Minutes before Paul Murphy calls, his old friend Jud Haynes has made public the link to The Dependent Years. It’s an online archive of posters, press and presence (plus audio and video) featuring the bands of the Dependent Music collective, where Murphy’s band Wintersleep got its start in the early ’00s alongside Brian Borcherdt, Contrived, […]
Marquee Ballroom
Posted inArts + Music
Cold Smoke chillin’
This is the time of year when you haul out memories of heat waves and sleeping on top of your sheets, not under all of the blankets you possess, hot water bottles embraced like childhood teddy bears. Desperately attempting to push realities of wet socks and numb noses out of the foreground with fantasies of […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bastid noise
Paul Murphy was jostled in his seat, like an LP scratched by a frantic DJ, as Metro Transit route 80 lurched from stop to stop on the way from his Bedford home to downtown Halifax. At the time, the late 1990s, his turntable technique was as unrefined as that skittish bus route. But the aspiring […]
Posted inArts + Music
Two Hours Traffic jam
“When we started out, we didn’t have any big goals,” says Liam Corcoran, vocalists and guitarist for Two Hours Traffic. “We were at UPEI and just wanted to write some songs and play our own music in Charlottetown.” He had no idea what the next decade would bring: “It all came as a surprise to […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dog Day: Beyond the Fade
“Someone asked me where we got our name and I was looking up the definition of ‘dog day,’ cause I actually didn’t know, and it said ‘a period of inactivity,’” says Seth Smith. “I was like yeah, that sounds about right.” He laughs, but he’s being modest. Dog Day has been releasing cracked-pop records every […]
Posted inArts + Music
Spread the Metal spreads the love
I say “metal,” you say “philanthropy!” Right? Well, maybe you don’t, but Matt Day sure does, so this weekend the founder of Spread the Metal Records presents the second annual Spread the Metal Festival, with all proceeds raised by the two day event going to national and international charities. While a heavy metal label might […]
Posted inArts + Music
A Tribe Called Red
It’s National Aboriginal Day when I finally get a chance to chat with DJ Bear Witness, one of the trio that make up A Tribe Called Red, and the Ottawa native is already in the midst of what he says will be a non-stop summer. The day before Bear Witness, Ian “DJ NDN” Campeau and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Cyndi Cain
Cyndi Cain’s newest album, Soul Food, released Saturday, July 13 at the Marquee for the Jazz Festival, is a live off the floor, recorded straight to tape R&B wonder, and it came from a little pain, a little love and a lot of friendship. “When I think soul food, I think community, it’s not always […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hayden’s family ties
Hayden wants to be alone together. After several years, he returns to Halifax with his latest album Us Alone. “So much has changed in my life, but as a musician, not a ton,” says Hayden Desser. “I still go weeks or months not playing at all, I leave the room when people at a party […]
Posted inArts + Music
Stacks of Wax
For recording artist Phyl La Ferriere, Quebec City may be a great place live, but it’s not the ideal city to make it as a musician. “I wouldn’t say it’s the right place to start a band,” La Ferriere says. So he left home and enrolled at Montreal’s Trebas Institute to study audio engineering. But […]