Blood in the Cut: Pop music gets edgy
Before a beautiful rock show by Mother Mother at the Shaw Conference Centre on Thursday night was an opening act that has really hit a nerve. K.Flay’s Blood in the Cut has been all over the radio lately, a song about a woman who deals with a heartbreak by expressing ideas of self harming. It’s […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Jaunty Plume array
The Prodigal Son returns! After a long sojourn in Nashville, Mike Plume has moved back to Edmonton. He’s from Bonnyville, actually, but close enough for rock ‘n’ roll. At the Almanac Saturday night, the singer-songwriter has been keeping a fairly low profile since he and his family moved back last summer. Why? “Trump,” he explains. […]
PLAYBILL: Elektra electrifying
Today’s spooky teens have nothing on the ancient Greeks. Kids in those days didn’t have smartphones – just lots of time on their hands and easy access to a wide variety of poisons and deadly weapons. Got a lot of rending and hewing to do. Edmonton Opera’s latest show Elektra is about as edgy as […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Women have the power
We definitely need more than one day to celebrate International Women’s Day – seeing as it’s surrounded by the 364 Days of Men. How about a week, better yet, a month? Make it six months, or hell, the whole damned year. Women deserve no less for what they’ve done. Meanwhile, the unofficial spillover from the […]
PLAYBILL: Sexual tourism takes a hit
Sex is good. Tourism is good. Now put the two together and what do we have? A bunch of creepy perverts going to Thailand or wherever to hire prostitutes that would be legally underage in North America. Off with their heads! The perverts … not the girls. So in case we’re not riled up enough […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Outstanding in their field
It’s a marriage made in Americana heaven – Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt, together again, helping America achieve the greatness it never wasn’t. By touring Canada. These two old friends play Friday night at the Jubilee Auditorium in what is expected to be a right proper schooling in the fine art of the singer-songwriter genre. […]
PLAYBILL: Chekhov gets pecked
As if Anton Chekhov weren’t weird enough that he needs modernizing, what with that creepy story about him turning into a cockroach … whoops, wrong depressing Eastern European and/or Russian author. Kafka was the bug. Chekhov is the cipher. The work set to the thumb screws here is Chekhov’s The Seagull, considered a masterpiece despite […]
PLAYBILL: Hello, Buttercup
I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, from Waterloo to Afghanistan, in order categorical! Whoops, wrong operetta … the one Opera NUOVA is doing down at the Capitol Theatre in Fort Edmonton Park this weekend […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Billy Talent braves the Shaw
Something has to be done about the horrible sound in the Shaw Conference Centre. It hurts the ears, and more importantly, it hurts the bands that hurt the ears. Unless they have a good soundman, a rock band that likes to play loud can sound like a wall of mud. The kick drum echoes off […]
Garth Brooks moves to Edmonton
Garth Brooks loves to be on top. Just ask him. He’s moving to Edmonton – temporarily – taking up a nine-show residence in Rogers Place starting Friday, Feb. 17. Drinking game! Chug a beer for every Garth Brooks sighting around town. No one has ever done nine shows in a row at our hockey arena […]
Jazz marries classical in Obsessions
So a string quartet and a jazz combo walk into a bar, hit it off, fall in love, and spend the rest of their lives making beautiful music together. It happened almost exactly like that for the Obsessions Octet, a uniquely original Edmonton group playing the release for its third CD, Steppin’ Up, Thursday at […]
PLAYBILL: Let’s talk about love
There have been more love songs on the subject of love than any other self-referencing genre, such as rock ‘n’ roll songs about rock ‘n’ roll, or dance songs about dancing – although “love” is technically not a musical genre, so never mind. OK: There are more love songs than any other kind of song. […]
