Photo of Forest City Lovers by Joe Fuda Torontoist is gearing up for the annual Canadian Music Week this week. CMWist's complete coverage of show listings and a constant outpour of recommendations and reviews throughout the week will keep you all focused with that overwhelming 500+ band schedule. But CMW aside, Soundscapes will be hosting a handful of free (yes, free) in-store performances throughout the week running parallel to CMW, and supporting the new......

Photo by Stig Nygaard. The Art Bar returns tonight with its annual Audience Appreciation Night with readings by the Art Bards, live music, and free poetry chapbooks for all audience members by the Art Bar Team. Also returning for the new year is This Is Not A Reading Series. For the first event of the year, join Carl Wilson and Mark Kingwell for an on-stage discussion where they will be talking about love and......

As the subject for a serious music book, Céline Dion––amazing or not––seems like an odd choice. In the latest book in the 33⅓ series, however––a series which typically looks at albums like the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds or Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures or the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St.––Carl Wilson, probably Toronto's pre-eminent music critic, takes it upon himself to "[strive] to understand Céline's global popularity," in the process "fac[ing] the question of what......

Kincardine-born, Mississauga-bred, Toronto-based, and Berlin-bound, Joel Gibb is the musical and managerial head of The Hidden Cameras, the fantastic and always well-populated music collective whose members have included Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy), Reg Vermue (Gentlemen Reg), Laura Barrett, Maggie MacDonald (Republic of Safety), Dave Meslin (founder of the Toronto Public Space Committee), Bob Wiseman, Steve Kado (founder of Blocks Recording Club, member of Barcelona Pavilion and Ninja High School), Ohad Benchetrit (Do Make Say......

The Drake is gearing up for an ambitious week of post-holiday, end of year music celebration. They are calling the short run What's in the Box: 5 nights, 5 bands, 5 bucks—a clever ploy to attract the empty-pocketed portion of the city (that's if you go for the music, not the booze). Despite being known for attracting enemies to the neighbourhood in the past (err...every Saturday night), the 5 nights (5 bands, 5 bucks) of......

Photo of Julie Doiron courtesy of Jagjaguwar. Feminism means different things to different people—and for many people it means something negative. From the angry feminist stereotypes to news outlets simply ignoring it, feminism is an important movement that's gotten a bad rap. Ladyfest Toronto is aiming to change that by throwing a festival that proves feminism can be both fun and political. The festival kicks off next Thursday (the 27th) with a party at......

It’s fitting that Maggie MacDonald is one of four self-appointed prime ministers of the Republic of Safety. She’s a political and creative force, using art as her weapon of choice. Her current bands, The Hidden Cameras and the aforementioned Republic of Safety, are musical meeting points for sex and politics. She’s exhibited her visual art and had her comics published in The Globe and Mail and Lola magazine. When she was just 20, MacDonald ran......

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......

i (heart) music has just released their list of the 33 hottest bands in Canada for 2006, as selected by a more than forty Canadian music bloggers (including yours truly, current Torontoist contributor Carrie Musgrave, Said the Gramophone, former Torontoist contributor Frank Yang from Chromewaves, and lots of others). We don't mean to gloat, but it looks like we're still the best city for music in the country. A whole bunch of Toronto-based bands made......

Ok, so there are no obnoxious hosts (yes, we mean you Mulroney!) and we don't get to vote by cellphone, but in a way SOCAN's Echo Songwriting prize is kind of like Canadian Idol. The award relies on your votes to decide which of these five artists have written the "most innovative, creative and artistic songs created in the past year." The prize is $5000 which should pay rent and utilities for about six months.......

You'd have to be a curmudgeon not to like the Bicycles. It's hard to hate a band that opens a show with painted cardboard standups of various band members, sing Archies/Monkees inspired songs about girls from Montreal and visits to Australia, and fill their shows with handclaps, tambourines and harmonies that come straight from a 1970s bubblegum pop record. So we're happy to report that Bicycles have not only released their debut album "The Good......

A day late this week, but when you see the crazy number of new shows recently announced, you’ll understand why. With so much variety, there should be something for everyone coming up in the next month or so. Due to the large number of show listings, there will be no links this week (hey, it takes a LONG time to link up this stuff, my friends). As always, if there’s something we’ve missed and......

Who Is DJ Cyber-Rap? Depending what circles you run with, this question may have been nagging you for quite some time. If you’re a member of Stillepost, the message board that plays hosts to almost all of Toronto’s scenesters, you’ve known about DJ Cyber-Rap since 2005. That’s when the 59 year-old widower (born Robert “Ronald” Marie MacDougall) first started posting in the Toronto forum of Stillepost from internet cafes, using painfully effortful internet jargon in......

And march over to the opening of Artcade tonight 7-10pm at Microplay (632 Queen W). The group show brings 11 artists and designers that are inspired by classic arcade games. One of our favourite illustrators, Chris Hutsul, is showing pieces like this badass bot, a mashup of two of our favourite pop-culture influences; Transformers and the 8-bit glory of the NES. In other videogame news be sure to also check out the Video Game Tribute......

The temperature hasn't crept above freezing outside but that doesn't mean that you should stay in. There are a few crazy good shows in town tonight, and it's only Tuesday! UK buzz band of the moment The Arctic Monkeys ($18.50) end their two night stand at the Phoenix. Across town Scandinavian popster Annie ($17.50) will try to exorcize all those demons of bad Scandinavian groups past. If neither of these appeal there's Deep Dark United......

And the joke was: Dylan Reibling, he of the fake prom and (formerly?) of Wavelength, has recruited local talent for a night of tribute to Sloan. Tomorrow night, Thursday February 16, Sloan classics will be reinterpreted by the likes of Eric Warner's Dollarama, thumb-plucker Laura Barrett, an Adorable band called The Chris Murphies, a strip-tease from Penny Whistleton, The Bicycles, Disgrimination and funnily-named Cry Cry Papsmear. Chris Murphy of Sloan knows where the Boat is,......

Two more chances to see the much talked about Laura Barrett before the year is up: She'll be playing/baking at the Rancho Relaxo for the Band Bake-Off tonight and playing only at a Amazing confluence of Music and Funny! Holiday Fundraiser at the Silver Dollar on Thursday. In our experiences, Ms Barrett cooks up a worth-while show and will add you as a MySpace friend if you ask nicely. Torontoist-favourite Henri Faberge and his self-contained......

When Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett, a.k.a. violinist for every cool band in the country, finally made his way onto The Boat's tiny stage during his video launch party last night, he noted ruefully that a long line-up is usually the sign of a bad concert. It certainly was a bad concert for the hundredish folks who stamped their feet to keep warm out in the cold on Augusta for over an hour and did not......

Perhaps sampling Rockapella (Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? fame) and referencing Jonathan Swift and his Modest Proposal in your lyrics doesn't seem like the best way to develop one of Toronto's most loyal fanbases. But it's worked like a charm for Ninja High School, who also tap local hot button items like Jon Rae and the River and The Drake on their hot hot hot new album, Young Adults Against Suicide. Why......