Issue #115 – February 14 to February 20
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better safe than sorry Inside the world of Saskatchewan preppers. zakk wylde Legendary guitarist talks new project, bringing metal to the children winter’s tale + let the fire burn Films reviewed
Photo: courtesy of tania mcdonald
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On the cover:
solids
Blame confusion. 12 / feature Photo: courtesy of Tania McDonald
culture
NEWs + Opinion
entertainment
Q + A with zakk wylde Legendary guitarist on his new show. 10 / Q + A
better safe than sorry A look at Saskatchewan
Wingfield Lost & Found Wingfield’s back, and
preppers. 4 / Local
better than ever. 11 / Arts
Bar Room Rock Coldest Night of the Year on their debut EP. 11 / Arts
Live Music listings Local music listings for February 14 through February 22. 16 / listings
Nightlife Photos We visit McNally’s Tavern + O’Hanlon’s Pub. 18 / Nightlife
winter’s tale + let the fire burn We review the latest movies. 20 / Film
heart (and arms) of a champion Tracey Arnold talks arm wrestling technique. 6 / Local
police protection
little spice on the prairie We visit Caraway Grill.
Our thoughts on putting cameras on cops. 8 / Editorial
14 / Food + Drink
on the bus Weekly original comic illustrations by Elaine M. Will. 22 / comics
comments
Music
Game + Horoscopes
Here’s what you had to say about legalizing assisted suicide. 9 / comments
Kat Danser, These Estates + Heart
Canadian criss-cross puzzle, weekly horoscopes and Sudoku. 23 / timeout
15 / music
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better safe than sorry Saskatchewan preppers not always what you think by ADAM HAWBOLDT
I
magine this: it’s a Sunday, just before twilight. You’re sitting in your house, on your couch, watching your favourite television program. It’s the season finale. And just as the show is about to reach a climax, the power flickers, comes back on, flickers again and goes out. The television dies, the lights go dark. A strange sound echoes through your house. A low continuous rumble like a nearby passing train. You get up off the couch and go to the window. Off in the distance a ferocious tornado is funneling towards your house, tearing up everything in its path.
Panic sets in. You dart down to your basement, taking the stairs two steps at a time, and shut yourself in a room with no windows. You crawl under a table or cover yourself with a mattress or blanket, and wait out the storm. When you emerge from your basement, your house is destroyed. The roof is torn off, the kitchen decimated. Lumber and appliances are littered across your yard. Everywhere you look, for as far as the eye can see, things are reduced to rubble. Streets are blocked with debris. Stuck in a situation like this, most of us wouldn’t know what to do,
wouldn’t know what to think. We’d be up s**t creek without that proverbial paddle. But not Tammy. She’s ready for something like this to happen. A tornado, flood, massive power outage, a total global economic collapse.
Tammy is ready because Tammy is a prepper. According to Oxford’s online dictionary, a prepper is a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food, ammunition, and other supplies. Continued on next page »
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And if you’ve seen any of the television shows or documentaries about these folks, at times they tend to come off as lunatics, or paranoid, doomsday nut jobs who take things way too far. But that’s not always the case. “People need to realize that all preppers aren’t gun-slinging rednecks,” says Tammy, as she wanders up and down the aisles of her local grocery store. “We’re not all camped out behind concertina wire with our guns and supplies. I mean, there are a few people like that in Saskatchewan — we’re talking the concrete bunker crowd here — but not a lot of them.” And Tammy should know. She is a member of the Saskatchewan Preppers Network, so she’s been in contact with every kind of prepper you can think of. But most of them, she says, are more like her. Most of them are people who would rather be safe (and prepared) than sorry — in case of a natural disaster or, say, a serious emergency. People who cultivate old-world skills, who get back to the basics. Or, as she puts it, a lot of preppers are simply about “getting back to good old common sense. Not depending on outside sources for their daily bread.” Standing in the toilet-paper aisle of her local grocery store, Tammy looks around. “Look at this — Scope, pit stick, sanitizer,” she says. Chuckles and, under her breath, repeats the word sanitizer. “I know so many people that get freaked
out about germs. They’ll run and pay, what is it? Something like $6.99 for a bottle of poison because they’re told it works. They’re convinced it works. They don’t think about these things. They don’t realize that if you want to really sanitize your hands
perform minor medical and first-aid treatments — just in case.
”Come a natural disaster, like a flood or the tornado you were talking about, guess who has food?” asks
you’re prepared to stay where you are, hunkered down in your house. Bugging out, as you’d guess, means the exact opposite. It means getting the hell out of Dodge if your home is destroyed. Tammy is prepared for that, too.
Come a natural disaster, like a flood or the tornado you were talking about, guess who has food? Guess who has water? Guess who has medical supplies and the skill to treat wounds? Tammy
all you need is vinegar. It’s cheap, it’s non-carcinogenic, and it’s an acid. It kills 100 percent of bacteria. Same as lemon juice … People don’t realize these things anymore.” But Tammy does. That’s why she makes her own lip balm, her own laundry soap, her own toothpaste and shampoo. That’s why she has a living room full of aloe vera plants, and a garden where she grows everything from potatoes to onions to Chinese snow peas the size of your hand. See, Tammy has chosen to decrease her dependence on modern society. To decrease the chance of encountering the chemicals and food additives in the things we purchase. But that’s not all. Along the way, she has also learned how to can food and how to
Tammy, still roaming the grocery store. “Guess who has water? Guess who has medical supplies and the skill to treat wounds?” You can almost picture Tammy pointing to herself when she says this. You can also imagine her as the type of person who would have a serious contingency plan if a natural disaster did occur. Imagine that, and you’d be right. “I have an older home in town,” says Tammy, who lives in Grenfell. “Most of these older houses have a cold room or a storage corner. So down there I have 72 hours worth of food, water, batteries, basic first aid materials, that kind of stuff. So if we have to bug in, we’d be fine.” Bug in is prepper terminology that means if something happens, like a major power outage or storm,
“I have a bug out bag packed and stored under the stairs,” she says. “In it, there’s a small first aid kit, 500-feet of paracord, which is handy in all kinds of strange situations.” When asked what paracord is used for, Tammy chuckles and says, “Have you ever tried to hang a tarp with toothpicks? Paracord is ridiculously light. It’s like having instant rope. It’s small, lightweight, easy to deal with. If you have to, say, grab a horse and throw a halter on it, you can craft one out of paracord. You can make a clothesline, you can hang a tarp to sleep under.” Tammy’s bug out bag also includes a change of clothes, extra shoes, warm socks, granola bars and bottles of water until she can get to a decent water source.
And if by chance she has to bug out, the plan is for her and her family to get to the farm they own outside of town. There, there are more provisions. More food and supplies. That’s Plan A. But what if something more serious happens. Like, say, the mega volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming erupts? “That’s the biggest threat we have here in Saskatchewan,” says Tammy. “Luckily we’re outside the blast zone, outside the worst of the ash zone. But if that happens, what my family and I have agreed upon is we all get our gear and meet up at the farm, then decide from there. If it came right down to it, and there was absolute destruction in this area, there’s another party I know that has an alternate location in northern Manitoba … so that would be the next destination.” But Tammy hopes it never comes to that. She hopes she lives the rest of her life in safety, growing her vegetables, making her household products, trading heirloom seeds and other things with others on the Saskatchewan Preppers Network. And if that doesn’t happen, if some natural disaster swings in and wreaks havoc — she’ll be ready. Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372
@VerbRegina ahawboldt@verbnews.com
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Heart (and arms) of Tracey Arnold and arm wrestling in Saskatchewan by ADAM HAW-
W
hen Tracey Arnold steps to an arm wrestling table, she’s focused. The crowd around her dissolves. Sometimes she doesn’t really see her opponent. Just the arm on the table in front of her. Her mind is clear. She’s deep in her own head, lost in the moment. But she’s ready. Tracey Arnold is always ready. That’s because when she’s not competing, Arnold is training. Some of the time that involves being at the gym, working with an exercise therapist who has developed workouts that are specifically geared towards arm wrestling. “Your core plays a huge factor in arm wrestling,” says Arnold, “so when I’m in the gym, I’m
working on my core. I do a well-balanced exercise [regime] that allows my strength and stamina to peak when I’m going into the major event at a competition.” Other times she’s in the garage of one of the other members of her arm wrestling club, doing table work and practicing technique. Putting herself in different positions and different situations. Training her mind and body to react without having to think. “When you take the element of stopping to think out of the equation, you’ll react faster,” explains Arnold. “We call it hitting first. You want to start fast, catch your opponent off guard. If you do that, you have the advantage.” There are times when Arnold steps to an arm wrestling table she
knows her opponent, knows what they’re going to do before their hands ever lock. But that’s not always the case. If Arnold doesn’t know her opponent, hasn’t seen her compete before, there’s a feeling-out process that takes place. A process that is almost instantaneous, but oh so important.
The history of arm wrestling is an ancient one. Paintings, thousands of years old, show what appears to be an arm wrestling contest on an Egyptian tomb. Across the Atlantic Ocean, on these shores, arm wrestling developed from a Native American game where competitors used their arms (and other parts of Continued on next page »
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She was 12 years old. “Before the accident I was very active and competitive in sports,” she remembers, “but after it, being injured like that, there wasn’t a lot that I could do.” Not the type of person to be held down, Arnold learned to walk again. Then, a handful of years after the accident, she walked up to an armwrestling table (with the help of a cane) for the first time to compete. “It was 1996. I entered a tournament and won,” says Arnold. After that, she was hooked.
Photo: courtesy of Jeff Binns
a champion their bodies) to unbalance and pin their opponent. In 1952, a journalist named Bill Soberanes organized the first recorded arm wrestling competition
that. It begins a few years after a tragic accident. In 1990, Arnold and her family were involved in a serious car crash. Her father died. The rest of her
I want to be ready and be able to adapt to anyone’s style. tracey arnold
in Petaluma, California, at a place called Gilardi’s Saloon. That’s the history, according to the Ultimate Arm Wrestling League. Tracey Arnold’s history with the sport begins much later than
family had extensive injuries. As for Tracey, she suffered nerve damage and severe injuries to her spinal cord, heart, pelvis, limbs and face. Injuries that left her paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
“You can usually tell what technique someone’s going to use when they grip up,” says Arnold. “If someone grips lower on the hand, that means they’re going for a hook.” If you’ve ever arm wrestled across a kitchen table, chances are you used the hook technique. That’s when you curl your wrist as hard as you can, get your body over your arm while keeping close proximity to your torso, and push down with your arm and body. If someone grips your hand higher, chances are they’re going for a toproll. This technique relies more on leverage than strength. What you do in the toproll is put pressure on your opponent’s fingers so their hand opens up, whereby making it easier to pin their hand. Then there’s the press, one of the purest power moves in arm wrestling. Here, you want to get your opponent’s palm facing up, your hand on top, then simply use brute strength to “press” your opponent’s hand to the table. In the raw and competitive world of arm wrestling, many competitors have a signature style or favourite technique they use, others become more well-rounded. Tracey Arnold falls into the latter category. “I train everything,” she says. “I want to be ready and be able to adapt to anyone’s style. If I know my opponent is stronger in one technique I want to be able to use another. For example, if they’re good at hooking, I’m not going to hook with them. I’m going to try to toproll them, get the advantage.” Not only does Arnold train all techniques, she also trains and com-
petes with both hands. A natural righty, Arnold has won numerous national championships in both the right- and left-hand categories in her weight class. She’s also competed in a slew of arm wrestling world championship tournaments, with her best results coming in 2010 at the XXXII World Armwrestling Championships in Mesquite, Nevada. There, she won silver in the Disabled Ladies Left 60+kg division and a bronze in the Disabled Ladies Right 60+kg division. “At worlds I usually compete in the open class, but that year I competed in the disabled and it was tough,” says Arnold. “The way they broke down the weight, I ended up
competing against women who outweighed me by about 100 pounds. So yeah, winning those medals, that was probably the high point of my career so far.” But her career isn’t over yet. There are more competitions to enter, and provincials are just around the corner. Then nationals. And worlds. In the meantime, Arnold will be training, getting ready for whatever is thrown her way.
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Police protection Video cameras on cops increases safety for all
T
he idea of police officers wearing small, portable cameras on their uniforms isn’t anything new. From small town America to European metropolises, police agencies are making a strong push for their law enforcement officials to start wearing body cameras, arguing that doing so protects both officers and the public. We agree with this practice, which is why we are advocating that our police services in Saskatchewan outfit their members with recording devices. Recording officers is something we are all familiar with. So often we see news reports of criminal activity, where a shaky cell phone video represents a bystander’s perspective of the events. Unfortunately, those
don’t always have the audio quality necessary to understand what’s going on, nor do they always show what transpired beforehand. A small camera on an officer, though, would provide a more complete picture, not to mention holding both the public and the police accountable for their interactions with one another. A nice idea, sure. But will it actually work? The answer is yes. Case in point: the city of Rialto, in southern California. There, the police force have used miniature video cameras and microphones to record police interaction with civilians. The cameras attach to the police officer’s collar. Police are expected to activate the cameras whenever they leave the patrol car and the videos it records are automatically uploaded to a central
server back at headquarters. Think of it as a visual evidence locker or something of the sort. But not everyone on the forces gets a camera during a shift. To determine whether or not these gadgets work, it was decided that only half the officers on shift will wear a camera, which would permit the department to do a comparative study of incidents with and without a recording device. The results, to date, have been nothing short of staggeringly impressive. According to the study, in the first 12 months the cameras were in use the Rialto police department experienced an 88 percent decrease in the number of complaints filed against their officers. What’s more, the study also showed that Rialto police officers
used force about 60 percent less often. Oh, and when force was used, it was twice as likely to come from a cop without a camera. And to mitigate concerns that officers would only switch on their cameras after an incident has transpired, the devices featured a “pre-event video buffer.” This means that the apparatus records and holds the most recent 30 seconds of film whenever the camera is turned off; by extension, it would also likely capture whatever event occurred that prompted an officer to turn on his or her camera in the first place. Because the results of this and other trial runs have been so favourable, most major cities in Canada are lobbying for their law enforcement officials to use body cameras. Calgary started rolling them out en
masse last August. Body cameras have also been tested in Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto. Oh, and Montreal and Vancouver are also considering equipping their officers with the devices. Putting cameras on officers protects the public while also protecting the police, and does so with great success. And we should be doing it here. These editorials are left unsigned because they represent the opinions of Verb magazine, not those of the individual writers.
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Duff it up,wallen those go hungry? ... WAKE UP !
On Topic: Last week we asked what you thought about legalizing assisted suicide in Canada. Here's what you had to say: – Yes people should be able to determine when and how they die if they are suffering and should be able to seek out medical assistance to do so why is this even still a conversation we are having in 2014? Doesn’t it seem outrageous that the government has a say in the proper ways you can die? So stupid.
– Taking your own life is a sin so no, doctor’s should be making you comfortable and helping you get better not killing you
– Canada is behind the times on this one. Permitting doctors to perform end of life rites for people who have explicitely expressed those wishes should be allowed. We should not be punishing medical personnel from following patients orders that are within reason. Agree that it gets tricky when it involves a young person or a child who has a terminal illness, especially if they are in pain but this is a conversation Canadians need to have.
– Agree with the editorial “Dying with Dignity” I think this is long overdue in Canada. There are obvious problems with a system that permits assisted suicide but there’s just as many problems with a system that prevents it - people suffering unduly and dying in long prolonged agony.
text yo thoughtsur to 881 ve r b 8372
– YES! Let’s embrace legalizing euthanasia in Canada Sue Rodriguez suffered horribly, as have countless other people and we need to change things to help them.
– Re mandatory flu shots Be very careful what you wish for. Every time citizens are coerced is one step closer to the camps. We are not taught that the Nazis were Socialists- who thought that the Nation was more important than the individual. And the fact that Drs aren’t getting flu shots should be a clue as to how effective they really are. But they can wear masks as a precaution. In response to “For our protection,” Edito-
– Happy birthday to me!
– What type of car does Luke Skywalker drive? A Toy-Yoda! – Bus drivers and their dam games, figure they can drive whenever they feel like. REALITY CHECKyou have a schedule to run, stay on schedul Truth Is Power-Try It
OFF TOPIC – Loving Canada does not mean you are duty bound to love Mr. Harper.
– Spring is on its way. I can feel it in my bones.
Next week: What do you think about putting cameras on police offiers? Text in your thoughts to 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
– MBC without Into The Night program And that cool DJ... What now ? No radio...
– I notice a few things about the Olympics. Winter Olympics is mostly a white folk thing. Athletes are incredibly self involved. God it all burns planet!
– Let’s go Canada you’re doing so great! Sochi 2014!!!
rial, #113 (January 31, 2014)
– I just finished reading your artical “Sex Work In Saskatchewan” A very good read and a informative viewpoint that needed to be said out loud, I have a few friends in said industry who share those very same viewpoints. I tip my hat to you for putting it out there! :) Salute, Kaine In response to “Sex work in Saskatchewan,”
– Men’s hockey tomorrow can’t wait LET’S GO CANADA!
- Go canada go bring home the gold :)
– Mark McMorris Saskatchewan is so proud of you! Great job, we love you!!
Local, #113 (January 31, 2014)
– Thanks for featuring a tribe called red. These guys are huge so amazing and it’s great to see them getting some attention in local media. In response to “Past & Present,” Feature, #114 (February 7, 2014)
– Euthanasia is a tricky subject to talk about because what do you do if its a young kid or maybe someone with a mental health problems how do you make sure that they understand what they are choosing to do.
– Budget release is so stupid idiot is up there taking more of my money wearing new shoes because of traditioN? Get a new tradition.
– I was LIVING Happily EVER after...UNTIL the JONESES moved in ON EITHER side of ME.
sound off – Low income Families survive through kindness and Carry it foward ... While some senators
– Free beer in Olympic village if you scan your Canadia passport. Canada has won the Olympics all ready lol
– Loving Canada or pimping out Canada to Big Oil ...
– All you people who think you’re morning people, not lazy, go getters, all that! Lets see ya do it without a drug caffeine. If you can’t’ go home with your sh*t!
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AJM: You’ve recorded quite a bit of stripped-down acoustic material. Do you find that certain songs better lend themselves to that treatment? ZW: I would think definitely. Actually, you know what? I can take any of the heavy songs and make them mellow, I really can. So for me it’s really no big deal. I definitely dig it. Like, what I did on The Song Remains Not The Same: tweak all the songs, take heavy songs and make them mellow. So it’s definitely cool. When we did Unblackened and stuff, it was like taking a trip down memory lane with some of these songs, you know what I mean? And when we come up there on the book run we’re definitely going to be playing a bunch of songs that usually never see the light of day, which is always fun.
Bringing Metal To The Children Photos: courtesy of Clay Patrick McBride
‘An Evening With Zakk Wylde’ shows off a different side of the legendary guitarist by Alex J MacPherson
T
he long and storied history of rock and roll is flush with great guitar players. Very few of them, however, changed the way people think about their instrument. One of these is Zakk Wylde, the New Jersey-born axe-slinger who rose to prominence as an integral part of Ozzy Osbourne’s band, and later as the frontman of Black Label Society. His mastery of the blistering guitar lick and the fuzzed-out wah wah solo have made him a legend among guitar players. But like most other titans of rock and roll, Wylde has a soft side. His first solo album, 1996’s Book Of Shadows, was closer in spirit to “Tangerine” than “Rock and Roll.” Since then, Wylde has emerged as a quiet champion of the acoustic guitar. Last year, Black Label Society released a collection of acoustic songs called Unblack-
AJM: So both are appealing, albeit for different reasons?
ened, which set the stage for the guitarist’s latest venture, a concert tour titled “An Evening With Zakk Wylde.” Last week, I called Wylde to learn more about his love of acoustic music, his memoir, and his wicked sense of humour.
thing. And then us doing the musical stylings of Black Label. That’s basically how it came about.
Alex J MacPherson: How did you come up with the idea for “An Evening with Zakk Wylde”?
ZW: Yeah. We jam and then I read a bunch of stuff from the book and tell some goofy-ass stories, so it turns into basically a stand-up routine. Then it goes back to jamming. It’s another excuse to go out and see the Black Label family and have a good time, man.
AJM: So it’s not quite a concert and not quite a reading, but something in between?
Zakk Wylde: Well, we just did it originally to go out and do a thing promoting the book, when it came out in paperback. I was like, instead of doing that why don’t we do a gig? And it’ll be a combination of, you know, us jamming, doing a strippeddown version of it, the acoustic-type thing, and then a storyteller gone horrendously wrong meets George Carlin
AJM: What’s the appeal of a night like this, rather than a full-on concert? ZW: It’s definitely cool, when you hear how that song came about or whatever. I’m still a huge massive fan, and if I went and saw Robert Plant and he was doing something like this, talking about how these songs came about and telling some goofy-ass stories, some Zeppelin stories, we’d all be cracking up and having a good time. And then obviously we get to jam … So in between doing the record, earning my next Nobel Peace Prize, and coming up with the cure for cancer and world hunger — that’s before brunch — and before I clean the dog run I was like, see if we can fit this Canadian run in so we can hang out with our Canadian Black Label family.
ZW: I think if you ask most musicians it’s the same. I mean, I love doing both. As much as I love listening to “Black Dog” with Zeppelin, I love listening to “Going To California,” too. AJM: And then there’s the book, Bringing Metal to the Children: The Complete Berzerker’s Guide to World Tour Domination. Awesome title, by the way. What made you decide to write a book? ZW: Writing the book? That came about because me and [co-writer] Eric [Hendrikx] were just sitting around talking about these ridiculous stories all the time. It was just kind of like, we’d always end it with ‘we need to write a book someday.’ And we finally did. So that’s what came about. AJM: Did you have an idea of where you wanted it to go, or was it more about getting the stories down on record somewhere? ZW: Put it this way: when we started writing it, it was a guitar instruction book and then equipment and then studio and then goofy stories. Then we just started the book and we were literally crying laughing, just us taking the piss out of a funny story about how ridiculous something can be, and then just us making fun of that. Then I was like, the whole book needs to be this.
Just so you could pick it up, anywhere in the book, and start going, you got to be f**king kidding me. It’s just ridiculously stupid — and the whole thing is I’m not making up any of the stories. These actually really happened and you just go, you got to be kidding me. No. It’s not worth making it up. The tsunami of stupidity and ridiculousness that you run into, that is the music business? It’s an endless supply. AJM: The music business is that bad? ZW: It really is, man. The thing is with the music business there is no real qualifications or anything like that. It’s like, whoever your manager is, you’ve known him since high school. Yeah, but he runs an automotive shop, a garage! I know, he doesn’t know contracts, he doesn’t know how the music business works, but he knows how to read, write, add, and subtract — he’ll be fine. There are no qualifications. I mean, if you’re going to have somebody weld something, you’ve got to have a license to be a welder. If you’re going to be a doctor, you’ve got to have a degree. Whereas if you’re in the music business, you just need to show up. [Laughs] AJM: Okay, so given how crazy it is, what has allowed you to flourish in it? ZW: Um, a lot of payola? No, between hookers, drugs, and money — cocaine, all that stuff — it’s basically just payola, and buying your way into happiness. That’s what I tell all the kids. I go, you definitely want to practice, that’s definitely a must. But I say, the way Uncle Zakk wins all these guitar awards, between the ice sculptures, the strippers, the hookers, the money? I go, mind you these awards cost a lot of money to win, but at the end of the day you play to win. At the end of the day, you just practice and work hard — and don’t ever lose your sense of humour, man. Zakk Wylde February 21 @ The Exchange Sold Out Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372
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Wingfield Lost & Found
Popular series’ seventh installment explores the effects of a drought on Canadian theatre’s most famous farm by alex J MacPherson
W
ingfield Lost and Found is the seventh play in a series that has been running for almost thirty years. Conceived, developed, and produced by actor Rod Beattie, writer Dan Needles, and director Douglas Beattie, the Wingfield one-man play chronicles the adventures of Walt Wingfield, a stockbroker who gives up his life in the city for the solitude of a farm in rural Ontario. Although the plays are written about a very specific part of the country, their exploration of universal themes — the trials of farming, family, and friends — has won fans across the country. “What we found was that farming is pretty much the same in terms of its ethos and values all across the country and, in fact, all across North America and perhaps farther afield than that,” explains Douglas Beattie, who has been directing the series since the first play, Letter From Wingfield Farm,
opened in 1985. “We have been able to strike a chord in many, many regions, and not just where farming is done but also where farming is remembered. So it’s had quite a remarkable success in urban areas as well.” Much of the series’ success is due to its simple formula. A one-man show that captures the essences of a few recurring characters, the Wingfield series dives deep into the heart of what it means to live and work in the country. Which is not surprising, considering the series started life as a newspaper column about that very subject. “It was called ‘Letter from Wingfield Farm,’” director Douglas Beattie says of Needles’ column, which was published in the Shelburne, Ontario Free Press & Economist and syndicated across the province. “It was a kind of barnyard fantasy and it was the first appearance of Walt Wingfield. I suggested to him that these might be the basis for a play or a show of some sort, and he agreed.
Then the idea went away for awhile but a couple of opportunities arose in 1984 to try a performance of it. We got to work and to make a long story short, the original play opened in its current form in 1985 and was popular enough that it begged a sequel — and begged another sequel after that.” And four more after those. Wingfield Lost and Found develops a theme explored in Wingfield On Ice and Wingfield’s Inferno: the terrible power of nature, and the heartbreak felt by people who are forced to rely on it for survival. The play opens with Walt Wingfield — played by Rod Beattie, who has performed Wingfield plays more than 4,500 times — contending with a terrible drought and a dry well, the perennial fears of everyone who relies on water for agriculture. As the play unfolds, Walt’s quest for a fresh source of water merges with the less pressing though far from unimportant demands of his family and friends. The
various storylines are united by the theme of things lost and things found. In addition to hiring diviners and welldrillers, Walt must search for a lost piece of jewellery and deal with the mysterious disappearance of a friend’s musical ability. “We try and get a natural issue, an agricultural issue, and combine it with personal issues,” Beattie says of the play which, like all Wingfield plays, is framed as a series of letters read by the editor of a small town newspaper. “In this play, we have four or five instances of things which are lost and then after a search found in interesting ways.” Wingfield Lost and Found follows the same pattern as its predecessors, but the seventh installment also introduces new themes and a variety of colourful new characters, including a retired water witch named Delbert. At the same time, Wingfield Lost and Found provides longtime fans of the series
with an update on their favourite characters — Walt, his wife Maggie, Freddy, Don, and the Squire. Beattie isn’t sure if he and his longtime collaborators will create an eighth play in the series (“I think Dan’s phrase for Wingfield is that we’re resting the fish, and as I’m not a fly fisherman I’m not quite sure what that means,” he says), he is confident that Wingfield Lost And Found will appeal to nearly everyone. “There’ll be a combination of newcomers and old friends, but even the old friends are forgetful so we’re very careful to unobtrusively provide all the information people need to feel as if they’re up to speed as we go along,” he says. After a pause he laughs and adds, “So don’t miss the first ten minutes or so.” Wingfield Lost & Found Through March 2 @ Globe Theatre $37+ @ Globe Theatre Box Office
Bar Room Rock
Coldest Night Of The Year’s debut EP captures the moments everybody remembers – or tries to forget
Photo: courtesy of facebook
C
hris Matchett has spent more hours than he’d like to count perched on a stool in O’Hanlon’s, sipping pints and taking the pulse of the crowded bar. He has seen people gossiping and arguing, flirting and fighting. Struck by the act of watching strangers’ lives unfolding in front of him, Matchett started thinking about how the nightlife staves off the cold reality of morning, if only for a few hours. His stories of massive highs and
crushing lows became the source material for the songs he was writing with Coldest Night Of The Year. “It’s just something that everybody can relate to, I think. It grabs you right away,” Matchett says of the band’s 2013 debut, which chronicles late nights of debauchery, lust, and tumescent dreams spilled all over the battered hardwood floor. “One of the comments I’ve heard the most is, I can totally put myself into that song because I’ve been there. That’s exactly what I was looking … as long as you can capture something everybody can relate to, you’re going to have some success.” Coldest Night of The Year was formed in late 2012 by Matchett, Carl Johnson, Garret Matheis, and Jon Wolfond. The four Regina-based musicians had played in a number of bands, including Library Voices and Geronimo. According to Matchett, the idea of forming a straightforward
rock group sprang from their collective desire to have fun, play loud, and not worry about the results. But when they finally plugged in their guitars, the result exceeded their expectations. “Honestly, we felt like a bunch of high school kids doing our first band,” he says with a hearty laugh. “There were no egos involved; we just got together and jammed.” Coldest Night Of The Year played its first show in November 2012. Just two months later the band was cutting its debut at Blue Door Recording in Regina. Coldest Night Of The Year emerged as a stripped-down celebration of grimy guitar rock. “There’s so much you can do with a simple formula, as long as it’s honest,” Matchett says. “We wanted to keep it as simple as we could; we didn’t want to make a record that portrayed anything we couldn’t do live onstage.” The songs on Coldest Night Of The Year transform Matchett’s idle
by alex J MacPherson
observations into universal truths; on the record, individual experiences become touchstones of life in the city. By casting the impossible freedom of a night out against the lingering regrets of the morning after, Matchett and his bandmates created a record that anybody who has ever braved the frigid Saskatchewan night for a glass of beer in a rowdy pub will instinctively understand. “Nice To Have You Around” is a propulsive ode to the all-consuming power of young love, “Invisible Again” an epitaph for a night gone badly wrong. To better capture the swirling emotions that accompany a night out, “Sail Away” contains a sample of bar noise Johnson recorded at O’Hanlon’s using his iPhone and an empty pint glass. “It’s basically what I’ve always done,” Matchett says of his tendency to write songs about strangers’ lives. “Like, I didn’t pick up a guitar until I was thirty years old. So I had to go
with write what you know and feel natural about it because I didn’t have any real formula. So it’s always just been me telling stories that I’ve seen the best way I could.” After a pause he adds, “and putting a little bit of autobiographical stuff in whenever I could sneak it in.” It is a simple formula, but rock and roll is simple music. Rock and roll is music for the moment, and few records capture this better than Coldest Night Of The Year. It is a handbook for everyone who likes to get drunk, meet someone special, and spend Sunday afternoon reliving the highs of Saturday night in Saskatchewan. Coldest Night of the Year February 22 @ The Exchange $10 @ the door Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372
@VerbRegina amacpherson@verbnews.com
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Feature
Blame Confusion Montreal duo Solids perfect skeletal guitar rock on blistering debut
L
ouis Guillemette and Xavier Germain-Poitras did not make a conscious decision to start another band. The blistering duo Solids emerged not from some primal desire to explore the freedoms and challenge the limitations of stripped-down guitar rock, but from the simple fact that its members tended to show up early for jams. In early 2010, Guillemette and Germain-Poitras were playing with several bands in Montreal, Quebec, including the hardcore group Expectorated Sequence. Because musicians are notoriously tardy and because everybody hates waiting around for other people to show up, the pair started picking up their instruments and making noise. “Me and Xavier would be arriving earlier at jams and we’d be, like, playing some softer stuff, still heavy but more poppy, alternative music,” says Guillemette, whose frenetic drumming is the perfect counterpoint to Germain-Poitras’s hazy riffs and overdriven power chords. “And then after we started doing songs, we recorded the Generic Dogs EP, and then we did our first show. And that’s when we understood that we were into something maybe a bit bigger than we thought we were getting into.” Without any real plan, the two musicians created
a paradox, a band inspired by and committed to soaring melodies and tidal waves of noise, each threatening to consume the other. The rock and roll duo is not a revolutionary idea. Bands have been stripping away excess for years; in the early 2000s, the White Stripes demonstrated the viability of the form by popularizing skeletal electric blues on a global scale. More recently, Canadian groups like Japandroids and the Pack
keeping things simple was a logistical choice as well as an aesthetic one. “We wanted to be, like, a power trio. Xavier played in a band and they were like six or seven dudes, and we were kind of tired of playing in those [kinds of bands]. We’re not really excluding the fact that maybe one day we’ll get more people, but right now there’s just the two of us and it’s great that way.” At the same time, the limitations of playing as a duo — four arms, four feet,
We’re mostly jam dudes. We’re not lyricists or anything, and that’s why sometimes we tend to put more effort on the music… louis guillemette
A.D. have injected minimalist rock with maximalist energy, transforming simple songs into towering expressions of pure, unalloyed emotion. Not surprisingly, Solids have been compared to these and other bands, including the Los Angeles-based punk duo No Age. But Guillemette and Germain-Poitras are not confined by the duo format, nor do they seem particularly attached to it. “At first we actually wanted a bass player,” Guillemette says, adding that
two brains — haven’t impeded Solids’ quest to make as much noise as possible. Guillemette is no slouch behind the drum kit or the microphone, and Germain-Poitras has developed an inventive style of guitar-playing that makes six strings sound like twelve — or more. “He plays through a bass amp and a guitar amp,” Guillemette says of his musical partner’s technique, which produces a melody on the high strings and a thundering bass line on the Continued on next page »
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Photo: courtesy of Tania McDonald
LP by Alex J MacPherson lower ones. “He has this weird strumming and playing of the guitar where you have the bass and all the single notes at the same time.” Although the group rapidly earned a reputation for unhinged live performances, Solids struggled to capture the energy and intensity of a live performance on tape. The Generic Dogs EP and a pair of split singles only hinted at the raw power of the band’s live show. That changed with the October, 2013 release of
Photo: courtesy of Tania McDonald
Blame Confusion, the band’s debut fulllength and the best expression of their musical vision to date. “All the [early] recordings we did, we recorded with Jace Lasek from the Besnard Lakes and all those guys,” Guillemette says. “But it was a bit quieter, softer. We really wanted to have the angry punk-rock sound that we have live and I think we actually had the chance to pull it off with [producer] Adrian [Popovich]. He was really like,
it needs to be louder, it needs to be more aggressive with feedback! And that’s where we went.” Blame Confusion plays on the tension between soaring melodies and crushing noise. By filtering familiar chord progressions and melodic ideas — particularly those reminiscent of alt-rock from the 1990s — through a seemingly endless array of overdriven tube amps, Solids produced a record that is both familiar and jarring. Put another way, Blame Confusion is an apt demonstration of how achingly beautiful melodies can coexist with fractious noise. Just before the thick layers of feedback and distortion threaten to become overwhelmingly claustrophobic, the melody bursts through layer after layer of grime and fuzz and chaos. Perhaps the best example of this comes midway through “Terminal,” the last track on Blame Confusion. The song begins as a collection of stately guitar chords awash in electronic noise before building into a straightforward mid-tempo rocker. As the song launches into its middle section, GermainPoitras’s melody, a simple collection of notes played high up the neck, is submerged beneath an expanding ocean of noise — until it starts to lunge for the surface, each note somehow refusing to be drowned in static. It is a beautiful moment, and it is not unique: Blame Confusion is littered with such moments of melodic triumph, each a testament to the raw power of simple guitar riff. Solids’ mastery of the soaring rock riff is a direct result of their apparent unwillingness to do much else. “We’re mostly jam dudes,” Guillemette says. “We’re not lyricists or anything, and that’s why sometimes we tend to put more effort on the music than the lyrics. Sometimes we get too much into the music and forget. Like, oh yeah, we should put more lyrics in this.” (The songs on Blame Confusion tend to cover such topics as being young and living in the moment with little regard for tomorrow or next week.) Since the very beginning of the band, Guillemette and Germain-Poitras have written songs by getting together, turning the volume up, and punishing riff after riff. “When we started it was really completely out of the blue, just going into the jam space to smoke weed and drink Red Bulls and just, like, jam and jam and jam. We’d be playing for like 45
minutes straight without thinking and then holy s**t, we have a really nice riff there. It’s always like that.” Perhaps more than anything else, Blame Confusion captures all of the intense excitement and anxious energy that accompanies an all-ages show in a grimy basement. Both Guillemette and Germain-Poitras grew up in the suburbs and spent their weekends attending ad hoc shows by longforgotten hardcore bands, and both musicians harbour fond memories of the experience. “I kind of miss that vibe,” Guillemette says, adding that he and Germain-Poitras are interested in playing more all-ages shows, to share their own excitement with a new generation of music fans. “Playing bars is really great but there’s no, like, kids — there’s energy but it’s not the same thing as getting all of those kids into the show.” But for now he and GermainPoitras must content themselves with playing bars and clubs, the staple of every working rock band’s life. After self-releasing Blame Confusion in October, the two musicians were surprised when a pair of record labels called, Dine Alone in Canada and Fat Possum in the United States. Both labels will re-release the record to a much wider audience in 2014, a move that will allow the band to spend even more time on the road. More importantly, the promise of more exposure and more tour dates enabled Guilllemette and Germain-Poitras to do something every professional musician dreams of — quit their day jobs. “It’s not really about the money; it’s about surviving,” Guillemette says. “But leaving jobs and being able to make a bit of a living with music? I mean, I’m 28 and I find it kind of weird to actually make a bit of money to live during the year. It’s a big thing for us. We’re really happy but we’re still trying to figure it out, how everything’s going to work.” After a pause he laughs and says, “Doesn’t get any better than this, I guess.” Solids February 26 @ O’Hanlon’s Pub Free Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372
@VerbRegina amacpherson@verbnews.com
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Photos: courtesy of Maxton Priebe
LITTLE SPICE ON THE PRAIRIE Caraway Grill brings authentic Indian cuisine to Regina, from must-have masala to tempting tandoori by mj deschamps
A
s a relative newcomer to Regina’s growing list of Indian restaurants, Caraway Grill may appear to have the odds stacked against it: its location is not ideal for foot traffic (you’ll find Caraway tucked into an unremarkable building on the edge of downtown, just before a bridge), its exterior is plain and grey, and the interior is small and simple, seating just about 30 people.
base and pillowy surface after being baked to perfection in the restaurant’s clay oven. Owner Parveen Singh has a wealth of experience from working in five-star restaurants in both Delhi and Canada — something that is clear through the careful presentation and complex layers of flavour he incorporates into each plate. Unlike some ethnic restaurants that try to tie western influences into their dishes, Caraway Grill aims to make diners’ experiences wholly authentic. Singh has done away with the idea of a buffet, and has created a small but sound menu instead — with everything prepared fresh in the Caraway kitchen, right down to the spices the chefs roast themselves. “We serve very authentic food — everything we serve here is what we would eat back at home,” he said. “Customers who have travelled to India tell me that the food they ate over there tastes just like ours.” Caraway Grill blends together both spicier southern and milder northern Indian flavours in its dishes — meaning that the food certainly has the kick you’d expect from it, but is mild enough for the most part that you’re
But the food — oh my god, the food is good. Words aren’t able to do justice to how juicy and succulent the tandoori shrimp are, how tender and rich the lamb bhuna tastes, or how melt-inyour-mouth the homemade spiceinfused chicken in the masala curry is. Even something seemingly as simple as naan bread stands out: brushed in butter and fresh garlic, the dough retains a perfectly crispy
let’s go drinkin’ Verb’s mixology guide TAMARIND MARGARITA
Ingredients
While tamarind is a common ingredient in sauces and chutneys in South Asia, here in North America not everyone is familiar with the tangy fruit. If you’re looking for a unique sweet and sour cocktail however, look no further (although the tamarind itself might be tricky to find at some supermarkets).
1 ½ oz. agave tequila ½ oz. triple sec ½ oz. lime juice ½ oz. simple syrup ½ oz. tamarind puree
directions
Add ingredients to a shaker with ice and mix. Dip the rim of a wide glass into lime juice and twist into salt to create a rim. Strain the contents of the shaker into the glass.
able to savour your meal instead of having to gulp down water. Their starters and main courses are a mix of vegetarian and meat dishes, from favourites like tandoori and butter chicken to aloo gobi and spinach paneer. The first thing that really stood out to me when Singh carried out our first course of tandoori shrimp and juicy chicken tikka was just how lovely everything looked aesthetically: the neatly arranged pieces, the arty garnishes of paprika-dusted onion and lemon, and all the wonderful colours of the spices and chutneys. The bites themselves are extremely tender and really deeply infused in spices, while the side of mint chutney adds a bright, refreshing boost to the richness of the rest of the plate. The aloo tikki arrived in an elegant way, too — two king potato and green pea cakes piled carefully on top of chickpeas and swirls of tamarind chutney and yogurt sauce. My two mains, the chicken masala and the lamb bhuna (a new addition to the menu) both had extremely complex layers of spices to them as well, alongside fresh, sautéed vegetables and juicy meat that tasted like it had been slow-cooked for days.
I washed everything down with a tall glass of mango lassi — smooth and creamy, it helps cut through the heat of the dishes a lot. Though truthfully, coming from someone with a fairly low tolerance to spice, the way it’s used in this instance is really not overwhelming in the least. Singh says that the kitchen is always glad to kick up the heat a notch for customers who like their foods extra spicy, but that the dishes come fairly mild otherwise (for Indian food, at least). I’ve never been to India myself, so the closest I’ve ever come to experiencing the ‘real’ taste of South Asia is through ethnic restaurants that have set up shop in North America. I’m probably not the most reputable authority, then, on whether Caraway Grill is as authentic as it gets, but what I do know is that I can’t remember the last time I had Indian food this good. Caraway Grill 1625 Broad Street | (306) 522 4243 Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372
@VerbRegina mdeschamps@verbnews.com
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Next Week
coming up
Kat Danser
These Estates
Heart
@ Artesian on 13th Saturday, February 22 – $15+
@ The Exchange Saturday, February 22 – $10
@ Brandt Centre Monday, June 23rd – $59.50+
Kat Danser is the “Queen of the Swamp Blues.” An Edmonton-based musician, this singer/songwriter/guitar slinger creates blazing songs that drip with the spirit of blues, roots and gospel. A touring machine, Danser has played the where’s-where of the Canadian festival circuit. From Massey Hall in Toronto to the Vancouver Island Music Fest to the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival, she has wowed crowds with her deep blues tunes and formidable stage presence. Her most recent album, Baptized by the Mud, is an infectious, interesting study in the dichotomy of church blues, in the idea that blues music is devilish while church songs are angelic. Danser will be appearing at the Artesian on 13th later next week. Don’t miss it. Tickets through www.picatic.com.
There’s nothing fancy or pretentious about Regina’s “bourbon rock” trio, These Estates. It’s just three guys — John Cameron, Mason Pitzel and Matt Carr — on stage with loud guitars and an unkempt, riff-friendly punk rock sound that’s hard to ignore. The kind of sound that takes you back to a time when, as the band’s friend Tommy Dski once said, “the total sum of a band’s ambition was to play guitar, sing a song, rock a show, drink a beer and maybe one day get in a van.” That’s These Estates in a nutshell. They are raw, energetic, down-to-earth and proud of it. If you want a badass night out with some badass music, they’ll be playing The Exchange along with Coldest Night of the Year and Treebeard next weekend.
It’s been a wild, up-and-down ride for sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson — better known collectively as Heart. After paying their dues and learning their trade throughout the late-’60s and early ‘70s, the Wilson sisters rose to fame in the mid-’70s playing a brand of music influenced by hard rock, heavy metal and folk. Their popularity waned in the early-’80s, then skyrocketed again in the late-’80s before they … well, you get the point. It’s been a rollercoaster ride for Heart, but along the way they have become Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and pioneers who inspired women to pick up their guitars and rock the hell out. They’ll be in Regina this summer. You should probably be there. Tickets through Ticketmaster. – By Adam Hawboldt
Photos courtesy of: the artist/ truncata/ amanda ash
Sask music Preview SaskMusic is pleased to announce the fourth intake of the Investment Program, which supports the production of commercially viable sound recordings for promotional use and/or a commercial release. Applications, which are due by March 17, 2014, are currently being accepted for Single/Demo Sound Recording, and Commercial Sound Recording (Album). The Program is funded by Creative Saskatchewan Inc. For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.saskmusic.org/funding/investment-programs.
15 Feb 14 – Feb 20 @verbregina
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february 14 » february 22 The most complete live music listings for Regina. S
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Friday 14
Belle Plaine and the Unrequited Love / Artesian on 13th — Playing a collection of song for the broken hearted. 8pm / $15(advance)/$20(door) Spellbound Concert / Artful Dodger — Featuring an Eric Clapton Tribute band. 8pm / Cover TBD One Young’n, Gilvis and Fever / George Reed Auditorium (Orr Centre) — Rock from the 50s and 60s along with and Elvis tribute artist. 8pm / $25+ DJ Pat & DJ Kim / Habano’s Martini & Cocktail Club — Local DJs spin top 40 hits every Friday night that are sure to get you on the dance floor. 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. 8pm / Cover TBD Matt Taylor Trio / Lancaster Taphouse — Playing smooth jazz for Valentine’s Day. 9pm / Cover TBD Breakdown Party Band / McNally’s Tavern — Playing classic rock and roll favourites. 10pm / $5 Craig Moritz / Pump Roadhouse — Rockin’ country all night long. 9pm / Cover TBD Albert / Pure Ultra Lounge — Appearing every Friday night, come listen to Albert as he does his spinning thing. 10pm / $5 Soul Shakers / Sip Nightclub — Gritty energetic R&B music. 9pm / Cover TBD 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 Steve Gibson Band / Whiskey Saloon — A British country artist. 9pm / $10
Saturday 15
Diamond Rio / Casino Regina — A chart-topping country group from the U.S. Also appearing: Raquel Cole. 8pm / $40+ (ticketbreak.com) RSO Shumiatcher Pops Presents: The Oscars / Conexus Arts Centre — Music
Thursday 20
from the greatest motion pictures. 8pm / $82.95 (mytickets.reginasymphony.com) Dan Silljer Band / McNally’s Tavern — Funk/soul/rock guitar styling. 10pm / $5 Craig Moritz / Pump Roadhouse — Rockin’ country all night long. 9pm / Cover TBD Wafflehouse / Pure Ultra Lounge — Doing what he does best, every Saturday night. 10pm / $5 cover Soul Shakers / Sip Nightclub — Gritty energetic R&B music. 9pm / Cover TBD Milkman’s Sons / Western Pizza (Broadway Ave.) — Dance and have fun with one of Regina’s hottest classic/modern rock bands. 8:30pm / No cover Steve Gibson Band / Whiskey Saloon — A British country artist. 9pm / $10
Comments and Concerns / Artesian on 13th — Also appearing: LASKA and Corey Ruecker. 8pm / $10 Story Tellers Festival / Artful Dodger — Featuring Revenge of the Trees. 8pm / Cover TBD Decibel Frequency / Gabbo’s Nightclub — A night of electronic fun. 10pm / $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, play some tunes, sing some songs, and show Regina what you got. 8pm / No cover Iron Bison, Pickpocket, The Jump Off / McNally’s Tavern — Come out and support local bands. 8:30pm / $5 Third Degree Birnz / Pump Roadhouse — Saskatchewan’s ultimate party band. 10pm / Cover TBD 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
Sunday 16
Valdy / Artesian on 13th — A fixture on the Canadian pop and folk music scene for over 30 years. 8pm / $20(advance)/$25(door) Dangerous Cheese / McNally’s Tavern — It’s the Prairie Sky Dog Rescue Fundraiser! 7pm / $5+
Monday 17
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 Alex Runions / Whiskey Saloon — A Regina-based urban country musician. 9pm / $10
Saturday 22
Kat Danser / Artesian on 13th — Playing roots, blues and gospel. 8pm / $15(advance)/$20(door) Mark Beribe Beat Gallery / Artful Dodger — A launch party with DJ Czech. 8pm / Cover TBD These Estates, Coldest Night of the Year, Treebeard / The Exchange — A night of hard-hitting rock. 8pm / $10 Buffalo Narrows / Lancaster Taphouse — A five-piece group playing everything
from bluegrass to gypsy jazz. 9pm / Cover TBD Wonderland / McNally’s Tavern — Playing one-hit wonders and classic rock. 10pm / $5 Third Degree Birnz / Pump Roadhouse — Saskatchewan’s ultimate party band. 10pm / Cover TBD Wafflehouse / Pure Ultra Lounge — Doing what he does best, every Saturday night. 10pm / $5 cover Alex Runions / Whiskey Saloon — A Regina-based urban country musician. 9pm / $10
Get listed Have a live show you'd like to promote? Let us know! layout@verbnews.com
Friday 21
Open Mic Night / The Artful Dodger — Come down and jam! 8pm / No cover Halfway to Hollywood, Andrew Mitchell Music, Tangean Wall / The Club — A pop-punk headliner with a whole lot of rock to open. 7pm / $5(advance)/$10(door)
Story Tellers Festival / Artful Dodger — It’s Funky Friday with Mirange. 8pm / Cover TBD Chilliwack / Casino Regina — An iconic Canadian rock band. 8pm / SOLD OUT An Evening with Zakk Wylde / The Exchange — Black Label Society frontman doing his solo thing. 8pm / $37 (ticketedge.ca) DJ Pat & DJ Kim / Habano’s Martini & Cocktail Club — Local DJs spin top 40 hits every Friday night that are sure to get you on the dance floor. 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. 8pm / Cover TBD Wonderland / McNally’s Tavern — Playing one-hit wonders and classic rock. 10pm / $5 Go for the Eyes, The Fortunate Isles / O’Hanlon’s — Come out for a rockin’, funkin’ good time. 9pm / Cover TBD Third Degree Birnz / Pump Roadhouse — Saskatchewan’s ultimate party band. 10pm / Cover TBD Albert / Pure Ultra Lounge — Appearing every Friday night, come listen to Albert as he does his spinning thing. 10pm / $5 cover
Tuesday 18
Story Tellers Festival / Artful Dodger — Come out and sing some karaoke. 8pm / Cover TBD A Tribe Called Red / The Exchange — An electronic trio that’s all kinds of good. 8pm / $15(advance)/$20(door) Northcote / O’Hanlon’s — Original folk music that’s hard to resist. 9pm / Cover TBD
Wednesday 19
Wednesday Night Folk / Bushwakker Brewpub — Featuring the talents of Keiffer and the Curiosity Club. 9pm / No cover Bryan Adams / Conexus Arts Centre — Come join this legendary Canadian rocker on his Bare Bones Tour. 8pm / $57+ WayBack Wednesdays / McNally’s Tavern — Live 80s glam-rock by Leather Cobra. 9:30pm / No cover
16 Feb 14 – Feb 20 entertainment
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Saturday, February 8 @
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McNally’s
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McNally’s Tavern 2226 Dewdney Avenue (306) 522 4774
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Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
A tale best left untold
Winter’s Tale is stale, boring and baffling by adam hawboldt
A
re you ready to be confused and a wee bit baffled? Good. Let’s dive head-first into a synopsis of director Akiva Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale. Where to begin? Well, in the beginning, naturally. The story opens in 1895. Two Russian immigrants (Matt Bomer and Lucy Griffiths) are turned away at Ellis Island. They have an infant son with them. And instead of taking him with them, they put him in a model ship and toss it in the Northern Atlantic because, well, that’s exactly what good parents should do. Fast forward 21 years, and we see the infant as a young man. His name is Peter Lake (Colin Farrell). Peter isn’t exactly a model citizen. Living in New York, he is a professional thief. When we first meet Peter he is running away from a gang of thugs, henchmen of a crime boss named Pearly
ends up breaking into a town house to rob a safe. Once inside he sees a young girl named Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay), who is playing Brahms and coughing herself to death from tuberculosis. It’s love at
Soames (Russell Crowe). Once upon a time ago Pearly was Peter’s mentor, but the two had a falling out and now his henchmen are hot on Peter’s tail. Just as they are about to nab him a white horse with wings appears
…Colin Farrell … does his best to keep the audience awake and alert… Adam Hawboldt
first sight. After all, how couldn’t you fall in love, on the spot, with a girl who is literally hacking up her lungs. Peter and Beverly hit it off, a love story ensues, then Pearly comes after them and … oh, did I mention that Pearly is a demon who answers directly to the Judge aka
and flies Peter to safety. Because, you know, Pegasus (or whatever the creature’s name is) is one heckuva getaway driver. From there things get stranger. Turns out, the flying horse tells Peter to pull off one last heist. Naturally, he listens to the horse and
Lucifer aka Will Smith with really sharp teeth? Then the movie jumps to 2014 and Peter (who hasn’t aged a day) is trying to find out what happened to Beverly. He hooks up with a food writer (Jennifer Connelly) who helps him piece together the past and, well, the story just gets more ludicrous from there. Needless to say, Winter’s Tale (adapted from Mark Helprin’s 800page book of the same name) is NOT one of the best movies of the year — despite a stocked cast that also includes William Hurt and Eva Maria Saint. Heck, it may be one of the most disappointing, perplexing and plodding movies of the year … so far. The only redeeming qualities about the film are the cinematography (rather lovely) and the acting of Colin Farrell, who does his best to keep the audience awake and alert during an otherwise ordinary yawnfest.
Winter’s Tale Akiva Goldsman Starring Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly + Jessica Brown Findlay Directed by
129 minutes | PG
Other than that, Winter’s Tale is one of those movies that — unless you love magic realism, undying love and a whole lot of what-thehell-just-happened-there moments — you should probably avoid like the plague. Just sayin’.
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They let it burn, but why?
Photo: Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films
Let the Fire Burn a gripping documentary about MOVE, a bomb and Philadelphia in the ‘80s by adam hawboldt
O
kay, here’s the scenario. It’s Philadelphia in the mid 1980s. Members from a radical group called MOVE are holed up in a row house. For the past little while they’ve had loudspeakers outside their house, bothering local citizenry with protests and unsavoury language. Some time ago they built a bunker atop the house. You’ve been tasked with the job of getting them out of there. What do you do? Do you evacuate the neighbourhood and start spraying the roof with powerful water hoses? Do you start lobbing tear gas canisters into the building? Open fire and pump hundreds of rounds into the house hoping that’ll drive them out? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, too bad. It won’t work. It didn’t work. So what did the Philadelphia authorities do?
They dropped a bomb on the house. I s**t you not. On May 13th, 1985, somebody came up with the brilliant idea of dropping a bomb on top of the MOVE house. It started a fire and the order was given to “let the fire burn.”
This bombing is at the heart of Jason Osder’s powerful documentary, Let the Fire Burn. But that’s not the only thing the film looks at. It also tells the story of MOVE (a back-to-the-basics black liberation group), of a 1978 shooting of a
Let the Fire Burn is the kind of documentary that comes along and punches you square in the gut. Adam Hawboldt
The result was catastrophic. Of the 13 people in the house (six of whom were kids), only two lived — one adult and one child. Everyone else burned to death. Did I mention that this home was in a residential neighbourhood, a lot of which was destroyed by the fire?
police officer in which nine MOVE members were arrested (still wondering how nine of them pulled the trigger) and of the antagonistic relationship between the group and the Philadelphia police/City Hall in the years and months leading up to May 13th, 1985.
Told through old news footage, interviews with the lone surviving child and footage from a long, drawn-out public inquest, Let the Fire Burn is the kind of documentary that comes along and punches you square in the gut. It’s gripping, it’s shocking. At times, it’s jawdroppingly confounding. But man, is it good! Thorough, too. Not limited in scope, the documentary is a cacophony of voices — many contradicting each other, vehemently denying to claim responsibility for the incident (and the incidents that led up to the bombing). Who fired first? Who issued the order to “let the fire burn?” Who … ah hell, you get the idea. Let the Fire Burn is the kind of documentary that raises more questions than it answers. Heck, it doesn’t even answer the question of what were the philosophical motives of MOVE (they were known
let the fire burn Jason Osder Starring Birdie Africa, John Africa, Ramona Africa Directed by
95 minutes | NR
to reject technology and raise their children on a diet of raw food). But that doesn’t matter, not in the least, because Let the Fire Burn is a film that will blow your hair back, rouse your anger and make you think about what kind of world we really live in. Let the Fire Burn will open at Regina Public Library on February 20.
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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 25. Caulking material 27. Medicinal salve 29. Drinking binge 32. Crescent-shaped object 36. Unrefined rock 37. Having a bluish-grey colour 39. Gave birth to 40. Emotional tie 42. Plural of is 43. Nothing more than 44. Prearranged situations 46. Think logically 48. Horses and lions have them 49. Braid of hair 50. Plastic construction set 51. Shade trees
DOWN 1. One who plays on ice 2. Apologetic exclamation 3. Nothing 4. In a worried state 5. Having empty spaces to be filled in 6. Organ of hearing 7. Military acronym 8. Reveal one’s identity 9. To some extent 11. Hindu holy man 12. Sumptuously furnished 14. Appear to be 17. Having sharp corners 20. Digs for minerals
21. Canadian guitarist sudoku answer key Greenwich A 24. Be sorry 26. Consumed 28. Muse of music and lyric poetry 29. Cries uncontrollably 30. Introduction 31. Tourist’s car 33. Academic paper B 34. Fortunetelling card 35. Paradise 38. Catch a cow 41. Sahara sight 43. Sir’s counterpart 45. Score points in cribbage 47. Pipe elbow
8 6 9 2 5 7 1 4 3 2 4 1 9 8 3 7 5 6 7 5 3 4 6 1 2 9 8 5 7 4 8 9 6 3 2 1 1 2 8 3 7 4 9 6 5 3 9 6 5 1 2 8 7 4 4 3 5 7 2 8 6 1 9 9 1 7 6 3 5 4 8 2 6 8 2 1 4 9 5 3 7
1. Reasons against 5. Boyfriend 9. Ring used in a throwing game 10. Things to mow 12. Colour that is a blend of red and blue 13. Kitchen emanations 15. Some paintings 16. Sickly pale 18. Take on cargo 19. Sault ___ Marie, Ontario 20. Animals with partly webbed feet 22. Girl previously mentioned 23. Silvery fish
8 2 1 7 3 5 4 9 6 6 7 9 4 8 1 3 2 5 3 5 4 2 6 9 1 8 7 7 9 8 1 5 2 6 4 3 5 4 6 3 9 7 2 1 8 1 3 2 6 4 8 7 5 9 9 1 7 5 2 3 8 6 4 4 8 3 9 1 6 5 7 2 2 6 5 8 7 4 9 3 1
ACROSS
© walter D. Feener 2014
Horoscopes february 14 - february 20 Aries March 21–April 19
Leo July 23–August 22
Sagittarius November 23–December 21
New opportunities will come your way this week, Aries. Run, do not walk, to embrace them. You won’t be sorry.
Something will occur this week that might alter your life, Leo. It could appear to be something subtle, but don’t underestimate its importance.
If there’s a social gathering with friends or co-workers this week, Sagittarius, be sure you’re there. You don’t want to be square.
Taurus April 20–May 20
Virgo August 23–September 22
Capricorn December 22–January 19
There may be some serious changes just around the bend, Taurus. Brace yourself: not all of them may be for the better.
Opt for light-hearted banter over intense personal discussion this week, Virgo. There’s no need to get too serious.
Expect a strong boost to your ego and self-confidence later in the week, Capricorn. Be careful not to let it go to your head.
Gemini May 21–June 20
Libra September 23–October 23
Aquarius January 20–February 19
At some point this week you’ll have an urge to undertake a creative project, Gemini. It’s important you give into that urge.
If a chance to travel comes your way this week, Libra, it’s important to jump at it. You could be in need of a change of scenery.
Energy, enthusiasm, motivation: all three will be available to you in abundance this week, Aquarius. What you do with it will be up to you.
Cancer June 21–July 22
Scorpio October 24–November 22
Pisces February 20–March 20
You may have some revealing conversations with friends and family this week, Cancer. Be careful not to be indiscreet.
You could come across a host of new people this week, Scorpio. Be cautious. Some will be great, others … well, not so much.
Your physical and mental energy may not be in tip-top shape this week, Pisces. Try not to let that hold you back.
sudoku 8 7 5 9 6 2 5 4 2 9 1 8 7 6 4 6 3 7 2 1 3 6 8 5 4 4 3 9 1 2 5 8 7 9 3 1
crossword answer key
A
9 7 4 2 4 7 5 3 4 6 1 8 5 7 9 6 1 8 3 6 5 6 2 4 5 7 2 8 1 9 9 1 3 2 8 3
B
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