Verb Issue S254 (Aug. 23-29, 2013)

Issue #254 – August 23 to August 29

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finding al Unearthing Capone’s connection with SK cosmic stardust Q+A with Lightning Dust the world’s end + the lesser blessed Film reviews Photo: courtesy of Tom Hamilton

NEWs + Opinion

contents

in search of al Exploring Capone’s connection with SK. 4 / Local diy recording The rise of home recording studios in the prairies. 6 / Local

editorial On the cover:

Our thoughts on construction zone speed limits. 8 / Editorial

And universal groove. 14 / cover

Here’s what you had to say about legalizing marijuana. 10 / comments

the funk hunters

comments

Photo: courtesy of tom hamilton

culture

Q + A with lightning dust Glassy pop from Vancouver. 12 / Q + A

in splendid anarchy

pho-nomenal!

The Automatiste Revolution. 13 / Arts

Ph. 16 / Food + Drink

the mural room

Music

Rescued Perehudoff works at U of S.

PandaCorn, The Seahags + GWAR.

13 / Arts

17 / music

entertainment

listings Local music listings for August 23 through August 31. 18 / listings

THE world’s end + the lesser blessed The latest movie reviews. 20 / Film

Nightlife Photos

Games + Horoscopes

We visied Rock the Bottom + Outlaws.

Canadian criss-cross puzzle, horoscopes, and Sudoku. 27 / timeout

22-25 / Nightlife

verbnews.com @verbsaskatoon facebook.com/verbsaskatoon

on the bus Weekly original comic illustrations

by Elaine M. Will. 26 / comics

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In search of Al Capone

Photo: Courtesy of kelly riess

The making of new documentary Finding Al leads filmmaker on a journey through history by ADAM HAWBOLDT

K

elly-Anne Riess was standing in a field in the middle of nowhere. A field somewhere near the Saskatchewan/U.S. border. The vast prairie sky, like an inverted ocean,was sprawling all around her.

On the horizon, a thunderstorm was rolling in.

“God’s country,” thought Riess to herself. “I can see why Al Capone would call it that.”

have these moments when you’re connected to the past,” says Riess.

“You’re looking at a landscape like that, a landscape someone else was looking at in the same way, and you can’t help but wonder.”

Stories about Al Capone have been swirling around these parts for decades. Tales about the barber who cut his hair in Moose Jaw. Stories about the

…sometimes you have these moments when you’re connected to the past. kelly-anne riess

For the previous few months Riess and her research team had been chasing ghosts, working a cold case. Trying to prove (or disprove) the legends and folklore that link the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone to this province.

And there in that field, with the sky turning dark, the comment Capone made about Saskatchewan being God’s country — a comment she heard second-hand from Capone’s niece, Deirdre — really hit home. “Working on something like this, sometimes you

dentist in the same town who allegedly pulled his wisdom teeth, and about the purported court documents in nearby Regina that link Al Capone to a shipment of bad liquor.

The problem is, most of these stories are backed by very little evidence.

Sure, there are the tunnels in Moose Jaw which were used during prohibition to help run bootleg liquor to the States. And sure, these tunnels used to contain the speakeasies, casinos and brothels.

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But was Al Capone ever there?

His name has never turned up in old hotel registries. There isn’t a single photo that shows the 1920s gangster hanging out in Moose Jaw. In fact, the closest thing to documented evidence that says Capone ever visited Saskatchewan comes from the dentist’s appointment book.

In it, there’s a record of one Al Brown — a well-known Capone alias — having work done. But seeing as Al Brown is such a common name, is that evidence enough?

Kelly-Anne Riess didn’t think it was. So last year she and her research team began digging into the shifting sands of the past, trying to unlock the truth about the CaponeSaskatchewan connection for a documentary called Finding Al. What they found might surprise you.

When that first email arrived, Kelly-Anne Riess wasn’t sure what to expect.

To find Al Capone, or at least find people with stories about him, she set up a website and started talking to the media. Riess worked on getting the word out there that they were opening an investigation into the past.

For a while not much happened.

Then came a message from a former Moose Jaw city councillor. He told Riess he’s spent time in the ‘80s investigating the tunnels where Capone was rumoured to have hung out. Riess invited the councillor to be interviewed.

He accepted. And on a cool summer

day last August the councillor, a laidback, bearded man wearing a pinkish shirt, sat down and told Riess how, one day, he had pulled back a manhole cover in Moose Jaw that led to a secret chamber, possibly a storage space for bootlegged liquor.

The bearded councillor insisted there must be some truth to the Capone stories. “Why would all these different people lie about them?” he asked. Riess was wondering the same thing. And as more and more people came forward with tips and stories, that wonder began to grow.

There was the rodeo clown who confirmed that River Street was indeed a bad place full of vice back in the 1920s. There was the farmer from just outside Weyburn whose grandfather, a known bootlegger, used to throw big parties for bootleggers where they’d drink and shoot machine guns into air.

The farmer claimed his grandfather knew Capone, and had business meetings with Capone’s gang in Chicago. He also mentioned something else that piqued Riess’ interest — a supposed ledger and picture that would connect Capone to Saskatchewan.

But the family was divided on how public they wanted to make these items, and the trail ran cold.

Other tips came in. And in between, Riess spent time looking at old rum houses near the U.S./Canadian border.

She spent time working with a genealogist to help authenticate the stories she’d heard. She even went searching

for the purported court record that links Capone to Regina. The search for that document continues.

Then one day, not so long ago, Riess received perhaps the best tip of all. It came from Capone’s grandniece.

Deirdre. The one who mentioned how her uncle used to call Saskatchewan “God’s country.”

And the tip? Well, it wasn’t so much of a tip as a piece of evidence that may blow the case wide open.

See, Deidre claims to have a photo that connects Capone to this area. A photo Riess is hoping to get a better look at when Deidre visits Moose Jaw this week to give a talk at the Mae Wilson Theatre.

Maybe Riess will recognize something familiar in the photo. A building or a landscape. Maybe it will be the piece of evidence that proves, once and for all, that all the legends and folklore surrounding Capone and Saskatchewan are true. And maybe, just maybe, it will provide a justification for the way Riess felt that day standing on the border, a thunderstorm rolling in. The feeling that, yes, she was indeed connected to the past and stood looking at the same awe-inspiring sky that Capone once gazed upon.

Only time will tell …

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DIY recording

Photo: Courtesy of Full Color’s Facebook

The making of a home studio by ADAM HAWBOLDT

W

hen you make a recording studio, one of the first things you have to do is consider the walls. Consider how they’re going to be angled. How thick they need to be.

S.J. Kardash knows this. Having spent the past year or so building the Full Color Music & Recording studio, the musician/producer/musical engineer has much more than a layman’s knowledge when it comes to this stuff.

“You want to avoid parallel walls,” he says, walking through what will soon be the live room of his studio. “Instead of making them parallel, you want to angle your walls. Think of sound as waves. It’s simple physics.” Kardash moves his right hand up and down in an undulating motion as he walks, and says, “As sound moves like this, there are trough and peaks. Sound bounces off the wall; anywhere a trough or peak meets another trough or peak it amplifies the sound and you can get standing waves and flutter echoes.”

Here Kardash stops for a moment, no doubt noticing the quasi-confused look on my face, and says, “Have you ever been in a perfectly square room and someone claps?” He raises

his hands, brings them together. “In a room with parallel walls there’ll be an echo.”

Talking to Kardash about building a recording studio isn’t so much a lesson in construction and building as it is a science class. “When you’re making a

“The biggest thing is mass basically stops sound,” explains Kardash. “So the heavier your walls, the less sound will get through.

Insulation is important. You want to cram it everywhere, fill any cavity with it so that it stops the vibration

All around the province there are more and more home studios being built.

S.J. KARDASH

studio you don’t want any of the structure you’re building to touch any existing structure,” he says. “For example you don’t want your joist to be touching the existing ceiling.” He knocks on a joist just below the nine-foot ceiling of the basement where the studio is located and says, “If you knock on a piece of wood and listen to the other side, you’d hear vibrations through it.

Same principle applies if you’re hitting a kick drum. Those low frequencies are going to go through the joist and into your ceiling to the room above.”

Because there are so many ways for sound to escape, the thing you have to keep in mind when building a recording studio is that it has to be air tight.

The more air tight a room is, the more soundproof it’s going to be.

of air. Anywhere air can go, sound can go, too.”

Wait a minute. But if you build a room that’s air tight, how are the musicians who record there supposed to breathe?

For most of his 31 years of existence, music has been central to S.J. Kardash’s life. By age 12, he was touring the country in a blues band. At 18, he was jamming with the likes of Jeff Healey and Johnny Lang at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. And somewhere around the end of elementary school/the beginning of high school he started recording music. Since then, he’s worked on albums with the likes of Jordan Cook (aka Continued on next page »

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Reignwolf), The Deep Dark Woods and The Sheepdogs.

“My first machine was a fourtrack,” remembers Kardash. “Then I slowly kept upgrading my equipment. But I was always recording in half-ass set ups. In my parents’ basement or in a rental house on Broadway. Those places worked fine. I’m a big believer that you can make any space work. Just look at Led Zeppelin. They’d move into a mansion, it wasn’t a studio, and they’d just set up their equipment and make those legendary recordings. So yeah, you can make anything work. But I always wanted to have a proper facility.” So when Kardash and his girlfriend built their house two years ago, from the very beginning he was planning on how to put a professional recording studio in the basement.

And he isn’t alone.

Sure, there are bigger recording studios in Saskatchewan. But these days, more and more musicians are setting up shop in their own homes.

There’s Touchwood Studios and Remedy Muzik in Regina. In Saskatoon, you have Revelation Studios and,

once it’s finished, there’ll be Kardash’s Full Color Music & Recording. “There’s a lot of DIY going on where people are recording their stuff themselves,” says Kardash. “All around the province there are more and more home studios being built. It’s great to see.”

For Kardash, it’ll also be great once he finishes the construction of Full Color Music & Recording and can finally set up the recording equipment he’s slowly been amassing. Equipment like the Pro Tools HD3, Neumann and AKG microphones, high-end preamps

by API, Great River, Universal Audio.

The kind of equipment you’d find in any major studio in North America.

Back in the basement, Kardash points to a rectangular box near the roof of the singing booth and says, “This solves the whole being-able-tobreathe problem.”

And he’s right.

Inside the box, there’s a 25-square inch metal vent that will pump air throughout the room.

“If you were to just put a hole in the ceiling and let the air come straight in, sound would get out,”

he says, explaining the need for the box that encapsulates the vent. “The sound of rushing air is pretty loud, so what I did was build this. It will be covered with insulation.”

Running his finger from the vent to the opposite end of the box, Kardash says, “The air will come through here, slow down, and fall into the room instead of shooting into the room. So if you’re tracking vocals you won’t hear the air.”

Kardash pauses, looking around his yet-to-be-finished studio. At the 9,000 pounds of gyprock waiting to be installed and the windows he needs to finish. He knows there’s still a lot of work to be done. A lot of hours and manual labour. But once it’s finished, he’ll be able to do what he loves — record music and help musicians around the province get their music out there.

Only this time, he’ll be doing it a lot closer to home.

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On the road again

Photo: Courtesy of Dmitry Kalinovsky

We need to be more vigilant when it comes to construction zone speed limits

I

f there’s something we’re all familiar with in this province, it’s driving through construction zones during the scorching months of summer: slowing to a crawl as traffic bottlenecks.

Inching forward as sweat beads on your brow and the backs of your legs slowly fuse to your car’s seat.

And when that’s all said and done, and you finally pull abreast of the road work that is being undertaken, doesn’t it grind your gears to realize it was all for naught, since work was done for the day and nobody is around anymore?

Yeah, us too. And that’s why we’re proposing that city construction workers take down the reduced speed limit signs when work is done for the day, or else face a fine. This will ensure that traffic around Saskatoon is impeded as little as possible, a move that makes for safer and more efficient driving.

To be clear, we are all for slower speed limits when construction workers are present — after all, the most important thing is ensuring the safety of the men and women who are working by the sides of busy roads and highways while traffic barrels past them.

We all remember the tragic death last August of 18-year-old Ashley Richards, who was working as a flag person on a construction site near Midale when she was hit and killed by an SUV 45 minutes into her first shift. This terrible accident led the government to consider if there was more that could be done to ensure both driver and worker safety in construction zones.

As it turns out, there was. Rules were amended and now construction companies are required to put up orange signs with a black image of a

indicating to drivers that they can carry on as usual. But anyone who lives in Saskatoon knows this isn’t always the case when it comes to city construction sites. How many times have you driven through an orange zone at night and all the signs are left up? More than once, we bet. And not only is it a little unfair to get a ticket because you’re going faster than the construction zone speed limit when there isn’t actually any danger to workers (since there aren’t any there), unnecessarily impeding the natural flow of traffic can be dangerous. That’s why we think that if drivers can be fined for speeding in an orange zone, then construction crews should also be fined if they leave their “at-work” signs up when no one is there.

So how would this look? Well, there’s no need to crack down hard right away. Let’s say the first offense could be fairly low, something like $1,000. When you are a company overseeing a multi-million dollar project, $1,000 is relatively insignificant. If the company is still leaving their signs up, then the fine could jump to something more substantial, say $10,000.

Any company continuing to flaunt the rules after that should face a fairly steep penalty, maybe something like $25,000 per incident.

Doing so would help make construction zones safer both during and after work hours. The safety of those working on the job site is protected by the reduced speed limits and increased fines, which we think is great. But after work has ended for the day, let’s protect the drivers from being unfairly ticketed and encouraging traffic to flow more smoothly and safely around our city. It’s important to protect people

worker on them when workers are on site (remember this, we’ll return to it in a moment). These signs are followed by speed signs; upon seeing these all drivers are required to slow to 60 km/h when travelling through construction zones, no exceptions.

The government also increased the financial penalty for any drivers caught speeding through a construction zone. The base fine was increased from $140-$210, then an additional $3 was tacked on for every kilometre per hour you’re caught doing over 60 km/h up until you hit 90 km/h. For anyone caught doing over 90 km/h through a construction site, the per km/h penalty doubles to $6, plus an additional $80 surcharge. To put that in practical terms, if you get caught driving 100 km/h through a construction site, you’re looking at a fine of $530.

That’s not exactly chump change, so the government hopes it will decrease the amount of speeding that goes on in construction zones.

And so far the government has been diligent in enforcing its measures.

Just last month 56 people were ticketed for speeding in these “orange” zones — that’s three times as many tickets as were levied during the same time last year. We applaud these measures, and hope they go a long way towards preventing another tragedy like Richards’ death from happening on our roads.

But we think there should also be an onus on the construction crews to indicate when work is finished for the day and they are no longer on site, so that vehicles driving through can proceed at the usual speed limit.

Highway construction crews are already good at this: at the end of the day the speed limit signs are removed,

on all sides, and we think holding all parties accountable for their actions is a great way to go.

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 legalizing marijuana. Here’s what you had to say:

text yo thoughtsur to 881 vE R b 8372

– The heathtulane study that made pot illegal has been proved to be a crock. It’s time Canada steps up to the plate. It’s only a matter of time and a system for growing it, taxing it, and selling it will take a while to get right. Might aswell start sooner than later. As well, it would be safer if the government grew it.

about using it responsably don’t toke a drive!!

– Have you ever listened to the warnings that follow any number of the meds big pharma flogs..the four hour erection..thoughts of suicide..death…and the Conservatives think weed isa health hazard

– I completely agree with legalizing marijuana. The conservatives and older generations fight to stop this is a slow burning losing battle.

We will look back on this time like we do on prohibition: as a quaint ideal that is stupid in reality.

– Just read your article on legalizing marijuana where you accuse everyone of spreading falsehoods.

You should include yourself as saying legalizing would create “thousands of jobs” is a crock.

Provide some data or proof. C’mon be what you accuse everyone else of not being.

– I do not encourage marijuana but I would support decriminalization over legalization

– If its legal and I can safely grow it myself as a med patient.... GREAT! DOWN with Big Pharma!! God made the earth. Nobody owns the plants :D

– Asking what people think about legalizing marijuana is like asking governments why they legalized alcohol. Sometimes public safety comes before public concerns.

– Marijuana should follow the same laws as booze and smokes age restricted taxed ect ect it’s all

– Marijuana is not a gateway drug!

I’ve smoked weed for 15 years and I’ve never tried any other drug. As long as Harper is in power it won’t be legal

– Vote Liberal get Harper out of power and then and only then will it possible for weed to be legal!

OFF TOPIC – Tech n9ne thanks for featuring!

It’s great to cover a diversity of bands and musical tastes more of this pleeeeease :D:D:D In response to “Breaking Rules with Tech N9ne,” Feature, #253 (August 16, 2013)

sound off – Before Modern Beliefs - The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun. There are no historic records of Jesus’ relatives before he was born.

You would think that someone of his importance, there would be historic records of his relatives right? It’s almost like all of a sudden he just appeared out of nowhere - Thomas Paine 1737-1809. I don’t know about Continued on next page »

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you but something smells a little fishy here!

– Man has mistreated women (and still does) since the begining of time. I am a strong believer in everyone is equal

– Drivers have to chill already! I had a jerk pass me in Montgomery on a Sunday. Are you kidding me?

There is nobody out and I do not drive slow. Learn to have a little patience and respect!

– Has the medical industry got it wrong? Is it tobacco killing people or is it the stress that makes them smoke? It seems to me tobacco alcohol drugs and obesity are just symptoms of something deeper widespread and medicine should be focussed on that not its symptoms!

– To anyone thinking of a home invasion. This is Sask. I and many other people sleep with a shotgun handy. Mine’s loaded with rock salt. Hurts worse than dieing!

– That comment about cops at Tim Hortons wasn’t called for. You should rather be happy that police officers feel the need to try and make our streets a safer place. You can keep any stereotypical comment to yourself!

– Don’t think of summer as almost being over. Just enjoy every day that comes your way. That way you can enjoy every day no matter what the weather is like. Every day is a blessing!

– Writing is funny. Write something positive popular and originality is often questioned. Write some popular critical negative and always get all the credit!

– Hey this is off topic but if anybody else cares about animals and

there well being taken care of at the forestry farm,…they have a wolf there that cries all the time and needs to be FREEEEEE!!!

They should think about the animals they have feelings too! Just a thought

– The only day worse than today in Saskatchewan is tomorrow in Saskatchewan!

Next week: What do you think of monitoring construction zone speed limits? Pick up 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.

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Lightning Dust

Photos: courtesy of Ila Meens

Glossy pop and cosmic stardust from Vancouver electronic duo

by Alex J MacPherson

L

ightning Dust is the musical partnership of Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, members of the Vancouver psych rock band Black Mountain.

And nothing could be more different. Black Mountain songs are thick and powerful; Lightning Dust embraces a different aesthetic. The group’s first two albums were lean and spare, casting Webber’s hauntingly tranquil voice and cryptic lyrics against a gently pulsating backdrop of synths and guitars.

Fantasy, which the group released last year, is their minimalist masterpiece. I caught up with Webber to talk about how Lightning Dust took a chance — and how it paid off.

Alex J MacPherson: Fantasy is your third record, and it feels like quite a departure from Infinite Light and Lightning Dust.

Amber Webber: I guess so. I was writing all the songs that I wrote on guitar, and it just felt kind of stale.

Like, oh yeah, this thing again. I could just tell what the final product was going to sound like. Lightning Dust has always been a band to try different stuff and be creative and have fun, so when I was writing the songs for the third album, and I could predict that they were going to sound not all that exciting, I thought, let’s just change it up — this is the whole point.

AJM: Is it difficult to reconcile the desire to try new things and explore new ideas with the fact that you’ve had success in the past and the idea that success creates certain expectations?

AW: Yeah, I think so, too. We were just having fun, writing songs and recording them. We were just intending to keep on doing that until we thought we had a nice album; we weren’t really worrying about every song while we were writing them, how they would fit together with all the others. But then we had enough and thought, oh yeah, this actually works together.

AW: Yeah, I think you definitely get into that weird mind thing. It feels good to have a successful record and all that, but you struggle with it a little bit in your mind. You’re like, ‘I want to be creative, I don’t want to care,’ but then of course it’s lingering in your mind — I want people to like it. It’s hard, I think, for any artist when you have a bunch of albums and have had some success, it can be an obstacle.

Lightning Dust has always been a band to try different stuff… amber Webber

AJM: Maybe the most noticeable thread was your voice, which sounds stronger and more hardened than it did on Infinite Light. Is that just experience or did you change the way you approached this record?

AJM: When it comes to the songs, how did they get from your guitar to the super glossy, synth-heavy final versions?

AW: For the songs that I wrote, I’d write them on guitar and then hand them off to Josh and let him go to town. He got really into analog synths and drum machines in the last couple years, so I just sort of said to him, ‘Go to town on this. I can picture this being a dance-y song, it’d be hilarious’ — just joking around, making these demos and passing them back and forth. Then he would bring me some songs, about half the songs on the album, just beats and stuff like that, and then we sort of rearranged them together.

Amber Webber: Yeah, I definitely tried to sing stronger. Usually when I record I’m drinking wine and looseygoosey, not caring too much about the little tiny flaws in a line or something like that. That’s nice, but I was getting kind of sick of that. I wanted to really focus and sing strong.

Lightning Dust September 3 @ Amigos $12 @ Ticketedge

AJM: People who have written about this album have tried to sum it up with a few adjectives, but even though the same aesthetic ideas cut through it, you’re actually covering quite a lot of sonic territory.

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In splendid anarchy

How the Automatiste Revolution redefined art in Canada

O

ur destiny seemed fixed forever.” These words appear in Refus global, an essay written in 1948 by Paul-Émile Borduas. Citing “a savage need for liberation,” Borduas lays out the founding principles for the Automatistes, a group of Montreal artists determined to cast off the shackles of tradition, symbolized by the church and the government in Quebec. Their paintings are among the finest in the world, and are currently on display at the Mendel in The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal 1941–1960.

“Escaping all the hidebound traditions of the church-government establishment that was Quebec

by alex J MacPherson

was also a political choice,” says art historian and curator Roald Nasgaard of the link between art and politics in the Automatiste movement. “It was a choice for liberation from the collective, in the sense that it created space for the individual to be expressive.”

The work of the group, which was founded by Borduas and included luminaries like Marcel Barbeau, Fernand Leduc, and Jean-Paul Riopelle, evolved over two decades.

Their early experiments soon gave way to expansive canvases slathered with paint moulded by the palette knife. Over time, the paint’s contours became more central to the work.

But all of the paintings are linked by their use of the automatic style:

visceral gestures meant to channel the subconscious. Taken together, they are a testament to the power of raw emotion.

“Borduas never talks about how painting must be, rather the freedom of spirit from which it must be produced,” Nasgaard says. “The one thing he could not do was prescribe how painting ought to be, because that would be contrary to the very principles of individual liberty that the painting was supposed to express.”

Each artist approached painting in his own way. Borduas was older than the rest and burdened by the realist tradition; he worked slowly, ensuring stylistic changes were en-

tirely his own. The younger painters, chief among them the incandescent Riopelle, were able to very quickly reject convention in favour of openness — and this is reflected in their dynamic and deeply moving works.

The Automatistes are the most important group of artists ever to emerge from Canada. Their internationalist ambition transcended the notion of regionalism that had come to define Canadian art. More importantly, their rejection of a deterministic state and their desire to fashion for themselves a world in which destiny was fluid and malleable stands today as a triumph of free thought. “Within a foreseeable future,” Borduas wrote, “men will cast off their useless chains.

Photo: courtesy of the mendel art gallery

1. Paul-Émile Borduas, Composition, 1942.

Gouache on paper.

They will realize their full, individual potential according to the unpredictable, necessary order of spontaneity — in splendid anarchy.”

Automatiste Revolution Through September 15 @ Mendel Art Gallery

The Mural Room

Rescued Perehudoff works on display at the University of Saskatchewan

I

n 1953, Fred Mendel commissioned a young artist named William Perehudoff to execute a series of frescoes in the reception area at the Intercontinental meat packing plant in Saskatoon. Perehudoff went on to become one of the most celebrated colour field painters in the country; the bold cubist murals remained behind. When the facility was scheduled for demolition in 2010, a joint force arranged for the murals to be rescued and restored.

Today, they are on display at the U of S, in a reconstructed version of their original home.

“I’m not sure what sort of impact this work did have on his career in

that it was, stylistically, something that never stuck with him,” says Kent Archer, director and curator of the U of S art collection The Mural Room, an exhibition that also includes several later works and selected archival documents. “This is a transitory period for him, the work included in the murals.” At the same time, he says, “that’s a pretty common scenario. His wife Dorothy Knowles began as an abstract artist. They began in very different places from where they ended up.”

Perehudoff reworked the murals in 1977, using paint instead of pigment and plaster. This is the only reason they could be salvaged at

by alex J MacPherson

all, Archer explains, pointing out that removing entire walls was beyond the reach of the archival team, which included the U of S and the City of Saskatoon. “The building was slated for demolition and there were not sufficient resources allocated to salvage the artwork,” Archer says. “It was primarily two individuals from the community, Dave Denny and Lynne Earle, who initiated the continued attempts to salvage the work.”

Perehudoff’s murals feature a number of cubist musicians at work playing instruments, their bodies and instruments defined not by their outline but by the sense of

movement created by the artist’s cagey use of colour. By leaving two of the walls plain white, Perehudoff was able to create contrast with the bold blue and green end walls and conjure up a sense of dynamism without inducing claustrophobia.

Visiting The Mural Room is experiential, immersive, consuming.

But The Mural Room represents more than just an opportunity to see a rare glimpse into the early part of Perehudoff’s career. It is also a glimpse into a rarely seen yet vitally important part of the city’s history.

“Perehudoff worked as a regular employee at the packing plant,” Archer says, “as did many hundreds and

thousands of people over the years.

There is, I think, a significant community within Saskatoon linked to that industry.” Ultimately, The Mural Room preserves Perehudoff’s legacy within a certain community and opens up a new facet of his career to a much wider audience as well.

William Perehudoff Through August 30 @ College Art Gallery 1 (University of Saskatchewan) Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbSaskatoon amacpherson@verbnews.com

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Feature

The Funk Hunters

Nick Middleton and Duncan Smith on the idea of the universa

J

ames Brown recorded four live albums at the Apollo Theater, a famous music hall in the heart of Harlem. But when people talk about Brown and the Apollo, they are talking about Live at the Apollo, which Brown and his band recorded on a chilly night in October, 1962. A feverish blast of noise and raw energy, the album established Brown as the founding father of funk music and a legend in his own time. Live at the Apollo is a great album not because it defined a certain genre or style, but because it laid on a set of ideas that are both timeless and universal. Nick Middleton and Duncan Smith, who produce and perform electronic music as the Funk Hunters, have embraced this idea. In their world, funk isn’t a genre of music: it is a way of thinking.

“Everybody loves funk,” Smith, who goes by the name Dunks, says.

“It was never a situation of ‘is there a genre that’s popular right now or something we want to take on and champion like dubstep or trap?’ Funk wasn’t something that was suddenly going to pass us by. I’ve often worried about that as our musical tastes shift and we explore different things. But I’ve come to realize that our idea of what this funk is is that it’s not one genre. It doesn’t really matter what part of the musical spectrum we’re exploring because we’re always going to be able to find this thing that we call funk.” Deconstructing music in search of a concrete definition or idea is often futile; what matters is the ineffable

groove, that thing that makes you want to dance. It can’t be captured or defined, but the Funk Hunters have spent the last four years trying to perfect it.

The group has its roots in the Gulf Islands, an archipelago nestled against the coast of Vancouver Island. It was there that Smith and Middleton met and discovered their shared affinity for funky grooves. “We started DJing together in this small community, at house parties,” Smith recalls. “Four or five years ago we moved to Vancouver and took it to the next level. We started throwing parties and DJing together.”

Unlike many electronic duos, the Funk Hunters is not a side project or

feeling. Their experiments in house, bass and dubstep are anchored by grooves and flourishes that wouldn’t be out of place on a James Brown record. “I think when music has this quality we call funk it makes it so that even if someone is not familiar with that genre or with that music, they can get down with it,” Smith says. “Like, ‘I might not have heard this before but I can dance to this.’ In our sets we really explore a lot of tempos and genres in an hour and a half, and if we can, kind of go on the hunt — whether it’s our music or music that we’re finding — and bring it all together by it all having this funky quality or essence.”

We love everything funky and groovy and soulful, but all genres are fair game for us right now…

Nick middleton

a one-off collaboration. “Neither of us were really DJs on our own,” says Middleton, who uses the name Outlier onstage. “We really got into it together and we’ve been doing it together since day one.”

Today, the Funk Hunters are one of the most prolific electronic acts in the country. In addition to a slew of remixes and mixtapes, the duo have released dozens of original songs and collaborations. Their sound is not bound by one style or genre, but by a

Smith and Middleton profited from the expansion of the electronic music scene, which has, over the last several years, grown from a hermetic counterculture into a worldwide juggernaut. Led by artists like Skrillex, the nom de guerre of former From First To Last singer Sonny Moore, whose skittering, glitchy tracks have been embraced by a generation of open-minded listeners, the electronic music world is attracting new fans every day. “I mean, anyone with a Continued on next page »

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Photo: courtesy of Tom Hamilton

al groove by Alex J MacPherson laptop can make a number one hit song,” Smith says. “You can be an eighteen-year-old kid in your parents’ basement and come up with the hottest new track in the world. The next year you’re headlining shows around the world. With the internet, we’re not closed off anymore. All the doors are open.”

In other words, it’s the new wild west. In music booms as in dot com booms, the first few years are a period where anything goes. “We’re really open to every style and sound right now,” Middleton says. “We love everything funky and groovy and soulful, but all genres are fair game for us right

Photo: courtesy of Tom Hamilton

now — and that’s also really exciting.”

More exciting still is the duo’s live show, which they have tried to mould into something that transcends the notion of what a concert ought to be.

By fusing recorded music with live performances and multimedia art, the pair are focused on creating a blast of light and sound that defies expectations.

Middleton and Smith came up with the idea of incorporating video art into their performances while attending various electronic music festivals.

Although it was common for festivals to erect video screens, there were frequently no connections between the performers onstage and whoever was running the video art. “It was just so obvious,” Middelton says with a laugh.

“We can create our visual content to go with the music that we want. And we’re performing or playing that video content at the exact same time we’re playing the musical content, and on the flip of a dime we can change it.”

With the addition of live performers playing every instrument imaginable, the Funk Hunters have transformed their live show into something that upends expectations and promises an even more immersive experience.

“There are a few people around the world who are doing stuff similar to what we’re doing,” Smith says, “but we haven’t really seen it in our neck of the woods yet. For us, it’s about creating a full show and not just being two DJs up there. Like, how can we bring it full circle, give our audience a complete experience, and bring them into all the elements of art we love?”

To further expand their reach, Smith and Middleton have spent the last year founding two record labels.

ReSoul Records was created for party bootlegs, mashups that the group can’t afford to give away for free (unlike plenty of their music, which is available on their website) but want to make available under a single umbrella. More ambitious still, Westwood Recordings, which launched last month, will focus on original music — songs crafted in the duo’s Vancouver studio.

“Right now, the model is to work on a

really solid single with a really great vocalist or MC, and then getting some friends around the world to remix it, and then that going out packaged together on one EP,” Smith explains. “I’d love to have an album go out, but right now it really feels like because there is so much over-saturation, and because people are making so much music, it helps to have a single come out every month or two rather than dropping a whole album, and then in six months everyone forgetting about it.”

This is unrealistic. There is little chance that anybody who experiences the Funk Hunters, either on a record or in a packed and sweaty club, will forget about them. Smith and Middleton rank among the most popular electronic acts in the country for a reason. By taking advantage of the freedom offered by a growing music scene, and by writing their own rules, the Funk Hunters have laid the groundwork for a long and fruitful career. And by championing funky grooves, sounds everybody can understand, the duo have created for themselves a world where the only limit is their collective imagination.

The Funk Hunters Sept 6 @ Le Relais Ticket info: https://www.facebook.com/ SkylabEvents Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbSaskatoon amacpherson@verbnews.com

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Pho-nomenal!

Photos courtesy of Adam Hawboldt

White Lotus does pho right by adam hawboldt

P

ho. Chances are, if you’ve ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant, you know all about this scrumptious dish. But do you know how to pronounce it?

Is it foe? Fuh? Phuuuh?

The answer is: in Vietnam, this popular soup — which consists of broth, rice noodles, herbs, onions and meat (usually beef or chicken) — is called “fuh.” Which sounds kind of like you’ve just been punched in the stomach. But here in North America, we tend to say it like “foe.”

So which pronunciation is right?

Doesn’t matter. All that matters is this Vietnamese street food is as fragrant, tasty, and balanced a dish as you’ll ever eat — if done right.

And it just so happens there’s a place here in Saskatoon that does

No finger crossing was needed.

The meat-to-onion-to-noodle ratio in the soup was ideal. The broth was fragrant and savoury. In fact, the pho deluxe at White Lotus was so good “as is” I almost forgot to add all the extra garnishes.

But when I did — when I tossed in some Thai basil, bean sprouts, lime, chili pepper and a dash of hot sauce — “so good” quickly turned into “flat-out amazing.” Some of the best pho I’ve had this side of Vietnam.

And you know what else is pretty darn good at White Lotus? The goi cuon — aka salad roll. Stuffed with yummy, marinated pork, shrimp, lettuce and noodles, the goi cuon were expertly rolled (none of the ingredients fell out when dipped in the peanut sauce) and were all kinds of yummy.

So too were the spring rolls (light, with a refreshing lack of grease) and the shrimp rolls (moist and delicate).

Needless to say, there’s a talented new kid on the Vietnamese restaurant block. You should probably go see what it’s all about.

pho right. Like, really right. It’s called White Lotus. And if you’re a fan of pho you should go there, like statim.

Only 10 weeks old, White Lotus is a clean, modern, well-lit place that serves up six different variations of this delicious Vietnamese delicacy. But the king daddy of them all is pho deluxe — also known as Pho Dae Biet.

Consisting of beef, beef balls, tripe, tendon and brisket, pho deluxe is by far the most adventurous dish of the lot. (After all, tripe and tendons aren’t for everyone!) But when cooked properly, it is pure ambrosia.

So when the restaurant’s owner Trinh — an affable young lady who’s easygoing and quick to laugh — suggested I go big and order the pho deluxe, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

let’s go drinkin’ Verb’s mixology guide Vietnamese hard lemonade

Ingredients

Summer is the time for delicious, refreshing drinks.

And since there’s still a few more weeks of summer left, why not mix up this concoction, lounge on a patio, and enjoy the warm weather.

2 oz vodka 1 lemon 1 mint sprig 1 tsp sugar crushed ice carbonated water

White Lotus 4 15 Worbetz Place | (306) 974 1060

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

Directions

Put sugar in the bottom of a glass. Cut a lemon wedge and squeeze juice onto the sugar. Add ice, a fresh lemon wedge, mint and vodka. Top up with carbonated water and serve.

@VerbSaskatoon ahawboldt@verbnews.com

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music

Next Week

coming up

pandacorn

the seahags

gwar

@ Vangelis Friday, August 30 – $10

@ Amigos Cantina Friday August 30 – Cover TBD

@ Odeon Events Centre Monday, October 7 – $33

When you first see Brodie Mohninger and Megan Nash on stage you may think they’re members of a kiddie music band or something, yet that would be a mistake. Sure, as PandaCorn one of them dresses up as a panda, the other as a unicorn, but there’s nothing childish or juvenile about their tunes.

Driven by sick drum beats, hot synth and slick guitar licks, PandaCorn plays a sweetly harmonized brand of indie pop rock. What makes the music that much more impressive is the backgrounds of the musicians. Nash is a country singer at heart, who put away her acoustic guitar in favor of synthesizer keys. And Mohninger is a former frontman of a vintage-rock band. Both bring elements of their former selves to the table and mix it up into a sound that’s ethereal and catchy.

What do you get when you take two social workers, two nurses, a baker and a person who works in shipping/ receiving, and put them all in a room together with a bunch of instruments?

You get The Seahags, of course. An “old-timey, country garage band from Saskatchewan,” The Seahags have a down-home sound that’s at once folky, grungy and country. Since starting out as an acoustic act, The Seahags have evolved to the point where their live show now includes an electric banjo, a mandobird, reverb, stomp box and a whole heap of call-and-answer vocals.

So if you’re looking for a show that’ll get you up and out of your seat and keep your feet moving all night long, these talented musicians will be putting on a show at Amigos next week you won’t want to miss.

Have you ever seen Gwar perform?

If not, stop what you’re doing and YouTube these cats. Seriously: you won’t be disappointed. And you certainly won’t mistake Gwar for any other band you’ve ever seen before. With their elaborate science-fiction/ horror-film inspired costumes, obscene lyrics and rather graphic stage performances, this heavy metal four-piece is one of a kind.

Originating in Richmond, Virginia, Gwar began turning heads and blowing minds in the late ‘80s. A dozen albums later, and this two-time Grammynominated act is still going strong. Not only is their live show hard rocking, it also lampoons celebrities and current events while managing to drop your jaw to the floor. Trust me: you want to get out to see these guys live! Tickets available at www.theodeon.ca – By Adam Hawboldt

Photos courtesy of: the artist/ the artist/ Libertinus

Sask music Preview

Photo: courtesy of www.georgeleach.com

SaskMusic is pleased to congratulate Yvonne St. Germaine and George Leach, Saskatchewan’s winners at the 2013 Aboriginal Peoples’ Choice Music Awards. The eighth annual awards gala was broadcast on the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network on August 18, where Yvonne St. Germaine won for Best Gospel CD, and George Leach won for Best Rock CD, Single of the Year, and Aboriginal Songwriter of the Year.

Keep up with Saskatchewan music. saskmusic.org

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august 23 » august 31 The most complete live music listings for Saskatoon.

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23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Friday 23

House DJs / 6Twelve Lounge — Funk, soul & lounge DJs. 9pm / No cover Canyon Rose Outfit / Amigos — Edmonton rock n’ rollers. 10pm / Cover TBD DJ Aash Money / Béily’s — A high-energy top 40 dance party. 9pm / $5 cover The Hung Jury / Buds — Covering everything from AC/DC to Michael Jackson. 9pm BPM / Diva’s — Resident DJs spin electro/ vocal house music. 10pm / $5 DJ Eclectic / The Hose — Local turntable whiz pumps snappy beats. 8pm / No cover DJ Stikman / Jax Niteclub — It’s all your favourite party hits. 9pm / $5 cover Tech N9ne / Odeon Events Centre — Rap straight out of Kansas City. 9pm / $35+ (theodeon.ca) DJ Big Ayyy & DJ HENCHMAN / Outlaws — Round up your friends. 8pm / $5; ladies in free before 11pm

Brewster and the Roosters / Piggy’s — This band will rock you. 9pm / No cover One More Troubadour / Prairie Ink — Instrumental acoustic guitar. 8pm / No cover The Shoeless Joes / Rock Bottom — It’s an EP release party. 9pm / $10 DJ Fink / Spadina Freehouse — EDM done right. 8pm / No cover Dueling Pianos / Staqatto — With Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie + Brad King. 10pm / $5 Party Rock Fridays / Tequila — Featuring DJ Anchor. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Nick Ruston / Uncle Barley’s — Come and check him out! 9pm / Cover TBD Soul Mates + more / Vangelis — A night of great tunes. 10pm / $10

Brewster and the Roosters / Piggy’s — This band will rock you. 9pm / No cover The Lost Keys / Prairie Ink — Eclectic easy listening. 8pm / No cover Warsenal / Rock Bottom — Thrash/speed metal from Montreal. 9pm / $10 Charly Hustle / Spadina Freehouse — A local DJ who gets the party started right.

8pm / No cover Dueling Pianos / Staqatto Piano Lounge — With Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie and Brad King. 10pm / $5 DJ Anchor / Sutherland Bar — It’s the world famous video mix show! 10pm Sexy Saturdays / Tequila — A night of hot tunes. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Thorpdeo / Uncle Barley’s — Spinning hot tunes all night. 10pm / Cover TBD Haunter / Vangelis — Rock ‘n’ roll fivepiece from Winnipeg. 10pm / $8 Kelly Read / The Woods — Get down with this talented bluesman. 9pm / No cover

Saturday 24

House DJs / 6Twelve — Resident DJs spin deep and soulful tunes. 9pm / No cover Soso + more / Amigos — It’s soso’s album release party. 10pm / Cover TBD DJ Aash Money + DJ Sugar Daddy / Béily’s — It’s a top 40 dance party. 9pm / $5 The Hung Jury / Buds — Covering everything from AC/DC to Michael Jackson. 9pm SaturGAY Night / Diva’s — Resident DJs spin exclusive dance remixes. 10pm / $5 DJ Kade / The Hose — Saskatoon’s own DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover DJ Stikman / Jax Niteclub — Ladies night with the Jax party crew. 9pm / $5 cover DJ Big Ayyy & DJ Henchman / Outlaws — Round up your friends ‘cause there’s no better country rock party around. 8pm / $5

Sunday 25

Industry Night / Béily’s — Hosted by DJ Sugar Daddy. 9pm / $4; no cover for industry staff DJ KADE / The Hose — Saskatoon DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover Blues Jam / Vangelis — It’s blues to rock and beyond. 7:30pm / No cover

Monday 26

Devon Coyote Band / Buds — Infectious and gritty tunes. 9pm / Cover TBD

DJ Audio / Dublins — Spinning dope beats.

9pm / Cover TBD

Tuesday 27

Devon Coyote Band / Buds — Infectious and gritty tunes. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ SUGAR DADDY / The Deuce — This crowd favourite rocks. 9:30pm / $4 DJ Nick Ruston / Dublins — Spinning dope beats. 9pm / Cover TBD Open Mic / Rock Bottom — Sponsored by Verb, come and jam! 9pm / No cover Open Mic / Somewhere Else Pub — Come out to show your talent. 7pm / No cover

Wednesday 28

HUMP WEDNESDAYS / 302 Lounge & Discotheque — With resident DJ Chris Knorr.

9pm / No cover until 10pm; $3 thereafter DJ Aash Money / Béily’s — Spinning dope beats all night. 9pm / Cover TBD Devon Coyote Band / Buds — Infectious and gritty tunes. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Memo / Dublins — Spinning dope beats.

9pm / Cover TBD DJ Kade / The Hose — Saskatoon DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover dj knowledge / Jax Nightclub — Dropping dope beats on Vegas Night. 8pm / $10(advance), $15(door) Buck Wild Wednesdays / Outlaws — Come out and ride the mechanical bull!

9pm / $4; no cover for industry staff CJWW Karaoke / Stan’s Place — Your talent, aired on the radio! 9pm / No cover

Dueling Pianos / Staqatto — With Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie + Brad King. 10pm The Wiggles / TCU Place — A show for kids and music lovers. 6:30pm / $15+

Thursday 29

Psycho Deelia / Buds — Things are gonna get trippy! 9pm / Cover TBD Throwback Thursdays / Earls — Featuring the talents of Dr. J. 8pm / No cover DJ Kade / The Hose — Saskatoon DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover Thunder Riot w/Conky Showpony / Rock Bottom — Come dance the night away. 9pm / $5 Triple Up Thursdays / Tequila — Featuring DJ Dislexic. 9pm / Cover TBD Jasper Sloan Yip, Ben Disaster / Vangelis — A night of splendid folk rock. 9pm / $8 Open Stage / The Woods — Hosted by Steven Maier. 9pm / No cover

Friday 30

House DJs / 6Twelve Lounge — Funk, soul & lounge DJs liven it up. 9pm / No cover The Seahags / Amigos — An old-timey country garage band. 10pm / Cover TBD DJ Aash Money / Béily’s — DJ Aash Money throws it down every Friday night.

9pm / $5 cover The Nightrain / Buds on Broadway — A Guns N’ Roses tribute band. 9pm / Cover TBD BPM / Diva’s — Resident DJs spin electro/ vocal house music. 10pm / $5

saskatoon transit

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DJ Eclectic / The Hose — Local turntable whiz pumps snappy beats. 8pm / No cover DJ Stikman / Jax Niteclub — It’s all your favourite party hits. 9pm / $5 cover Kaleb’s Adventure / Odeon — Featuring HIllbilly Blunt + more. 7pm / $20+ DJ Big Ayyy & DJ HENCHMAN / Outlaws — There’s no better country rock party around.

8pm / $5; ladies in free before 11pm The Standards Trio / Prairie Ink — A local jazz ensemble. 8pm / No cover DJ Twerk-tacular / Spadina Freehouse — Aka Mitchy the Kid. 9pm / No cover Dueling Pianos / Staqatto — With Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie + Brad King. 10pm / $5 Party Rock Fridays / Tequila — Featuring DJ Anchor. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Nick Ruston / Uncle Barley’s — Come and check him out! 9pm / Cover TBD Pirate Fridays / Vangelis — Featuring PandaCorn and Darren Eedens. 10pm / $8(advanced), $10(door)

Saturday 31

House DJs / 6Twelve — Resident DJs spin deep and soulful tunes. 9pm / No cover Body LVL / Amigos — An electronic experience you don’t want to miss. 10pm DJ Aash Money + DJ Sugar Daddy / Béily’s — It’s a dance party! 9pm / $5 cover The Nightrain / Buds — It’s a Guns N’ Roses tribute band. 9pm

SaturGAY Night / Diva’s — Resident DJs spin exclusive dance remixes. 10pm / $5 DJ Kade / The Hose — Saskatoon’s own DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover DJ Stikman / Jax — Ladies night with DJ Stikman and the Jax party crew. 9pm / $5 Madchild / Odeon — With Slaine, Adlib and DJ Dow Jones. 8pm / $20+ DJ Big Ayyy & DJ Henchman / Outlaws — Round up your friends. 8pm / $5 Zeljko Bilandzic / Prairie Ink — Flamenco and classical guitar. 8pm / No cover The Gaff / Spadina Freehouse — Swing by for some sweet beats. 9pm / No cover Dueling Pianos / Staqatto — With Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie + Brad King. 10pm / $5 DJ Anchor / Sutherland Bar — It’s a video mix show! 10pm / Cover TBD Sexy Saturdays / Tequila — A night of hot tunes. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Thorpdeo / Uncle Barley’s — Spinning hot tunes all night. 10pm / Cover TBD The Faps + more / Vangelis — Punk music done gritty and well. 10pm / $8+ Peter and Troy / The Woods — Come on down and check it out. 9pm / No cover

Get listed Have a live show you'd like to promote? Let us know! layout@verbnews.com

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it’s the End of the World ...

Photo: Courtesy of universal pictures

From the makers of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz comes a sci-fi parody flick unlike any you’ve seen by adam hawboldt

L

ikeit or not, things and people change.

Just ask Gary King (Simon Pegg), the star of new thriller/ post-apocalypse/sci-fi flick, The World’s End. One upon a time ago, Gary was the cool, popular kid on the block, the leader of a group of friends that filled their days with drinking, joking and revery. Fast forward a few decades, and things look remarkably different.

Gary, a legend in his own mind, has become a veritable man-child who has fallen on hard times.

The same can’t be said for his friends. No, they’re all grown up, doing what grown-ups are supposed to do.

Peter (the always terrific Eddie Marsan of Ray Donovan fame) works in a car showroom, Steven (the equally terrific Paddy Considine, Bourne Ultimatum) works construction. Oliver (Martin Freeman) is a real-estate agent, while Andrew (Nick Frost) is a highpowered lawyer.

The old gang hasn’t seen each other in quite some time, so Gary decides to get them all together for a reunion of sorts. The goal of the reunion is to complete the Golden Mile, a competition in which each of the participants must drink a pint at each of the dozen or so pubs in their hometown of Newton Haven. Pubs with names like “The Famous Cock” and “The Two-Headed Dog.” They tried to finish the Golden Mile back

in 1990, but didn’t make it past pub number six.

This time around, though, come hell or high water, they’re going to try to make it to the final pub, fittingly called The World’s End. It’s a fitting name because as the group drinks and stumbles from one pub to the next they begin to notice that things are different in their former hometown. The pubs have all changed

the world’s end Edgar Wright Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine + Martin Freeman Directed by

109 minutes | 14A

the third installment, the trio tackles science fiction flicks — and to fairly impressive results.

If you’re a fan of the first two films, you may be a tad disappointed that The World’s End isn’t quite as romping and silly and hilarious as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. But not to worry. Instead of ratcheting up the goofy levels, this film dials them down and — thanks to the formidable dramatic skills of Marsan and Considine — replaces them with some emotional weight and character development.

Sure, there are still an abundance of laughs to be had, and the pace of the film is nothing short of rapid, but The World’s End strikes a slightly more serious tone than its predecessors.

Does it pull it off?

You be the judge.

The World’s End isn’t quite as romping and silly and hilarious as …

Hot Fuzz…

Adam Hawboldt

names and the townspeople haven’t aged a day.

Chaos and rather hilarious sci-fi action ensues.

Directed by Edgar Wright, who cowrote the script with Pegg, The World’s End is the third installment of the Wright-Pegg-Frost parody series. The first movie, Shaun of the Dead, spoofed zombie movies (and was all kinds of awesome). The second one, Hot Fuzz, was a send-up of buddy-cop movies (and was pretty good, too). Now in

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

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Coming of age in northern Canada

Indie film The Lesser Blessed is a quiet mediation on the trials and tribulations of growing up in the Great White North by adam hawboldt

Photo: Courtesy of e1 films

L

arry Sole is in a bathtub, his eyes soulful yet vacant. His long, lithe body covered with scar tissue on the chest and back. The room is silent. But there’s something bubbling beneath the surface — a turmoil that isn’t so silent.

And so begins Anita Doron’s new coming-of-age film, The Lesser Blessed. Soon the silence is broken when Larry (played by newcomer Joel Nathan Evans) tells the audience through a voice-over that he’s lived in this current town (a

ing for a local beauty named Juliet Hope (Chloe Rose) who, as you may have guessed, is somewhat out of Larry’s league.

Things are looking quite dire for Larry until one day bad boy Johnny Beck (Kiowa Gordan) comes to town and they strike up a friendship. Which is a good thing for Larry, since Johnny is both cooler and tougher than Darcy, his tormentor.

Or is it good for him?

See, Juliet takes a shining to the new kid in town and, well, you’ll

It’s not perfect … but The Lesser Blessed is most certainly worth a watch for fans of indie drama.

Adam Hawboldt

fictional place in the Northwest Territories called Fort Simmer) ever since a mysterious accident.

In the meantime, here’s the basic plot of The Lesser Blessed: Larry is a quiet, First Nations teen who is somewhat of an outsider at his school.

He’s being picked on by his former friend Darcy McManus (Adam Butcher), all the while secretly pin-

have to watch the movie to find out what happens.

At this point you may be thinking: “So what? I’ve seen this coming-of-age movie before. Bad boy comes to town, befriends geek, steals the love of geek’s life, then everything is resolved.”

In a way you’d be right thinking that. At the very heart of this story, there isn’t much original going

the lesser blessed Anita Doron Starring Joel Evans, Benjamin Bratt, Kiowa Gordon Directed by

86 minutes | NR

on. And yes, Larry is one of those clichéd bookish types who narrates his own life, as they do in so many coming-of-age flicks. But there’s more to The Lesser Blessed than meets the eye. There’s something that digs deeper than your run of the mill, oh-woe-is-me-I’m-inhigh-school-and-life-sucks schtick.

What that something is, though, is hard to put a finger on.

Part of the allure comes from the leisurely, cinematic pace that Doron lets the story unfold. Part of it comes from the setting — the beauty of the Northwest Territories and the poverty in which these characters live.

And part of it, still, comes from the central mystery at the heart of the movie. Mainly: what caused all those horrible scars on Larry’s body? What about the scars on his psyche (which are just as evident, but not quite as visible)?

Top all of that off with strong acting performances by Evans, Gordon and Benjamin Bratt (who plays Larry’s mom’s boyfriend), and what you have is a good little movie with

something to say. It’s not perfect, nor is it ground-breaking in anyway, but The Lesser Blessed is most certainly worth a watch for fans of indie drama.

The Lesser Blessed is currently being screened at Saskatoon’s Roxy Theatre.

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crossword canadian criss-cross DOWN

© walter D. Feener 2013

27. Aquarium growth 30. Tympanic membrane 34. Like some mattresses 35. Choice on some quizzes 36. Beatle spouse 37. Map abbreviation 38. Fine light rain 39. Town in Alberta 40. Close-fitting jacket 42. Classical dance 44. Saw wood 45. One who gives a flirtatious look 46. A flower grows from it 47. January 1 to December 31

1. Ship’s officer who keeps the accounts 2. Camera attachment 3. Put to work 4. First section of an ancient Greek choral ode 5. Stick on 6. Foreign farewell 7. Aquarium implement 8. Have as a logical con sequence 9. Organic fertilizer 11. Greek consonant 12. 1958 science-fiction film (with ‘The’) 14. Suffer privation 17. They make words

20. Feel stiff and sore sudoku answer key 21. Poet and singer of long ago A 23. Did a few laps 24. Like a desert 26. Former name for the oboe 27. A long way away 28. Is an inhabitant of 29. Leafy vegetables 31. Paint brush alternative B 32. Less than 33. Nearly all 35. Exasperated by 38. No more than 39. Earthen pot 41. Friend’s opposite 43. Improve, as wine

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

1. Opposite of minus 5. Adolescent affliction 9. One who is not a regular member 10. Wicked one 12. Stove part 13. Make stout 15. Galloway girl 16. Medley dish 18. Fermented drink 19. Binary digit 20. Pointed end 21. Fisherman’s wish 22. Beet soup 24. Dieter’s lunch 25. Word used to introduce alternative possibilities

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

ACROSS

sudoku

Horoscopes August 23 – August 29

Aries March 21–April 19 Libra September 23–October 23

Some problems are easy to solve, others take a little more time and disciplined thinking to overcome. Expect more of the latter this week.

Be careful not to ignore your feelings or bottle them up too tightly this week, Libra. It’s a sure recipe for disaster.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Scorpio October 24–November 22

Clarity will be just another word in the dictionary for you this week, Taurus. The way the universe is lining things up, expect to be confused.

You’re going to come to an ethical crossroads this week, Scorpio. Be careful of what direction you take. The fallout from this choice could be huge.

Gemini May 21–June 20

Sagittarius November 23–December 21

Your emotional currents will run strong and swift this week, Gemini.

And while it’s important to acknowledge your feelings, try not to be swept away.

At some point this week someone may ask you to lend them a helping hand. Offer it willingly. You never know when you’ll need some assistance yourself.

Cancer June 21–July 22

Capricorn December 22–January 19

The thing you fear is the thing you’ll have to do most this week, Cancer. Suck it up and get ‘er done. We all have these days.

This may go against your very nature, Capricorn, but try to spread yourself thin this week. Cast your net wide.

Leo July 23–August 22

Aquarius January 20–February 19

Some people fret about getting their lives in order. For you, Leo, don’t bother. The blocks will fall where they’re supposed to.

Ideas may flit through your head with reckless abandon in the upcoming days, Aquarius. Don’t worry if some of them don’t make sense.

Virgo August 23–September 22

Pisces February 20–March 20

Feeling trapped lately, Virgo? If so, break free from the cage that’s been holding you, and run wild and free.

You’ll be grateful you did.

Under pressure. That’s the best way to describe your life in the upcoming week, Pisces. Don’t let it get to you.

crossword answer key

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

A

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

B

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