Verb Issue R102 (Nov. 1-7, 2013)

Issue #102 – November 1 to November 7

arts

culture

music

regina

+

iron steeds

Representing SK

at the bike polo world championships

VERY WE EE EK RE

PL

SK

EA

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Films reviewed

RE

F

Last Vegas + griot

H READ & S

A

Photo: courtesy of the artist

contents

On the cover:

matthew good

Back to basics. 10 / feature

Photo: courtesy of the artist

culture

NEWs + Opinion

entertainment

Q + A with Andrew Salgado Regina artist brings agent of change On changing the face of Saskatchewan policing. 3 / Local

Live Music listings

impressive pieces home. 8 / Q + A

Local music listings for November 1 through November 9. 14 / listings

what would judas do? It’s a different side of a famil-

We visit O’Hanlon’s

iar villain. 9 / Arts

15 / Nightlife

Nightlife Photos

Little Miss Higgins

last vegas + Griot

On making one of the best records of her career. 9 / Arts

We review the latest movies. 16 / Film

iron steed One SK team’s journey to the bike polo world championships. 4 / Local

fiber optic future Why municipal Wi-Fi is not the way to go. 6 / Editorial

NOURISHING NOSTALGIA

on the bus

We visit Daisy’s Pantry. 12 / Food + Drink

Weekly original comic illustrations

by Elaine M. Will. 18 / comics

comments

Music

Game + Horoscopes

Here’s what you had to say about a civic prayer policy. 7 / comments

Justin Rutledge, Gentleman Husbands + Wide Mouth Mason

Canadian criss-cross puzzle, weekly horoscopes and Sudoku. 19 / timeout

13 / music

verbnews.com @verbregina facebook.com/verbregina Please recycle after reading & sharing

Editorial

Business & Operations

Publisher / Parity Publishing Editor in Chief / Ryan Allan Managing Editor / Jessica Patrucco staff Writers / Adam Hawboldt + Alex J MacPherson Contributing writer / MJ deschamps

Office Manager / Stephanie Lipsit account Manager / Thomas adair Marketing Manager / Vogeson Paley Financial Manager / Cody Lang

ART & Production

contact

design Lead / andrew yanko Graphic designer / bryce kirk Contributing Photographers / Maxton Priebe, marc messett + Adam Hawboldt

Comments / feedback@verbnews.com / 306 881 8372 advertise / advertise@verbnews.com / 306 979 2253 design / layout@verbnews.com / 306 979 8474 General / info@verbnews.com / 306 979 2253

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Agent of Change

Sgt. Ernie Louttit on Stonechild, and the changing face of policing in Saskatchewan by ADAM HAWBOLDT

L

ittle did Ernie Louttit know it, but when he walked into that arcade on a cold December day in 1990, a ball was set in motion that would forever mark his career and change the face of policing in Saskatchewan as we know it.

It was December 4th. A few days earlier, the frozen body of Neil Stonechild had been found by two construction workers in a field on the outskirts of Saskatoon. When Louttit (who was a constable at the time) ran into Stonechild’s younger brother Jason at the arcade, the younger Stonechild told him he had information that his brother had been beaten up and dropped off in that field.

Being a consummate professional, Louttit made a note of the meeting. The time was 4:50pm. Later, after he returned to the police station, Louttit pulled the Stonechild file from Central Records and photocopied it.

“Something wasn’t right about the whole thing,” remembers Louttit. “When I pulled the file and looked it over, instinctively, at some level, I knew something wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t read right. The theory that he was walking to the Correctional Centre, it made no sense to me.”

That’s not the only thing that made little sense. There was also the lack of effort made to find Stonechild’s baseball cap (which he usually wore), and one of his shoes, which was missing. On top of that, Louttit was curious about what efforts were being put into establishing Stonechild’s activities on the night he disappeared and what kind of follow-up (if any) was being done by the department.

He took his concerns to S/Sgt. Bruce Bolton of the Major Crimes Unit, who advised him to speak to Sgt. Keith Jarvis, the officer who had been assigned to investigate into the death of Neil Stonechild.

But things didn’t go the way Louttit had hoped.

“I was really excited. There I was, going to see the head investigator and say, ‘Here! Look at this’,” says Louttit. “But when I did, I got shut down pretty hard.”

Told to leave matters alone, Louttis backed off and let others in the department do their jobs.

Besides, he figured an investigation would open soon into the death of Neil Stonechild.

It didn’t happen until later — much later.

For most people, writing a book can be a long and difficult process.

Thinking of stories to tell, getting them onto the page, finding the right words, the right way to present ideas — for some people, writing is like sitting down to a computer and bleeding.

Ernie Louttit isn’t most people.

A member of the Saskatoon Police Service for 27 years, Louttit has seen his fair share of things. He was the first officer to the scene of more than 20 homicides. Needless to say, he has some stories.

“Not long ago I did a ride along with Dan Zakreski of CBC, and at the end Dan said to me,‘Ernie, you’re such a good storyteller,” says Louttit. “I thought about that, and I guess over the years I had become quite a good storyteller. The guys [on the force] were always saying, ‘Sarge, you should write a book.’”

And last August, that’s exactly what Louttit started to do.

“I was out sitting on my back deck, my wife was working, and I thought, ‘What the heck,’ and just started writing,” says Louttit. “I can’t type for sh*t, so I wrote it by hand in a notebook.”

From that point on, every morning Louttit would wake up early and write from 5-8am. Pretty soon, he had about 100 pages written. “I started showing them to my kids,”

says Louttit, “and they couldn’t believe all those things had happened to me. That’s when I thought, ‘Okay! It’s time to get serious about this and write a book.’ So I bought a Dragon, one of those electronic dictation devices, and got to work.”

The end result was a book, to be launched later this month, called Indian Ernie: Perspectives on Policing and Leadership.

The book (which covers topics from social problems to leadership to murder pursuits) begins when Louttit moved to Saskatchewan to start his policing career, at a time when the police service in Saskatchewan had an old-school, unbending mentality.

“I wanted to start there. And at the time, there was a certain element there that wasn’t willing to change, that was resistant to change,” says Louttit. “So I wanted to start off with something to illustrate that. There was this one particular incident, it came right down to the wire. I almost had to shoot this guy. Afterwards, I was covered in blood, the guy was in jail. There was no help after it was over. No counseling, no one to talk to, no one from the administration asked if I was alright. It’s just the way things were back then.

There were a lot of good guys, but that’s the way things were done.

The departmental values were from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s. After that incident, I knew I had a long road ahead of me.”

A bumpy road that would eventually smooth out, thanks, in part, to the Stonechild inquiry.

In March 2001, more than a decade after Neil Stonechild was found dead, Louttit was downstairs in his house, rifling through a barracks box from his army days.

He’d long since forgotten about the photocopy of the Stonechid file, but when he opened the box,

Photo: courtesy of adam hawboldt

there it was. “I didn’t know that every copy had been purged,” says Louttit. “Death investigations are never supposed to be purged, though. Anyway, I brought the copy upstairs, contacted the RCMP, contacted our deputy chief, and turned it over to them.”

That copy would end up playing a key part in the Stonechild inquiry — a commission led by the Honourable Mr. Justice D.H. Wright that exposed a relationship between the Aboriginal community and the police in which the police, at the time, abused their power, ignored evidence, and dismissed crimes against the Aboriginal population.

“It was inevitable that the culture of police had to explode. It had to go. We had to become more professional, more accountable, more thorough, more fair,” says Louttit, who retired last month. “And the Stonechild inquiry helped lead to that. It’s no consolation; what happened to Neil Stonechild should never have happened, but it did

change a lot of things. After that, there was a huge recruiting drive for visible minorities and women.

Once [police chief Clive] Weighill got here and reorganized the way we do business, it really empowered change.”

Change that was seen in police departments around the province.

“When those two guys were dismissed [Csts. Bradley Senger and Lawrence Hartwig], that sent a chill throughout every cop in Canada,” says Louttit. “That made a lot of police services pull up their socks and change the way they do things.”

And even though he insists he was just doing his job, Ernie Louttit can rest easy knowing he played no small part in bringing about that transformation.

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Iron steeds and hardcourt deeds Photo: courtesy of mosquito

Saskatchewan bike polo team exceeds expectations

by ADAM HAWBOLDT

W

hen you think about polo, what comes to mind?

Elegant horses? Manicured lawns?

Wealthy people watching from the sidelines as well-dressed players mounted on horseback smack a ball

down a field looking to put it neatly between the pair of upright posts at either end for a goal? For most people, that’s what comes to mind — polo in the traditional sense. But sometime in the early 2000s that centuries-old sport spawned a new, urban counterpart.

They called it hardcourt bicycle polo. And it looked a lot different from its predecessor. Gone were the horses, dapper players and sprawling fields.

These were replaced by battered bicycles, and players in jean shorts and tattoos who wore skateboard helmets Continued on next page »

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and ripped around tennis courts or roller hockey rinks, trying to score on miniature hockey nets.

What started as a game created by bored bicycle couriers on a court in Seattle soon blossomed from a fringe underground sport to an activity played in 300 cities in 30 countries around the world. Eventually the League of Bike Polo was created and crept its way into Saskatchewan, with teams springing up in places like Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw. “It started here about three summers ago,” says Will Robbins, a member of Mosquito — the League of Bike Polo team from Saskatoon. “And in the beginning, it wasn’t pretty. There was a lot of looking at the ball and crashing into things.”

Which is totally understandable.

Think about it. Not only do you have to learn the subtle trick of riding a bicycle in tight quarters — with only one hand — you also have to figure out how to control a ball with a mallet while moving and turning.

“The skills you need for bike polo aren’t really transferable from other sports,” explains Robbins. “Those two key aspects of it [bike riding and ball control], you just don’t have that combination in other sports. So in bike polo, you tend to have two main groups or types of players. There are people who are very good with bikes.

They came from the bike courier world or from downhill racing, and have tremendous bike skills. It’s second nature for them to be able to

wheelie, turn and hop and keep their balance with one hand.”

Robbins’ team, Mosquito, is quite the opposite.

The tennis court at Optimist Park is decommissioned. Some time ago, it was a freshly paved surface where balls were volleyed back and forth over nets under the hot summer sun.

Those days are gone now. The surface is cracked in places, heaving in others, and generally crumbling around the edges.

This is where Mosquito play practice and pick-up games, where they have developed their own unique brand of bike polo.

“Our style of play is distinct,” says Robbins. “Partly because, unlike other teams who find riding a bike second nature, we all played pretty competitive team sports — hockey, volleyball, basketball. So understanding positioning and sorting out strategies, offensively and defensively, came more natural to us.”

The other part of their distinct style was borne out of necessity.

“Maintenance hasn’t been done at the court in Optimist Park for a long time, it’s kind of falling apart. The ball doesn’t roll very smoothly, it bounces around. So we’ve tailored our style for that surface. We play a game that’s not so heavy on one player keeping possession, because it’s hard to keep the ball at speed when it threatens to always jump over your

mallet. So we pass a lot more than other teams.”

The Mosquito team, true to their name, also pester opposing teams with an in-your-face forecheck. And whatever they are doing seems to be working, because this year they did something wildly unexpected.

Last month, about 20 miles west of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, teams from around the world met to compete in the 2013 World Hardcourt Bike Polo Championship.

There were 20 teams from Europe in attendance, a smattering of teams from Asia and Australia and South America, and 20 teams from North America. Mosquito were one of those teams.

“In North America, the league is split up into eight different regions,” says Robbins. “We’re the northern tip of the Cascadia region. The last stop. Historically, Cascadia has been the hardest region to qualify out of.

Vancouver, Portland, Seattle — all the clubs that sort of invented the modern game and have the most participants in North America — play in our region. We’re a small club, out in the middle of nowhere, playing against former world champions like Vancouver and Seattle. So at the start of the season we set a goal: if we could finish in the top nine in Cascadia, that’d be a real accomplishment for us. But we realistically didn’t think it would happen for a couple of years.”

It didn’t take a couple of years.

In the Cascadia tournament Mosquito finished ninth, earning a berth in the North American championships in Minneapolis this summer.

“In a way, it was good that we qualified through Cascadia,” says Robbins, “because it’s hard. We had to play so many good teams all the way through that by the time we got to Minneapolis we were ready to play the best teams in North America.”

With their expectations already exceeded, Mosquito went into Minneapolis with nothing to lose and a world of experience to gain. And they ended up finishing ninth, again, and qualifying for the world championships in Florida.

“When we got there, we had a revised sense of where we stood,” says Robbins. “Our aim was to finish pretty modest. Just being there exceeded anything we could have thought, so we figured we’d be lucky to finish in the top 20. But we ended up finishing tied for 17th in the world.”

Not too shabby for a small club from Saskatchewan that practices on a crumbling court. Not too shabby, indeed.

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Fiber optic future

Our city should get over municipal Wi-Fi, and move on to a fiber optic system

E

arlier this month, SaskTel officially discontinued it’s Saskatchewan! Connected network, which provided Wi-Fi coverage to Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, Regina and Saskatoon.

And while SaskTel is in the process of analyzing what they call a “new leading-edge Wi-Fi service for SaskTel customers in high traffic zones,” we believe that municipal Wi-Fi has had its day in the sun. It’s time to move beyond crappy, intermittent Wi-Fi, and on to the future: better broadband speeds, courtesy of fiber optic cables.

Not only does this improve consumers’ Internet experiences, it can also provide economic growth for our city.

Look, the problems with municipal Wi-Fi are myriad. According to SaskTel president and CEO Ron Styles, “the community industry is continuously driven by ever-evolving and improving technology and the current Saskatchewan! Connected service is slow and antiquated.”

That’s for sure. Anyone who has been downtown and tried to use the Wi-Fi service since the network was launched in 2007 knows this. But instead of trying to replace it with something similar, which will lead to the same round of problems, we think this is a brilliant opportunity for the government to do the right thing and install a fiber optic network instead.

After all, there are certain limitations to municipal Wi-Fi that simply can’t be overcome. Most people in Saskatchewan already have access to the Internet, therefore, a new Wi-Fi network would only slightly expand

Internet usage in our city. It’d be, as it was before, not much more than a supplement to household and mobile connections. What’s more, as the Saskatchewan! Connected network already proved, Wi-Fi networks have a way of quickly becoming outdated, slow and inferior to other alternatives already on the market.

That’s where fiber optics come in.

Not only is a fiber optic network the most secure kind of network out there, not only do they allow for longer transmission distances and better signal rates, fibre optic connectivity is also faster. After all, it runs at the speed of light — allowing for quick and instant data transmission.

But that’s not all. High-speed fiber optic networks are also proven to stimulate economic growth. Take the case of Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example. Since introducing its fiber optic service in 2012, entrepreneurs from California to Ireland have flocked to the city with the fastest Internet in America, generating $400 million in new business investments and directly creating somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6,000 new jobs.

Oh, and a 2011 study conducted by Ericsson, a multinational technology company, found that doubling broadband speed in an economy increases GDP by 0.3 percent.

Another bonus? Fiber optic networks can serve as serious competition to de-facto monopolies in the broadband business. You want proof? Since Google Fiber entered into the Kansas City market, Time Warner Cable was forced to introduce a “turbo” service that doubled its

current service to 100 Mbps. Moreover, when Google announced it was planning to take its fiber service to Austin, Texas, Time Warner Cable said it would match Google’s 1GB service while providing free Wi-Fi to existing customers downtown.

But fiber optics networks don’t come cheap. The total cost of the Chattanooga project came in at around $320 million. And sure, that’s a lot of money. But don’t fret. If we look overseas to New Zealand, there’s a good public-private model that helps reduce taxpayer costs. Basically, the NZ government built the network and provided incentives for the internet service providers to invest in it, such as buying back the basic network connected to the homes. A model like this helped reduce up-front costs to investors, and allowed the government to recover costs and make fiber optics a reality.

It’s time we do the same. Instead of going back to the municipal WiFi well (and building yet another network that will probably become outdated before you know it), let’s take the lead and get our city on the fiber optic grid.

These editorials are left unsigned because they represent the opinions of Verb magazine, not those of the individual writers.

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On Topic: Last week we asked what you thought about a civic prayer policy.

Here's what you had to say:

– I support prayer at civic events.

We need our leaders to be led by a higher power to make good decisions. I choose to call that higher power God but not everyone may agree with that. Should our leaders be solely led by their feelings or what turns them on? You can see how humankind can very easily be distracted or deceived. We need a godly intervention in our leaders’ lives so that we can enjoy his blessing in our lives.

– If I could ask each one who reads this note on how happy they are with the overall state of society I wonder what they would say. We have taken God and prayer out of school and never before have we heard more instances of school violence and shootings done by extremely young children. School used to be a place of safety and learning and now we are even talking about arming our teachers with handguns to protect our children when our ultimate protector, God, has been told He has no place in our lives. We have taken God out of our governments and never before has our government needed more help than it does today. Just look at our own problems in Canada and the United States as prime examples. Cities and nations previously blessed by God are seeing His hand of blessing withdrawn because of our shutting Him out of our lives. A prayer breakfast to the God who sustains us and protects us is one way of asking God’s presence in our lives and His continued blessings. Remove God and prayer from your life and you get a society which you have today.

– Attempts to legitimize religion/ superstition by wrapping it in a cloak of official recognition only

text yo thoughtsur to 881 Ve r b 8372

shows how pathetic these prayer mongers are.

– Totally agreed with your editorial. Prayers do not have a place at civic events - and it’s time to move on to more pressing matters!

my place. Just because you don’t have to clean it up, it means that someone else will have to clean up your garbage. Let’s help each other out and pick up after ourselves.

Thanks!

– I don’t agree with how I have been treated by you but I will try to forgive you.

– The saskparty says the NDP put canada in debt another $5 billion.

How is this possible as the NDP

hardly has any seats in canada?

Truth Is Power-Try It

– If the city gov’t supports prov gov’t growth plans then they should be focused on more housing better streets instead of a new stadium!

– Maybe the Verb should remain neutral on issues and not voice their opinions. The Verb should be for the readers should it not?

Next week: What do you think about bringing a fiber optic network to the city instead of municipal Wi-Fi? Pick up a copy of Verb to get in on the conversation: We print your texts verbatim each week. Text in your thoughts and reactions to our stories and content, or anything else on your mind

– Ooooh, suggesting we do away with prayer in the government?

What is this, fifty years ago when people realized how stupid it is to mix religion with politics. I guess the US hasn’t got the memo but we are a little more progresive up here. I am pretty sure I don’t need “god” telling me if something is right or wrong and I certainly dont want my mayor or council relying on God instead of their brains and logic to make choices. I suspect this is a few of the old guard and the younger councellors are going on with it. There are infinitely less dumb things to be focussing on than this. Come on you guys! I know you’re trying to be inclusive but let’s be serious this isn’t good for anyone.

OFF TOPIC – I like reading about how that guy got ready to dress up like a drag queen and the various tricks and tips they use. V interesting!

In response to “Let’s be clear … Crystal Clear,” Local, # 101 (October 25, 2013)

sound off – Is it better to be right or is it better to show love and empathy?

– I wish people would be more considerate and stop throwing out their fast food garbage by

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1. Photos: courtesy of Andrew Salgado

The Homecoming Andrew Salgado brings his anxious abstract portraits to Regina after ten years away by Alex J MacPherson

A

ndrew Salgado hasn’t lived in Regina for almost a decade. It has taken him ten years to find his voice as an artist, to reach the point where he is comfortable presenting his massive and subversive paintings to the proverbial hometown crowd. The Acquaintance is a collection of large works that destabilize the idea of portraiture. Salgado paints faces but he isn’t interested in accuracy or representation; his works are about formal abstraction, experiments with scale and technique that cut through the dissonance of life in the twenty-first century.

From chaos springs clarity, and Salgado’s paintings point at indelible truths concealed behind thick layers of paint. His works address ideas of sexuality and masculinity, things most people put on pedestals or hide in closets. But these truths are up to the viewer to determine. The works in The Acquaintance have lost none of the emotional energy and raw physicality that animated his earlier paintings, but they are more balanced, more mature. Which is why Salgado wanted to bring them to Regina, the place where it all began.

Alex J MacPherson: You’ve been away from Regina for almost a decade. Why now for your first major show at home?

my own work, the best articulation of my vision. That’s why this show was important to me: it’s my homecoming and on top of that I feel really confident about the works — and it’s the first time I can really say there’s no weak link. Of course that’s not the same as saying I don’t think I have anything to learn. I think there are problems in the show and I think there are shortcomings in the show but I’m super confident with it. And my next challenge is to get back to the studio over the next couple months and push myself even further.

Andrew Salgado: I’ve been gone about ten years from Regina, and over those ten years it’s been a process of me trying to figure out my voice as an artist, and me trying to establish myself and get to a certain level of accomplishment as an artist. And I think any kind of premature return would have been grabbing the carpet out from underneath my own feet, so to speak. Too much more time and it would make it seem like I’ve forgotten about Regina, which I haven’t; not enough time away and it seems like, well, have I learned that much? In the course of the ten years I’ve been gone I know there have been marked changes in who I am as a person and what my work is and what it represents and what I have to say. I just sort of feel like this was serendipitous.

AJM: There are strong art traditions in Saskatchewan, yet your works seem poised to upset them, or at least challenge them. Especially when it comes to the idea of figurative art.

AS: I grew up thinking that figurative art was supposed to be handled in a certain manner and landscapes were supposed to be handled in a certain way. Then I moved to London, where I sort of threw a curveball into that expectation. What I think my show tries to do is kind of surprise people with the expectation of how a figurative painting should be read and turn that completely on its head. I think people will realize when they go to the show is they’re not portrait paintings at all;

AJM: Is it difficult to look at your career in that dispassionate way while still remaining inside the machine?

AS: I like that idea of being in the machine. I don’t think style is a concrete thing; I think style continues to change.

But truthfully I feel like this is the first body of work that I really really feel is

they’re really just big, scary abstract paintings that are all about technique and scale. There’s a face lurking in there somewhere, but that’s not what interests me.

AJM: It seems like you’re moving away from some of the ideas that animated and drove your earlier work.

AS: It’s been widely written about and it’s common knowledge that I’m a gay man and I’m a victim of hate crime. In my twenties these were things that really weighted my work down. I by no means want to run away from them or turn my back on them because I’m responsible for [moving from] then to where I am now, but at one point you have to kind of realize that maybe you’re done talking about things you were concerned about in your twenties, maybe I’m not that person.

In our twenties we’re so preoccupied with defining ourselves by who we are not, and that comes across in artists as well: I’m anti-establishment or I’m against this or I don’t like this.

Maybe in that same vein, this is the first show that instead of saying who I am not and defining myself through difference, I came in with a bit more confidence saying okay, screw it, this show is who I am, I want it to speak about me now. And in that I said I

1. “Acquaintance,” by Andrew Salgado. Oil and spray on canvas, 2013.

forego that concept and just paint and see what happens.

AJM: That must be extremely liberating, to be able to explore new ideas.

JM: I think I so pigeonholed myself by saying I have this gay political agenda to cover and that if I talk about other issues apart from that it shows a sign of weakness. I think a lot of it just has to do with chilling out a little bit and having a little bit of experience under my belt and a modicum of success, to say maybe I can be a bit more comfortable and still continue to push myself just as hard but not be the same anxiety ridden 25-year-old that I was. And I think that comes across in the paintings. I think it’s loud and clear in the paintings. And I think for that reason it’s my most successful body of work to date.

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What Would Judas Do?

Stewart Lee play shows a different side of one of history’s great villains

F

ew people are more widely disliked than Judas Iscariot.

This may have something to do with his betrayal of Jesus Christ for the paltry sum of thirty silver coins and universal infamy. Among the faithful, only the devil himself is more profoundly reviled. But every story has two sides, and nobody has ever heard Judas’s version of events.

Until now. What Would Judas Do? is a play by British comedian Stewart Lee that explores a different side of the greatest story ever told — through the eyes of the red-haired betrayer himself.

“What Would Judas Do? is the kind of show that is both challenging and actually kind of comforting,” says Robert Ursan, who will direct Kenn McLeod in the Canadian premiere of Lee’s insightful and hilarious play.

“Everyone comes away from this show having felt something and understood something in a different light. It’s the last week of Christ’s life told through one of the least talked about disciples in the Bible. Someone who became infamous.”

What Would Judas Do? is not the rant of a passionate and committed atheist. Nor is it intended to be inflammatory. It simply offers a different view of things. According to Ursan, the play paints Judas as a frustrated revolutionary, Christ as a disappointing leader. “The script is very good about actually quoting from various portions of the gospel, to make sure everybody is on the same page,” Ursan says. “Then at the same time it takes all of those instances and asks you to not just take them at face value.”

by alex J MacPherson

One of the episodes raised in the play involves Jesus instructing Judas and another disciple to fetch a donkey, aboard which he will ride into town the following day. The people who saw Jesus on his donkey were persuaded that he was the messiah; Judas, meanwhile, thinks this is extremely cynical.

“Basically,” Ursan says, “[Jesus] is saying, ‘I know how to fulfil the prophecy, so go get these particular elements and they will fulfil the prophecy.’ Judas’s response to that is, ‘If you’re trying to fulfil a prophecy are you actually fulfilling it? Shouldn’t that just happen?’”

These are the sorts of questions that cut through What Would Judas Do? But the appeal of Lee’s script doesn’t end with insights into the psyche of the man the world learned to hate. Ursan, an experienced director, is in awe of playwright Stewart Lee’s ability to

turn amusing and potent phrases, one after another. “He’s remarkable for the way he uses language to get people to understand his point of view,” he says, adding that What Would Jesus Do? is a linguistic triumph. “And it’s never the same twice. There are sections where he talks to the audience, asks them for their opinions.”

But those opinions are just opinions. What Would Jesus Do? is a thought exercise, not a heretical screed. Ursan thinks everyone can

enjoy it, regardless of their religious affiliations or beliefs. “That’s one thing I really like about Stewart Lee,” he says. “He can take topics which are incredibly offensive and make even the staunchest believer in whatever topic he’s making fun of laugh. It’s an incredible skill.”

What Would Judas Do? November 12 - 16 @ Artesian on 13th $35 @ GoldenAppleTheatre.com ($25 for students)

Bison Ranch Blues

Little Miss Higgins teams up with the Winnipeg Five to make one of the best records of her career by alex J MacPherson

Photo: courtesy oF Andy Stanislav

J

olene Higgins has been performing and making records as Little Miss Higgins for more than a decade. She was inspired to work with the Winnipeg Five, a group of Dixieland pickers who also perform as the F-Holes, after a conversation with the group’s bass player, Patrick Alexandre Leclerc. The resulting album, a collection of energetic country and roots songs called the Bison Ranch Recording Sessions, was

recorded in the hay loft of a barn at the Renaissance Bison Ranch in rural Manitoba.

“We had talked about recording and co-producing an album,” Higgins says of her conversation with Leclerc, “and he said, ‘My uncle has a barn on his bison ranch. I’ve always wanted to record an album there.’ I said, ‘Let’s do it.’” The loft was set up like a recreation room, complete with ping pong and shuffleboard tables.

After hauling in their gear, Higgins and the band installed a number of electric heaters and bought a cord of wood to fuel the stove — necessities given the frigid April weather. Then the tape began to roll.

The Bison Ranch Recording Sessions was recorded almost entirely live off the floor. Like Higgins’ earlier records, it draws on a host of influences from the early part of the last century. From classic country and swampy blues

to deft jazz and ringing gospel, the album captures the spirit of the music Higgins adores. But the band — Leclerc, Evan Friesen, Eric Lemoine, Jimmie James McKee, and Blake Thomson — added a new dimension to her signature blend of snaky guitar licks and crackling vocals.

This is apparent from the opening strains of “Heavy Train,” a rousing calland-response that casts a soaring harmony against a minimal yet powerful backdrop of guitar and stomping feet.

These are songs that could be played on a porch as easily as in a recording studio, and Higgins knows it. By paring down each song to its most basic parts, she and the band were able to extract a different kind of power — one that is familiar yet devastating.

“I think doing it live is an important part of keeping things simple, or not adding too much,” she says of the album, which uses spare arrangements to heighten the power of her punchy voice. “When you have the ability to layer stuff you may have the tendency to add [too many parts]. It also pays

homage to a lot of the music I love and love to listen to from the early 1900s.”

After a pause she says, “it’s about breaking things down a bit.”

The rawness of music from the early part of the last century has always been integral to Higgins’ sound.

But instead of simply imitating her musical heroes, she has folded their ideas into a musical vision that reflects the time in which she lives — a time defined by a new appreciation for the stark simplicity of roots music. Today, she is on the cutting edge of that movement, and the Bison Ranch Recording Sessions promises to mark much more than a peak in her career.

Little Miss Higgins November 13 @ The Exchange $19 advance; $25 at the door

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbRegina amacpherson@verbnews.com

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Feature

Arrows of Desire Matthew Good returns to rock and roll basics on his latest album by Alex J MacPherson

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hank god for the Pixies,” Matthew Good says with a laugh, his voice full and strong after a recent bout of bronchitis. The Vancouverbased singer and songwriter is talking about his latest album, Arrows of Desire. Good always wanted to make a stripped-down rock and roll record. After 2011’s Lights of Endangered Species, a difficult record that paired his distinctive vocal delivery with complicated arrangements and unusual instrumentation, he was ready for something different.

Compared to the intoxicating and cerebral songs that illuminated its predecessor, those on Arrows of Desire seem almost comically simple. Instead of searching for some grand vision of the world, Good listened to a bunch of rock records and then made one of his own. “When I came home off that record I was like, give me a distortion pedal and a Telecaster,” he says. “I was listening to everything from my youth. Listening to the Replacements and Hüsker Dü.”

And of course his beloved Pixies.

There are many sides to Matthew Good, a few of which might surprise people only peripherally aware of his career. He is of course a successful musician. Since he formed the Matthew Good Band in the ‘90s, he has released ten full-length albums, most of which debuted inside the top five.

(After the band dissolved in 2002,

Good kept releasing records under his own name). Good is also a passionate and committed activist. Following his bipolar disorder diagnosis he emerged as a tireless advocate, often through the Canadian Mental Health Association. He is also a prolific writer and maintains a lively blog on which he comments on everything from politics and war to art and literature. When not on the road,

Lights of Endangered Species. Arrows of Desire was never intended to be anything other than what it is, and it is overflowing with references to bands that shaped its creator, both as a person and a songwriter. “Musically, for sure,” Good laughs, “there’s Pixies all over this record. ‘Had It Coming’ was totally inspired by ‘I’ve Been Tired.’ But I’m not going to try to do what Charles [who performs using

That’s what makes music f**king universal, that’s what makes it one of the most powerful things in the world. matt Good

he spends much of his time at home in B.C. with his family. Perhaps more than anything else Good is comfortable with his life and his career. And that comfort allowed him to take a risk — to make a record that finds him in front of a ragged, scrappy, and extremely loud rock band.

“I made a rock and roll record,” he says. “Simple. There’s no more complication to it than that.” Good seems relieved by the thought of simplicity, though this might be a reaction to the complicated and nuanced albums that defined the last decade of his career. Arrows of Desire marks a radical shift from the ornate and vaguely experimental sound of

the name Black Francis] did, that’s impossible. The first verse of that song is maybe one of the greatest first verses in the history of modern music. I can’t do that and I’m not going to try.”

What Good did instead was write a bunch of Matthew Good songs and then play them with a rock band. Besides proving that Good can write just about anything, including a ragged rock and roll song, Arrows of Desire points to the thing that has driven its creator since the very beginning.

To illustrate, he turns again to the Pixies. “If you put out [the Pixies’ second studio album] Doolittle right now, it’s one of the biggest records in the world. Hands down. It would Continued on next page »

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Photo: courtesy of The artist

slaughter everyone out there of importance and of cool. It would destroy them. And if you talk about Doolittle, it comes down to good songwriting, right?” Good has always written good songs. On some of his earlier albums, however, the sheer brilliance of his lyrics was obscured by an all-consuming philosophical idea or a series of overly ambitious arrangements. The uncomplicated and unpretentious Arrows of Desire gave the songs room to breathe. The title track, which opens the album, is a perfect example of Good’s ability

Photo: courtesy of the artist

to twist and distort a complex idea using just a handful of words.

The song’s thirteen lines paint a vivid portrait of an arrow soaring high above a battlefield. (Agincourt, apparently). As the guitars and drums grind away below, apathy and intent collide in the moment before the arrow plunges back to earth. It is a stunning metaphor and a stunning song — and it illustrates how Good has been able to sustain a career for almost two decades. But he is extremely, and perhaps uncharacteristically, modest about his talent.

“The thing you have to remember is that those are skills you hone,” he says, pointing out that he began

his career not as a musician, but as an artist and a writer. “Lyrically I come from that school of growing up listening to Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan and Nick Drake, and then later on of course Billy Bragg. I come from the school of looking at imagery and metaphor, and there’s a way to obviously insert ambiguity, insert suggestion, and all of those things.” After a pause he adds, “the f**ked-up part about it is I actually don’t premeditate it. I just do it intrinsically. I just do.” Good’s songs are never formulaic, but more often than not they pair darkly compelling images and characters with the hint of a much bigger idea. The songs on Arrows of Desire suggest impending doom, which is easy to interpret as a commentary on the fractured and agitated state of the world today. On the other hand, Good’s vocal delivery — drawn out syllables and disjointed phrases blasted through the back of his throat — is so distinctive that he could sing about decorative gourds and everybody would know he was behind the microphone.

“I think I’ve been lucky, really, in my entire career to have a style that’s been pretty much my own from the beginning,” he says. After a pause: “Although maybe we can forget [my first album] Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, and pretend someone did that and just put my name on it.

And maybe half of Underdogs. But I think I’ve been lucky that I’ve had my own style.” This style emerges again and again on Arrows of Desire, which includes some of the best songs Good has written in a decade. The title track is one of them: “On a ruined

wind / To see our promise right in front of you / Silver barbs to crash the heart / Those gates so irremovable,” he sings in the first verse before crashing into the chorus: “Oh we can beg, we will bend again / Oh we can beg that we will bend again / Up in thin air we lie in wait.”

These lyrics are deliberately ambiguous, and Good says he sometimes encounters wildly divergent interpretations of his own songs.

“Garden of Knives,” a five-minute mid-tempo rocker that transforms a simple guitar lick into a hypnotic celebration of simplicity, features a verse that has perplexed some of his more exegetical fans. “Just the other day,” Good relates, “this guy is like, ‘Garden of Knives’ is this heavy political commentary.’ I’m like, it’s a song about sex! It’s a song about sex, dude!” (The verse in question goes: “My love screams / Yeah, I like the second half / All in-between honeycomb legs / I’ll break your back”). Stories like this are amusing, but Good is quick to point out that this is why he writes songs in the first place.

“You can take something else from it,” he say, “something that I miss, and you can apply it to your life. That’s what makes music f**king universal, that’s what makes it one of the most powerful things in

the world. The thing about it is, if you’re sitting up in your bedroom by yourself and you put on an album you’re not alone anymore.”

Which brings the conversation back to the Pixies, one of the bands Good spent his teenage years absorbing into his D.N.A. In the past, Good has made records with producer Warne Livesey, who has worked with everyone from Midnight Oil to Chris Walla. They are prolific collaborators; of Good’s last nine records, seven were produced by Livesey. This time, however, Good opted to work alone. It was probably a good choice: Arrows of Desire isn’t a garage rock album, but it benefits from not being particularly polished, either.

The album’s sound was also affected by the recording process, which Good says consisted of a bunch of guys standing around making music together. Even the gear they used was simple. Good played a variety of cheap Fenders and Gibsons, including a beat up Mexican Stratocaster he bought for $600. “It sounds awesome,” he says of the guitar, which can be heard on the haunting, hypnotic “Via Dolorosa.” “It’s that great scrappy midtone thing.” And because almost every guitar part on the album was

recorded using the same amplifier and effects pedals, there is a certain continuity from one song to the next. A loud, bright, and heavily distorted continuity.

Taken together, all of these elements combine to form one of the best records Good has ever made.

Gone are the elaborate arrangements, the existential musings, the grand ideas. What’s left is a collection of simple yet profoundly effective rock and roll songs. “It’s the perfection of imperfection, make no mistake about that,” Good says. He is talking about the rock and roll, but he may as well be discussing Arrows of Desire. Last year, Matthew Good set out to make a simple, unadorned rock and roll record, one that paired great songs with the edgy, fractious sounds that define his generation. And that is what he did. Thank god for the Pixies indeed.

Mathew Good November 10 @ Pure $40 @ ticketedge.ca Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbRegina amacpherson@verbnews.com

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Photos courtesy of Maxton Priebe

NOURISHING NOSTALGIA

Daisy’s Pantry makes lunchtime a comforting trip down memory lane by MJ Deschamps

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rowing up, nothing comforted me quite as much when I was sick as having my mom’s grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.

Even well into my twenties, back in Ottawa, I would drag my aching body from my apartment to my mother’s place every time a head cold hit.

Now that I’m provinces away, it’s a little more difficult to just drop by, so when I was feeling a bit under the weather this week, Daisy’s Pantry made for an excellent substitute (sorry, Mom).

soup needs to start with fresh bones and stock) come from the eponymous Daisy — the late grandmother of owner Darla Saunderson — who has been the influence behind the café’s “grandma-made” taste.

“There are no shortcuts here. We do everything from scratch…because it just tastes better,” said Saunderson.

“It’s a place to really show my love of cooking — where I can come every day and cook like my grandma did.”

Daisy’s is proving that healthier, home-cooked food doesn’t always have to cost more, either: the café’s daily soup and sandwich specials are always priced at $9, while cakes and other desserts are just $3.

Aside from its dine-in breakfast and lunch, Daisy’s keeps a fridge stocked with take-out items like homemade soups, chilis, lasagnas, and stews. Oh, and it also doubles as a busy full-service catering business.

In a comfort food coincidence, the day’s special was a Fromage à Trois (three cheese) sandwich, paired with potato soup and crunchy homemade crackers. The lightly grilled sandwich was made with thick slices of fresh bread, and in the gooey centre there was a thin smear of cream cheese with a hint of dill. The thick bread was perfect for dipping in the hearty soup, which was brimming with potatoes and carrots in a rich broth.

A “grandma-made” menu is also synonymous with baking, of course, and Daisy’s sweet treats are a must-try.

The terms “home-cooking,” “comfort food” and “just like (insert matronly family member) used to make” tend to get thrown around a lot in restaurant tag lines, but I promise you Daisy’s Pantry is the real thing, even right down to its décor. That sort of lived-in vibe of a family home is present: daisy yellow walls, rustic tables, vintage furniture and mismatched chairs; there’s also a fireplace lined with old family photos; and knickknacks here and there.

All of the bread recipes and cooking fundamentals and techniques used (i.e.

let’s go drinkin’ Verb’s mixology guide CLASSIC EGGNOG

Ingredients

There’s no need to wait until Christmas to start brewing up a batch of eggnog – the cold weather is justification enough, don’t you think?

4 egg yolks 2 cups milk ½ cup sugar 2 whole cloves 1 cup cream 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp nutmeg 2 tsp (each) of bourbon and rum

directions

Beat egg yolks in a large bowl until they become lighter in colour. Slowly add sugar and whisk until fluffy. Blend milk, cloves, and cinnamon in a saucepan on medium heat until the mixture is steamy. Slowly add half the hot milk mixture into the eggs — whisking constantly — and pour mixture back into the pan. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens.

Remove from heat and add cream; then strain to remove cloves. Let cool for one hour, before mixing in vanilla, nutmeg, and bourbon and rum. Chill.

It’s hard to beat a homemade carrot cake, and this one was extremely moist, with fresh shredded carrot, cinnamon and a generous layer of sweet cream cheese icing. I also had the colossal-sized cinnamon bun, which was buttery, soft, and easy to pull apart.

As I sat by the window, I noticed the people steadily trickling through the door were all greeted like old friends

by Saunderson — seemingly picking their conversations up from where they left off the last time they stopped in. It’s no surprise, then, that Saunderson cites her customers as the most rewarding part of the business. She tells me stories of regular customers actually bringing her vegetables from

their own farms, as well as crabapples, rhubarb — even homemade soups of their own.

“There are very few places I can go to now, where I don’t bump into somebody I know [through Daisy’s Pantry]. They really get what I’m trying to do, and I appreciate that,” said Saunderson.

Daisy’s Pantry 1221 15th Avenue | (306) 352 4797 Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbRegina mdeschamps@verbnews.com

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Next Week

coming up

Justin Rutledge

Gentlemen Husbands

Wide Mouth Mason

@ Artesian on 13th friday, November 8 – $20+

@ Pure Ultra Lounge Sunday, November 10 – $40

@ Casino Regina Tuesday, December 31 – $55+

On any given night in Toronto you will find some of the best alt-country bands in the country playing, bands like Elliott Brood, The Sadies, The Rural Alberta Advantage — all talented altcountry acts that call T-dot home. So too does Justin Rutledge. After growing up in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto and attending the U of T, Rutledge dropped out before graduating to pursue a music career. Good call!

In 2004 he released his debut album, No Never Alone, to critical acclaim. His next album, The Devil on a Bench in Stanley Park, was nominated for a Juno.

The one after that, Man Descending, was longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. And now, with six albums under his belt, Rutledge remains a fixture on the Toronto alt-country scene. Tickets at www.picatic.com.

What do NHL hockey player Justin Williams and silent film actress Marie Dressler have in common? They’re all from Cobourg, Ontario — a small, lakeside town about 100 kilometres east of Toronto. Same goes for alt-rock band Gentlemen Husbands. Friends since way before they learned how to play instruments, Derrick Ballard (vocals/guitar), Ryan Hutcheson (guitar), Dan Farrell (drums/vocals) and Jed Atkinson (bass) have a chemistry that’s undeniable. Their songs — which are about love, life and small-town living — have the kind of lyrics that resonate with most Canadians. And their music, which is on the pop side of alt-rock, has enough catchy hooks and melodies to keep you coming back for more. They are opening for Matt Good next week.

Tickets at ticketedge.ca

When Saskatoon’s Wide Mouth Mason released their first album with a major label in 1997, they made quite a splash in the Canadian music scene. Their hit single “My Old Self” appeared on frosh mixes across the country and, along with other hit songs “Midnight Rain” and “This Mourning”, helped their pop/rock/ blues-infused self-titled album go gold here in Canada. In 1999, they changed up their sound a bit — adding jazz and world music elements — and released their second album on a major label, Where I Started.

It too went gold. Since then, Wide Mouth Mason has released four more records, retaining the core sound that made them so popular. They’ll be appearing with Big Sugar on New Year’s Eve. Tickets at casinoregina.com.

– By Adam Hawboldt

Photos courtesy of: the artist/ truncata/ amanda ash

Sask music Preview You’re invited to the SaskMusic Annual General Meeting and Networking Social, which will be taking place at The Two Twenty in Saskatoon on Saturday, November 30. Doors open at 1pm, the AGM will begin at 1:30pm, and the party will follow from 3:30-6pm. For more information, please email info@saskmusic.org or call 306-347-0676 or 1-800-347-0676.

Keep up with Saskatchewan music. saskmusic.org

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Drewski / Pure Ultra Lounge — Doing what he does best, every Saturday night.

10pm / $5 cover Kal Hourd / Whiskey Saloon — Melodic country music with gusto. 9pm / $10

november 1 » november 9 The most complete live music listings for Regina.

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Open Mic Night / The Artful Dodger — Come down and jam! 8pm / No cover Monday Night Jazz / Bushwakker — Featuring ‘round midnight. 8pm / No cover Mandy Ringdal Benefit / Conexus — Featuring Charlie Major, Bobby Wills and more. 7pm / $30 (conexusticket.com)

Friday 1

Your Town Throwdown / Casino Regina — Featuring Chad Brownlee, Deric Ruttan, Jason Blaine. 8pm / $30+(casinoregina.com) David Essig / The Club - A fixture on the Canadian folk scene. 8:30pm / $15 Day of the Zombie Cabaret / The Exchange — Featuring 2 Beats and a Hat, Tribal Alien Beings and Opal Stone. 8pm / $15 DJ Pat & DJ Kim / Habano’s — Local DJs spin top 40 hits. 9pm / $5 cover Big Chill Fridays / Lancaster Taphouse — Come out and get your weekend started with DJ Fatbot, who’ll be doing his spinning thing every Friday night. 10pm / Cover TBD Slow Motion Walter / McNally’s Tavern — A rock and roll party band with classic and current tunes. 10pm / $5 Craig Moritz / Pump Roadhouse — Country music from Alberta. 10pm / Cover TBD Albert / Pure Ultra Lounge — Appearing every Friday night, come listen to Albert as he does his spinning thing. 10pm / $5 cover DJ Longhorn / Whiskey Saloon — Come check out one of Regina’s most interactive DJs as he drops some of the best country beats around. 8pm / Cover TBD Kal Hourd / Whiskey Saloon — Melodic country music with gusto. 9pm / $10

Saturday 2

Charlie Chaplin: The Gold Rush / Conexus Arts Centre — Live symphony accompanying a classic film. 8pm / $72.45 (mytickets.reginasymphony.com) The Jump Off, Black Thunder, The Man and His Machine / The Club — Punk, stoner-rock and hardcore all in one night.

8pm / $5 Brass Buttons / Lancaster Taphouse — Some down-home music to help kill a Saturday night. 9pm / No cover Slow Motion Walter / McNally’s Tavern — A rock and roll party band with classic and current tunes. 10pm / $5 Craig Moritz / Pump Roadhouse — Country music from Alberta. 10pm / Cover TBD

Tuesday 5

Troubadour Tuesdays / Bocados — Come check out some live tunes from local talents every week. 8pm / No cover July Talk / The Club — A dynamic rock duo from Toronto. Also appearing: Thomas D’Arcy. 8pm / $10+ (ticketedge.ca) Oh What A Night / Conexus Arts Centre — A tribute to Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. 7pm / $68.50 (conexustickets.com) Deep Dark Woods, The Sumner Brothers / The Exchange — Indie and folk rock you don’t want to miss. 7:30pm / $20 (ticketedge.ca)

Wednesday 6

Wednesday Night Folk / Bushwakker Brewpub — Featuring Picture the Ocean.

9pm / No cover Doug Hoyer, Shotgun Jimmie / Creative City Centre — Hawaiian folk pop, ukeles, laid back folk ... you name it, they got it.

7:30pm / $10 Jam Night and Open Stage / McNally’s Tavern — Come on down and enjoy some local talent. 9pm / No cover

Thursday 7

2 Beats & A Hat / Artful Dodger — Presented by DJ Verbal & E-Major, come enjoy two DJs with guest performances the first Thursday of every month. 7pm / $5 in advance or at the door Alice Cooper / Conexus Arts Centre — A rock legend doing his thing. 8pm / $61.50 (conexustickets.com) Lindi Ortega / The Exchange — Country and blues from Toronto. Also appearing: Devin Cuddy. 8pm / $13 (ticketedge.ca, Vintage Vinyl, Madame Yes) Decibel Frequency / Gabbo’s Nightclub — A night of electronic fun. 10pm / Cover $5 PS Fresh / The Hookah Lounge — DJ Ageless started spinning in Montreal, DJ Drewski started in Saskatoon. They both landed in Regina and have come together to sling some bomb beats. 7pm / No cover

Open Mic Night / King’s Head Tavern — Come out and show Regina what you got.

8pm / No cover Sean Burns / Pump Roadhouse -An Ontario-based singer/songwriter with bittersweet songs. 10pm / Cover TBD

Friday 8

Aidan Knight, Justin Rutledge / Artesian 13th — Two talented singer/songwriters, one great night. 8pm / $20+ Digital Doomzday, Bats Out!, Circles, Revolution / The Exchange — Things are going to get heavy ... heavy metal, that is.

8pm / $20 (@ Planet Caravan) DJ Pat & DJ Kim / Habano’s — Local DJs spin top 40 hits every Friday night. 9pm / $5 Big Chill Fridays / Lancaster Taphouse — Come out and get your weekend started with DJ Fatbot, who’ll be doing his spinning thing every Friday night. 10pm / Cover TBD The Montagues / McNally’s Tavern — A big band with a great sound to dance to.

10pm / $5 Sean Burns / Pump Roadhouse — An Ontario-based singer/songwriter with bittersweet songs. 10pm / Cover TBD Albert / Pure Ultra Lounge — Appearing every Friday night. 10pm / $5 cover DJ Longhorn / Whiskey Saloon — Come check out one of Regina’s most interactive DJs. 8pm / Cover TBD Sarah Beth Keeley / Whiskey Saloon — Country/rock/pop from Calgary. 9pm / $10

Saturday 9

The Milkman’s Song / The Barley Mill — Rocking out to raise funds to fight lung cancer. 8pm / $20 Tinsel Trees, White Women, Robot Hive / The Exchange — Jam out to indie rock and post-hardcore. 8:30pm / $10 Random Groove / Lancaster Taphouse — Local band playing everything from blues to top rock. 9pm / No cover The Montagues / McNally’s — A big band with a great sound to dance to. 10pm / $5 Sean Burns / Pump Roadhouse -An Ontario-based singer/songwriter with bittersweet songs. 10pm / Cover TBD Drewski / Pure Ultra Lounge — Doing what he does best, every Saturday night.

10pm / $5 cover Sarah Beth Keeley / Whiskey Saloon — Country/rock/pop from Calgary. 9pm / $10

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friday, october 25 @

O’Hanlon’s

O’Hanlon’s Irish Pub 1947 Scarth Street (306) 566 4094

Check out our Facebook page!

These photos will be uploaded to Facebook on Friday, November 8.

Photography by Marc Messett facebook.com/verbregina

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Photo: Courtesy of CBS Films

The Hangover for the geriatric set ... kind of Last Vegas a funny but uneven flick by adam hawboldt

W

hen you look at some of the movies Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline have made you can’t help but sit back and go, “Holy crap!

That’s a stellar body of work.”

Think about it. The Godfather II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Wall Street, The Game, The Shawshank Redemption, Sophie’s Choice, The Big Chill — all terrific movies that have stood

Directed by Jon Turteltaub (Cool Runnings, National Treasure), Last Vegas begins with a prologue, a flashback to when Billy (Douglas), Paddy (De Niro), Archie (Freeman) and Sam (Kline) were kids, best friends even, who roamed the streets of Brooklyn and spent every waking hour together.

Fast forward about sixty years and we find Billy, a silver-haired Lothario, mourning the loss of his mentor and proposing to his 30-something girlfriend. Naturally, she says yes. A date is set, and Billy decides to get the old gang back together for a bachelor party in Vegas on the Saturday night before his Sunday wedding.

Sam and Archie jump at the chance.

Paddy? Not so much. See Paddy’s wife has recently died, he’s in a serious depression (to the point where he rarely leaves his apartment) and, to make matter’s worse, he’s still angry at Billy for not attending his wife’s funeral.

movie the media had pegged as The Hangover for the geriatric set — well, my feelings were mixed. On the one hand, there was excitement to see these four amazing actors on screen together for the first time ever. But on the other hand, there was skepticism about the type of movie Last Vegas was. I mean, all of these fine thespians have shown good comedic timing over the years, but for the most part (Kevin Kline

The plot is meh … and too often the film descends into cliché. Too bad, really…

Adam Hawboldt

the test of time, that continue to be as good now as they were when they were first released. So when I saw a trailer for Last Vegas — a

excluded) their real strengths lie in dramatic acting.

Turns out, my mixed feelings were justified.

This isn’t the first time Paddy and Billy have been at odds. Years ago, Paddy and Billy vied for the affections of the same girl, the girl who eventually went on to become Paddy’s wife. Despite all this, Sam and Archie eventually trick Paddy into going to Vegas. And, of course, shenanigans ensue. So too does the rivalry between Paddy and Billy, when a sultry lounge singer named Diana (Mary Steenburgen) enters the scene.

And while this doesn’t really sound like a Hangover-esque comedy, trust me, there are lots of belly laughs to be had while watching Last Vegas. There’s also excellent on-screen chemistry between De Niro, Douglas, Freeman and Kline, the kind of chemistry that tells you these guys really had fun filming this movie. But that doesn’t mean Last Vegas is a good movie.

It’s not bad, but it’s far from exceptional. Outside the hilarious vi-

last vegas Jon Turteltaub Starring Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen Directed by

90 minutes | PG

gnettes and the on-screen chemistry and Steenburgen’s take on Diana, there isn’t much that works for Last Vegas. The plot is meh, the rivalry between Paddy and BIlly detracts from the fun of the thing, and too often the film descends into cliché.

Too bad, really. With a cast like that, Last Vegas really had potential.

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Music and the human spirit

Ablaye Cissoko is front and centre in the mesmerizing documentary, Griot by adam hawboldt

Photo: Courtesy of WEITBLICK MEDIA

A

t one point in German jazz trumpeter Volker Goetze’s new documentary, an African man wearing a green khaki hat turns around in the front seat of a car, looks directly into the camera, and says “The Griot is Africa!”

Okay, fair enough. But what is a griot? Well, in West Africa, a griot (pronounced gree-oh) is a lot of things: a historian, a storyteller, a praise singer, a poet, a royal advisor, a troubadour. The griot is responsible for keeping the oral tradition alive, and is seen in communities as a social leader of sorts.

In Senegal, Ablaye Cissoko is that man.

And in Goetze’s documentary Griot, we get to see Cissoko up close and personal. The role he plays in the community, the music he makes, the way he affects people. It’s Goetze’s first crack at filmmaking, and he pulls it off with style, creating a beautiful, meaningful, mesmerizing picture that

anyone with a love of music or culture (or both) should definitely see.

Part concert film, part documentary about Cissoko’s life, Griot is one of those movies that, even though some things could’ve been done a bit better (some audience members will be left wanting more story, less music), you can’t help but like.

The story is warm and inspiring, the music is incredible. And, man,

Griot Volker Goetze Ablaye Cissoko

Directed by Starring

80 minutes | PG

in the film. Not playing alongside their brother, but performing in groups outside, in public places. Playing joyous music that brings smiles to people’s faces and uplifts their spirit.

Griot … is able to celebrate musical experimentation and human nature…

Adam Hawboldt

there’s a lot of this music. And not just coming from Cissoko, either.

See, Cissoko’s dad had four wives and about 20 children, all of whom are musicians. Most of them make an appearance, at one point or another,

And in a way, that’s what this whole documentary is about. It’s about the role of music in Senegalese society. It’s about a love of song that goes deeper than mere appreciation.

It’s also about Cissoko.

A master of the Kora — a 21-stringed instrument that kind of looks like a cross between a guitar and a harp — Cissoko is shown at various times either playing solo, or in an ensemble alongside director Goetze.

And while some of the focus of the film is about the friendship that has developed between Cissoko and Goetze, the first-time director is wise to keep that aspect of the documentary to a minimum. Instead, he opts to focus on Cissoko and the role that he plays.

To show this Goetze uses interviews of townsfolk, professors and other people, along with concert footage, to show the traditional and evolving role of the griot in modern Senegal. Goetze explores the way

people like Cissoko still enrich the community and the lives of others through their music.

Full of wisdom and warmth and unselfconscious beauty, Griot is one of those films that is able to celebrate musical experimentation and human nature all in one fell swoop. Don’t miss it.

Griot will be screened at Regina Public Library beginning November 7; see reginalibrary.ca for more info.

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Š Elaine M. Will | blog.E2W-Illustration.com | Check onthebus.webcomic.ws/ for previous editions!

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crossword canadian criss-cross DOWN

33. Protective wall 37. Bartender’s ‘rocks’ 38. Be worthy of 40. Having an injured leg 41. Turn over and over 43. Fertile workable soil 45. Place for farm animals 46. Relief from emotional stress 48. Powerfully persuasive 50. Choir member 51. Hide away 52. Periodic payment, for some 53. Trend-setting

1. Crackling noise heard on radios 2. Fuzzy surface on fabric 3. Friendly nation 4. Eagerly compliant 5. Makes accommodations for 6. Be incorrect 7. Make changes to a film 8. Make void 9. Barrel piece 11. Mature 12. Support for sails and rigging 14. Must have 17. Motor vehicle 20. Drugs in general 22. What barbers cut

25. Mark a ballot sudoku answer key 27. Kind of ticket A 29. Flamboyance 30. Pretended behaviour 31. Slide to the side 32. eBay member 33. Athlete who plays for pay 34. Like a wasp’s nest 35. Make corrections to 36. Circus site B 39. Wide-awake 42. Narrow country road 44. Temporary state of mind 47. One in prison 49. Prevent from speaking out

4 9 8 2 5 7 6 1 3 3 7 2 6 4 1 5 8 9 6 1 5 9 3 8 4 2 7 2 8 3 5 7 6 1 9 4 5 4 1 3 2 9 7 6 8 9 6 7 1 8 4 3 5 2 1 3 4 8 6 2 9 7 5 8 5 6 7 9 3 2 4 1 7 2 9 4 1 5 8 3 6

1. Give way under pressure 5. Existed 9. Drag one’s feet 10. Send away for 12. Necessary item of food 13. Primary source 15. Gesture of affection 16. Talk tiresomely 18. It comes in a roll 19. Extremely eager 21. Window frame 23. Golf bag item 24. Get well 26. Change for the better 28. Pea container 29. Bake sale item 30. Desirable thing to have

4 9 1 5 8 2 7 6 3 7 2 3 1 6 4 9 8 5 5 6 8 3 7 9 1 2 4 1 5 4 2 3 7 6 9 8 9 8 7 4 1 6 3 5 2 6 3 2 8 9 5 4 7 1 8 4 6 9 5 1 2 3 7 2 7 5 6 4 3 8 1 9 3 1 9 7 2 8 5 4 6

ACROSS

© walter D. Feener 2013

Horoscopes November 1 - november 8 Aries March 21–April 19

Leo July 23–August 22

Sagittarius November 23–December 21

Chances are you’re going to be drawn to things that are exciting and energetic this week, Aries. Go with the flow, and have fun!

You know that lost feeling, like you don’t know which way to turn next? Well, you’ll be feeling that for bit, Leo, but it will soon pass.

Kick back and enjoy the simple pleasures of life this week, Sagittarius. They’ll bring you more joy than you can imagine.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Virgo August 23–September 22

Capricorn December 22–January 19

You may do something that will land you in hot water this week, Taurus. If so, it’s best to be honest and come clean.

It’s important to remember to think before you act. Yes, it’s an old cliché, but it will hold very true in the coming days, Virgo.

Everything may seem like it’s moving in fast forward, Capricorn. Try to find a way to hit pause some time this week, and give yourself a break.

Gemini May 21–June 20

Libra September 23–October 23

Aquarius January 20–February 19

No matter how hard you try this week, it’ll seem like you’re digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself.

Don’t worry. Just keep on digging.

The more you laugh this week, the better things will be, Libra. So surround yourself with funny, and brace for whatever comes your way.

There will be a vast chasm between how you perceive things this week, and how they actually are. Try to remember that looks can be deceiving.

Cancer June 21–July 22

Scorpio October 24–November 22

Pisces February 20–March 20

If you want to be effective and efficient, surround yourself with good people in the coming days. They’re all about teamwork.

Sometimes it’s hard to turn your thoughts into action. So why not share your thoughts and let others help execute them?

Say what you wanna say, do what you wanna do, think what you wanna think. That’s the motto for your week, Pisces.

sudoku 4 9 2 6 3 2 3 1 4 7 1 2 1 5 3 6 8 9 7 6 3 8 5 4 8 6 9 5 1 2 7 8 9 7 5 4

crossword answer key

A

4 8 2 5 6 1 3 7 6 8 5 9 2 8 3 7 6 1 2 7 6 4 3 5 1 3 4 9 5 7 9 2 9 4 1 8

B

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