L7 L7: Pretend We’re Dead DVD/Blu-Ray (MVD Visual) In the twenty-first century, it’s so unusual to simultaneously feel excited and infuriated as one watches a movie – but that’s what happens when one one watches Pretend We’re Dead – the documentary film which chronicles the rise, fall and rebirth of L7. The reason for the excitement and, really, the joy of this film is that there’s no question every member of the band – Donita Sparks, Suzi Gardner, Jennifer Finch...

Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It by Leon Trotsky It’s strange to think that fascism is getting so much attention these days. In our current political climate things are getting so divisive that it’s much too common to label people as either fascists on the right or I-don’t-know-whats on the left. But for a word that gets thrown around so much, maybe we should know precisely what it means before we fling it around so carelessly. Leon...

Sass Jordan Racine Revisited (Linus Entertainment) Twenty-five years ago, Sass Jordan made her first big breakthrough onto Canadian radio airwaves with her sophomore album Racine. It was very much a “right place, right time” kind of moment; with bands like the Black Crows and singers like Melissa Etheridge holding a whole lot of time and space on playlists around the country, Jordan fit right in with the time and tastes of a mainstream rock radio audience who was still hearing...

The Beguiled   Why did it take me so long to watch the Beguiled? I was keenly aware of it (as I am with most projects involving Kirsten Dunst), it had a decent run in theatres, garnered good reviews, and even played at my local arthouse theatre. So, what happened? I can’t really say. I seem to have prioritized Alien Covenant and Baby Driver as my giant-theatre experiences and before I knew it, the Beguiled was gone.   Quite...

The Prospects of Industrial Civilization by Bertrand Russell My first impression when researching this book is finding out that even admitted Bertrand Russell “fans” don’t hold this book in very high esteem. Although better and more thorough analyses of this book exist, I still have to argue that there’s a lot to learn in the Prospects of Industrial Civilization. I do agree with critics that this probably should have been a longer book as Russell spends too little time on...

Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist by Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins is someone who has been impressing me ever since I started reading him more than 10 years ago. It’s surprising the kind of shade that gets thrown his way, because if you read his books, they are quite enlightening and he comes across like a perfectly sane (albeit a bit arrogant) man. Dawkins’ books vary between his major theses, autobiography, and short essay collection. This...

Night of the Living Dead 50th Anniversary Edition Let’s face it, the zombie bubble is starting to burst. And thank goodness for that. For a while there, zombies were the new pirates. Everywhere you looked there were new zombie movies being churned out, or comics, or books, or stupid TV shows. And also TV shows which were about those zombie TV shows. The truth is that zombie movies just aren’t that great, and its fanbase is a little dumb....

Total Chaos: The Story of the Stooges by Iggy Pop (Editor), Jon Savage (Editor), Jeff Gold (Editor), Johan Kugelburg (Contributor) The Stooges are a great example that you can’t keep a good thing down, for better or worse. At least not in this day and age. For whatever reason, the Stooges were revived more than 10 years ago, with as original of a lineup as possible and Mike Watt on bass. Aware that he was not and would not ever...

White Stripes Elephant Photo: turntablelab.com   The White Stripes’ elephant is an important album both for me personally and in the wider scope of musical history as it gives good perspective on what was going on with music at the time.  For me personally it conjures up memories of driving through the redwoods for the first time, wondering how exactly Meg White manages to hit her drums so hard. It was also the first song we learnt as a band...

Katy Perry Witness   It’s truly interesting to watch what has been happening to Katy Perry this year. Sure, she never appealed to everyone, but the woman has solidified herself as a pop music heavy hitter ever since she broke on the scene in 2008. And no, her Kate Hudson Christian rock phase does not count.   For some reason, it seemed like Katy Perry was taking a different approach to pop music. While most artists seem to unabashedly embrace...