2:59

Elliott Brood had the unfortunate luck of hooking me with what’s become one of my favourite songs. “Oh Alberta” is, in purely academic terms, an awesome little ditty. It’s a catchy banjo driven ode the provinces of Canada. It’s campy, nonsensical and more fun than your most fondly remembered children’s song. Everyone I’ve played it [...]

There’s a truly spectacular class of independent music coming out of Canada, and it’s so frustratingly genre agnostic and post-everything that to even bother labeling it is an exercise in futility. Toronto duo FemBots are often lumped into some quasi-fictitious indie-folk genre, and that’s an absolutely uncomfortable fit. The duo of Dave MacKinnon and Brian [...]

I can’t sleep in anymore. I think it happened between my first and second year of university, once I had left the surreal dorm world behind and started working days. Whatever the reason, something shifted. It works out rather conveniently from Monday to Friday but on weekend mornings I often find myself up and haunting [...]

There’s a very Canadian notion that underscores the Constantines’ entire body of work. While most of us live in cities, urbanites by birth and habit, we take great pride in portraying ourselves as rural creatures. We’ve romanticized the pioneer, that ideal of the rough hewn, nature conscious, working class figure that’s at the heart of [...]

I’m feeling confident, so let’s going ahead and make the argument that the Sadies are essential listening for the punk rock crowd. Now this is by no means an under-appreciated band; they find no shortage of critical praise with each successive record (and there’s been something like ten at this point). Yet coming as we [...]