Results tagged “canadianmusicweek”

Urban Planner: March 13, 2009

ART: Harbourfront's York Quay Centre hosts the opening party for eight new art exhibits. The highlight may be the Canadian premiere of Penny Klepuszewska's Living Arrangements, a photographic series studying the conditions of elderly people living alone in Britain. Other exhibits include New York artist Alfonso Volo messing around with the anthropomorphic critters of his childhood for "Creature Riffs," and a look at the work of Toronto design group Motherbrand for "Material Culture for the Modern Age." There are also three animation exhibits being shown in conjunction with the upcoming Images festival: "Frame by Frame," "Goodbye 20th Century," and "Topsy-Turvy." A two-hour film of "Frame by Frame" participants screens tonight at 7 p.m. Harbourfront (235 Queens Quay West), 6–10 p.m., FREE.

Urban Planner: March 11, 2009

MUSIC: East-coast indie powerhouse Sloan headline the Mod Club's Canadian Music Week kick-off with Zeus and Will Currie and the Country French joining as the opening acts. For the second show tomorrow night Hexes and Ohs replace Zeus on the bill, making it arguably the show to see at Canadian Music Week this year. A limited number of wristband wearers will be admitted, so if you've gone for the four-day pass, get there early. Mod Club Theatre (720 College Street), 8 p.m., $25.

If there’s something that all critics know, it’s that it’s great fun to rip apart something that’s incredibly bad. Especially if you know the person who made it deserves it. So as a result there’s a regular bounty of great criticism thrown at Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C. The guy has foisted some of the worst, laziest, most idiotic films on the public ever (his take on Godzilla should have had him tried in the Hague) and just the trailer of 10,000 B.C. seemed like it was intentionally trying to make us stupider.

Photo of Hollerado courtesy of Hollerado.

It's Canadian Music Week and that means there's an unusually large number of hip hop shows going on. KRS-One will be teachin' at The Opera House on Saturday as he continues his Stop the Violence movement. RZA dons his Bobby Digital mask on Sunday at the Phoenix. There's also grimy New York hip-hop (M.O.P. on Friday), French rap (DJ Orgasmic and Cuizinier on Thursday), and a strong showcase of local talent (Friday's Exclaim! event).

Photo of Les Breastfeeders from lesbreastfeeders.ca

Photo of Deerhoof courtesy of Four Paws Media.

Photo of Forest City Lovers by Joe Fuda

This Wednesday is the official launch of Canadian Music Week 2008, and as you read this more bands are flooding into Toronto than you can shake a drumstick at.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

We can't quite put away our coverage of CMW without letting you in on some great music that went on Saturday night. Thousands of people milled about town on the busiest night of the festival, and that made it even more difficult to decide which bands to go see. People lined up around the block for the city's hottest events, such as the songwriter's showcase starring Bedouin Soundclash and Jim Cuddy at The Mod Club.

After an exhaustive three days of Canadian Music Week, we bring you a recap of some of the bands Torontoist had a chance to take in. (You can also read another writer's take on the festival.)

Canadian Music Week comes to an end today. To mark that, we bring you a video of our recent interview with local group Your Band Sucks. Doc Pickles and Michelle Breslin discuss their sound, working with David Newfeld, and Wavelength.

Torontoist caught-up with Dave Azzolini and Jess Grassia of The Golden Dogs recently. Having finished a radio interview, they were rushing to pick up the rest of the band and proceed to The Docks for 2007 Indie Awards. Torontoist interviewed them in their van as all this happened—because such is Canadian Music Week. (And apparently we enjoy bands and their vans.)

Almost 40 venues were rockin' last night, and we here at Torontoist were definitely coming a-knockin' to check out as many bands as possible.

Tonight begins the running around from venue to venue, as Canadian Music Week starts it's second day. The Indie Awards last night at The Docks were... interesting, but now the real fun starts. As such, here is our second installment of CMW previews to help you plan your Friday evening. If you missed the first preview, you can check it out here

In case you're not into any CMW bands playing this year like these guys, or you want to avoid the boozing and schmoozing music industry folks (who are desperately clinging to their jobs), you might consider checking out the Pitter Patter Festival running concurrent to CMW. Featuring more than 80 local and non-local bands playing in Toronto, Hamilton and Oshawa, this year's line-up is a competitive, if not superior alternative to Canadian Music Week.

It's that time -- Canadian Music Week has finally arrived and is taking over just about every decent music venue in the city for the next four days, starting tonight with the Indie Awards at The Docks. Planning on checking some shows out, but can't make heads or tails of the overwhelming number of bands playing? We're here to help. We've scoured the list of over 500 bands to seek out some of the shows we hope will blow us away, and we want to share them with you. Over the next few days, we'll be previewing each night of the festival in hope that it will help you decide to either find a venue to nestle into for the night or put on your comfy shoes for an evening of club hopping.

Toronto is a convention city. Usually we are unaware of the presence of conventioneers unless one happens to be run down by a swarm of out-of-towners carrying identical bags and wearing freebie t-shirts. But this this week brings hoards of delegates to town for Canada Blooms, Canadian Music Week, and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention.

It's finally here - the week of festival hell insanity. Got your wristbands and earplugs ready? Canadian Music Week kicks off on Wednesday with the Indie Awards at The Docks, and Thursday to Saturday will have you running around town trying to catch as many acts as possible. Wristbands are $35, or you can purchase (limited) tickets at the door to most shows. Not your thing this year? There's also the Pitter Patter Festival running from Wednesday to Sunday. It features fewer acts than CMW but depending on your preference, it might give you more bang for your buck. Keep an eye on Torontoist for previews of both festivals in the coming days.

Let's just get this over with right off the bat -- Arcade Fire have announced their Toronto show dates. Hurrah! They'll be at Massey Hall on May 15 & 16, and tickets go on sale on Feb. 23rd. Predicted time to sell out? 1 minute 49 seconds. If you have no luck with those, the next closest location is Montreal on May 12 & 13.

It's like Six String Nation without the strings or the Canada, but thanks to the promotional needs of the film industry, you too can profit from the release of Air Guitar Nation.

After a three week hiatus, the music listings are back! Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.

Canadian Music Week at Lee’s Palace featured smells of raw sewage and stolen equipment. On two separate nights of CMW, Brian Borcherdt from Holy Fuck and Brian Poirier from the FemBots were shocked to find that their gear had vanished. Perhaps the thieving hoodlum(s) created the sewage disaster as a distraction ploy. Please contact the Brians if you have their items or know where their belongings are located. If your name is Brian, Torontoist would advise caution on future visits to Lee’s Palace.

"I'm Dan Burke and I decide who rock stars are!" said an inspired Dan Burke as he trolled up and down Augusta on Saturday night, handing out flyers. The former Maclean's journalist and daring club promoter was getting the word out for his anti-Canadian Music Week shows when he ruffled someone's feathers - or more likely, someone ruffled his. The exchange was difficult to hear, only that he called one woman a "cunt" and moved on.

Lately, Toronto audiences have been no strangers to the diverse talents in Japanese alternative music. The appearance of Damo Suzuki a couple of years back at Wavelength was a nice surprise, and the "melodic instrumental noise unit " known as Mono put on a fantastic display of intensity this past summer at Harbourfront during a set at the Beats, Breaks and Culture Festival. And of course, there's Ron Burd, director of the music department at CIUT 89.5FM, whose close connection to the Japanese underground scene has kept the radio shelves stocked with such artists as Chiaki Kato, Kei and the Chitan Go Kings.

Canadian Music Week, which is not really a week, kicks off tonight with what looks like a promising line-up. Then again, with like 200 bands, how could there NOT be a promising line-up? The CMW shotgun approach has Torontoist looking forward to this small smattering of shows:

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