Bif Naked and The Darcys LIVE at Wintersong Festival 2022
Stouffville, ON – The Wintersong Festival recently took over venues in this small Ontario town. On March 26, 2022 Canadian music artists Bif Naked and The Darcys took to the stage to seriously wow an intimate crowd at Nineteen on the Park, a local arts and entertainment venue.
It’s said you should never meet your heroes. It can permanently distort your perception of them. No one said anything about filming your heroes at short range while they perform. I’ve had the pleasure of filming interviews with some incredible artists including July Black, Max Kerman, and Seth Rogen. None of which are any of my actual heroes, and all of which kept their potential heroism intact in person. I’ve also had the privilege of interviewing some incredible artists and filming some awesome Canadian shows. While I’m humbled by these experiences, none of them really took me back to my ‘93 Ford Topaz and the Don Valley Parkway cursing like a 17-year-old-boss (so I thought) heading downtown to see my new/first boyfriend and sneaking into rock shows at the Velvet Underground and the Bovine. Until recently.
Spaceman by Bif Naked is one of those songs that puts me back in my shit car and reminds me that everyone at some point wants to be rescued. In most cases we tend to need to rescue ourselves. This song isn’t only full of desperation, it’s also full of raw passion and power. It was a surreal experience to sit on the floor five feet from the artist listening to this iconic Canadian song.
Bif Naked was born in secret to a teenager living in India. The product of a Canadian girl and a British boy, she was rejected by both families, hidden away in a mental hospital from her diplomat-grandparents’ society and politico friends. Adopted by American missionaries, and after years of legal hurdles, eventually gaining her and her adopted sister’s release from India they returned to North America. She embarked on what she recalls with humour as a “charmed life”. A childhood of secret abuse, running away, targeted beatings by girl gangs, she was institutionalized for alcohol abuse as a teenager and sexually targeted, preyed upon by a long list of adult predators. She escaped this early life by joining a punk rock band and left on tour, she married the drummer became pregnant and under extreme duress she aborted the unborn child and later the marriage and continued on a deadly downward spiral which culminated when she hit the floor of a Vancouver drug den overdosed. All of this before her 21st birthday.
Through it all, her creative and academic potential, multiple personalities, and her unstoppable humour were her weapons of self defence. Bif showcased her life’s journey etched in tattoo ink across her body and with her unique ability to transform her true life stories into song lyrics, she found her voice as a solo artist, started her own record company Her Royal Majesty’s Records and at 23 years of age became a inspirational Canadian Platinum and Gold Album selling International Recording Artist.
I first came across The Darcys what seems like a few very short years ago. So I guess about 2015. The Toronto team’s debut album came out in 2007 and they have since become a staple of Canadian dance-pop-rock and Canadian music overall. Named after the iconic character from Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice, the Darcys formed in Etobicoke, Ontario in 2007 and are now based in Los Angeles. Since that time they have released 5 studio records (and countless singles) including: ‘Warring’ which garnered the band their first Juno Award nomination for Alternative Album of the Year and found them longlisted for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize, a critically-acclaimed experimental cover of Steely Dan’s 1977 album Aja and dance-pop masterpiece Centerfold.
The duo played a killer show at Wintersong and it was a pleasure to film and capture the team’s incredible energy. It’s incredible to find music that speaks to you and just as awesome to rediscover music that spoke to you so clearly years ago. Music is one of those things that sticks to your brain so nicely. Subscribe to Dropout Entertainment for more awesome show videos along with interviews and artist profiles.
