Results tagged “cbcradio”

You know what's weird about Toronto? In spite of being the most populous city in the country, we can't ever seem to win popularity contests.

Say it ain't so, CBC! Searchlight's quest to track down the best live music venue in Canada is now down to its final twenty, and it seems the future is foggy for the Big Smoke. The only remaining contender for Toronto is, of course, the Horsehoe Tavern, with a who's-played list as great as the Grammys―wait―what?! We just actually checked the list, and it turns out that Radio 3 listeners picked Hugh's Room, way out by its lonesome at Dundas and Roncesvalles, as the only Toronto venue worthy of being in the nation's top twenty. It's not that we have anything against folk and roots music, but seriously, WTF?! When Pete Seeger tops the Wall of Fame for our city's best venue, it's time we all take a deep breath, re-evaluate our lives, and get on the next plane to Winnipeg, the crown champion city thus far with three of the nation's top nominees. Well, at least we're not the only ones getting swindled: Montreal and Vancouver (including the grand Commodore Ballroom) were cut from the running altogether.

CBC Radio 3 announced yesterday the first cuts in the search for the best live venues in Canada. Toronto topped, nay, absolutely dominated the list of nods―no big surprise there―and did it with a pretty impressive record. Eighteen out of the nominated venues reside in Toronto the Good (next best was Calgary, with ten). The Cameron House, The Dakota Tavern, El Mocambo, The Gladstone, The Horseshoe, Hugh's Room, Lee's Palace, The Lucky Dragon, The Mod Club, The Music Gallery, The Phoenix (which we thought was out of the running with a 1,350-person capacity), Rancho Relaxo, The Rex, The Rivoli, The Smiling Buddha, Sneaky Dee's, The Tranzac, and "The Wrong Bar" are all on the list. The first round of voting is now in session on CBC Radio 3's website, with the top fifty being revealed Tuesday.

For the record, we still think Soundscapes or Sonic Boom should have taken the trophy last time. In CBC Radio 3's inaugural edition of Searchlight last year, an infant store from Prince George, B.C. claimed the prize for Best Record Store in Canada. But this was clearly pre-ordained―in Prince George, a town of about eighty thousand in the northern abyss of a province known best for its bud, it's only natural that hordes of bored (and potentially stoned) music fanatics would rally together to vote for their one and only vinyl shop, Meow Records, a shop already adored for surviving a flood and forming an all-girl roller derby team. Record-loving Torontonians, however, must have been divided amongst the city's divine selection, deciding to act on the virtues of fairness so that none of our wonderful vinyl depots would feel left out. We understand.

...and nary an "I Get on the TTC" in sight. [Torontonians breathe sigh of relief.] As reported on CBC.ca, our nation has spoken, and we've chosen 49 Can-con classics to "give" to the newly inaugurated President Barack Obama. While we think Stompin' Tom Connors's "Bud the Spud" (and a Tegan and Sara tune or two) should have made CBC Radio 2's final list, we're too busy Googling photos of Aretha Franklin's bedazzled hat (and, uh, basking in the glory of America's undeniably brighter future) to really be disappointed. [via CanCult.]

ART: The Institute for Contemporary Culture—the arm of the Royal Ontario Museum responsible for the recent "Unbuilt Toronto" exhibit—initiates phase two of “Housepaint,” an installation that invites Canada’s best street artists in from the cold. The project is a collaborative memorial to Toronto's former tent city, and is intended to continue addressing the issue of homelessness in Toronto. The resulting canvas houses will be auctioned off to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Royal Ontario Museum, Roloff Beny Gallery (100 Queen’s Park), 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m., FREE with admission ($22).

FILM: Check out the new documentary Good Morning Kandahar for some insight into what Canada’s mission in Afghanistan means to Afghan-Canadian youth. Canadian filmmaker Ariel Nasr visits other young Afghanis around the world—including those in both homelands of Canada and Afghanistan—who grapple with living in countries at war with their own. Nasr will be in attendance. NFB Mediatheque (150 John Street), 2 p.m., $6.

TRANSIT: While your SUV is in the shop, why don't you participate in an open discussion on public transit in Toronto? Metrolinx (an agency of the Province of Ontario) has released the first draft of their 25-year plan for public transportation. It's titled The Big Move: Transforming Transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, and they want to hear what you think of it, so head down to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (after having thoroughly read the 114-page draft regional transportation plan and registered in advance on-line). Metro Toronto Convention Centre (255 Front Street West), 5–9 p.m., FREE.

THEATRE: Puppeteer troupe The Old Trout Puppet Workshop will be presenting their project Famous Puppet Death Scenes at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. The Dora-nominated production explores what happens when extremely well-crafted puppets get annihilated. The show runs until October 16. Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Mill Street, Building 49), 8 p.m., $20-$30

MUSIC: The Polaris Music Prize Gala is happening tonight at the Phoenix Concert Theatre, where the winner of this year's best Canadian album will receive $20,000. The gala will include performances from nominees Holy Fuck, Shad, Two Hours Traffic, Basia Bulat, and Plants and Animals—but it's also invite-only. Those of you who can't get in have still got a number of options, though: CBC Radio 3's Grant Lawrence will be hosting a live broadcast of the gala, which you can listen to on both CBC Radio 3 and Sirius Channel 86. You can also head over to the Drake Hotel, where there will be a free official after party open to the (of age) public. Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh from Holy Fuck will be DJing, along with Shad and DJ T-Lo (1150 Queen Street West, 10 p.m., FREE).

Pretty much any press event where we get to pass through a giant synthetic rolling fog entryway into the guts of the CBC building is alright with us. But the mood at the "All-New 2" formal launch party yesterday was kinda sorta awkwardly sombre, with lots of cross-armed silent protests (not to be confused with the not-so-silent protests of months past) emanating from certain attendees as the network celebrated its two week countdown to the third and final phase of its widescale Radio 2 revamp.

Nominations are in for CBC Radio 3's #1 Independent Record Store in Canada. Of the 47 stores repping St. John's to Victoria, Toronto holds a tidy seven spots. Best city odds of the competition. Drumroll: Penguin Music, Criminal Records, Monster Records, Slinky Music, Rotate This, Sonic Boom, and Soundscapes.

The first edition of CBC Radio 3's new series, Searchlight, is forcing the Canadian Record Buying Public to throw down over the #1 Independent Record Store In Canada.

Photo by Daniel Kahn.

For some magically ridiculous reason, CBC Radio 3's weekly countdown, the R3-30, is broadcasting from a skating rink this week in a move that's heavily dividing the hipster set after the announcement of another free—and markedly less active—event that same night: Tokyo Police Club at Nathan Phillips Square.

Many of us developed an affection for opera early in life through Looney Tunes versions of Rossini and Wagner. For some, having Elmer Fudd chant “Kill the Wabbit” to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries” in Chuck Jones's animated masterpiece taught us everything we wanted to know about opera. But if your ambition to appreciate the finer things in life extends beyond Bugs Bunny, real opera could be an intimidating world of old rich people, dead composers, elitist intellectualism and impenetrable European languages.

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.

For anyone who missed this year's Massey Lecture last Friday at U of T, don't fret. The City of Words, by celebrated writer, essayist, novelist, and anthologist Alberto Manguel, will be broadcast on CBC Radio One's IDEAS each night at 9:00 p.m. beginning Monday, November 5 running to Friday, the 9th.

William the Conquerer may have been a great tactician and a bit of a bastard, but we're not quite sure if he was a talented musician.

Originally published by Viking Press in 1957, Jack Kerouac's On the Road has been wearing holes in the back pockets and floppy canvas knapsacks of gaggles of come-find-yourself road trippers and college-aged who-am-I types ever since. To coincide with the 50th anniversary of its publication, Wednesday night will see the Gladstone play host to something of a symposium on the life and legacy of their main man, Kerouac. Authors Ray Robertson and David Creighton will be in conversation with CBC Radio One’s Jian Ghomeshi to discuss our ceaseless cultural infatuation with the famed Beat writer.

Photo of In-Flight Safety courtesy of Craig Norris of CBC Radio 3.

Photo by bitefight from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Yesterday, the Lakeview Generating Station in Port Credit was demolished as crowds looked on. Toronto usually gets weepy over the destruction of buildings, but the station was a pretty ugly example of Soviet-era industrial architecture and it was powered by coal. Are you going to miss it?

MP Peggy Nash and MPP Cheri DiNovo protest the closing of Toronto's swimming pools.

For the entire month of May, the Deep Wireless festival will be taking place at various venues, from the west end to your very own living room. Presented by New Adventures in Sound Art, this is the sixth edition of the annual festival that explores the medium of experimental sound and radio art.

Final Fantasy alert! Over the past week, the always-lovely Good Hodgkins has twice graced us with new Owen Pallett tracks.

Despite Canada's love-hate relationship with the CBC, we're big fans of York theatre grad Barbara Budd. Budd has co-hosted CBC Radio One's venerable As It Happens since 1993, and the Toronto-based show is known across Canada and satellite radio for its off-the-wall take on current events.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Canada Council for the Arts, the organization wants us to get involved in their "50 for 50" Arts Challenge. Canadians are invited to meet the challenge by engaging in 50 arts-related activities over the course of the year.

When Torontoist joined forces with blogTO, Reading Toronto, and Spacing and asked our readers for feedback on the TTC's website at the beginning of this month, we had absolutely no idea that we would get such an enormous response. We'd like to thank you all again for participating, and we've taken each and every one of the ideas that we received to heart. Now, it's time to move forward. The Editors and Publishers of all four participating sites have decided to submit to submit the following letter with our suggestions to Chairman Adam Giambrone:

Chart Attack and CBC Radio 3 reported that hackers have gotten in and deleted the MySpace account of local indie rockers Magneta Lane.