JASON STOCKFISH
Arts Writer

Back in September of 2009, my romance with CBC Radio was in its initial stages.

Innocent, playful and pure, the four of us (Radio 1, 2, 3 and me) were inseparable. Through CBC Radio, my eyes were opened to the amazing Canadian music scene that I had been unknowingly longing for and I quickly came to realize that Saskatoon was home to a number of this country’s finest musical acts. 

Jordan Kurtz, a.k.a. Fisticuffs, is the former drummer of We Were Lovers, the pianist and vocalist of Saskatoon piano pop-quartet Tuxedo Mask and, occasionally, drummer for his brother Scott Kurtz in Boycott Scott.

Recently, I heard Kurtz on CBC Radio twice in the same week: once as a panelist for a book club on The Afternoon Edition, then promoting his newest project The Bridge Citizen, an intriguing e-zine that he and friend Zach Perkins recently created.

The Bridge Citizen is just the most recent of Kurtz’s involvement in media. In addition to his career as a musician, he is a host on CFCR 90.5 FM, was the creative mind behind the independent online radio project The Love Parade and served as music editor for New York’s Patrol Magazine. 

One would think that with the successes he has thus far achieved as a drummer, radio host, journalist and writer that Kurtz would be content. But no, Kurtz has recently been devoting much of his time and energy to his solo career, Fisticuffs.

With the creation of Fisticuffs, Kurtz is at last pursuing his longstanding passion as a singer-songwriter. 

On April 3, Fisticuffs will wrap up a string of hometown shows that have so far included performances at Caffe Sola, All Citizens in Bruno, Sask., the Prairie Ink Cafe at McNally Robinson and, most recently, at the YFC building with B.C. rising stars Aidan Knight and We Are The City.

The upcoming performance is being held at the Free Flow Dance, located at 224 25th Street West. With Del Barber, Amy Seeley and Zachary Lucky joining Fisticuffs on the bill, it is sure to be yet another stellar show in Saskatoon. 

After the performance on April 3, Kurtz will be taking his act on the road to promote his new EP The Wheat Weather.

On April 11 in Winnipeg, Fisticuffs officially kicks off his upcoming The Woods of Canada Tour, which will see him and Vancouver’s Jamison Troy traversing Western Canada. You can catch Fisticuffs when he wraps up the western leg of his Canadian tour back home in Saskatoon in the middle of May. 

After a three-week break back in Saskatoon, Kurtz and his guitar will hopefully be back on the road once again, this time with sights set on the east. With such a kick-ass music scene in this fine country, Fisticuffs is bound to join many other amazing acts in some of Canada’s music hotbeds like Halifax, Toronto, Montreal and maybe even a stay in St. John’s.  

Fisticiuffs plays April 3 at Free Flow Dance.

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