In a little house on Windsor Street lives a group of hardworking musicians, known as The Moonshine Ramblers. They struggle with the grind of making money in a city where many live-music venues have closed and a sense of community is essential. Since they moved in last year, the Ramblers have brought the community to […]
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Make mo’ money on Monday: $Rockin 4 Dollar$
Part gong show, part marathon and part support group, $Rockin’ 4 Dollar$ is one of the best events this city’s music scene offers. Every Monday night without fail, 12 performance slots are offered up and 12 slots are filled. (It’s like The Dirty Dozen, but with more musical numbers.) At the end of every night, […]
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SISTER says it all
Carla Gillis has liked Scott Pilgrim for a thousand years, but she’s utterly co-dependent on her sister. Starting with local indie darlings Plumtree in the early ’90s, Carla and Lynette Gillis have always played in bands together. This week they bring their latest venture, SISTER, home to Halifax. “I think I’m actually scared to play […]
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North End Metal All-Stars blazing
When the North End Metal All-Stars play, everyone buys two beers at a time. Along with pumping fists, this is the ultimate compliment for NEMAS. Founding member J. Quinn’s goal from the start was “good pub metal where people can go out and have a good time.” Quinn formed NEMAS from the ashes of veteran […]
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Mittentime Revue spreads Island cheer
If you’re hiding under the covers to avoid shopping, baking or card sending, be sure to dress in your woolies and hop out of bed for Saturday’s Mittentime Revue—a cabaret show that’ll de-stress you with its carol medleys, storytelling, poetry and songs. “It’s meant to take the piss out a little bit, and also just […]
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Kids’ play for IWK
It’s the fifth year for Crafts for Kids, a festival to raise money to buy craft, art and music supplies for children at the IWK. Organizer Lindsay Allain started the event to raise money for sick children, like her own little sister. Allain says her sister “gets excited to stay at the hospital because of […]
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Ruth Minnikin’s double life
After a ferry and a bus, Ruth Minnikin arrives at a North Street coffee shop. From here, she’ll go by foot. Late on a December day, the sun is low. Soon she’ll have to go postering in dying light. Death was on Minnikin’s mind during the making of Depend on This, not as doom and […]
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Bridging Brooklyn with La Strada
James Craft sometimes feels a bit out of place in the States. But the frontman for Brooklyn six-piece La Strada was right at home playing his accordion in Montreal. This is because La Strada’s music is the kind usually molded by cold winters and small communities. It’s an indie-rock fuelled by group harmonies, violin and […]
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Vocal hero Sean MacGillivray returns
Tofu, watermelon, peaches, plums, strawberries and beans—just a few of the foods that nearly ended Sean MacGillivray’s music career. Beginning in early 2008 and lasting six months, the top end of MacGillivray’s vocal range started disappearing. “Honestly, I was working on exit strategies,” says MacGillivray, en route to Montreal with Jenn Grant. “I’ve been singing […]
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Glen Matlock is not Pistol-whipped
The most musically accomplished member of the Sex Pistols, founding member Glen Matlock, left the group in February 1977, about eight months before Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols went down in history. Depending on what you read, Matlock either left of his own accord, sick of the bullshit of manager Malcolm McLaren, […]
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Off Mother Mother’s tongue
In interviews, Vancouver’s Mother Mother rarely discusses influences besides The Pixies and The Beatles, but its sound is too much of a cocktail to limit to a list of bands the band liked while growing up. What is always present and undeniable in the sound is emotional conflict. “A lot of the heartache out there […]
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Jazz it up: top jazz of 2009
Jeff TorbertThis Weather Honest (independent) Torbert’s first release under his own name sends listeners on an improvisatory trip down the open roads of jazz and folk, bringing a stellar cast of Halifax’s new guard of jazz players along as he makes serious headway on his compositional path. Easley Stevenson Arsenault Nine Steps (Superhigh) This top-notch […]
