You know what time it is? You guessed it, it is time for another fun-filled The Craig Norris Hour Listener Co-host Initiative or TCNHLCHI. For those that don't know me, my name is Levi Keys, and R3 bloggers may know me better as keydive. 

I know what you're thinking right now. Who is this Levi character? Well I don't really know the answer to that. I can tell you a little bit about myself historically and geographically which may give some insight. Well this geographic and historic story starts off on May 12th, 1983 during a blizzard in Regina. I was born. Shortly after this joyous event I was relocated to the small town of Milestone I would spend the next 19 years here on my family's beautiful mixed cattle and grain farm. Then at the age of 19 in the year of 2002 I decided I should live in Lethbridge, Alberta for roughly 8 months of the year in an attempt to shorten my commute while I attended the Univeristy of Lethbridge. After a few years of giving the university an exorbitant amount of money, they gave me a piece of paper with my name on it (it is a pretty nice piece of paper and I store it safely under my bed). In May of 2006 I moved to city of Calgary where I currently reside to work and make money so the government can tax me. So far I have been in this lovely city for about 3.6 years.

Now I feel it maybe time to discuss my musical history and the corresponding geography in a further attempt to find out who is Levi Keys...

Well this portion of the story likely starts in the mid 1980's with Raffi and Fred Penner most likely the first musicians I listened to and learned from (Who doesn't love The Cat Came Back?). In the 1990's my musical tastes started to widen and diversify. During the decade that was the 90's I listened to classic rockers such as The Doors and Led Zepplin, country artists like Garth Brooks and George Strait, Rappers and hip hop artist to the name of Dr. Dre and Bone Thugs and Harmony, but mostly grunge and alternative bands like Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins. Clearly it was a decade of many different genres for me and I feel it set a precedent for the years to come. However from 2000-2004 I had a slight falling out with music and was not overly enthused with the music I was listening too (Stupid mainstream Top 40 I blame you). Then it all changed one day. I'm not sure what it was, but I started to rediscover the music I had once loved (Maybe it was the long hours trying to avoid studying). In 2004 I began a new love affair with Indie Music. It started mainly with 3 artists: Xavier Rudd, Tegan & Sara and Elliott Brood (two of which you will get to hear today). In Lethbridge, Alberta at the Tongue and Groove I saw my first indie rock show by the ever-famous Elliott Brood. After this, things really started to open up musically I started to discover more and more musicians. Some have called this following period in my life a renaissance (Or I did just now). The year was 2006, I was in a new city with a new music scene and it was also when I discovered CBC Radio 3. This is when I truly discovered Canadian indie music and I haven't looked back. As I'm starting to feel a bit lazy lets skip ahead to 2009 which was a fairly fantastic year as well. The year that was 2009 brought me many great things musically such as a banjo (still can't play that damn thing) a re-discovery of the Radio 3 blog as well as many good friends on the blog, some of whom I have had the pleasure to meet and share many a concert with (this is a nice way to say hgummo and rocknrollloser have been stalking me). 2010, who knows what you will bring but I'm sure it's gonna be fantastic and so far we are off to a good start.

I still know what you're thinking (MikeV taught me how to read minds) and that happens to be two things. What does all this mean? And have we discovered who Levi Keys is yet? Well the answer to the second question is no. He is far too complicated of an individual to ever understand. The answer to the first question, though, is fairly simple, and that is we are listening to my The Craig Norris Hour Co-Host Initiative (TCNHLCHI) and as your co-host I had to write the blog entry. So for those that are a little slow, this means you and I get to listen to some awesome songs that I picked, as well as a few others I didn't pick, for the next 4 hours all intertwined with some witty banter provided by myself and Craig Norris.

Your Blog Question for today: Seen any cute Squirrel pictures lately?

posted by Craig Norris on Jan 07, 2010