Singers, singer-songwriters, comedians, rappers, and good-deed-doers came together Tuesday night at the Drake Hotel for It’s Always Something Else, an evening aid of Gilda’s Club Toronto, the organization named for Gilda Radner that offers free cancer support to those afflicted by the disease. For $25 a pop (or $45 including eats), guests were treated to no less than three floors of solid Canadian entertainment. In the infamously-packed Sky Yard, comics Sean Cullen and the......

Photo of In-Flight Safety courtesy of Craig Norris of CBC Radio 3. There are those who snidely believe the Hillside Music Festival is all politically-motivated tie-dye and body odour, but that’s a cursory dismissal. The 2007 version of the festival brought together the indie-kids and the hippies, the families and the staunch loners, and the musicians and the fans into a community of solar-powered folk and rock music that blistered throughout the weekend. Toronto......

The Art of Time Ensemble played their final shows of the 2006/2007 season this past Thursday and Friday at the Harbourfront Centre. The group's aim is to bring chamber music to new ears by blending it with other genres and new ideas, while retaining its elegance and intelligence. Andrew Burashko created The Art of Time as a way to "test my assumption that we could present chamber music in an accessible way." Judging by......

Most people are probably jealous of Feist. As a globe-trotting artist she's had the chance to play shows around the world, both as a solo-artist and with Broken Social Scene, not to mention the time she has spent living and recording in France. But as her third album highlights, now out on Arts & Crafts, all of this travel has come at a high price. The Reminder shows the lonely life of the internationally popular......

Our Power, a community-based clean-energy initiative, is made up of homeowners recruiting neighbours in order to bring affordable solar energy solutions into neighbourhoods across the city. This quiet revolution has become a little louder with the release of the Our Power Solar Music Compilation. Released exclusively through indie digital-download service Zunior.com, this compilation is a mostly-acoustic collection of songs. This may seem odd for a project that’s trying to promote the use of alternative forms......

Sometimes you have to wonder what they're thinking down on Queen Street. First there was MuchMusic, "The Nation's Music Station." Remember when you were growing up and you told all your American friends how much cooler -how much more REAL it was than MTV? Well, then it kinda stopped playing music (just like MTV) so they brought in Much More Music which played LESS music than the old MuchMusic but more than the current MuchMusic,......

The street was closed yesterday on Bay, just south of Bloor, to let the thousands of Leonard Cohen fans enjoy the outdoor performance at Indigo Books. And what a treat! Leonard was supposed to only introduce his partner, Anjani, who released a CD of music written by Cohen, and possibly sing a song or two, but the crowd got about 4 songs in total, including an unplanned jam session with Ron Sexsmith and the......

Only someone of Leonard Cohen's stature could stop traffic on Bay St. It also helps when you're one of Canada's most esteemed poets and just released a book after 22 years. The "silent one" (apparently that's his Zen name) will be at the Bay and Bloor Indigo tomorrow at 4:00pm. They're closing Bay St. from Bloor to Charles to accommodate the mad throngs of Cohen devotees that'll show up. It's not a book signing......

The NY Post's sole point of interest with regard to last week's Juno awards: 'Canada's most famous lesbian' k.d. lang's especially portly appearance of late. TOist is unimpressed. Richard, Paula, Chris, et al: Leave your catty fat-jokes to your own Britneys and Tobeys: K.D. is an artist, and totally above caring about the South Beach or Hamptons diet or whatever other excuse for narcissism you're employing these days. She wears black capes. She does......

Junk shop owner surveying two wan, artsy nicoTeens on Queen West: Man, don't you be smoking! Gallery-goin' smokers in the lovely Saturday sun: Hey, beautiful man, what a lovely day! Junk shop owner: You gots to quit that stuff if you wanna be healthy. Just throw those cigarettes away. Smokers: Right. Recently Juno'd Ron Sexsmith, to TOist contributor JKelly, at the paddock on Friday, after a bit of cajoling: Hey man, it's your birthday. Uh,......