Fool’s Gold Records, known for their dirty, cut-up, fidgety electro artists, recently signed Atlanta-based Treasure Fingers. Tomorrow, May 15th, Treasure Fingers teams up with rising bloghouse master Kill The Noise for the "School's Out Forever Tour" at Wrongbar, courtesy of the boys at Dopplehertz. Plus there is the added treat of a DJ set from local favourite Vaneska. Which reminds us, somebody really needs to make some clearer subgenres for electro. From the gritty,......

This weekend, Toronto was impossible to miss at Miami's Winter Music Conference and Ultra Music Festival. Currently, five Torontonians occupy the number one and two and slots on the electro house chart on Beatport, which has become the de facto standard website for legally downloading electronic music, and a major player in the Winter Music Conference. Additionally, an Ontarian holds the number two spot on Beatport's tech house chart—Londoner John Acquaviva with "Sofa King."......

One of the biggest complaints that Toronto hip hop artists have is that they are ignored by local media, and, for the most part, they're right. Drop the Needle hopes to help remedy this by checking in with some of the city's finest artists each month to see what's up. Photo by Mark Kasumovic. Since 1997, PHATT al has been dropping records and rocking crowds in Toronto. Back then, he was part of Tallisman's crew......

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). Also......

The organizers of Nuit Blanche held a launch event at OCAD this morning to announce this year’s curators—Wayne Baerwaldt, Director and Curator of Exhibitions at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design; Dave Dyment, Director of Programming at Mercer Union, Toronto; Gordon Hatt, a writer and curator who lives in Kitchener; and Haema Sivanesan, Executive Director of Toronto’s South Asian Visual Arts Centre—and allow them to outline their individual......

Since January 2006, quirky black-and-white brushstroke illustrations have graced the back page of the The New York Times Magazine. The work is that of Toronto-based designer and OCAD teacher Bob Hambly, who just completed his 500th illustration—a bus—for the prestigious Sunday newspaper supplement. "Even after twelve years, I still get that little pang in my stomach each time a new story is sent to me," he says. "I feel a great sense of responsibility for......

City sells "the McDonald's site" on Bloor for a fairly low price. However, Adam Vaughan insists there are upsides to the deal, such as being able to limit the height of the condo development that will take its place, because who would want tall buildings in the downtown core? Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer. Although initial reports that he has "weeks to live" were apparently false, pancreatic cancer is still one of the deadliest......

Photo of Julie Wilson, courtesy of Julie Wilson. Julie Wilson has become a favourite in literary entertainment over the past few years. Since 2006, her popular blog Seen Reading has been keeping Toronto book geeks amused by tracking the city's public reading habits. The concept is both simple and ingenious—Wilson spots a stranger reading, guesses where they are in the book, transcribes the passage onto her blog, and then lets her imagination run wild.......

Torontoist Environment Editor Chris Tindal is currently engaged in a federal by-election campaign. This weekly column is an attempt to offer a behind the scenes glimpse into what it's like to be that mysterious Other: a politician. As you read this I'm somewhere in the Centre Block of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, likely between the House of Commons visitors' gallery where I will have just finished watching question period and the Railroad Room where......

Leave it to CanStage to somehow, in the midst of extreme internal upheaval what is maybe their darkest financial hour, be simultaneously running two of their strongest shows by far in recent memory. In fact, Palace of the End (which closes tomorrow night) and The Clean House (which runs until March 8) aren't just good shows for CanStage, they would be amazing shows for anywhere. Hopefully, they can win the audiences they deserve, but......

For some men, a suit feels like an unnatural and constricting male uniform; a way of burying individuality in the conventional business attire of dark suit, white shirt, and tie. There are certainly a fair share of businessmen, bankers and lawyers wandering through the PATH corridors beneath the Financial District who carry themselves in exactly this fashion. For those attuned to the subtle details of masculine appearance, however, the suit offers a perfect canvas for......

The history of Michael Hollingsworth's "epic play-cycle" The History of the Village of the Small Huts is almost as storied (and confusing) as the events they represent. Many are familiar with the plays only since 2000, when VideoCabaret's residency began in the back room at the Cameron House. Since then, they have produced a new Hollingsworth play every year (with the exception of 2004), making the currently-running Laurier the eighth play in the cycle.......

In the music industry's latest attempt to lazily claw itself out of the grave, the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) is proposing a $5.00 per month licence fee on Canadian Internet accounts that would legalize music downloads. They're calling it the Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing, a "reasonable and unobtrusive system of compensation" that will allow consumers to fill their bellies full of all the music they can handle from any......

In the most important news story of the day, two people have been arrested in the mysterious case of Huckleberry, the dog who vanished from outside a Yonge Street bakery and was returned after his owner offered a $15,000 reward. Police haven't said whether they believe Huckleberry was in on the caper. Oil prices closed yesterday at over US$100 a barrel yesterday, spooking financial markets. And my mom said I was crazy for keeping......

You really have to wonder how performance artist and sexual activist Louise Bak always manages to schedule the very best mix of the Toronto literary scene for her Box Salon series. The successful poet and CIUT "Sex City" host founded the event back in 1998, and a decade later it is still the most entertaining literary night out in Toronto. While many other reading series can be hit or miss, the Box is consistently fresh,......

Photo by nevbrown. The last couple years have been tough ones for fans of the Wu. Their last album, 8 Diagrams w,as marked by group infighting and public denunciations of the album by Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. Still, GZA's appearance at the Sound Academy is expected to be a great show. GZA (aka. The Genius) will be performing his classic album Liquid Swords in its entirety. The Friday night show will be as much......

Rabbit in the Moon, the legendary Los Angeles-based funky techno crew best known for their insane, pyrotechnic, costumed stage performances and dark, live beats, is headlining the last ever all-ages party at The Sound Academy, a.k.a. The Docks, this Saturday at Destiny's Together As One. This will be the first time Rabbit in the Moon has performed within city limits since 1999, which should prove to be a frenetic, immersive performance with wearable lasers,......

There was a time in this fair city when home theatres did not run When the grand majestic steeples stood alone against the sun Long before the iPod and long before the radio When the brown dark piano entertained homes in Toronto (with apologies to Gordon Lightfoot) Founded in 1888, Whaley, Royce & Co. quickly billed itself as "Canada's Greatest Music House." Initially manufacturing a wide range of instruments, the company focused on brass......

Oh, the seemingly endless toil and frustration of being an underpublished and underappreciated writer. There's the mailbox full of polite, predictable rejections and the depressing rite of passage otherwise known as "open mic night." When you finally emerge from it all, it's certainly time to rejoice. Thankfully Pages Books & Magazines’ This Is Not A Reading Series has stepped up to celebrate some of the lesser-known but soon-to-be-well-known players in Toronto’s vibrant literary scene.......

Have you ever wondered what you could learn from a computer pioneer? You'll have your chance to find out when Michael Dell rolls into town for a free speaking engagement at Convocation Hall later this month. Okay, so Dell isn't exactly a pioneer: he's famous not for inventing anything, but merely for improving the process of assembling a bunch of parts into a serviceable computer, shipping it somewhere, and making a boatload of money while......

Everyone's favourite appropriately-named party leader hasn't been having a great time over the past few months. Ever since John Tory's upsetting dual loss in October's provincial election, the vultures have been circling over him. Both established and grassroots party members have been calling for Tory's head, and they'll finally have a chance to oust him at the Progressive Conservative Party's General Meeting at the end of the month. The anti-Tory camp's main argument is, simply......

Photo by Media Eater. It's hard to believe that it's been 12 years since DJ Shadow dropped his groundbreaking debut, Endtroducing .... Since then, the Bay Area DJ has helped form the respected indie hip hop label Quannum Projects and released a couple of lesser acclaimed albums including 2006's hyphy influenced, The Outsider. Since then, DJ Shadow has been working with fellow crate digger and former Jurassic 5 DJ, Cut Chemist. The pair will......

If you're up for a little subversion on Thursday night from 5–7 p.m., check out our old pal Fauxreel's talk, Resistance in the City, at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at U of T (7 Hart House Circle). Done in association with Signals in the Dark: Art in Shadow of War, an exhibition opening that evening, Fauxreel will "talk about his work as a street artist and give a mini-demo/workshop on techniques and tactics......

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......

Hello readers! If you were lucky enough to win tickets to the screening of There Will Be Blood last night you will have already made your mind up about the film (well, we hope), but we’re going to subject you to our opinion of it anyway. Quite good, wasn’t it? Contrary to a lot of things we’ve heard, it did seem to be identifiably a Paul Thomas Anderson film (strong performances, non-traditional story arc,......

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. From price hikes to bomb hoaxes, the ROM has been a constant news item this year. But while Thorarinn......

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. Probably the most stirring piece of art displayed in Toronto this year, Scott Sørli's "Common Sense Revolution" [PDF] juxtaposed......

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. Michael Redhill’s had a big year. His novel Consolation, in addition to being nominated for the Man Booker Prize......

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. In February of this year, a double-disc compilation titled Friends in Bellwoods was released by those who have made......

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. Rob Ford has said some remarkably stupid things during his tenure as a City Councillor. We could harp upon......