Verb Issue S291 (May 23-29, 2014)

Issue #291 – May 23 to May 29

arts

culture

music

saskatoon

Chad VanGaalen +

fencing master Claude Seguin on the art of the sport imminent breakthrough Q+A with Pop Crimes X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST + the railway man Films reviewed­

Photo: courtesy of Marc Rimmer

contents

On the cover:

chad vangaalen

On pushing convention. 16 / cover

Photo: courtesy of marc rimmer

NEWs + Opinion

steampunk saskatchewan

bring on the idaho stop Our thoughts on

Reimagining the past. 4 / Local

changing bike laws. 8 / Editorial

fencing master

comments

Claude Seguin on coaching coaches.

Here’s your say about more bike lanes.

6 / Local

10 / comments

culture

Q + A with Pop crimes The verge of a breakthrough. 12 / Q + A

bourbon and chicken

two instances of illumination Yam

We visit Step’s Lounge.

Lau’s spellbinding exhibit. 14 / Arts

18 / Food + Drink

reviews

Music

We review Reuben & The Dark + Human Human. 15 / Album reviews

Castle River, The Gay Nineties + Dierks Bentley. 19 / music

entertainment

listings Local music listings for May 23 through May 31 20 / listings

x-men: days of future past + The railway man

on the bus Weekly original comic illustrations

by Elaine M. Will. 30 / comics

The latest movie reviews. 22 / Film

Nightlife Photos

Games + Horoscopes

We visited Fox & Hounds + Diva’s.

Canadian criss-cross puzzle, horoscopes, and Sudoku. 31 / timeout

24 / Nightlife

verbnews.com @verbsaskatoon facebook.com/verbsaskatoon

Editorial

ART & Production

Business & Operations

contact

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

Design Lead / andrew yanko graphic designer / bryce kirk Contributing Photographers / Patrick Carley, Adam Hawboldt + Dylan Giesbrecht

Office Manager / Stephanie Lipsit account Manager / nathan holowaty sales Manager / Vogeson Paley Financial Manager / Cody Lang

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

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Steampunk Saskatchewan

Photo: Courtesy of pile of bones steampunk society

Pile Of Bones Steampunk Society looks to the past to redefine the present by adam hawboldt

W

hen Nicholas Trafananko and the rest of the Pile Of Bones Steampunk Society make a public appearance, they want to stand out. When they go to a fan expo, they don’t want to be like the other groups in attendance. They don’t want their booth to be unremarkable. It has to catch your eye, draw you in, pique your interest.

So a couple of weeks ago, at the Fan Expo in Regina, they decided to try something different. Something that would set them apart from the crowd.

“We didn’t want to just have photos and gadgets and us standing there,” says Trafananko. “We wanted to be different, to do something special. I was talking to Colby Goss [a fellow Steampunk Society member] and he suggested we do a Victorian sideshow. You know, like the traveling circuses they used to have, with monkeys’ paws, mermaids in jars — that kind of stuff.”

With this in mind, they got to work. They filled half of the Pile of Bones’ booth with steampunk gizmos, gadgets like DIY plasma guns and such. The other half of the booth held the sideshow. There was an obsidian knife Trafananko had picked up in Mexico a few years ago sitting next to a jar of pig hearts pickled in vodka. When asked about it, the

group told a story of adventure and travel and Aztec sacrifice.

There was a burned copy of the Necronomicon, a customized Freddy Krueger claw made to look era-appropriate (like something Jack the Ripper could have used).

There was also a mason jar with sparkles in the bottom.

“The story that goes with the jar is that we were traveling around the world and made a stop in Ireland,” explains Trafananko. “We got lucky and managed to capture a fairy. But when you look, the cover is off the jar and it’s like ‘Oh no! The fairy escaped.’ Then we tell the people if they hear giggling they should run.

Fairies aren’t as cute and as sweet as Disney would have you believe.”

Sometimes when Trafananko explains all this, he does it as Professor Adrian Vodgiri, an adventurer who travels the world collecting oddities while also working as a spy/ assassin. Other times he does it as Nicholas Black, an airship pilot.

“Those are my two main steampunk personae,” says Trafananko. “What you build, what you wear, your style reflects what steampunk means to you. There are a lot of different archetypes. There’s the mad scientist, the inventor … there are the aristocrats or nobles …

There are pirates and airship pilots.

For me, I’ve always felt I was born in the wrong era. Nowadays, it feels like everything’s been done, everything’s been explored, so when I developed my characters, I did so with the intention of making them explorers. Adventurers.

Steampunk, in its original form, is a literary sub-genre of science fiction. Often set in an alternative history of, say, Victorian-era Britain or the American “Wild West,” these stories usually involve anachronistic technologies, retro-futuristic inventions, and massive, steampowered machines.

The founding fathers of this subgenre were authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Authors of the late 19th century who took then-modern devices like airships and submarines and reimagined them being powered by steam.

Picture 19th-century London. It’s night time. Gas lamps hanging from doorways puncture the rolling fog, become flickering beacons in the quiet blackness. A sharp, shrill metallic noise shrieks in the distance. Out of the fog emerges a giant copper clockwork tank with legs like a spider.

Above it, a flying pirate airship unleashes shots from the brass cannons poking out along its starboard side.

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Picture this, and you’ll begin to get an idea of what steampunk fiction is like.

These days, though, steampunk is much more than just a literary sub-genre. It’s now a subculture of sorts. Take a look around, and you’ll see it.

You’ll see the aesthetic represented in films like Wild, Wild West and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. You’ll see it in comics like Fullmetal Alchemist and Warren Ellis’ Ignition City. You’ll see it in video games and fashion and music and interior design.

“In the last few years, steampunk has been starting to seep into the mainstream as a fad,” says Trafananko. “But the thing is, it’s seeped into more than just movies and high-end fashion. It’s slowly getting to a point where you may see a new style emerge from all this. Something different, that we haven’t really seen before.”

Some people get involved in the steampunk subculture because they’re drawn to the Victorian era, some because they like the idea of reimagined technology. Others get involvevd because they like the aesthetic of steampunk culture — the corsets, top hats, frock coats, goggles, etc.

For Trafananko, what drew him to the steampunk community is best described in the Abney Park song “Steampunk Revolution.”

It begins with the lines, “We’re tired of all your so-called evolution / We’ve darted back to 1886 / Don’t ask us why; that’s how we get our kicks.” That’s when the chorus kicks in. “Out with the new / In with the old,” they sing. “Out with the new / In with the old.”

And that’s precisely why steampunk culture appeals to Trafananko.

“The idea of getting rid of the new and bringing back the old, there’s something about that,” he says. “What drew me to steampunk was that it is very much DIY. I really fell in love with the idea of having a device or a pair of gloves or an article of clothing or a bicycle, and you know that you have an item that’s one of a kind. Either

that, or there are only a couple of others like it. Nowadays, there’s not much unique anymore. You go to a store, you buy a couch. You know a thousand other people have that exact same couch — if you get what I mean. Everything is so overproduced now. Back then, you’d have people building your furniture for you. You’d have something unique, one of a kind. That’s what it means to me. So yeah … out with the new, in with the old. It’s about getting back to a style where things are made with care instead of being mass produced.”

But the steampunk movement is also about passion. It’s about recapturing the way the Victorians strived for better technology, strived to explore the world, strived for medical breakthroughs and celebrated them when they happened — even if the breakthroughs shattered their world views. There was an excitement in the air. An excitement that’s been replaced by a modern malaise, a cloud of empathy and ennui that threatens to engulf our times.

That’s one of the underlying currents upon which the steampunk movement floats. It’s not about bringing back the Victorian era. It’s

Photo: Courtesy of pile of bones steampunk society

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about reimagining it, reinventing it, reinvigorating the passions that drove it — one fan expo, one parade, one parasol duel at a time.

@VerbSaskatoon ahawboldt@verbnews.com

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Fencing master

Claude Seguin and fencing in Saskatchewan by ADAM HAWBOLDT

Photo: courtesy of Sylvain Sechet Continued on next page Âť

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T

here’s passion in Claude Seguin’s voice. A certain joie de vivre that bubbles to the surface every now and then in conversation. It’s there when he talks about today’s youth or when he remembers driving through Europe. It’s there when he tells you about his wife, Lynn, and how she was the modern pentathlon World Champion in 1983. And it’s there when he talks about fencing.

Especially when he starts talking about fencing.

What drew Seguin to the sport is hard to pinpoint, exactly. Part of it was the physical aspect of fencing. He was also intrigued with its artistry and its strategy. Then there was the whole romanticized vision he had of sword fighting, a vision that was fueled by movies and stories.

Whatever it was, when an amateur fencing coach showed up in his hometown of Sudbury, Ontario, Seguin went to see what it was all about firsthand.

That was more than forty years ago.

Flash forward to 2014, and Seguin’s name has become synonymous with fencing in Saskatchewan.

In 1979 Seguin became the head coach of the Saskatoon Fencing Club, and the provincial coach of the Saskatchewan Fencing Association. Since then he has coached numerous provincial and national teams. He guided his son, Jean-Pierre, to a world championship in 2002, prepared Allan Francis for the 1992 Olympics, taught the likes of National Women’s Foil team member Lavinia Surdu, and Junior National team member Tarsch Bakos.

Seguin was also the first Canadian to achieve the title of Fencing Master.

“I worked with very experienced people to get ready for the master’s diploma,” says Seguin. “I spent three months in Vancouver. I was in the gym six days a week learning from this Polish coach. He was a guy who used to be Poland’s national team coach and he’d gotten to a stage in his career where he was teaching coaches how to coach.”

It’s a stage that, nowadays, Seguin knows well.

“The key to fencing is simple,” says Seguin. “You want to hit and not get hit.”

He pauses for a moment and chuckles.

“Trouble is, it takes a long time to learn how to do that. A really long time.

People see these athletes fencing in the Olympics and they think, ‘Oh I want to do that.’ But what they don’t realize is that it takes years and years to get to that point. Ten thousand hours of training, it takes at least that much to get to that level. W-O-R-K. That’s the bottom line. Some people look for the easy way out. There is none.”

Listening to Seguin talk about fencing is like listening to a Hanshi talk about martial arts. There’s a wisdom in his words. A gravity and intelligence that elevates fencing above the level of mere sport. Of course, Seguin talks about the technical aspects of it all — about attacking and feinting, about lunges and parries and ripostes. But in the same breath he’s quick to remind you that fencing is about much more than technique. That it’s something akin to physical chess. A sport that requires keen intelligence, raw intuition, cunning, mental fortitude, and vigour.

“Yes, it’s a lot of sweat and hard work, but it also takes a lot of study and a lot of knowledge,” he explains. “You have to know about everything from psychology to anatomy to physical science … There is also a philosophy to it. You have to understand tactics, strategy and human nature. It’s the fight game, so knowing human nature is very important.”

It’s also important to realize that fencing, in many ways, is like life. At it’s purest, fencing is an art form that rewards the smartest, best prepared competitors with tremendous success.

Those who don’t prepare, who don’t work hard or use their heads — well, they run into trouble.

“It’s basically a microcosm of life,” says Seguin. “What you need on the fencing strip you need in life. The same attributes apply if you want to be successful. I’m not talking about monetary success, but about being a quality individual, a person of good character. On the piste, like in life, you have to keep going. Keep going through the ups and downs. When you fall down you have to get up, dust yourself off, keep going. Nothing in fencing comes easy. You have to work to get it. Just like in life.”

to go to waste when he’s gone so he’s become a coach of coaches, trying to pass his knowledge down to the next generation so they, in turn, can pass it to the generation after that — and so on.

“I’m getting older,” says Seguin with a mock sigh. “I’m starting to slow down a bit. So now I’m concen-

trating on life after Claude. I’m working to build coaches. That’s what I’m doing until I walk away.”

Until then, though, Seguin will continue putting in the work, continue coaching high level fencers and groom up-and-coming coaches, continue to teach and impart his wisdom with passion. It’s still there,

the passion, after all these years.

Burning as bright and as strong as it ever has.

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbSaskatoon ahawboldt@verbnews.com

Now in the twilight of his career, Claude Seguin’s legacy is firmly established. But he doesn’t want all the work he’s put in over the years

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Bring on the Idaho stop Allowing cyclists to roll through stop signs is safer for everyone

H

ere’s the scenario: you’re driving down the street, approaching a stop sign. There’s a cyclist to your right. You have one eye on the stop sign, the other on the bike and the person attached to it, and that’s when you see it: instead of coming to a complete stop, the cyclist slows down, sees there is no oncoming traffic or pedestrians, then rolls through the stop sign and pedals through the intersection.

Chances are that if you’ve been driving in this city you’ve seen this happen (or perhaps if you’ve been biking in this city you’ve done it). And as a driver, it might have raised your ire. After all, you just watched a biker break the law.

We think that’s wrong — not that the biker rolled through the stop sign, but that doing so is illegal. The move is called the Idaho stop (because the state has permitted cyclists to do this since 1982), and a handful of other places in the United States also follow suit. And we think it’s high time Saskatoon got on board.

Here’s how it works: when approaching stop signs, cyclists first need to slow down and look for traffic. If another cyclist, a pedestrian or a car is already at the stop sign, those people have the right-away. If there’s nothing, then the cyclist can slow down and proceed through the stop sign without coming to a complete

stop first — stop signs become yield signs for bicyclists.

When it comes to red lights, there’s a whole different set of protocol.

Cyclists need to come to a complete stop here, but if there is no oncoming traffic or pedestrians, they are then allowed to proceed with caution through the intersection (in this scenario, a red traffic light would function like a stop sign).

And while a new measure like this may inspire resentment amongst drivers, allowing for an Idaho stop would not only make traffic flow better, but it would also make the roads safer for everyone.

Think about it. Unlike cars, getting a bike started from a standstill requires a lot of energy, but once it gets going momentum carries it forward. In 2001, a physics professor named Joel Farjans conducted an experiment. He biked down a street with a lot of stop signs and another without stop signs. On the stop sign-filled street he averaged a speed of 10.9 miles per hour; on the street with no stop signs, he could ride about 30 percent faster.

How does this relate to the Idaho stop? Well, typically faster moving corridors in our city don’t have stop signs, but they also don’t have room for cyclists. So if we make riding through stop sign-filled streets (typically those that are set a block or so off the main drag) more convenient for bikers, then the flow of traffic isn’t

impeded in the busier thoroughfares.

Furthermore, allowing for Idaho stops, particularly at red lights on busy intersections, would permit cyclists to get out in front of traffic, and make them more visible. All of which makes the roads safer for everyone involved.

And speaking of safety, permitting Idaho stops actually makes bicycling about town much safer. In a study conducted by public health researcher Jason Meggs, researchers discovered that when the Idaho stop was made legal in 1982, the number of cyclist accidents dropped. What’s more, in recent years, data has shown that in Sacramento and Bakersfield — two cities of comparable size that don’t allow the Idaho stop — bicycle accidents were 30.5 percent and 150 percent more likely, respectively, than in Idaho.

So what are we waiting for, Saskatoon? It’s time we legalize the Idaho stop, and make the roads safer for all our commuters, no matter their mode of transportation.

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 more bike lanes in Saskatoon. Here's what you had to say:

– Our city absolutely needs more bike lanes, and hopefully more and more people will start to use them. I would also like to see vehicles be more aware of bikers and treat them with respect. I try to be a considerate biker - going as fast as I can through intersections and staying in the far right lane. I wish more vehicles tried to be considerate as well! We are all dodging potholes out there, so please don’t cut me off!

– Yes! To more bike lanes. So many places without bus routes, plus

– Dear Verb I liked your bike lane article. What do you think about us getting those rent-a-bike like they do in Montreal and other big centers? It would be so good for our city to encourage those that don’t have a bike to get out there.

Thanks :D

text yo thoughtsur to 881 ve r b 8372

more and more people can’t afford a car anymore. The cooler the city, the more biking you see around.

– Do those who ride a bike on sidewalk risk injuring a pedestrian if they ride with care?

– I agree with more bike lanes! I have to drive to work (I have to bring equipment back and forth every day that would be impossible on a bike), and do my best to be as courteous as possible, but those poor cyclists simply have no space to safely do their thing.

They are trying, I know, but we should be encouraging more biking around the city, not making it more difficult.

playing field for all people with mental illness in this province.

You’ve got to talk about it and keep talking about it. Mental illness is here to stay but is usually a treatable disease just like other injuries...This is just an injury of sorts to your brain. I commend the author of this article for capturing this story so well. I hope everyone keeps talking and healing and feel they can come out of the dark secret many are hiding in. BRAVO to Jae Ford for speaking up..

– I’d love to bike to work from the east side to the north end but there is no f’ing way I’m biking along circle drive!

– I live in Stonebridge and drive to somewhere where I can bike because it’s pretty impossible to get out of there to any other part of the city safely while on a bike.

More bike lanes! And let’s make it easier to get from the large parts of the city to other ones.

In response to “Let’s talk about crazy,” Local,

more! I think the full day you spent on this one was well worth it. Great job!

In response to “Remembrance of things past,” Local, #289 (May 9, 2014)

SOUND OFF – Last Thursday Gormley was dissing Corner Gas; according to him in the New SK no one resembles any of the characters created by Butt. Heads up John many, many of your listeners are Oscar clones.

#290 (May 16, 2014)

– Great article on Jae Ford fighting mental illness stigma. Brave, honest, and powerful. Good on him!

OFF TOPIC

In response to “Let’s talk about crazy,” Local,

– Excellent article about Jae Ford! Thank you for helping to de stigmatize mental health illness.

Please continue doing so.

#290 (May 16, 2014)

– This note is for Adam Hawboldt. I just finished reading your Holocaust article, “Remembrance of Things Past” and I wanted to let you know what a great read it was.

The historical events that inspired the article are awful of course but a very interesting piece and very well written...and I’m picky about that kind of thing. It kept my interest piqued to the end and I wanted

In response to “Let’s talk about crazy,” Local, #290 (May 16, 2014)

– The article about Jae Ford “Let’s talk about Crazy” is indeed a fine example of what can happen when one individual steps up to the plate and tries to make a difference Mr. Ford has levelled the

– God is watching us from a distance.

Next week: What do you think about bringing the Idaho stop to SK? 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.

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Pop Crimes

Photos: courtesy of Janine Kropla

Winnipeg noise-rock band on the verge of a breakthrough by Alex J MacPherson

I

t didn’t occur to Stefan Braun that pop music and overwhelming feedback could coexist until he heard Sonic Youth’s “Silver Rocket.” Released in 1988, “Silver Rocket” begins as a fractious rock song before devolving into sonic chaos. The monumental bridge, which consists entirely of feedback and metallic guitar noises, was “the gateway drug” for Braun, who fronts the noisy rock outfit Pop Crimes. “There’s a giant noise part in there, but it’s such a poppy song,” he says. “I realized that yeah, you can write pop songs and

Crimes are clearly influenced by Sonic Youth, as well as a slew of other seminal alt-rock acts, but instead of contrasting melody and chaos, Braun and his bandmates mate them. The upshot is a sound vaguely reminiscent of Saskatoon stoner metal band Shooting Guns, albeit with singing. Pop Crimes’ latest releases feature riffs worthy of the titanic early seventies metal innovators and anxiety-inducing krautrock soundscapes punctuated by bloodied fingers and broken guitar strings. And while Braun says the band is still some months away

fill them with noise and it can still be interesting.” Since it emerged from a Winnipeg basement in 2012, Pop Crimes has released an EP and a pair of split 7-inch singles.

With each new release, Braun and his bandmates — guitarist Aaron Johnston, drummer Kevin Strang, and bassist Ken Prue — have gotten better at blending tidal waves of noise with straightforward pop and rock hooks. Their latest, a split 7-inch with the band Willower, is a morass of punishing detuned guitar riffs, fuzzed-out bass lines, and Braun’s ominous musings. Pop

from releasing its debut full-length, he and his bandmates are spending as much time as possible on the road, deploying savage rock riffs and soaring feedback for anyone who will listen.

Alex J MacPherson: How did you guys get started down this path?

Stefan Braun: We’ve been around in this incarnation for about three years. It was more of just a whatever basement

project for a long time. Then it started clicking after several member changes.

We’re on our third drummer and our second bass player at this point. Me and Aaron [Johnston], the other guitar player, have been working at this for a good couple years. There’s no exciting story behind how it got started. It was more just two guys playing guitars, who started buying amps and buying pedals and buying guitars — and the sound grew with whatever the hell we were doing.

AJM: Was there a moment when you realized that the band could become Continued on next page »

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something bigger than a basement project, or did that happen slowly?

of garbage, that makes it smell pretty good sometimes.

SB: Well, I’ve always wanted to tour.

Everybody else in the band has played in several other projects, but this is the only thing I’ve ever done. Once the band actually had a solid lineup, the only thing I wanted to do was tour. It’s kind of just a natural progression: this is what we want to do, and this is how you get yourself recognized. I mean, you have to put in the legwork: you have to go to all the nowhere towns and play to nobody, so you can impress that one person. Touring, if it works, is the best, and it’s all I ever want to do.

AJM: Listening to City/Head, it feels like your sound has changed dramatically over the last couple of years.

How would you characterize it?

SB: When we started, we were just a weird jam band, I think. On City/Head I had pedals, but for a very long time I was quite strict on no effects on my guitar. I wanted everything to be weird and jangly and straight. And then we slowly started adding distortion and things like that, and along with that came heavier songs, and a bit more

We’ve played with rappers and we’ve played with dance bands…

SB: Yeah. It’s a weird scene, because there’s all these bands and nobody sounds like each other, but we all play together. It’s this weird, mixed-up soup.

We’ve played with rappers and we’ve played with dance bands and we’ve played with noise projects and we’ve played with metal bands. It’s such a tight-knit scene that you can play with everybody, and everybody feeds off whatever is happening. There’s no distinct scene per se; it’s just a big mixture

AJM: Was moving toward these feedback and amp noise soundscapes a conscious decision, or did it happen gradually?

SB: We’ve been working on it. It definitely started with being loud and accidental feedback. It’s a hard thing to control, but once you actually get it going, it’s a whole different instrument.

Like, you’re not playing a guitar, you’re playing feedback, you’re playing noise.

It’s something that I don’t think we’ve ever come across, or managed to get across, on our recordings very well. But it’s something we’ve been working on.

wonders with his little computer. He’s trying to get into the producing thing, so this is a good avenue for him — to just play around with his own songs, experiment and try to make it sound as good as he can. I think we’ll probably re-record a couple things, but which ones I’m not really sure. We’ve got one show here in a couple weeks, then we’re on the road again. I think we’re probably going to head down to the States in the winter, and then get back

on the road and do another big one in the spring again.

Pop Crimes June 5 @ Vangelis Tavern $TBA Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

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AJM: One of the things I like about your music is these huge waves of sound. One is always threatening to consume the other, and I think that’s where a lot of the energy comes from.

stefan braun

AJM: What’s it like, being a part of the notoriously diverse Winnipeg music scene? Does the vibrancy help a band like Pop Crimes?

one of those things where, if you can mix it in with a basic pop structure, you can actually have people appreciate noise and weird soundscapes.

straightforward song structures, as opposed to the weird meandering that is the City/Head EP. AJM: Your more recent releases, like the split 7-inch with Willower, feel like a balance between pure noise and more conventional pop and rock structures.

SB: I love noise music. I will sit in front of my amp for hours on end, just feeding back, because I have nothing better to do. I love noise. I was at a show last night, and this band was playing.

They basically played a single note for probably forty-five minutes, and everybody left. But it was interesting: it’s

SB: Well, you can definitely get carried away with it. You can go from having four pop songs to having a forty-five minute album with a series of drones.

It’s a difficult balance between tasteful and just obnoxious.

AJM: I understand you’re going to be recording the band’s debut full-length this winter, right?

SB: We’re working on a bunch of new things. I think we’re going to probably start tracking and doing demos in our space for awhile. The Willower 7-inch, we just recorded that in our jam space. Aaron, our guitar player, he does

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Two Instances of Illumination The electrifying computer art of Yam Lau by Alex J MacPherson

Y

am Lau is not particularly interested in what an image appears as, or appears to be. But he is fascinated by the moment one actually appears. The moment of revelation, of declaration. This idea forms the basis of his latest exhibition, Inaugurations (Two Instances of Illumination). The two works in the show were created four years apart, but both “Room” and “Rehearsal” combine traditional video footage with computergenerated animation to create what Lau calls “a new kind of image.” These are both unique and generic; they are distinct, and also stand-ins for all images.

“There is an image of something, but what I’m after is how this image appears, this moment it comes to be, the first moment it makes itself seen.” says Lau, who works as a professor of painting at York University when he isn’t creating elaborate digital video installations. “It’s clear what it appears as.

I’m not hiding it. There’s no ambiguity in terms of the subject, what it appears as. It’s almost like a creation, when God says, ‘Let there be light,’ and there’s light. Light is prior to the world, because the world can’t appear without light. It’s a very critical moment that opens up a world, its appearance.”

In both works, the narrative is ultramundane. “Room” features Lau getting ready for bed in his Toronto apartment, “Rehearsal” is footage of a young woman crying in a dilapidated tenement. Lau agrees that “the everyday” has artistic merit, but chose banal footage with no real climax: a more dramatic narrative would have focused attention on itself, not the moment it appears. This moment is caused, or perhaps created, by the application of light. Midway through “Room,” Lau turns on the lamp in his bedroom, revealing the fullness of the image; a bolt of lightning produces the same effect in “Rehearsal.”

Photos: courtesy of paved arts

“It’s crucial to the image itself, any kind of image,” Lau says of light.

“Even a painting in a museum: you have to light it, you have to put light on it so it appears. And the appearance is prior to what it appears as. It could be a painting of a bowl of fruit or Jesus Christ, but it’s grounded in the fact that it appears. I want to come down to the very fundamental level of the image itself.”

Inaugurations, then, is not about any particular image or depiction or narrative. It is about the moment an image is introduced to the world, in this case with the application of light.

Lau refers to this phenomenon as an image declaring its own appearance.

“If you go back to the ‘Room,’ the earlier piece, when the light is turned on in the room, the small world of the room appears, it comes to be,” he says.

“That’s really not much different than ‘Let there be light’ from the creation story — the world appears. On a small scale, that is what I did in my room.”

The moment of appearance is important for artistic and ontological reasons. Most art exhibitions presuppose appearance: a work of art must appear before it can appear as anything, to anyone. By shifting the timeline, Lau transforms the moment of appearance into a shared experience. But Inaugurations is more than just an exploration of appearance.

The combination of fundamentally uninteresting yet deeply personal footage and the bizarre intimacy created by the three-dimensional computer models lends both “Room” and “Rehearsal” a voyeuristic quality.

There is something unsettling about peering into the lives of others. But Inaugurations plugs the gap between the public and the private, transforming the knowledge of isolation into a strange sort of stage show.

Lau’s exhibition also blurs the line between the real and the virtual. Unlike a painting, which can be physically manipulated, Lau’s constructions exist only as projections on walls or images suspended in monitors. On an even more fundamental level, everything in the exhibition can be rendered as lines of computer code — meaningless, and endless, strings of ones and zeroes. Lau says he is not particularly interested in conflating the real and the virtual — an alarming proposition under any circumstances. He is more interested in the points where they intersect. And in doing so, reinforcing the very human urge to observe, to look, and to see. “I want to create a sense of wonder that endures in the act of looking, so people take pleasure in looking,” he says. “I want to make a fresh kind of image that people will be drawn to look at.”

Inaugurations Through June 6 @ Paved Arts

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album reviews Reuben & The Dark — Funeral Sky Arts & Crafts, May 2014

BY ALEX J MACPHERSON At the end of The Myth Of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” Although Camus was writing about Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to endlessly roll a rock up a mountain, his words also apply to Funeral Sky, the sprawling debut from Calgary’s Reuben and the Dark.

The latest musical venture by singer-songwriter Reuben Bullock, Reuben and the Dark combines its frontman’s fondness for broad, searching lyrical ideas and a richly detailed musical backdrop. Drawing on elements of contemporary folk, pop, and rock, Funeral Sky is ambitious and anthemic.

Bright guitars, sombre harmonies, driving drums, and atmospheric synths

combine to create a sonic palette that is cinematic in scope.

The epic quality of the arrangements on Funeral Sky is echoed in Bullock’s lyrics, which reflects his raw talent. Funeral Sky is fundamentally an album about big ideas: doubt and despair, redemption and salvation. Like Sisyphus, Bullock finds meaning in his willingness to embrace the act of living, in all of its futility.

In “Devil’s Time,” he turns his back on a Faustian pact, opting instead to “go wherever the wind blows / Because if I’m gonna die, I want to die an old ghost.” The stirring piano ballad “Standing Still” finds him running away, yet unable to “escape this feeling of standing still.” The gentle synthesizers and echoing drums of “Black Water” heighten the effect of his admission that, “I found grace in the black water, bathe my soul / And tell my heart, I told you so.”

There are some less orchestral moments, too. “Can’t See The Light” comes perilously close to straightforward rock and roll. The title track is nothing more than a two-minute expanse of brooding synthesizers and dissonant studio sounds. These moments are jarring, but not unwelcome.

Ultimately, Funeral Sky is still the closest Bullock has ever come to realizing his musical vision. On “Bow And Arrow,” which features sparkling guitars and Fleet Foxes-style harmonies, he exposes himself as a dreamer, a spiritual being trapped in an earthly body: “When the rain washes away who you are / We go over the mountains and under the stars.” But, like Sisyphus, he can do nothing but embrace every second of his own reality. And, after making Funeral Sky, one must imagine him happy.

Human Human — Run 1989 records, April 2014

BY ALEX J MACPHERSON For a dance rock record originating in Montreal, Human Human’s debut is refreshingly uncomplicated, and unpretentious.

Released in a digital-only format last month, Run is propelled by an impressive array of groovy synthesizers and tasteful guitar flourishes.

Although it was released as a digital download code embedded in a seventy-two-page magazine, the songs don’t need a marketing ploy to sustain themselves. The magazine is nice, but only the songs matter. And they are big and ambitious and immediate.

Human Human began generating attention last year, after releasing an EP produced by Jace Lasek of the Besnard Lakes. These four tracks form the backbone of Run. “Forest” takes its time unfolding into a soaring rock

song, complete with layered synths and brooding background vocals of the “ah-ah” variety. “City” consists of a single verse submerged in a sea of celebratory synths, “Home” an eightiesinspired dance groove dominated by frontman Felix Roy’s languid musings on life and love: “I’m only living for my good friends / And maybe for this little girl that I like.”

The best of the original four songs is “Control,” mostly because it is also the fastest. This is important: none of the new tracks on Run are objectively bad but they tend to blur together.

This is because Human Human spend altogether too much time experimenting with mid-tempo dance grooves.

The upshot is that the outliers shine.

The best tracks on the album are “Run,” which features a propulsive guitar riff, and the spritely shuffle “Woods,” which happens to include one of Roy’s standout vocal performances. Both are fast, and both are loads of fun.

The inevitable result is that Run is best enjoyed in two sittings. Its sonic palette is not boring, but the band struggles to escape the parameters it set for itself. Almost all of the individual songs find Human Human displaying their talent for crafting catchy grooves, as well as the depth of their pop playbook. But as a whole, Run doesn’t feel like the lively pop album it could be, or perhaps should be. Still, for a debut made by four high school friends from Montreal, the record offers more than enough in the way of consistent hooks and sparkling textures to justify itself, with or without a magazine. But get the magazine anyway: it’s pretty cool.

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Photo: courtesy of Marc Rimmer Continued on next page Âť

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Difficult Beauty

Chad VanGaalen pushes convention to the breaking point on his new LP Shrink Dust by Alex J MacPherson

L

ast month, Chad VanGaalen released Shrink Dust, his fifth album under his own name. A patchwork of folk, pop, and country influences, the Calgary singer-songwriter’s latest album infuses traditional song structures with the difficult beauty that characterizes much of his art.

Some critics have suggested it may be his best album yet. But VanGaalen has never been able to acclimatize himself to making music, or even feel comfortable with its most basic conventions. Shrink Dust may very well be his finest achievement to date, but making it was anything but easy for him.

“I’ve never really been that comfortable making music in general,” VanGaalen says, explaining that he is much more interested in music’s “architectural” aspects, meaning production and sound design. (He has produced several acclaimed records, notably Women’s 2010 sophomore album, Public Strain.) “Songs have become fairly abstract to me at this point,” he continues. “Three-and-ahalf to six-and-a-half minutes is the accepted format for a song-song. It just seems strange, in my mind, to imagine how that works anymore.

I thought in 2014 people would be listening to whale music constantly.

But it’s still rock and roll, or dance über-disco or whatever.”

Shrink Dust does not contain whale music, or any other animal sounds.

In some respects, it is actually one of the more straightforward records VanGaalen has ever made. Cover art notwithstanding, Shrink Dust lacks the ostentatious weirdness that made its predecessor, 2011’s Diaper Island, difficult to embrace. Of course, Shrink Dust is still a product of VanGaalen’s unusually fertile mind. He recorded it in his home studio, which he christened Yoko Eno, and worked hard to create an atmosphere free from artifice.

“I look at all of the songs I have recorded, and then I pick out the ones that are the least contrived,” he says, explaining that the songs on Shrink Dust were culled from a much larger

pool of material, which he spent the best part of two years writing and refining. “With me as one person recording it, it can start sounding really contrived really easily because I have to do a fair amount of planning. For me to maintain any sort of spontaneity is the most important thing. If it starts to hang a little bit too long in the studio then I cut it.”

The result is a collection of songs that explore VanGaalen’s many musical interests. “Leaning On Bells” is an intoxicating garage rock anthem, complete with a gloriously unhinged two-note guitar solo. “Cut Off My Hands” is a delicate acoustic guitar ballad, an ideal showcase for VanGaalen’s delicate voice; “Frozen Paradise” a reverb-soaked ballad that unfolds into a synth-driven rock jam.

Shrink Dust has been promoted as a “country record,” but the influence of Gram Parsons’ “cosmic American

ing what he calls “found sounds.” In addition to the usual complement of guitars, synthesizers, and drums, Shrink Dust features unusual percussion, a homemade clarinet, and plenty of other dissonant noises. “The thing that I like about that,” he says, “is if you throw one or two elements in it — they don’t have to be massive: it could just be hitting the side of your house with a drumstick or something like that — it’s some sort of found sound that’s going to kind of govern the song a little bit, and take it in a new direction, and even add a little bit of tension in there as well.”

But the songs on Shrink Dust are linked by more than just VanGaalen’s desire to explore the outer edges of mainstream acceptability. They are also linked by the way he thinks about writing lyrics. “I am more of a visual thinker,” he explains, referring to his background as a visual artist, illustra-

I’m way more … at home behind the tape deck. chad vangaalen Photo: courtesy of Marc Rimmer

music” is limited to a few pedal steel licks — VanGaalen spent the last two years teaching himself how to play the notoriously difficult instrument — and a pair of straightforward weepers, “Hangman’s Son” and “Cosmic Destroyer.” The most infectious tracks on the record, “Monster” and “Lila,” feature bright acoustic guitars, plenty of ambient noise, and memorable vocal hooks — and both are as close as VanGaalen seems willing to get to straightforward folk pop.

All of the songs on Shrink Dust were born from the same basic musical tradition. Yet VanGaalen wants to explore musical ideas that fall outside standard pop and rock conventions. He does this by injecting familiar architecture with unfamiliar elements, includ-

tor, and animator. “I have problems conveying what I’m thinking, emotionally, with words, so I try and create these visual maps.”

This is evident on tracks like “Weird Love,” which opens with a series of jarring drones before settling into a ragged folk groove: “Raised from seed / I feel it when I’m breathing / I love to see you swimming with the wind / Distracted mind is looking for a reason / So baby let your hair hang down,” VanGaalen moans before launching into the chorus: “Ooooh weird love / Cross-hatched dreams where the plants are all talking / Ooooh weird love / The best it gets is when life starts screaming.”

This is a fairly typical example of VanGaalen’s ability to paint with

words, rather than using them to construct a linear story. In most of his songs, literal meaning is much less important than the images the lyrics conjure up. Most of the songs on Shrink Dust feel like a succession of images flashed on a screen rather than a coherent narrative. They feel more like abstract expressionist paintings than attempts at replicating the world with perfect clarity and detail. “Something like ‘Weird Love’ is sort of a general feeling,” VanGaalen explains, “and if I’m talking about death or mortality or something like that, I’m not trying to express myself directly. Songs that are pretty much linear stories are definitely fewer and further between for me these days” Later, he adds: “If you’re trying to dig into it for digging into its sake, it isn’t going to work.”

This does not imply the lyrics on Shrink Dust, or any of his earlier records, are meaningless; it merely suggests that VanGaalen isn’t particularly interested in writing lyrics that are obtuse or otherwise impenetrable.

Although he confesses to admiring “literary” songwriters like Leonard Cohen, VanGaalen says he doesn’t feel comfortable experimenting with that style of writing. Instead, he prefers to write songs that are “universally digestible,” lyrics he can “superimpose my own life onto.”

After thinking for a moment he laughs and says, “It’s almost like Raffi, as silly as that sounds. That sort of naïve quality is definitely what I’m trying to preserve. As much as I can, I try and keep my mind a blank slate. But it’s getting harder and harder.”

It is getting harder for the same reason most of the songs on Shrink Dust loop back toward the idea of mortality: VanGaalen is getting older. After more than a decade spent making music, his circumstances have changed dramatically. Most importantly, he is now a father to two young children. This development has changed the way he approaches writing and recording music. In the past, he would spend hours by himself in the studio, tinkering with instruments and microphones and all manner of strange musical parapher-

nalia. Now, his time is more valuable.

What was once a singular obsession has become an escape, a brief respite from the rigours of family life — and he seems to be enjoying it.

“I used to faff around, and now I’m a lot more focused,” he says with a laugh, adding that he is constantly aware of the fact that free time is a finite resource. “When I do have the time, I’m a lot more focused and determined to get something done, whereas [in the past] I may have sort of let myself run astray from what my original intention was.” Strangely, though, he doesn’t seem to miss the long days and nights of toiling in the studio: like most dads, he thinks going for a bike ride with his kids is way more fun than “f**king around on a synthesizer.” After laughing to himself he adds, “I’ve already done that for fifteen years.”

At the same time, the allure of writing and recording music is difficult for him to ignore. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never been a performing musician,” he says. “I still don’t really consider myself a performing musician.

I’m way more of a studio guy. And way more at home behind the tape deck than I am behind the guitar, or even microphones for that matter.” But after more than a decade spent writing and recording, VanGaalen has honed in on a sound that is both novel and deeply compelling. Shrink Dust could not have sprung from any mind but his own, and its rawness and beauty suggests that VanGaalen is getting better with each passing year. Even if he’s still not entirely comfortable doing it. “I’ve found a pretty strange way around a lot of things,” he says, “and it’s because I’ve had a lot of time to sort of work out those bugs in my own way.”

Chad VanGaalen June 7 @ Amigos $15 @ Ticketedge.ca Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

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Bourbon and chicken

Steps Lounge, and the “Kentucky Bourbon Experience” by adam hawboldt

S

teps Lounge is a laidback little place with low-lit atmosphere. The kind of place you’ll see people having business drinks, travellers unwinding, or locals meeting up after a hard day’s work.

Soon as you walk through the doors and down the ramp, the first thing you notice is the décor: comfy

On the table, there’s a flip sign that says “The Kentucky Bourbon Experience.” A special at Steps on Thursdays, the bourbon experience consists of three samplers of bourbon. Pick any three off the menu (regardless of cost), give your server $10, and get ready to enjoy flavour country.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not bourbon connoisseur, but I do know a good bourbon when I taste one, and let me tell you, there are some pretty good selections at Steps Lounge. You have the standards, familiar names like Jim Bean, Wild Turkey, and Jack Daniels. Then there are the higherend selections, like Maker’s 46, and popular bourbons, like Knob Creek and Maker’s Mark. There are even two “only available at Steps” selections — Eagle Rare and Four Roses.

I ordered both of those along with a Maker’s 46, then turned to the menu. The first thing that grabbed my attention is the chili

red chairs, brown tables, wood paneling, and a tiered seating plan.

It looks like the kind of place Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack might once have visited.

It was a Thursday, a few minutes after 3pm (and a few seconds after Steps opened) when I arrive. The soft strain of music filled the room as I took a seat close to the window.

let’s go drinkin’ Verb’s mixology guide SCOFFLAW

INGREDIENTS

If drinking bourbon neat or on the rocks isn’t your thing, why not give this cocktail a try? It was created during Prohibition and still packs a punch after all these years.

2 oz bourbon 1 oz dry vermouth .25 oz fresh lemon juice .5 oz grenadine 2 dashes orange bitters

DIRECTIONS

Fill a shaker with ice. Add the bourbon, vermouth, lemon juice, grenadine and bitters. Shake well, until frosty. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and serve.

lime chicken, so I ordered that, then decided to toss in an order of chicken wings for good measure.

Made up of tempura-battered chicken breast cooked in a sweet chili lime sauce and served over a bed of crisp chow mein noodles and julienned vegetables, the chili lime chicken at Steps was as delectable as it was sweet and spicy. In fact, this dish featured such a kick that you might, in fact, want to order a glass of water with it and not try to temper the heat by taking a slosh of bourbon like I did. Bad idea.

As for the wings, they came in a variety of flavors and were presented in a metal conical serving apparatus that is really quite cool. I went with the tangy Mediterranean wings, which featured a fresh-tasting combo of lemon and oregano flavours — delicious.

I followed my meal with a few more samples of bourbon — suffice it to say my experience at Steps was a resounding success.

Steps Lounge 90 22nd Street East | (306) 667 5300 Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

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Next Week

coming up

Castle River

The Gay Nineties

Dierks Bentley

@ Amigos Cantina Friday, May 30 – Cover TBD

@ Vangelis tavern Saturday, June 7 – Cover TBD

@ Craven Country Jamboree Saturday, July 12 – $199

One of the first things you’ll notice when you see Castle River on stage is the chemistry. It’s there, front and centre — and for good reason.

Billy Rivers and Matt Castle, the two gents who comprise the Saskatoon alt-rock/folk duo have been playing together for quite some time. They started making music in bands when they were kids, and have since spent countless hours together, working on their music as a duo. All that time together has paid off in a big way, resulting in a sound marked by excellent harmonies and unexpected rhythms. It’s a sound that electrifies crowds and leads acts like Zeus, Reignwolf and Foam Lake to ask the duo to share the stage with them.

They’ll be headlining a show next week at Amigos; tickets at the door.

In a historical sense, the Gay Nineties refers to the decade of the 1890s.

An era marked by social scandals, decadent art and the suffrage movement. In a music sense, it’s the name of a rock quartet from Vancouver that delivers inspired, explosive performances. Consisting of Parker Bossley (vocals/guitar), Daniel Knowlton (bass/ vocals), Malcolm Holt (drums) and Bruce Ledingham (keys), The Gay Nineties burst on the scene with an EP, toured with the Walkmen, and brought their soulful brand of rock and roll to venues across the country. Recently they’ve been in the studio working on their first full-length album (to be released later this summer) that’s full of tasteful harmonies, vintage synth sounds and rock music reminiscent of The Zombies. Tickets at the door.

With the release of his 2003 self-titled album, Dierks Bentley exploded onto the country music scene. His first single, “What Was I Thinkin,’” hit #1 on the Billboard Hot Country charts and the album went platinum. So did his next record, Modern Day Drifter. Released in 2005, MDD featured the hit singles “Settle for a Slowdown” and “Come a Little Closer.

Since then, the musician from Arizona has stayed busy, releasing six albums that spawned 18 charted singles — 11 of which peaked at #1. His latest album, Riser — written a year after his father’s death —is by far his most personal to date, touching on topics such as loss and change and growth. This must-see for serious country fans will be headlining Saturday’s line-up at the Craven Country Jamboree. Tickets available at www. cravencountryjamboree.com.

– By Adam Hawboldt

Photo courtesy of: the artist/ the artist/ the artist

Sask music Preview Have you played or sang on an album that’s been released in the past 50 years? File for your MROC royalties! It’s really simple and will ensure you don’t miss out on money that may be waiting for you! You don’t have to be the songwriter or “artist” to register! This relatively new Canadian royalty recognizes the contribution of players and vocalists in the creation of sound recordings. If you are heard on a sound recording released in the last 50 years, MROC may have royalties for you. For more information visit www.musiciansrights.org.

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Piano Fridays: Dennis Borycki / The Bassment — Feel like taking in some smooth jazz stylings? 4:30pm / No cover Ryan Boldt / The Bassment — Deep Dark Wood’s frontman going solo. 9pm / $17+ Flashback Fridays / Béily’s — The best of the ‘80s, ‘90s & more. 9pm / $5 cover RipperTrain / Buds — A local rock/altmetal band. 9pm / Cover TBD Daisy Blue Groff / Capitol Music Club — With DJ Brother Earth. 9pm / Cover TBD 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 Big Ayyy & DJ HENCHMAN / Outlaws — Round up your friends. 8pm / $5; ladies in free before 11pm The Standards Trio / Prairie Ink — A talented jazz trio. 8pm / No cover

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

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Friday 23

House DJs / 6Twelve Lounge — Funk, soul & lounge DJs liven it up. 9pm / No cover Savage Henry and the Infamous One Pounders / Amigos Cantina — With Herd of Wasters. 10pm / Cover TBD

DJ Stikman / Rain — Come and get your weekend started! 9pm / Cover TBD Band Wars X / Rock Bottom — With the Patch and more. 9pm / Cover TBD Blue Collar / Somewhere Else — Good ol’ fashioned drinking tunes. 9pm / No cover Evening Shift / Stan’s Place — Come out for a rockin’ good time. 9pm / No cover

Saturday 24

House DJs / 6Twelve — Resident DJs spin deep and soulful tunes. 9pm / No cover Ride ‘til Dawn / Amigos — With Unquiet Souls. 10pm / Cover TBD Oliver Jones / The Bassment — A Junowinning jazz pianist. 8pm / $40+ DJ Aash Money + DJ Sugar Daddy / Béily’s — These two throw it down. 9pm / $5 Bass Invaders / Bon Temps — A local band rocks out. 9pm / Cover TBD RipperTrain / Buds — A local rock/altmetal band. 9pm / Cover TBD Long Walk Short Dock / Capitol — Electronic tunes from BC. 9pm / Cover TBD 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 Goodtimes / Longbranch — Playing the hottest country music. 8pm / $4 cover DJ Big Ayyy & DJ Henchman / Outlaws — Round up your friends. 8pm / $5 No Hurry Trio / Prairie Ink — Playing easy listening and classic rock. 8pm / No cover DJ Stikman / Rain — Playing all the ladies’ favourites for girls night out! 9pm / Cover TBD The Pistolwhips / Rock Bottom — Rock your Saturday night! 9pm / Cover TBD Blue Collar / Somewhere Else Pub — Playing good, ol’ fashion drinking tunes.

9pm / No cover Evening Shift / Stan’s Place — Come out for a rockin’ good time. 9pm / No cover DJ Anchor / Sutherland Bar — It’s the world famous video mix show! 10pm / Cover TBD The Department Heads / Underground Cafe — With special guest, John Stewart.

9pm / Cover TBD Foam Lake / Vangelis — With Robot Hive.

10pm / Cover TBD

Sunday 25

Sparky / Amigos Cantina — With The Great Sabatini and A Ghost In Drag. 10pm / Cover TBD Industry Night / Béily’s UltraLounge — Hosted by DJ Sugar Daddy; this crowd favourite has always been known to break the latest and greatest tracks in multiple genres.

9pm / $4; no cover for industry staff

Marc Holt Quintet / Bon Temps Cafe — A local jazz saxophonist and his band. 9pm / Cover TBD Acoustic Night / Buds — With Shane Volk. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ KADE / The Hose — Saskatoon DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover Blues Jam / Vangelis Tavern — The Vangelis Sunday Jam is an institution, offering great tunes from blues to rock and beyond.

7:30pm / No cover

Monday 26

The Rockies / Buds — Rock music from Kelowna, B.C. 9pm / Cover TBD Bill Anderson / Dakota Dunes — Country music from south of the border. 8pm / $25 DJ Audio / Dublins — Spinning dope beats.

9pm / Cover TBD Daniel O’Donnell / TCU Place — A beloved Irish crooner. 7pm / $52.75 (tcutickets. ca) Head of the Herd / Vangelis — With The Balconies and The Damn Truth. 9pm / $10 (ticketedge.ca)

Tuesday 27

The Rockies / Buds — Rock music from Kelowna, B.C. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ SUGAR DADDY / The Double Deuce — Able to rock any party, this crowd favourite has always been known to break the latest and greatest tracks in multiple genres.

9:30pm / $4 cover DJ Nick Ruston / Dublins — Spinning dope beats. 9pm / Cover TBD Verb presents Open Mic / Rock Bottom — Come and rock the stage! 9pm / No cover Open Mic / The Somewhere Else Pub — Come out to show your talent. 7pm / No cover

Wednesday 28

DJ Modus / 302 Lounge & Discotheque — Spinning all your favourite tracks. 9pm / No cover until 10pm; $3 thereafter Salsa Night / Béily’s UltraLounge — Latin music and salsa dance lessons. 8:30pm / Cover TBD The Rockies / Buds — Rock music from Kelowna, B.C. 9pm / Cover TBD Jordan Klassen / Capitol Music Club — With Paul Kuzbik. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Memo / Dublins — Spinning dope beats.

9pm / Cover TBD DJ Kade / The Hose & Hydrant — Saskatoon DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover Buck Wild Wednesdays / Outlaws Country Rock Bar — Come out and ride the mechanical bull! 9pm / $4; no cover for industry staff Continued on next page »

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Thursday 29 Flat Black Plastic / Amigos — Charly Hustle and The Gaff. 10pm / Cover TBD Jazz Jam / The Bassment — Featuring The Kim Salkeld Trio. 8pm / No cover Big Bang Baby / Buds — A Stone Temple Pilots tribute. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Kade / The Hose — Saskatoon DJ lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover DJ Goodtimes / Longbranch — Playing the hottest country music. 8pm / $4 cover 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 Castle River / Amigos Cantina — With The Little Brothers. 10pm / Cover TBD Kim Salkeld / The Bassment — Feel like taking in some smooth jazz stylings?

4:30pm / No cover Back of the Bus, The Residuals / The Bassment — Local Celtic acts. 9pm / $17+ Flashback Fridays / Béily’s — The best of the ‘80s, ‘90s & more. 9pm / $5 cover Guy and the Fellas / Bon Temps — A local rockabilly/swing band. 9pm / Cover TBD Screamer / Buds — Local band playing classic rock. 9pm / Cover TBD 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 Big Ayyy & DJ HENCHMAN / Outlaws — Round up your friends. 8pm / $5; ladies in free before 11pm Jett Run / Piggy’s — Some good ol’ rock and roll. 9pm / Cover TBD Two Tall Dudes / Prairie Ink — Playing pop/acoustic tunes. 8pm / No cover DJ Stikman / Rain — Come and get your weekend started! 9pm / Cover TBD Where’s My Mullet / Somewhere Else — Good, ol’ fashioned tunes. 9pm / No cover Red Blaze / Stan’s Place — A rocking good night. 9pm / Cover TBD Life in a Vacuum / Underground Cafe — With Silent Era + more. 8pm / Cover TBD Powder Blue / Vangelis — With Devonian Gardens and Latcho Drom. 10pm / $12

DJ Aash Money + DJ Sugar Daddy / Béily’s — These two throw it down. 9pm / $5 Screamer / Buds — Local band playing classic rock. 9pm / Cover TBD Chad Reynolds / Capitol Music Club — With The Dead South. 9pm / Cover TBD 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 Goodtimes / Longbranch — Playing the hottest country music. 8pm / $4 cover Mazzfest / O’Brians — Featuring Slumlord + many more. 1:30pm / $25+ DJ Big Ayyy & DJ Henchman / Outlaws — Round up your friends. 8pm / $5 Jett Run / Piggy’s — Some good ol’ rock and roll. 9pm / Cover TBD Marc Holt Trio / Prairie Ink — Saxinfused jazz music. 8pm / No cover

DJ Stikman / Rain — Playing all the ladies’ favourites! 9pm / Cover TBD Where’s My Mullet / Somewhere Else — Get rocking! 9pm / No cover Red Blaze / Stan’s Place — A rocking good night. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Anchor / Sutherland Bar — It’s the world famous video mix show! 10pm / Cover TBD Silent Sea / Underground Cafe — Local indie rock band. 9pm / Cover TBD Towodo / Vangelis — With Subtle Like a T-Rex. 10pm / Cover TBD

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

Saturday 31

House DJs / 6Twelve — Resident DJs spin deep and soulful tunes. 9pm / No cover The Faps / Amigos Cantina — With guests, Old Towns. 10pm / Cover TBD Barrie Redford and Ross Ulmer Quintet / The Bassment -Two of the province’s most notes jazz musicians playing together.

8pm / $15/$20

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A return to glory

Photo: Courtesy of 20th century fox

After a few miscues, the X-Men franchise regains fine form in Days of Future Past by adam hawboldt

I

n 1981, Chris Claremont and John Byrne got together and took the Uncanny XMen somewhere they’d never been before — into a dystopian future.

The story lasted two issues (#141 and #142), and in them comic book lovers witnessed the X-Men at a crucial moment in history.

The year is 2013. The United States of America has been taken over by mutant-hunting robots known as Sentinels. Mutants that haven’t been killed are either locked in internment camps or are in hiding. Something has to be done, so Kitty Pryde transfers her mind back to her younger self — circa 1980 — and sets out to prevent a pivotal event that may or may not alter the future.

Those issues of the Uncanny X-Men were titled “Days of Future Past,” and as any comic-book fan will tell you, they were good. Really good.

send Wolverine’s mind back in time instead of sending Kitty Pryde’s (played by Ellen Page). This allows Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine (who is so often the central character) to do a lot of the film’s heavy lifting.

After a somewhat lumbering but much-needed expository start, Days of Future Past really gets rolling when

And you know what? The film that these issues inspired is pretty darn good, too.

Directed by Bryan Singer (who knows how to make the hell out of an X-Men film), X-Men: Days of Future Past follows the 1981 comic book storyline, but with a few changes. And they’re changes for the better.

…the real bread and butter of X-Men: Days of Future Past lies with the actors…

Adam Hawboldt

Wolverine’s conscience is telepathically sent back to his 1973 body.

There amongst the lava lamps and shag carpets, Wolverine — with help

Rather than getting embroiled in the nit-picky task of pointing out all the discrepancies, let’s just say that the biggest and best change was to

from the young versions of Xavier (James McAvoy), Beast (Nick Hoult), Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and one of the many new characters introduced, Quicksilver (Evan Peters) — sets out to prevent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from trying to assassinate the Sentinels creator, Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage.)

There are a lot of moving parts in this movie. A lot of different storylines and time jumps that somehow Singer and screenplay writer Simon Kinberg navigate with relative ease.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there are a lot of terrific action sequences and fight scenes. But the real bread and butter of X-Men: Days of Future Past lies with the actors, and the characters they thrust onto centre stage.

Jennifer Lawrence is given a lot more screen time to develop the character of Mystique (and rightfully so! She’s one of the finest

X-men: days of future past Bryan Singer Starring Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender + James McAvoy Directed by

131 minutes | PG

actresses out there today). Xavier (played by McAvoy and Patrick Stewart) is given an excellent story arc. And Wolverine’s back to the future storyline is terrific.

The result is, for my money, the best X-Men film in the franchise to date. A must-see movie if you’re into this kind of stuff.

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbSaskatoon ahawboldt@verbnews.com

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War and the Human Psyche The Railway Man is a harrowing tale of a man confronting his past by adam hawboldt

Photo: Courtesy of the weinstein company

J

onathan Teplitzky’s The Railway Man is about a lot of things. It’s about war, and lingering after-effects. It’s about love. It’s about honour and truth (or the lack thereof). It’s about revenge and forgiveness and coming to terms with your demons.

Based on a memoir, The Railway Man stars Colin Firth as Eric Lomax.

We first meet him in the 1980s. He’s a serious train enthusiast, the kind who can tell you makes and models, departure and arrival times. And it just so happens that, in the first act of the movie, he meets the beautiful Patti (Nicole Kidman) on a train. They fall in love and begin forging a life together.

Cut to the second act. Here we see Lomax sunk deep within himself, tinkering with trains to keep his mind busy, to keep him from thinking about certain other things. He is sad and moody and erratic. He is at a breaking point, but won’t tell Patti what’s bothering him.

So what does she do? She turns to his old war buddy, Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard), for the answers. What he tells her, she isn’t prepared for.

As we learn in flashbacks, Lomax and Finlay were two of the many British soldiers captured in the fall of Singapore during the Second World

War. Eventually, they were handed over to the Kempeitai (kind of the Japanese equivalent of the Gestapo), put in a labour camp, and forced to build the Burma-Thai railway.

It should be noted here that in the scenes from 1942, Lomax and Finlay aren’t played by Firth and Skarsgard.

Instead, that task is left up to relative newcomers Jeremy Irvine (Lomax) and Sam Reid (Finlay). And luckily for the film, both of these young actors do good jobs.

I say “luckily” because it’s during the flashback act that we come to the root of Lomax’s troubles. After an incident involving a radio, he’s ritualistically and repeatedly tortured by a Japanese officer named Nagase.

These scenes are hard to watch.

They are brutal, raw and violent, but through them we are able to get at a better understanding of the demons and disconnect Lomax deals with as an adult.

After the flashbacks, The Railway Man goes off in yet another direction.

Finlay finds out that Nagase is still alive. He tells Lomax, who sets out to confront his former tormentor. Does he go to him looking for revenge? For forgiveness? For something else entirely? Those are the questions you’ll be asking yourself as The Railway

the railway man Jonathan Teplitzky Starring Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman + Jeremy Irvine Directed by

116 minutes | 14A

Man transforms itself from a drama to a war flick to a gripping and tense thriller of sorts.

Though this structure can seem unbalanced at times (the wartime scenes are by far the most powerful of the lot), writers Andy Paterson and Frank Cottrell Boyce do a pretty good job of shifting the action back and forth across time periods without losing too much narrative steam.

And while The Railway Man may not be the best movie you’ll see this year, it remains a moving and powerful examination of war and its aftermath on the human psyche.

The Railway Man is playing at Roxy Theatre.

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbSaskatoon ahawboldt@verbnews.com

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Monday, May 19 @

Fox & Hounds

Fox & Hounds Pub & Brewery 7 Assiniboine Drive (306) 664 2233

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These photos will be uploaded to Facebook on Friday, May 30. facebook.com/verbsaskatoon

Photography by Patrick Carley

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Photography by Patrick Carley

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saturday, may 17 @

diva’s

Diva’s Nightclub 220 3rd Avenue South (306) 665 0100

Check out our Facebook page!

These photos will be uploaded to Facebook on Friday, May 30. facebook.com/verbsaskatoon

Photography by DillyBat Productions Continued on next page »

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

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timeout

crossword canadian criss-cross

sudoku answer key

1. Magnificent display 5. Air pollution 9. Playful prank 10. Diamond weight 12. Surgical thread 13. Hair colour 15. Singer Redding 16. Gangster’s girlfriend 18. Pool stick 19. Convent inhabitant 20. General feeling 21. Use your teeth 22. Dog with long ears 24. Basic Halloween costume 25. Deductive 27. Military unit

30. Fast 34. Lily relative 35. Short shot 36. Golf ball position 37. Louse egg 38. Count calories 39. Mountain lion 40. Avoids answering 42. Puts up with 44. Belches 45. Old Testament book 46. Farmers use it with oxen 47. Part furthest out

1. Green layer on copper 2. Piece of music 3. Sea in French 4. Title for a Canadian province leader 5. Climb to the top of 6. Heavy hammer 7. Sphere 8. Pampas cowboy 9. Prankster 11. Makes even 12. Daughters’ counterparts 14. Salamander 17. Not perpendicular 20. Bigwigs 21. Fashionable

23. Back of the neck 24. Supporter of the Liberal Party 26. DVD bonus 27. Walking aid 28. Green fruit 29. Traffic circle 31. Computer that has been badly put together 32. Lemon relatives 33. Affirmative votes 35. Ski run 38. Set of playing cards 39. Sonar echo 41. Twosome 43. An offer at an auction

A

B

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

DOWN

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

ACROSS

© walter D. Feener 2014

Horoscopes may 23 – may 29 Aries March 21–April 19

Leo July 23–August 22

Sagittarius November 23–December 21

Has it felt like you’ve been on an emotional roller coaster lately, Aries? Don’t worry! The ride will end soon, and all will return to normal.

In the coming days, it will be important to re-examine your opinions and beliefs. You may be surprised with what you come up with.

You may find things that normally come easily to you difficult this week, Sagittarius. Please don’t get too discouraged; all will sort itself out soon.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Virgo August 23–September 22

Capricorn December 22–January 19

Break out of the cocoon of your own little dream world and engage with life this week, Taurus. Me-time is fine, but make sure to get back out there.

Be sure to listen to your own judgement this week, Virgo.

It will not lead you astray if you have faith in it.

Don’t let your ego take control this week, Capricorn. If you do, the results could be disastrous. Take a beat, and listen to your heart instead.

Gemini May 21–June 20

Libra September 23–October 23

Aquarius January 20–February 19

There’s change in the air, Gemini.

And while this can be a good thing, keep a critical eye out — not all change is for the better.

For you, the key words this week are knowledge and learning. Do your best to better your mind, Libra. You’ll need to make some important choices soon.

Expect a small crisis, but a crisis no less, to crop up in the coming week, Aquarius. Don’t let it overwhelm you. You got this.

Cancer June 21–July 22

Scorpio October 24–November 22

Pisces February 20–March 20

Some trying times are on the horizon, Cancer, so batten down the hatches and get ready. Someone close to you can help, if you let them.

Be aware of your surroundings in the coming days, Scorpio. It’s important to settle certain matters that have lately been in limbo.

Take a good, long look at yourself in the mirror today, Pisces, and figure out what needs changing. It might hurt to realize this, but in the end it’s worth it.

sudoku

crossword answer key

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

A

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

B

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