When thinking outside the box just isn't enough
It’s a typical Montreal summer night, meaning I’m hanging out with the members of Lightbulb Alley behind a dumpster in the Mile End and we’ve got a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, half gone. Drummer Martin Barrette is going through a pile of shirts in his suitcase that has DYLAN and SONIC YOUTH written on […]
What do you get when you blend the creative outlets of short film, music and literature? You get the conglomerate known as Hollis Quarterly: as ambitious as it is inspiring, Ontario native Brandon Shantz is the brains behind what has become, literally, a symphony. Taking his anecdotes and turning them into short films (I recommend […]
I owe Homeshake an apology. When I emailed them, asking if I could come check out the release party for their new double LP, I totally called them “radical muthafuggas.” Although I only curse for colour, they say that familiarity breeds contempt. And so, Homeshake, I’m sorry. Moving on. Plastic Factory (like the Captain Beefheart […]
The 9th edition of Osheaga impressed upon Caile Donaldson that it’s possible to retain your cool while still having mass appeal.
Few things are more epic than a performance by long-time musicians Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Here’s the thing though, and this is going to require you dropping your pretentious exterior of superior music-connoisseur-identity. Do you really listen to Nick Cave or do you just have all of his albums, name-drop frequently and switch […]
Who is this grinning young ‘un who looks like Flea’s kid brother and makes music so lo-fi and strange that it makes you want to go running through the streets with a tall can and a lover? Mac DeMarco is another Canadian (god, we grow good musicians here. Suck it, Slovakia) and probably a result […]
So you’ve scanned Montreal’s Osheaga lineup for the 9th year in a row, getting that feeling of desperate excitement, visualizing how you’re going to stake out the stage and trample the audience in your madness to get to the front… I’m doing the same, only I have a forum to air my arrogant, opinionated top […]
You know who reminds me of the Who, or the Strokes when they were still cool? Local Montreal band Loose Pistons. Lead singer, Hugo Chartrand, has that frontman thing down, from his Beatle boots to striped shirt, military hat and guitar strum style. It probably would have been cheesy on anyone else, but Chartrand was […]
I feel sick and frivolous for even having an opinion, but before I voice it, let me first ask: Who the hell IS Kim Kardashian? Please. Someone. What does she do exactly, besides feed the ego of Kanye West (a.k.a the Spoiled Sociopath of Hip-Hop)? Has anybody ever watched the Japanese anime movie Akira, where […]
“There’s no place like a music festival to break out the raccoon hat,” was what some sarcastic fashion blogger said about me back in 2009, when I hit up Osheaga Music Festival wearing my Davy Crockett and not giving a shit. Fast-forward five years and music festivals have become a vacuum of raccoon hats and […]
When I read in the Globe and Mail that Rob Ford, Toronto’s 64th and current mayor, would be appearing on Jimmy Kimmel alongside Gonzo the Jim Henson Muppet, my first thought was, “It probably would have been more appropriate for him to appear with Animal.” When a CNN camera crew had first spotted Ford in […]
First of all…that voice, that voice, that voice. You couldn’t talk through something like this and get the point.Clara gets on stage in the dim room and I’m already pretty stoned. She takes the stage with this big blue hollow body guitar obscuring most of her androgynous self, fiddles with a few peddles, then stands and opens her mouth. The room is so silent that even whispering is rude. Clara says …
Knowing what you’re getting yourself into is half the excitement. Actually getting yourself into it, then finding that it’s exactly what you’d thought it would be…well, that’s not too bad. It probably could have been more, but at least it wasn’t less. Hailing from New York, Michael Goldwasser, Eric Smith, Lem Oppenheimer & Remy Gerstein came together in 1997 as a studio band to form what became the Easy Star All Stars, both an epic collective band and their own record label…
Vancouver native and self-proclaimed “urban hippie” Annie Becker released her very first album on May 18th, entitled All About the Beez Neez.
Ambrosia Records, the label releasing the LP, made the obvious Regina Spektor comparison. And while Becker’s voice is impressive in range, it does sound like Spektor’s, minus the daring weirdness and unique boldness.
Beez Neez, the song sharing the album’s title, is a song sopping with…
Words like “humble” and “graceful” came to mind, as I stood in Le Divan Orange this past Saturday night, watching Jon Janes, aka The Mountains and the Trees.
With his understated guitar playing and poignantly truthful lyrics, Janes had audience members swaying slowly and smiling sadly as he sang about a dear friend passing away and the long bitter East Coast winters made less fierce when shared with a lover. At one point…
Where do you even start with a band like The Black Angels? I caught their show in October, 2010 when they opened for Black Mountain and the whole thing simply melted my face. Why? And how will you know when your face is melted? Well, let’s see here…Take a song like Bad Vibrations, the first song off their newest album Phosphene Dream. Close your eyes. Turn it up. Loud
