Its a fine Friday here in Halifax, and if you are here, you are no doubt busy working out your weekend plans in order to take advantage of the lovely weather we seem to have on tap. Well let's see if we can assist with a quick rundown of some events of interest. I say some events, but really, we all know there's only one can't miss show this weekend: Rob Base at The Palace. I keed, but only s...
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There are some crazy things happening here in MTL thanks to the good people at M for Montreal. I'll be doing a better dissection of the conference, bands and antics later - honestly, Miracle Fortress fans are in for an (electro) shock and The RAA own every stage they play now - but there are a couple bands that are new to me that I'm super excited to check out.One band is Silly Kissers. These y...
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To be honest, I have no idea what to say about the new Mitch Wiebe, Ray Fenwick, Rebecca Young project, Pastoralia. On first listen the songs are visceral, but they have a depth that you only stumble onto the more times the tracks repeat. The trio plays engaging albeit somewhat bizarre, organic electro pop, but I get the impression the method is as important as the madness. It's more than three...
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All right, the Ack is off gallivanting around Montreal with all the fancy music biz swells at M For Montreal, and yes, that leaves me back in Halifax minding the cyber store. And it also happens to be Thursday, so that means one thing: videos. We've had a couple of jam-packed editions of Video Hits over the last couple of weeks, and I wanted to keep that going, but I'd also been hyped on Cana...
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There's a good chance many of you reading this have not heard of Ghettosocks. That's fine, I mean, after all, that's what we're here for, to try and remedy that situation. But I will says this: if you like classic hip hop (more specifically hip hop & hip hop culture from the early to mid nineties), and you do listen to a Ghettosocks album, I'd be willing to bet my leather Africa medallion tha...
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On his last effort (review), Jon Epworth wanted us all to know it's not the size of the room you play, it's the songs you write. He focused on substance over style, holding onto the fleeting notion that it's not what you sell, it's what you make. Some might call the notion naive, other's idealistic but as the music industry finds more and more cracks in the foundation, it's important to know th...
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Pleasant surprises are rare in this day & age, but I have to say, one of the nice things about having one of these nifty music blogs, is that you tend to get pleasantly surprised on a fairly regular basis. This is exactly what happened when I listened to CFCF's Continent for the first time a little while ago. I knew nothing about him, other than that he was a Montreal DJ, and I'd seen his nam...
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First off, let me apologize for the lack of OSM-age last week. I hate to skip it, but time was scarce last weekend, and we wanted to ensure we got the awesome Paper Bag vinyl contest posted bright and early (as an aside, if you haven't entered that contest, do so now, as today will likely be the last day for it). But now we're back, and I wanted to return with a jumbo version to make up for l...
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We are going to take a trip south of the border today, visiting places that conjure up painful sporting memories. First we have Philadelphia. One of the first Steelers games I ever went to I scalped a ticket and ended up sitting next to the dude that dressed up like the Eagle. People pelted him (and me) with trash and plastic bottles. Not cool.What is cool however is long time herohill fav and ...
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One of the acts I'm most looking forward to seeing next week at M for Montreal is the nomadic Mark Berube - he's playing the M for Martini showcase on Thursday. He may call Montreal home, but he's traveled the world singing songs, and stock piling anecdotes and observations.The result is a unique sound built on his spoken word background, accordion and piano prowess and finely tuned travelers ...
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The Friganza returns! It's been a while since we've posted our rundown of the weekend shows here in Halifax, but you'll have to cut us a bit of slack, as we've had a few things going on. But things, schmings, there's a lot going on, so let's get to it. If the two of us can power through the illness in our bodies and households, you'll find us at the Paragon, taking in a show we've been looki...
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Originally I planned on writing an opus about this record. I was going to try to connect you to the record through my eyes and ears, talking about how the first listen it hit me like no other record this year. Praise the trio for following through on a premise so simple, so pure that you can't help but fall in love with the results.I mean, three successful, talented song writers revisiting time...
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Next week I’ll be heading up to Montreal to rub elbows with the big names in journalism and help promote the ever growing and successful Montreal scene. As one of the delegates for M For Montreal, basically we roll into the city and get treated to shows and sit down time courtesy of some of the best bands in Montreal (and some extra special guest from other provinces).Now, if you scan the list .
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Between the two of us here at your favorite kung fu dude-mascotted music blog, I'd have to say I'm really not the guy you go to for hot new indie music trends. The Ack is certainly the guy to go to for that kind of thing, as he manages to do a rather decent job keeping his incredibly white fingers on the pulse of those things. I'm more the guy to go to when you're wondering which Chubb Rock a...
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When it comes to super groups, for me I'm not sure there is much better out there than Daniel Romano from Attack in Black, Julie Doiron and the all-too-often overlooked insanity and awesomeness that is Fred Squire.That being said, finding out about their amazing record built on classic on folk songs rearranged in Fred's garage was like waking up on Christmas morning and finding out that not onl...
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A few years ago, I was sent a record from an young two-piece from Guelph called Arrows. I liked Knives Are Falling From the Sky (review), but thought that they were struggling to find their sound as they sampled from the sounds we all the love (Pixies, Nirvana and Hey Mercedes were three that I heard).Then they kind of disappeared. It's not unusual for a DIY act to lose steam so when I hadn't h...
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There's a chance you might have gotten this impression if you've been reading my curmudgeon-esque posts for any length of time, but when I lived in Toronto, I was not "up in the club" all that often. Bars, pubs, even the odd tavern - sure, I was in my fair share of those, but attendance at the city's dance-oriented establishments was rather poor. However, were I still in T.O., there's an even...
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I absolutely hate it when super blogger Craig Bonnell beats us to the punch on little known roots artists living in the Great White North. Not because he doesn't constantly offer up DIY gems for his readers, but because I like to think we have our finger on the (Canadian) pulse here at the Hill when it comes to an incredible talent like Manitoba's Cam Penner, well, we should have been in the kn...
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Seeing as how this is merely an average Monday morning in November, I'm guessing many of you weren't overly psyched to greet the day. Well, let us turn that around quick fast: with a simple email to us you could win yourself 6 beautiful vinyl albums from Paper Bag Records. Yes friend, you read that correctly, not 1, not 2, and not even 3, but 6 lovely vinyl albums. And I do mean lovely (and ...
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I'm not sure if a better show will come through Halifax in the few months. Without a doubt, Polaris short lister Alberta's Elliott Brood and criminally overlooked The Deep Dark Woods from SK are going to absolutely burn down The Paragon on November 13th, and we want to give one lucky reader the chance to see both acts for free. Hell, you can even take a guest.Everyone already knows and loves th...
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