It’s hard to imagine a 10th anniversary celebration without Halifax native and now Nashville resident STEVE POLTZ! As many of you know, Steve has played more shows at The Carleton more than any other artist over the span of our first decade (40+ times and counting) and there’s a good reason for that – he loves the room, he loves Halifax and the feelings are reciprocal! Steve’s show is on Monday, May 7th. Show time is 8 PM and tickets are $25 advanced or $30 at the door. As a bonus, Ontarian singer/songwriter Preetam Sengupta will open the show with a short set (and you will like him, a lot.)

…And if you’ve never seen him, and you live in Halifax and somehow missed the first 40 times he’s played here before, it’s about time you got hip. We’ve presented well over a couple of thousand artists at The Carleton over our 10 years of existence and we can say, without fear of contradiction, that Poltz is consistently the most mind-blowing of them all (and that’s no dis on all the others, believe us).

Here’s a cool piece we hadn’t seen before from CBC’s The National (that’s pretty heavy, right?)

There are a grillion videos on YouTube but here are some particularly cool ones for you to check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btj5wjWyGqA

“Melodic storytelling” describes his music best, and Preetam Sengupta‘s live show is built around simple performance, playful stage banter, and very little pyro. While the (humbling) comparison most often goes the other way, Preetam’s niece has said that Paul Simon sounds like him. We’re pretty sure Mr. Simon is unaware of this.

Patience is both the title of Preetam’s new album, and a skill he needed to exercise in its release. After his debut album, HopeFull, a personal issue set Preetam back temporarily. He needed to re-learn how to play and sing songs he’d written in the past, unsure he’d ever be able to write another.

In time, Preetam found his way back to good health, and in studio with JUNO-winning producer Byram Joseph (aka Slakah the Beatchild). Joseph’s imagination and “musical wizardry” (as per Preetam) pushed the limits of what Preetam perceived as his abilities, and how his music fit into a particular genre. The result is Patience, a labour of love and celebration of life’s joys and sorrows.