Somehow, "Sesame Street" is about to begin its thirty-ninth season, and they're pulling out all the stops for their premiere on August 11. Among the whack of celebrity guests slated for the first show of the new season is the omnipresent Leslie Feist; she'll debut a new song with Elmo and perform "1234." Judging by a clip of the latter performance that was uploaded to YouTube this morning, the whole thing is looking pretty......

Waterfront Toronto considers corporate naming scheme. On the one hand, yes, it's a travesty. On the other hand, does anybody call the Skydome anything other than the Skydome, regardless of what Rogers wants us to call it? Feist sweeps the Junos, winning all five awards for which she was nominated. Feist wisely kept everything in perspective, explaining in her victory speech on Saturday (yes, the Junos, like all Canadian awards shows, stretch things out......

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. Most people would respond with shock if you expressed your distaste for the ever-growing music festival (read: conference) that......

These days, everyone and their grandmother has a celebrity gossip blog. Perez Hilton became a millionaire by outing Lance Bass and defacing paparazzi photos, while TMZ.com (named for the Thirty Mile Zone surrounding Hollywood) came out of nowhere in 2005 and almost instantaneously became the top site to see celebrities behaving badly. Sassafraz may be the closest we have to The Ivy, yet it's not stocked with a phalanx of paps, and celebrities can usually......

An excuse to post Feist's "1234"? Yes, please. In October, i (heart) music asked 30 music bloggers across the country––Torontoist included––to rank the 10 hottest Canadian bands in 2007. What defined "hottest" was up to each panelist to decide; we figured it meant "rank good bands by their popularity," and voted accordingly. One month later, with 150 bands receiving nominations, i (heart) music announced the top 33, with Feist edging out the Arcade Fire......

This week Musicologist will be checking out Regina Spektor at the Kool Haus, thanks to the insistence of a friend who pretty much exclusively listens to hip hop. The fact the he loves Spektor means she's gotta be good. It's sold out, but Musicologist never shies away from listing sold out shows—we all know there's always an (expensive) last-ditch way to get in if you're desperate. (Why does that sound dirty? We mean scalpers,......

This Monday, September 24, the winner of the second-annual Polaris Prize will be announced at a gala event at the Phoenix. There will be stars, musical performances, free food and drink, and, unfortunately, you are probably not invited. Given to the best Canadian album of the past year, and awarded solely on artistic merit, the $20,000 prize is getting handed to someone (probably Feist) at a media and invite-only event. (Torontoist was graciously invited, but......

Whilst performing our pre-read ritual of tearing out Toronto Life's 8,000 annoying snot-glued ad inserts and heavy stock subscription cards, we suddenly came across Torontoist's name in the mag's "Roundup" feature. The chart compares Toronto's four major city blogs: Torontoist, Spacing Wire (now Spacing Toronto), BlogTO, and the newish Torontopedia. Torontoist's raison d'être is listed as "news, arts, culture, snark"—and we won't argue with that—while BlogTO is like "your geeky friend who's always in......

Today Apple offered us a refresh of their entire iPod line, making us want to blindly toss our money at the company once again. One Torontonian, however, is getting some coin thrown her way—big time. Indie darling Leslie Feist has found her track "1234" at the core of the new worldwide iPod nano television spot. Even better, Apple is touting the device's new ability to play video, and prominently features the "1234" clip, directed......

This summer, thousands of Canadian kids are once again at traditional camps, singing "Kumbaya" and crafting art from uncooked macaroni. However, an "adventure camp" just outside of Toronto is aiming at removing the canoe paddles from the hands of children and replacing them with AK-47s. Camp Okutta counsellors hit the pavement downtown last week handing out brochures for the wilderness getaway, which aims to teach kids the "art of war." Ads posted to utility poles......

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......

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 Sylvain Dumais from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Old people, prepare to get pissed off. SoundProof Magazine asked a whole bunch of Toronto bloggers—Torontoist's staff included—and asked them to make a list of their favourite Toronto albums ever. The results are in, and though 158 albums got votes (!!), the list is very recent-album heavy: Broken Social Scene's You Forgot it in People shoves some old dude named Neil Young out of the......

"What's The Frequency, Campus?" highlights some of the intriguing shows and special programming happening on Toronto's campus and community radio stations. The Show: Mental Chatter The Host: Denise Benson Where and when: CKLN 88.1 FM, Mondays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Denise Benson has been hosting Mental Chatter for an astounding 19 years. It’s an excellent Monday morning blast of musical energy—she spins everything from jazz to house to rock, as well as......

The Art of Time Ensemble played their final shows of the 2006/2007 season this past Thursday and Friday at the Harbourfront Centre. The group's aim is to bring chamber music to new ears by blending it with other genres and new ideas, while retaining its elegance and intelligence. Andrew Burashko created The Art of Time as a way to "test my assumption that we could present chamber music in an accessible way." Judging by......

Sarah Slean is one of Toronto’s most enchanting musicians, winning over audiences with her whimsical songs and charismatic shows—to see her play live is to almost assuredly fall in love with her. This week at the Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre, Slean will put aside her own lovely songs to tackle some covers, at which she’s equally adept (this Torontoist once witnessed her cast a spell over a cozy audience with her moving version of......

Most people are probably jealous of Feist. As a globe-trotting artist she's had the chance to play shows around the world, both as a solo-artist and with Broken Social Scene, not to mention the time she has spent living and recording in France. But as her third album highlights, now out on Arts & Crafts, all of this travel has come at a high price. The Reminder shows the lonely life of the internationally popular......

It just never ends. Never. Ends. The stream of tour announcements is still going strong, and we're now at the point where there are 3-4 shows to choose from on some dates -- our calendar is starting to look as busy as a CEO's! As suspected last week, The Police added a second Toronto date to their tour schedule, on July 23 (tickets on sale now)...good thing Sting practices tantric sex so he'll have......

We realize that we probably talk about Owen Pallett, aka Final Fantasy, way too much. So we're not going to talk about his free show on Saturday night at North York Central Library, also featuring The Creeping Nobodies, Hank, Ninja High School, and Bob Wiseman. Nope, not a word. Instead, what we do want to tell you about is the Toronto Public Library's stellar new local CD selection - the whole reason that the......

After being hotly anticipated for months- at least by stores- All Hallows' Eve is finally here. If you're at all concerned, the so-called North American Halloween Prevention Inc. has released a charity single, "Do They Know It's Halloween?" (It's really a spoof of the well-intended-but-slightly-patronizing "Do They Know It's Christmas?") It features a slew of Canadian musicians, including Arcade Fire, Buck 65, Sloan, Feist, and Wolf Parade; even better, all proceed go to UNICEF.......

V-Fest has come and gone, and although it definitely had some issues, it was a great experience overall. The Flaming Lips clearly stole the show, even though they were forced to shut everything down after four songs on Day One, due to an 11pm curfew. Their show is like going to Disney Land, but for adults. Multiplied by 10. It warmed the cochels of my heart. Other notable performances included The Raconteurs, Wolfmother, Phoenix......

Ok, sorry for the YouTube overload but we know that you like Feist and we also know that you like claymation (who doesn't like claymation?) So here you go, a claymation version of Feist's "Mushaboom." Pop (All Love's) Aaron Wherry gives us the link but he also points us to a bunch of other Feist inspired videos.......

Artist, Santa Cruz organizer, co-founder of Three Gut Records, Eye Weekly art director and woman-about-town Tyler Clark Burke launches her newest – and most ambitious – project today: The Few Bricks Short A House Project. Tyler wants to buy a house, and has enlisted some of her friends to help her do it. Starting today, you can bid on a variety of items or services donated by Toronto artists, photographers, musicians, and writers - as......

When Feist returned to Toronto a couple of years ago she brought back a little bit of France to Toronto. This weekend another Torontonian comes home and brings back a little more of the Continent back to T.O.. Born in Toronto, Gonzales lived in Berlin and Paris like musical collaborators Feist and Peaches. Teaming up with Peaches, Gonz gained notoriety for his over-the-top live shows. In the studio he's part of the reason for Feist's......

We'd like to call this new Sloan video a MySpace sensation, but we know we'll all regret using that phrase very soon. A YouTube sensation? Maybe. It was first posted there in early May. But, you know what, we're re-posting it. So now it's a Torontoist sensation. Also, just wondering: Besides us, who didn't know that Sloan's "The Other Man" was written about Feist?......

For those interested in 'it'-specific events, this Tall Poppy is for you. The Boat, the venerable 'It' club in Kensington Market, is the site of an increasingly popular monthly dance party called Zoi Zoi, the venerable 'It' DJ night in Toronto. If that wasn't enough 'It's, resident DJ Mimi plays what has become the 'It' music of the day - French language pop. We're using the 'It' phrase so much because we've never actually been......

Torontoist loves this idea that the fine people of Seattle have already started up. They're planning on replacing the muzak you hear while waiting on hold with music from local artists. We immediately got in a tizzy thinking about what would make up the typical track list. Personally we'd love to sit on the phone and listen to Feist (pictured here) or K-OS while waiting to lodge a complaint about the potholes multiplying on our......

As featured in the Toronto Star and the New York Times, and just in time for the howl-iday weekend, it's the Islands-as-Geldof benefit CD, Do They Know It's Hallowe'en? There's no real analysis needed here, so here you have the basics: The Islands are two individuals from the Unicorns, who wrote the song to counter the absurdism of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" The track and its four versions feature impressive-slash-slightly unnoticable contributions by David......

The white blur playing drums in the middle goes by the name of Leslie Feist. The bright red smudge is New Buffalo (alias: Sally). On the other side is minor character Jason Collett, on guitar. Together they are the first of the two Danforth Music Hall Feist gigs. Sound totally unstoppable? Not quite: Too many sing-a-longs, an oppressive venue (no food or coffee sales, way expensive drinks and no ins-and-outs), and a tired Torontoist......