Presented by The Halifax Pop Explosion, The Halifax Film Explosion announces its 2009 schedule (click for full schedule and trailers). This is the Halifax Film Explosion’s first year and coincides with the final two days of the Halifax Pop Explosion, taking place on Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24 at Empire 8 Park Lane. […]
Music Festivals
Full Halifax Pop Explosion schedule now online
Ladies, meet Barn Burner Why don’t you peep the heck out of the Halifax Pop Explosion full schedule? Who are you most excited for? I’m stoked to see Dog Day (with new drummer Rob Shedden from Beat Material and The Got To Get Got), Bike Rodeo with the Pack A.D. and The Memories Attack with […]
Sappyfest Day Three
Sunday at Sappy had a slow start, we were pretty partied out after Saturday’s hijinx. I was pretty impressed when we spotted a group of musicians and volunteers playing baseball at 10:30; we thought about stopping by and hitting some dingers but we decided to skip out on the action and head to the performers’ brunch. No other festival treats musicians as well Sappy does, they pay well, they give performers a pass for the entire weekend and they also provide a musicians’ free brunch and dinner every day of the festival. The Sunday brunch took place in the university
Atlantic Jazz Festival Shortlist
Valery Gore is not a pseudonym. At 26, the Fort Erie native strives for creative purity and truth. But it wasn’t always this way. “Coming from where I was at when I went to school, I was classically trained and I didn’t know anything about jazz,” she says, calling from her home in Toronto. “Maybe […]
Burning questions for Granelli about Spontaneous Combustion
Last October, a reed-thin, restlessly imaginative, master percussionist approached the Atlantic Jazz Festival’s new artistic director Lulu Healy with a concept for a scintillating festival event. He proposed matching up musicians—all renowned for their musical jouissance (over-the-top enjoyment and pleasure), whiz-bang inventiveness and a no-self-doubt command of their instruments—to create music without preordained strictures. In […]
Bell Orchestre says it out loud and clear
Though quantifiable or measurable, loudness isn’t a skill used rightly or wrongly, nor a right held by some and not by others. Really, all music can be, and perhaps should be, played loud. True, when KISS alights on the Common next week they may try to light up the crowd with “Shout it out Loud” […]
Halifax Zine and Record Fair
I was going to finish writing about last night’s shows, but it seems I don’t have time to do that or resize my photos down to tiny pixelated things small enough to upload to the blog before I have to leave. I’ll be selling comics all day at the Halifax Zine and Record Fair at […]
Friday night downtown
I arrived at St. Matthew’s Church last night midway through the Prospector’s Union, who played this kind of wool-hatted, folk/ country sort of music I’ve been listening to far more than expected for most of this year, reminding me a little of the Great Lake Swimmers. They played some nicely crafted songs about New Brunswick, […]
What a Genius!
Everyone remembers those albums that their families used to play growing up. In my case, there are a few particulars that have been burned so deeply into my consciousness that I can still recite song lyrics and track listings by heart. These include Sportsby Huey Lewis and the News, INXS‘ Kick, and….um….Enter the Wu-Tang. Yeah. […]
The GZA Brings the Pain. So Does Beer.
Today has been nuts, nuts nuts. I have lots of stuff I want to talk about and NO TIME TO DO IT AGGGH! Here’s a really short post until tomorrow when I write about Statues, Bloodsport, almost crying during Islands at the Pavillion this afternoon (beautiful! beautiful! Everyone tonight is in for such a treat) […]
Sometimes bandages are for show and sometimes it’s just tendonitis
I headed out to the Music Room in the far reaches of nowhere last night to see Basia Bulat. It was my first time at the Music Room, which is the most beautiful little venue in Halifax. It says it fits 110 people, though it doesn’t actually look like that many, the acoustics are terrific, […]
Pop n fresh
I was curious about Kill Krinkle Club–a lo-fi Irish-Swedish duo from Dublin, and I always try to see as many of the intenational bands as possible (will anyone ever match Zoobombs, and the Moist Towelettes’ version of “We Are Ninja”? Yeah, yeah Monotonix. Not to be all jealous, but no one who watched that go […]

