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The quiet one

“I’m growing a bit concerned as I’m still waiting for the records to arrive from Nashville,” says Richard Lann, over a bottle of pulp-free orange juice at Uncommon Grounds. “I wish that they were being made over in Dartmouth so I could just pick them up.” While these wrinkly details are being ironed out, Lann […]

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Tristan and Isolde

A screen preface informs us that Tristan and Isolde is set in The Dark Ages. That’s appropriate for a movie whose colour scheme runs the gamut from grey to brown. The glum visuals are a near opposite of the spectacle and sweeping camera movements that have come to characterize movie epics. It’s possible this may […]

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JT LieRoy

Back in October we alerted you to an excellent piece by Stephen Beachy in New York magazine, which wondered, “Who is the Real JT LeRoy?” The story implied that the cult author of Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things — whose much-touted backstory as a Southern ex-hooker rescued from the parking lot […]

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From Gods to kings

Discouraged by bands with similar — or identical — names and anxious to put a year of hardship behind them, The Porcelain Gods aspire to freshness in 2006 with the same songs and a new brand. Halifax’s reigning kings of power-pop will henceforth be known as Their Majesties. “It conjures images of grandeur, pomp and […]

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Bribezillas

In an interview with Chronicle-Herald reporter Michael Lightstone last month, HRM councillor Dawn Sloane revealed that, four years ago, a local developer offered her a roll of bills in a private meeting. After the story ran, further coverage revealed that two other HRM councillors had been offered bribes during their tenure, all by local, as […]

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Feist Club

Admit it: you wish Leslie Feist was your girlfriend. One of the big stories in Canadian music in 2005, Feist did not just succeed in her native country, she conquered the world, with her face plastered on and music reviewed in any and every trendy magazine from France to Japan, the United States to Australia. […]

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Get your Fuck on

Brian Borcherdt doesn’t have a lot of downtime. Whether he’s out on tour or just driving between his home base in Yarmouth and his creative centre in Toronto, penning a tune for his solo project, The Remains of Brian Borcherdt or developing a new concept for his red-hot electronica improv combo, Holy Fuck, he always […]

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Stars and strife

“Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.” So says Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, in Munich, Steven Spielberg’s new film about men who hunt down those responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The quote, and the movie, have upset some […]

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Munich

A hotel bomb has detonated, killing its intended target, but the impact also blew out the wall of the young couple in the room next door. Amid body parts and debris, the girl is frantically complaining to her boyfriend that she’s been blinded. Immediately we’re back into the planning stages of the Mossad operatives, who […]

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Jacob’s letters

The text covering the walls of the Khyber Ballroom looks familiar. Each letter, each word, each sentence, all written in black or hot-pink shiny plastic tape, spreads across an L-shaped portion of the gallery in manic urgency; only after a second or so do the messages become clear. Someone has written direct responses to some […]

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Thom Take

Take One — the magazine about the Canadian film and television industry — has recently released a $24 special edition (available at better newsstands near you and online at www.takeonemagazine.ca) that purports to have chosen the “1001 Greatest Canadian Films and Filmmakers of All Time.” “All time” is a bad concept for lists. It’s out […]

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Kick-grass

The latest product of Darmouth’s consequential alt-country tradition are the kind of like-minded friends who perpetually have their instruments in hand. Whether the members of The Grass are sitting in their living room or around the kitchen table, there is rarely a moment of dead air in their Vernon Street flat. Strangers and acquaintances alike […]

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