MUSIC PREVIEW: Who needs SXSW?
With a lot of your favourite Canadian indie bands down in Texas for the SXSW festival, this is a good weekend to check out some of the newer venues in Edmonton, which are in full swing with new talent this weekend. The Needle Vinyl Tavern, for example, hosts Saskatoon’s Close Talker (pictured) on Saturday night […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Cowpuncher hitting hard
Calgary’s Cowpuncher has been hitting on all cylinders lately, making a big name for themselves on the Alberta indie country rock scene. Started in 2009 as a fairly loose and large collective under the leadership of singer-songwriter Matt Olah, the project kept gathering steam after 2011’s Call Me When You’re Single and a paring down […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Classic Classified
Classified has almost been around long enough to qualify as “old school.” Classic rock. The Nova Scotia rapper (real name Luke Boyd) released his first full-length album, Time’s Up Kid, back in 1995, when he was all of 18 years old. He did all his own production and released it on his own label, too. […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Bright Light Social Hour upon us
Much has been made of how the low Canadian dollar is impacting touring acts on both sides of the border – though last week’s spate of concert announcements may have us thinking differently. Regardless, it’s great to another great American coming our way, and in this case it’s all the way from Texas: The Bright […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Taking it to The Royal Streets
Sprung from the ashes of the Full Moon Folk Club, the New Moon Folk Club is well in gear for its first season – and they were lucky enough to score The Royal Streets as this weekend’s headliner. This Waterloo, Ontario group’s sound is hitting all the right chords with the nation’s music crowd, with […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Animal act launches Almanac
There always seems to be a natural ebb and flow to the music venues in this city, doesn’t there? Sure, we lost a lot of live spots last year, but they are slowly being replaced by new ones popping up around the city. Perhaps for the smaller spaces, the current state of the music business […]
10 Edmonton Bands Pushing the Envelope
The Top-10 list is a little different this year. Rather than extolling the virtues of the best albums, we’re tackling a list of a different sort – the who’s who of the Edmonton scene that’s pushing the limits of normal, tackling the experimental and laying down glorious chaos for the rest of us to follow. […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Half Moon Run, full speed
If there’s a bigger Canadian buzz band than Half Moon Run this fall then it would be a shock to most music writers. The Montreal band has released two singles this year, Trust and Turn Your Love, the latter of which hit No. 11 on the Canadian alternative charts. Formed in 2009, multi-instrumentalists Devon Portielje, […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Born Ruffians, living large
The Born Ruffians have had some curious peaks in their career – including an appearance on the British teen drama Skins as a fictional band named Hummingbird, and having their single Little Garcon appear in an American Express commercial. It all adds up on the buzz meter. The Ontario band plays Friday at the Starlite […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Love everything about Three Days Grace
This Friday features three very solid gigs, all featuring headliners whose names would be recognized not just here in Edmonton, but all across this vast and talented nation. Perhaps the best or at least the longest known is Three Days Grace. This alt-rock band out of Ontario was huge in the early 2000s, with major […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: A tale of two fests
Two festivals are competing for your attention this weekend on the live music scene – except they’re probably not even aware of each other, and one’s not even a festival. On the one hand you have the mostly underground – no, fully underground – Endless Bummer Music Fest, going on at various venues throughout the […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Wunderbar spirit lives on
Sadness walks through the halls of the city’s music scene in desperation of its awesomeness – for this is the city’s first weekend in almost six years without Wunderbar. Everyone knew it was coming, of course, it was only the exact timing of when the off-Whyte live music venue would close that nobody knew for […]
