YEAR OF THE SNAKE: ‘Good year for business’
Are you thoughtful, wise, rational, clever and good with money, sometimes stingy and conceited, but insightful and intuitive, or born in the years 2001, 1989 or 1977 (or 1965, 1953 or 1941)? Then you may just be a snake – and this is your year. The Year of the Snake starts today, Feb. 10, 2013. […]
WHO NAMED THE BAND: MotorHezbollah branching out
It’s not like MotorHezbollah has a huge Lebanese following or anything. Even so, “We’ve had some Lebanese people come up to us and just say they love the name, because I guess the organization is based in Lebanon,” reports Billthy Animal Hersche, drummer for the local Motorhead tribute band playing Friday at DV8. The deeper […]
Serena Ryder to play Edmonton in April
We’ve been hearing Serena Ryder all over the radio. It’s about time we saw her live in a setting that befits her emerging status as the siren of a new order in female pop music – a little Adele, a touch of Florence and the Machine, some Amy Winehouse, not too much, and overall a […]
Classified gets in touch with Inner Ninja on No. 1 album
Like a lot of white rappers of a certain age, Classified, aka Luke Boyd, listened to Snoop and Dr. Dre when he was a kid. The stuff wasn’t easy to find in Enfield, Nova Scotia, where he came of age in the mid-1990s. Cassette tapes were treasured possessions. He says he and three other dudes […]
Boys club at the Edmonton Music Awards nominations
The nominees have been crunched and the numbers are in – and the 2013 Edmonton Music Awards seems to have delivered a healthy cross-section of names to represent Edmonton’s music scene. Corb Lund, Jay Sparrow (right) and Mitchmatic lead the pack with six nominations each – a bit of a boys club, but stylistically diverse, […]
TV: Sperm brings Even More Modern Family together in Seed
The war on maturity continues to rage hard on all fronts – and “Seed” is just the latest surge. This isn’t just some amusing Canadian sitcom about a charming slacker who sells his sperm and winds up meeting children he thought he’d never see after his sperm bank donor data gets hacked. No, it’s even […]
OPERA: A carnival named desire in Les Contes d’Hoffman
This Hoffman is one messed-up dude. First he falls for a chick who’s clearly a robot and only finds out when her arm comes off. Then he falls in love with a woman who’s so frail she sings herself to death, then with some floozy who leaves him for a cowboy the moment his back […]
THE UNLIKELY COMIC: Craig Martell is his own punchline
Craig Martell doesn’t claim to be a real stand-up comedian – so does that make him a better stand-up comedian? It’s all so terribly confusing. He doesn’t fit the usual stand-up comedian profile. First of all, as co-owner and party captain of the Wunderbar Hofbrauhaus, he’s a pretty upbeat guy. “It seems like most comedians […]
THEATRE: Charles Ross the Weird Al of The Lord of the Rings
In the matter of using other people’s intellectual property as the basis for your own work, it has been said that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission – but the actor who’s bringing the “One Man Lord of the Rings” back to town can attest that this is not the case. “They’re scary […]
COMEDY: Kathleen McGee’s act is a life examined
Oprah’s truck balls, tweets of people’s genitals, Al Roker telling everyone he pooped his pants in the White House, Facebook status updates of breakfasts that look like poop – these are a few of our favourite things! We live in a world where the phrase “whoa, too much information!” is uttered by no one ever. […]
Listeners react to CKUA changes: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!
CKUA’s decision to axe its local news programming is troubling enough – but the cancellation of Folk Routes has caused a storm of outrage. Tom Coxworth, host of the popular weekly roots program and fixture of Alberta’s folk music scene, is in limbo. Social media erupted with protests following Monday’s announcement. Some listeners have even […]
Questions unasked and unanswered by Oprah Winfrey
Some attendees at Oprah Winfrey’s “inspirational evening event” at Rexall Place on Monday night were under the impression that select members of the audience would get that special chance to ask a question of the Queen of Talk. Wrong. Turns out that only George Strombolopolous got to talk to her on stage, after a 70-minute […]
