Cultural Festivals

Lindsay Barr
 While her smouldering green eyes and riot grrrl aesthetic may have helped land her recent video on MuchMusic, it’s her talent for writing infectious “hey, hey” party anthems that has earned Lindsay Barr her current buzz. “I think rhythmic happenings is my finest delicacy,” as she puts it. In 2006, she released her […]

Last Sunday, the CBC Radio program Vinyl Cafe played Jim Bryson’s tune “Fire Watch” from his third album, Where the Bungalows Roam. The show’s host, Stuart McLean, also read the Ken Babstock poem (from his book Days into Flatspin) of the same name that spawned the song. Babstock and Bryson are good friends and that […]

Though based in Toronto and frequently touring southern Ontario, David Celia has also taken to the road in the UK and continental Europe over the last several years to mould his musical voice. The melodic-pop singer-songwriter plays with regular rhythm partners across the Atlantic and always comes home with plenty of material and memory to […]

Hamilton’s honeyed songwriter Matthew de Zoete sorts through studying abroad, long-distance relationships, family histories of immigration and friends moving away on his album Across the Sea. Honing the skills of a farmer by day, musician by night, de Zoete is constantly evolving. “I need to work on my tractor skills,” he says. “We live beside […]


 Mathias Kom lives in Peterborough, Ontario, a town he loves for all it offers, from the busy, tight-knit music community to the “daily sense of apocalypse” conveyed in the city’s fortunes. “It’s not a wealthy town,” Kom says on the phone from Guelph, on tour and on his way to Halifax. Besides Trent University, […]

Primed with potential, poetics and her 2002 debut Pretty Things, Christina Martin embodies soul and sass. At 28 years old she’s been many things (nanny, academic, wife), but recently has come to terms with being a songwriter. “Every time I think I am going to do something with my music, I chicken out,” she says. […]

For the past year, Laura Merrimen and the Lonesome Travellers have been mixing up alt-country and blues rock for delighted local audiences. After having gone through a few line-up changes, the band is currently recording a full-length LP under the aegis of Halifax blues master Brad Conrad. Merrimen, a Hubbards native with a 10-gallon voice […]


 
 If you ditch the riot element of Kathleen Hanna’s grrrl solo project, Julie Ruin, insert the alliteration and allurement of The Moldy Peaches, then add the carnivalesque connotations of Wax Mannequin, you’d get a hodgepodge portrait of Jenny Omnichord. A sister project for The Barmitzvah Brothers’ Jenny Mitchell, the singer, bassist and resident […]

With all the live music I managed to experience in one weekend, I can see why they called it Nova Scotia Music ‘Week’. Sunday evening, before heading to the Gala Awards show, I went to the Mersey House again to see Cape Breton born, now Halifax based Silvergun perform. The Mersey House was my most […]

After the showcases wrapped up on Saturday night I gave in to some (not-so) heavy persuasion to leave Lane’s Privateer Inn where my room was conveniently located two doors down from where the entertainment was taking place to hopping into a shuttle bus and embarking on a long, slow, slippery journey out to White Point […]

Lane’s Privateer Inn was ROCKING last night! After the Songwriters Circle, I headed over to Lane’s to see one of my favorite Halifax-based groups, Ryan MacGrath and Harlow perform. The emcee of the showcase said they were “undoubtedly the best dressed performers in Liverpool” as they all matched each other dressed in different styles but […]

Let me send a big “Cheers!” out to everyone that came out and braved the first snow storm of the year last night! The slippery roads were extremely hazardous, but that didn’t keep the out of town performers from coming down to Liverpool and the music fans from coming out and filling their boots with […]