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......

For the time, it seems, side-projects are here to stay. If you take a look at any of the large indie bands from Canada (Broken Social Scene, Stars, New Pornographers, The Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, off the top of our head), they've got at least one offshoot, whether active or not. The surprising thing is that, for the most part, these side-projects have done a decent job of living up to the hype brought......

It's almost time to say goodbye to North By Northeast for yet another year. Two longs nights have past, leaving tonight as the last chance to get out an enjoy some of the best new music from around the world. Seeing as it is Saturday, expect a lot of the shows to be really busy so going earlier is always better than later. All the cool kids are doing it! But before we get back......

After being hotly anticipated for months- at least by stores- All Hallows' Eve is finally here. If you're at all concerned, the so-called North American Halloween Prevention Inc. has released a charity single, "Do They Know It's Halloween?" (It's really a spoof of the well-intended-but-slightly-patronizing "Do They Know It's Christmas?") It features a slew of Canadian musicians, including Arcade Fire, Buck 65, Sloan, Feist, and Wolf Parade; even better, all proceed go to UNICEF.......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate......

It was printed right on the tickets, but I guess the gravity of what “DRS 6” meant didn’t sink in until Saturday’s Wolf Parade concert was underway. Arriving with my friends close to seven, the band Holy Fuck was already into their opening set- which was odd, since Frog Eyes was supposed to be the supporting act. Maybe they had just added more acts to the bill, someone suggested. Of course, the fact that members......

No John Candy this week but for all those who couldn't get tickets to tomorrow's Wolf Parade show here's a clip of the boys from Montreal performing "I'll believe in anything" from last year's CMJ festival.......

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......

Looking to check out some live music this week? Here's your listing of what's happening around the city between July 31 and August 6. In addition, we are now including recently announced shows, so you have no excuse about missing out on ticket opportunities. If you know of any good shows this week that we missed below, let us know in the comments. Feel free to also let us know about upcoming shows that......

If you'd like to take thoroughly reading NOW Magazine's live show listings one step further, cautiously enter the Toronto section of Stillepost. The message board is frequented by musicians, promoters, and the like, so a head's up on upcoming shows can often be found. (Info on the Wolf Parade show on Aug. 5, for example, would've helped this person.) But the insider's scoop comes with its share of behind-the-scenes drama. The most recent is......

More evidence that we're the centre of the universe (kidding), the nominees for the inaugural Polaris Prize is out and four five out of the ten nominees are bonafide Toronto artists. Broken Social Scene, The Deadly Snakes, Final Fantasy, Sarah Harmer and K'Naan make up the Toronto contingent. If we add Metric (which live in a whole bunch of places) and Sarah Harmer (who lives near Kingston) then over half the list calls Toronto home.......

It's a well known joke among indie rock fans that there are tons and tons of "wolf" bands. Everyone from Wolf Parade to Aids Wolf to Guitar Wolf. There's something about the lupine animal that just attracts musicians trying to come up with a band name. With the success of wolf bands the backlash is going to be inevitable. Which makes Torontoist wonder which animal will be de rigeur for struggling indie musicians everywhere. We......

Do you see what happens? Do you see what happens when you give negative reviews to local bands? Good thing for Torontontontoist, there's no need for a negative review or much backlash in the case of Annex-favourites the Diableros. It all starts when opening track "Working Out Words" betrays the commonplace misconception that the Diableros will play some sort of psycho-billy or Mexicana pop (Diablero = Spanish for evil sorcerer, you know). Its' burried/blurried vocals......

As featured in the Toronto Star and the New York Times, and just in time for the howl-iday weekend, it's the Islands-as-Geldof benefit CD, Do They Know It's Hallowe'en? There's no real analysis needed here, so here you have the basics: The Islands are two individuals from the Unicorns, who wrote the song to counter the absurdism of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" The track and its four versions feature impressive-slash-slightly unnoticable contributions by David......

In what appeared to be a blind stab at modern fashion, some dude came to last night's Arcade Fire show in a full business suit. From the looks of it, this young man had misinterpreted the tie and blazer w/ jeans trend for all out formal attire. After a few head shakes, Torontoist was quick to remember that he once wore his jeans backwards in grade 6, mimicking his favourite popular musicians at the time.......

We go to know Wolf Parade when half the band composed original music for Torontoist's sister's experimental theatre production. The music was splendidly good, and the paper maché, which they may have had a gooey hand in, wasn't half bad either. Now the band plays cuddly puppy to Isaac Brock's Golden Retriever of a label. People might say their work 'defies categorization,' which means critics can't pick two bands and cross-polinate them in an effort......