Click here for tickets for a weekend pass, dance or workshop events.

Click here to see the (draft) Schedule for the weekend!

Tickets available at Fernie Distillers ($20 cash or $22 card) or online here.

Join us Thursday, March 14th, 2019 at the Fernie Distillers for this incredible roots music experience! Oliver the Crow is Ben Plotnik and Kaitlyn Raitz creating their own blend of vocal, fiddle, and cello music in a genre-bending package that is rooted in history but with a definite eye on the horizon.

Kaitlyn and Ben’s chameleon-like ability to skip between genres stems from their roots as classically-trained performers (Kaitlyn has a masters degree in classical cello from McGill University and Ben has performed as a soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic) but also from their love of bluegrass, gypsy jazz, everything from Hank Williams to Prince. Raitz is a founding member of folk duo Bride & Groom, tours with The Bombadils and has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Station Inn. Ben is a primary member of the JUNO award-winning folk string quartet, The Fretless, and has contributed to hundreds of recordings as one of North America’s elite fiddle players.

Read more about Oliver the Crow on their website.

The Old Type Music society is pleased to provide the following acoustic entertainment through the long, cold winter! For more information about these events go to our website at www.oldtypemusic.com or our facebook page.

Eli West & Ben Winship • Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at the Arts Station. More info here.
The Slocan Ramblers • Friday, March 3, 2017 at the Arts Station (promoted in conjunction with The Arts Station)
The Lonesome Ace String Band • Wednesday, April 5, 2017 (location TBD)

Gillbilly is our 1st annual Old-time pickin’, Fly-fishing festival weekend in Fernie, BC. Workshops, jams, concerts, and food will set the tone for this laid-back weekend (September 30-October 2) as the trees shift into fall colouring. For more details go to the Gillbilly 2016 page.

This just in: we have an exciting new addition to the Gillbilly 2016 lineup: We’d love to welcome Eli West to the event. Eli is a tasteful and versatile guitar player & singer who came into the public eye as half of the duo Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. In 2016 Eli released a solo album with contributors like Bill Frisell… Below is a little video of Eli and Bill playing ‘Lonesome Valley’… what a tasty little sonic treat!

Eli often performs with Ben Winship, one of our other esteemed musicians. Ben is known for his mandolin work with The Growling Old Men and recently The New Reeltime Travellers. Below is a video of Ben and Eli performing ‘Pocket Full of Dust’ at the Targhee Music camp in 2014.

Rounding out the lineup is Chris Coole. The genesis of the whole idea began one night with Chris showing up at our door looking for a good place to get a beer. Turns out just about every banjo player we know likes to visit Fernie to do some fly-fishing… so we thought “why not make it a thing?” and here we are. Chris is one of Canada’s most highly regarded acoustic musicians. He cut his teeth busking on the streets of Toronto for ten years (!!) and is a foundational part of The Foggy Hogtown Boys, Canada’s Bluegrass royalty. More recently he has been supporting David Francey on tour as a multi-instrumentalist, and playing with his old-time trio The Lonesome Ace Stringband. Chris has performed in Fernie several times over the past 4 years as a solo act, with the Foggy Hogtown Boys, and most recently with the Stringband. We’re extremely excited to welcome Chris back for some fishing and picking. Below is a video of Chris performing one of my favourites; his original song ‘Old Dog’.

All tolled, this is an amazing all-star lineup that should give listeners, pickers, and fisher-people a great weekend! If you just want to catch the concerts we will have tickets available for Friday night and Saturday night concerts only for $25 for 1 night or $40 for both nights. To get in on all of the happenings including wine & cheese reception, fishing and picking workshops, fish taco feed, and hosted jams, register now for only $85.

In one form or another, the Old Type Music Society has been promoting live music, dances, and workshops for almost 5 years. Our home base was the Clawhammer Gallery in downtown Fernie, but since the big move in April one of the most common questions I get is “Will you guys still be doing the live music?”. The short answer is YES! We are working on sourcing appropriate venues for our fall/winter concert series, but we are already booking some amazing acts. More information will be available once we sort out those venues.

For now, we are putting our energy into getting the word out about GillBilly. This will be our first annual pickin’ and fly fishin’ workshop and festival right here in the Elk River valley. Turns out, all our musician friends also love fishing, so we thought why not combine the two passions and make a weekend of it? We are starting small but hope to expand this into a bit of an event and bring more music to the valley. Find out more about Gillbilly here.

As we get more information about upcoming concerts, we’ll put them on our Concerts page so keep that bookmarked for future reference.