Halifax
April 15, 2000 at the Marquee
By James Keast

Mike O’Neill

One half of indie pop duo the Inbreds flies the solo flag, and drops the bass for guitar and piano, with a set of new material that previews his first record, The Reverse Method, due in May.

Heavy Blinkers

Pure pop from the plethora of players, the Heavy Blinkers coax their pet sounds from a variety of strings, horns and theremin.

Slow Lover

Charismatic crooning with an elegant sense of style is what to expect from this mysterious new entry on the Halifax scene, who happens to closely resemble Mike LeBlanc of Kick Like 50 and Rick of the Skins.

44°N/63°W: An East Coast Urban Explosion

A load of Halifax hip-hop talent gathers to celebrate the release of the East Coast Urban Explosion compilation, featuring Classified, Shy Love, Flexxman, Overloards, Bonshah and more.

DJ Skratch Bastard

Star athlete, honours student and 17-year-old high schooler by day, Paul Murphy moonlights as Atlantic Canada’s best battle DJ, Skratch Bastard.
Solvent Vs. Lowfish Analog Sound-clash

Jason Amm and Gregory De Rocher are the brains behind Toronto’s revered Suction imprint. Artists who have recorded for the label include Montreal’s David Kristian, Manchester England’s Brioche Kretzaal, Sweden’s Plexus, and Italy’s D’Arcangelo. Label operators by day, night finds them slipping into their Solvent (Amm) and Lowfish (De Rocher) guises, where they perform and record “robot music.” Fun, funky, and melodic are the best words to use when describing their brand of electron...Read More

Peaches Bombastic Beat Babe
She did the folk thing with Mermaid Café. She achieved her goal of being a “crazy singer” with Fancypants Hoodlum, an avant-jazz-rock band. She got a group of "rock’n’roll friends," and picked up instruments never previously played and developed a fun little foursome known simply as the Shit. Who is she? In her own words, she is Peaches, "an unstoppable, sexy, bomb-ass beat bitch. She just wants to debunk a lot of myths; for people in the rock’n’roll world, it's like ‘Hey, electronics are cool,’...Read More
Weakerthans Enter Stage Left

Anyone who's followed the career of John K. Samson knows he’s not in any hurry. Back in his early days with proto-punks Propagandhi, the band would release material whenever it felt like it (we're still waiting for a follow-up to their 1996 entry, Less Talk More Rock).

Now fronting his own post-punk folk-rock combo, the Weakerthans, nothing much has changed. The band's first album, the much-lauded Fallow was originally released in early 1998 but they've only just finished re...Read More

Cave In Live Through This

In the space of only a handful of releases, Boston, MA’s Cave In have gone from being one of the most innovative and damaging bands in the metal/hardcore underground to being one of the most experimental.

“We started like any other band, in the basement, writing songs, trying to be like other bands we liked,” recalls guitarist Adam McGrath. It was their second full-length, 1998’s Until Your Heart Stops on Hydra Head, that established Cave In (rounded out by singer/guitarist ...Read More

Destroyer Call to Worship

“I hope it’s not just a pop record,” says Destroyer’s Daniel Bejar from Vancouver. “A lot of people just hear some arty lyrics and say ‘here’s some indie rock poet wannabe’ and don’t get closer than that. It would be so cool if I could actually explain some kind of operating system within the lyrics, pull it together, and say ‘This is what it’s about.’”

Destroyer is a far cry from the rest of the poets, from whom meaning is foisted upon the listener in the form of “whatever ...Read More

Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine Art Rock Reflex

Michael Dumontier and Drue Langlois don’t differentiate between the music they create as Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine, and the drawings they produce as core members of Winnipeg’s Royal Art Lodge (RAL) collective. “With the Eyeball Hurt stuff, a lot of the songs are about drawings, or we make the drawings about the songs,” says Dumontier. “The visual element is really connected. I would say almost everything we do is linked to the music in some way.”

The pair’s latest scrapb...Read More

Winnipeg Exclaim! Party - Feature: The Plan April 7 to 9, 2000

Some people are just never satisfied with what they have. Just take a look at the guys in Halifax quartet, the Plan. All of them boast membership in other, semi-established bands like Equation of State and North of America, yet for some reason they feel compelled to give something new a try.

"It's a different band really," guitarist/screamer Mike Catano offers from a truck stop somewhere near South Carolina in the midst of an ambitious ten-week tour of North America. "It's n...Read More

Also in Winnipeg April 7 to 9, 2000

Christine Fellows

Expect more of the lush string arrangements and wistful sounds featured on the excellent debut, 2 Little Birds, from this Winnipeg-based folkie.

B’Ehl

Pretty, delicate pop and harmonised female vocals are the order of the day from this Winnipeg band, whose latest, Bright Eyes, is out now on Endearing.

Moneen

Double up with two appearances of rocking emo-waltz from this young Toronto band, whose debut EP is ca...Read More

Also in Toronto April 1, Reverb

Da Grassroots

Toronto’s famed production crew promises enthusiastic live energy from MCs Fatski, Arcee and Mr. Roam. Saukrates, who appears on their debut platter Passage Through Time, has also been joining them at recent Toronto shows.

Flashing Lights

Vigorous power pop from ex-Super Friend Matt Murphy and his Flashing Lights crew, featuring tunes from their acclaimed Where The Change Is album.

Grade

Burlington, ON hardcore b...Read More

The deliberately lo-fi, yet earnest, split between Transit and Man Overboard sounds like the product of a bunch of friends growing up on punk and hardcore throughout the '90s. The hardcore leanings of Boston fivesome Transit lay the groundwork for the pop punk tendencies of the Jersey kids in Man Ov... Full Review
Crazy Heart, in which Jeff Bridges adds another career achievement notch on his belt as a down-to-his-last-drink country singer, might be more difficult to watch for musicians than for average moviegoers.

Bad Blake (Bridges), who's on the wrong side of 50, is hauling his truck ... Full Review
The term "videogame music" is often intended as an insult, deriding electronic beatscapes as rudimentary by comparing them to the 8-bit by necessity, bleep-based soundtracks of early Atari and Nintendo games. (See: Castles, Crystal) That Super Mario's theme music remains embedded in the frontal lobes of anyone under the age of 40 proves the critical weakness of the diss ― but it's also hopelessly archaic considering how much videogame music has evolved over the years.... Read More
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