Stylus celebrates as more than 30 years of music writing digitized

The Pompous Old Fart, the biting critiques of a young Bartley Kives, the formative years of the Weakerthans and Begonia … all captured in so many gonzo interviews and reviews.

These hallmarks of Stylus Magazine will be celebrated at a party tonight at the West End Cultural Centre. The event marks the unveiling of the Stylus digital archive, which captures three-and-a-half decades of the back catalogue of Canada’s second-oldest independent music magazine, which was founded in 1989 as the program guide of what was then the University of Winnipeg’s in-house, closed-circuit radio station, CKUW (now CKUW 95.9 FM).

On top of conversations with pioneering Stylus contributors (including Jill Wilson, the new Perspectives editor at the Free Press), the party will feature live performances from Vav Jungle, the electronic dance-pop project of Eve Rice, first covered in Stylus in 1993; and Prairie, a local four-piece band first featured in 2024.

CKUW program director Scott Price says the event is a chance to reflect on the storied history of Stylus as well as the sometimes turbulent world of Canadian rock and pop journalism.

“There was a point where people hated Stylus and the radio station on campus. They really didn’t want that stuff around at all. I think there was probably more of an irreverence, too, to Stylus and CKUW,” Price says.

Examples of this include infamous takedowns of well-known local and Canadian bands, including one article which called the Barenaked Ladies “fat-assed bare naked losers,” which, reportedly, amused frontman Steven Page.

Another was a column called Pompous Old Fart (written by Wilson’s classical-music-loving father, who was also a doctor) reviewing — and mostly panning — famous and local alt-rock and punk bands.

“I liked all the songs on this disc, but the real pleasure came with the last track, Only in Dreams,” read a review by the elder Wilson of Weezer’s self-titled 1994 album.

“My daughter, who knew I was reviewing the disc, happened to come into the house when I was listening to this last track. She said nothing, there was no mistaking her triumphant smirk as she swept through on her way to drown me out with something decidedly unmusical.”

This was followed by an excoriating review of grunge and riot grrrl act Veruca Salt, which concluded: “It will not, in my opinion, ever appear in Gramophone magazine as a Historic Reissue. Veruca is doctor-talk for a wart. Bring on the Compound W.”

Open a more recent issue of Stylus and, while the blistering reviews still exist, you’ll likely find a more wholesome and politically correct approach to indie and Canadian music.

Price suggests that Stylus’ irreverent tone in the early days, while a turn-off for some, also explained its popularity with Winnipeg’s scenesters. But he sees a more troubling evolution of that same sensibility, as social media influencers reduce music journalism to pithy tweets and snarky reels.

“I got rid of my Twitter many years ago because it was just not healthy. It also felt a bit like, ‘Who are the cool kids in the school cafeteria?’” Price says.

“I think in the online world, and especially in these shorter videos, it’s hard to be nuanced,” he says, adding that he feels that Stylus is one Canada’s last outlets engaged in vigorous Canadian music journalism.

Stylus’s very existence fell into precarity in 2015, when the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association (UWSA) cut its funding. CKUW — in turn supported by the UWSA and independent fundraising — soon assumed financial and publishing responsibilities for the publication.

However, after what CKUW described last year as a budgetary dispute with the UWSA, CKUW announced in the fall of 2025 that it, too, was cutting funding to Stylus. But it has since been reformatted as a digital-only publication.

Price says he had the idea to digitize Stylus’s catalogue after stumbling across piles of old issues in CKUW’s storage room. The initiative was made possible thanks to Manitoba’s heritage grants program.

“I think it’s a great tribute to all the work that people did with that magazine, but I think it’s also for people who are interested in music history and cultural history here in Winnipeg,” he says.

conrad.sweatman@winnipegfreepress.com