In an empty storefront on King Street, an unusual crew have assembled to assist with a large renovation. Visual artists are building risers, comedians are hanging stage lights, poets are carting around stacks of chairs. Light streams in through the big storefront windows of the former Custom Copy and bounces off its white walls, but […]
First things first: Melissa Payne is a dynamite performer. The petite blonde musician with a wide smile is a firecracker on stage, climbing on her bandmates’ instruments for an acrobatic fiddle solo or bouncing around the stage with a guitar around her neck. Audiences have been falling in love with her since a young age, […]
Perhaps Eugene Chadbourne is best known for (or most infamous for) the electric rake, a homemade instrument consisting of a garden rake with an electric pickup, creating a noise much like you’d expect from a loud, distorted rake. He doesn’t play the electric rake any more, but it gives a sense of Eugene’s unconventional approach […]
Bandwagon, the local video series featuring intimate performances from excellent bands, continues its seventh season with a performance of “Boys Like You” by Whitehorse. Even before Whitehorse was a band, Luke Doucet and Melissa McLelland were making music and playing together. They each had solo careers and would sometimes tour together, playing backup in each other’s […]
The 2007 documentary Global Metal sees metalhead (and cultural anthropologist) Sam Dunn investigating heavy metal scenes around the world, discovering how the same blistering guitar solos and wild styles have found expression and meaning across borders, cultures, and language barriers. At one point, Dunn is speaking to a boy in India, who says, “Heavy metal […]
About 700 years ago, nuns at a monastery in northern Spain had a book of music copied out by hand, probably so they could use it in their worship services. It was preserved in the convent for hundreds of years, largely unknown, before it was discovered again by researchers in the early 20th century. The […]
The first time I saw Whitehorse, I was reminded that, sometimes, a particular artist will be more successful than others because they’re simply more charismatic, more energetic, more joyous, and just overall more talented. Husband-and-wife duo Luke Doucet and Melissa McLelland are a musical powerhouse. Their albums have been critical darlings and audience favourites, showcasing […]
People You Meet Outside of Bars’ latest collection of fragile odes to fragility comes as an answer to Trent Radio’s RPM Challenge: make a record in one month. The result is intimately confessional, but in a punky, DIY kind of way, sounding somewhat like Broken Girl-era Julie Doiron or anti-folkie Diane Cluck. Backed by pizzicato […]
When it comes to Record Production Month, Rob Hailman, local folk musician and member of gonzo blues-rockers No Pussyfooting, can always be counted on to present something equally playful and thoughtfully constructed. This year, Hailman presents an exercise in contrasts. System OK is centred around the chiptune soundtrack of an 8-bit video game—with its oddly […]
When I saw Lindsay Barr on stage in the local production of Evil Dead: The Musical in October of last year, it felt like the arrival of a new whirlwind force on the local theatre scene. In a production full of big performances and wild, over-the-top moments, she shone bright. Her character, the bookish Shelly, […]