Any attempt to describe Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Geoff Berner invariably ends up sounding like it was composed using a fridge-magnet poetry set made up of discarded Canada Council grant applications. Political Klezmer-punk troubadour? Jewish-Canadian firebrand poet? Incendiary accordion-toting folkie? Oh dear. This October, the task became even more difficult, with the release of Festival Man, Berner’s […]
The Company House
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Dancing dead
I don’t tend to go for sexy-noun Halloween costumes, but with Port City Events teaming up with dance-party impresarios Heavy Petting for The Zombie Hop, it might be time to break out the glitter-bra. Why should Halloween revellers should come out to the Company House this Friday? “To see me try to dance in six-inch […]
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Rae Spoon gets back to their roots
“When you don’t fit into the gender system people tell you that you shouldn’t exist and you don’t exist. But I’m here to tell you: I exist.” This is Rae Spoon, speaking with a down-to-earth chuckle in the trailer for the upcoming NFB documentary My Prairie Home. The film, directed by Chelsea McMullan, follows Polaris-nominated […]
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Like A Motorcycle’s family ties
Upon arriving at the Motorhome (the two-flat house that Like A Motorcycle share), Jillian Comeau is yelling, Kim Carson is ignoring her and texting and Michelle Skelding is in her slippers. They kindly turn off the volume on the Blur videos streaming in the background in Carson and Skelding’s living room. As the girls crack […]
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Love, meet Halifax
The Company House is going to be seeing some love this weekend. Haligonians Chantal Caissie and Jen Ochej have put together Love Does, a benefit concert headlined by folk darling Amelia Curran. The event was conceived as a response to the polarizing reactions of HRM residents to the announcement that Chris Brown was to play […]
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Song cross’d lovers
“You know those ideas you have when you’re drunk and then you wake up and they’re not very good?” asks Stewart Legere. “Well we woke up—separately—and still thought this was a good one.” Legere is talking about Young Hearts Run Free, an evening of painstaking recreation of the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, by […]
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Making a Splash
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Samm Splash’s The Breakup EP is about. Songs like “Feel Nothing” and “Cheater” do a pretty good job of laying (broken) hearts on sleeves. In the grand tradition of making art out of hardship, Splash admits that she just can’t write a song when she’s happy. […]
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Song for her family
Lee-Anne Poole smiles as she picks up her guitar and begins to strum. Her rich, husky voice fills the tiny rehearsal hall on Agricola Street. “A broken heart/Don’t take long to heal/Just make your mind/It’s how you feel/But when you know/They were the one/That broken heart/It stays undone.” It’s pretty hard to believe that she […]
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Poetry off the page
HRM’s new poet laureate, El Jones, wants to inspire young poets and engage people to speak for themselves. by Michael Lake “We don’t live in a culture right now that values poetry,” says El Jones. “But poetry has changed.” A press conference at City Hall on June 27 announced Jones as HRM’s new poet laureate. […]
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Steel yourself
The prolific folk singer Owen Steel has just released a new album, Time Machine Blues, which sounds like it was pulled out of the attic of an old Prairie house, all jangly strings, leisurely delivery and kitchen singalongs. The bulk of it was recorded in one 10-hour session at Echo Chamber, followed by an evening […]
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The Wind-Up pitch
“To be honest after the last one was such a drawn-out process, we didn’t want to take that route this time,” says Marc Kiely of Wind-Up Radio Sessions. He’s talking about Yeti Sounds, the folk-rock EP WURS made in just three days with Blinker the Star’s Jordon Zadorozny. “After the last one, we were like […]
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Zulkamoon
“What’s on the horizon for us? Well, we’re coming out with our own coffee—we’re gonna be selling it as merch,” says Mike Nahirnak, one of the guitarists behind Zulkamoon’s “folk, rock, blues, jazz, reggae, ska, cumbia, you name it, it’s in there” sound. Inti Gonzalez, Mexico City transplant, the other guitarist and the nucleus around […]
