This Wednesday is the official launch of Canadian Music Week 2008, and as you read this more bands are flooding into Toronto than you can shake a drumstick at. If you’re planning to see a lot of shows (and there is a slightly overwhelming number to choose from), then your best option is to buy a wristband. These cost $35 and allow you into the majority of smaller shows, with most of the bigger......

Photo by Linnea Helmersson. There's something about Sweden and disco that is as perfect as America and apple pie or Toronto and complaining. Following the footsteps of ABBA, Ace of Base, and Robyn onto the dancefloor is critic's darling, Sally Shapiro. The mysterious singer will be making her first public appearance in North America spinning a set with her producer Johan Agebjorn at Wrongbar on Tuesday. Shapiro has other links to Toronto as Paper......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse. Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisited......

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,......

Chris Bosh is at it again. Although his innovative video pitch to fans wasn't enough to push him past Kevin Garnett and Lebron James for a starting spot in the NBA All-Star Game, it has made him a media player. Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix details how the video's popularity has raised Bosh's profile to new heights and how it prompted CB4 to start his own Chris Bosh TV channel on YouTube. To ring in......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse. LAist listed a top ten list of sorts: things they hope not to see in Los Angeles in 2008. (One example, pictured above). Shanghaiist was surprised to learn that "godless," "atheist," and "commie" China is soon going......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse. A towering bench mysteriously appeared in Manhattan, and New York City officials are baffled. Chicago tragically lost one of its most recognizable neighborhood icons, the pigeon man of Lincoln Square.The Los Angeles Police Department left a body......

Sarah Polley is having a kickass month as her debut directorial feature, Away From Her, racks up the accolades. On Sunday, the Los Angeles film critics gave Polley a New Generation Award for up-and-coming directors. Then, on Monday, the New York film critics felt Away From Her was 2007's Best First Film. In addition, earlier this month Polley was named one of the "50 Smartest People in Hollywood" by Entertainment Weekly. She's the youngest......

Even though Moss Park dance punk duo MSTRKRFT ">believe that, as dance music artists, "there's much better places for us to be," (this is said right at the 4:16 mark, of all times) Toronto's other homegrown house producers have taken the entire electro world by storm in the last few months. One needs only to point one's browser to the website Beatport, which has quickly become the DJ world's number one website for downloading......

If you are saddened by your procrastination that cost you Richard Hawley and Jose Gonzalez tickets this week, you can direct your attention to the eclectic choice of shows as a mild substitute. It does, however, appear as if local label Arts and Crafts have successfully cornered the market on this week's moderately sized shows (read: tickets that cost no more than $35). Tuesday you can catch Jason Collett with a surprise guest at the......

This weekend, resist the urge to do the same old bar hop and try a more sophisticated means of indulging your party ADD: the art show hop. Okay, so we just invented that term, but the city does have three rad art happenings going on almost simultaneously this Friday, November 30. And we say, why choose? To start your adventure, knock back a whiskey for warmth and head down to the Harbourfront, where the......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of......

If you were a child passing through Toronto since the early 1970s, there's a good chance you may have eaten at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Kitschy antique decor, the pots of whipped garlic butter that arrived with the loaf of bread and a family-friendly atmosphere have kept the crowds coming for nearly four decades. The Old Spaghetti Factory opened its first location in Portland, Oregon in 1969, a period when themed sit-down restaurant chains......

Though the lineup for this year's Virgin Music Festival is, admittedly, pretty awesome, there are still bound to be individuals for whom a full day of live music (and shameless advertising!) is simply not reason enough to make that ferry boat ride out to the Island. That's where Global Inheritance comes in. A registered non-profit organization based in Los Angeles, Global Inheritance is looking for volunteers to participate in a human chess game at......

Amidst the swirl of sensationalism surrounding the death of a "caretaker" at the Brentwood home of actor Ving Rhames last week, many Torontonians were unaware that the victim, 40-year-old Jacob Adams, was a local actor and screenwriter. "If hard work was enough to make it in Hollywood, then Jacob should have been a superstar," says friend and acting colleague Janice Edwards. "My last Jacob sighting was just outside Albert's on St. Clair West. He was......

A soccer game between Toronto and Los Angeles was played last night in honour of the Becks-Posh royal visit to Toronto. Although an injury prevented Beckham from taking the field, his handsomeness remains unimpaired. And oh yeah, the final score was 0–0. A 19-year-old man was shot to death in a stairwell near Parliament and Gerrard on Saturday afternoon. The sad thing—apart from somebody being dead—is that a single shooting in a weekend is......

Photo of XOF1 solar-powered car driving on a frozen Lake Simcoe. It is the first solar vehicle in the world to operate in sub-zero temperatures. This isn’t the Queen’s University Faculty of Engineering building a solar vehicle. This isn’t a multinational corporation like Honda investing the millions it can afford into alternative transportation technology. This is the power of one, in the form of Torontonian Marcelo da Luz; an individual who is building a......

Photo of David Beckham by rayxhead These are halcyon days for Toronto soccer fans. Toronto FC, the city's long-overdue Major League Soccer team, is in its inaugural season. The 20,000-seat BMO Field is open for business, and doubles as Canada's new national soccer stadium. The Under-20 World Cup, which culminates this weekend in Toronto, is breaking tournament attendance records. And on August 5, David Beckham (perhaps you've heard of him?) is scheduled to make......

It was a whirlwind friendship that began in the summer of 2003 between two of Canada's more notable singers. Chantal Kreviazuk and Avril Lavigne had a lot in common from the start: they both left their hometowns to launch careers in Toronto; they each have a contract with Ford models; both are represented by the same management company; the women have appeared in minor film roles; and both are now married to Canadian rock......

Telus announced on Tuesday that it’s pulling out of the bidding war for BCE, Canada’s biggest telecommunications company, after citing "inadequacies" in the bidding process. The remaining bidders are backed by U.S. private-equity firms, which analysts say might be a problem since foreign companies can’t own more than 46.67 percent of telecom providers. And even though almost half of Canadians are against a Telus-BCE merge, 65 percent still prefer it to foreign takeover of......

Tomorrow night, experience the best and brightest of the Toronto Alternative Comedy scene. Graham Wagner (Iron Cobra, Catch 23) and Mike Balazo are holding an event called Mouth Party at the Victory Cafe. Says Balazo, "We host the show as two bitter, washed-up, stuffy CBC radio types who disparage the current state of broadcasting." It's also a rare chance to catch these comics—Balazo has been performing in the UK for the past three months and......

There are three interesting happenings in the local art scene right now. This evening Mercer Union presents new compositions by Stephen Parkinson, a local musician who creates "do-it-yourself situations...with various friends as performers, reacting to a variety of methods of prescription/notation, involving toy instruments, electronics, vintage turntables, field recordings, as well as more traditional musical instruments." Tonight's various friends include Martin Arnold, Allison Cameron, Eric Chenaux, Rob Clutton, Aimée Dawn Robinson, and Doug Tielli. The......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

From pristine wetland to industrial transportation hub and the confluence of major urban expressways, the Lower Don Lands area has gone through many changes throughout Toronto’s history. The mouth of the Don River is about to change again. Back in February, the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation announced a competition to redesign a 40-hectare area located at the mouth of the river and the entrance to the Port Lands (pictured right). The teams invited to......

Every five years, the bean counters at Statistics Canada dole out the census numbers. Well, the 2006 model is in the showroom, the tires are getting kicked, and those who care about such things are saying things like, "Hey, Toronto is STILL the biggest city in the country!" Indeed, Toronto's population has grown—albeit by a mere 0.9% in the last five years—to include 2,503,281 urban dwellers.It's not surprising that the suburbs have been experiencing......

Unlike our neighbour to the south, Canada has an interesting population problem: despite having the second-largest landmass in the world, the country still suffers from a population slightly smaller than that of California. The biggest downside to this, of course, is the large tracts of land just waiting to be turned into the most nightmarish form of settlement: the 'burbs. While some harbour doubts about the ability of condos to solve this problem, today's......

Lots of Toronto fans are very enthusiastic that David Beckham is going to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. Toronto FC reported an immediate increase in ticket sales for the one guaranteed visit by the Galaxy. Wow, this is just like when Pele joined the New York Cosmos! Soccer is here to stay in North America! Terrorists fire a rocket at the American embassy in Athens early Friday morning. As is standard with stories of......

It's about time that Toronto started a feud with a major American city, and we think that Los Angeles, California has gotten off easy for far too long. The over-the-top Hollywood sign compared to our noble and restrained skyline; their smaller phallic symbol compared to our much, much bigger one; their cloud of smog compared to our green bins and green thumbs; their palm trees compared to our pine ones. So we were thinking,......

If you’re hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs “so are you nakie” to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings of Penis Photos for Make Benefit Glorious Flat World of......