Feature

There’s a certain look that’s unique to musicians a few hours from going on tour. With eyes open beyond their lids’ natural extension and a cigarette that burns down a visible amount with each inhale , Amelia Curran is obviously in the countdown. As she sits down to discuss her new album, War Brides, she […]

The young band is a joy to behold. Not yet tainted by egos, inter-band power struggles or the hardships of the business, meeting a group of fresh musicians is something akin to walking on a beach never seen by another person. In its collective life, The Grass is close to a deserted island. The seven-piece […]

MuchMusic won’t play Gentleman Reg’s video. Shot for his exuberantly catchy tune “The Boyfriend Song,” the video features Gentleman Reg (AKA Reg Vermue) singing and strumming an acoustic guitar. In the background, a crowd of half-dressed friends are tangled up in a playful orgy. It’s a heady scene of boys and girls kissing and groping […]

Chris Church is sweating out a three-month tour around the continent. It started on May 4 in Scottsdale, Arizona, including stops in such far-flung places as Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, and Pomona, New Jersey, winding up in Boulder, Colorado, on July 29. Halifax isn’t among the 25 stops listed on the tour schedule at chrischurch.ca, but all […]

“‘Why don’t you get Miles Davis?’” Susan Hunter, artistic director for the Atlantic Jazz Festival, laughs about one of the odder requests she’s received. “People look at the line-up and say, ‘I’ve never heard of anyone.’ Well, the truth is they’re either way too expensive or way too dead.” The famous horn player put down […]

Sierra Maestra July 14, Festival Tent, Spring Garden & Queen, 7pm, $25. Along with samba, son is one of the leading musical forms to define music from Latin America, particularly Brazil and Cuba, at least to many North American listeners. Son combines African percussive rhythms with Spanish-based melodies and string instruments. It is the quintessential […]

The bilingual duet Bette & Wallet have brought their kitchen parties into the living room, and the two will take their traditional down-home party to Ginger’s Tavern on July 6 with Ruth Minnikin. “We’ve been performing our living room tour—the venues have ranged from student dwellings to my parents’ house,” says Mary Beth Carty, calling […]

Welcome to the hype machine, experienced by the select few. In this case, an artist works long and hard in the underground scene, self-producing singles and mixtapes of him rapping over other people’s beats. Along the way, someone notices and signs him to a record deal, which falls through in the Napster age of major […]