Boy Golden is the oh-so-cool Rock’n'Roll alter ego of the Winnipeg-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/songwriter extraordinaire, Liam Duncan. In today’s chat, we get into the origin story of that alter ego, but before we do that, we chat about the music.

We kick it off talking about Suffer, the lead single from his forthcoming album Best of Our Possible Lives (due in February 2026). The song went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts in Canada. But didja know, it hit #1 weeks before it was announced at #1? Naturally, we get into the strangeness of how that happened.

We also talk about what radio success means in 2025 and why the song might be having a tougher time finding a foothold in the US.

We chat about Liam’s unusual path into songwriting. He started out on the business side of music, as a teenager, and came to writing songs, as he puts it “a little late” in the game…at the ripe old age of 21.

We talk about recording to tape, and about the time he literally carried those tapes through airports to get them mastered, refusing to let them through the X-Ray machines.

We discuss why he chose to work with a producer (for the first time) on this new Boy Golden album and how he felt about the process. Spoiler, he loved it.

And finally Liam tells me why he finds making music, well, a little embarrassing.

Boy Golden

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

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@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

Jill Barber is back with a brand-new holiday album, A Holly Jolly Jill Barber Christmas. An album that includes a handful of the classics you’d expect, some lesser known treasures and a couple of originals, all of it shaped alongside her Grammy-nominated producer and pal Drew Jurecka.

Jill’s been living in a Christmas mindset, replete with its bittersweet mix of nostalgia and hope, since February. So it’s high time she hit the road to bring her special brand of holiday cheer to folks from Toronto, east.

West of Toronto, sorry to say, you’ll be waiting til next year.

In our chat we talk all about the album, the tour, her memories of Christmases past, her evolution as a songwriter and, of course, I can hardly chat with Jill Barber without talking about her brother, Matthew Barber, so, Jill tells about why she believes in a thing called blood harmony.

@jillbarber

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid

Three time Music Nova Scotia Award winner, Daniel James McFadyen grew up outside of Toronto chasing a ball, not a melody. But somewhere between the rec centre squash courts and the dark and dreary corners of the pubs filled with folk covers, music found him.

His new album, Back to the Country, was written in a cabin on the east coast and recorded in a cabin cum recording studio on the west coast. It’s raw, nostalgic, and wide open.

Like the places that shaped it.

It's When We Wake with Daniel James McFadyen.

Landmine Tour

@danieljamesmcfadyen

Wanna get in touch?

Send an email to ⁠whenwewakeradio@gmail.com⁠

Or find me on Instagram

@whenwewakeradio & @theandrewshaver

When We Wake with Andrew Shaver is written, hosted, edited, and produced by ⁠Andrew Shaver⁠. The weekly radio broadcast is syndicated across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

Theme song Got You by Noah Reid