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The Coast | News, events, restaurants, concerts and Burger Week for Halifax, Nova Scotia
Home of the Best of Halifax Reader's Choice Awards, the award-winning independent newspaper covers the Halifax news, politics, events, concerts, movies, restaurants, and nightlife scene.
[Image-1] Dear you, We met a few years ago on a hot summer night, and hit it off from the start. We met in a crowd but each lost our friends to hang out alone. We talked, we danced and you walked me home like a perfect gentleman. I was immediately smitten. We hung out…
On January 15, Halifax rapper Classified released Greatful, his 16th studio album with features from the real OG Snoop Dogg, Brooklyn’s DJ Premier (PRhyme), and local artists like singer-songwriter David Myles and popstar Ria Mae. This week, I called up Class (real name: Luke Boyd), chilling in his studio, to chat about the album, his upcoming tour and watching Netflix.…
You knocked my cell phone out of my hand when you reached for the close door button on an elevator we both take daily—that we both know doesn’t actually do anything. You stared at me when I picked up my broken phone and didn’t even say sorry. It’s fine, I’ve had the phone a long time, but…
[Image-1] This morning I was parked in a deceptively deep snow bank at The Centennial Pool in my grey Pontiac Vibe and got very, very stuck. Three men came to my rescue; two from across the parking lot and one from his car that he had pulled over. They pushed my car and saved my…
[Image-1] I am working 60 hours a week and taking online classes. I am tired and cranky often. Winter is the shits. We both work really hard and yet you always manage to have a beautiful meal made for me. You are ready with a game of chess when I need a distraction. You pour…
[Image-1] So you found a bed bug on a transit bus. What do you expect? How many people take the buses every day? And not one of them will have any cooties of any kind? Maybe you’re the one who brought it on, ever think of that? You could have them for years in your…
[Image-1] Every morning I take the ferry to Woodside, and every morning there is the most cheerful woman in the world handing out Metro newspapers. I never take one, but her lovely Dutch/German accent with which she tells me to have a beautiful day really does make me have a beautiful day. —Appreciative Metro Transit…
Since reading the paper about bed bugs popping up on a bus has got me freaked out. Already had to deal with those little shits once and it took months before i got rid of them. It was expensive and a royal pain. No it does not mean your dirty either. It is so easy…
[Image-1] My previously friendly neighbourhood pharmacy is no longer friendly.The employees used to be curtious and helpful and with a smile ,with the exception of a pharmacist and a cashier.What changed?Im always nice ,smile when smiled at.Was it something I said or did or didn’t do to warant the change in you’re attitudesand quality of…
Darren Hudson hit the bullseye when he was delivering some Christmas gifts to a friend on Agricola Street back in December. As he exchanged season’s greetings, the Barrington-based lumberjack (for real, he’s a log-rolling champ and the man behind The Wild Axe Lumberjack AXEperience) mentioned casually that he was looking for a commercial space in…
This morning in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the nominees for the 2016 East Coast Music Awards were announced to recognize the best in Atlantic music and the music industry this year: Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta! leads with seven nominations, while Halifax honey Jenn Grant received six, as songwriter Mo Kenney and world-star producer Ryan Hemsworth each received four. Taking place from…
[Image-1] It’s no axe-throwing cafe, but there might be a community oven replacing the delicious bakery smells from the now-closed Ben’s site on Quinpool Road. Preliminary designs for the location were presented at a public meeting this past weekend, and include a mix of town houses, apartments and retail space on Quinpool Road and Pepperell…
Ontario king of 60s and 70s folk-pop, Gordon Lightfoot, has just announced a return to Halifax for three dates: August 25, August 26 and August 27 at the Rebecca Cohn (6101 University Avenue). He has also scheduled shows in Glace Bay, Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton and Antigonish. Now 77 years old, Lightfoot is a national…
[Image-1] To the driver of the light coloured vehicle who drove into a parked car in a parking lot on Quinpool Road on Friday night: please call or stop by the adjacent store with your name and information by Thursday. If not, on Friday the video surveillance of the hit and run will be turned…
Maybe you didn’t get the nod because there are those who did better than you. Yes, there are situations where everyone gets an award but this is not one of them. Some times people are excluded because they don’t meet the required professional criteria and not because they are a member of a minority. —Try…
[Image-1] You are the calm, The restful peace: You are my longing and what makes it cease. —Wannabe Elkanah
After over a year in business north Dartmouth’s The Darkside (196 Windmill Road)—an art space and cafe—is facing financial troubles that could force its closure. But isn’t because of lack of support from the neighbourhood. Owners Oliver Mahon and Megan Hirons Mahon have been fined nearly $47,000— $100 a day for every day its been…
[Image-1] A decision released today by Justice Denise Boudreau awards $52,640 in damages to Laura Doucette, the Nova Scotian woman who was defamed by Department of Justice investigator David Grimes in 2012. As we’ve previously reported, Grimes was the officer assigned to evaluate Doucette for a firearms license so she could complete the Correctional…
How deceitful to sell ‘bamboo’ in your company and lead people to believe that the sheets are made of bamboo fibres when in fact they’re microfibre! —Attentive consumer
[Image-1] I keep hearing terrible stories about bed bugs around Halifax. Bed begs in the hospital, on the bus, in apartment buildings, senior complexes, nursing homes, hotels and student housing. Halifax you have a beg bug problem!!! Get your shit together and do something about it!! This is not acceptable!!! —Sleeping Tight
[Image-1] Have a difficult time with my partner. Love him to death , however, don’t feel the same back… Even though he is telling me that he loves me… but the way he behaves shows me the opposite. He is gently killing my feeling. So, I found the following saying, which perfectly describes how I…
[Image-1] IKEA’s arrival in Halifax promises jobs, which, in a province and city with high unemployment, is appealing. But what sort of jobs? Perhaps because of its socialistic Scandinavian roots, IKEA is a bit kinder than its retail competitors in terms of wages and working conditions. For instance, IKEA prides itself on a relatively generous…
[Image-1] The president and CEO of Canada’s largest independently owned newspaper appears to be embracing new media by getting into Twitter fights with readers. Over the last 14 hours, the @CH_MLever account has been on the defensive against critics of the Herald’s managerial decisions in the wake of Saturday’s union strike and layoff notices. The…
No need to stress about what to do, my dudes, but there is SO MUCH music going on, it’s hard to pick. You can either thrash out at a Khyber fundraiser, or sit back and get sad with some heartfelt folk or dance with Skratch Bastid. From all our listings, here are five things to do: …
Haligonians have been pining for the impossible furniture store’s return since its Burnside outlet closed late last millennium. Today’s announcement from IKEA Canada’s president, Stefan Sjöstrand, earned media coverage as if it was the biblical Second Coming—which might happen before IKEA’s new shop in Dartmouth Crossing is built. The press release says the giant (328,000…
[Image-1] Last fall the world held its breath as Halifax debated making the humble donair our municipality’s official food. Between the initial reluctant request for a staff report from councillor Linda Mosher, to the final declaration by mayor Mike Savage, there was an ocean of angry comments and national coverage wondering why Halifax would spend…
[Image-1] “Lights, camera, groundhog” cheers a press release from the department of Natural Resources. Shubenacadie Sam, the most famous groundhog in Nova Scotia that isn’t AltaGas, can now be watched by curious perverts 24 hours a day through the “Sam Cam.” The initiative lets the breathless public check in on the rodent prior to Groundhog…
Jenny Fennel’s mom taught her to knit long before Lily Lake Knits—her line of handmade cozy clothing named for a piece of heaven on Cape Breton Island—was a thing. “I began knitting so much that I had mounds of blankets, hats and scarves piling up in my home and thought, why not open an Etsy…
[Image-1] After what the the Liberal government calls “extensive consultations,” the province announced regulatory approvals earlier today for the Alton Gas storage project. Not everyone’s pumped about it. Chief Rufus Copage and the Sipekn’katik band decried the announcement, with Copage stating they would be withdrawing from the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs over today’s…
[Image-1] Admittedly, Margaret Miller isn’t quite up to speed on several files in her new political portfolio. The East Hants MLA spoke with The Coast just days after being named Nova Scotia’s new environment minister. She takes over from acting minister Randy Delorey (who replaced Andrew Younger in November). Given the complex environmental issues affecting…
[Image-1] When a newspaper starts to crumble—as seen recently with the Chronicle Herald—the burden falls squarely on the journalists on staff, who face apparently endless cuts and ever-increasing workloads. But the unravelling of traditional media has also affected those who aren’t even employees: that is, freelance journalists. According to an email obtained by the CBC,…
[Image-2] “The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.” —Patrick Young, American author Folks, a “cold front” isn’t just a between-the-sheets phenomenon, and thermocline isn’t just another fun word to spell with Alphagetti. And even the TV…
In the dead of last winter, living alone for the first time and unemployed, Dark for Dark’s Rebecca Zolkower spent a lot of time just playing guitar and writing songs. “I like watching winter from the window,” she says. Even though she wasn’t feeling inspired about the writing, when the spring arrived Zolkower took her bandmates—singers…
“I definitely excluded rock as much as I could,” says Canadian folk singer Steven Lambke over the phone in his Toronto home. “I have too much of that in my past and musical background.” That background includes being the guitarist for Canadian indie rock band The Constantines, and fronting his own band Baby Eagle and…
Members of Halifax’s Quiet Parade have difficulty defining their sound—and that’s how they like it. “Often, the term that I give our band is ‘fog rock,'” says frontperson and lyricist Trevor Murphy in a phone interview ahead of Thursday’s IDOW show. The group mixes sad and hopeful lyrics with airy instrumentals to create a sound…
“Whenever I’m home, I’m always writing something,” says PEI songbird Catherine MacLellan, who performs Friday. “I sit and look outside the window and inspiration comes through osmosis, through the experience of being here.” Although MacLellan says travelling—as she’ll do on tour later this year—can also spark creativity, “PEI is definitely my muse.” For almost 15…
“Are we working on anything lately? Well, we just put a shelf together,” jokes Andrew O’Brien, one half of St. John’s folk-pop duo Fortunate Ones. “We’ve actually been on the road so much, it can be tough to find time to write, but we’ve been rehearsing some new stuff that we’ll try out in Halifax.” …
Back in 2008, In the Dead of Winter was the first festival that Mathias Kom played under his Burning Hell moniker. “In those first three or four years, The Burning Hell was primarily an outlet for songwriting,” he says. “I didn’t really expect that it was going to go anywhere in terms of touring.” Now,…
Mocean Dance has something special in store for this weekend. A trio, a duet and a solo dance are on the lineup for Ordinary Rebels, Mocean’s mainstage show at Neptune’s Studio Theatre. Even the title of the show has a tense energy. “We felt the dichotomy of ‘ordinary’ and ‘rebels’ is a reflection of dance…
Last week, Halifax-bred, Toronto-based DJ Skratch Bastid (AKA Paul Murphy) released a filmed remix of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” on the morning after the rock star’s death. In just a few days, the video had been viewed and shared over 11 million times on Bastid’s Facebook page. This Saturday, Skratch Bastid returns to The Marquee…
The Everything To Do With Sex Show is returning to Halifax for its eighth year. We had a chat with show manager Mikey Singer about how ETDWSS keeps up with ever-evolving trends. How do you keep the show edgy and relevant? We always try to bring a new feature into the show, whether it’s a…
Unlike most Holocaust movies, Son of Saul doesn’t go out of its way to show you the horrors; in this Cannes Grand Prix winner directed by László Nemes (making his feature debut), the atrocities pile up in the corners, on the edges, often out-of-focus or, worse, via the film’s human score of whispers, screams and…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18) The birds known as mound-builders are born more mature than other species. As soon as they peck themselves out of their eggs, they are well-coordinated, vigourous enough to hunt, and capable of flight. Right now I see a resemblance between them and many of you Aquarians. As soon as…
Q I am no longer sexually active, but I have a significant collection of sex toys from earlier years. I’m thinking of getting rid of most of them, and it seems such a waste for them to end up in the landfill. What’s an environmentally responsible way to dispose of dildos? I wish there was…
Try another Day As February 15 approaches, I am reminded that Viola Desmond did not get the honour of Viola Desmond Day as promised for Nova Scotia’s first Heritage Day, in 2015. People may recall the weather that day was pretty rough—very cold with huge chunks of ice blocking the sidewalks and roads. The plows…
The first restaurant that I really loved in Halifax was The Libertine Cafe. My memories of it are hazy now, like all good memories of the late 1990s. I remember sunny warmth in the decor, paintings by local art stars on the walls, a friendly red-haired server, the shy smiles and awkward, fumbling compliments of…
How often does Owen Meany’s Batting Stance’s Daniel Walker have to explain his band’s name? “Ninety percent of the time,” he estimates. “People either aren’t familiar with the book”—John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany—”or recognize the name but don’t know why.” While his band will be playing Friday at In the Dead of Winter…
