UK Subs submerge you in 1970s punk
English punks UK Subs are playing in Halifax for one night and one night only: Monday March 30. Tickets are $15 (contact plaguedogproductions@yahoo.ca). Rocking4Dollars is moving to Sunday that week, so don’t you worry about that. Some facts about the UK Subs: In the 1970s they recorded a Peel session for BBC1. They used to…
be nice to cashiers
If you ask a cashier for change and she does not have it, verbally berating her for five minutes is not going to change that fact. She may have called a manager to get change for you as people have been paying with twenties all night and cleaned her out, but when you start yelling…
where do I fit
what is wrong with the world today, seriously I dont know, I wake up every day and can’t seem to figure out where I belong, I guess my point is ,that I feel like a piece of a puzzle that was cut the wrong way. I just recently left my job that was driving me…
Sit down
To the crazy old man who rides the 20 Downtown every morning. Why, oh why, in your senile confusion MUST you insist on getting on the bus before everyone else? I mean, you know what, thats not a problem! You have the right to get on the bus before everyone! its all gravy! whats NOT…
Fell in love with my tutor
This, is a bad thing because for one, he already has a girlfriend and two, is 5 years older than me. Now I’ll never see him again and we had so much in common. We flirted badly and hopelessly, loved the same music, and shared the same views of the world. I can’t find anyone…
Parking in My Parking Spot
To the douche in the red truck who parked in my parking spot last night… that’s not your spot, even though it was empty. It’s not difficult to read the numbers that are clearly marked on the parking space, even with the snow. Park there again and I’ll have your sorry ass towed. If you…
female “singer -songwriters”
Okay, this is for all the … “Bill Jarbers”, Chreists, Genn Jrant, etc, etc, all these female singers who sound exactly the same: l;ike they have a frog stuck in their throat, and that frog has a baby goat stuck in its throat. They over pronounce every word, as if it will garner them extra…
Dear Ghost Bees
Get over yourselves. Love, A person.
Show round-up!
For one reason or another, these shows are interesting: On February 13 see Kestrels at Coconut Grove with Quiet Parade and Murder She Wrote. It’s a pre-Valentine’s formal bash and 7” release for them Kestrels. It’s cheaper if you are dressed up right fancy, so haul out those dress clips. Black Moor forge new ground…
Hating on my mom
Fuck you, dirty ugly bag, for calling be psycho and saying I have ”issues” within obvious earshot to my brother, all because I told her to stop bothering me. you, fat ugly shagging twat dipshit, can get hit by a bus. I love you mom, I hate you demon mom.
AGNS closed from water damage
Apparently the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is closed until further notice due to ground water damage. According to a press release, Ground water has entered the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and due to repair work and cleaning the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia will be closed until further notice. The water damage situation…
Live gig photo: Caledonia
Saturday, January 11, 12:27am, at Blue Moon.
Monkey business
The Wooden Monkey is moving. The familiar Argyle location (1685 Argyle) will colse up for good Feb 18, explains co-owner Christine Bower. “We’ll invite all our regulars in that night, and when everyone is done their meal, we’ll have them carry their chairs out the door and up the hill,” to a new, expanded Monkey…
Jenn Grant and Grammy fever
A hot tip from a Tara Thorne source indicates that Jenn Grant and the Night Painters have been asked to play the Canadian consulate in LA during Grammy week (the first week of February, the awards air on February 8) for a super fancy party the consulate crew are having. I asked Grant: Confirm or…
Bundle up for outdoor fun
Suggestions for winter sports and activities within the bus routes or a few ski lengths of the city.
Eisener at Sundance: Time to get some sleep!
I haven’t spoken to Jason directly yet, but he wrote this note on Glen’s blog: First couple days have been insane, i think ive slept 6 hours all together so far. Were meeting some amazing people and having a great time. First screening was so awesome!!!! The crowd went nuts and people are really excited…
Precordial Thump
Toronto writer Zoe Whittall’s new poetry collection Precordial Thump packs a punch. It can be read back to front cover, beginning to end. Either vantage point showcases a divide: the honest and the dishonest. Both the liar and lied to emerge—action and reaction—all words have consequence. A fixation with medical language and the crucial aspects…
The Wrestler
The sad pulse of The Wrestler is of a man adjusting to an era beyond his own. Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei play 1980s artifacts—still holding candles for the glory of Quiet Riot headbanger hedonism. Now they’re saddled with lives that don’t give them much joy. She’s a stripper; he’s a once-famous wrestler. Director Darren…
Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood is still capable of making a good movie (most recently Letters from Iwo Jima ), but he’s also entered that canonical phase of old age, where everything he does is thought to hold some kind of wisdom. Gran Torino is just sloppy—not even its cliche build-up has poetry. This attempt at an Oscar-prestige…
The Secret of the Grain
Most of the action in French family-and-food drama The Secret of the Grain (La graine et le mulet) stems from one man’s ballsy decision. Forced out of the shipyard job he’s held for 30-plus years, 60-year-old Slimane (Habib Boufares), the taciturn patriarch of a large, close-knit, dysfunctional French-Tunisian extended family, embarks upon a new career…
Lovely Liane Balaban
In Joel Hopkins’ awkwardly lovely Last Chance Harvey, Dustin Hoffman is Harvey Shine, a music composer who’s on his last legs at work as he heads to England for his daughter Susan’s (Liane Balaban) wedding. Upon arrival, he endures a series of injustices that make a mockery of that last name—little things like hotel blinds…
Ruby Jean’s house of rock
A night out dancing in Halifax used to be fairly generic. You could shake your rump along with loads of other loose-boozers at dollar-drink venues to the expected top-40 tunes rocked by unimaginative DJs. Then there’d be those cover bands knocking out covers of “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Sweet Caroline.” This is all fine, but…
Ryan MacGrath
Some music merely soundtracks, but Ryan MacGrath’s solo collection creates atmosphere, mood and tone. Akin to the theatrical pop melodies of Rufus Wainwright, Hawksley Workman and Beirut, MacGrath opens In My Own Company with the whimsically romantic “Bell Boy.” With flourishes of glockenspiel, percussion and accordion, it’s hard not to be whisked away into this…
Young Widows
After a stressful holiday season, the best way to unwind is to play an album like this in the car and push the limits of summer tires on icy pavement. Within the catastrophic noise and mayhem of Young Widows’ post-punk wailings lies catharsis and redemption. Within everything lies this Louisville, Kentucky trio aspires, and it…
Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth
In the first book of this series (The Smiths are next), 21 American and British authors were asked to pick a Sonic Youth song and write a short story inspired by its title. No rules. Some authors chose to evoke the band’s dissonance and chaotic noise in their language, or to play on lyrics, while…
The Paperbacks
I wanted to love this literary, punk-rooted Winnipeg band. Their lyrics lean to the wordy side, but the lyrical passion doesn’t match musical. The lit-rock sound picks up through the second half of the album, but not enough to stand out. Produced by The Weakerthans’ John K. Samson, this, their second full-length, sounds like they’ve…
Naked face of Norm Foster
Porn producer or popular playwright? According to Norm Foster, both of these offbeat careers have the potential to pay the bills. But for the past 27 years, Foster has been able to make his living at the more precarious of the two—writing plays. “The fact that I’ve been able to put my kids through school…
Timber Timbre
Timber Timbre is mostly a one-man business, operating like a dusty roadside stand in a Jim Jarmusch film. Taylor Kirk has a haunting voice as beautiful as Royal Wood’s, touched with Slim Twig’s rockabilly quirkiness. Each of the eight songs, kicking off with “Demon Host,” is stark, controlled by Kirk’s carefully enunciated words and a…
Formosa’s wonderful gifts
Between the recession and the Chinese New Year of the Ox (January 26), this is going to be a tough, hard-hat year. Yeah, yeah, so what else is new? My astrological forecast: enjoy more Dartmouth idylls at Liu’s Formosa Gift and Tea House while you put your shoulder into the oh-nine grind. Jeffrey Liu, the…
The Bicycles
“Uh-huh, oh yeah!” and what sounds like a recorder solo. So begins The Bicycles’ second album, Oh No, It’s Love. The songs are just as short, poppy and danceable as 2006’s The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly, but luckily it didn’t take the Toronto foursome as long to make this album (fans waited five…
Ocean Samuel gets us fighting fit
Looking to get healthy and bash some heads? Lizzy Hill steps into the ring for mixed martial arts training, and discovers that along with pain, sweat and discipline comes a good time among people with cool nicknames.
Sick stable syndrome
The horses at the halifax Junior Bengal Lancers on Bell Road have been coughing for five years, but only now are doctors and management zeroing in on a solution. Jill Barker, stable manager for the Lancers, declined to comment in depth. “There really is no story—we’re not moving them, they’re being treated and we’re dealing…
Halifax indoors: 14 tips to well being
Besides choosing to take the stairs rather than the elevator or having a lot of sex, many of us become sedentary during the winter months. This year, The Coast offers suggestions for those who’d rather not sweat outdoors, but who still want to get the blood flowing.
War crimes
About 150 demonstrators gathered at the foot of the Robbie Burns statue in downtown Halifax last Saturday to protest against the Israeli slaughter of hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza. “I know it’s a cold day,” Ismail Zayid, a retired Dal professor told the shivering crowd, “but there are people in Gaza being subjected to bombardment…
Skate it while we got it
The following rinks are open, weather permitting: George Dixon Recreation Centre (off of Gottingen St., near Uniake Square) Larry O’Connell (Fourth St. off of Newton, off of Chebucto) Ardmore Park Community Rink (Oxford and Almon) North End Community Rink (Agricola and Lady Hammond) Halifax Commons (Pool near the skate park) Porters Lake Community Centre (4693…
Cold comfort
Forget Gaza. Forget HIV. Forget global warming and the recession, too. It’s January. And that makes it time for the Western world to pipe up about what we really see as the greatest challenge of our time—the common cold. Or, more precisely: When are you bastard researchers going to find a cure for this mo-fo?…
Saddleback, part 2: the definitions
q I’m going to Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., on January 20. I’ve spent eight years, one month, one week and one day waiting for this. (But who’s counting?) However, I am looking for suggestions for a respectful way to protest the participation of Rick Warren. As a lifelong Episcopalian, I really don’t want…
The Veil uncovered
As we wrote before the holidays, OneLight Theatre is taking their production of The Veil to Tehran’s Fadjr International Theatre Festival, but unfortunately, due to the federal arts program cuts, they’re going to need some financial help. This weekend they’re performing four shows at Neptune’s Studio Theatre (1593 Argyle) to raise some cash. Tickets are…
Mike Cowie double CD release
Mike Cowie, who has performed at Niche Lounge three nights a week for the past three years is releasing his fourth and fifth CDs on January 20th at (where else?) Niche Lounge (7pm). In The Moment – Music from Niche is a double CD featuring music from both of Cowie’s bands, 010 and Waterbabies, made…
The Bomb Scares are back!
Defunct Halifax punk band The Bomb Scares are getting back together this weekend for two special shows put on by birthday boy Mark Black (Friday, January 16 with The Kamalas, The Stolen Minks and Matt Reid and Saturday, January 17 with Genetic Angry, End of the Summer, Minivan Halen and Road Rash at 2627 Connolly…
Leisure suits you
One step into Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen) for the media call of DMV Co-op’s new production and you know this ain’t granny’s church theatre. Actors Brian Heighton, Samantha Wilson and Kate Lavender sit around a table littered with empty wine bottles and ashtrays, along with a shirtless Anthony Black, who is obviously losing this…
