Beyond Bjork: Edmonton Iceland love affair EXPOSED
It’s high time we got to the bottom of this torrid love affair this city seems to be having with Iceland. For the love of Odin, why? Why go to a place even more frozen and isolated than Edmonton? It can’t just be volcanoes and Bjork. Observers credit Iceland’s recent massive tourism campaign, bouncing back […]
Edmonton musicians in tune with beer
Beer. The word itself is a musical note. It has helped write more songs than GarageBand and puberty combined. If it were a mountain, it would be named Mount St. Inspirational Liquid. Edmonton bands are no stranger to this Mesopotamian concoction. Loved by both the refined and the rowdy, beer has a special place in […]
UPDATE: Artery closing to make way for progress
The local music scene is reeling with the sudden news that the The Artery will be closing at the end of March to make way for the Valley Line LRT Project– and there goes another popular Edmonton live music venue. On the heels of the bad news about the historic McDougall United Church needing massive […]
Ryan Jespersen jumps to CHED
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 […]
Edmonton People, Places and Things of 2014
Instead of holding a ridiculous contest to determine the Edmontonian of the Year – which is dependent on the determination of the subject and his or her followers to win at all costs, much like a political election – this year we present a straight recap of the most widely read stories on GigCity. Guarantee: […]
Sam Roberts on the Cult of Montreal
Montreal has become such a fount for all that is cool in Canadian rock that it’s hard to imagine it ever wasn’t. Westerners imagine this ancient, exotic city teeming with culture and sophistication, a place where Leonard Cohen hang outs at the bilingual open-mic poetry night, and where every original band that draws more than […]
EDMONTON RADIO: Clayton in the driver’s seat
Clayton Bellamy says he feels weird when he hears his own song on the radio – especially when he’s the DJ on the air at the time. Who would’ve guessed it would turn out to be CISN Country that takes one of the biggest risks in Edmonton radio history? They’ve put a recording artist with […]
Mike MacDonald and the Burden of Truth
There are two kinds of comedians, says Mike MacDonald, “diagnosed and undiagnosed.” That’s in the routine the Ottawa comedian will be doing at the Edmonton Comedy Festival this weekend – part of the act he put together six months after undergoing a liver transplant because when he woke up he couldn’t remember a damned thing […]
INTERVIEW: The Unstoppable Shawn Bernard
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 […]
Is Glen Campbell Alzheimer’s documentary exploitive?
Director James Keach’s documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me follows the country music legend’s farewell tour following his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease in the summer of 2011. While chock full of joyful moments, it’s hard to watch the rapid descent of the great musician into dementia, as documented during a scene at the Mayo Clinic […]
Who needs Hollywood? Mark Meer on game fame
In his wildest geek dreams, Edmonton actor Mark Meer never imagined he’d grow up to be a video game action hero. “I’m pretty pleased things worked out,” he says. The voice of Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect video game series is one of stars at the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo in the Edmonton […]
Photog plants roots in Edmonton Musician Project
It always seems surprising when an artist moves to Edmonton from somewhere else, survives a winter or two and still decides to stay. When music photographer Erin Walker moved here from Burlington, Ontario two years ago, her friends thought she was crazy. “My parents did, too,” she says. “Everyone thought I was crazy going to […]
