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Tonight marks the first preliminary round of Battle of the Bands: HMV Next Big Thing. Tonight No Flyers Please, Three Sheet, Glory Glory Man United, Kristina Trites and Keith Mullins will punch each other with chords and dancing and raps and beatboxing.…

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Oh metal folks, I feel you: With Hatebreed, GWAR and the Children of Bodom/Clutch/Black Label Society shows looming ever closer, I imagine your black, charred hearts are getting a little antsy. This weekend has offerings that may briefly sate you—-Montreal grind godfathers Mesrine play two shows this Saturday to support their new album Obsessive Compulsive with an all-ages gig at CD Heaven in the afternoon with Thy Flesh Consumed, Burnt Church and Panic and War.…

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Delightful local musician/comedienne Ann Denny/Anna Danova makes the leap to the Plutonium Playhouse starting tomorrow with her band, the Rescuers, in the Fringe show Emotional Condom. The show features Danova's original music (including the title song.)…

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The Coast's favorite rock heroine with a bad reputation will get her due at Reflections this Saturday. Craig Hamlin, Matt Grace, Ben Manuel and Myles Deck form The Blackhearts while the sultry-voiced Chantal Caissie (of Audrey and the Agents) will don Joan's leather pants.…

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How great was this past weekend? You probably still have salt in your skin from the beach, or maybe your shirt still stinks like coal and hot dogs from camping, or maybe you're still cross-eyed and sloshy in the guts from all the beer you drank.…

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For Mary Stewart, blogging was the ideal way to call her own bluff. The Halifax singer-songwriter was wrapped up in interviews for her self-titled EP last year when she found herself telling people she practiced up to five hours a day.…

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Sarah Harmer will be here on October 29 at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium as part of her fall Maritime tour. She is supporting the first album she's released in five years!…

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This year's lineup for Pop Explosion has confirmed what everyone already knows anyway: Music in and around Halifax is really really great right now. Pretty much every local band you love is on this list, rounding out the earlier announcements of heavy-hitters like the Hold Steady, New Pornos and Sloan doing "Twice Removed."…

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The Carleton is the latest local establishment to become a music festival hub. Co-owner Mike Campbell writes on the bar’s website that he was growing weary of “heading into the hinterlands” to enjoy great folk music at outdoor festivals, and thus the Halifax Urban Folk Festival was born.…

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Last week it was announced that a wide array of hip-hop artists and musicians —- including Pete Rock, Classified and Halifax’s favorite Beatnut, JuJu —- would both be performing at the rather cool-sounding Hopscotch Arts Festival (Sept 4 to 11.)

While it gives us an undeniable thrill to be staring down the barrel of a week-long Halifax event that celebrates everything good about hip hop, spoken word and graffiti, there’s also another important cultural event taking place a few days beforehand that warrants a mention; next week, Taiwan-based rap group Kou Cho Ching will head on their first-ever tour of North America, with Canadian stops in Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver. (They hit the Seahorse on August 31.)…

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After nearly a decade, Christina Martin is ready to break. Her third album, I Can Too, is set for release for September 7, and Martin is preparing for a national tour with Cuff the Duke on some dates (lap steel player Dale Murray co-produced I Can Too with Martin and is also Martin's fiancee.…

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The Paragon has just tweeted that some guy from Our Lady Peace, Edwin from I Mother Earth, and some guy from The Tea Party have created some kind of thing called Crash Karma and this ensemble will be playing a show in Halifax on August 25th.

I will not comment further.…

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Nova Scotia Music Week runs from November 4 - 7 in Yarmouth.

Acres and Acres
Alert the Medic
Andrew Hunter & The Gatherers
Anna Ludlow
Big Game Hunt
Black Moor
Brian Baker
Broken Ohms
Caledonia
Carleton Stone Drives the Big Wheel
Chelsea Nisbett
Chrissy Crowley
Christina Martin
Cyndi Cain
David Myles
Drumlin
Dwayne Cote & Duane Andrews
Dwight Deon
Fleur Mainville
Forever
Ghettosocks
Gianna Lauren
Glory Glory Man United
Gloryhound
Gypsophilia
Hawp
Ian Sherwood
Jason MacDonald
Jay Smith
Jenocide
John Campbelljohn
Jon Bryant
Jon McKiel
Kayo
Kelly Sloan
Kev Corbett
Kim Dunn
Kim Wempe
Last Call Chernobyl
Laura Merrimen
Marko Simmonds
Mike Trask
Molly Thomason
Myles Deck and The Fuzz
Norma MacDonald
Obsydian
Orchid's Curse
Rachel Davis
Radio Radio
Ria Mae
Rich Aucoin
Ruth Minnikin
Ryan MacGrath
Scott MacMillan
Shelter With Thieves
Something Good
Tanya Davis
The Colin Grant Band
The Hupman Brothers
The Jimmy Swift Band
The Modern Men
The Moonshine Ramblers
The Sleepless Nights
The Stanfields
The Town Heroes
Thom Swift
Three Sheet
Tom Fun Orchestra
Carmen Townsend
In-Flight Safety
Telfer
Young River

The rumors are correct - GWAR is returning to Halifax for the Pop Explosion. The "intergalatic snuff-rockers" are embarking on a "Bloody Tour of Horror" to promote their latest album, "Bloody Pit of Horror" - natch.…

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If you ask Construction and Destruction’s Colleen Collins to explain the title of her band’s fourth album, be warned; you may feel a little dumb afterwards. “Mutatis Mutandis is a term that’s used in law sometimes,” says the ever-sweet Collins in a lilting alto.…

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Unless there are good sandwiches available, press conferences in general are pretty boring. Even when they involve fun, ostensibly joyful things, everyone seems bored and tense and most likely are wishing they could whip out double entendres and amusing prattle like the Beatles did in 1964.…

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Tyler Messick (Museum Pieces) and Virgil Muir (Heavy Meadows) are headed to Nashville, TN this coming weekend to play a gig at the Grand Ole Opry opening for the Arcade Fire on August 9. Um….yeah.…

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The seemingly inexhaustible Rich Aucoin was all over Montreal last weekend for shows both scheduled and spontaneous. After spending Friday opening for Of Montreal at Metropolis, Aucoin was woken from a deep Saturday-morning slumber by his bandmate Joel Waddel, who announced that Cage the Elephant had cancelled and Aucoin was set to fill the Kentucky band’s slot on the Osheaga mainstage at 2pm.…

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The festival is easily accessible by subway, and if you can make it through the pre-gate gauntlet without taking on a fistful of fliers or signing up for military service, a quick check of your bag gets you in in mere minutes.…

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I was supposed to have an email chat with legendary outsider music star B.J. Snowden earlier this week for the print edition of the Coast, but she was traveling and couldn't get to a library to check her email, so I didn't hear from her until mid-Wednesday.

Before she responded to my questions, she called me while I was at work and left a very long message explaining and sort of apologizing for not getting in touch sooner.…

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This is a good week for those whose tastes run heavy and mordant. First there was the Slayer/Megadeth/Testament show (which we heard was soooo good and loud that it made at least one poor bastard vomit with great gusto).…

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After Cursed Arrows' set at Gus' Pub back in May during Long Live the Queen, I freaked out. I bought both of their albums and listened to them when I was drunk and sad, and also when I was lying in a happy/wistful haze on my back deck.…

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They play with Metz, Horses and Orphan Choir. Tonight.…

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