"It's hard to beat the system / when we're standing at a distance / so we keep waiting / waiting on the world to change." - JOHN MAYER How Do You Get To Massey Hall? I don't know, I only came close. I can at least tell you that practice has nothing to do with it. I'd practiced my speech a lot. Last night I was invited to represent my party (the Green Party of......

Indie popsters Stars will be shooting a new video in Toronto tomorrow and Thursday and they want you to be in it. If you missed the Joel Plaskett shoot we told you about earlier this year, you've got another shot at your 15 minutes of fame (or at least becoming known among your acquaintances as "the one who was in a music video"). Aspiring extras should send photos and contact info to extras@blinkpictures.com for......

"Do you trust your friends? Would you let them redecorate your apartment, or do your homework for you? Would you let them buy your groceries? Would you leave them in charge of your kids? And if you did, what would they change?" So reads the beginning of the liner notes from Do You Trust Your Friends?, the album of remixes and reimaginings of songs from Stars' Set Yourself On Fire, now out on Arts &......

Final Fantasy alert! Over the past week, the always-lovely Good Hodgkins has twice graced us with new Owen Pallett tracks. First came a grand total of six tracks from Owen Pallett and rapper Cadence Weapons's CBC Radio session in mid-April. Pallett is featured on three of Cadence's tracks (check out "Sharks," in which Pallett incorporates some sweet Andrew Bird into the mix) and then has three of his own songs: "What Do You Think......

Some bands should come with health warnings. Bright Eyes or The Cure, for example, should warn prospective listeners of the music's ability to make a gloomy-puss out of them. Denver's Apples In Stereo, on the other hand, bring a high risk of developing diabetes. Listening to the pop-rockers is like eating a candy bar with each song: they're short, they're sweet and they leave you wanting another one right after, even though you know you......

Wave Two of Buddies' experimental 2006/2007 season is called Audience Relocation and starts this weekend. As the name suggests, this part of the season is dedicated to finding new ways of defining what an audience is - and where it is. Don't expect to sit in a chair watching a Well-Made Play. Kicking off Audience Relocation is a show called Connect the Dots by theatre company Small Wooden Shoe. Connect the Dots is the......

This year’s Short Cuts Canada selection was given a rather short shrift by Now magazine, but having seen a selection of the shorts, we consider their opinion rather short-sighted (“cut that short right now”– Ed.). A word to the wise: Much like the Wavelengths programme, we've seen several of the films but not all of them, so there may be many gems still hidden. After all, part of the fun of a programme like Short......