WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Depth behind Bend Sinister

WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Depth behind Bend Sinister

Those of you who saw the disappointing Rihanna show on Wednesday can take solace in the fact that for the price of your one ticket, you can probably take at least half a dozen of your best friends to any of local show this weekend. Or maybe that doesn’t make you feel better. One of […]

Raffi fights for the rights of the very young

Raffi fights for the rights of the very young

For someone who “accidentally” became a children’s entertainer, Raffi sure has thrown himself into it with a passion. Playing at the Winspear Centre on Sunday, his work has ranged far beyond merely singing singable songs for the very young. Never mind Bananaphone. Raffi has become a global crusader for child welfare. A number of points […]

GIGGLE CITY: Jeremy Hotz keeps it short and sweet

GIGGLE CITY: Jeremy Hotz keeps it short and sweet

When we started the unfortunately named Giggle City feature – asking the same set of dumb questions and expecting smart answers from any stand-up comedian who happened to be in range – we were hoping for a detailed, in-depth exploration of the modern comic mind. Sure, we learned a lot, like how female hecklers are […]

Herbie Hancock to headline 2013 Jazz Fest

Herbie Hancock to headline 2013 Jazz Fest

For anyone old enough to remember the annual Playboy jazz poll, “Herbie Hancock on the piano” should have a familiar ring to it – and now he’s coming back to Edmonton, still going strong. The multiple Grammy winner is a headliner at the 2013 Edmonton International Jazz Festival, performing Thursday, June 27 at the Winspear […]

Serena Ryder to play Edmonton in April

Serena Ryder to play Edmonton in April

We’ve been hearing Serena Ryder all over the radio. It’s about time we saw her live in a setting that befits her emerging status as the siren of a new order in female pop music – a little Adele, a touch of Florence and the Machine, some Amy Winehouse, not too much, and overall a […]

McDades speak out: You will practice your fiddle and you will love it!

McDades speak out: You will practice your fiddle and you will love it!

It must be hard to rebel against your parents when your parents are folk musicians. It’s pretty much the most rebellious form of music known to man outside of punk rock, which is really just folk music writ large. But rebel one must. As a teenager, Solon McDade actually experienced a crisis of fashion that […]

TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS: Toys, candy, family, four ghosts

TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS: Toys, candy, family, four ghosts

If you haven’t found the true meaning of Christmas by now, you’re probably not going to find it in a Christmas show – but that doesn’t stop them from trying. Edmonton sees the same set of Christmas shows every year, year after year, in one similar form or another, and people keep flocking to them […]

WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Every day is Movember!

WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Every day is Movember!

As Paul McCartney Week draws to a close, it behooves us to remember that he wasn’t the only seminal influence in modern pop music – just a very, very big one. This is true whether modern musicians even know it or admit or not. Burton Cummings knows. Playing Saturday night at the Winspear Centre, the […]

Randy Bachman to bring songs, stories about songs, to Winspear Centre

It looks like they just missed another accidental Guess Who reunion. Randy Bachman is coming to town, playing Tuesday, April 9 the Winspear Centre – the same building his compatriot Burton Cummings will be performing on Dec. 1. Tickets for the Bachman show go on sale Friday. Is there no stopping these guys? Bachman will […]

WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Dan Mangan to rock Winspear Centre

There’s a incredible bill on Monday, Nov. 5 as Dan Mangan and Rural Alberta Advantage play a sold out show at the Winspear Centre. Mangan is perhaps Canada’s version of Bon Iver – at least in terms of his “indie” buzz if not his lack of mellowness – an incredible songwriter, musician and singer whose […]

WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Forecast calls for Snow Patrol

Amongst a myriad of Halloween parties to the tune of Canadian rock, the biggest names to hit the city this weekend are from the UK: Snow Patrol and Noel Gallagher’s new band, the High Flying Birds. Snow Patrol is best known for the hit “Chasing Cars” from the band’s 2006 album Eyes Open, which was […]

SCARY TIMES: 13 Halloween events for grown-ups who don’t want to grow up

SCARY TIMES: 13 Halloween events for grown-ups who don’t want to grow up

It’s no mystery why Halloween has been completely co-opted and dominated by grown-ups – it’s because many modern grown-ups have failed to grow up. Joe Flaherty – SCTV’s Count Floyd, so he ought to know about this sort of thing – complained that many of the adult students in his improv classes back East were […]