin North offers mat pilates classes a few times a week. Haven’t tried mat pilates before? It’s like a yoga and conditioning fusion! Relaxing, but with a good burn! All you need to bring is a yoga mat, and wear comfortable clothes that are easy to move in. Allie Pearson will be guiding you through 45 minutes of intentional movement in the beautiful orchards of Corn Hill Nursery!
Spin North is donating 50% of the proceeds of this class to AX!
The Main Event
The ticketed music event kicks off at 5:30pm with the Montgomery Street Band, followed by our headliner – Old Man Luedecke! A limited number of early bird tickets are available right now, so get them while they last! Click the link below to get your tickets, and support your local arts centre!
Old Man Luedecke
Easy Money picks up where Old Man Luedecke’s award winning, and most successful release to date, Domestic Eccentric (2015), leaves off: four years farther down the road, dreaming about his ship coming in, still a parent but now grappling with the newness of middle age, dad jokes, love for an abiding partner, the death of a parent, along with some calypso-feeling local Nova Scotia history thrown in for good measure.
Composition and recording were both begun at the Banff Centre’s songwriter-in-residence program. It was there that Luedecke met the album’s producer Howard Bilerman of Montreal’s famed Hotel2Tango studio where the album was eventually recorded. The two hit it off when Luedecke
composed “Easy Money” on the tracking floor on the first day of the program. Desperate for something worthy to use in his recording time, Luedecke channeled a traditional Christmas number he knew from a Harry Belafonte record and sang largely improvised verses into a winning tune that is sure to be a modern classic: Oh yes I need it, Oh yes I want it, I dream about easy, I dream about Easy money.” Don’t we all.
The further nine new original compositions and two covers run a modern storytelling line from the fifties folk and calypso boom into the everyday of tangible middle life. Guest appearances by long- time collaborator and Grammy award-winning Tim O’Brien, Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas, and Fats Kaplin (Jack White, John Prine) add piquant accents to the impeccable playing of Luedecke and a crack Montreal studio band of Mike O’Brien, Joshua Toal and Jamie Thompson.
The album begins with three upbeat incantations of what is surely the beginnings of a mid-life crisis (Dad Jokes? Wakeup Call, come on!) then moves to 2 songs musing about death; both inspired in part and in different ways, by the passing of Luedecke’s father, the passing of Leonard Cohen and current politics and the death of truth. There are two island-themed numbers that imagine a laid-back life in the local un-tropical paradise of the Canadian Maritimes. Then comes a country song with killer fiddling and harmony singing by Tim O’Brien, a dance number of frightful worry and then a cover of Nana Mouskouri’s French language cover of Bob Dylan’s topical apocalyptic plaint, “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”. This is followed by a traditional sea shanty about a mermaid and a shipwreck. The album closer, “‘I Skipped a Stone”, is the most beautiful song about hoping your wife will pick up the phone. The song is made all the sweeter by the special appearance of Bahamas’ playing and singing, to close out Luedecke’s sixth full length studio album.
The Montgomery Street Band
The Montgomery Street Band is Jason Flores (upright bass), Patrick Gushue (Mandolin/Fiddle), Scott Michaud (Banjo) and Liam Keith-Jacques (guitar). These New Brunswickers have dedicated themselves to carrying on the folk music traditions of the Maritimes. Along with masterful instrumentation, the band mates also take turns leading vocal harmonies. These avid street performers boast an extensive catalogue of old-time music while also incorporating the blazing tempos and dynamic energy of a full fledged jam band.
Want to volunteer?
We are searching committee members to help witht the planning leading up to the event.
Click the link below for more info, and to register as a committee member.