WORLD DOESN’T END: Hip Hop in the Dark a go tonight

By most reports, the fourth annual Hip Hop in the Park yesterday at Louise McKinney Park was a smashing success. The beats were dope, the flow was, ah, also dope, and the hypemen were … hyping. Have to brush up on our hip hop lingo here. Co-organizer and hip hop enthusiast Melissa L.A. Bishop posted […]

Local rockers unite for Slave Lake Aid

Entertainers are in the unique position of being able to help others by doing exactly what they’d be doing anyway – entertain. Most civic-minded citizens volunteer for jobs that they don’t do every day, or aren’t necessarily qualified for, such as serve on the board of a community league or, say, grab a shovel and […]

New festival explores theatrical myths

We love Shakespeare in the Park – now get set for a little “Shakespeare in the Street.” On the Avenue, to be precise, as in Alberta Avenue, as in 118th Avenue – which is fast becoming the artsiest district in Edmonton, a far cry from its past reputation as a good street on which to […]

VUE and SEE magazines set to merge

Word on the street is that there will be … fewer words on the street. Edmonton’s two weekly magazines, VUE and SEE, are preparing to merge into one – according to businessman Bob Doull, who now owns both of them. He revealed the tentative plan on Monday. “There are lots of details to be worked […]

RAP: Shad’s true tale from the weird road

A week before Shad’s concert in Edmonton at Brixx  recently, the artist, whose album TSOL won the 2011 Juno for Best Rap Recording, was performing at one of the weirdest shows in his life. He hadn’t even gone up yet, but just the fact that he was in ultra-Mormon (read: ultra-white) Salt Lake City, Utah, […]

For Edmonton restaurants, is imitation the sincerest form of fattening?

In less-prosperous corners of the planet, where trademark laws aren’t among the legal system’s uppermost priorities, you may have noticed things like a knockoff McDonald’s with three golden arches, a 6-Eleven corner store, or a Hard Rock Cafe which lacks celebrity memorabilia and that you enter through a hole in a wall. That rarely happens […]

Rammstein: Lieben sie ein gutes metallband!

Welcome to Fraulein Boomer’s German School of Rock! Repeat after me: Rammstein! Rrroll your R’s, get some phlegm in your throat, that’s right. Good. Again! RAMMSTEIN! Feels good, doesn’t it? This band makes Kraftwerk look like Flock of Seagulls – and they were in town on lucky Friday the 13th to destroy Rexall Place, second […]

One more reason to commute? Party trains!

It was the weekend’s greatest party in Edmonton, and you missed it! On Saturday night, 54 delegates from cities across the Prairie provinces and the Yukon who were in the city for the Youth Summit on Sustainable Transportation boarded their own private LRT car outfitted with turntables and lights for a dance party that shook […]

TONIGHT: Lanterns of Hope, Peking Acrobats

Today is an Asian kind of day. Some heavy hitters are appearing at the Lanterns of Hope Japan fund-raiser tonight at the Pourhouse, 10354 82 Avenue. Paul Bellows has taken time off being the boss of the Yellow Pencil web design company to play a set of his award-winning Elvis Costello of the Prairies music. […]

NEW MUSIC: Beastie Boys, Cold Cave bring it old school

One band is New Wave. The other is old-school rap. But in a battle of sounds rooted in the 1980s, can the upstart Cold Cave match up with the Beastie Boys new release? The Beastie Boys, who need no introduction, have been producing music for 25 years now, as their “Licensed To Ill” album debuted […]

Architects UK cook popcore at Avenue Theatre tonight

Today on SHARDS OF METAL we explore the sub-genre known as “metalcore.” Say hello to the Architects UK – all the way from Brighton, the Red Deer of England – playing an all-ages show tonight at the Avenue Theatre (9030 118 Avenue). Welcome to Edmonton, British Alexisonfire! These lads are said to epitomize the British […]

At Art Jam, the interpretive doctor is in

Fancy yourself an amateur psychiatrist? Maybe you even had a little booth a few years back and charged neighbours a nickel for advice. But then the Alberta Medical Association got wind of your little operation and shut you down so fast you scarcely had time to ask about their relationship with their mother. Fear not. […]