The Magnificent Sevens After a quick three hour power nap yesterday afternoon I made my way on Old Blue to the Company House to see Winnipeg rollicking roots band, The Magnificent Sevens. It was a nice change from the more aggressive acts, and a great chance to relax before the other venues opened up. I […]
Video
Posted inArts + Music
Video: Think About Life
To speak in a morning-after, too-tired cliche: the only bad thing about Think About Life was that the set was too short. The Montreal band, and our cover stars, didn’t disappoint, as the uninhibited masses grooved, hand-clapped and crowd-surfed, showing off their most tight-sweatered, moustached, charmingly awkward moves. Dynamic singer Martin Cesar, a swoon-worthy, undiscovered […]
Posted inArts + Music
The sample life: Q&A with Girl Talk
Ryan Hemsworth: Where are you? Girl Talk: I’m at my home in Pittsburgh for a couple of days…can you hold on a second, someone’s knocking on my front door. A few moments later… GT: Hey. A delivery guy had a little treat for my dog—blew my mind. When I describe your music to people I […]
Posted inArts + Music
Karen O and the Kids
Maurice Sendak’s kiddie classic Where the Wild Things Are was written in 1963, but Spike Jonze’s film adaptation and its accompanying soundtrack from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O is a product of an indie-music generation wary of adulthood. Rather than going down the painfully chipper Randy Newman route, or (lord help us, Leonard) another […]
Posted inArts + Music
Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man mundane
The common Coen brothers scenario of good peoples’ lives ruined by bad choices is flipped in A Serious Man. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a good person whose trauma is that he makes no new choices. The metaphor is made plain: As a math professor, Larry insists that equations must provide certainty. A Simple Man […]
Posted inArts + Music
Astro Boy remake charming and thoughtful
Based on a vintage Japanese cartoon and manga series, Astro Boy arrives with more charm and care than one would expect for yet another pop-culture regurgitation. The plot is typical human vs. machine stuff, or, specifically, boy robot vs. fucking huge, power-mad despot robot, but it doesn’t pander, bore or bullshit. There are no hollow […]
Posted inArts + Music
Paranormal Activity gets the blood pumping
Remember that fantastic Eddie Murphy bit from Delirious where Murphy demonstrates what any black person (but, really, any sensible person) would do when faced with the demons of The Amityville Horror: “Too bad we can’t stay, baby!” Murphy’s routine rang a bell during Paranormal Activity, because for characters Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (the actors […]
Posted inArts + Music
Think About Life’s family business
Think About Life is the type of band that makes music writers want to quit. It’s hard to write about them in any honest and meaningful way without descending into lifeless party-band descriptors. (“An exuberant live show! Charmingly shambolic!”) And really, it doesn’t really do them justice. The facts, on paper: A few years ago, […]
Posted inArts + Music
District 9: great premise, loads of explosions
District 9 has a premise that can’t be beat: After aliens descended on Johannesburg (the narration seems almost flattered that the aliens didn’t choose Chicago, Washington or New York), they are cordoned off in a shanty town known as District 9. Vikus (Sharlto Copley), a corporate lackey assigned to the location, gets infected with alien […]
Posted inArts + Music
Fashion spotlight: Halifax Plaid Explosion
I bet you didn’t know it, but Wednesday night was the unofficial launch of the inaugural Halifax Plaid Explosion. iPhone, dark bars and thick plaid don’t mix too well, but you get the idea. Check out the slideshow below (with the best plaid from the Toothy Moose, Seahorse and Coconut Grove) and stay tuned for […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bust a move: flash mob in the Halifax Shopping Centre
So I’ve been begging people to start a Michael Jackson flash mob, but I guess Young MC is sort of close enough, and this is definitely for a good cause. A group of ladies on a mission interrupted the stone cold munchin’ at the Halifax Shopping Centre today, as a sneak preview of an upcoming […]
Posted inArts + Music
Guns N’ Roses in Halifax on February 4 at the Metro Centre
Guns N’ Roses come back to Halifax to promote Chinese Democracy on February 4 and now I’m feeling extra glad I learned solo two from November Rain, because you never know. Tickets on sale Saturday, October 24 at 9am, $54.50/$69.50 available at the Ticket Alantic Box Office in the Halifax Metro Centre and at all […]
