Theatre community devastated after Roxy fire
Posted on January 13, 2015 By Mike Ross Entertainment, Front Slider, News, news, Theatre
People mourn the sudden loss of a beloved building as much as the passing of an old friend – and although no one was injured in the fire that destroyed the historic Roxy Theatre Tuesday morning, the Edmonton theatre community is in a state of shock. Words like “heartbroken” and “devastated” are prevalent in the […]
Ryan Jespersen jumps to CHED
Posted on January 5, 2015 By Mike Ross Entertainment, Front Slider, life, News, TV and Radio
We’re going to be seeing a lot less of Ryan Jespersen in the future – but we’ll be hearing a lot more of him. The 37-year-old broadcaster’s jump from City’s Breakfast Television to host of The Ryan Jespersen Show on 630 CHED is the biggest seismic media shift of 2015 so far. After a week […]
Inside the End of the Earth
Posted on December 23, 2014 By Chad Huculak Comics, Culture, Front Slider, News, Politics, tv and radio, Visual Arts
Editor’s note: Politicians, corporations, the media, employers, employees, advertisers, friends and family, your dog, even Stephen Colbert, for God’s sake – everybody lies! It’s getting the point where the only place to find honesty in this world is in a cartoon. In the year and a half since we’ve run Chad Huculak’s comic strip End […]
Eight Edmonton frets of 2014
Posted on December 16, 2014 By Mike Ross Front Slider, News, news, Politics
There’s just something about this time of year that makes you want to look back … and rant and rave about all the things that made you mad! Somewhere in Mudville are year-end listicles about good things that happened, best this, top that, and don’t forget that in adversity there is sometimes triumph (not always, […]
INTERVIEW: Tea Party returns with integrity
Posted on December 2, 2014 By Mike Ross Entertainment, Front Slider, Music, music, Politics
The Tea Party decided not to sell its Internet domain to the American political movement after all. The band members won’t say how much they were offered (and were reportedly considering), but rumour has it in the $1 million range. Two reasons: 1. They still need the website, because the Tea Party has reformed after […]
The Wet Secrets’ Terrible Wonderful Day
Posted on November 28, 2014 By Mike Ross Entertainment, Front Slider, Music, News, news
A rolled van and no one hurt on the treacherous QEII, then a $100,953 payday as the winner of the Peak Performance Project in Calgary later on – it was quite an eventful Thursday for the Wet Secrets. “It was a wild whirlwind of a day. What could’ve been a real tragedy ended up being […]
Remember who gave us freedom to be artists
Posted on November 8, 2014 By Jeremy Loome Culture, Front Slider, Life, News
In Flanders Fields The Poppies blow Between the Crosses, Row on Row In 1933, one of the first political moves Adolf Hitler took to solidify his control over the population of Germany was to control the media. He nationalized newspapers so that he could sow propaganda , then begin a pogrom against the Jewish community, […]
Let’s talk about Beard Club
Posted on October 31, 2014 By Mike Ross Culture, culture, Entertainment, Front Slider, Music
As Rocktober spurts into Movember, it’s the perfect time to explore the effect of beards upon the musicians who sing through them. Do beards shape an artist’s music or is it the other way around? Itchy question. Nobody talks about this sort of thing without getting their ‘staches in a knot, muttering about all those […]
Joey lied: DOA is back!
Posted on October 27, 2014 By Mike Ross Entertainment, Front Slider, Music, music, News, Politics
Joey “S***head” Keithley said that DOA would never play again – but here they are headlining a show at the Pawnshop in Edmonton on Wednesday night as part of the “unfarewell” world tour, with new music in the works for next year. So he lied – and doesn’t that make him the perfect politician? Having […]
INTERVIEW: The Unstoppable Shawn Bernard
Posted on October 14, 2014 By Mike Ross Crime, Culture, Entertainment, Front Slider, Life, life, Music, News
Shawn Bernard survived losing both of his parents and his sister to drug overdoses. He survived poverty, living on streets, becoming a drug dealer, gang leader and drug addict himself. He survived jail. In an inspirational story he’s told to youngsters across Canada countless times since, he prevailed over all these trials to break the […]
Kirby leaves Edmonton music scene a better place
Posted on September 30, 2014 By Mike Ross Front Slider, Music, News, news
The final story Kirby wrote for GigCity was an obituary on Doug Jenson. You can add “journalist” to the long list of things Kirby was good at. She did it because I asked her to, because she was the first person I thought of who would be able write a fitting tribute to such a […]
(RERUN): What do homeless people think of public art?
Posted on July 18, 2014 By Mike Ross Culture, Front Slider, Life, life, Visual Arts
Homeless people might have more important things to worry about than what they think of public art in Edmonton, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have opinions about it, or that their opinions aren’t as valid someone who isn’t homeless. Besides, they see it every day. They live here. During three days in the summer […]