Owen Harris and Max Hayden were working the customer service desk at Quinpool Road’s Canadian Tire, dreaming about making a record. The longtime friends and next-door neighbours had grown up together where Halifax’s south and west ends meet, bonding over emo and punk music, and jamming as teenagers when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down their […]
Video
Posted inArts + Music
How Aysanabee’s late grandfather sparked the singer-songwriter’s latest tour
Aysanabee isn’t superstitious, but these days he’s having a hard time chalking some things up to mere coincidence. Fresh off an Australian tour, the two-time JUNO Award-winner from Sandy Lake First Nation is embarking on his first headlining trip across eastern Canada. It’s a big moment for the Oji-Cree singer-songwriter, who had a banner year […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Author, poet, scholar Kenny Fries presents “Stumbling over History: Disability and the Holocaust”
“We need to have these conversations more,” says Michelle Mahoney, the first accessibility officer at the University of King’s College. Mahoney is talking about a new lecture series that begins Tuesday, Jan 21 at UKing’s, called “Representations of Disability in Historical, Scientific and Artistic Perspectives.” The series is meant to “challenge stereotypes, highlight marginalized voices […]
Posted inArts + Music
Customer Service channel Sloan in newest music video
It was days before Christmas, and Customer Service’s Owen Harris and Matt Cheverie were watching old music videos from the nineties. Although they weren’t around for the Halifax Pop Explosion, an appreciation of that era and its legacy had been one of the bonding forces for the Halifax emo/punk band when they formed as high-schoolers […]
Posted inArts + Music
Jeremy Hotz is still miserable—and as funny as ever
Jeremy Hotz is having a bad day. There’s a rat in his kitchen and it’s decided to take up residence. It started with a crash the other day. Hotz came downstairs to find his newly-bought hot dog buns knocked off the counter and on the floor. “The whole bag, for fuck’s sakes!” he laughs, speaking […]
Posted inBest of Halifax
Best Local Character
GOLD WINNER 🥇 Woody the Talking Christmas Tree website SILVER WINNER 🥈 Sullivan’s Pond Geese website BRONZE WINNER 🥉 Gus the Gopher Tortoise website HONOURABLE MENTIONS Hope MacPherson Raina the Halifax Mermaid Rouge Fatale Danny Slade The North Pole’s own Woody the Talking Christmas Tree is your gold winner for the Best Local Character category. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Marc McLaughlin has a voice—and a video—you need to see
If there’s one artist you need to listen to before this year’s end, it’s Marc McLaughlin. Fredericton-based and Newfoundland-born, this former Halifax resident is hot off the release of his latest single—the title track of his soon-to-be-released EP—”All I Can Say”, accompanied by a new music video. This single, coupled with his first EP, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bridging cultures with comedy: Normal Scotia seeks to bring Indians and Maritimers together
There’s nothing more normal than learning about other people’s cultures—even if you can’t quite get a grasp on it. That’s essentially the premise to Bell Fibe TV1’s new short-form comedy series Normal Scotia, co-created by Charles Wahl and Amarpal Dhillon. The show features two Indian immigrants, Manish (played by Akshay Shirke) and Shiv (Ishan […]
Posted inArts + Music
Halifax-born pop artist re-emerges with new single, music video
Naomi Shobha has spent years of her life working on songs with some of the world’s biggest artists. Now, after a long break, she’s back to making her own music. Shobha, who some may recognize from her debut 2008 album Work In Progress, is an award-winning, Juno- and ECMA-nominated songwriter who went from singing […]
Posted inArts + Music
Tim Baker brings Full Rainbow of Light tour to Halifax
Growing up in St. John’s, Tim Baker’s winters were coloured by two sounds: Wind and snow plows. It was all you could hear some nights, whispering beyond the crackle of a fireplace or the quiet of a bedroom, as a blanket of white covered the foggy city. It was a “comforting feeling,” the former Hey […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Houston leads PC Party to record-breaking victory in provincial election
The provincial election Tuesday night saw premier Tim Houston and the PC Party win a historic victory, netting them the most seats out of any political party in Nova Scotia’s history. The Progressive Conservative Party gained enough ground to form not just a majority but a supermajority, which requires at least two-thirds of the House […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The Wanderer Grounds podcast: Who’s in and who’s out this Halifax Wanderers offseason?
Halifax Wanderers head coach Patrice Gheisar is not, generally speaking, the type for drastic measures. “Never too high, never too low” has become akin to a mantra at the Canadian Premier League soccer club during his two years at the helm. It will be interesting, then, to see how Gheisar and the Wanderers’ front office […]