Big news! According to MuchMusic's (quite reliable) blog, Led Zeppelin will be in Toronto in August to play (and, we assume, easily sell out) four dates at the Rogers Centre. No other details have yet been leaked. Since tickets for London's show on December 10 of last year were resold easily online for more than $3,000; since tickets are to be available via Ticketmaster; and since, according to MuchMusic's blog, there will be "no fancy......

In the latest chapter for one of the area's longest-running bands, Teenage Head are celebrating the release of a new album this week with a concert on Friday at Jeff Healey's. Originally hailing from Hamilton, Teenage Head were one of the seminal bands at the infancy of the Toronto punk scene, along with bands like The Scenics, The Viletones, The Mods, and The Ugly. Frequently cited as Canada's answer to The Ramones—although their new......

On Thursday night at the Silver Dollar, Jay Reatard's show got ugly. The Memphis band's shows usually do, but almost never like Thursday's: Reatard punched a patron who climbed on stage square in the face and angrily packed up his gear (video above), before Dan Burke, the Dollar's legendary and notorious booker, hopped on stage himself, delivering a tirade against Reatard ("fuck this American...that's fucking pussy shit"). On his blog on Friday, Reatard recapped......

Let's just get this out of the way right off the bat—Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are a very very very good band. When we wrote about them last February on the heels of a way-too-short performance at Sneaky Dee's, we ran through the band's history with drummer Philip Dickey, and gushed that they "have a knack for hooks, likeable melodies, and a kind of rough, untidy rock and roll sound that is......

Just like last year, the television show/concert series Beautiful Noise is filming next week at Berkeley Church (315 Queen Street East), which means one really really terrific thing: totally free concerts! Like, Yo La Tengo! My Morning Jacket! British Sea Power! Stars! Islands! Ted Leo and the Pharmacists! The Constantines! And, like, a dozen more! Here's what you've got to do to get in. The full list of dates and bands follow after the fold......

On the opening track of Pink Martini's latest album, lead singer China Forbes croons, "Everywhere I go, I see a world designed for you and me"—and every time you spin the record, you hear songs from all over the world. This Saturday, one lone performance at Massey Hall will echo in a mass of different languages, sung in a million more exquisite styles. Says founder and artistic director Thomas M. Lauderdale of the unique......

Photo of Les Breastfeeders from lesbreastfeeders.ca Starting tonight, Canadian Music Week goes full-fledged—coming to every lounge, parlour, house, and palace near you. With nearly thirty gigs tonight, each showcasing three to seven acts (we'll let you do the math), Torontoist has done the homework to help you narrow your overwhelming night down. But don't give us too much extra credit; we did have to ask for a little help from the CMW stars themselves.......

The final lineup for the benefit concert for the O'Keefe family has been announced. Organized by Andrew Copland—John O'Keefe's close friend and the Duke of Gloucester's head bartender—the concert aims both to honour John O'Keefe, who was killed walking home from the bar a month and a half ago, and to raise money for an education fund for John's son, Iain. This Sunday, March 2, the Mod Club will host a mix of Toronto......

According to MuchMusic, Radiohead is on the verge of confirming details about their stop in Toronto––expected to be August 15 at the Molson Ampitheatre. The stop, on the second half of Radiohead's tour, comes in the wake of their latest album In Rainbows, which is neither the best album ever, nor the best album of last year (hello, Boxer), but is still pretty wonderful. While tickets aren't yet on sale (watch this space to......

It's been a little over a month since John O'Keefe was killed outside the Brass Rail, walking to the subway from the Duke of Gloucester. While the makeshift memorial outside the Rail is gone now, the man it was for is far from forgotten––by friends, family, or city. Many of the stories about O'Keefe have told of a dedicated, loving father; indeed, the reason why he left the Duke of Gloucester early––a friend wanted him......

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. But host Craig Norris offers this pitch in their favour: "If you've ever listened to The R3-30 in the comfort of your warm, cozy home and......

Is 1996 retro yet? Probably not, but that doesn't mean Toronto isn't way overdue for some good, old-fashioned ska-punk sounds courtesy of Less Than Jake, who are playing a free show this Saturday (January 19) at 8:00 p.m. at The Sound Academy (aka. The Docks). They make us all nostalgic for the old days...you know, hanging out in dirty parking lots with skateboards and big puffy shoes, dreaming about when your first chair trombone......

The Hidden Cameras are back home, and we are all better off for it. As we mentioned in this week's music listings, the Cameras––they of the Mississauga-bred now world-famous exuberant gay pop fame––are playing an AIDS benefit concert this Thursday night at the Great Hall in Hart House (7 Hart House Circle), with proceeds going to Toronto People With AIDS Foundation and AVERT International. The show, with Montreal's Sister Suvi and Toronto's Allie Hughes, will......

In celebration of 60 years and counting for the local, legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Joel Plaskett Emergency will be performing six consecutive shows this week beginning Monday, each day playing in chronological order an album in their discography of full-lengths. After seeing its days as a blacksmith shop, a strip club, and of course the host of some of the most legendary first time Toronto performances including Willie Nelson, The Talking Heads, and Neutral Milk Hotel,......

Have you wanted: dead or alive tickets to runaway to an amazing rock show, but a lack of funds have been giving love a bad name? Say it isn't so! It's your life, and we here at Torontoist think you should have a nice day, everyday. If you've always loved Bon Jovi, then you should keep the faith that we'll be there for you and your bouncin' needs, if that's what it takes. Bon Jovi......

Some musicians are professional wallowers. Others are professional romantics. And still others are professional fun-havers. Both Toronto's Spiral Beach and Brighton's The Go! Team fall into that last category—performers who embrace the sheer joy of performing. But more than that, they are young, talented, and famous, they know they are young, talented, and famous, and they're grateful for being young, talented and famous. Although Beach's Maddy Wilde and the Team's Ninja may strike diva......

Spoon have made only one big misstep in their ten-plus years of recording albums: Gimme Fiction. The 2005 album, a follow-up to 2002's absolutely brilliant Kill the Moonlight, marked a step backward for the band's music and a step forward for its accessibility––an album of decent, friendly, straightforward, catchy, and ultimately forgettable rock songs, an album able to retain the band's old fans while hooking tons of new ones. Gimme Fiction––save for (pictured) lead......

Will Sheff's voice sounds something like Imogen Heap's (you know, the woman who sings "Hide and Seek") stripped of every bit of sheen. Sheff jumps octaves as often and with as much animation, though the results are rougher, darker, uglier––more appropriate to sing about, say, killing people, or to take the character of a man about to commit suicide or the ashamed father of a porn star. Throw in a trumpet, guitar or two, organ,......

Joel Gibb of the Hidden Cameras (top) and Torquil Campbell of Stars (bottom). Photos by David Topping. Finally, a Frosh Week concert worthy of U of T. After years of mediocre bands, increasingly-irrelevant bands, or good bands who underperform, the university brought Stars and the Hidden Cameras to campus for a free concert for students. Loaded with alumni, both bands played better than anyone could've expected for a free show, with the Cameras' ecstatic......

Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend (top) and Jona Bechtolt of Yacht (bottom). Photos by David Topping Bands like Vampire Weekend and Yacht aren't supposed to work together live. In fact, they're not really supposed to work at all.......

A lot happens in and around Toronto, but we can only write about so much in a week. Here's the best of the rest, in a new weekly feature we're calling Superfluist. Superfluist will appear every Friday night. Cathy Gordon decided to get very, very publicly divorced on Monday, with an art piece she called "On My Knees." For it, she crawled around Toronto for a while (on her knees!), signed divorce papers, and then......

Songs about zombies, drive-by shootings, Obi-Wan Kenobi, pirates, monsters, punching people in the face, pregnancy, "reeking and seeking," families, obesity, virginity—all of them catchy, all of them disconcertingly happy-sounding, and all of them sing-and-clap-along-able. That is what Austin's Oh No! Oh My! is made of, and their albums—their self-titled full-length; their new EP, Between The Devil and The Sea; and their Jolly Rogers demo that the songs from the new EP are culled from—are the......

If you're a fan of the Perry Farrell–helmed Satellite Party or the luxuriously-named Mink, hurry hurry hurry down to Dundas Square right now. According to tipster Liisa Ladouceur, the bands are playing a free surprise show at 2:00 p.m. at Dundas Square, (kind of) taking a page from The White Stripes' book. UPDATE (4:00 p.m.): Uh...so, maybe not. Apparently, Mr. Farrell changed his mind. According to Ladouceur, "might do cfny at 6pm. might dj......

Apparently, we really really really wanna zig a zig, hah. The CBC reports today that the Spice Girls are coming to Toronto in January 2008. Toronto's Spice Girls fans (there are, apparently, some) "outvoted fans in Rio, Chicago, Paris, Baghdad and Alice Springs in an online contest to get the group to perform in the city." (This is why Baghdad is on that list, by the way.) 'Cause if there's anything this city is......

According to an anonymous reader, the White Stripes are playing a free surprise show, right now (3:30 p.m.) at Yonge & Grosvenor. No need to get out yer wallets for tonight's show at the Amphitheatre after all... UPDATE (4:50 p.m.): Okay, apparently show's done (we think? can anyone confirm? Yep, all done.) If you've got photos, we wanna see them! Upload them to our Flickr pool, or e-mail them to tips@torontoist.com! UPDATE (July 6,......

For a band with an entire album named for Mississauga, The Hidden Cameras and Toronto sure haven't seen much of each other of late. Friday night at the Phoenix was the band's first full-length show within the GTA's walls in almost a year, the too-long hiatus forced by (pictured) lead man Joel Gibb's Berlin exile; as he goeth, so goeth the band. Live show as interactive spectacle has always been the motif at Cameras shows,......

One of the things that makes The National's music so brilliant—and what might make the band's latest album, Boxer, the best release of 2007—is its ambiguity. Boxer may or may not be about war (the song "Start A War" is one hint, lines like "Invite me to the war every night of the summer / and we’ll play G.I. blood, G.I. blood" in "Gospel" are another), national pride ("Fake Empire"), media control ("Apartment Story,"......

Early in May, Torontoist made it out to a free Long Winters concert at the Berkley Church. The show was terrific—we scored John Roderick's kazoo!—and, as it turns out, was just one episode in a series of shows put on for an HDTV channel in the States called called Rave HD. The aim of the show is to be something like "Sessions at West 45th," with a focus on capturing up-and-coming indie bands before......

Photo by Chromewaves (Frank Yang) in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. One of the best ways to characterize Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, compared to their previous effort, Funeral, came from a review several months back (on a website whose name, sadly, escapes me): where Funeral was dark yet triumphant, Neon Bible "lurches." In tracks like "My Body is a Cage," the title "Neon Bible," and "Intervention," there is a kind of a steady, dark thump......

At the end of the second verse of one of Bright Eyes' new songs, "Reinvent The Wheel"—a eulogy for a dead musical idol, possibly Elliott Smith—lead singer Conor Oberst laments to his fallen hero that "you never understood what we loved you for." Coming as the line does in the song, with guitar chords and drums emphatically struck together to highlight Oberst's voice and the backing vocals, the moment is both uplifting and tragic, a......