Heffernan’s Gate 403 guests & Hubert next door make for another fine Roncesvalles afternoon

Michael Keith @ Hirut 120502-1It’s another one of those super Saturday afternoons on Roncesvalles Ave. in TO’s west end just south of The Junction, Star-calibre guests at Bill Heffernan’s weekly 5-8 show at Gate 403 (403 Roncesvalles) and the return of the Laura Hubert Band 4-7 to the Inter Steer a few doors away, will lend a festival atmosphere to the strip. (And another show across the street at The Local just makes it even better!)

Heffernan welcomes a pair of artists performing together for the first time ever: veteran multi-instrumentalist Richard “Poppa K” Keelan, who was once a member of Perth County Conspiracy and these days is a fixture at Junction-area music events; and hugely inventive and daring multi-genre guitarist Michael Keith, who last time I saw him was experimenting with a 3-string ukelele doing a Turkish-Blues fusion music of his own invention. The mind boggles to think what this pair might get up to!Poppa K @ Hole In The Wall 110313Su

It won’t exactly be sedate at Inter Steer either. Hubert, as always accompanied by keys virtuoso Peter Hill and also likely by area resident and horns-pipes player Jim Bish, brings a raunchy yet very precisely melodic approach to barrelhouse Jazz informed by her days as lead singer for the Leslie Spit Treeo Folk Rock band in the 80s and 90s.

pics by Gary 17: Top left: Michael Keith; bottom: Poppa K