BROWSE AROUND: Search by Neighborhood | Slideshows
MUSIC, WIGBUBBLES>>by Allan Wigney
Pleading guilty to not being able to keep track of the multitude of local summer festivals, my pal Bijon recently proposed the city consolidate said celebrations into two month-long events: “Drunken Yahoofest and Lawnchair Fascistfest.”
No prizes for guessing which one got underway this week.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
Jolie Holland, the Texas-born Brooklynite whose emotive voice from another era turned heads seven years ago through a laidback, old-timey blues album called Esondida, is not coming to Bluesfest to sing the blues.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
“This,” Boston-based vocalist Laura Grill enthuses, “will be my third year coming up for the jazz festival.”
Well, not strictly for the festival. For while you may see Grill in the audience at Confederation Park or the National Arts Centre this weekend, the New England Conservatory alumnus has her own show to do. The songwriter’s expressive vocal style ensures jazz will be a factor at her Raw Sugar performance, but Grill prefers to think she’s more than a little bit folk.
MUSIC, REVIEW>>by Allan Wigney
In January of 1974 George Harrison caught Bob Dylan and The Band in concert. He liked what he saw. And what he saw was a rock and roll legend reinterpreting ― reinventing ― his past. Familiar fan favourites were reborn, given new arrangements, new melodies, new lyrics. Ten months later, when Harrison set out on what would be his only North American tour, he prepared to dazzle Beatle people with “While my guitar tries to smile,” “Something in the way we move it” and “In my life… I love God more.”
TODAY'S SURE THING, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
The rainy season is upon us. And with it comes the Ottawa Jazz Festival. (The season traditionally returns in time for SuperEx, but at least we won’t have to worry about that this year.) Prepare for 11 days of adventurous sounds to defy even the rainiest of nights.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Steve Baylin
He sings down and out songs for hard times or no times, and everything in between. Rock and roll anthems about the bruised, the battered and the desolate in disguise.He testifies with sweat soaked shout outs from streets of heartache and back alley banquets, all the while tangling with angels of mercy, lost souls in hell and black iron gates with a tombstone glow.
Pittsburgh’s favourite rock and roots ringer Bill Toms ― heart permanently affixed to sleeve ― has for nearly three decades spun many a dour and disconsolate tale of Steel City solitary sin, sadness and the search for salvation, with gut-level grandeur.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
Jeremy Greenspan reflects on Banana Ripple, the disco delight that closes It’s All True, his and fellow Junior Boy Matt Didemus’s latest full-length dancefloor-filler. At nine minutes and boasting numerous mood shifts, it’s an epic built layer upon layer.
TODAY'S SURE THING, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
“It’s kind of three different things in one,” Chuck Ragan says of the Canadian tour that brings him to Capital City. The first thing begins Thursday at Mavericks, as Ragan and pal Dave Hause hit town for a folksy revival show. For this and a handful of Ontario dates, the singer and guitarist will perform in the company of trusted bassist Joe Ginsberg and fiddler Jon Gaunt.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
The refined gentleman on the other end of the phone speaks in a unique accent, the result of a childhood spent in Ottawa, teen years completed in London, England, and an adulthood spent mostly in the south of Wales. His attitude is nearly as unique: that of a musician proud to call himself a cult artist, and content to carry on in the name of “all these people who preceded me to the other side.”
MUSIC>>by Shawn Jam Hill
Could 3 Inches of Blood be Canada’s greatest metal band?
MUSIC>>by Shawn Jam Hill
Good old Wikipedia, what did we do without its endless knowledge?
I thought a barn burner was a hootenanny, a rollicking good time, a joyously noisy festivity. Turns out a barn burner was somebody who would torch their own barn to get rid of rat infestations. Also, back in the early 1800s, barnburners were a political faction in New York State that would “destroy all banks and corporations to root out their abuses.”
Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet uses video projection design to send its dancers down the rabbit hole.
Local photographer Joy Kardish preserves, and reveals, all-but-forgotten spaces.
The 2011 visual and media arts laureates speak for themselves at the National Gallery group exhibition.
The renowned Japanese percussion ensemble, celebrating its 30th year, comes to the NAC March 7.
