Twenty One Pilots a stress relief in Edmonton
The huge impact Twenty One Pilots has made on young people was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in Edmonton on Thursday night. These guys are the new real deal. It behooves old people to pay attention. A full house of teenagers and 20-somethings at the Jubilee Auditorium know this music by heart and […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Iron Maiden fantasy
What is it with British metal bands and their sinister fantasies? Demons, dragons, wizards, watery tarts distributing swords as a system of government, dead albatrosses hung around the necks of doomed sailors foolish enough to have shot the wrong bird – it’s not like the British people don’t have enough real violent history that they […]
Hateful men drive Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross
Playwright David Mamet hit the American theatre scene in the early 1980s with the brutal impact of a clenched fist in the gut. He did not write plays about delicate family dynamics or tender romance. His world was a savage one filled with rage and confrontation. The intensity of his colourful, lean, paint-peeling language at […]
Family business: The Raven Age opens for Iron Maiden
Let’s get this straight off the top: The Raven Age would not be opening for Iron Maiden if guitarist George Harris weren’t the son of Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris. This is rock ‘n’ roll nepotism at its finest. The proper response is: Yeah, so what?! “Of course that’s how we got on the tour,” […]
INTERVIEW: Coleman Hell and his Monster hit
It’s too early to say if Coleman Hell is a one-hit wonder. Then again, anyone who owns a wireless radio must’ve heard his hit 2 Heads about 1,000 times before they even knew who the hell Coleman Hell was. This is typical of the current climate of a music business that breeds one-hit wonders. We […]
Juno Awards celebrate star power
If you were Rip Van Winkle and sealed in a time capsule for the last 20 years, you might find the Juno Awards a bit different than you remember. More star power. Jann Arden is still there – but she’s the host! A competent host she was, too, at the show from her hometown Calgary […]
Marianas Trench not so deep
Hearing the high-powered candy-coated pop-rock-hyphenated anthems of Marianas Trench at Rexall place Friday night and finding it all so strangely familiar, it’s easy to imagine there exists a sinister cabal of songwriters responsible for every hit you hear on the radio. Not so far fetched, is it? Linda Perry, Max Martin, Paul Anka, and Diane […]
Loudon clear on daddy issues
Loudon Wainwright III does not care to get into a discussion of his children’s songs about him. His son Rufus wrote one called Dinner at Eight that deals with the age-old struggle between fathers and sons. “So put up your fists and I’ll put up mine, no running away from the scene of the crime,” […]
Heathers take black comedy to new heights
Heathers was a 1989 black comedy starring the then-little known Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. Apparently ’80s audiences weren’t buying the film’s mordant anti-Pretty In Pink ethic and it flopped at the box office. But like many a cult film before, it rose from its cinematic ashes to become a hit on video. Then in […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Latch onto Latcho Drom
The can’t miss gig of the weekend is Latcho Drom, a local experimental-punk group hosting a CD release party Friday night at the Sewing Machine Factory. Sewing Machine Factory is now the official name for what was called The Alley in its first few weeks of operation. They hadn’t decided on a name when they […]
Metric makes manic musical magic
Metric has become a strangely serious band since its roots in the fun times – when the new wave of the old new wave was new again, back in the good old days of the late 1990s, before 9-11, before radio hits thrust this Canadian synth-rock band to medium level stardom. They were merely giddy […]
