After a three week hiatus, the music listings are back! Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. The year is still ramping up, so the list this week will be a bit quieter than usual. However, the good news is that this is already shaping up to be an amazing year, if the recent tour announcements are any indication. There are a ridiculous number of great bands coming through Toronto in the next few months, including......

As the weeks draw closer to the holidays, we're seeing less and less shows listed -- which really sucks, because one can only take so much Christmas music...and we've already heard enough of it to drive us insane. Yeah, yeah, bah humbug. That said, it's quite possible we'll be checking out Twisted Sister's 'A Twisted Christmas' tomorrow. The vision of Dee Snider in full makeup and crazy hair, possibly wearing a Santa suit and......

It's that time of the year--benefit concert season. There are a number of them coming up in the next few weeks, including The Holiday Jam (Sick Kids), Jason Collett & The Constantines (CARE Canada), and Bedouin Soundclash (Doctors Without Borders/War Child), so if you're in a giving mood, this may be a good way to do it while also catching some great music. Best bets for this week include Tenacious D tonight (love/hate...always entertaining),......

Nobody said it'd be easy, but no one ever said it would be this hard. It's the time of year, much like that time of year, that Mixtapes are not in the mandate. Sorry if the music selection is scant this week. 1. Okay - "Now", and Okay - "Compass" Mr Okay is intensely ill and hooked up to an IV machine all day due to a rare form of Crohn's. Incredibley, he also released......

Hailing from Nova Scotia, Matt Mays & El Torpedo play the kind of music that simply sounds "Canadian", for all the positive and negative connotations that may come with the tag. We're talking big, rootsy rock in the grand tradition of Neil Young & Crazy Horse - thundering guitars, raw vocals, a healthy dose of twang - nothing groundbreaking, but when it's done right it's a marvelous thing. And Matt Mays does it pretty damn......

After seeing the majority of the SXSW reviews read more like diary entries or travelogues, Torontoist decided to review the final Blow-Up in timeline form. Here's the shake down of the Saturday that was: 10:15 p.m., at home. Torontoist lies around in bed, listening to this surreal Futureheads-Streets remix. Receives a call about Blow Up party and the hypeness therein. 10:20 p.m., in line at the ElMo. There's a special guest performing? 10:45 p.m., up......

Something was out-of-place at yesterday's Juno announcements in the Liberty Grand. It wasn't Juno host Brett Butt, because he was in full effect. Nor was it PopWherry, who may or may not be the fifth member of Sum 41. Nope, the sore thumb was Torontoist. We didn't have much of a schmooze going on, and ended up just eating sandwiches in the corner. Even former Kingstoner and Idol ninny Ryan Malcolm gave us the snub.......