Shut up and play your music
So apparently Jack White is now a jerk for calling the guys in the Black Keys jerks, among other jerky things said about other people, including his ex-wife, in the heat of the moment … to a Rolling Stone reporter. Then Jack said he was sorry. Don’t you wish these guys would just stop talking? […]
The smalls have Nickelback connection
Not a lot of people know this, but the smalls – now reunited after 14 years – came within a hair’s breadth of working with Chad Kroeger. Long before the Nickelback mastermind was cast as the Spawn of Baal, he expressed love for Edmonton’s favourite alternative metal band, after the smalls’ critically-acclaimed album “My Dear […]
JOYCE SMITH: No leavin’ on her mind
If the life of Joyce Smith is a country song, it’s a happy one. No heartbreak. No cheatin’. No hurtin’. She’s still married to the same rodeo cowboy who stole her heart more than 52 years ago. Her one small regret is not fulfilling a childhood dream to be a country superstar in Nashville. “I […]
Tom Petty returns for summer show, free album
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers promise that every fan who buys a ticket to their concert in Edmonton at Rexall Place on Sunday, Aug. 17 will get a free copy of their new album, Hypnotic Eye – because you’d be stealing it on the Internet anyway, right?! Quid pro quo, Clarice, quid pro quo … […]
REVIEW: George Thorogood b-b-b-boring
Vigorously played classic rock sends some people into fits of screaming, shouting, foot stomping, rampant high fiving and lots of odd yelping, but for others, like me, it can send them deep into a catatonic state that lasts several hours and ends up in the middle of a field wondering where everyone went and just […]
Pixies to bring new music to Edmonton
The question of when you would’ve had to go to art college in order to make the Pixies relevant is growing blurrier. Like Woodstock, a lot of people were there who weren’t actually there, dig? How else to explain the excitement over news that the seminal post-punk Gods are coming back to rock Edmonton, Monday, […]
Local rock band Rend to blow 50 grand wisely
Giving a bunch of musicians 50 grand in cash might sound like a lot, but by the time you’ve rented the tour bus equipped with satellite TV and hired the guy to pick out the brown M&Ms from your catering, there’s barely enough money left for drugs and hookers. It adds up. Seriously, Edmonton rock […]
Gods of Alternative to rock Sonic Boom 2014
The multi-talented Jack White will headline the sixth annual Sonic Boom festival, now expanded to three days, Aug. 29-31 at Northlands. Also appearing: Arctic Monkeys, Rise Against, Death Cab for Cutie, Foster the People, Tegan and Sara, the Descendents, Serene Ryder, Cage the Elephant and many, many more. More acts will be announced. Weekend passes […]
REVIEW: Black Sabbath kicks ass in Edmonton
Whether lapsed Catholics or apostate Protestants, fans of all religious persuasions gave roaring approval to the solid, reliable shift that Black Sabbath put in at the doom metal factory on Tuesday night. It wasn’t hard to see why 18,000 Edmonton fans flocked to see these metal legends get their hands dirty at Rexall Place. When […]
Edmonton big winner at Edmonton Music Awards
It’s hard to know who the biggest winner was at the 2014 Edmonton Music Awards – the artists that collected the prizes or our “awesome” city itself. There was a lot of love in the room at the Royal Alberta Museum Theatre Sunday night – and most of it for Edmonton – for the fourth […]
You can’t take the metal out of the Maimann
Kevin Maimann is a folkie with a metalhead inside screaming to get out – or is it the other way around? There is little doubt that the 27-year-old Edmonton Sun music columnist is a metal fan. As a teenager he braided his hair like the dude from Korn. He says he doesn’t consider himself a […]
Fleetwood Mac returns – with Christine McVie!
Fleetwood Mac sure seems to like Edmonton. The band is coming back to town for its aptly-named “On With the Show” tour – featuring Christine McVie for the first time in 16 years. They were just here last May, one short. Now they are complete. And there was great rejoicing. This is of course the […]
