Photo from Skratch Bastid. It's a night of east coast hip hop at the Danforth Music Hall on Friday. Acclaimed party-rocking DJ Skratch Bastid will be manning the decks first as an opening act and then accompanying Buck 65, who headlines the night. The Halifax-raised DJ is well-known for his Imperial Death March beat juggling routine and is an accomplished turntablist. Recently, he laced Buck 65's latest album Situation, which has produced a video......

Photo of Cadence Weapon by David Topping. Earlier this afternoon in the Drake Sky Yard, the shortlist for this year's Polaris Prize was announced. Established by Steve Jordan last year, the $20,000 prize "annually honours, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected critics......

Weekly indie institution Wavelength started in 1999, setting up shop at Ted's Wrecking Yard, then bouncing between venues until landing at its current home, Sneaky Dee's, in 2002. Past performers read like a who's-who of home grown indie music: Great Lake Swimmers, The Bicycles, Cadence Weapon, Julie Doiron, Peaches, Final Fantasy, Feist—and the list goes on. After a Canada Day hiatus, the Sunday night series is back with a stellar July lineup for its live......

Photo by Carrie Musgrave. We could begin this week by rambling on about how we're into the second half of the year already (really?!) or tell you all about our Canada Day weekend, but let's just get straight to it this week. Go see The White Stripes on Thursday. If there's one show you go to this entire summer, this is the one. Really. We recently saw the Stripes at Bonnaroo and they were......

Another busy week in the city. Ridiculously busy. Once again, there's something decent to check out every night. We'll be hitting The Decemberists, Imogen Heap, Shout Out Out Out Out (out out out), and possibly a few more. Perhaps even Skid Row (minus Bach). What?! As if you don't miss those power ballads of the 80s! Oh, and it looks like Justin Timberlake is bringing 'sexy back' to Toronto in January. The price? Up......

There seems to be something for everyone this week, but let's just call it the 'week of The Hip' and be done with it, since they've taken up residence at The Phoenix for four sold out shows. We're curious to know if anyone actually paid $60 + TM charges per ticket to attend all of them? 'Fess up! If that's not your thing, you can always get spewed on by Gwar tonight at the......

Owen Pallett (aka. Final Fantasy) has taken the inaugural Polaris Music Prize and $20,000 for his sophomore album He Poos Clouds. Pallett beat out nine other worthy artists including Cadence Weapon, the Deadly Snakes, Malajube and more. The award was started by music industry veteran Steve Jordan who based the award on Britain's Mercury Prize. For Owen's sake we just hope that there's no Polaris Music Prize curse. Update: Check out Radio 3's commentary......

More evidence that we're the centre of the universe (kidding), the nominees for the inaugural Polaris Prize is out and four five out of the ten nominees are bonafide Toronto artists. Broken Social Scene, The Deadly Snakes, Final Fantasy, Sarah Harmer and K'Naan make up the Toronto contingent. If we add Metric (which live in a whole bunch of places) and Sarah Harmer (who lives near Kingston) then over half the list calls Toronto home.......

Torontoist needed a few tries to understand the hoopla surrounding Spank Rock, but we think we finally get it now. The non-stop Spank Rock dance party worked the crowd at The Horseshoe into a veritable frenzy last night, at least by proud Screwface Capital standards. As a haiku, the Spank Rock experience might best be summed up as follows: Dance, dance, dance, dance, danceUhm, ew. What did he just say?Oh well. Dance, Dance, Dance.......