Posted on August 23, 2012
By Michael Senchuk
Music
While the calendar continues to be dominated by the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, never let it be said that this city doesn’t honor musical legends, as three bands that saw the peak of their careers in the 1980s and 1990s perform around town this weekend – The Cult, Refused, and the Headpins. The Edmonton Blues […]
Posted on August 23, 2012
By LH Thomson
Front Slider, Music
In yesterday’s lecture on The Neuroscience of the Blues, we touched on the distinction between DEEP blues and FUN blues, though they sound very similar. Put simply, DEEP blues is about real suffering: from oppression, racism, poverty, addiction, disease, mental illness, heartbreak, desperation or despair – or all of the above. FUN blues is, well, […]
Posted on August 22, 2012
By Mike Ross
The Latest, Theatre, TV and Radio
There is a secret room located deep in the bowels of the Fringe headquarters where the hopes, dreams, aspirations, talent and hard work of theatre artists are CRUSHED by the bucketful. It’s the “media room,” where Fringe theatre critics practice their art for 10 days every August. More than 65 journalists, broadcasters and bloggers are […]
Posted on August 22, 2012
By LH Thomson
Front Slider, Music
Muddy Waters famously sang that the blues had a baby, and they named it rock ‘n’ roll. Of course, that was a hell of a long time ago. His last hit CD, “Hard Again,” was back in ‘77 and Muddy died in ’84. Things have changed a bit. As we prepare for Edmonton Blues Festival […]
Posted on August 21, 2012
By Barry Hammond
Front Slider, Music, Theatre
“It’s all backwards causality. Cyclical time. The past is the future. The present is now. The future is the past.” That’s how Rocco Hercules Somershire – the greatest rock musician in the greatest British rock band in the world – explains how The Saints of British Rock could meet Merlin the magician, who gave them […]
Posted on August 21, 2012
By Michael Senchuk
Front Slider, Music
You heard it from Black Mountain first – what may be a new genre of music called “apocalyptic surf.” Fans can check it out Thursday night when the Vancouver “psyche-rock” band plays the Starlite Room, promising to include music from its soundtrack to the indie film Year Zero – which has been described as an […]
Posted on August 20, 2012
By Mike Ross
Music, The Latest
Wait, didn’t the Smashing Pumpkins break up? They couldn’t have – because the band is coming to Rexall Place on Friday, Oct. 5. It’s part of a tour behind the new album, Oceania. Tickets start at $62 and go on sale Friday Aug. 24. Must have missed the reunion party there. But what the band’s […]
Posted on August 18, 2012
By Maurice Tougas
Theatre
Jersey Boys sounded like a pretty lame premise for a hit Broadway musical. I mean, c’mon, the Four Seasons? Can you base an entire show on “Walk Like a Man”? As it turns out, you can. The story of four Guidos whose rose from the streets (literally — they started singing on street corners) to […]
Posted on August 18, 2012
By Wayne Arthurson
Music, The Latest
These days it’s hard to be surprised by a rock concert. It’s all spectacle now: explosions, lasers, columns of flames, 25 foot tall statues, all on a stage the size of a Borg ship covered by an infinity of lights. The music, even the band, seems almost secondary. Metallica’s sold out show at the Coliseum […]
Posted on August 17, 2012
By Barry Hammond
Film, Front Slider
Watching the Argentinean-Canadian co-production, “A Place Called Los Pereyra” – opening at the Metro Cinema Aug. 18 – brings to mind a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, […]
Posted on August 16, 2012
By Mike Ross
Comedy, Front Slider, TV and Radio, Visual Arts
Gird your loins, adventurers, for an upcoming “Comic-Con” exhibition of pop culture is bringing in the REAL Batman – which, as everyone knows, is Adam West. The star of the popular TV 1960s series – and lately as Mayor Adam West on Family Guy – is just one of the special guests expected at Edmonton […]
Posted on August 16, 2012
By Michael Senchuk
Music
It’s Metallica weekend in Edmonton! The near-mythological metal band from California plays two sold-out shows at Rexall, Friday and Saturday nights. Everything else musical this weekend plays second fiddle, like it or not. The only major competition is the Edmonton Rock Music Festival at Hawrelak Park, with headliners like Prism, Blue Oyster Cult and April […]
