To paraphrase Johnny Cash (a.k.a. The “other” man in black, in this case), when the man comes around, everyone comes to see. In situations like that, everyone knows what's coming as well as when and where it's going to be so, when the announcement that Motörhead would be stopping to play a show in Kitchener, Ontario on their way to Toronto, not one metalhead in the southern part of the province didn't know about it, and most of them made...

Does anybody else’s jaw hurt? Because I’m pretty sure we all just got sucker punched by Thom Yorke.  After the release of In Rainbows in 2007, mum has been the word of the day for Radiohead. The creative megalithic beast that was their first album without EMI seemed to have worn the group down, but now they’ve come out swinging with a one-two punch of announcing King of Limbs a week before its' release date, and then releasing it a...

As much promise as a band might hold when it first appears on the public radar, sometimes there's no way to account for the sudden jump forward that they might make from one album to the next; sometimes a band might have been good on one album but they're absolutely mind-blowing on the next. Such jumps are not commonplace (if they were, there would be no such thing as a mid-level band) but it's really exciting when they do happen;...

Ever been walking along a busy city street at night and, out of the corner of your eye, you could've sworn you saw someone you used to love knowing? It could be anyone – a drinking buddy who moved out of town for work, the waitress who always used to smile at you when she delivered your coffee at your local shoppe but left unexpectedly for school, the girl who got away – but the possibility of reconnecting with that...

Remember when punk rock music didn't need a bunch of frills, bells, or whistles strapped to it in order to be considered good? It seems to have been a while since that was the case, and you can start flipping through your record collection to try and figure out when exactly punk started crutching on novelties, gimmicks, cross-genre blending and every other new trick in the book to achieve a short-lived “wow” factor, or you can just throw on The...

Sixteen years ago, The Tea Party ruled Canadian rock radio airwaves and the band's singer, Jeff Martin, was already an icon. Between the group's first two albums (Splendor Solis and The Edges Of Twilight),  The Tea Party shattered alternative rock conventions of simplicity being the first, best way to a hit by incorporating elements of world music (mainly that of East India) and Classic Rock's love of instrumental virtuosity (the band really did sound like the best possible cross between...

I would like to say I didn’t have to leave this show early due to a foot injury that was making it increasingly painful to lean over the barricade for photos. I’d like to say that the venue understood the difference between stating “show starts at 8” and “doors open at 8.” I’d like to say that. I’d be lying, but I’d like to say that. Wounded, sitting on the floor of the Academy of Contemporary Music Performance Lab (previously...

Hey d'ere kiddies,So here we go again wit' another great bag o' SWAG from me ta yous. I tell ya, they ain't gettin' any lighter now! An' 'ey're gettin' better too! I foun' some bits o' the new album by R.E.M. 'at was just layin' around so I picked 'em up an' put 'em in 'ere, an' I also foun' some o' dat new Foo Fighters, Descendents an' Tune-Yards for yer swipin' pleasure, but 'at's the gravy this week. The...

While it has been six years since the band released an album of new material (the re-recorded, remunerated reissue of their debut doesn't count), it's clear in listening to Safeways Here We Come that Chixdiggit has no intention of changing or growing up. In just over sixteen minutes (which comes very close to being able to fit on a seven-inch, incidentally), Fat Wreck's original Canadian signing immortalizes the joys of ramen noodles, the woes and inherent comedy of bad haircuts,...

Listen to enough music, and eventually the lines between novelty, shtick, fallacy and fanaticism begin to get a bit blurry. As record labels worry evermore about their bottom lines and market shares and attempt to compensate by releasing more material than the other guys, the possibility for genuine tripe getting more attention than it deserves becomes increasingly real. How could it not? When every concept of a band is getting unloaded, there's bound to be a couple dogs in the...