Gods of Alternative to rock Sonic Boom 2014
The multi-talented Jack White will headline the sixth annual Sonic Boom festival, now expanded to three days, Aug. 29-31 at Northlands. Also appearing: Arctic Monkeys, Rise Against, Death Cab for Cutie, Foster the People, Tegan and Sara, the Descendents, Serene Ryder, Cage the Elephant and many, many more. More acts will be announced. Weekend passes […]
Did Chavril make it bad on purpose?
In light of a recent offering of unpleasant pop culture that everyone and their dog is pooping on, a contrarian is duty bound to look on the bright side. There’s so much hate being directed at Avril Lavigne’s new song and video for “Hello Kitty” that you have to wonder if it’s all part of […]
God lives in the music of Black Sabbath!
The difference between eternal salvation and eternal damnation for Black Sabbath may come down to punctuation. The official title of the reunited band’s first new song since 1978 is God is Dead? – with the question mark – and yet in the recording Ozzy Osbourne sings the title of the song so many times that […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Christian Hansen returns with Small Fry
Christian Hansen is giving himself another chance to go national – from Toronto – with the release of new music that local fans can hear live as the Edmonton expat plays two shows this weekend: an all-ages gig at The Artery on Friday night and a no-minors show Saturday at the Pawn Shop. The new […]
Burton Cummings at Rock Fest, reunions at Hot Plains
Festival announcements are piling up, as area citizens try to stuff as much fun and frivolity into the short Canadian summer as humanly possible. We must. First up, because it’s fresh, is the reveal of the line-up for the annual Edmonton Rock Music Festival. Burton Cummings is the biggest name of an all-Canadian classic rock […]
Edmonton big winner at Edmonton Music Awards
It’s hard to know who the biggest winner was at the 2014 Edmonton Music Awards – the artists that collected the prizes or our “awesome” city itself. There was a lot of love in the room at the Royal Alberta Museum Theatre Sunday night – and most of it for Edmonton – for the fourth […]
INTERVIEW: Il Divo no boy band!
Il Divo does not know the meaning of the words “novelty act” – literally. There seems to be no comparable idiom in Western European languages for the concept of entertainment whose style outshines its apparent substance and seems to survive on irony. A three-quarters European group of four guys in Armani suits crooning “Memory” or […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Collective Soul now classic rock
Has enough time passed that we can nostalgic for Collective Soul? With four albums in the decade, each of them achieving platinum status both north and south of the border, and a consistent roster that lasted into the 2000’s, this band was the ubiquitous infrastructure that the 1990’s music scene was built around. Led by […]
Johnny Rotten comes to Edmonton in Jesus Christ Superstar
So you are the Christ, you’re the great Jesus Christ. Prove to me that you’re divine, change my water into wine … and God save the queen’s fascist regime! Is that how it goes? How’s this for a masterpiece of casting: Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, will be playing the role of King Herod in […]
