CONCERTS AHOY: Jimmy Eat World, Sharon Jones, Utopia Music Festival

The concert calendar is filling up nicely – fresh today are announcements of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at the Starlite Room May 24 and Jimmy Eat World at the Edmonton Event Centre May 23. Now, how about a summer solstice festival? Funny you should ask. The Utopia Music Festival happening June 17-18 (close […]

Hot Picks, March 11: The one-woman Decemberists

Funny how we use the word “siren” to refer to almost any female singer who operates in a somewhat folky vein – when the “sirens” of Greek mythology were actually evil creatures who used their enchanting “siren songs” to lure sailors to a watery grave. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Christine Fellows ought […]

Alberta Party leader ready to rumble at Roller Grrrls

You know that Bob Dylan song Blood on the Tracks? It’s all about the roller derby. OK, so there’s no such song (it’s the name of the album), but there ought to be – because it could be the theme for Edmonton’s first (and possibly last) roller derby team comprised of theatre people under the […]

Deja vu all over again as Supertramp hits Edmonton June 5

Supertramp is coming! Now we know what you’re saying: Supertramp? Weren’t they just here? Are there two Supertramps? Have the two parallel universes collided? Help! Relax. The confusion you are feeling is natural. It’s common in classic rock circles to ask: who the bloody hell is in my favourite band now? The “real” Supertramp, which includes basically everybody except […]

She gave me water … and pity

I don’t know who he is, but his face rings a bell … he’s a dead ringer for his brother … not sure, but I got a hunch. That’s all the punchlines we can come up with about the three bell-ringing hunchback brothers who tragically fell out of the belltower window. Hunchback, at the Citadel Theatre through March […]

It’s just too cold: Star Party moved to City Hall

Leave it to Edmontonians to make the best of beastly weather – but sometimes it’s all just too much. The Winterlight Festival’s Star Party, which was supposed to be taking place at Elk Island Park this Saturday, has been moved due to predicted overcast skies and severe cold. The event will now take place at City […]

GET YOUR GEEK ON! LeVar Burton to ‘make it so’ at local convention

When the captain ordered “make it so!” it was often LeVar Burton who jumped and made it so. And so it was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is looking pretty quaint in reruns today – and yet the Trekkian fame lives on for this award-winning actor. See him live and in person Sunday, […]

SYSTEM OF A DOWN HERE MAY 10 – area metalheads rejoice

Why don’t presidents fight the war? This is just one of many good questions posed by System of a Down, possibly one of the greatest modern heavy metal bands ever. No, not possibly. It is the greatest. Argue all you like, dudes. No one’s going to hear you at the band’s highly-anticipated concert in Edmonton, […]

ROOTS FEST: Phil Ochs doc at Metro tonight

We sure had fun tripping back in time, didn’t we? CKUA guy Peter North reports the Winter Roots and Blues Roundup II (Feb 24-28, 2011) on the weekend was a smashing success. He’s a bit biased, since he was one of the promoters, so forgive the glowing review of his own event. A lot of fans agree with […]

Today on WHO NAMED THE BAND: The Mahones, playing tonight at the New City Legion. This popular Canadian band – which recently had a song on the Mark Wahlberg movie The Fighter – straddles the giant, stinky crack in the Earth between Celtic music and punk rock. And they’ve been been rocking the pubs across […]

GIGGLE CITY: Kerry Unger

Say hello to Kerry Unger, who just finished a run at the The Laugh Shop in Sherwood Park (Thursday, Feb 24, through Saturday, Feb 26, 2011) The 40-year-old Edmonton comic is this week’s subject of Giggle City, a series of unrelated questions designed to dig a little deeper into today’s sharpest comic minds. (Warning: The following […]

It behooves us to pay attention to every band from Montreal. It is the new Seattle, n’est-il pas? That means “is it not.” See what we did there? You gotta be bilingual to rock ‘n’ roll in Canada, man. It’s no joke. Montreal really does seem to have a “sound,” expansive, orchestral, with alternative instruments […]