R.E.M.Accelerate(Warner)Anyone who gave R.E.M. Live, a show from Dublin, an open-minded and close listen heard a group firing on every fuckin’ cylinder. Whatever was happening on that tour was preserved and imported into a Vancouver studio for Accelerate. The Rickenbacker-guitar-backed first single “Supernatural Superserious” is a lean three minutes or so of brilliance, though “Accelerate” […]
Sean Flinn
Posted inArts + Music
Kelley Stoltz
Kelley StoltzCircular Sounds(Sub Pop)This is San Francisco-based Stoltz’s fifth release since 1999. Where the hell has this guy been hiding? It’s high time he gets greater attention and a wider audience for his psychedelic-shaded pop; think Loaded-era Velvet Underground and late-’60s Kinks combined with the likes of this citys Al Tuck and Brent Randall. The […]
Posted inArts + Music
Minding the store
Halifax photographer Suzi Cameron presents work that recasts familiar locations around this city. In her exhibition, 36 Halifax Corner Grocery Stores 36 Years Later, on now through Saturday at the Anna Leonowens Gallery, she reacquaints her viewers with sites they likely take for granted. “They’re part of my sense of what a neighbourhood is,” says […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Roots
[image-4]Published May 29, 2008.The RootsRising Down (Def Jam)The Roots don’t make it easy on their listeners but, at the same time, they richly reward them. Rising Down opens with “The Pow Wow”—not a skit, but a slice of real life: a conference call between band members, including drummer/producer ?uestlove and (seemingly) record-company representatives, about the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hobo Film Soul train
Before the Trans Canada Trail, the Trans-Canada Highway, Air Canada and the internet, there was the Canadian Pacific Railway: The system of trunks, branches, lines and crossings constructed in the late 19th century that linked the country coast to coast. More than anything else, the railroad still represents a romantic and historical view of the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Risky ride
Long-distance cycling–touring–is a risky venture. Writing a novel about a lone cyclist’s trip through eastern Canada: also risky. As with similar stories—whether on wheels, in a car or on foot—arguably two big things have to happen: First, the physical journey has to engage interest and, second, evoke the life of the rider. “Journey stories are […]
Posted inArts + Music
Justin Rutledge
[image-4]Published May 01, 2008.Justin RutledgeMan DescendingSix ShooterWithout question this is beautiful music. But sometimes making beautiful music makes the songs, inadvertently or unintentionally, precious. Man Descending comes off as a precious object, leaving the listener feeling hands-off, left out. Taking a cue from a Guy Vanderhaeghe novel of the same name, Man Descending is perhaps […]
Posted inLifestyle
Hockey Nation
Hanging on lampposts,the banners depict players in action, like oversized hockey cards. The standards for the 16 teams lead a rush along downtown streets tothe Halifax Metro Centre on Brunswick, where they swarm the building, crashing it like a net. Look up, there’s Cole Harbour’s own Sidney Crosby, Sid the Kid, representing Team Canada in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Good cop
Clark Johnson has held down roles in choice cop dramas. Meldrick Lewis anyone? The pork-pie hat-wearing detective on the acclaimed network show Homicide: Life on the Street, which ended its run in 1999, was first. That Baltimore-set series presaged another located in the American port city—the acclaimed HBO program The Wire—which ended this year after […]
Posted inArts + Music
Ghost Bees
When Romy and Sari Lightman speak with one another, sitting side by side on a curved bench in a cafe booth or on a couch in their book-lined living room at home, they look each other and the person opposite directly in the eye. Steadily held eye contact can be unnerving. Though the 23-year-old twin […]
Posted inArts + Music
Arcadia’s Chasing Wild Horses
A horse runs the first frame of a new documentary produced by Halifax-based Arcadia Entertainment. Phil Sedore’s echoing electric guitar underscores the animal’s powerful, graceful movement. And then a voiceover begins: “I’ve been fascinated by the idea of beauty,” the voice says. “Beauty has a way of teaching us what mattersin life.” It’s an evocative […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bottomwriting March 20th
Our great uncle George greeted us with the same salutation every time we arrived at Springfield Lake-—skin pale and hungry for sun, limbs ready to push through cool, fresh water-—for summer vacation at the cottage. “Welcome to God’s country!” Uncle George said with an expectant grin. I say expectant because he expected us to break […]
