This is great: I saw this in the movie last night and had to look it up. Death Panda, something like 50 Japanese teenage girls singing metal, backed by Megadeath guitarist, Marty Friedman, who lives there now. Almost as funny as my media pass. Apparently Halifax is now officially been taken over by Alberta, and […]
Music Festivals
Posted inArts + Music
Day 1: Metal and majorettes
Checked into the Holiday on King (easily spotted–saw disinterested boys with eyeliner and the dreadlocked dude from the Doughboys; he’s apparently NXNE’s LA-based programmer) and got in line to register. There was a separate counter for “Trouble” and a long line for media and industry types. Bumped into my beautiful friend WJ who works at […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hide the hipster…
and other fun games at the airport. Spot the music journalist is a good one too (they’re rumpled up). I’ve never seen so many skinny-jeaned, angled-hair hipsteramas in the airport before. Some were flying, some were just there for the NXNE free shows at the airport. Awesome idea. We just missed Ted Leo & the […]
Posted inArts + Music
NXNE-stylin’
I’m an experienced traveller but I always have a mild clothing panic attack before I leave for anywhere (Iceland this summer should be fun). I know it’s going to be bloody heinous hot (having lived in Toronto for 12 years and attended many steamy festivals, I know I’ll leave there crusty and cranky), but really, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Day Three: Halifax the Music Week menace
“A menacing snowstorm” (TM Weather Network) kicked the shit out of Toronto yesterday, reminding me again why I don’t like to travel to central Canada in winter (or summer, now that I think of it). As I trudged up to the Rivoli, tripping over streetcar tracks and climbing tiny curbside mountains, I thought about all […]
Posted inArts + Music
Day Two: It’s like rain on Alanis Day
Friday’s day schedule was cleared for any and all Alanis-related activities, though I would get shut out of all but one. I didn’t get to see the show – fine in the end considering it was a half-hour set at a win-to-get-in fan event – and didn’t bother trying to get into the interview since […]
Posted inArts + Music
Day One: Of sinkoles and idols
Because it’s Halifax and because half of the city is headed there, Sean MacGillivray and Glen Nicholson, two of Jenn Grant’s band The Night Painters, are on my flight. Left to Right: Glen and Sean. Sean has brought two bass guitars with him, except one is an electric upright without a proper flying case, and […]
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Lindsay Barr
Lindsay Barr While her smouldering green eyes and riot grrrl aesthetic may have helped land her recent video on MuchMusic, its her talent for writing infectious hey, hey party anthems that has earned Lindsay Barr her current buzz. I think rhythmic happenings is my finest delicacy, as she puts it. In 2006, she released her […]
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Jim Bryson
Last Sunday, the CBC Radio program Vinyl Cafe played Jim Brysons tune Fire Watch from his third album, Where the Bungalows Roam. The shows host, Stuart McLean, also read the Ken Babstock poem (from his book Days into Flatspin) of the same name that spawned the song. Babstock and Bryson are good friends and that […]
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David Celia
Though based in Toronto and frequently touring southern Ontario, David Celia has also taken to the road in the UK and continental Europe over the last several years to mould his musical voice. The melodic-pop singer-songwriter plays with regular rhythm partners across the Atlantic and always comes home with plenty of material and memory to […]
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Matthew de Zoete
Hamiltons honeyed songwriter Matthew de Zoete sorts through studying abroad, long-distance relationships, family histories of immigration and friends moving away on his album Across the Sea. Honing the skills of a farmer by day, musician by night, de Zoete is constantly evolving. I need to work on my tractor skills, he says. We live beside […]
