Music Festivals

CBC Radio 3 was on hand to record and broadcast live the show at The Marquee on Saturday night, featuring Pride Tiger, Mother Mother, Land of Talk, Miracle Fortress and Eric’s Trip. Another case of wishing I could have seen the entire show, as well as the show downstairs in Hell. Jon and I got […]

Time for the evening’s final act. I stood in line for half an hour, waiting to get back into The Seahorse in time to see Zoobombs’ Friday night set. I am a polite person by nature and so I waited quietly in the lineup. The club was filled to capacity and the liquor inspector was […]

When I think of my early introductions to the East Coast/Halifax indie music scene back in the early ’90s, a few names always stick out. One of them is Peter Rowan. Peter was involved in so many of those early events and bands, and has managed to keep a foot in the local scene no […]

When I first started going to the Halifax Pop Explosion in the 1990s, Saturday afternoon meant it was time for the record fair in the back of Wormwoods. Lots and lots of fancy coloured seven-inch records and stickers to collect and trade. Now Saturday afternoon means zines, crafts, books, workshops, films, readings, food and of […]

It was funny watching Eric’s Trip get their instruments ready to the beat of techno music. Julie commented later on about how it made her want to murder somebody. Thank god they finally shut it off. It was also funny to watch them chomping at the bit, so to speak, as they couldn’t start their […]

A huge part of the attraction to Eric’s Trip, for me and for many other fans, was the willingness of Rick, Julie and Chris to be so open with their feelings through their incredibly personal lyrics. It was fascinating, in the case of Rick and Julie, to see a former couple dissect everything that went […]

CKDU 88.1 FM always seems to have a strong presence at the Halifax Pop Explosion, and this year was no exception. In addition to presenting the crazy (so I heard) Buried Inside show at the Khyber on Saturday night, they were on hand at Canzine East to share buttons, magnets and general campus/community radio love […]

This is hard to say but…I actually left the Eric’s Trip show before they did their encore. I heard that “Viewmaster” destroyed. Damn. But I’d made a promise to myself that I would close the festival at The Attic with Sole and The Skyrider Band. My friends in INSTRUMENTS worked with Skyrider before (via their […]

Flavia and her three lovely children were on hand to sell Indy Mum zines, recycled craft items (including the best damn toque I’ll ever own) and more. You can find out more about Indy Mum through the Anchor Archive Zine Library.

After the show, Jon wanted to say hi to the Skyrider guys and to Sole, whom he’d met years before. Four of us watched as a brutal fight between drunken Dome patrons and beefy Dome security broke out and then rolled onto Grafton Street. Kind of a gross way to end the whole night, but […]

One of the workshops held during Canzine East was a do-it-yourself comix workshop presented by Shawn Granton. Shawn came all the way from Portland, Oregon, to share his tips of the craft. I’m so glad I joined in, because he answered a lot of questions I had about the craft of journal comics. Best of […]