Nancy Wilson w/Roadcase Royale Wednesday, August 15, 8pm Rebecca Cohn Auditorium 6101 University Avenue $50-$65 After 40 years as a working musician, Nancy Wilson knows how to get shit done. Wilson is best known as half of the powerhouse rock ‘n’ roll duo Heart with her sister Ann. But when she touches down at the Rebecca […]
Alison Lang
Posted inNews + Opinion
Dear Toronto
Hello young ducklings! Welcome to the Maritimes. If you’re here for the first time, you should pat yourself on the back, because you are very smart. When it comes time to go to university, it’s good to go somewhere outside of your comfort zone, and Halifax is an amazing place to go to school, experiment […]
Posted inArts + Music
Cursed Arrows point home
After two years of living on the east coast, the husband-and-wife grunge duo Cursed Arrows are taking their operation back on the road to Toronto. The pair originally chose to live in Nova Scotia to work on its music far away from the roar of the big city. “The eastern shore is beautiful, especially when […]
Posted inArts + Music
NXNE Day 4 and 5: The End
NXNE is now officially over and I feel like a giant skin bag of garbage. Writing will be minimal. Happy vibes will be a-plenty. Wonderful times were had. On Saturday afternoon I went to see former Haligonians (and former neighbours) The Danger Bees play in a bordello, apparently: However the band’s high-energy set cut through […]
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NXNE Day 3: METZ and The Men
I’ll try and keep this one short because I know you get bored easily and breakfast is calling my name. After biking nearly 15K on Thursday night we decided to stick at one venue the next night. First we met up with some familiar faces at the Exclaim!/Jagermeister BBQ, where free samples were indeed offered […]
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NXNE Day 2: Puffy Shoes
Woke up on Thursday feeling a little fuzzy, but there was another Cold Warps show at 2pm so there was no time to dither around, moaning. We headed down to JangBang Bar and Grill, a tiny little spot that serves Korean tacos. There we sat in a fog of booze sweat and found a clutch […]
Posted inArts + Music
NXNE Day 1
Hey guys! I’m doing some NXNE stuff and blogging about it right here. This is my first NXNE EVER so I have no idea what I’m doing. I guess the purpose of the blog is for you to learn from my mistakes. A really good thing to do before you attend a big multi-day festival […]
Posted inArts + Music
The I don’t give a rips
There’s a video on The I don’t give a rips’ website (idontgivearips.tumblr.com) that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about these rakish punkers. Filmed in a Truro elementary school, lit by Christmas lights, the foursome smash out a bunch of pissy, fitful jams in shadow. There’s moments of masterful shredding and moments […]
Posted inArts + Music
Radical Cycle
The simplest explanation for Radical Cycle is that the duo—comprised of legendary Haligonian musical brothers Sageev and Dani Oore—creates acoustic “remixes” of classical works. Or, in the words of Sageev: “We took individual art songs by different composers, and reconstructed them into new compositions. No songs were harmed in the process.” The project was born […]
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Virgil’s Girls
These fellows know a thing or two about momentum. After a few appearances at $Rockin 4 Dollar$ this past winter, the threesome—guitarist/singer Andrew Neville (Quivers, Negative Circles), bassist Matt Grace (Fat Stupids) and drummer Paul Brown (Kestrels)—cranked out a beautiful little self-titled tape, played a cluster of gigs with the likes of BA Johnston, Ultrathin, […]
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Concrete Asylum
Concrete Asylum is wise beyond its years. Although the members of this crust-punk ensemble are all fresh-faced 20-somethings, they’ve collectively logged multiple hours on the road playing or roadie-ing with Contagium, and these mates—Adam Kindred, Cody Cross, Jason Vassalo and Ben Radford—also play in Negative Circles, Word on the Street, Castle Wolfenstein, Envision and more. […]
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Year to the ground
The danger with year-end roundups is that it can be easy to focus on the negative points. Halifax has endured its share of blows this year, music-wise—but a lot of interesting and exciting things are happening here right now, and it’s a better use of my time (and yours) to discuss those. The music community […]