Wintersong Music Festival Announces 2023 Headliners: Stars, Dan Mangan & Men Without Hats

Fri Jan 13, 2023

Wintersong Music Festival has officially announced the headliners for their 4th edition, taking place January 20th - 21st, 2023 in Stouffville, ON. The annual festival draws thousands to the local area in the shoulder-season of Winter, giving a much-needed boost to the local economy.

Wintersong will be headlined by Montreal indie-pop band Stars; two-time JUNO award winning musician Dan Mangan; and 80’s new wave/synth-pop band Men Without Hats.

They will be joined by 2022 Polaris shortlisted OMBIIGIZI - a collaboration between Zoon’s Daniel Monkman and Status/Non Status’ Adam Sturgeon; and local indie-folk band Man Made Forest.

Wintersong Music Festival Announces 2023 Headliners: Stars, Dan Mangan & Men Without Hats

Fri Sep 23 2022
Wintersong Music Festival

Wintersong Music Festival has officially announced the headliners for their 4th edition, taking place January 20th - 21st, 2023 in Stouffville, ON. The annual festival draws thousands to the local area in the shoulder-season of Winter, giving a much-needed boost to the local economy.

Wintersong will be headlined by Montreal indie-pop band Stars; two-time JUNO award winning musician Dan Mangan; and 80’s new wave/synth-pop band Men Without Hats.

They will be joined by 2022 Polaris shortlisted OMBIIGIZI - a collaboration between Zoon’s Daniel Monkman and Status/Non Status’ Adam Sturgeon; and local indie-folk band Man Made Forest.

BTW-Adam Ndaro Solomon, Dan Mangan, Coco Love Alcorn, Taylor Abrahamse, nêhiyawak, Linda Carone, Les Stroud

Fri Nov 08 2019
Adan Ndaro Solomon

The ‘African Jimi Hendrix’ has a new album that’s another step forward in his evolution, a lilting and in parts slashing fusion of the styles of his native Kenya and the folk/roots elements of Western music that he employs to generate organic, joyous, uplifting sound.

Adam "The Professor" Solomon is a Juno Award-winning composer, guitar maestro, and singer. He established his career playing lead guitar and singing on recordings and videos with some of Kenya's most popular artists including Joseph Kamaru, Bana Citoyen, Super Kalles and numerous others. It was during this period he picked up the ‘Hendrix ‘ tag.

Solomon was a co-founder (with Tarig Abubakar) of Canada's best-ever pan-African band, the Afronubians, with whom he toured western Canada in 1993. He collaborated with them for two CD releases, "Tour To Africa" (1994) and "The Great Africans" (1995). The band looked poised for mainstream and indeed, international success when Abubakar died in a car crash while on a visit to his native Sudan. "Afronubians Live" was released posthumously in 2005.

BTW - Dan Mangan, The Marcus King Band, Kinnie Starr, Live at Massey Hall, ZYLA, Matt Jaffe, Lucinda Williams

Fri Nov 02 2018
Dan Mangan Photo Credit Vanessa Heins

Backwoods philosopher Dan Mangan’s More Or Less is about “witnessing a birth, and in some ways rebirth,” says the wise one. “It’s about feeling disconnected from a popular identity and becoming acclimated to a new one. It’s about raising kids in a turbulent world. It’s about unanswerable questions and kindness and friendship and fear.”

Out on Arts & Crafts, More Or Less is an album that he claims “feels more like ‘me’ than ever. More sparse. Less meticulous. More kids. Less time. More direct. Less metaphor. More discovery. Less youth. More warmth. Less chaos.”

In the years since 20-year-old Dan Mangan began boxing his way into the corner of every noisy bar that would let him bring in his guitar he’s released four other albums, toured relentlessly, won a few awards, found a partner who tolerated his schedule, married that partner, then welcomed a baby into their home...which is when things changed.

BTW- Wax Mannequin, Dan Mangan, The Hearts, John Orpheus, Lucy Rose, Church of Trees, Cordovas, Julian Taylor Band

Fri Jun 29 2018
Wax Mannequin

The oft enigmatic Wax Mannequin (aka Hamilton, Ontario's Christopher Adeney) dropped his seventh album, Have A New Name, on June 22 through Coax Records/Outside Music The album was launched with Wax Mannequin's June 23 show at This Ain't Hollywood in Hamilton, followed by a full Canadian tour that kicks off July 14 at The Rivoli in Toronto.

As Wax Mannequin, Adeney has established himself as a profound lyricist and songsmith, as well as a self-effacing showman. His music also reveals him to be a student of the human psyche, constantly finding fresh and interesting ways to frame the people we are and the things we encounter. All of that is gloriously displayed on Have A New Name, the result of Adeney reuniting with producer Edwin Burnett, with whom he made some of the first Wax Mannequin recordings in the early 2000s.

BTW-starring The High Dials, Closer To The Heart, Winterfolk Festival Highlights, Lesley Curtis, Dee Bronte, Timber Timbre, Dan Mangan & Blacksmith

Fri Jan 30 2015
The High Dials

In 2015, The High Dials are so on the radar of folks who think they define the nu-pop sensibility. In which case, dudes can claim O.G. stake, as ‘In The AM Wilds’, dropping Feb.3, is the duo’s fifth full-length cookie. This thing they’ve been doing is an amalgam of psychedelic, electronic, and folk rock influences, meshing with the compositions of singer-songwriter Trevor Anderson.

Centered around the band’s founders, Anderson and guitarist Robbie MacArthur, and operating with a rotating line-up, The High Dials have spent the last while working on soundtracks for two Montreal indie films, which led to a lot of experimentation. Any long-term band can slip into a comfort zone of lazy habits. That’s where producer Marc Bell (We Are Wolves, The Fugees) came into things. “Meeting Marc was huge because he really helped us stay fearless in moving forward. He knew nothing about our history. We were able to incorporate more of the influences that had always been there lurking but never really come through.”