Photo of Owen Pallett by Heidi Slimane from his MySpace. News of Owen Pallett's OHIP being revoked has been quickly met with a reaction: an open letter sent today to George Smitherman, the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, from France Gélinas and Rosario Marchese, NDP MPPs who insist that Pallett is "an award winning artist who deserves our support" but who has instead been "unfairly treated." The letter takes issue both with the......

Vintage postcard of the Toronto General Hospital (1913) from Mars Discovery District. Encounters with government bureaucracy can be stressful ordeals at the best of times; at the worst, when things don’t go your way, they can be incredibly frustrating. Apparently, this is true even if you’re a Polaris Music Prize–winning musician. Former Torontoist contributor Carly Beath pointed us toward Owen Pallett recounting his recent travails with the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care......

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......

When Austrian company Wiener Stadtwerke approached Owen Pallett/Final Fantasy about using the song "This Is The Dream of Win & Regine" in a commercial, Pallett declined (probably nicely). So, naturally, Wiener Stadtwerke used the song in a commercial in June of this year anyway––or, at least, the most similar re-recorded version of Final Fantasy's song possible, changing a few notes in the violin part, adding some guy awkwardly singing "can you feel it?" and crediting......

Finally, another excuse to write about La Blogothèque's Take-Away Shows. The last time we covered the France-based music filmmakers, they were psyching us up for the Arcade Fire's May concert with the best concert footage we've ever seen of the band. Before that, they won us over with The Hidden Cameras parading along boardwalks. Now they've given us Owen Pallett plucking away at two songs––"Your Light Is Spent" (above) and "Horsetail Feathers"––in Paris. If......

Festival fever is sweeping the city—after all, it’s that time of year. But, perhaps incredibly, there are people for whom Brad Pitt sightings and red carpet galas just aren’t worth the Ben Mulroney-sized hype. What, for example, is the ardent audiophile to do in this landscape of visual media tyranny? Well, the good folks over at the Music Gallery have the answer. Starting tonight, the second-ever X Avant music festival gets underway with a headline......

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......

Final Fantasy alert! Over the past week, the always-lovely Good Hodgkins has twice graced us with new Owen Pallett tracks. First came a grand total of six tracks from Owen Pallett and rapper Cadence Weapons's CBC Radio session in mid-April. Pallett is featured on three of Cadence's tracks (check out "Sharks," in which Pallett incorporates some sweet Andrew Bird into the mix) and then has three of his own songs: "What Do You Think......

Part Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, part Animal Collective, part something else completely, Grizzly Bear have a unique sound that's tricky to categorize. This is not music you will necessarily dance to, but you will be moved. The Brooklyn-based band hits Toronto on Tuesday at Lee's Palace with Dirty Projectors to promote their newest (and critically acclaimed) record Yellow House. Despite ranking their last show in Toronto in support of TV on the Radio their......

Photo of Owen Pallett by chichibebelolo on Flickr. Photo of Steve Kado by Shakeer on Flickr. The Harbourfront Centre presented the first edition of “Inside the Musician’s Studio” as part of its View Points series on Thursday evening. Modeled after “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” the event was hosted by Carl Wilson (The Globe and Mail, Zoilus). Guests were Blocks Recording Club founder Steve Kado and Polaris Prize winner (and Blocks artist) Owen Pallett, aka......

The slow move from Torontoist to FinalFantasyist is nearly complete. Owen Pallett is pretty great and all, but to date we've talked about his song "This Lamb Sells Condos"; the video for that song; the inspiration for that song; the prize that Pallett won for the album that the song appears on; the love that Canadian bloggers have for him; the love that we, specifically, have for him; previewed and reviewed his library show......

Special guest Victoria Kent sent us this article, and, since it's about Final Fantasy and "This Lamb Sells Condos," we're pretty much obliged to post, especially now that we've interviewed Brad J. Lamb, whose advertising slogan inspired Owen Pallett to write the song. Thanks Victoria! Toronto-based artists Stephanie Comilang and Jamie Shannon have created an enchanting music video for the Final Fantasy song "This Lamb Sells Condos" -- that required no editing whatsoever. In the......

Brad J. Lamb is not, to put it gently, universally loved. As head of his eponymous Brad J. Lamb Realty, he is a titan of Toronto's condo industry, the closest thing we have to a Trump -- right down to his new TV show that airs in February, Big City Broker. And, as titans tend to be, Lamb is a polarizing character; indeed, it seems that the only thing Lamb has in common with......

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......

Owen Pallett (aka. Final Fantasy) has taken the inaugural Polaris Music Prize and $20,000 for his sophomore album He Poos Clouds. Pallett beat out nine other worthy artists including Cadence Weapon, the Deadly Snakes, Malajube and more. The award was started by music industry veteran Steve Jordan who based the award on Britain's Mercury Prize. For Owen's sake we just hope that there's no Polaris Music Prize curse. Update: Check out Radio 3's commentary......

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.......

Toronto's condominium market isn't always a pretty one. Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy (also the strings arranger for The Arcade Fire and The Hidden Cameras, pictured above at left) decided to take an unorthodox approach to dealing with the problem: he wrote a song about it. Pallett's newly-released LP, He Poos Clouds, includes a song called "This Lamb Sells Condos." The phrase should be familiar to anyone who's seen this billboard, an advertisement for......

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......

Maybe Torontoist is getting old, but turning up at a gig at doors and waiting an hour and fifteen minutes for anything to happen at all seems an unfair punishment for an eagerness to see the first band to play. The first band at the Images Festival Fundraiser, of course, being Final Fantasy, one of the most hyped bands of the year, and it’s barely started. Despite being utterly captivated by The CN Tower......

Actually there's really good music too and the Images that we're talking about is actually the dozens of films shown every year at the Images Festival. Last year's fest had groundbreaking film from the Arab world and from a little closer to home Clive Holden's Trains of Winnipeg. We're not sure what's going to be at this year's Images Fest in April but we DO know who's going to be playing at tonight's Images fundraiser......

Owen Pallett's most raucous cheerleader has to be blogger, Globe and Mail writer and man about town Carl Wilson. He's been singing Pallett's praises for months and all of this worthy praise has culminated in a profile in the New York Times arts section! If you haven't already picked up Pallett's release, go now. It makes a lovely holiday gift. Photo: stolen in a good cause from the NYT......

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......