This performance is part of the Wolfe Island Garden Party, September 17-27, 2026. Enjoy concerts, food trucks, buskers, night markets, sidewalk sales, and more!

The Mermaids are Hillel Arnold and Josh Gardner, with help from regular collaborators such as Chris Brown, Eli Abrams, and Cam Giroux. Hillel and Josh first met in 2004, and quickly bonded over their shared love of musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Neil Young, the Velvet Underground, and the Clash. They met Chris Brown shortly thereafter, while playing around New York’s Lower East Side, sparking a fertile collaboration that has produced one EP, two full-length albums, and memorable live shows. The Mermaids play underground rock and roll that borrows freely from folk, old-school country, and punk rock. Their lyrics have explored, among other things, the struggles of working people, outcasts and underdogs (both historical and present), traveling and returning home, hidden energies and secret moments of grace, freedom and dissent, the cross-pollination of cultures and the movement of ideas, and our efforts to come to grips with the past and imagine the future. The Mermaids have played live shows in New York, Toronto, Boston, and Washington, DC, received college radio play, and appeared in the 2005 independent film “Gonzo Music Diaries.”

Jason Wilson is an award-winning Scottish-Canadian musician, bestselling historian and television personality. A two-time Juno Awards nominee and CRMA Winner, Wilson has eight books to his name including the OHS award-winning King Alpha’s Song in a Strange Land: The Roots and Routes of Canadian Reggae (UBC Press, 2020) and the national bestseller The Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club (McClelland and Stewart, 2016). Born to Scottish immigrants, Jason Wilson grew up in Downsview, a neighbourhood in Toronto’s northwest corridor and has amassed over 2,500 performances across Canada, the United States, the UK and Jamaica. He has performed and recorded with – among many others – UB40, Alanis Morissette, Sly & Robbie, Prince Buster, Aswad’s Brinsley Forde, Dick Gaughan, Pee Wee Ellis, Jackie Mittoo and Martin Carthy. Jason was also one half of the Wilson & Swarbrick project with the late English folk icon Dave Swarbrick with whom he produced two albums: Lion Rampant and Kailyard Tales. A high school dropout, Dr. Wilson completed his PhD in 2013 and is an Adjunct-Professor of History at the University of Guelph. By extension of his academic career, Jason has been a recurring historical expert on various television programmes and documentaries that have aired on CBC, Discovery, ESPN, Nat Geo, NBCSN, TSN and UKTV. Jason resides with his wife Alana in Stouffville, Ontario with an assembly of furry creatures.