The Iona Heights Inn

2 For 1 Pasta Sundays
2018-05-06 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-04-29 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-04-22 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-04-15 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-04-08 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-04-01 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-03-25 16:00 - 21:00, 2018-03-18 16:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax) and 7 more dates | The Frolic’n Folk Pub & Grill, 4115 HWY 223, Iona, Nova Scotia, B2C 1A3, Canada
2 for 1 Pasta Sundays
$13.99 + tax. Every Sunday 4-9PM
Choices of pasta:

Pesto Chicken Penne (cream base)
Maple Curry Chicken Penne (cream base)
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio (garlic & oil)
Italian Shrimp (oil base)
Chicken Picanté (tomato base)

(All served with garlic toast. Whole grain available)
Dine In Only. Beverage Purchase Required

The Jordan Musycsyn Band
2018-04-28 20:00 - 22:30
Jordan is a hard working singer/songwriter, is a masterful storyteller writing songs about life and love with pathos and humour in a Folk-Country style. He sustains a busy touring schedule thruout Canada in support of his sophomore album ‘Old State Of Mind’. Drawing on his own life experiences he writes relatable songs of love, loss and the human condition. A dynamic performer, Jordan moves the audience from laughter to tears and back again. His first album ‘The Pitch’ (released in the fall of 2014) was nominated for 2 Music Nova Scotia awards. He has toured across the Maritimes and across Canada many times playing his songs solo, with his band, with the Cape Breton Summertime Revue and Tis The Season.
“JORDAN MUSYCSYN is a great musician and a great storyteller”
– Alan Doyle, GREAT BIG SEA

Open in Spotify
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Paddy's Day in Iona
2018-03-17
Come get your green on at The Frolic’n Folk this Paddy’s Day.
To tickle your earballs we have:
2-5PM Shelly Campbell & Joel Chiasson

6-9PM Brenda Stubbert, Kolten Macdonell & Blanche Sophocleous(proper Irish spelling)
Food & Drink Specials, and we have prizes to be won!
$10 cover (kids free)
Sláinte y’all

Hector’s Point Snowshoeing
2018-03-11 13:00 - 15:00, 2018-02-25 13:00 - 15:00, 2018-02-11 13:00 - 15:00
“Hector’s Point Snowshoe Walk” at 1pm. This hike will see you walking around the snowy Highland Village. It will be approximately 3km and will end back at the Frolic’n Folk Pub. There you will receive a cup of Jill’s Hot Chocolate or for those that are 19/over a 10oz pint.
Walk is for all ages.
Shorter routes available if need be.
$15 per person including snowshoes rentals, or $10 if you bring your own (please use coupon code snow on the checkout page to reveal the discounted price). Space is limited.
Meet at The Frolic’n Folk Pub just inside the Inn
Walks begin at 1pm. It is best to arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled walk in order to check in.
*Weather permitting

Moonlight Snowshoe Walk
2018-03-02 19:00 - 21:00, 2018-02-02 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for our special “Hector’s Point Moonlight Walk” – a moonlight snowshoe hike around the Highland Village. It will be approximately 3km, and end at the pub with a 10oz pint (for those that are 19/over), or a cup of Jill’s Hot Chocolate.
Walk is for all ages.
Shorter routes available if need be.
$15 per person including snowshoes rentals, or $10 if you bring your own (use coupon code snow in the checkout page to reveal the dicounted price). Space is limited.
Meet at The Frolic’n Folk Pub just inside the Inn
Walks begin at 7pm. It is best to arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled walk in order to check in.
*Weather permitting

New Year's Eve with Pretty Archie
2017-12-31 21:00 - 2018-01-01 00:00
Pretty Archie is a Country/Folk/Bluegrass band from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Long time friends Brian Cathcart (Lead Vocals, Guitar), Matt McNeil (Lead Guitar, Mandolin), Colin Gillis (Harmonica, Bass, Vocals) and Redmond MacDougall (Banjo, Percussion, Vocals) make up this quartet. Always jamming together growing up, they guys decided in May 2012 to form a band. The band chose the name Pretty Archie after a local (Cape Breton) character known for playing with 2 strings outside shopping malls in any weather and not always (or ever) in key. The guys thought the name Pretty Archie embodied the love of playing and performing music along with representing their hometown.
Pretty Archie’s newest release ‘Sing Alongs & Love Songs’ was made available on September 23rd 2016. Bringing on Jamie Foulds to produce this project, Pretty Archie continues to push the genre lines of Folk, Bluegrass, Country and Blues creating a uniquely Pretty Archie sound. The 10 song album is a collection of their best songwriting to date, addressing themes of love, loss, life and the forces that drive all three.
Pretty Archie’s first full length album was recorded in January 2013 at the famed Grant Ave. Studios in Hamilton, Ontario with well known producer/engineer Bob Doidge. The debut 11 song LP ‘Steel City’ was released on March 9th 2013 and is available on iTunes. ‘Steel City’ was nominated for Music Nova Scotia’s 2013 Country/Bluegrass Album of the Year. Pretty Archie recorded their second album ‘North End Sky’ at Soundpark Studios. The highly anticipated ‘North End Sky’ was released January 27th 2015 and was featured on CBC Radio 2’s “East Coast Music Hour” as an album to look for in 2015. ‘North End Sky’ was nominated for ECMA’s ‘Country Recording of the Year’. ‘North End Sky’ was also nominated for Music Nova Scotia’s Americana/Bluegrass Album of the Year (2015).
Pretty Archie has had the opportunity to be a showcasing artist at Nova Scotia Music Week, East Coast Music Week and NXNE 2014 along with playing some of the best Canadian venues; The Horseshoe Tavern, The Dakota Tavern (Toronto, ONT), Festival of Lights Boreal (Sudbury, ONT), Stan Rogers Folk Festival (Canso, NS), The Ironwood Stage and Grill (Calgary, ALB) Fairmont Banff Springs (Banff, ALB) and many more across Canada. Pretty Archie is known for their entertaining, high energy, foot stomping shows.
Pretty Archie’s honest, heartfelt writing connects listeners with a saltwater perspective on modern living. Their fun loving and at times heartbreaking music finds common ground in the blurred genres of Country, Folk, Bluegrass and Blues. Their unique sound has lead to the band developing a following that grows after each show they play.

Nudie
2017-11-17 20:00 - 22:30
After soaking up musical experiences in Toronto, Montreal, Phoenix, Austin and New York, roaming troubadour Nudie now hangs his Gibson guitar in Charlottetown, PEI. Why so much traveling? “That’s what the world’s for” quips Nudie, whose name is a nod to Nashville’s rhinestone cowboy tailor Nudie Cohn. Nudie’s decades long performing career has landed him on the stages of the Philadelphia, Montreal and Ottawa Folk Festivals, Willie Nelson’s end-of-tour party in 2006, a support slot with Marty Stuart & The Fabulous Superlatives, and official showcases at Folk Alliance and Americana Music conferences. His authentic songwriting style steeped in heartbreak and twang is captured on his 2008 debut with Nudie & The Turks, and 2 solo albums. His latest offering, Everything’s Different In The Night (out April 22, 2016), is a collection of songs about relationships, and stories from the road, including “Mr. Why’d You Come To Texas”, a duet with Sylvie Smith (Evening Hymns) about not knowing how to two-step, and “Train You Took My Baby”, inspired by a trip across Canada. Nudie continues to captivate audiences with his upbeat and charismatic performances, with plans to tour throughout North America in 2016.
“When someone recommends an album to you and calls it a mixture of Chris Isaak and Dwight Yoakham, you sit down, shut up and listen.” – The Coast, Halifax
Listen Here

Petunia - The Minimalist Jugband
2017-10-13 20:00 - 22:30
Petunia is more than just an entertainer, he’s a modern musical enigma. Imagine that David Lynch and Nick Cave had a hillbilly baby, that yodeled… or Tom Waits meets Elvis at Woody Guthrie’s hobo junction. This is just one way of describing the man known simply as Petunia. He’s an adventure seeker, a poker player, and a mysterious stranger. He’s been referred to as “The Savior of Country Music”, and a man who exists in a different era, bringing the past forth as something new to be celebrated and not forgotten.
Petunia grew up in rural Quebec, in exactly the sort of surroundings that a country musician would find idyllic, with old dilapidated barns, secret forts, and acres of unspoiled land. As an adult, the wandering spirit took a firm hold on his life, so he set out on the road, playing every major street corner across Canada and throughout the NYC subway system, before graduating to full fledged touring musician. When he’s not on the road playing shows, Petunia is also involved in the theatre world; building side projects, writing scores, acting, or collaborating with theatre artists. He currently resides in Vancouver BC, and works with several sets of sidemen across Canada, the US and Europe in addition to his own Vancouver based band, The Vipers. A restless wanderer, a musical historian, and a quirky yet amazing talent, Petunia is simply a Canadian treasure joining the greats from north of the 49th.
Have a listen

An Evening with Oh Susanna & Ben Kunder
2017-09-08 20:00 - 22:00
Suzie Ungerleider began performing as Oh Susanna in the mid-1990s, crafting a persona that matched the timeless qualities of her music, sounds that drew from the deep well of early 20th Century folk, country and blues, yet rooted in her finely-honed storytelling skills. This Canadian songstress has a voice that can pierce a heart of stone. Her superbly crafted songs often tell stories of troubled souls who rebel against their circumstances to attain a quiet dignity. These are tales of longing and love, of small town joys and pains, of our simple feelings and strong passions. These are tales that look into our beautifully flawed human hearts.
From kicking down gravel strewn alleys to evenings tinged with salt air, Oh Susanna’s new album A Girl In Teen City, traverses to the most personal place yet: a conjured, vivid past.
“Here is my story of A Girl in Teen City. Trying to find out who she is while trying to be something she isn’t. Falling in love, getting drunk, having her heart broken, hanging out with friends in bedrooms, basements and parking lots, sneaking into shows in burnt out warehouses, watching the waves, walking home over bridges and railroad tracks in all that endless rain.” — Oh Susanna/Suzie Ungerleider
Watch & listen

Pretty Archie
2017-08-30 20:00 - 22:30

J.P. Cormier
2017-08-23 20:00 - 22:30
J.P. Cormier is a man with many musical talents. He is a skilled songwriter, a gifted singer, & an extraordinary musician who has accomplished success with more than one instrument. During his long career, he has won many competitions, including the Canadian Open Guitar Championship, the Southern U.S. Fiddle Championship, & the Southern U.S. Banjo Championship. He has also worked with a number of big-name artists and appeared on the ever-popular Grand Ol’ Opry over 24 times. His debut album, Out of the Blue, was released when he was only 16 years old.
Cormier was born in London, Ontario, Canada. When most kids were just starting kindergarten, he was already showing a strong interest in music. Soon that interest proved to be an impressive natural talent. He taught himself to play the guitar. It would only be the first of many string instruments he would master in the coming years.
Not long after Cormier’s ninth birthday, he won his first guitar competition, holding his own against musicians of all ages. He landed his first steady professional job when he was only 14. It was a weekly bluegrass television show called Up Home Tonight. Two years later came the release of a debut album filled with instrumental bluegrass music that showcased his guitar skills. After some time appearing at a number of festivals, Cormier became the mandolin player for the famous bluegrass-gospel group the Sullivan Family. He spent a number of years afterward touring with the group, and with other major artists.
In 1997, Cormier, all grown-up, finally finished a sophomore offering, Another Morning, for his fans. The award-winning recording was followed by a third full-length album, Heart & Soul. Along the way to making a name for himself, Cormier has performed with countless artists, the list reading something like a who’s who in music, including Alan Jackson, Marty Stuart, Bill Monroe, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Kitty Wells, and many others. If his musical career had crashed to an end with the start of the new millennium, Cormier would still have touched enough parts of the music world to ensure that his legacy lasted long after.

Steve Poltz
2017-08-16 20:00 - 22:30
Born among the hearty seafaring folk of Canada’s Halifax, Nova Scotia, Poltz has lived most of his life in Southern California, where the sun treated his rocky Canadian DNA like clothes in a dryer. Naturally a spectrum of cultural and emotional tensions arose and he eventually sought refuge in the art of songwriting, where he tapped into an unforgettable and often horrifying depth of unhinged genius.
Among the music cognoscenti, Steve Poltz is regarded as one of the most talented and prolific songwriters of our time. His songs have been among the longest running ever on the Billboard Top 100 and they regularly appear in movie soundtracks, television shows, and even the odd commercial. His touring schedule is ferocious, ping ponging between continents with enough frequency to earn him manic followings in scores of different accents and languages.
Any musician who has traveled as extensively as Poltz will have their share of colorful road stories, but Poltz’ adventures read like a bucket list. Starting out auspiciously, Poltz recalls meeting Elvis Presley at a small airport and beaming proudly as The King hugged his sister for an inordinately long time. Growing up in Palm Springs, California, he trick-or-treated at Liberace’s house and was Bob Hope’s favorite altar boy. In an alcohol-soaked haze, he infamously accosted David Cassidy, who had summoned him to Las Vegas to write a hit song for the aging Tiger Beat cover boy.
His rich and colorful legacy is the stuff of legend, but it is his distinctive style of songwriting that has caused the world to offer up its stages, clubs, and alleys. Poltz’ sound is entirely unique- from his inhuman fingerstyle techniques to the inimitable melodies that roll from his guitar like cool waterfalls, you know a Poltz song as soon as you hear it. To see Steve to perform live is one of the most entertaining shows a human could ever see. Frenzied, aggressive, hilarious, and heartbreakingly sincere, his live performances have become bona fide events, with sub-cultures popping up all over the globe to entice him to come and tour. As relentless as he is in concert, he is also the guy who famously co-wrote the timeless ballad “You Were Meant For Me” with platinum-selling songwriter Jewel. Of course, because we’re talking about Steve Poltz, it should surprise no one to learn that the song was written on a lazy Mexican beach, where Poltz and Jewel were soon snapped up and sequestered by Mexican Federales and required to witness and eventually assist in a large marijuana bust on the beach. Don’t believe it? See for yourself in the pictures on his web site.
Music fans have adored him since he first fronted the hallowed punk-folk legends, The Rugburns, whose live shows earned the band a following that is best described somewhere between the terms “cult” and “crazed substance-abusing fanatics.” Once touring over 300 days a year, the Rugburns occasionally reunite for wildly popular sold-out shows.
Poltz’ solo body of work is an impressive collection of ballads, rockers and uniquely melodic acoustic numbers that reflect his incomparable style of alternate tunings and savage finger picking techniques. Guitar geeks fall prostrate at his feet trying vainly to learn how to play his stunningly gorgeous and deceptively complex songs. To see him play guitar is a visual feast so frenetic that close proximity to his playing exposes one to risk of seizure.
His albums reflect the depth and expanse of his influences throughout the years (One Left Shoe, Chinese Vacation, Traveling and Unraveling). He has also released a children’s album (The Barn), a performance DVD (Tales From The Tavern) and a collection of other recordings that defy categorization, such as Answering Machine – a 56-track collection of 45 second “songs” culled from his answering machine’s outgoing messages. Neil Young has ranked it as a favorite album.
Steve Poltz’s latest recording project brought him back to Halifax, where he collaborated with Joel Plaskett, an award-winning Canadian songwriter, performer, producer and eminently kindred spirit. The two holed up in Joel’s Scotland Yard studio with a 2 inch,16 track analog tape machine, a 24 hour work ethic, their comfy clothes, and all the mojo they could conjure. The result was Dreamhouse,” Steve’s most accomplished and focused album to date. Critically acclaimed across the globe, it has been singled out by some critics as the 2010 Album of the Year.
His live shows have captivated audiences far and wide with a mix of singing, storytelling, shredding, and the occasional spoken word rants which have been known to incite riots. He can take an audience from laughter to tears and back again in the space of the same song. Steve Poltz transcends the word “talented.” He is unforgettable in all the right ways.

Old Man Luedecke
2017-08-09 20:00 - 22:30
Old Man Luedecke, is one of Canada’s best loved and most intriguing roots singer-songwriters. “An original, he is a musical singularity to be savoured and shared”, says the Vancouver Folk Festival. His memorable melodies, poetic sense and easy charisma appeal to anyone searching for new growth from old roots.
Old Man Luedecke was born in Toronto but has made his home for years right here in the music rich maritime province of Nova Scotia. Here his music has been wholeheartedly adopted and is becoming representative for its traditional storytelling folk elements. It speaks to a new generation of people craving such meaning in their music.
Luedecke is a young man with an old soul who doesn’t sugar coat his fears and this lets his songs breathe with a fresh breeze of bittersweet hopefulness. He channels a refreshing energy from folk giants like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger with maybe a hint of Loudon Wainwright III. But it’s Luedecke’s contemporary lyrics coupled with the irresistible rhythm of the old time banjo that connect and make him so loved with his audiences. Anchored in his music’s melodic confidence is an ability to tap into a common muddled and dark search for meaning. This keeps people singing his songs and praises after he’s traveled on.
His performances are exciting and totally entertaining. His uncliched banjo playing sparkles beautifully and dynamically. This coupled with his thumping foot creates a complete sound. People are drawn into singing along. His singing is his own. Clear and unadorned it is totally emotive and suits the sincerity of his tunes. In the breaks between songs come wild and charming stories of meeting heroes and easygoing but gripping musings on things ridiculous and sublime that may have a wink of contemporary vaudeville. Equally at home on festival main stages, theatres and living rooms, he can hold court in the occasional indie rock bar. Luedecke has been a featured performer at all the major folk festivals in Canada and Australia and an increasing number of American festivals, like Strawberry in California. He has appeared with and shared the stage at concerts and soft seaters with such performers as Feist, Tim O’Brien, Joel Plaskett, David Francey, Buck 65, The Be Good Tanyas and Jill Barber. He’s shared festival stages alongside Bela Fleck, Tim O’Brien, Jack Elliot, Kris Kristofferson, Ashley MacIsaac, and countless others.
Old Man Luedecke has received great recognition for his works, including Juno Awards (The Canadian Grammy) for “Proof of Love” and “My Hands Are On Fire and Other Love Songs.”
