Vue Weekly Issue 758 Apr 29 - May 5 2010 by Vue Weekly

INSIDE

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#758 â&#x20AC;˘ Apr 29 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; May 5, 2010

UP FRONT // 4/ 4 Vuepoint 5 Issues 6 Dyer Straight 7 ZeitGeist 10 Bob the Angry Flower

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DISH // 11/ 13 To the Pint

ARTS // 17/ 22 Prairie Artsters

FILM // 26 26 DVD Detective

MUSIC // 31/ 34 Enter Sandor 42 New Sounds 43 Old Sounds 43 Quickspins

BACK // 44

May Week: labour's divided movement

ARTS

MUSIC

44 Free Will Astrology 46 Queermonton 47 Alt.Sex.Column

EVENTS LISTINGS 23 Arts 29 Film 32 Music 45 Events

Good Women Dance Collective

Bob Wiseman

VUEWEEKLY.COM VUETUBE // The Famines

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2 // UP FRONT

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VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

UP FRONT // 3

EDITORIAL

// samantha@vueweekly.com

ecently the Democratic Renewal Project sent a letter to former NDP MLA David Eggen urging him not to run in Edmonton-Glenora. Eggen, who lost the Edmonton-Calder seat in the 2008 election, has declared his intention to gain the nomination in Edmonton-Glenora, a hotly contested riding decided by a narrow margin in the past three elections, is now held by PC MLA Heather Klimchuk. The DRP believes Eggen's high-profile candidacy will detract from an already nominated Liberal candidate. The DRP has been advocating the cooperation of the NDP and Liberals, in the form of each party agreeing to step aside in a riding where the other is seen to have greater support, the perceived end result being a greater number of seats for each the Liberals and the NDP, and the creation of a more substantial opposition against the Conservatives. A strong opposition is a sign of any healthy democracy—when a government can stand against or integrate the critiques of an opposition, a greater seg-

ment of the population is represented, a goal any democracy should set. It's just unfortunate the DRP sees the path of achieving this as removing choice from voters, not encouraging greater diversity. To their credit neither opposition party would ever accept this alternative due to their own ideological positions. Liberals are not New Democrats and New Democrats are not Liberals. And those differences are important to the democratic debate in our provice resulting in good policy. Voters should not be denied their ability to vote for the party that best represents them. What parties need to be looking at is why people aren't voting. Larry Booi narrowly missed winning Edmonton-Glenora in 2004, but in 2008, a fairly marginal NDP candidate ran against Liberal incumbant Bruce Miller and according to DRP theory, that should have meant Booi's votes would go to Miller, but they didn't. The problem is not with the number of candidates, it's with the way they're engaging citizens. Parties need look at why they're losing and how they can connect with citizens. The answer lies in greater diversity of representation, not loss of choice. V

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4 // UP FRONT

Zeit Geist

May Week

PREVUE // BEYOND THE BUBBLE

RON GARTH // ron@vueweekly.com EDEN MUNRO // eden@vueweekly.com BRYAN BIRTLES // bryan@vueweekly.com SAMANTHA POWER // samantha@vueweekly.com PAUL BLINOV // paul@vueweekly.com EDEN MUNRO // eden@vueweekly.com BRYAN BIRTLES // bryan@vueweekly.com JEREMY DERKSEN // snowzone@vueweekly.com Heather Skinner // skinner@vueweekly.com DavID Berry // david@vueweekly.com MICHAEL SIEK // mike@vueweekly.com CHELSEA BOOS // che@vueweekly.com PETE NGUYEN // pete@vueweekly.com LYLE BELL // lyle@vueweekly.com ROB BUTZ // butz@vueweekly.com GLENYS SWITZER // glenys@vueweekly.com

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A NEW ECONOMIC AGE

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t: 780.426.1996 F: 780.426.2889 E: office@vueweekly.com w: vueweekly.com Editor / Publisher MANAGING Editor associate mANAGING editor NEWS Editor Arts / Film Editor Music Editor Dish Editor Outdoor Adventure Editor EDITORIAL INTERN Staff writer creative services manager production ART DIRECTOR Senior graphic designer WEB/MULTIMEDIA MANAGER LISTINGS

Dyer Straight

GRASDAL'S VUE

Vuepoint Democracy is choice samantha power

INSIDE // FRONT

UP FRONT

he world is recovering from the largest economic crash since the Great Depression. With his new book, James Laxer argues the age of American-led globalization has ended, and the opportunity for new voices to be heard has begun. Laxer, economist and political science professor at York University, discusses his views on the Canada's role in developing a new, egalitarian economy. Laxer believes that this past world age, has for the most part since around the 1940s provided a fairly comfortable existence for most Canadians, but with the crash in 2008 Canada saw the greatest loss of jobs ever recorded in one month, and an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent nationally. With these numbers, Laxer believes the West has lost its hold and argues that the time is right for new

Letters

voices from across the world to be heard. But the question remains how Canada will position itself in this new economic age. Laxer poses questions—is now the time for the age of equality? Can we make an egalitarian economy work?— in Beyond the Bubble: Imagining a New Canadian Economy, bringing his experience as an economist and an author to explain the economic causes of the recession in plain language for all to understand and suggests opportunities for Canada to develop a new economy. V Wed, May 5 (7 pm) Beyond the Bubble Book Tour University of Alberta School of Business Building, Room 1-5 Free

TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES // Supplied

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VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

COMMENT >> UNIONS

Issues

Issues is a forum for individuals and organizations to comment on current events and broader issues of importance to the community. Their commentary is not necessarily the opinion of the organizations they represent or of Vue Weekly.

Awakening the labour giant

Alberta's democratic renewal requires unions to stand up and organize Ricardo Acuña // UALBERTA.CA/PARKLAND

It's May Day this weekend, and there is no better time than International Workers' Day to consider the current state of Alberta politics and their impact on Alberta's labour movement, or conversely, the state of Alberta's labour movement and its impact on Alberta politics. Before you run away or fall asleep, however, I want to make my case for why this matters. Historically in this province the well-funded, well-publicized voices of Calgary's energy industry elite, and their wealthy friends and colleagues around the province, have dominated public discussions about politics and policy. They fund think tanks, endow business schools and university chairs. The result of this has been the one-sided, ultra-right wing, no-alternative-is-possible public political discourse Albertans are so known for around the country. Within this context, there has only been one other sector in Alberta with the human and financial resources necessary to try to ensure that some different alternatives and options were finding their

way into the public discourse: the labour movement. Admittedly, in the last 50 years, Alberta's labour movement has not played the role that European or Latin American labour unions have been able to play in determining politics, but it must also be acknowledged that the concentration of economic and political powers in a small number of anti-union, anti-worker hands is greater in this province than in most other jurisdictions in the world. I was reminded by a local labour activist last week, however, that Alberta's labour movement has experienced some political success despite those odds. In particular, he reminded me of how the labour militancy of the 1980s (high profile, wellsupported strikes at Gainers, Canada Post and by Alberta's nurses, for example) contributed tremendously to the electoral success enjoyed by the New Democrats and Liberals in 1986 and 1989, and helped contribute to Don Getty’s ultimate retirement as Premier. Likewise, as Ralph Klein set out to attack public services in the mid 1990s, it was a massive response by Alberta's unions, who were able to rally massive public support,

that made him stop, time and time again, well short of the all-out privatization of public services he initially sought. To add insult to injury, throughout this entire period Klein carried out a massive communications campaign to demonize unions, unionized workers and public services—a campaign which echoed the anti-labour rantings of ultra-right groups like the Fraser Institute and the National Citizens Coalition and of the growing ranks of ultra-right radio talk show hosts. The communications efforts worked. Many Albertans, including many unionized Albertans, came to accept as fundamental undeniable truth the mantra that unions were bad and that unionized workers are lazy and opposed to hard work. Although many (but not all) unions continued to do the hard work of mobilizing resources politically, led by leaders who remembered the battles of the '80s and '90s, they had lost many members and many of the remaining front-line members had lost their appetite and support for political activism and militancy. At the same time they had lost a significant amount of public relevance and the ability to rally broad public support. Throughout

the period of the boom, the unions were able to effectively fulfil their function of negotiating good contracts that would ensure their members also benefitted from Alberta's boom, but they were largely unable to fulfil their political mandate in any significant way. Today, we are faced with a political moment not unlike that of 1993. A majority of Alberta parties and politicians are scrambling to adopt the policies that will garner the blessing and endorsement of Alberta's wealthy energy elite—the same policies that have rocketed Danielle Smith to prominence and that have Dave Taylor thinking he can do better than the Liberals. These are the same extreme, anti-labour, anti-public service, anti-government and anti-worker policies that Ralph Klein espoused 17 years ago. Alberta's labour movement has a critical role to play in helping to stop these policies from taking hold, but in order to do so effectively, it must first overcome two fundamental challenges that are the result of the last decade and a half. First, it has to deal with a membership that has largely disengaged from politics and, in

many instances, has come to accept as truth the anti-union, anti-government rhetoric of the neoliberal right. Secondly, it has to find a way to make itself relevant to the growing number of Albertans who don't see their values represented by any of the right-ward moving political entities in our province. These challenges imply a very different approach to mobilization than the traditional method of simply issuing press releases and organizing pickets and rallies. What is needed are policy and political proposals that reflect Albertans' core values—proposals that don't come from the mushy middle of status quo politics, but that present alternatives that are radically different from what is being proposed by everyone else. These proposals must not only come from the values of Albertans, but must be taken back to Albertans as part of a shop-floor-by-shop-floor, person-by-person, community-by-community campaign to re-engage workers, and Albertans in general, with politics and the public interest. Only then will we have the critical mass and engagement necessary to stop the coming attack on the public interest. That is the only way we will be able to generate the momentum necessary to build a radical new system and reality in this province. This May Day, let's stop talking about it and begin making it a reality. By this time next year, it may be too late. V

News Roundup workplace deaths

166 2008

MAY DAY OF MOURNING s May Day is celebrated around the world this week and the National Day of Mourning for Workers just passed, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has released a report stating federal workplace safety has fallen by five percent since 2007. Research assistant David McDonald believes that underfunding and understaffing of safety inspectors is to blame. "With its budget frozen, HRSDC has no additional resources to beef up inspections and keep Canadians safe. Workers, among others, will pay the price for indiscriminate budget freezes." The report "Success is no accident" states that

in 2006 – 07, only 16 percent of the very high risk workplaces received the requisite two visits a year and only 10 percent of high risk workplaces received their requisite one visit. A second report, "Canada's regulatory obstacle course", by CCPA economist Marc Lee posits the idea that this fall in workplace safety is not isolated, but a concerted weakening of federal regulatory process. In Alberta in 2009, the Workers' Compensation Board recorded 110 workplace deaths, down from 2008's 166. In March the Alberta government set a goal of reducing workplace injuries by 25 percent by 2012. V

SINKING IN TAILINGS s the Syncrude duck trial continues in court, the Alberta government has approved a new project which does not comply with environmental guidelines. The ERCB approved three plans from Syncrude, but it was Syncrude's plan for Mildred Lake and Aurora oil sands mines that did not meet Directive 074, which regulates the percentage of waste that must be captured.

"Despite the tough talk about cleaning up tailings, Alberta has accepted a plan from Syncrude that does not comply with its own rules to clean up tailings waste," says Joe Obad, interim executive director for Water Matters. The ERCB reports that tailings lakes have grown by 40 square kilometres in the past year to now cover 170 square kilometres (a volume of 840 billion litres.) —Samantha Power

JAWED LUDIN >> Afghan ambassador to Canada ROlE IN AFGHANISTAN s Speaker of Parliament, Peter Milliken, was handing down his ruling forcing the Conservatives to release documents revealing Canada's role in outsourcing the torture of Afghan detainees, the Afghan Ambassador to Canada was preparing to speak in Edmonton. Brought

// Heather Hutchinson

to Edmonton by the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee. The Ambassador was part of a panel which also included Naija Haneefi, founder of the women's political participation committee (Afghanistan). The panel spoke on not only the reasons why Canada is in Afghanistan, but what role Canada needs to play in its future. V

110 2009

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

UP FRONT // 5

COMMENT >> SPACE

HEAD >> Subhead

// Supplied

NEWS // DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION

A hitchhiker's guide The US gives up the space race for a passenger seat In the movies, all the spacemen are Amerspends in three months, with the possibilicans, but that's just because Hollywood ity that it would have ended up costing makes the movies. In the real world, the one or two more months' worth of the United States is giving up on space, aldefence budget. But it would have kept though it is trying hard to conceal its rethe United States in the game. Obama's treat. Last week, three Americans plan only pretends to. with a very special status—they He says all the right things: have all commanded missions "Nobody is more committed to the moon—made their disto manned space flight, to humay public. kly.com man exploration of space, than e e w e e@vu In an open letter, Neil ArmI am, but we've got to do it in a gwynn e strong, the first human being smart way." He talked about a Gwynn to walk on the moon, Jim Lovell, manned mission to some asterDyer commander of Apollo 13, and Euoid beyond the moon by around gene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, 2025, and another that will orbit Mars condemned President Barack Obama's for some months in the mid-2030s—"and plans for the National Aeronautics and a landing on Mars will follow." Space Administration (NASA) as the beThose are indeed ambitious goals, and ginning of a "long downhill slide to medi- they would require heavy-lift rockets ocrity" for the United States. that do not yet exist. But the "vigorous The letter was timed to coincide with new technology development" program Obama's visit to Cape Canaveral to de- that might lead to those rockets will get fend his new policy, which abandons the only $600 million annually (the price of goal of returning to the moon by 2020, four F-22 fighters) for the next five years, or indeed ever. Obama insists that this and actual work on building such rockets sacrifice will allow the US to pursue a would probably not begin until 2015. more ambitious goal, but his plan to send In the meantime, and presumably even Americans to Mars by the late 2030s has for some years after Obama leaves office the distinct political advantage of not in 2016 (should he be re-elected in 2012), needing really heavy investment while he the United States will have no vehicle is still in office—even if he wins a second capable of putting astronauts into orbit. term. It will be able to buy passenger space on The "Constellation" program that he Russian rockets, or on the rapidly develscrapped had two goals. One was to re- oping Chinese manned vehicles, or maybe place the aging Shuttle fleet for deliver- by 2015 even on Indian rockets. But it will ing people and cargo to near-Earth orbits. essentially be a hitchhiker on other counThe other was to give the US the big tries' space programs. rockets it would need to meet George W Bush's target of establishing a permanent Obama suggests that this embarrassAmerican base on the moon by 2020 ment will be avoided because private where rockets would be assembled to enterprise will come up with cheap and explore the Solar System. efficient "space taxis" that can at least That program's timetable was slipping deliver people and cargo to the Internaand would undoubtedly have slipped fur- tional Space Station once in a while. And ther, as such programs often do. It would he's going to invest a whole $6 billion in have ended up costing a lot: $108 bil- these private companies over the next lion by 2020, as much as the Pentagon five years.

R DYEIG HT

STRA

6 // UP FRONT

These entrepreneurs are mainly people who made a pile of money in the dotcom boom or in computer game design and now want to do something really interesting with some of it: people like Amazon president Jeff Bezos, John Carmack, programmer of Doom and Quake, Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and of course Richard Branson of Virgin Everything. "Our success is vital to the success of the US space program," Musk said recently. No doubt they will get various vehicles up there, but if they can build something by 2020 that can lift as much as the ancient shuttles into a comparable orbit, let alone something bigger that can go higher, I will eat my hat. Space technology eats up capital almost as fast as weapons technology, and these entrepreneurs have no more than tens of billions at most. Does Obama know this? Very probably, yes. One suspects that he would actually be cutting NASA's budget, not very slightly raising it, if its centre of gravity (and employment) were not in the swing state of Florida, where he cannot afford to lose any votes. What is going on here is a charade, which is why normally taciturn astronauts—including the famously private Neil Armstrong—signed that open letter. So for the next decade, at least, the United States will be an also-ran in space, while the new space powers forge rapidly ahead. And even if some subsequent administration should decide it wants to get back in the race, it will find it almost impossible to catch up. Which is why the first man on Mars will probably be Chinese or Indian, not American. V

The death of Cassie Casuality a lesson for drug education Mimi Williams

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries. His column appears each week in Vue Weekly.

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

//mimi@vueweekly.com

ast Sunday afternoon, a small crowd gathered at Evergreen Memorial Gardens. At four thirty-five, each of those present lit a candle in memory of Cassie Eyre Williams, 14, who died a year earlier following an ecstasy overdose. Shortly after purchasing the drugs at a Rock 'n' Ride teen dance party at West Edmonton Mall, Cassie and her best friend, Ashley Morin, were being rushed to emergency by ambulance. Ashley survived. "I relive it every single day like it just happened," said Cassie's mother, Angie Eyre. Describing the past year as a nightmare, this week she awaits the sentencing of the young offender who was charged with a variety of offences in the aftermath of her youngest daughter's death. Eyre and her husband, Guy Buehler, did their best to wrestle something positive out of their tragedy. They were astounded that this had happened to their daughter—horrified that Cassie's death was the second fatal incident involving ecstasy in the Edmonton area within a few weeks. The deaths of Trinity Dawn Bird, 15, and Leah House, 14, after a group of teens ingested the drug at a wedding celebration on the Paul First Nation, just west of the city, received wide media attention. It was an opening for Erye and Buehler to talk openly with their daughter about the dangers of ecstasy use. "I thought that would be enough to scare her, but I guess it wasn't," Guy told the Edmonton Sun shortly after Cassie died. Clearly, something wasn't sinking in. Eyre and Bueler were determined to warn other teens about the dangers involved in taking ecstasy and to encourage other parents to talk to their kids about drugs. They appeared on the Pep-

per and Dylan show on "The Bounce," a favourite of Edmonton teens, and made themselves available for interviews with the media. Cassie's story captured attention across the country and around the world. When asked what drew her to Cassie's memorial page, 24-year old Vanessa, another poster who had never met her, explained, "Her story really got to me." A former ecstasy user, the Edmonton woman has witnessed drugs ruin the lives of many people. She pointed out that a lack of knowledge coupled with a lack of experience can be deadly. Noting that Cassie consumed three times the normal dosage of ecstasy, she asked, "How was this poor girl to know what a triple stacked pill was?" Vanessa urges parents to talk to their kids about drugs, comparing it to sex education. "You can tell them not to do it, and they still will." She says we've got to educate young people about the different kinds of drugs, what they will do to them, how it can hurt them, and how they can get addicted. Users and police alike warn that the ecstasy sold on the street usually has multiple drugs in it, with some tablets containing no ecstasy at all. Some batches are stronger than others and each individual reacts differently. "Every tablet that you take, you're dealing with an unknown," said Detective Guy Pilon of the Edmonton police drug squad. The random nature of the drug makes any dose potentially lifethreatening. In Cassie's case, it was the first time she had ever tried the drug. Putting a name and a face to these warnings about drug use can prove effective, many believe. Joe Naccarat is the principal at St Elizabeth Seton Elementary and Junior High, where Cassie and Ashley were students. He feels that the incident has had a tremendous impact on students. "From an awareness perspective, this tragedy put a name, a face, and a heart to something that we know is out there and that we try to warn them about," he said. "I see some parents and kids getting the point. I see the effect Cassie's death had on everyone around her, including myself," said Guy. "I wish everyone would get the point that some things are dangerous and life is precious." The youth arrested after Cassie's death will be sentenced tomorrow, after pleading guilty to a drug trafficking charge. Recognizing that the pain brought on by her death will last far longer than any punishment meted out by the justice system, Cassie's family and friends hope that her death has had a positive impact. Perhaps something is sinking in. While 2009 saw what Alberta's chief medical examiner described as an "unprecedented" number of deaths attributed to ecstasy overdoses (a 25-year old mother of 2 in her Grande Prairie home in September and a 19-year old Okotoks man at a rave at West Edmonton Mall in October), none have been reported to date this year. V

COMMENT >> INTERNET PRIVACY

Internet patrol goes global Canada leads the way in global privacy enforcement

done, as privacy commissioners from Last week the talk of the privacy around the world used the incident world was news that 10 privacy and as the basis for a shot across the data protection commissioners, led company's bow. by Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, had released a pubStoddart's role in the letter is instructive. Fresh off last year's suclic letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, cessful showdown with Facebook, in expressing concern that the Internet which the popular social media site giant was forgetting its privacy reagreed to alter some of its policies sponsibilities. The letter, also signed by for its more than 400 million users based on a single Cathe heads of privacy agennadian complaint, her office cies from France, Germany, has jumped on the technolIreland, Israel, Italy, the m Netherlands, New Zealand, ogy bandwagon, actively ekly.co e w e u v blogging, twittering and Spain and the United Kingmgeist@ el engaging on Internet relatdom, focused on the recent Micha ed issues. introduction of Google Buzz, Geist a service that offered new soBusiness reaction to the letter was decidedly mixed, however. Some cial media capabilities. It attracted argued that it foreshadowed potenthe wrath of users and privacy advotial regulatory action against Google cates after Google automatically asand other major Internet companies. signed users a network of "followers" Others were more skeptical, notfrom among people with whom they ing that a closer reading of the letcorresponded most often on Gmail. ter revealed that the commissioners Google quickly altered the offending features, but the damage was clearly

ZEIT

GEIST

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 >>

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 05, 2010

UP FRONT // 7

COVER // LABOUR ORGANIZING

Solidarity in diversity

Alberta's labour movement should look to its diverse membership for renewal bringing people together today. For some organizations and individuals the disjointed approaches leading up to May Week illustrate a difference in organizing that has begun to divide not only unions, but also political parties and perhaps democracy in Alberta, resulting in an inability to engage citizens. "Essentially, when you have top-down unions working with bottom-up unions you'll get fundamental differences over the way organizing should go," suggests Caldararu. Bouzek explains that some unions began to give money and weren't bringing out the people to events. "The labour movement said, 'Well, we gave you money' and others said, 'Well, we'd almost rather you brought people out.'" For Roland Schmidt, activist with CUPW, this divide emphasizes a continued reluctance of older and often entrenched activists to accept new methods, which then often leaves behind new workers and youth: "The problem is that there's a view that the leadership aren't doing enough to engage their affiliates and their rank and file. It's basically kind of leadership hoarding and specialists telling the movement what's best for them. It doesn't really reach out to its members to get them involved." "It's not just young people pushing [May Week]," he adds. "But for the young people who are, they're trying to push some life into their respective organizations.” "The way some unions operate, they have an executive council, they essentially make decisions, decide key policy and perspectives that a union will take on an issue, and there's a lot of power concentrated within that. That's a very top-down approach where you have an executive board telling the rank and file, 'This is the position, this is what we want, we need to present a united front because we don't want our opponents to view us as fractured,'” Caldararu explains. “The bottom-up model operates without a bureaucracy and takes its directive from the rank and file.” Schmidt believes these top-down approaches create a disconnect between the labour union bureaucracy and rank-andfile members. “These people [have been] in the leadership roles for so long, it disconnects from their base of what they're trying to organize," he says. "They lose touch with the struggle on the work floor. They may intellectually understand it, but that's different than emotionally understanding it."

The image of unions as bloated bureucracies with career politicians is unfortunate for a movement that has done much to secure good working conditions and public services that impact the majority of the population. But bureaucracies do develop in any organization and their impact may extend beyond securing a future for the strength of the movement, speaking to the strength of our democracy. Bouzek sees a positive spin to the bureacratic machinery of the labour movement, "The good news is that gives the labour movement an incredible amount of organizational resiliency. A friend of mine used to say the labour movement is the organizational core of the resistance, because it will go on year after year." But with that strength comes some drawbacks. Bureaucracies build because organizations need a structure if they are to survive, but if those bureaucracies become entrenched there is little hope for new ideas to take root and change approaches. And this can have greater implications for our society as a whole. Bouzek acknowledges bureaucratic structures make it difficult to engage community and grassroots organizations who are attempting to build a movement of political action. "It finds it difficult to adapt to a different style of meeings where you have a very participatory style of meetings where you go around and you ask each other how they're doing," Bouzek explains. "And so people have to learn from each other."

1872 – Trade unions become legal when the federal government passes the Trade Unions Act.

costs of small farmers. Their ultimate failure marks the beginning of the end for the non-competitive farmer.

gaining rights for all federal workers.

1918 – Alberta legislature passes the Workman's Compensation Act.

1948 – Social Credit government passes legislation stating that union leaders could be held liable during illegal strikes.

samantha power // samantha@vueweekly.com

he eight-hour work day is a time period we guide our schedules by. We wake up knowing we will be asked to contribute a certain amount of time to our work and we know we'll have a certain amount of time to ourselves, guaranteed holidays, some vacation, if we're lucky we have some benefits to ease the pain of a visit to the dentist. If something goes wrong, we know we can take action to improve our working conditions—we don't have to accept poor benefits, or being asked to contribute 13 hours a day, everyday. We have rights after all. May Day, celebrated every May 1, is a remembrance of how we achieved these rights. And it took some work. May 1 marks a significant moment when workers joined together and demanded an end to hard, unyielding working hours and conditions. In 1886, 400 000 people stood up in Chicago alone and demanded the right to a shorter day. The significance was in the organization. Workers from across racial, educational and work trade backgrounds came together to demand a change. May Day has been celebrated in Edmonton since 1983. In 1998 unions joined together to create May Week, a festival of labour arts. It has brought unions together from postal workers to casino workers, nurses to artists. So it's unfortunate that this year, the solidarity that can be formed around this celebration will not be found in Edmonton. The week is usually populated with workshops, arts cabarets, marches and movie nights, all highlighting the histories, struggles and tactics used by workers and unions to bring about social change. "May Week is instrumental in bringing people together in a non-threatening manner. It's that kind of relationship that gets you through the hard times," says Don Bouzek, long-time member of the May Week Labour Arts organizing committee. Unfortunately that forum will not occur this year. “The labour movement in Alberta right now is so divided, it's incredibly difficult to build up any kind of labour solidarity because it's difficult to build up any sort of solidarity amongst them,” says Alex Caldararu of the local chapter of the International Workers of the World, and a member of the May Week committee before its dissolution, speaking to the difficulty of

Democracies are facing one of their largest crises in faith. Voting levels do not represent even half the population, with only 40.6 percent voting in Alberta last year. Not all the fault lies with unions and political parties: the Alberta government has done a lot to ensure workers are prevented from taking the action they need to. Winston Gereluk, a long-time union activist and labour historian, credits the Alberta government with muzzling labour dissent in the '70s. "Alberta is the home of independent unions," Gereluk explains. "If a company sets up the union and gets employees in union by persuasion or by coercion, then if a legitimate union came along, it wasn't allowed to set up. Unions were literally kept out." Gereluk points to the Public Service Employee Relation Act of 1977 as the death knell for radical action. The act essentially removed the right to strike from over 30 000 public service workers. Bouzek

believes this has had an impact on the way unions can interact with each other and with community organizations. "It's very hard to do any kind of organizing in Alberta," he says. "We have the lowest rates of unionization anywhere in Canada. The law around unions and organizing is really restrictive here and creates a lot of tension." But with one in three Canadians a member of a union, Canada remains one of the most highly unionized industrialized countries according to the Canadian Labour Congress, and the potential for political momentum to build is huge. “It makes sense to get involved in your union,” Schmidt says, seeing the workplace as a source of direct confrontation with political issues and working conditions affecting everyday life, but one that the government has control over. With over 10 years of activist experience at the age of 27, Schmidt believes it comes down to renewal and engagement. "We're trying to push term limits in our union. That would have concrete benefits for young people getting involved because they wouldn't be coming up against such entrenched leadership." Schmidt believes political parties, advocacy organizations and unions should be looking for new ways to engage the citizenry, youth and new activists, and maybe return to their roots. Heavily involved in organizing against the Iraq war and against the FTAA a few years ago, Schmidt noted the absence of political parties and more established organizations coming on side and taking a stand against issues new activists cared about, and he sees a similar problem today in engaging new activists and youth in the environmental movement. "It'd be nice if these organizations weren't moving from battle to battle to facilitate more opportunities for new people to enter politics," he offers. "Ideally you want to have a lot of vibrant activist organizations where youth can get involved." Bringing new activists from emerging movements into the stability of a union or political party can be valuable to renewing and stabilizing a movement. "There's always talk that we need to get youth involved, but I don't think there's a a strong intake procedure," Schmidt explains. "You encourage youth to get involved, you throw them into this busy work and they're kind of left to their own devices and it's left up to them whether they

succed or fail." The diagnosis for the labour movement could read like the pamphlet on the democratic deficit across this province: too few people doing too many things, resulting in activists picking and choosing their battles. Schmidt highlights the NDP as an example. "It comes down to differing philosophies on what the party could be doing," Schmidt explains. "In the Alberta context, specifically, it'd be nice if they had the resources to do more recruitment work and movement building between elections." And it's not just youth that the labour movement is going to have to appeal to for renewal: Alberta's population has grown substantially and in 2006 16 percent of the population was new immigrants and over 30 percent of that population was aged 25 – 44. Although unionization rates in Alberta are the lowest in the country, with 24 percent of the population in a union, the organizations have a huge potential for political action, which they've demonstrated in the past by organizing against Klein's cuts to public services, preventing the third-way of health care and advocating for education during a time when the Conservative government would not place it on the priority list. But those gains don't come without risks, and it's something Schmidt would like to see more of: "The history of the labour movement is we haven't been able to win unless we take risks." As for May Week, Caldararu believes it will return to the way May Day events were previously run—by independent unions celebrating their preferred achievements. Individuals, primarily from the International Workers of the World, have organized a May Day march to happen on May 1. Bouzek hopes that unions can recognize the need to come together to celebrate their successes. "There will always be differences because that's why they're the wobblies or that's why they're CEP," says Bouzek, hopefully adding, "We're in this together 'til the end, and we can put together different pieces of the strategy. V Sat, May 1 (4 pm) Edmonton May Day 2010 Rally and March Gather at Giovanni Caboto Park (95 St - 108 A Ave) 6 pm – midnight: After party at Jekyll and Hyde Pub and Restaurant (10209 - 100 Ave)

TIMELINE

1946 – 30 day strike by farmers in Alberta and Saskatchewan calls for parity prices to assist with large overhead

8 // UP FRONT

1965 – National postal strike wins bar-

1968 – Over 30 000 people in Alberta gained the right to bargain collectively, primarily in the public sector. 1972 - Crown Agency Employee Relations Act gives unions to the right to bargain collectively, but does not guarantee the right to strike. First introduc-

tion of the idea of interest arbitration which was mandated to rule “in the interest of the public.” 1993 – UNA organizes against massive health care cuts by Klein's government. 2005 - Alberta's Tory government changed the province's child labour law to allow the hiring of 12 to 14 year

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

old kids by the restaurant and services industry. 2007 - In a historic decision, the Supreme Court of Canada rules that the guarantee of freedom of association in Section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the rights of Canadian workers to bargain collectively. V

CA Bridging PROGRAM

at U of L’s Edmonton campus

“ Your bridge to an accounting career” Courses start in May!

Are you a degree-holder looking for a career change? An internationally trained accounting professional? The CA bridging program provides a fast track to the respected CA designation. www.CAbridging.ca

A partnership between the Chartered Accountants Education Foundation of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Management.

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

UP FRONT // 9

INTERNET PRIVACY

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

had few specific complaints remaining about Google Buzz, given the changes implemented by the company weeks earlier. Moreover, when asked about the status of the case, Stoddart admitted that there had not been a formal investigation into the matter. As experts debated the importance of the letter, the longer-term impact may come not from specific actions against a company such as Google (there does not appear to be much likelihood of imminent action) but rather from the realization that the joint effort may represent a major step toward the globalization of privacy enforcement. The difficulties associated with cross-border privacy enforcement has long been viewed as a particularly thorny issue in a world where data

moves effortlessly across borders and private companies retain massive databases containing a myriad of personal information. The European Union has attempted to address the issue by establishing restrictions on the export of data, requiring that data transfers be limited to those countries with "adequate" privacy protections. Canada has adopted a different approach, eschewing restrictions on data exports but holding organizations accountable for the data they collect, regardless of its location. Despite efforts to assure the public that these regulatory systems offered effective privacy protections, the reality has been that privacy rules are purely domestic creatures that end at the border. Indeed, only a few years ago, Stoddart's office maintained that it could not even investigate a case involving a foreign-based company. The joint letter signals a new ap-

BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER

10 // UP FRONT

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 05, 2010

proach to privacy enforcement, one based on greater cooperation and mutual recognition of common privacy principles. While the specifics of privacy laws may vary, the underlying principles are remarkably similar across jurisdictions. As privacy and data protection commissioners work together on issues with a global impact, they create a new layer of enforcement that could lead to joint investigations and parallel enforcement actions. After years of grappling with the challenges of borderless privacy concerns in a bordered world, that is a development worth buzzing about. V Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at michaelgeist.ca.

INSIDE // DISH

DISH

To the Pint

Ric's Grill

Online at vueweekly.com >>DISH

Restaurant Reviews

A Taste of Argentina

Check out our comprehensive online database of Vue Weekly’s restaurant reviews, searchable by location, price and type.

DISH // TRAVEL

Under the sea

Galapagos Islands are a seafood lover's paradise Sharman Hnatiuk // sharman@vueweekly.com

RECIPE

Dish writer Sharman Hnatiuk took a sixmonth adventure through South America and filed reports on the delicacies she found there.

Since I am unlikely to eat raw fish except for at a sushi restaurant, I found a recipe for my Galapagos ceviche that steams the fish and shrimp first:

Galapagos Ceviche

ot only did my trip to the Galapagos Islands include close encounters with blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises and white tip sharks, it also incorporated the best seafood dishes I had during my trip to South America. The Galapagos Islands, 972 km west of continental Equador on the Pacific Ocean, is a seafood lover's dream. I took in a couple of the local specialities, begging for recipes in between snorkelling and moments of seasickness. Ceviche is a traditional seafood dish found throughout Latin America and a staple on the Ecuadorian coast and throughout the Galapagos. There are many variations of the dish, depending on the citrus juices and other ingredients used to marinate the fish. The most common versions I saw were with shrimp or sea bass. Normally the fish is not cooked; instead citrus juices and salt are used to kill any micro-organisms. The shrimp, however, is typically cooked. My Galapagos boat guide Alvero had some time on Santa Cruz before a new batch of passengers arrived, so he took me to his favourite ceviche haunt. They CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 >>

Ingredients

1 lb sea bass (or halibut) cut into cubes 1 lb pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined 1 red onion cut into long strips 1 red pepper cut into thin strips 1 tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped 1 bunch of cilantro, finely chopped 4 tbsp cooking oil 1 tsp hot pepper sauce 9 tbsp lemon juice Juice from one orange Salt and pepper

Directions

NOT ONLY ARE THE VISTAS SPECTACULAR >> The food isn't bad either

a) Steam the sea bass and shrimp in boiling water with 1 tbsp of lemon juice, turning over once until the colour changes to white (approximately 3 minutes) b) In a glass bowl, mix the remaining lemon and orange juice, oil, cilantro, hot pepper sauce, onion, tomato, red pepper, salt and pepper c) Add the sea bass and shrimp—which should still be firm—and coat thoroughly with the ingredients from the bowl. Let stand in bowl for at least one hour d) In Ecuadorian fashion, serve with salted popcorn, patacones or fresh bread V

// File

J62CD

"*'! #!"!

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

DISH // 11

RECIPE PESCADO ENCOCADO (Fish with coconut sauce)

Because fish is most famous in the Galapagos, I got the recipe for pescado encocado. Shrimp can be substituted in this recipe, however.

Ingredients

BLUE-FOOTED BOOBIES>> Also enjoy a fish-centric diet // file

UNDER THE SEA

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

open seven evenings a week 780.482.7178 10643 123 street thebluepear.com

didn't have a plain conch ceviche, so he ordered it mixed and an enormous soup bowl filled with fish, shrimp and octopus arrived in a lemon broth with onions and tomatoes. The dish came served with a plate of hot patacones—fried plantains— to be dipped and eaten with the ceviche. Not a fan of octopus, I dug around and slurped up the succulent shrimp and soft pieces of sea bass, a perfect treat for a hot sunny day in the Galapagos Islands. Later that evening I rounded up a group of backpackers to try another local specialty—pescado/camarones encocado—fish or shrimp in coconut sauce that has a Carribean flavour. One street a few blocks back from

the marina is lined with kiosk restaurants that set up for lunch and dinner. When we arrived, the middle of the road was filled with tables and chairs with locals enjoying a variety of dishes. We pulled up to Familiar William's, a place legendary for encocoda, and checked out the daily specials. My pescatarian friend decided on the fish in coconut sauce for $5 and I splurged on the shrimp with coconut sauce for $6. When our plates arrived our chosen seafood was swimming in a delicious light coconut curry sauce with a mound of rice. It looked simple enough, but the taste was amazing, and when we had lapped up most the sauce but still had some rice remaining, William gave us another scoop of sauce. It was the perfect meal for my last night in the Galapagos Islands. V

2 1/2 lbs halibut or sea bass without the skin, cut into medium-size chunks 1/4 cup lime juice, from about 2 limes Juice from 2 oranges 4 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tsp cumin powder 1 tsp paprika 1 tsp ground coriander seeds 2 tbsp sunflower or olive oil 1 medium-sized onion, diced 2 bell peppers, diced 4 Roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped 14 oz can of coconut milk 3 tbsp cilantro, finely chopped Salt to taste

Directions

a) Mix the lime juice, orange juice, crushed garlic, cumin, paprika, coriander powder and salt in a small bowl b) Marinate the fish chunks for 1 – 2 hours c) Heat the oil to prepare a base for the sauce, add the diced onions, tomatoes, bell peppers and salt, cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat d) Add the coconut milk to the base, mix it in well and cook for about 10 minutes. If you prefer a thicker sauce you can thicken the sauce by adding 1/2 tsp of tapioca starch or corn starch e) Add the fish filets, cover partially and let simmer for about 20 – 25 minutes f) Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with rice V

PROVENANCE

History of graham crackers RECIPE

SMORES While graham crackers may have been invented to suppress sexual urges, the crackers' necessity in creating smores makes them more likely to have a person cuddling up by a campfire.

Ingredients:

Some foods, such as chocolate and oysters, have the reputation of being aphrodisiacs. Historically, other foods were created for exactly the opposite purpose. Take, for instance, graham crackers. In the 19th century, many medical experts threatened that a man would lose his health and vigour with each ejaculation. Then, along came the American Reverend Sylvester Graham, who tried to dissuade men from having sex more than once a month and from masturbating, well, ever. Some say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Well, Graham felt that this same conduit would suppress a

12 // DISH

man’s sexual urges. The cure: a whole-grain cracker. What we now know as a “graham cracker” first came out in the 1830s; the flour in this snack was supposed to calm a guy’s sex drive. Graham actually told men to squash their appetites by eating carby, wholegrain foods, like those crackers, which he developed. And in case you were wondering, these same folks didn’t think that women even possessed a sex drive, so this “cure” was just for the gents. Sorry, ladies. No graham crackers for you.

MARIA KOTOVYCH // MARIA@VUEWEEKLY.COM

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

Graham crackers Chocolate bars Marshmallows Fire

Directions:

a) Prepare by laying a piece of chocolate onto a graham cracker b) Roast a marshmallow over an open fire on a stick c) When the marshmallow is ready, use the graham cracker with the chocolate on it as well as another graham cracker to remove the marshmallow from its stick by sandwiching it d) Allow the hot marshmallow to melt the chocolate and enjoy V

BEER

Bitter Victoria

Australia's biggest selling beer doesn't live up to the hype, mate

SINGLE DIMENSION >> Despite great advertising, VB is a sub-par beer

// Jason Foster

VICTORIA BITTER CARLTON & UNITED BREWERIES MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA $14.99 FOR SIX PACK

as the distance the beer needs to travel to get here. Beer can be very travel sensitive, and I worry that coming from the opposite side of the planet will produce undesirable flavours. But the symphony ad got the best of One of my favourite beer commercials me and I decided to pick up a six pack. can't be seen in Canada, but is easily VB is a light gold, sparkling clear beer. sought out on YouTube. No buxom womThe head is like ginger ale fuzz—sparse, en busting out of their tops in this ad. bubbly and disappears completely within Instead it features the 100-plus seconds. The aroma is sugary sweet member Melbourne Symphony with apple and corn characterisOrchestra playing the theme tics, seeming more like a cider to The Magnificent Seven than a beer. The head collapse using bottles of Victoria om could be a byproduct of the .c ly k e ewe Bitter. They blow, clink and beer's long trek to Canada. int@vu tothep smash their way to a remarkGood head retention requires s Ja onr able rendition of the spirited certain proteins, which may Foste theme. The ad is understated, breakdown on a long trip. impressive and quietly amusing—a departure from most beer commercials. The flavour is dull and one dimensional. Victoria Bitter is Australia's biggest sellI get some grainy sweetness at first and ing beer. For decades the company has a hint of hop bitterness at the back end, crafted a marketing strategy featuring but other than that it is a pretty boring working class Australian men toiling unbeer. There isn't enough flavour in this der the hot sun, a cold bottle of VB (as beer for travel to damage. Even in the it is affectionately called) awaiting them. flavour reminds me more of a cider than The manly Magnificent Seven music is an a beer. I didn't finish my glass. omnipresent accompaniment in VB ads. Clearly Victoria Bitter is Australia's Victoria Bitter is, not surprisingly, made Alexander Keith's. Both frustratingly by a huge brewing corporation that also mislead the drinker, promising to be a produces Foster's Lager, which is more traditional British-style ale but instead popular around the world than in Ausoffering ordinary macro-brewed lager. tralia itself. The company also makes a How disappointing. I expected better of number of Australia's biggest-selling the Melbourne Symphony. V brands, much like our Molson or Labatt. In general I have been hesitant to drink Jason Foster is the creator of onbeer.org, a website devoted to news and views on beers from Australia, New Zealand and such. It is not about the beer, so much, beer from the prairies and beyond.

TO TH

PINT

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

DISH // 13

14 // DISH

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

REVUE // RIC'S GRILL

Raison d'être

The flavour changes daily, and tonight it is Baileys Irish Cream. The auburn, burnt sugar crust quickly shatters to reveal a creamy white, whisper-smooth interior. The liqueur's whisky and vanilla notes caress the rich, egg custard. It is easily the finest crème brulée I have tasted in this city. I am loath to leave this room of alcoves, chestnut bricks and Depression-era ductwork. It is late, though; the suits have retreated, the kitchen is quiet and night peers in through the multi-paned windows. You can still smell the money. It hangs in the air with quiet satisfaction and the scent of whiskey, sundried tomatoes and richly marbled beef. V

If steak is what you're looking for, Ric's Grill has got it

Mon – Sun (11 am – 10 pm) Ric's Grill 10190 - 104 St 780.429.4333

Stately on the outside >> Fancy on the inside // Renée Poirier LS VORS // vors@vueweekly.com

ou can smell the money when you walk in. It lingers like the smoke of a recently extinguished candle. It loiters in alcoves and narrow hallways like a lithe, black cat who rubs his jowly cheeks against a doorframe in a dignified display of dominance. It possesses the nonchalant self-assuredness of a brick building that has thrived on a downtown street corner for seven decades or more. You can smell the money when you walk in, and tonight it smells like steak. A curtain of flame-scented air greets those who enter the historic brick building that houses Ric's Grill. The chestnut-hued room pairs delicate pendant light fixtures with mammoth wooden beams that bespeak the structure's utilitarian origins. Décor is minimal, favouring elaborate wine racks in place of ostentatious artwork. In-

timate booths with high sides evoke an urban-chic labyrinth. Background music is likewise minimal, replaced by the animated yet subdued conversations of those in expensive suits. Seafood dominates the concise roster of appetizers, and I am drawn to ahi tuna carpaccio ($15). A fish of delicate constitution, it may devolve to mush under a clumsy hand and will serve as my first litmus test for this kitchen. When it arrives, the perfectly rectangular slices of tuna are a gorgeous translucent burgundy and lithely supple. They rest on a chartreuse slick of wasabi butter and recline under a suggestive dust of Cajun spice. It is an astute synthesis of Asian and American seasoning. Although the menu at Ric's includes several versions of pasta and meal-sized salads, its raison d'être is steak. An entire section of the menu is devoted to steak, and numerous cuts range from a dainty six ounces to

a staggering 16. Swayed by the promise of sautéed mushrooms and whisky-spiked sauce, I select the 10 ounce peppercorn New York ($37). My friend chooses Australian rack of lamb ($39), which promises an ample serving of protein accentuated by a Dijon rub. Soup or salad precedes the main course, and my house salad pairs mixed greens with plump tomatoes, crunchy cubes of cucumber and crisp julienned carrots. A light vinaigrette and a generous topping of shaved parmigiano-reggiano elevate these greens far above the vegetation that usually lurks in steakhouses. My friend's Greek salad is a combination of tomatoes, cucumbers and red pepper dotted with black olives and red onion. A snow-white cap of salty feta completes this dish and paves the way for a similarly well-composed entrée. The peppercorn New York steak hides under a tumble of chubby sautéed mushrooms. An incision reveals abundant

marbling and ample juice. Each tender mouthful combines the amber undertones of whisky with fiery black pepper and the irrefutably salacious flavour of rich, rare beef. On the side, a stuffed baked potato is spiked with garlic and topped with a glorious crown of bubbly cheddar cheese. Several respectable spears of parsnip, red pepper and broccolini keep company with a miniature head of bok choy. A sprig of fresh rosemary rests atop the rack of lamb, which bears a delicate, golden crust of Dijon mustard. The meat's heady flavour is deftly tempered by a wellbodied Merlot reduction. The vegetables— parsnip, bok choy et al—are decent, but the sun-dried tomato mashed potatoes are remarkable. Here, a fluffy russet cloud of velvet spuds is laced with smoky, sultry sundried tomatoes and shreds of basil. Each taste begs for another, and then another. Crème brulée ($8) beckons from a dessert menu that includes several tortes and pies.

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

DISH // 15

PREVUE // A TASTE OF ARGENTINA

A tasty cause

Fundraiser seeks to delight the palate and the eardrums Bryan Birtles // bryan@vueweekly.com

fter quickly becoming a major player in the world wine market throughout the 1990s, Argentina continues to produce wines that are big in quality but of great value. In order to further raise the profile of these wines, as well as raise some funds for the Edmonton Jazz Festival Society, A Taste of Argentina will be held at the Sutton Place Hotel. Jack Watt, of Lanigan & Edwards Wine Merchants, explains that Argentinian wine has gained in popularity because of the quality and price of its Malbecs, the country's most popular grape. "Argentina is a region of the world that has been blessed—particularly the Mendoza region—with climate and soil conditions that give rise to premium Malbecs. They're probably best known for that varietal," he says. "Malbec wines from Argentina have just exploded onto the world market because they're just such great value for the price that you pay for them. Argentina, up until the early '90s—1992 I believe it was—really consumed just about all the wine that it produced but at that time they started exporting to the rest of the world, to the point that they're probably now in the top eight in terms of exporting to the world."

16 // DISH

ARGENTINA'S WINE FIELDS >> In the shadow of the Andes Mountains The evening will feature tastings of over 150 different wines as well as a silent auction and performances by members of the Edmonton Jazz Orchestra and special guest Alfie Zappacosta. As Watt explains, he was happy

// File

to lend his expertise about wine to a fundraiser for the Edmonton Jazz Festival Society because of his commitment to the art form. "I've always been involved—I was a volunteer for years and years in the early days, up to about 20 years ago,"

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

he says. "I just love jazz and I love supporting it to make it work." V Tue, May 14 (7 pm) A Taste of Argentina Sutton Place Hotel, $65

INSIDE // ARTS

ARTS

As You Like It

AGA Dreams

Prairie Artsters

Online at vueweekly.com >>ARTS

Arts Reviews Find reviews of past theatre, dance and visual arts shows on our website.

PREVUE // WHAT'S COOKING

On our feet again

The Good Women Collective part of the growing dance resurgence in Edmonton says Nyquist-Schultz. "I thought it was just going to be for a couple months after I finished school. I came back and started talking with Ainsley about everything that they were doing with Good Women—I could tell that they had a lot of drive behind it. It feels so great and satisfying to be a part of something that is just starting to get momentum. And it's so exciting too to be offered opportunities and to say 'yes' to everything, because we're learning so much."

Fawnda Mithrush // fawnda@vueweekly.com

erhaps there's been something in the water lately. This Spring—early as it has been—Edmonton saw such a concentrated line-up of contemporary dance performances that the buzz in the dance community was palpable. Kidd Pivot came and went, Expanse expanded even more and Mile Zero celebrated their silver anniversary. Dance has been faring well in other haunts, too: Vancouver's Ballet BC overcame their brink-of-bankruptcy woes late last year, announcing Emily Molnar as the new artistic director—her plans for the coming seasons intend to shift the company's focus to contemporary ballet. You could say it's part of the inevitable post-recession kick-back from the arts, or you might point the finger at reality TV and pop culture, you could even say it was Alberta Ballet's proud showing at the Olympics—whatever it is, the state of the dance scene is changing, and it feels really, really good. It's with that feeling in mind, and to celebrate International Dance Day on April 29, we thought it might be nice to introduce some of the new faces in Edmonton's contemporary dance world. Meet the Good Women Dance Collective. Made up of Ainsley Hillyard, Alida Nyquist-Schultz and Alison Towne, the Collective started showing up at Nextfest

Dancing Once More >> The Good Women Collective is emerging a couple years ago with quick, contemporary choreographies. Since then, they have incorporated as a non-profit society, collaborated with the Brian Webb Dance Company to hold a workshop with Crystal Pite, the were featured in the March issue of Dance Current Magazine and now they've taken charge for Dance Day to host What's Cooking at the Arts Barns—it'll be a feast of new dance works and vegan chili, complete with an opportunity for audience feedback. Ask them what the best part of forming a dance collective in Edmonton is, and the answer may surprise you. "I just wanted to prove them wrong," explains Hillyard, who completed the Grant MacEwan Dance program in 2004—the penultimate graduating class before the school was shut down. After that, she ven-

// Supplied

tured off to the University of Winnipeg's School of Contemporary Dancers, where she met Nyquist-Schultz (they actually met first when they were students at Victoria School here in town). "The closing of the Grant MacEwan program was a really big hit. I mean, Mile Zero was still going strong, Brian Webb is still bringing people in. Edmonton isn't a major hub for contemporary dance but we have a huge, thriving artistic community and tons of fantastic festivals, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be a huge hub for contemporary dance too. It's that idea of building it from the ground up, showing Canada that we can do it too. Gusto is what brought me back, personally." "To be honest I didn't think I was going to be in Edmonton for as long as I have been,"

Part of the Good Women's mandate is to promote education—not only for dancers, but also for audiences. "Some people still just find contemporary dance to be weird or scary or 'I don't get it,' and we want to eliminate that as much as we can. We want it to be more accessible. Educating audiences is a big focus for us in terms of being able to connect with them more, having them comfortable asking questions or critiquing," says Hillyard. (That's a big part of the What's Cooking night—giving and getting feedback about the performances is the whole point of the show.) Of course, being an artist in Edmonton isn't without its challenges. Hillyard recalls taking the plunge to quit her full time "retail goddess" job, and opening a second savings account to keep track of the Good Women's funds. That's different now that they're incorporated—but with that they had to recruit members and learn to run a Board meeting, too.

"I'm terrified all the time," she laughs. "But I'm also quite thrilled. I've learned personally that being a project artist is very stressful. If you're a controlling person and one who needs financial security, like myself, it's probably not the best choice. But once you can let go of that and be patient, it's really fulfiling and satisfying. That was a struggle for me at first, to literally quit my full time job and not know what was going to happen." The challenges are met with just as many triumphs, though. When the Collective won a spot in the 2010 Fringe lottery last Fall, Hillyard couldn't help but let out a scream in the middle of the media conference. With new works scheduled for them at Nextfest and The Works this summer, audiences will be seeing a lot more of the Good Women around town. And hopefully, we'll see more groups that crop up to take on the River City's dance scene, too. "As artists I think we're getting that joy and feeling that people want to see more dance, you can actually taste it almost," Hillyard says. "You know, I don't need to move to Toronto. It's harder work, but you can do it here. We're artists in Edmonton, we are dancers, we're making something of a living. I'm just vibrating. I think everyone's really excited, and nobody knows quite what to expect, but everybody feels that something is happening." V Thu, Apr 29 (dinner at 5:30 pm; performances at 6:30 pm) What's Cooking Featuring the Good Women Dance Collective PCL Studio Theatre, Transalta Arts Barns, (10330 - 84 Ave), $5 minimum donation

PREVUE // THE GIFT

Unwrapping the Ave The Gift's debut marks a brand new arts venue Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com

or now, it's still mostly a grey cement room, with a few promising signs of recent renovation. But it's an expansive space, an interesting one, and it's soon to be put to use in all sorts of different ways: the Old Cycle Building out on 118 Avenue is being reappropriated as an arts venue. The Gift marks the inaugural rechristening of the building. It could hardly be a more promising, or locally powered starter script, either: it's co-written by Edmonton theatre mainstay Jeff Page and Sterling-winning playwright Collin Doyle, whose gritty, funny The Mighty Carlins received pretty much

old friends >> get a Gift // Supplied

universal acclaim a few years back. It follows the meet-up of three friends, all having moved on from each other after a falling out years ago, at the last will request of the fourth, a recent suicide. He's left them a gift to be opened together; they're not really interested, and don't care about seeing each other again, but it's hard to turn down a last request, and opening the package forces them all to confront their intertwined pasts, not just with their dead friend, but including their own fractured relationships. "It's very funny. Very dark. Very Edmonton," Chris Bullough, who plays one of the friends, says gesturing with an untouched half of a veggie sandwich at a bakery just down the street. The Gift is set out there

on Alberta Avenue, and more than passing reference will be made to Edmonton, if Doyle's previous work is any indication: The Mighty Carlins was set in Millwoods and rife with local references, not just tossed out for the sake of it, but as carefully nuanced punchlines and context. As a project, it started out simply enough: Page and Bullough were eager to work together again after a successful director/actor pairing at last summer's Comedy of Errors. "When Jeff and I were contemplating the idea of working together again," he says, "Collin came to mind immediately." And though the weekend before opening the space seems pretty gutted still—Page passes on a lunchtime conversation to grab something to go and resume working on the set—it's already got a full summer of shows planned ahead of it. The Gift also kicks off a theatre series, Caught in the Act, at the venue, with shows semi-curated by

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

Page and assisted by the Arts on the Ave initiative. Shows are set to run the span of the summer in the Cycle Building. "Since I moved here in 2006, I can't believe how much it's grown, and how people and businesses on the avenue are really starting to get into the groove of it," Bullough says of Alberta Avenue, noting that the push from Arts on the Ave was starting to gain steam much earlier than that. "You bring artists into a neighbourhood and something happens. It's great; we're starting to get this real momentum going." V Thu, Apr 29 – Sun, May 9 (7:30 pm); Sun, May 2, Sun, May 9 (2 pm) The Gift Written by Collin Doyle, Jeff Page Directed by Page Starring Chris Bullough, Lora Brovold, Amber Borotsik, Garett Ross Old Cycle Building, (9351 - 118 Ave), $10 – $20, PWYC Tue, May 4

ARTS // 17

18 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

REVUE // LADIES WHO LYNCH

Apocalyptic split

Ladies Who Lynch sharply divided between two acts

GOOD ONE >> Ladies who Lynch practice character assasination // Supplied David Berry // david@vueweekly.com

adies Who Lynch is actually only the second Jason Chinn play I've seen—the other was the celebrated Nextfest work Bitches—but it's a mark of certain talent on his part that his voice is already developed enough that my reaction to both works was virtually identical. I don't know if I'd yet recommend him, but anyone capable of putting that kind of stamp on a still-young career is at least someone worth following. As I see it, there are basically two major forces at work in Chinn's work, neatly divided by the act break in Ladies Who Lynch. On the one hand, there is an incisive and frequently funny kind of misanthropy, or at least an ability to see our worst qualities manifest themselves in our most banal moments. In Bitches, it was the quotidian horror of office life, where here it's the slightly more psychologically rich milieux of a ladies lunch date. The domineering and perfection-obsessed Judith (Candace Berlinguette, who's rather sharp) kicks things off by declaring to child-smothering single mom Maureen (Nadien Chu) and flighty-but-nosy young actress Francine (Amy Keating) that she's banned the news in her house, because it "doesn't make for a pleasant day." This is indicative of the depth of most of their conversation, which avoids any real meaning for inane, status-affirming blather laced with the occasional emotional cheap shot. This first part is excellent. There's an extent to which it's shooting real housewives in a barrel, but Chinn has a sharp eye for indicative character traits—like how Judith is one of those people who insists on telling you about the clever thing she said before—and a real knack for character assassination just veiled enough that it sounds like friendly chit-chat, both of which animate the proceedings wonderfully. But then we get to the second major force: ill-considered dark absurdism, in this case manifested by an apocalypse at act break. Absurdism has a variety of intents and uses, but in both Bitches and Ladies Who Lynch, its purpose is incoherent. At its most cynical, it looks kind of like a revenge fantasy, a person who thinks he's smarter than a lot of people taking down the idiots both on

stage and in the audience (in Bitches they got gruesomely murdered, here they end up in a Craziesstyle, robot-death-squad armageddon). Even without that subtext, though, it feels pretentious and unnecessary, an adherence more to abstract artistic ideal than an honest worldview (I think Chinn is a lot better noticing the absurd bits of everyday life than using absurdity to illuminate anything about the day to day). Worst of all, in Ladies Who Lynch, the attempt at absurdity also manages to torpedo Chinn's message into incoherence too. The first half is a very Pintner-esque expose on how we hide behind our social niceties, something driven home in the second half when Judith declares that, since they've spent so much time keeping up appearances "it would be a crime to stop now." But the second half's conversation goes as apocalyptic as its setting, taking all the first's subtexts to ridiculous extremes, giving us Maureen ranting about fucking, marrying and eating her son and Judith as an actual malfunctioning Stepford wife. Essentially, the ladies are acting exactly as you'd expect them to act in the face of armageddon—that is, bananas—and so any point about what our social graces are actually keeping us from is lost with the set change. It's possible Chinn is explicitly trying to say nothing, but if that's the case he's really going for an easy target: even in Beckett's (and Cage's and Duchamp's) post-modernism, the attempt to say nothing is saying something, specifically making us question why we want our art to say something or what art actually is in the first place. If that's what Chinn's after, he's late to the party, and as the first half of Ladies Who Lynch demonstrates, he's good enough at skewering human nature that he doesn't need to blow up a dead horse. V Thu, Apr 30 – Sun, May 2; Thu, May 7 – Sun, May 9 (8 pm) Ladies Who Lynch Directed by Garett Spelliscy Written by Jason Chinn Starring Candace Berlinguette, Nadien Chu, Molly Flood, Amy Keating Living Room Play House (11315 - 106 ave), Pay What You Can

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

ARTS // 19

REVUE // AS YOU LIKE IT

Like it light

As You Like It best when it's a comic run-around

Secret HEart >> Rosalind disguises herself as a boy in As You Like It Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com

ll the world's a stage" is one of Shakespeare's most well-known and often quoted speeches, somewhere up there with Hamlet's "To be or not to be." It's easy enough to see why on paper, but laid in its proper context and spoken aloud, near the centre of the relatively flightly comedy of As You Like It, it's an anchoring little moment, a deep, gazing meditation on the arc of life and the preciousness of time, bittersweet as it may be. It really is just a fantastic speech that stands out from the rest of the bard's canon, yet also adds a little more dignity to the show its buried within. Here on the Citadel stage, it's the best momentary reprieve from the comic revelry, giving the turmoil plaguing a few sets of lovers a breath without shifting the tone. But as a whole, actually, James MacDonald's production is best when its pushing its comedy and lightheartedness. The few steps taken outside the boundaries of humour feel out of place. In contrast to most of the show, the opening scene, a high-emotion fight between brothers, plays out pretty darkly and seems a few steps removed from the rest of the show. The only other moment, when Oliver's told to chase after his brother in an interrogation style set-up, is similar. It seems unnecessarily intense, given the rest of the show. After all, Most of As You Like It is dedicated to a zany run-around of this and that lover chasing the other: exiled to the woods, Orlando pines for Rosalind, who along with gal-pal Celia has donned a male disguise to follow her lover-to-be; they both encounter

20 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

// EPIC

Duke Senior and his merry band of exiles as well as a couple of local shepard types, and the revelry commences. It's good fun, too, concentrating on some high energy wooing with a lighter heart and true wit wrung from Shakespearean verse. Comic chops seem to be a particular strength of everyone here: the cast, having gone through the Banff Professional Development program, seem confident and punchy across the board. Kevin Dennis' fool-ish Touchstone has an incredible sense of timing as a pretty goofy character, ad-libbing a joke or two to make sure it all the comedy gets wrung out of the text clearly enough, and John Kirkpatrick's snide, miserable Jaques adds a perfect foil (in addition to his spot-on delivery of "All the world's a stage.") The setting—occupied France during the Second World War—is more than just new costuming. There's added songs en français sung and mostly played live, colouring the exiled parties with a revolutionary spirit, and some novel little technical surprises help power through a runtime that approaches three hours, yet doesn't feel excessive or lose its energetic push. When it sticks to its comic guns, As You Like It delivers in full. V until Sun, May 9 As You Like It Directed by James MacDonald Written by William Shakespeare Starring Rachel V Johnston, Ryland Alexander, John Kirkpatrick, Michael Spencer-Davis, Kevin Dennis Citadel Theatre (9828 - 101A Ave) $50 – $75

REVUE // DRY THE RAIN

PREVUE // ONE NIGHT OF DREAMING

Youth is wasted on Dreaming on One Night Series tackles the subconscious with informal discussion the young Paul Blinov

Dry the Rain surpasses elderly stereotypes

Hitchin' their way >> Dry the Rain's couple attempt an escape // Ian Jackson, EPIC David Berry // david@vueweekly.com

n his playwright's notes, Mark Stubbings explains how Dry the Rain is his reaction to the stereotypes that too often accompany the elderly, the patronizing attitude that has us pass off anyone 70plus as doddering, sweet old biddies or grumbling curmudgeons, their experience and opinions reduced under the weight of their physical limitations. And while there's plenty of that in this sweetly touching comedy, it seems to me the more important takeaway is that old saw about truly living your life, not getting bogged down in quotidian demands and protocols and remembering that we only get one go-around. Both of those messages are easily accessible in the senior's home where Dry the Rain is set. We spend most of our time in the half-hotel, half-hospital room of irascible old codger Clayton (John Wright, in full cantankerous mode) and Agnes (the far more reserved Patricia Casey), where they are watched over by well-meaning staffer David (Frank Zotter), who is rising up the ranks at the home thanks to new initiatives like putting marshmallows in the Jell-o and getting a mediocre magician in every Sunday. Unsurprisingly, Clayton isn't taking too kindly to his new environment, and in between profanitylaced tirades at anyone who will listen, he attempts several escapes, though he's slightly hampered by his bum hip.

awareness of it, and in a senior's home, where mortality bumps up against bingo night, Stubbings presents ample reason for why we should. Dry The Rain's only real misstep comes at the end, which is a bit too wish-fulfilly, and works against the melancholy and touching mood Stubbings builds so adeptly through the play (especially since Clayton is so prone to "fuckings" and "fags"). Up until then, though, it is a moving and funny portrait of what it really means to be nearing the end of your life, and a bare look at the wisdom that comes from being in that position. V Until Sun, May 2 (7:30 pm) Dry The Rain Written by Mark Stubbings Directed by Michael Clark Starring John Wright, Patricia Casey, Frank Zotter La Cité Francophone, (8627 - 91 St), $15 – $25

// paul@vueweekly.com

reams and nightmares weave a link between two of the Art Gallery of Alberta's current exhibitions. In Goya: The Disasters of War, one particular etching "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters," reveals the hidden darkness in one man's subconscious, manifesting itself through wild animals surrounding his restless dozing body, which in turn inspired the second, Cardiff and Miller's sound-based A Murder of Crows, a spooky aural recollection of a trio of nightmares Cardiff experienced. "There is that common thread about dreaming and nightmares, and how it maybe echoes the real world, and also how it could influence our perceptions of the real world," explains Ruth Burns, interpretive program manager at the AGA, who's expanding on the dream concept found in both, widening its examination beyond the exhibits with One Night of Dreaming, an open, informal discussion of the decided on idea. The One Night Series was dreamt up last year by Burns and co, then focused on reality (based on the exhibit Real Life), though Dreaming marks the first one since the AGA's reopening (with more slated for future exhibits). With a number of experts and the audience, the assembled group gets to question and riff on the central idea in a casual, cafe-style discussion.

dream into the physical realm. "Sometimes you'll have a dream that is a painting," she says. "Then you try to do that painting. I often wonder about Leonardo Da Vinci: we look at his work and think, such a masterpiece. But how did he feel about his work? Did it really meet that idea in his head? He left a lot of things unfinished. It was as if he couldn't quite meet that picture in his head." Still, though Jensen and other experts—including a psychiatrist, a novelist and an art historian—will be present and each given a specific chance to speak, and the discussion is anchored by the two exhibits, One Night of Dreaming is meant to be more

open to input from its attendees than a panel presentaion with a quick Q & A tacked on. "Whenever I write it in an email, it's 'panelists' in quotations because I really tried to get away from that format," says Burns. "It's more like the Philosopher's Café; each speaker is going to say something really briefly, and then it's really about the discussion that happens afterwards, and then engaging the audience." V Thu, Apr 29 (7 pm) One Night of Dreaming Art Gallery of Alberta (2 Sir Winston Churchill Square), Free

One of the speakers this time around, Dr Phyllis Marie Jensen, a health researcher on the cusp of completing her Phd in Jungian psychoanalysis, notes that dreams are one of the main tools of psychoanalysis, and when it comes to the dreams of artists, sometimes art itself can be an attempt to bring a

That set-up sounds a bit like a recipe for sitcom simplicity, but Stubbings humanizes things rather beautifully, and in place of zany situations we get bracingly honest discussions with occasional blunt flavourings. Tied up into Clayton's insistence that he's "not through yet" and Agnes' reminisces and David's slow realizations, there is a plea for a little more understanding towards serious, yes, but also an exhortation to the virgins to make much of time: the problem at the heart of both of those issues is that people don't go through life with enough

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

ARTS // 21

PRAIRIE ARTSTERS >> RECLAIMING URBAN SPACE

Looking for the exceptional Long stretches of industrial landscapes. zones below freeways into average inhabEndless expansion of freeways and suburitable human spaces—hinges his practice bia. Homogenous storefronts. Dilapidated on the notion of turning the incidental storefronts. Islands of civic amenities sur- into the exceptional. Speaking largely to rounded by six-lane traffic. Gravel-covered a room of architects and artists, with at parking lots everywhere you turn. least one city councillor taking notes, Underused green spaces. Spartan Smallenberg gave a series of exsidewalks. Dust. Dirt. Trucks. amples of how civic intervention Listening to Vancouvercan reclaim spaces both tembased landscape architect porarily and dramatically. From kly.com traditional examples such as Greg Smallenberg give his e e w e vu amy@ New York City's High Line park lecture on reclaiming lost and y Am forgotten urban spaces last Friand Melbourne's revitalization Fung of its back-lane alleys, to gueday evening, I wanted to believe him in thinking that a city perpeturilla examples of planting flowers in ally needs the derelict in order to inspire potholes and creating a movable forest change. However, I couldn't quite accept consisting of shopping carts planted with that notion wholeheartedly when thinking trees, Smallenberg's examples pressed specifically about Edmonton. the idea that we need to see the potential Smallenberg—who's made a name in in our existing spaces and engage these turning wasted urban space such as dead spaces with human activity.

IE PRASITRERS

ART

There's a tendency to turn to art, or the idea of art, as the stand-in presence for human activity, as art in the broadest sense engages and enriches our perceptions of the world. But engaging in art and design alone is clearly not enough to provoke potential, as that art needs to consider its demographic in terms of traffic density, population diversity or what can be summed up as the lost space's relational engagement with its surroundings. Looking at downtown alone, I think of spots like Beaver Hills Park or Churchill Square, public spaces that have undergone major renovations and still somehow fail to live up to their potential as civic centres. Formerly a derelict park used mostly for trafficking or using drugs, the tiny park on the corner of Jasper and 105 Street is today a leisurely layout with a mini-water-

fall and small, rolling hills ideal for weekday picnics. Only, situated alongside two major corridors of busy automobile traffic, it's never a resting place that makes you want to linger. Its size remains more decorative than inviting, and the public art is more suited to a playground or at least near a bike path. A few blocks east, the Square is sizable in scope and is making attempts with more sitting areas, but I still doubt if anyone ever proposes Churchill Square as a meeting place or thinks to go there as a social outing outside of a festival context. What Edmonton has always lacked has been a year-round gathering place where one can just go and be socially engaged without participating in a framework of commerce. The battle may not actually be between public and private space, but about what we consider free spaces.

Churchill Square is designed as a blank slate to host major events rather than welcome everyday citizens, and in redefining what derelict means in terms of civic engagement, spaces like the Square rank just as derelict in terms of everyday human engagement. Exploring the potential of urban open spaces is not to just look at the forgotten or ignored, as those spaces are more often than not inhabited already, but inhabited by what has been deemed socially undesirable. While we continually redevelop our cityscape, we should first cater to the needs and desires of those walking the city streets rather than pander to the inflated projections of what may or may not come. V Amy Fung is the author of PrairieArtsters.com

VISUAL ARTS // WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER

Cloudy skies

We Don't Talk About the Weather could use some depth Amy Fung // amy@vueweekly.com

ith such a declarative title as We Don't Talk About the Weather, one could only assume the current ArtsHab One exhibition would address everything but the trivial and the mundane. But be forewarned: the title and works have very little to do with each other. According to the show's organizer, Robert Harpin, the title is suppose to be tongue-in-cheek, but I can only gather that being tongue-incheek rests on a fine line between being humorous and being nonsensical. "Most of my works are more funny than serious, or at least hopefully they are,"

Harpin says, who is a current tenant of ArtsHab One and gathered his peers for this group exhibition. "And when you name your show We Don't Talk About The Weather, people are going to come to the show and talk about the weather. It's kinda funny that it's a way to introduce things or start a conversation, and I feel art starts conversations as well." From the conventional to the silly, the works range from more established artists like Gloria Mok to new last-minute experiments by Eric Burton. Conversation starters or not, the offering of work hinges on the idea of collage, but with little insight into the variety of collages offered, the show is a mish-mash of con-

cepts that are held very loosely together. Calgary-based artist Michael Welchman offered the most engaging work, filling out an aged portrait of a British Commanderin-Chief in South Africa with drawings that seem to haunt the old Field-Marshall. While I am told there is a video component to the work, it was not present on the day I visited, but the portrait alone showed the most coherent artistic concept bridging the realm of existing images with the imagined narrative possibilities of collage. The other strongest works belonged to Mok, who stands out from the rest of the group quite immediately in form and execution. Harpin, who knew all of the artists

THIS AND THAT >> One of Robert Harpin's works in // Robert Harpin except for Mok, feels that she actually tempers the exhibition. "I'll probably get into trouble for saying this, but Gloria situates the show. She makes it seem more artistic," Harpin says, before adding, "The rest of the show is silly, but she remains very true to the original

sense of the word collage, giving a place of where the rest of the work is coming from." Mok, who then assumes the anchor point for the show, plays between the real and the imagined of the natural world with watercolour collages she already had in the studio. "I have a background in science and medicine," shares Mok, who is a practicing doctor by day. "So these concepts are quite familiar to me, but they are all imagined forms, inspired from the mind." Facing most of Mok's collages are Harpin's own works. Predominantly occupied with the notion of hyper masculinity in pop culture, his boyish collages carry through a camp theme that is certainly more '50s retro in aesthetic. Working with sparkles and one-liner texts like "Dentists are nice" and "We Have No Agenda," Harpin's works engage the viewers to read into his juxtapositions, but falling just short of absurdity, his contrasts lack their suggested depth and process for this reviewer. Soon to be the first tenants of ArtsHab Two, Harpin with wife and artist Aspen Zettel, hopes to continue organizing shows in the new building on 118 Avenue, and it is with hope that the next show will ignite a conversation that goes beyond the surface scope of not talking about the weather. V Until Sat, May 15 We Don't Talk About the Weather ArtsHab (third floor, 10217 - 106 st)

22 // ARTS

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VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

ARTS // 23

24 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

ARTS // 25

INSIDE // FILM

FILM REVUE // GUNLESS

Trevor Anderson

Film Capsules

Horror remakes

Online at vueweekly.com >> FILM

Brand-old actors

by Brian Gibson Brian Gibson looks at the actors who've managed to become the right kind of brand name

FILM // GUNLESS

Shoot to nill

Border crossing

Gunless offers little as commentary or a straight-up western Paul Gross on Canada's take on the American western Jonathan Busch

David Berry

// jonathan@vueweekly.com

// david@vueweekly.com

he latest Canadian period piece starring Paul Gross is not based on fact. At least that's what it appears to be. A bizarre website linked to the film's official site explores the historical legend surrounding the film's setting, Barclay's Bush, a wee British Columbia village with a population of 17. This is where, as the story goes, notorious gunslinger and Gunless protagonist The Montana Kid hung up his revolver and eventually settled. Browsing the evidence of the tale, however, it all reveals itself to be a hokey Blair Witch "is it or isn't it" ploy to create buzz. Adding some much-needed kick to a rather ordinary production better suited to the Sunday night CBC lineup, the hidden online hoax to the film nonetheless risks confusing several audiences, especially museum-loving Canadians who just might embarrass themselves by researching the case further at the public library. If anything, it produces a meta-narrative twist that begs a question of the western genre that the film itself isn't really asking. As The Montana Kid, Gross sports a widebrim hat and Paula Poundstone haircut, stumbling into Barclay's Bush with a bullet in his rear and shadowy grimace on his mug. Receiving care from a local Chinese family, he then takes a much-needed rest from being pursued to entertain the townspeople with juicy gossip of the Wild West. It turns out these folks don't use guns or violence to settle social matters, a collective trait that both frustrates and intrigues Montana as he begins to fall for lo-

ican genre, Gunless echoes Gross' breakthrough in more ways than one. Vue Weekly recently had a chance to speak with Gross about his experiences on both sides of the Canadian/American stereotype border, how to balance drama with comedy and the hidden benefits of getting to play a cowboy.

cal kindhearted sweetheart Jane (Sienna Guillory). Certain style and storyline elements in Gunless aim to be pretty formulaic, the peaceful diligence of the Canadian settlers contrasting against the roughneck pistol-toting of their brooding visitor. Steel bathtubs, town dances and a scarfaced villain (Callum Keith Rennie) help the film assume the likeness of what looks to be the kind of western romance your grandfather might read. But it's just a comedy, a wry commentary on gun control and American ideology—or is it? What Gunless really turns out to be is a accessibly light-hearted Canadian production, where all the creative elements—cast, script, wardrobe, set design and music (with songs by Blue Rodeo)—are all so tightly wound to appear legitimate and professional that it's a purely awkward experience on the big screen. While perfectly suited to the chutzpah that fuels an actor like Gross to remain Canada's laureate for dashing gentleman callers, it's neither on par with Hollywood or the genius arthouse cinema that our country is celebrated for. V Opening Fri, Apr 30 Gunless writ ten and direc ted by William Phillips starring Paul Gross, Sienna Guillory, Callum Keith Rennie



VUE WEEKLY: Gunless kind of seems to be a story that's right in your wheelhouse, being a particularly Canadian story, like Passchendaele, but also about that sort of American/Canadian interplay, with Due South. But I'm curious, what specifically attracted you to it? PAUL GROSS: Well, it was a western. I didn't really have to think very much. I think most actors harbour fantasies, originally just childhood fantasies, about one day being in a western. The prospects of that seemed pretty slim being in Canada—that's not exactly a genre that's natural to us, I don't think, and certainly not one we do much, if ever. So I think really just on a selfish level I just thought, 'Oh goody, I'll be in a western and get a horse and a gun.' ... And actually one of the great benefits of this movie is that I'm now an expert with a Colt .45: drawing it, spinning it, all of that. Gunslinger >> Paul Gross in Gunless

// Supplied

n many ways, you could see Paul Gross' latest role as the flip side of the one that implanted him into the Canadian consciousness. As the upright Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable Benton Fraser in the comedy-detective series Due South, he was the face of Canadian unflappable politesse and graciousness; now as the rough and ready Montana Kid in the comedy-western Gunless, he is the brash and unforgiving American looking to shoot first and worry about the necessary protocols later. Of course, as a Canadian take on a typically Amer-

VW: Why don't you think westerns are something that comes naturally to Canadians? PG: I don't really think it's anybody's genre except the US, really. It's got nothing to do with history, it's just kind of this mythology that was invented by immigrants out of Eastern Europe in Hollywood in the '30s, but it came to be really a big part of the American myth. I don't think that we're inordinately comfortable with myth-making, and we don't really want to borrow other people's mythology either. CONTINUED ON PAGE 27 >>

DVD DETECTIVE >> RIDE WITH THE DEVIL

Bad, bad luck

minutes in—a little narrative sleight-of-hand that pays off brilliantly as we see the merciless vagaries of war wreak havoc on conventional heroic trajectories.

Ride With the Devil (1999) was dumped into the marger unduly on the prettiness of its stars. It holds moments ketplace over a decade ago with only the most meager of tenderness of an endearingly awkward sort, yet most fanfare, a magisterial Civil War epic featuring several of its key scenes revolve around acts of rampant savagery young rising stars that was somehow immediately ren- that recall the most brutal evocations of novelist Cormac dered little more than a footnote of strictly cult inter- McCarthy. It is, of course, a western of sorts. est in the careers of director Ang Lee and screenwriter We meet two friends, Missouri boys who unthinkingly James Schamus. All this despite the fact that this side with the secessionists, Jake "Dutchy" Roedel celebrated collaborative team had previously (Tobey Maguire), the teenage son of a German enjoyed enormous acclaim with Sense and immigrant, and Jack Bull Charles (Skeet UlSensibility (1995) and The Ice Storm (1997), rich), who's a little older and at times needs and would soon enjoy massive commercial to look after the less-experienced Jake. Their m ekly.co vuewe success with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon friendship is mirrored by that of the aristoctive@ te e d d v (2000). The film's neglect now seems even d cratic George Clyde (Simon Baker) and forJosef more astonishing to me, given that it is surely mer slave Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright), one n u a r B the equal of Lee and Schamus' finest work. It is of many black men who, for all kinds of reasons a rare Hollywood film that embraces both a broad best not simplified, fought alongside those who were canvas and rigorously iconoclastic approach to one of the fighting to keep them enslaved. The story unfolds in such great troubled subjects of US history. It's beautiful in its a way that it's not obvious from the start who our real bucolic visions yet largely eschews gloss and doesn't linprotagonists will be—Wright doesn't even speak until 45

Residing far from the war's hot points, these guys fight not as enlisted men but as guerillas, a point that serves to emphasize the chaos and meaningless violence that filled the margins of the Civil War's official campaigns. They fight only seasonally, hiding out over the winter, like animals, for fear that the tracks of their horses' hooves will sabotage their strategies. They're not organized like a regular army but are every bit as capable of atrocity, something made grotesquely clear in the films' depiction of the 1863 Lawrence Massacre, in which the guerillas, some of them already drunk, descend on the Kansas town at dawn, unannounced, to slaughter each and every man they find, sometimes while they lay wounded under the weeping figures of their wives. It's the major turning point in Ride With the Devil, not in the sense that our central characters become suddenly politically enlightened, but that the infernal inhumanity they bear witness to finally reaches a breaking point. Most of the people being killed, Jake observes, "are just a bunch of ordinary folks finding out just how bad bad luck can be." Jake might just be Maguire's most interesting role, one

Ride With the Devil an overlooked Ang Lee classic

DVCD TIVE

DETE

26 // FILM

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

that invites him to trust in the verity of his inherent, saucer-eyed innocence, rather than trying to comment on the part or ingratiate himself. Though he's naturally goodhumoured, Jake's learning curve is tremendous and deeply pathetic. It's a marvelous moment when toward the film's end he had his haircut and is told by his impromptu barber (Tom Wilkinson) that he looks 21 again. Jake says, "I'm only 19." His barber tells him, "You'll never look 19." There's an amazing scene soon after that finds the virginal Jake about to make love to a beautiful woman. She repeatedly asks him if he's ever had sex, but all he can answer, rather defensively, is that he's killed 15 men. But the most affecting and elegantly wrought piece of acting in Ride With the Devil is easily that of Wright, who never overplays the colossal irony of his role, but uses a little characteristic sway of the head or suspicious glance here and there to make his presence more than felt. Wright's Holt is a character of vast complexity that needs to be at least partly left to our imagination, though there is a nicely measured scene that makes the core of his journey explicit, one in which he realizes that the most devastating moment in his adult life is also precisely the moment in which he begins to truly feel like a free man. It's a quiet scene in a film of grand spectacle, yet it constitutes the film's unforgettable emotional climax. V

FILM // TWO SHORT FILMS BY TREVOR ANDERSON

Raise a glass

Trevor Anderson's films begin in the bar

Beardy dancers >> A scene from Figs in Motion David Berry // david@vueweekly.com

ut it's true isn't it, Pauline, that people imagine that artists and their models spend their time getting up to all sorts of obscenities. As far as work goes, well, they paint or sculpt when they're tired of enjoying themselves." That quote from Edgar Degas, which Trevor Anderson reads in the middle of his AGA-commissioned, Degas-inspired short Figs in Motion, seems particularly appropriate to Anderson's work. Not that he, nor really any artist, is a decadent libertine popping out work between drinking sessions: it's more that Anderson's work is inexorably tied to social revelry, both in terms of his highly collaborative process—he admits with a knowing smirk that the technical aspects of filmmaking aren't really his forte—and his subject matter, which is usually a highly personal kind of storytelling of the type that you hear over a drink or two. "The way I write is to practice telling the stories in bars. You know right away when you've got your audience and when you lose them," Anderson explains with a deviously throaty laugh. "The subject matter I'm dealing with, it's specifically true stories from my life. So if I was telling someone the story, I know how I would tell it. So why bother changing that? If that's what it naturally is, just tell them the story you've got to tell." That's fully on display in the two shorts he's putting up this Thursday at Metro. Besides Figs—which follows local artists Nick Johnson and Norman Omar's attempts to be ballerinas, complete with tutus, horse-head masks and a whisky respite—there is also Punchlines, a self-portrait first produced for the Talent Lab at the

BORDER CROSSING

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

VW: Well, yes. And Gunless is a tweaking on the mythology in what you might call a Canadian way. That's something you seem to do a lot. What is it about that uniquely Canadian kind of storytelling that attracts you? PG: I just respond to that, and I don't necessarily know why. I just thought the premise was extremely funny, that the stone cold killer arrives in town and, naturally, he should have a gun fight—but nobody has a gun. In a way, the machinery, the comic engine of the film is not terribly dissimilar to the comic engine of Due South, where you take these two sort of mythologies of ourselves, the Americans being brash and rough and resolve things at the end of the gun—which is of course not true—and then you kind of slam it into the Canadian comfort mythology, that we're accomodating and diplomatic and relentlessly polite—which is equally not true—and you slam those two things to-

// Supplied

Toronto International Film Festival that tells the story of Anderson's artistic awakening at the hands of bullies through a montage of clips from the '80s films that inspired him. "I'm not ashamed to say I'm influenced by Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Mel Brooks' To Be or Not To Be," Anderson points out, laughing again. "Though I think it might have been more tempting to pretend otherwise." Truthfully, though, lately Anderson's work has taken the form of the essay film, which is where all that personal subject matter comes from. It's a style that suits his wry and dry manner, and allows his natural wit to come through, while also managing to draw in larger issues, such as queer life or the role of artists. He's amazingly adept at this deceptively simple style, which is all the more surprising considering it was something he sort of stumbled on to. "It was an accident," he admits. "Rock Pockets was an accidental film for me: I was playing in the Vertical Struts, and we had shot a bunch of footage, intending to make a music video. And then the band ended and we still hadn't made the music video, and I didn't know what to do with it. So a friend said, 'Well, why don't you do some voiceover and make it a documentary?' That effectively pushed me into the world of essay films, which I didn't even think about or know about before that." V Thu, Apr 29 (7 pm) Two Short Films by Trevor Anderson Featuring Punchlines, Figs in Motion Screening with Fame Metro Cinema (9828 - 101A Ave), $10

gether and funny stuff comes out of it. VW: The film also slams together the western, which can be a pretty no-nonsense genre, with some pretty light comedy. How did you find that balance, especially as a guy who's supposed to be this kind of badass gunslinger who's basically meeting a lot of kooks in this little town? PG: Acting is sort of the same if you're doing a drama or if you're doing a comedy. But there's just something, when you put that comedic spin on it where you might pause a little longer before a line, or throw a second look instead of just one. ... If you think about some of those Sergio Leone westerns, which I absolutely love, like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, for instance, you watch it with a certain slant and it's so close to being hilarious. If you had a joint, that is a funny movie: those insane close-ups and extreme characters, they're awfully close to it. You're always very close to comedy when you're doing drama, and all you have to do is push it that one extra tick, and it's suddenly funny. V

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

FILM // 27

FILM REVIEWS 



se nce dan gea la ven ry fur

Film Capsules Opening Friday Furry Vengeance

Directed by Roger Kumble Written by Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert Starring Brendan Fraser, Brooke Shields, Ken Jeong  There are debatable identity politics behind any and every kind of human representation in the film industry, all of which have been torn apart by academics and stand-up comics alike. Family films are especially indictable for exploiting the oppressed and marginalized, caring less what snooty liberal parents think in favor of making the kids laugh out loud. Furry Vengeance, a weak storybook criti-

28 // FILM

cism of consumerism and suburban expansion, has us wondering how far is too far in the culture of anthropomorphizing cute animals, especially as studies continue to reveal their life experiences as completely unique from our own. Portraying squirrels, bald eagles and one headstrong raccoon as they take revenge on an unsuspecting real estate developer, Furry Vengeance harks back two or three decades prior, a sticky debate caught somewhere between Caddyshack's mischeivious gopher and 1995's Gordy, the other less-political talking pig movie. Dan (Brendan Fraser) moves his family to a show home in a fairly secluded neighborhood in the forest, so he can oversee the building of a row of identical houses that threaten to overtake a natural habititat belonging to a smart-ass creature kingdom. As the naive protagonist, Dan is reluctantly forced by his head-rolling boss (Ken Jeong) into expanding the housing deal to wipe out the entire forest upon feeling compelled to over-provide for his wife (Brooke Shields) and teenage son (Matt Prokop). The animals, in turn, pull pranks on Dan centred around physical peril, public embarrassment and above all else, psychological torment. What is risky about Furry Vengeance is its flippant critique of modern technology— SUV's, Blackberries, the Nintendo Wii—cozied up next to an awkward solution for the preservation of forested areas and their inhabitants. Whereas Dr Seuss's The Lorax framed the planet's vulnerability for children through a stark allegory of a hopeless and misunderstood species pleading for change, the Home Alone-type motives of these tittering rodents and menacing birds teach us very little about pressing environmental issues that the film imagines itself to contain. It's perhaps offensive because it's ineffective, and largely unfunny. Putting little value on a supporting cast of comedic underdog gems like Jeong, The Office's Angela Kinsey, and The Daily Show's Samantha Bee, it instead foregrounds Fraser as he fumbles through sequences of dated slapstick better suited to

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

the Family Channel. The time is now, but not here. Jonathan Busch

// jonathan@vueweekly.com

Opening at the Princess Max Manus

Directed by Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg Written by Thomas Nordseth-Tiller Starring Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Nicolai Cleve Broch Princess Theatre (10337 - 82 Ave)  The key to Max Manus, the biopic about the Norwegian freedom fighter in the Second World War, comes when Max (Aksel Hennie) first meets up with the Norwegian command for training in Scotland: Max, having just escaped from the Nazis after first jumping and then crawling out of two separate windows, and disheartened by his own sloppiness, congratulates his new captain on their success. He's met with nothing but disappointment, a list of the number of men and civilians killed and a scoff at the notion of success. In war, even fighting for a righteous cause does not help with the bloodshed. That is a familiar message, and Max Manus doesn't do a lot to break away from familiar biopic tropes, but it is still buoyed by a stellar central performance from Hennie, and a deft touch by co-directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. Beginning with a glimpse of Manus' time on the snow-covered front of the Finnish-USSR war—our first live shot is a skillful one, opening on an empty winter field before its tranquility is pushed aside by an off-camera explosion that sprays snow and dirt into our view—we follow him throughout his career in Nazi-occupied Norway, a place whose necessary subterfuge seems to chafe Manus almost as much as his disgust with the ease with which Norway initially capitulated (the name of their

FILM REVIEWS

Film Capsules

collaborationist president, Quisling, actually lives on across the world as a synonym for traitor). Here, the victories—sinking German ships in Oslo harbour, torching draft records—are modest and fleeting: even though Manus manages to escape to sanctuary in Sweden after each job, each still sees another comrade lost, another friend killed. We can see the weight of this spread beautifully across Hennie's face: he looks a bit like a Norweigan Steve Buschemi, and shares that actor's ability to sum up a lot of internal conflict with a simple look. Remarkably—and appropriately, considering the setting—restrained, Henie only occasionally bursts through with heated emotion: instead we get his turmoil mostly expressed through bitten hands or choked-back sobs. By the time we get to the end, where Manus sits alone in the apartment where his resistance started, surrounded by the ghosts of his friends, we are fully within his regret, which drowns almost all feelings of pride in his role. It may be a familiar story, but it's still rare for a nation to celebrate a hero who is so ambivalent about his role, and that elevates this biopic into a special war film. David Berry

// david@vueweekly.com

Opening at the Metro La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet

Fri, Apr 30 – Mon, May 3 (6:30 pm) Directed by Frederick Wiseman Featuring the Paris Opera Ballet Metro Cinema (9828 - 101A Ave)  I'm writing this review of La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet in a mildly shorter timeframe than is usual. The reason for that is because the original screener copy I was given didn't work: I tried it on my usual DVD watching apparatus, even borrowed a roommate's more reliable player, and it simply wouldn't start up. Luckily I was able to contact Metro Cinema, who managed to track down another copy and get it to me, albeit on a Monday afternoon, a few days after their usual delivery time. Due to my evening being abnormally busy, I woke at about 8 am on Tuesday— after already confirming the new screener worked, of course—got fully dressed (working from home, I find these little rituals of professionalism crucial to productivity), and began watching the film. About halfway through I took a brief break to make some breakfast, caught the headlines on CBC news and then returned, scrawling what I felt were the most relevant observations in my notebook—an unremarkable Hilroy five-subject coil number—until it wrapped up, at which point I hauled myself to my desk and began writing. Now, perhaps you're finding all of this description a touch boring. Odds are you read a film review for the actual review, and aren't terribly interested in the process that got it there. But, of course, maybe this is an interesting peek into a world you're unfamiliar with: certainly in this age of author's twitter feeds and de rigeur makingof documentaries on DVD releases, there seems to be some market for pulling back the curtain, and anyone of reasonable cu-

FILM WEEKLY FRI, APR 30 – THU, MAY 6, 2010 s

CHABA THEATRE�JASPER 6094 Connaught Dr, Jasper, 780.852.4749

THE BACK�UP PLAN (PG language may offend,crude content) DAILY 12:40, 3:40, 7:15, 9:55

THE LOSERS (14A violence) No passes FRI 4:50, 7:15, 9:50; SAT�SUN 2:00, 4:50, 7:15, 9:50; MON�THU 5:35, 8:35

THE LOSERS (14A violence) DAILY 1:10, 3:50,

GUNLESS (PG) FRI 4:15, 6:45, 9:20; SAT�SUN 1:30,

PARKLAND CINEMA 7 130 Century Crossing, Spruce Grove, 780.972.2332 (Spruce Grove, Stony Plain; Parkland County)

THE LOSERS (14A violence) DAILY 7:15, 9:30; FRI�

6:30, 9:20

4:15, 6:45, 9:20; MON�THU 5:50, 8:50

SUN, TUE 1:15, 3:30

OCEANS (G) DAILY 12:15, 2:45, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory violence) No passes FRI 4:40, 7:20, 9:45; SAT�SUN 1:45, 4:40, 7:20, 9:45; MON�THU 5:30, 8:40

THE BACK�UP PLAN (PG language may offend, crude content) DAILY 6:55, 9:25; FRI�SUN, TUE 12:55, 3:25

DEATH AT A FUNERAL (14A crude content) DAILY

1:30, 4:50, 7:55, 10:40

THE BACK UP PLAN (PG crude content language

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) DAILY 12:25, 3:20,

may offend) FRI�SAT 7:00, 9:00; SUN�THU 8:00

6:45, 10:00

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) FRI 4:10, 6:55, 9:15; SAT� SUN 1:15, 4:10, 6:55, 9:15; MON�THU 5:15, 8:15

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) FRI�SAT 7:00, 9:00;

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (18A

IRON MAN 2 (STC) No Passes, Midnight THU 12:01

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3D (PG vio-

SUN�THU 8:00

CINEMA CITY MOVIES 12 5074-130 Ave, 780.472.9779

HOUSE FULL (STC) Hindi W/E.S.T. FRI�SAT 1:20, 4:30, 7:35, 10:50; SUN�THU 1:20, 4:30, 7:35 EKAM�SON OF SOIS (14A) FRI 1:10, 4:25, 7:40,

sexual violence, disturbing content) DAILY 12:05, 3:15, 6:40, 10:05

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may offend) DAILY 1:00, 4:10, 7:10, 9:40

CLASH OF THE TITANS (PG not rec. for young children, violence) Digital 3d DAILY 12:30, 3:45, 6:40, 9:30

11:00; SAT 1:10, 4:25, 7:40, 11:05; SUN�THU 1:10, 4:25, 7:40

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG violence) Digital 3d DAILY 12:15, 2:40, 5:10, 7:45, 10:15

REPO MEN (18A gory scenes, brutal violence)

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (18A crude content, substance abuse) FRI, SUN, TUE�THU 1:25, 4:55, 7:50, 10:30; SAT 4:55, 7:50, 10:30; MON 1:25, 4:55, 10:30

FRI�SAT 1:45, 4:50, 7:10, 9:45, 12:15; SUN�THU 1:45,

4:50, 7:10, 9:45

DUGGAN CINEMA�CAMROSE 6601-48 Ave, Camrose, 780.608.2144

THE BACK UP PLAN (PG language may offend, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

GUNLESS (PG) DAILY 7:00 9:10; FRI�SUN, TUE 1:00

violence) DAILY 7:25 9:25; FRI�SUN 2:25

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG violence) DAILY 7:10 9:10; FRI�SUN 2:10

THE LOSERS (14A violence) DAILY 7:15, 9:20; FRI�SUN 2:15

lence) FRI�SAT, TUE�THU 12:50, 4:20, 7:35, 10:25; SUN 4:20, 7:35, 10:25; MON 12:50, 10:25

SUN 2:00

THE CRAZIES (18A gory violence) FRI�SAT 1:50,

ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D (PG violence, fright-

GALAXY�SHERWOOD PARK

COP OUT (14A crude content, coarse language)

FRI�SAT 1:25, 4:05, 6:40, 9:20, 12:00; SUN�THU 1:25, 4:05, 6:40, 9:20

PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE

LIGHTNING THIEF (PG frightening scenes, not recommended for young children) FRI�SAT 1:20, 4:10, 7:15, 9:50, 12:10; SUN�THU 1:20, 4:10, 7:15, 9:50 VALENTINE'S DAY (PG language may offend) DAILY 1:05, 4:15, 7:00, 9:55

TOOTH FAIRY (G) FRI�SAT 1:35, 3:55, 6:35, 9:05,

11:20; SUN�THU 1:35, 3:55, 6:35, 9:05

THE SPY NEXT DOOR (PG) FRI�SAT 1:55, 3:50, 6:45, 9:10, 11:30; SUN�THU 1:55, 3:50, 6:45, 9:10 THE BOOK OF ELI (14A brutal violence, not recommended for children) DAILY 1:40, 4:45, 7:25, 10:00 AVATAR 3D (PG violence, not recommended for

young children) Digital 3d FRI 1:00, 4:20, 7:45, 11:10; SAT 1:00, 4:20, 7:45, 11:00; SUN�THU 1:00, 4:20, 7:45

CINEPLEX ODEON NORTH 14231-137 Ave, 780.732.2236

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: ARMIDA (classification not available) SAT 11:00

KENNY CHESNEY: SUMMER IN 3D (G) Digital

3d SUN 1:00

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (PG violence, frightening scenes) SUN 12:45

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: TURANDOT ENCORE (classification not available) MON 6:30 IRON MAN 2 (STC) Midnight, No passes THU 12:05 GREEN ZONE (14A violence, coarse language) Star & Strollers Screening: THU 1:00

CITY CENTRE 9 10200-102 Ave, 780.421.7020

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) Stadium Seating, Dolby Stereo Digital DAILY 12:40, 3:30, 6:45, 9:40 CLASH OF THE TITANS 3D (PG not recom-

mended for young children, violence) Digital 3d,

Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating FRI�SAT, MON�WED 12:10, 3:15, 7:00, 9:55; SUN 7:00, 9:55; THU 12:10, 3:15

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may

violence) No passes DAILY 12:30, 1:30, 2:50, 3:50, 5:20, 6:50, 7:50, 9:20, 10:30

offend) Dolby Stereo Digital DAILY 12:20, 2:35, 5:05, 7:25, 9:45

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

DAILY 12:00, 2:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:10

GUNLESS (PG) FRI�TUE 12:20, 2:30, 4:50, 7:15, 9:30; WED 4:50, 7:15, 9:30; THU 12:20, 2:30, 4:40, 7:15, 9:30; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00

THE BACK�UP PLAN (PG language may offend,

crude content) FRI, SUN�TUE, THU 12:40, 3:45, 7:10, 9:50; SAT 12:40, 3:55, 7:10, 9:50; WED 3:45, 7:10, 9:50; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00 THE LOSERS (14A violence) DAILY 1:50, 4:40, 7:45, 10:15

OCEANS (G) DAILY 11:50, 2:00, 4:20, 6:45, 9:00 DEATH AT A FUNERAL (14A crude content) DAILY 1:00, 3:30, 7:30, 9:55

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) DAILY 1:10, 4:15, 7:20, 10:10

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may offend) DAILY 12:10, 2:20, 5:00, 7:35, 10:00

CLASH OF THE TITANS (PG not recommended

for young children, violence) Digital 3d DAILY 12:50, 3:40, 6:40, 9:15

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG violence) Digital 3d DAILY 12:15, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:05 HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (18A crude content, substance abuse) FRI, SUN�THU 1:40, 4:10, 8:00, 10:20; SAT 4:10, 8:00, 10:20 ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D (PG violence, frightening scenes) Digital 3d DAILY 1:20, 4:00, 7:05, 9:45

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: ARMIDA (clas-

violence) Stadium Seating, DTS Digital, No Passes

DAILY 12:35, 3:10, 5:30, 8:00, 10:25

GUNLESS (PG) DTS Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:15, 2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 9:35

DEATH AT A FUNERAL (14A crude content)

Stadium Seating, DTS Digital DAILY 12:30, 2:50, 5:10, 7:30, 9:50

violence) No passes FRI�WED 12:30, 1:20, 3:10, 4:00, 6:50, 7:40, 9:30, 10:20; THU 12:30, 1:20, 3:00, 3:20, 6:45, 7:40, 9:15, 10:20

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) FRI�WED 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:40, 10:10; THU 3:55, 7:40, 10:10

GUNLESS (PG) FRI�WED 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30,

10:00; THU 4:35, 7:30, 10:00; Star & Strollers Screening: THU 1:00

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) FRI 4:15, 7:00, 9:15; SAT� SUN 11:30, 1:45, 4:15, 7:00, 9:15; MON�THU 7:00, 9:15

10337-82 Ave, 780.433.0728

MAX MANUS (14A violence) DAILY 6:50, 9:10; SAT�SUN 2:00

NEW YORK I LOVE YOU (14A sexual content) DAILY 7:00; SAT�SUN 1:00

CHLOE (18A sexual content) DAILY 9:00; SAT�SUN 3:00

SCOTIABANK THEATRE WEM WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.444.2400

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory vio-

lence) No passes DAILY 11:50, 2:30, 5:00, 7:50, 10:30

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) FRI�TUE, THU 11:45,

GUNLESS (PG) FRI 3:15, 7:30, 9:45; SAT�SUN 12:30, 3:15, 7:30, 9:45; MON�THU 7:30, 9:45

2:00, 4:20, 6:40, 9:10; WED 4:20, 6:40, 9:10; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00

THE BACK�UP PLAN (PG language may offend,crude content) FRI 4:20, 6:50, 9:20; SAT�SUN 1:40, 4:20, 6:50, 9:20; MON�THU 6:50, 9:20

GUNLESS (PG) DAILY 11:45, 2:15, 4:45, 7:15, 9:45

THE LOSERS (14A violence) FRI 3:30, 7:25, 10:05;

THE BACK�UP PLAN (PG language may offend,crude content) DAILY 1:10, 4:10, 7:20, 10:10

SAT�SUN 1:10, 3:30, 7:25, 10:05; MON�THU 7:25,

THE LOSERS (14A violence) DAILY 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:45, 10:15

OCEANS (G) FRI 4:30, 6:45, 9:00; SAT�SUN 12:00, 2:20, 4:30, 6:45, 9:00; MON�THU 6:45, 9:00

OCEANS (G) FRI�TUE, THU 12:00, 2:20, 4:30, 6:45, 9:15; WED 4:30, 6:45, 9:15; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00

10:05

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence)

FRI 4:30, 7:10, 9:50; SAT�SUN 1:15, 4:30, 7:10, 9:50; MON�THU 7:10, 9:50

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may offend) FRI 3:45, 7:40, 10:00; SAT�SUN 1:00, 3:45, 7:40, 10:00; MON�THU 7:40, 10:00 CLASH OF THE TITANS (PG not recomended for young children, violence) Digital 3d FRI, MON�THU 7:20, 10:10; SAT�SUN 12:15, 2:45, 7:20, 10:10

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG violence) Digital 3d FRI 4:45, 7:15, 9:30; SAT�SUN 11:45, 2:15, 4:45, 7:15, 9:30; MON�THU 7:15, 9:30

GARNEAU

8712-109 St, 780.433.0728

DEATH AT A FUNERAL (14A crude content) FRI, SUN�THU 1:20, 4:00, 7:30, 10:00; SAT 4:00, 7:30,

10:00

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) DAILY 1:45, 4:50, 7:40, 10:30

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may offend) DAILY 1:00, 3:30, 6:50, 9:20

CLASH OF THE TITANS (PG not recommended for young children, violence) Digital 3d DAILY 12:40, 3:40, 7:30, 10:20

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG violence) Digital 3d FRI�TUE, THU 12:30, 3:15, 6:30, 9:00; WED 12:30, 3:15, 10:00

THE MESSENGER (14A coarse language, nudity,

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON�IMAX 3D

GRANDIN THEATRE�ST ALBERT

ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D (PG violence,

sexual content) DAILY 7:00, 9:15; SAT�SUN 2:00

Grandin Mall, Sir Winston Churchill Ave, St Albert, 780.458.9822

THE BACK UP PLAN (PG crude content language

(PG violence) DAILY 1:30, 4:15, 7:00, 9:30

frightening scenes) Digital 3d FRI�SAT, MON�THU 12:50, 3:50, 7:10, 9:50; SUN 3:50, 7:10, 9:50

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: ARMIDA (classification not available) SAT 11:00

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG violence)

Digital 3d SUN 1:00

THE BACK�UP PLAN (PG language may offend,

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) DAILY 9:00

12:01

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may

IRON MAN 2: IMAX (STC) MIDNIGHT, No passes

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID (G) DAILY 12:45, 2:30,

WESTMOUNT CENTRE

Stadium Seating DAILY 12:05, 3:20, 6:30, 9:20

crude content) DTS Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:05, 2:40, 5:25, 7:55, 10:25

IRON MAN (PG not recommended for young

children, violence) Stadium Seating, Digital Presentation THU 9:00

IRON MAN 2 (STC) Digital Presentation, No passes, Stadium Seating THU 12:00

CLAREVIEW 10 4211-139 Ave, 780.472.7600

ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D (PG violence, frightening scenes) FRI 3:45, 6:35; SAT�SUN 1:10, 3:45, 6:35; MON�THU 5:20

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: AN IMAX 3D THE LAST SONG (PG) FRI�SUN 9:10; MON�THU

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

violence) No passes FRI 4:00, 7:45, 10:15; SAT�SUN 1:30, 4:00, 7:45, 10:15; MON�THU 7:45, 10:15

PRINCESS

3D (PG violence) Digital 3d, Dolby Stereo Digital,

IRON MAN 2 (STC) MIDNIGHT, No passes THU

1525-99 St, 780.436.8585

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

3:10; Movies for Mommies: TUE 1:00

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: AN IMAX

sification not available) SAT 11:00

CINEPLEX ODEON SOUTH

2020 Sherwood Dr, 780.416.0150 Sherwood Park 780-416-0150

violence) DAILY 7:05 9:15; FRI�SUN, TUE 1:05 3:15

may offend) DAILY 1:15, 3:15, 5:15, 7:15, 9:15

(PG violence) Digital 3d FRI 4:00, 6:30, 9:00; SAT� SUN 1:25, 4:00, 6:30, 9:00; MON�THU 5:00, 7:50

12:01

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) DAILY 7:00 9:00; FRI�

THE LOSERS (14A violence) DTS Digital, No

Passes, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:25, 2:55, 5:20, 7:45, 10:10

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) DAILY 7:10 9:20; SAT�

SUN, TUE 1:10 3:20

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

THE BOUNTY HUNTER (PG sexual content, vio-

ening scenes) Digital 3d FRI�SAT, MON�THU 12:45, 3:30, 7:00, 9:45; SUN 3:30, 7:00, 9:45

lence)DAILY 6:45, 9:00; FRI�SUN, TUE 12:45, 3:00

crude content) DAILY 7:05, 9:15; SAT�SUN 2:05; Movies For Mommies: FRI 1:00

SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE (14A coarse language, crude content) FRI�SAT 1:40, 4:40, 6:50, 9:15, 11:25; SUN�THU 1:40, 4:40, 6:50, 9:15 4:35, 7:20, 9:40, 11:55; SUN�THU 1:50, 4:35, 7:20, 9:40

offend) DAILY 6:50, 9:05; FRI�SUN, TUE 12:50, 3:05

8:00

CLASH OF THE TITANS 3D (PG not recom-

mended for young children, violence) Digital 3d

FRI 4:25, 7:00, 9:35; SAT�SUN 1:40, 4:25, 7:00, 9:35; MON�THU 5:10, 8:10

DATE NIGHT (PG sexual content, language may

offend) FRI 4:30, 6:50, 9:30; SAT�SUN 1:50, 4:30, 6:50, 9:30; MON�THU 5:45, 8:25

KICK�ASS (18A brutal violence) FRI 3:50, 6:40, 9:25;

DAILY 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00

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LEDUC CINEMAS Leduc, 780.352.3922

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON DIGITAL 3D (PG violence) DAILY 12:55, 3:25, 6:55, 9:25

LOSERS (14A violence) DAILY 1:00, 3:30, 7:00, 9:30 BACK UP PLAN (PG language may offend, crude content) DAILY 1:05, 3:20, 7:05, 9:20

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory violence) DAILY 1:00, 3:20, 7:00, 9:30

METRO CINEMA 9828-101A Ave, Citadel Theatre, 780.425.9212

IRON MAN 2 (STC) MIDNIGHT, No passes THU

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violence) Dolby Stereo Digital, No passes FRI 6:50, 9:45; SAT�SUN 1:15, 3:55, 6:50, 9:45; MON�THU 5:30, 8:30

BACK UP PLAN (PG language may offend, crude content) Dolby Stereo Digital FRI 7:15, 9:55; SAT� SUN 12:45, 3:20, 7:15, 9:55; MON�THU 5:10, 8:10 GUNLESS (PG) DTS Digital FRI 7:05, 9:25; SAT�SUN 1:00, 3:45, 7:05, 9:25; MON�THU 5:20, 8:20

THE GHOST WRITER (PG violence, coarse language) DTS Digital FRI 6:35, 9:35; SAT�SUN 12:30, 3:30, 6:35, 9:35; MON�THU 5:00, 8:00

WETASKIWIN CINEMAS Wetaskiwin, 780.352.3922

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (18A gory

violence) DAILY 1:00, 3:25, 7:00, 9:25

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DOC SOUP: SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLU� TION (PG) THU 7:00

offend,crude content) FRI 4:20, 7:10, 9:40; SAT�SUN 1:20, 4:20, 7:10, 9:40; MON�THU 5:40, 8:30

KENNY CHESNEY: SUMMER IN 3D (G)

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

FURRY VENGEANCE (PG) DAILY 1:05, 3:35, 7:05,

BACK UP PLAN (PG language may offend, crude content) DAILY 12:55, 3:20, 6:55, 9:20

FILM // 29

COMMENT // MAINSTREAM HORROR MOVIES

Slash back

Mainstream horror has drifted into shallow franchises and remakes Brian Gibson // brian@vueweekly.com

he leather-gloved hand, its narrow metal claws flicking up, rises out of the bath water as the girl drifts off. The fedora hat. The red- and green-striped sweater. Then the flame-scarred face. It's Freddy. For the ninth time. The Michael Bay-produced "reboot" of Nightmare on Elm Street means Freddy stalks ahead of kill 'er dead-soulmates Chucky (five Child's Plays), Leatherface (six Texas Chainsaw Massacres) and Jigsaw (seven Saws), creeps closer to Michael Myers (11 Halloweens), and blood-trails Jason Voorhees (12 Friday the 13ths). Mainstream horror's become more franchise- and remake-driven—remember all that J-horror Ringing again and reGrudgeing?—and pooled around the slasher-flick. Even the simultaneously cliché-parodying and embracing, super media-self-conscious Scream (spurting from the meta-horror of Wes Craven's New Nightmare two years earlier) became a franchise and started running in circles. And if horror—descending from gothic literature and embodied by Bram Stoker's Dracula—should dredge up repressed fears and anxieties, today's movie-mainstream has skipped the repression and whipped out the blatant. Hostel and Saw, dubbed "torture porn," are as explicit and grinding about mutilation and murder as porn is about sex. Much of horror's original thrill—mortal dread, metamorphosis, sublimated sexuality, even the idea that cinema, vampire-like, can hypnotically seduce us—gets sucked out with stalker movies. The deeply neurotic and erotic have given way to the shallowly gory and whorey. It's about who'll be killed next and just how fiendishly. Even spectre-spectacles and creature-features tend to ghost or slither along a predictable storyline of steady, creeping pursuit. The supernatural and serial, the spooks and murderers, long stalked the same cinematic block—German expressionism produced F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and Fritz Lang's M (1931)—but joined in bloody matrimony 50 years ago, with Hitchcock's Psycho. Almost halfway through, it cut from the haunted conscience of Marion Crane to a knife-wielding shadow, slashing through the shower curtain at the nude woman. When we learned the killer was a schizoid Norman Bates who'd imagined himself his mother, even as her withered corpse sat in the basement, slasher-ville

FILM CAPSULES

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

riosity is probably interested in any kind of unknown. Either way, I should point out that this is a mere 250 words, which took me about 20 minutes or so to put together, and you've probably passed over in about two. All this is to say that, in theory, Frederick Wiseman's impressionistic, cinema verite look at one of the world's most important dance companies is interesting, and certainly there are moments here that shine a

30 // FILM

horror arrived. Then, in 1978, months after Exorcist II flopped, Jaws became the first big-time horror franchise with the second film in the series. The father of slasher flicks, Halloween, set screens aglow. Alien was reportedly pitched as "Jaws in space." And the '80s brought Freddy and co—including Norman Bates, back in the house above his motel for two Psycho sequels. "Most studios are afraid to take a chance on something new, so they end up always reverting back to the safe bets of horror, ie, the sequel and the remake," says Chris Bavota, who runs The Lobby, a horror-film rental store on Whyte Avenue, and kickstarted a horror-film festival in Edmonton. Even if horror's less family-friendly sights restricts its box-office bite (Saw's number 46 among top-grossing franchises worldwide, with the Exorcist movies next at number 66), the bite's still rapacious (that number 46 gross is nearly $729 000 000). Identifiable main characters mean brandname recognition, but what does it mean when they're homicidal psychopaths? Perhaps reflecting the media's murdercoverage, these recurring killers are made far more important than their victims. Bavota, who's writing a horror-comedy with Canadian director Sid Zanforlin, dislikes the psycho-as-hero: "When you start to cheer for Jason the way you cheered for Rocky, characters have become a little too one-dimensional and plot lines have become a little too implausible." Other characters become mere prey and, Bavota wonders, "How can you expect to interest your audience and make them care about your character's survival when the only thing that is interesting about your character is the way they are going to die?" Saw has relished the ways bodies can be blood-drained. But did "torture porn," gushing in the '00s, make viewers indifferent to the photos and video of actual torture in Abu Ghraib that hit screens in 2004? Certainly mainstream horror—often so graphic, it's closer to snuff film—seems to be redefining and reflecting 21st-century visual violence, in brutally profitable yet commercially conservative ways. "I really think extreme violence is so popular nowadays because the Internet has introduced a younger audience to sex and weirdness from around the world, so now they expect more," observes Bavota. But does a genre become one-note when it's trying to up the ante for explicitness? And does light on rehearsals and back-room dealings that those of us outside the arts/administration world will never see: the administration struck me as especially interesting, what with their talk of entertaining wealthy benefactors and sorting out the details of their artists' pension plan. But why on earth Wiseman thought he needed two and a half hours to fully immerse us in that is beyond me: maybe I'm insufficiently refined, but there are only so many times you can watch a choreographer adjust a dancer's technique before it all just blends together

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

taking the bloodiest route to profits mean new flicks numb the art out of smart, "old" horror even as they focus viewers on shock, not content? A friend recently told me that, after the Saw films, she didn't find David Fincher's classic thriller Seven disturbing. Bavota wonders, too, about horror's thirst for back-slashing and historycannibalizing. "They are now remaking films that once stood as groundbreaking movies within the genre, and the new versions end up overshadowing and somewhat invalidating the originals in the eyes of a younger audience. After the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out in 2003, I asked some of my younger customers who had seen and enjoyed it to watch the original, and all of them thought it was boring ... it kind of makes me sad to think that when someone goes to watch Friday the 13th or Psycho they are going to get Marcus Nispel and Gus Van Sant instead of Sean S. Cunningham and Alfred Hitchcock. "I really wish that Hollywood would make fewer remakes and sequels and take more chances on young filmmakers who are fans of the genre. When you have someone who actually loves horror films making horror films, you usually get something great. Look at Adam Green's Hatchet, or anything made by Guillermo del Toro," Bavota says. "Just getting the hottest video director to helm a remake of a horror classic usually results in something sub-par at best." It could be mainstream horror's in another lull before it's re-energized, as when Scream tongue-in-cheeked up the slasher flick after the post-Halloween '80s and '90s (though that period had good creaturefeature remakes, Bavota notes, such as Carpenter's The Thing, Cronenberg's The Fly, and Chuck Russell's The Blob). But, post-irony, the scream-and-slash clichés remain: spooky score; serial psychopathic stalker (usually masked/disfigured); cutting weapon; dark spaces; adolescent victims; gruesome deaths. Why? Because they're comforting. And maybe that's the dark truth behind mainstream horror's appeal—it's become as shockingly, reassuringly safe as a slip-on party-mask, offering the surface illusion of pain for some predictable fun. Only that's not the stuff classic nightmares are made of. V A Nightmare on Elm Street opens on Fri, Apr 30 into one indistinguishable blob of time. Again, there are plenty of little interesting moments here—I also liked it when we saw the tech crew painting the dancer's slippers, though I was a little surprised we didn't hang around to see them dry—but Wiseman could stand to excise significant chunks. Behind-the-scenes looks are interesting to a degree, but there's a reason most of us don't show up more than a halfhour before the curtain rises.

David Berry

// david@vueweekly.com

INSIDE // MUSIC

MUSIC

34 39

Enter Sandor Music Notes

Bob Wiseman

Online at vueweekly.com >>MUSIC Vuefinder: live show slide show of Alice Kos Vuetube: The Famines perform live The Classical Score: violinist Lara St John’s perspective of one of the top violin concertos.

PREVUE // WYRD FEST II

Weird community

The second Wyrd Fest pulls in bands from across Canada will, regretablly, be taking the stage for the final time in Edmonton at Wyrd—to the screwy muted-pop of Calgary darlings Women, with a mess of styles in between: glitchy drum-dance and moody disco courtesy of Vancouver's MYTHS and Cosmetics, respectively, the psych-fuzz blasts of Montréal's Omon Ra II and Lethbridge's Fist City, the synth-heavy dance music of Montréal's D'eon.

David Berry // David@vueweekly.com

iven the runaway success of the first Wyrd Fest, it was maybe inevitable that Weird Canada impresario Aaron Levin was going to expand on the idea. And while returns from the sweat-drenched crowds and ecstatic bands certainly had some say in expanding the 16-band, oneday festival into a three-night behemoth that will feature some 22 bands in three seperate cities, you get the impression that at least part of the motivation was Levin's own selfish desire to bring out some of the bands that couldn't feasibly make the trip out last time. "For me, it was just kind of a necessity: how do I get these bands here?" Levin explains with his usual kind of dry but palpable excitement. "Last time, it was a coincidence of bands converging, but now we're asking them to come. I couldn't get some of them to come for just one show, but I could if there were three shows." So where the first Wyrd Fest had a definite bent for the western weirdos, number two is truly a cross-Canada affair, pulling in bands from Montréal and Halifax to go with a slate of locals. But while there are a few familiar faces—Levin's own popsplosion JAZZ, naturally, as well as the sludgey assault of Edmonton's Famines, the smart psych punch of Lethbridge's Myelin Sheaths and the tribal no wave of Vancouver's Shearing Pinx—even among the locals things have been mixed up, pulling

VUEWEEKLY.COM/VUETUBE

THE FAMINES >> Just one band out of Wyrd Fest's lineup in bands that Levin couldn't get into the fold on the first go-round but that he had always wanted to have involved. "I looked at who I booked for Wyrd One and tried to cross them off, because I wanted to have a fresh line-up. Then it was like Christmastime, literally just who did I want to see?" he enthuses. "Even once that

// Eden Munrov

was done, there was all these bands coming out of the woodwork, and it was just kind of like, 'Damn, why didn't I contact you? How dumb am I?' There was so much enthusiasm that it's basically exactly who we wanted to see." Who that is ranges from local psych-punk stalwarts the Wicked Awesomes—who

If that seems like a rather diverse array of talent, well, that's by design: it's not called Familiar Canada, after all. Because as much as this is a sneaky way for Levin to get to see the bands that interest him, it's also about something bigger: bringing together these disparate communities into something resembling a unified whole. "I really feel like all these communities have so much in common: the same struggles, the same goals, they're pushing in the same direction, it's just a different genre. The only difference is that they're in to different sounds. But I truly believe that all these separate communities really can just get along, if they're brought together," Levin explains, noting that exposure to elements outside your comfort zone is the key to any kind of growth, artistic or personal. "How we work sometimes is that we need pricks or some kind of stimulus outside, and then we can grow. Someone who isn't exposed to that stuff has no idea that it exists, and whether or not they like it is yet to be discovered, but if they see it it grows their consciousness and idea of

music." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Levin has found that attitude can sometimes be taken the wrong way. From the get-go, he and Weird Canada have had the experience of being passed off as esoteric for its own sake, which perhaps says more about the narrow mind of his critics than any fault of his. As evidenced by his enthusiasm for getting getting these bands out into the public consciousness, though, it is less about being part of an exclusive club than it is about a man with vast curiosity and interest in music trying to find people to share his taste with. "The finding the new, that's a significant part—it's not token, though. It's only good when I really like the music, but when it's music that I like and it's unknown, that's like icing. The esotericism, the ability to discover and broadcast to the world, is only ever an added benefit, but it's a big added benefit. Huge," Levin explains with a sly smile."But it seems like what's important to stipulate here is that some people will say I'm pretentious, but really I think it's the opposite of pretension: I just want to share it with you. I recognize it's not known and that's part of what excites me about it, but I want to share it with you." V Sat, May 1 (3 pm) WYRD FEST II Featuring Women, Cosmetics, the Wicked Awesomes, The Famines, More The ARTery, $15

COMMENT >> INFLUENCES

Something borrowed

LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy references past music I recently reviewed Erykah Badu's new al'90s by entrepreneur P Diddy: liberal, unalbum New Amerykah Part Two (Return of tered sampling that functions on nostalgia the Ankh) for Vue Weekly (Issue #755, April of the source material and not originality of the new work. 8 – 14, 2010). In the review, I excitedly explained her fresh approach to sampling, a What I failed to articulate was the other simultaneously loose and creative spectrum of the referential: covers technique. She unpretentiously homage. When someone H and references Biggie songs in her chooses to record their own CKLAS A B take on a standard or beloved lyrics, crafts sonic backdrops with a spry combination of live song, there is a certain measure m o eekly.c @vuew instrumentation and extremely of risk. In the past, it was typical roland minimal loops of relatively wellRolanrdton to pad your album with covers known songs (Eddie Kendricks "Inof songs people already knew Pembe timate Friends," Paul McCartney & and loved as a method of innocuWings "Arrow Through Me") and builds ous introduction, but this occasionally backfired. LCD Soundsystem is a post-modfresh-sounding music from existing temern dance-rock band from Brooklyn that plates. I made a point to compare this to the other school of thought held through the has altered the world's dance and pop mu-

BLUES

sic structure over the past decade. Primary songwriter, producer, vocalist and DFA labelhead James Murphy has made no secret of the hyperreferential nature of his music. In interviews, he talks in songs. Through the band's numerous releases, other music is strongly represented in content and delivery. "Thrills" is an admitted distillation of the Normal's "Warm Leatherette." "North American Scum" cops the vocal phrasing from Pete Shelley's "Homosapien." His record collection is clearly important to him. "Losing My Edge" is possibly the band's greatest song: it is a hilarious electro missive from the perspective of an aging hipster whose feats and experience in practically every important musical moment and movement ("I was there in the Paradise Ga-

rage with Larry Levan") are rendered obsolescent by the encroaching new generation. The punchline is Murphy shouting a laundry list of influences to no one in particular as record store lampoon. He's in on the joke. Murphy's 45:33 song cycle got called out by electronic music pioneer Manuel Gottsching for cribbing both the cover and musical ideas within without restitution from his landmark work E2-E4 (Murphy cites it as an influence). The cover has a checkerboard pattern that is homologous with that of Gottsching with the only differences being colour choice and the Nike swoosh on the LCD disc. Gottsching claims, by doing this, Murphy is "exploiting the album's reputation for his own purposes illegally in the context of German Competition Regulations and also according to legislation of other countries." So what is it about how Murphy does it that irks me? In interviews, he cites the influences on his work and is unabashed

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

about them originating from existing songs. But listening to the new album This Is Happening it seems more transparent than ever. "Somebody's Calling Me" is a note-fornote rehash of "Nightclubbing" by Iggy Pop. "Dance Yrself Clean" has more than a passing resemblance to "Hang Me Up To Dry" by Cold War Kids. "Drunk Girls" is the Velvet Underground's "White Light, White Heat." I don't get the method to his reference here. Is he like a musical personal shopper, compiling ideas for people who don't compulsively check discogs.com? He, for the first time, sounds bored by himself. Is this the other side of the Diddy dilemma? MIA's new single "Born Free" is ostensibly a loop of "Ghost Rider" by Suicide with filters, chopped up drums and speak singing that sounds like Crystal Castles brought to a logical pop extreme. It captures the energy of the original song but feels exciting in a unique way. It sounds like she wanted to do it for a long time, like she was finally CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 >>

MUSIC // 31

MUSIC WEEKLY FAX YOUR FREE LISTINGS TO 780.426.2889 OR EMAIL LISTINGS@VUEWEEKLY.COM DEADLINE: FRIDAY AT 3PM

THU APR 29 ARTERY Big Rock Bluegrass Hour: The Bix Mix Boys (live podcast); 7pm (door); $5 BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Thu Nite Jazz series: Don Berner Trio; 7:30pm; $8 BLUES ON WHYTE Incognito BRIXX BAR Radio Brixx with Tommy Grimes spinning rock and roll; no cover CHRISTOPHER'S PARTY PUB Open stage hosted by Alberta Crude; 6-10pm CROWN PUB Crown Pub Latin/world fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing

Open stage, play with the house band every Thu; 9pm JAMMERS PUB Thu open jam; 7-11pm JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Crowded City Skyline (contemporary jazz); $10

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Big Rock Thu: DJs on 3 levels–Topwise Soundsystem spin Dub & Reggae in The Underdog BRIXX BAR Radio Brixx with Tommy Grimes spinning rock and roll BUDDY'S DJ Bobby Beatz; 9pm; no cover before 10pm; Shiwana Millionaire Wet Underwear Contest CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Thu with DJ Nic-E THE DRUID Dublin Thu FILTHY MCNASTY’S Punk Rock Bingo with DJ S.W.A.G. FLUID LOUNGE Girls Night out

JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Graham Lawrence ( jazz piano); 8pm

FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Requests with DJ Damian

L.B.'S PUB Open jam with Ken Skoreyko; 9pm

GAS PUMP Ladies Nite: Top 40/dance with DJ Christian

LIVE WIRE BAR Open Stage Thu with Gary Thomas

HALO Thu Fo Sho: with Allout DJs DJ Degree, Junior Brown

MARYBETH'S COFFEE HOUSE�Beaumont Open Mic Thu; 7pm

KAS BAR Urban House: with DJ Mark Stevens; 9pm

NAKED CYBERCAFÉ Open stage every Thu; bring your own instruments, fully equipped stage; 8pm

LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Absolut Thu: with DJ NV and Joey Nokturnal; 9:30pm (door); no cover

THE DRUID IRISH PUB Live music with Darrell Barr; 5:30-8:30pm, DJ at 9pm

NORTH GLENORA HALL Jam by Wild Rose Old Time Fiddlers

LUCKY 13 Sin Thu with DJ Mike Tomas

DUSTER'S PUB Thu open jam hosted by the Assassins of Youth (blues/rock); 9pm; no cover

RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 8pm-1am

DV8 Open mic Thu hosted by Cameron Penner/ and/or Rebecca Jane

RIC’S GRILL Peter Belec ( jazz); every Thu; 7-10pm

ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Open Stage Thu: Bring an instrument, jam/ sing with the band, bring your own band, jokes, juggle, magic; 8-12 ENCORE CLUB With A Latin Twist: free Salsa Dance Lessons at 9pm HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Catherine MacLellan and the Olympic Symphonium, Colleen Brown; 7:30pm (door) $10 (door) HOOLIGANZ Open stage Thu hosted by Phil (Nobody Likes Dwight); 9pm-1:30am HYDEAWAY�Jekyll and Hyde Bronze Leaf, Pat LePoidevin, Doug Hoyer, Paper Planes, Dragon Boats ; 8pm J AND R Classic rock! Woo!

SECOND CUP�Varscona Live music every Thu night; 7-9pm STARLITE ROOM Yoav, Colin Moore; 8pm (door); $17.50 (adv) at TicketMaster, Blackbyrd, Listen WILD WEST SALOON Average Jo

Classical JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Verdi's Otello: Edmonton Opera featuring an allCanadian cast, James Meena (conductor), Brian Deedrick (director); 7:30pm MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH Kokopeli cancelled

DJs BILLY BOB’S LOUNGE Escapack Entertainment

NEW CITY SUBURBS Bingo at 9:30pm followed by Electroshock Therapy with Dervish Nazz Nomad and Plan B (electro, retro) ON THE ROCKS Salsaholic Thu: Dance lessons at 8pm; Salsa DJ to follow PLANET INDIGO�St Albert Hit It Thu: breaks, electro house spun with PI residents PROHIBITION Throwback Thu: old school r&b, hip hop, dance, pop, funk, soul, house and everything retro with DJ Service, Awesome RENDEZVOUS PUB Metal Thurzday with org666 SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco: Thu Retro Nights; 7-10:30pm; sportsworld.ca STOLLI'S Dancehall, hip hop with DJ Footnotes hosted by Elle Dirty and ConScience every Thu; no cover WUNDERBAR DJ Thermos Rump Shakin' Thu: From indie to hip hop, that's cool and has a beat; no cover

FRI APR 30 180 DEGREES Sexy Fri night AVENUE THEATRE Raised Fist and Daisy Chain present Overhaul the Avenue featuring: Through Tragedy, Silent Line, Dead Reckoning, Here Lies Elizabeth, The Dead Cold, Within Ashes, Before the Unseen; 5:30pm (door); $10

LB'S Dandy Little Orchestra; 9:30pm-2am LEVA CAPPUCCINO BAR Live music every Fri NEW CITY LOUNGE The Press Gang, Feast or Famine, Rock 'N' Roll Rats, Nervous Wreck NEW CITY SUBURBS CJ Ramone, Get Down, Let's Dance, The Mange; 8pm (door); $15

AXIS CAFÉ Jeff Morris w/ Lisa Nicole Grace

ON THE ROCKS Mustard Smile; 9pm

BLACKJACK'S Mr. Lucky (blues, roots); 9:30pm-1:30am

PAWN SHOP Sonic band: Michael James Band, Omega Theory, Desert Bar; 8pm (door); $5

BLUES ON WHYTE Incognito BRIXX BAR Options with Greg Gory and Eddie Lunchpail; $5 (door) CARROT Live music Fri: all ages; Debbie Spence; 7pm; $5 (door) CASINO EDMONTON Suite 33 (pop/rock) CASINO YELLOWHEAD Thomas Alexander (Platters tribute) CENTURY CASINO Who Made Who (ACDC tribute); 7pm (door); $14.95 (adv)/$19.95 (door) COAST TO COAST Open Stage every Fri; 9:30pm THE DRUID IRISH PUB Live music with Darrell Barr; 5:308:30; DJ at 9pm DV8 First Church of Mud, Awkward Silence, Dire Omen

RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm2am SHAW CONFERENCE CENTRE K-97 Classic Rock Riot: Paul Rodgers, Loverboy STARLITE ROOM Plants and Animals, Said The Whale; 8pm (door); Sold Out STEEPS�Old Glenora Live Music Fri TAPHOUSE�St Albert Alberta’s Last Band Standing, round 1; 8pm ; $5 TOUCH OF CLASS�Chateau Louis Tim Lovett (pop/rock); 8:30pm) WILD WEST SALOON Average Jo

EARLY STAGE SALOON Dead Man's Dog

YARDBIRD SUITE MEM3; 8pm (door), 9pm (show) $14 (member)/$18 (guest) at TicketMaster

ENCORE CLUB 4 Play Fri

DJs

FRESH START CAFÉ Live music Fri: Kira Hladun; 7pm; $7

AZUCAR PICANTE Every Fri: DJ Papi and DJ Latin Sensation

HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Copilots, guests IRISH CLUB Jam session; 8pm; no cover IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Keristan Vaughan (jazz singer ); $10 JEKYLL AND HYDE PUB Every Fri: Headwind (classic pop/ rock); 9pm; no cover JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Graham Lawrence (jazz piano); 8pm KNOX EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCH Chanda Cooper Album Release Show

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VENUE GUIDE 180 DEGREES 10730-107 St, 780.414.0233 ARTERY 9535 Jasper Ave AVENUE THEATRE 9030-118 Ave, 780.477.2149 AXIS CAFÉ 10349 Jasper Ave, 780.990.0031 BANK ULTRA LOUNGE 10765 Jasper Ave, 780.420.9098 BILLY BOB’S Continental Inn, 16625 Stony Plain Rd, 780.484.7751 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE 10425-82 Ave, 780.439.1082 BLACKJACK'S 2110 Sparrow Driv, Nisku, 780.955.2336 BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ 9624-76 Ave, 780.989.2861 BLUES ON WHYTE 10329-82 Ave, 780.439.3981 BOOTS 10242-106 St, 780.423.5014 BRIXX BAR 10030-102 St (downstairs), 780.428.1099 BUDDY’S 11725B Jasper Ave, 780.488.6636 CASINO EDMONTON 7055 Argylll Rd, 780.463.9467 CASINO YELLOWHEAD 12464-153 St, 780 424 9467 CHATEAU LOUIS 11727 Kingsway, 780 452 7770 CHRISTOPHER’S 2021 Millbourne Rd, 780.462.6565 CHROME LOUNGE 132 Ave, Victoria Trail COAST TO COAST 5552 Calgary Tr, 780.439.8675 CONVOCATION HALL Arts Bldg, U of A, 780.492.3611 COOK COUNTY SALOON 8010 Gateway Boulevard; 780.432.2665 COPPERPOT Capital Place,

32 // MUSIC

101, 9707-110 St, 780.452.7800 CROWN AND ANCHOR 15277 Castledowns Rd, 780.472.7696 CROWN PUB 10709-109 St, 780.428.5618 DIESEL ULTRA LOUNGE 11845 Wayne Gretzky Drive, 780.704.CLUB DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB 901388 Ave, 780.465.4834 DRUID 11606 Jasper Ave, 780.454.9928 DUSTER’S PUB 6402-118 Ave, 780.474.5554 DV8 8307-99 St, DV8TAVERN. com EARLY STAGE SALOON 491152 Ave, Stony Plain EDDIE SHORTS 10713-124 St, 780.453.3663 EDMONTON EVENTS CENTRE WEM Phase III, 780.489.SHOW ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove 121-1 Ave, Spruce Grove, 780.962.1411 ENCORE CLUB 957 Fir St, Sherwood Park, 780.417.0111 EXPRESSIONZ CAFÉ 993870 Ave FIDDLER’S ROOST 8906-99 St FILTHY MCNASTY’S 10511-82 Ave, 780.916.1557 FLOW LOUNGE 11815 Wayne Gretzky Dr, 780.604.CLUB FLUID LOUNGE 10105-109 St, 780.429.0700 FRESH START CAFÉ Riverbend Sq, 780.433.9623 FUNKY BUDDHA 10341-82 Ave, 780.433.9676 GAS PUMP 10166-114 St, 780.488.4841 HALO 10538 Jasper Ave,

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

780.423.HALO HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB 15120A (basement), Stony Plain Rd, 780.756.6010 HILL TOP PUB 8220-106 Ave, 780.490.7359 HOOLIGANZ 10704-124 St, 780.452.1168 HYDEAWAY 10209-100 Ave, 780.426.5381 IRON BOAR PUB 4911-51st St, Wetaskiwin IVORY CLUB 2940 Calgary Trail South JAMMERS PUB 11948-127 Ave, 780.451.8779 J AND R 4003-106 St, 780.436.4403 JEFFREY’S CAFÉ 9640 142 St, 780.451.8890 JEKYLL AND HYDE 10209-100 Ave, 780.426.5381 KAS BAR 10444-82 Ave, 780.433.6768 L.B.’S PUB 23 Akins Dr, St Albert, 780.460.9100 LEGENDS PUB 6104-172 St, 780.481.2786 LEVEL 2 LOUNGE 11607 Jasper Ave, 2nd Fl, 780.447.4495 LIVE WIRE 1107 Knotwood Rd. East MARYBETH'S COFFEE HOUSE–Beaumont 5001-30 Ave, Beaumont MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH 10025-101 St MORANGO’S TEK CAFÉ 10118-79 St NAKED CYBERCAFÉ 10354 Jasper Ave NEWCASTLE PUB 6108-90 Ave, 780.490.1999 NEW CITY 10081 Jasper Ave,

780.989.5066 NIKKI DIAMONDS 8130 Gateway Blvd, 780.439.8006 NORWOOD LEGION 11150-82 St, 780.436.1554 NORTH GLENORA HALL 13535-109A Ave O’BYRNE’S 10616-82 Ave, 780.414.6766 ON THE ROCKS 11730 Jasper Ave, 780.482.4767 ORLANDO'S 1 15163-121 St OVERTIME Whitemud Crossing, 4211-106 St, 780.485.1717 PAWN SHOP 10551-82 Ave, Upstairs, 780.432.0814 PLANET INDIGO�Jasper Ave 11607 Jasper Ave; St Albert 812 Liberton Dr, St Albert PLAY NIGHTCLUB 10220103 St PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL 1086057 Ave PROHIBITION 11026 Jasper Ave, 780.420.0448 QUEEN ALEX HALL 10425 University Ave REDNEX BAR�Morinville 10413-100 Ave, Morinville, 780.939.6955, rednex.ca RED PIANO BAR 1638 Bourbon St, WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.486.7722 RED STAR 10538 Jasper Ave, 780.428.0825 RENDEZVOUS 10108-149 St RIC’S GRILL 24 Perron Street, St Albert, 780.460.6602 RITCHIE UNITED CHURCH 9624-74Ave, 780.439.2442 ROSEBOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE 10111-117 St, 780.482.5253

ROSE AND CROWN 10235101 St SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment 12336-102 Ave, 780.451.7574; Stanley Milner Library 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq; Varscona, Varscona Hotel, 106 St, Whyte Ave SIDELINERS PUB 11018-127 St, 780.453.6006 SPORTSWORLD 13710-104 St SPORTSMAN'S LOUNGE 8170-50 St STARLITE ROOM 10030-102 St, 780.428.1099 STEEPS�College Plaza 11116-82 Ave, 780.988.8105; Old Glenora 12411 Stony Plain Rd, 780.488.1505 STOLLI’S 2nd Fl, 10368-82 Ave, 780.437.2293 TAPHOUSE 9020 McKenney Ave, St Albert, 780.458.0860 UKRAINIAN CENTRE 1101897 St, 780.483.8999 WESTWOOD UNITARIAN CHURCH 11135-65 Ave, 780.428.6187 WHISTLESTOP LOUNGE 12416-132 Ave, 780. 451.5506 WILD WEST SALOON 1291250 St, 780.476.3388 WINSPEAR CENTRE 4 Sir Winston Churchill Square; 780.28.1414 WUNDERBAR 8120-101 St, 780.436.2286 Y AFTERHOURS 10028-102 St, 780.994.3256, yafterhours.com YESTERDAYS PUB 112, 205 Carnegie Dr, St Albert, 780.459.0295

CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Fri with DJ Nic-E

Festival: Lisa Lashes, Kyua & Albert, Dash Berlin and more

WILD WEST SALOON Average Jo

The Dirty Dudes (revive AC/ DC); 10pm; no cover

CHROME LOUNGE Platinum VIP Fri

ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Caribbean dance party: Souljah Fyah; 9pm

BLUE PEAR RESTAURANT Jazz on the Side Sun

EMPIRE BALLROOM Rock, hip hop, house, mash up; no minors

EMPRESS ALE HOUSE The Sherry-Lee Wisor Trio; 4-6pm

YARDBIRD SUITE Hellbent; 8pm (door), 9pm (show); $20 (member)/$24 (guest) at TicketMaster

ESMERELDA'S Ezzies Freakin Frenzy Fri: Playing the best in country FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian GAS PUMP Top 40/dance with DJ Christian LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Formula Fri: with rotating residents DJ's Groovy Cuvy, Touretto, David Stone, DJ Neebz and Tianna J; 9:30pm (door); 780.447.4495 for guestlist NEWCASTLE PUB Fri House, dance mix with DJ Donovan NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE DJ Anarchy Adam (Punk) PLAY NIGHTCLUB The first bar for the queer community to open in a decade with DJ's Alexx Brown and Eddie Toonflash; 9pm (door); $5 www.playnightclub.ca REDNEX�Morinville DJ Gravy from the Source 98.5 RED STAR Movin’ on Up Fri: indie, rock, funk, soul, hip hop with DJ Gatto, DJ Mega Wattson ROUGE LOUNGE Solice Fri SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Fri Nights; 7-10:30pm; sports-world.ca STOLLI’S Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ STONEHOUSE PUB Top 40 with DJ Tysin TEMPLE Options Dark Alt Night; Greg Gory and Eddie Lunchpail; 9pm (door); $5 (door) WUNDERBAR Fri with the Pony Girls, DJ Avinder and DJ Toma; no cover Y AFTERHOURS Foundation Fri

SAT MAY 1 180 DEGREES Dancehall and Reggae night every Sat ALBERTA BEACH HOTEL Open stage with Trace Jordan 1st and 3rd Sat; 7pm-12 ARTERY Wyrd Fest II: bands; 4pm; all ages; $15 (1st 100 tix)/$20 after at Blackbyrd BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Hair of the Dog: The Dirty Love Band (live acoustic music every Sat); 4-6pm; no cover BLACKJACK'S Mr. Lucky (blues, roots); 9:30pm-1:30am BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Ranger Creek Wranglers; 8pm; $12

EXPRESSIONZ CAFÉ Open stage every Sat, 12-6pm GAS PUMP Acoustic Open Jam; Sat 4-6pm HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Five On The Side, guests; 7:30pm; (door); $10 (door) HILLTOP PUB Open stage/ mic Sat: hosted by Sally's Krackers Sean Brewer; 3-5:30pm HYDEAWAY Fiction Smiles (album release show), Ellery Lane, Detroit, C.A.C.

NEW CITY SUBURBS Get Down Sun: with Neighbourhood Rats

WINSPEAR Sibelius: Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Lara St. John (violin), Jacques Lacombe, (conductor); 8pm; Sat for Symphony Prelude at 7:15pm in the Upper Circle with D.T. Baker; $20-$69 at Winspear box office

BLUE PEAR Don Berner; 6-9pm; $25 (if not dining)

SAVOY MARTINI LOUNGE Reggae on Whyte: RnR Sun with DJ IceMan; no minors; 9pm; no cover

DJs

CROWN PUB Latin/world fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing

Classical

AZUCAR PICANTE Every Sat: DJ Touch It, hosted by DJ Papi

IRON BOAR PUB Jazz in Wetaskiwin featuring jazz trios the 1st Sat each month; $10 IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests

BUDDY'S DJ Earth Shiver 'n' Quake; 8pm; no cover before 10pm

JAMMERS PUB Sat open jam, 3-7:30pm; country/rock band 9pm-2am

CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Sat with DJ Nic-E

JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Marco Claveria (traditional Latin music); $15

EMPIRE BALLROOM Rock, hip hop, house, mash up

L.B.’S PUB Open Stage starring Bobby Cameron, Rae Waters, Ian McArthur, Pen 24, Jared Sowan, La Luna De Santiago 3pm-2am; fundraiser for Self Advocacy Federation and Gateway Assoc for Community Living MORANGO'S TEK CAFÉ Sat open stage: hosted by Dr. Oxide; 7-10pm NEW CITY LOUNGE Jenny, Locomotive Ghost, Monocerus, Wyclarify O’BYRNE’S Live band Sat 3-7pm; DJ 9:30pm ON THE ROCKS Mustard Smile; 9pm OVERTIME Jamaoke: karaoke with a live band featuring Maple Tea PAWN SHOP Besnard Lakes, Hollerado, Jeff Stuart and the Hearts; 9pm (door); $14 (adv) at Blackbyrd, Megatunes, TicketMaster QUEEN ALEXANDRA HALL Kim Beggs; 8pm; $18 (adv)/$22 (door) at TIX on the Square , Acoustic Music, Myhre's Music RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm-2am RENDEZVOUS First Church of Mud, Funk Vigilante, Organic Orbit, versus the nothing

ENCORE CLUB So Sweeeeet Sat ESMERALDA’S Super Parties: Every Sat a different theme FLUID LOUNGE Sat Gone Gold Mash-Up: with Harmen B and DJ Kwake FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian HALO For Those Who Know: house every Sat with DJ Junior Brown, Luke Morrison, Nestor Delano, Ari Rhodes LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Signature Sound Sat: with DJ's Travis Mateeson, Big Daddy, Tweek and Mr Wedge; 9:30pm (door); $3; 780.447.4495 for guestlist NEWCASTLE PUB Top 40 Sat: requests with DJ Sheri NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE Punk Rawk Sat with Todd and Alex NEW CITY SUBURBS Black Polished Chrome Sat: industrial, Electro and alt with Dervish, Anonymouse, Blue Jay PAWN SHOP SONiC Presents Live On Site! Anti-Club Sat: rock, indie, punk, rock, dance, retro rock; 8pm (door) PLANET INDIGO�Jasper Ave Suggestive Sat: breaks electro house with PI residents RED STAR Sat indie rock, hip hop, and electro with DJ Hot Philly and guests RENDEZVOUS Survival metal night

BLUES ON WHYTE Incognito Brixx Bar Wassabi Collective (CD release), Needles to Vinyl; 2 rm event with Temple and Oh Snap DJs

REXALL PLACE Simon & Garfunkel; 7pm (door), 8pm (show); $59, $89, $149, $225

SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Sat; 1pm4:30pm and 7-10:30pm

RIVER CREE�The Venue Randy Travis; 8pm

STOLLI’S ON WHYTE Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ

CARROT Open mic Sat; 7:3010pm; free

STARLITE ROOM The Living Legends, Locution Revolution, Sonik, K-3litz; 9pm

TEMPLE Oh Snap!: Every Sat, Cobra Commander and guests with Degree, Cobra Commander and Battery; 9pm (door); $5 (door)

CASINO EDMONTON Suite 33 (pop/rock) CASINO YELLOWHEAD Thomas Alexander (Platters tribute) COAST TO COAST Live bands every Sat; 9:30pm CROWN PUB Acoustic Open Stage during the day/Electric Open Stage at night with Marshall Lawrence, 1:30pm (sign-up), every Sat, 2-5pm; evening: hosted by Dan and Miguel; 9:30pm-12:30am DV8 Me Three with Grimzen; 9pm EARLY STAGE SALOON� Stony Plain Dead Man's Dog EDMONTON EVENT CENTRE Wonderland Electronic Music

TAPHOUSE�St Albert Alberta’s Last Band Standing, round 1; 8pm; $5 TOUCH OF CLASS�Chateau Louis Tim Lovett (pop/rock); 8:30pm) UKRAINIAN CENTRE May Day concert: Notre Dame des Bananas, Maria Dunn; 7pm (door); $15/$8 (low income) from Naomi 780.465.7893, Karen 780.483.8999, Earth's General Store WESTWOOD UNITARIAN CHURCH Celtic Ceilidh: Amelia Kaminski (fiddle), Gail Olmstead (piano); 7:30pm; $15 (adult)/$10 (youth/senior) at door

FLOW LOUNGE Stylus Sun

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Sun brunch: Luke and Tess Pretty; 10am-2:30pm; donations

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sat DJs on three levels. Main Floor: Menace Sessions: alt rock/electro/trash with Miss Mannered

JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Petro Polujin (classical guitar); 8pm

Beatz; 9pm; Drag Queen Performance; no cover before 10pm

WUNDERBAR Featured DJ and local bands Y AFTERHOURS Release Sat

SUN MAY 2 ARTERY Dean Lonsdale and the Ramifications (CD release), Light Travels; 7pm (door) 8pm (music); $8 (adv)/$10 (door) BEER HUNTER�St Albert Open stage/jam every Sun; 2-6pm BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Who Made Who–The Rock and Roll Resurrection: The Maykings (revive The Who),

BLUES ON WHYTE The Perpetrators B�STREET BAR Acousticbased open stage hosted by Mike "Shufflehound" Chenoweth; every Sun evening

DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB Celtic Music Session, hosted by Keri-Lynne Zwicker, 4-7pm EDDIE SHORTS Sun acoustic oriented open stage hosted by Uncle Jimmy GLENWOOD HALL Begrime Exemious, Ripper/Cutter, Corrodead, Unlearn, Terrorfist HYDEAWAY Sun Night Songwriter's Stage: hosted by Rhea March J AND R BAR Open jam/stage every Sun hosted by Me Next and the Have-Nots; 3-7pm NEWCASTLE PUB Sun Soul Service (acoustic jam): Willy James and Crawdad Cantera; 3-6:30pm NEW CITY Open Mic Sun hosted by Ben Disaster; 9pm (sign-up); no cover NEW CITY LOUNGE MIDI Ghetto Tour: iVardensphere, Left Spine Down, 16Volt, Chemlab; 7pm

SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Sun; 1-4:30pm; sports-world.ca WUNDERBAR Sun: DJ Gallatea and XS, guests; no cover

MON MAY 3 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sleeman Mon: live music monthly; no cover BLUES ON WHYTE Reverend Raven and the Chain Smokin' Altar Boys DEVANEY'S IRISH PUB Open stage Mon with Ido Vander Laan and Scott Cook; 8-12 NEW CITY This Will Hurt you Mon: Johnny Neck and his Job present mystery musical guests PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic instrumental old time fiddle jam hosted by the Wild Rose Old Tyme Fiddlers Society; 7pm PROHIBITION Chicka-DeeJay Mon Night: with Michael Rault ROSE BOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE The Legendary Rose Bowl Mon Jam: hosted by Sean Brewer; 9pm

DJs

O’BYRNE’S Open mic Sun with Robb Angus (Wheat Pool); 9:30pm-1am

BAR WILD Bar Gone Wild Mon: Service Industry Night; no minors; 9pm-2am

ON THE ROCKS 7 Strings Sun: Ryan Brennan, Darryl Mathews, Cody Nouta's Funeral with DJs; 9pm

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Eclectic Nonsense, Confederacy of Dunces, Dad Rock, TJ Hookah and Rear Admiral Saunders

ORLANDO'S 2 PUB Sun Open Stage Jam hosted by The Vindicators (blues/rock); 3-8pm PAWN SHOP AND LUCKY 13 Rotaract Block Party: upstairs: Tzadeka with DJ Madame Wang, A.O.K, Ghost Cousin, Gorgon Horde, GURL; Downstairs: DJs Miyuru, Daphutur, David McBean, Tektris, Jenn Losinski; 8pm; $10 RITCHIE UNITED CHURCH Kent Sangster Trio; 3:30-5pm ROYAL COACH�Chateau Louis Petro Polujin (classical guitar); 8pm SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment Co-op Live music every Sun; 2-4pm

Classical CONVOCATION HALL Edmonton Philharmonic Orchestra, Julian Savaryn (solo), Aaron Au (conductor); 3pm; $ 10 (door) MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH Spring is Singing in the Garden: Cantilon Choirs; 3pm; tickets at TIX on the Square WINSPEAR Edmonton Youth Orchestra, Michael Massey (conductor), Peter Krejcar (piano), Sarah Xue (piano), Kendra Connor (soprano); 2pm; $15 (adult)/$10 (senior/ student)

DJs BACKSTAGE TAP AND GRILL Industry Night: with Atomic Improv, Jameoki and DJ Tim BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sun Afternoons: Phil, 2-7pm; Main Floor: Got To Give It Up: Funk, Soul, Motown, Disco with DJ Red Dawn BUDDY'S DJ Bobby

BUDDY'S DJ Dust 'n' Time; 9pm FILTHY MCNASTY'S Metal Mon: with DJ S.W.A.G. FLUID LOUNGE Mon Mixer LUCKY 13 Industry Night with DJ Chad Cook every Mon NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE Daniel and Fowler (eclectic tunes)

TUE MAY 4 BLUES ON WHYTE Reverend Raven and the Chain Smokin' Altar Boys BRIXX BAR Troubadour Tue CROWN PUB Underground At The Crown: underground, hip hop with DJ Xaolin and Jae Maze; open mic; every Tue; 10pm; $3 DRUID IRISH PUB Open stage with Chris Wynters, Nathan Carroll (special guest this week); 9pm L.B.’S PUB Ammar’s Moosehead Tue open stage; 9pm NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE Open Mic; Hosted by Ben Disaster; 9pm O’BYRNE’S Celtic Jam with Shannon Johnson and friends OVERTIME Tue acoustic jam hosted by Robb Angus SECOND CUP�124 Street Open mic every Tue; 8-10pm SECOND CUP�Stanley Milner Library Open mic every Tue; 7-9pm SIDELINERS PUB Tue All Star Jam with Alicia Tait and Rickey Sidecar; 8pm SPORTSMAN'S LOUNGE

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

MUSIC // 33

Open Stage hosted by Paul McGowan and Gina Cormier; every Tue; 8pm-midnight; no cover STEEPS�Old Glenora Every Tue Open Mic; 7:30-9:30pm YARDBIRD SUITE Tue Night Session: NuSteps Trio; 7:30pm (door), 8pm (show); $5 (member)/$5 (guest)

DJs BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: CJSR’s Eddie Lunchpail; Wooftop: with DJ Gundam BRIXX BAR Troubadour Tue: The Balconies and Sean Brewer, hosted by Mark Feduk; 9pm; $8 BUDDY'S DJ Arrow Chaser; 9pm DRUID Open stage hosted by Chris Wynters (Captain Tractor), this weeks guest Nathan Carroll; 9pm ESMERALDA’S Retro Tue; no cover with student ID FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Latin and Salsa music, dance lessons 8-10pm NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE ‘abilly, Ghoul-rock, spooky with DJ Vylan Cadaver

34 // MUSIC

PROHIBITION Tue Punk Night RED STAR Tue Experimental Indie Rock, Hip Hop, Electro with DJ Hot Philly

WED MAY 5 ARTERY Karl Marx's 192nd birthday party: Bob Wiseman; 8pm (door), 9pm (show) $12 (adv)/$15 (door)/$12 (door with food bank donation) BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Glitter Gulch Wed BLUES ON WHYTE Reverend Raven and the Chain Smokin' Altar Boys BRIXX BAR Really Good… Eats and Beats: DJ Degree every Wed, Edmonton’s Bassline Community; 6pm (music); no cover COPPERPOT RESTAURANT Live jazz every Wed night: The Brothers Cramer CROWN PUB Creative original Jam Wed (no covers): hosted by Dan and Miguel; 9:30pm-12:30am DV8 D.F.Y. with Peribothra; 9pm

EDDIE SHORTS Wed open stage, band oriented, hosted by Chuck Rainville; 9pm-1am FIDDLER'S ROOST Little Flower Open Stage Wed with Brian Gregg; 8pm-12 HAVEN SOCIAL Open stage with Jonny Mac; 8:30pm; free HYDEAWAY The Darcy's, Tribal Garage; 8pm LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Open mic NEW CITY Circ-O-RamaLicious: Gypsy and circus fusion spectaculars; last Wed every month OVERTIME Dueling pianos featuring The Ivory Club PAWN SHOP The Spades, Rhodes Band, Cody Nouta; 8pm (door) PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic Bluegrass jam presented by the Northern Bluegrass Circle Music Society every Wed evening PROHIBITION Wed with Roland Pemberton III RED PIANO BAR Jazz and Shiraz Wed featuring Dave Babcock and his Jump Trio REXALL PLACE Brooks & Dunn "Last Rodeo" Tour;

6:30pm (door); $64.50, $84.50 RIVER CREE Wed Live Rock Band hosted by Yukon Jack; 7:30-9pm SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment Open Mic every Wed; 8-10pm STEEPS TEA LOUNGE� College Plaza Open mic every Wed; hosted by Ernie Tersigni; 8pm STEEPS TEA LOUNGE� Whyte Ave Open mic every Wed; 8pm TEMPLE Wyld Style Wed: Live hip hop; $5

DJs BANK ULTRA LOUNGE Wed Nights: with DJ Harley BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Blue Jay’s Messy Nest Wed Night: Brit pop, new wave, punk, rock ‘n’ roll with LL Cool Joe BRIXX BAR Really Good... Eats and Beats with DJ Degree and Friends BUDDY'S DJ Dust 'n' Time; 9pm; no cover before 10pm DIESEL ULTRA LOUNGE Wind-up Wed: R&B, hiphop, reggae, old skool, reggaeton

with InVinceable, Touch It, weekly guest DJs FLUID LOUNGE Wed Rock This IVORY CLUB DJ ongoing every Wed; open DJ night; 9pmclose; all DJs welcome to spin a short set LEGENDS PUB Hip hop/R&B with DJ Spincycle NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE DJ Roxxi Slade (indie, punk and metal) NEW CITY SUBURBS Shake It: with Greg Gory and Eddie Lunchpail; no minors; 9pm (door) NIKKI DIAMONDS Punk and ‘80s metal every Wed RED STAR Guest DJs every Wed STARLITE ROOM Wild Style Wed: Hip-Hop; 9pm STOLLI'S Beatparty Wed: House, progressive and electronica with Rudy Electro, DJ Rystar, Space Age and weekly guests; 9pm-2am; beatparty.net WUNDERBAR Wed with new DJ; no cover Y AFTERHOURS Y Not Wed

COMMENT >> VINYL

Singled out

Blur's Record Store Day exclusive hits the Net Back in my university days, I used to abso"To avoid fans having to illegally obtain an lutely live for the Sub Pop Singles Club. Each inferior copy of this track from pirate sites— month, that little up-and-coming Seattle label we have made it freely available through the would put out a new seven-inch single. Every band's website," Chris Morrison, Blur's manmonth, the label created a collector's item. ager, is quoted on the site. It was by far the biggest record-collectorYes, with a variety of turntables on the margeek obsession I had. Instead of subket which can easily be linked to your scribing (I didn't want to get singles computer, it's possible to transfer through the mail), I'd hunt them the song off vinyl to your iTunes. down at the indie record shops But, it requires work. It's not like on Toronto's Yonge Street or transferring an MP3 file, which m o .c ly eek @vuew Queen Street West strip. There takes seconds. You need to play steven was the Velvet Monkeys coverthe whole song. And fix levels. Steveonr ing the Beatles' "Why Don't We Sand So, while there will always be Do It In the Road" or the split single between the Fluid and some unknown someone out there converting vinyl tracks band at the time named Nirvana, doing a into swappable MP3 files, vinyl still offers Vaselines cover. I got Love Battery doing Neil the best format to keep a song precious for Young on green vinyl. fans, to slow the viral spread of the song over What was great about many of these sinthe Internet, if that's what a band wants to gles is that the songs remained precious: they do (major labels would surely love to find a didn't end up on albums. Many of the tracks way to do that). never made it to B-side compilation albums. With vinyl making its resurgence, I wonder There's something special about a song you if the vinyl-only model might serve a band have to work to find. well—instead of a download track that's So, when Blur announced it was making a easy to find, would it cause a buzz to put out limited-edition seven-inch single of the new a single, heck, even an entire album, only on song "Fool's Day" (1000 copies, that was it) vinyl? Or, at least release the vinyl months for Record Store Day, aimed to help indepenbefore you release the CD or digital files, sordent shop owners bring customers into their ta like a book comes out in hardcover, does stores, I felt like that the spirit of the Sub Pop its run, then comes out in paperback? Singles Club had returned. I was hoping Blur was going to make this So, maybe I was a little disappointed to find a fascinating experiment. Instead, it's a free out that the band decided to make the song single. available for free download on the group's ofYes, I downloaded it. Sue me. V ficial site, blur.co.uk, after the single sold out. All the surfer has to do is leave a valid email Steven Sandor is a former editor-in-chief of address and cellphone number in order for Vue Weekly, now an editor and author living EMI, the band's label, to get you on the mailin Toronto. ing list.

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

ENTER

SAND

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

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36 // MUSIC

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

INFLUENCES

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31

in the position to properly appropriate this song. In this case, transformative isn't about the process of disseminating samples; it's about where the new song goes with the old idea. An anonymous commenter on a discussion board compared Murphy's homage to the jazz and blues traditions of altering traditional songs that have been passed on from being slave spirituals all the way up to Rolling Stones singles. This comparison has some merit and Murphy once mentioned it in an interview with Pitchfork: "If you play jazz and you're a good jazz player and take what you're doing very seriously, you play other people's songs all the time, it's what you do. And it's how you interpret them and how you deal with them. You never think of yourself as a cover band." To me, music is a natural resource that exists in the atmosphere like oxygen. When people write songs. or create anything, really, they are tapping into a collective consciousness that has existed far longer than any of us have or will. James Murphy's earnest desire to express his emotions through the music of other people (he is a DJ at heart) has the potential by-product of introducing the old work to a new audience. And even if that doesn't happen, he can replicate the feeling, so perhaps taking the listener to the same place is credit enough. V Roland Pemberton is a musician and writer, as well as Edmonton's Poet Laureate. His music column appears in Vue Weekly on the last Thursday of each month.

PREVUE // PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Destination La La Land

Montréal trio leaves Parc Avenue behind on its second album Mike Angus // mikeangus@vueweekly.com

PLANTS AND ANIMALS? >> Looks more like three guys and a cat // Supplied

ake hay while the sun shines—so the saying goes. For Montréal's Plants and Animals, however, it's less about the music industry's frantic 15 minutes of fame and more about recognizing the group's place in the spotlight and smartly reaping the rewards of two sunny years' of hard work and success. Last Tuesday's release of the new album, La La Land, marked the next step for the post-prog three-piece, who is converting hard-earned experience into well-deserved cred like some form of musical photosynthesis. In light of 2008's Polaris-worthy Parc Avenue and a Juno nod for Best New Band in 2009, Plants and Animals has put all its experiences to work while trusting the sensibilities that got the band to where it is now, as drummer Matt Woodley explains. "We're not as concerned about the award side of things, other than it's a great way to reach people," he offers sensibly. "More people are interested in our record and shows, and it helps the audience grow, but I don't think we let it distract from [the making of La La Land]. We were still trying to make a record we were into."

Rounded out by Warren C. Spicer and Nic Basques, the band started recording La La Land at the Treatment Room, its familiar Montréal studio, but midway through was encouraged to relocate to La Frette studios outside Paris by the group's record label, Secret City Records. "The layout of the place put us in a different headspace," Woodley points out. "It influenced the way we played and the way [the record] sounds, obviously. The Treatment Room is cozy, we've worked there forever, but it's different. It's windowless in an industrial part of town. "Then you got to La Frette, live there, eat there, work there, with the sunshine pouring in and the doors open, the cheese and the wine flowing," he says, adding with a laugh, "it was definitely a different place." ("You see the layout of the place and what we were doing there—literally," he adds, referring to the band's video shoot with the Paris-based music documentarists Blogotheque. For more, see blogotheque.com.) This night-and-day contrast of the Paris sabbatical versus the Montréal sessions (or the "nice Bordeaux vs. Baked Potato" analogy that Spicer has been quoted as saying) plays out beautifully on La La Land, where smart, cheeky chop-rock like "The Mama Papa" cozies up seamlessly with the

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

haunting candle-lit atmospheres and spacious arrangements of jewels like "Game Shows." "[Writing La La Land] was similar to the way we always worked, but a little more developed," Woodley continues. "Warren brings in structured songs to the studio, and we hash them out as a band, developing them together, but now his ideas are starting in greater detail." Phrases like "more developed" and "greater detail" are musicians' codes, translating into a remarkably mature second effort. The tasteful expanses of "Future from the '80s," for example, reflect the growth the members of Plants and Animals have undergone playing full-time since Parc Avenue's release. Reflecting on the band's steady rise to this point, Woodley explains the band's mindset on the eve of the release of the new record and plans to tour North America and Europe. "It all happened gradually," he explains. "There was a point where [Parc Avenue] was about to come out, we had signed a record deal, and we realized we were gonna be a working, touring band, and then good things just ended up happening. "Now, it's nice to finally play these songs to people who are getting to know them on their own time." V Fri, Apr 30, (8 pm) Plants and Animals With Said the Whale Starlite Room, sold out

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I wrote a song called 'Cherry Wild' and I played it for them at Christmas and they really loved it." Unfortunately, "Cherry Wild" isn't a part of the Ramifications' upcoming effort, entitled Video Audio Spiritual, but a slew of new material is. After seeing some limited success with a former band, Lonsdale was forced to re-evaluate everything he knew about making music when that project collapsed. What came out is a much more introspective sound, but one that keeps the up-tempo feel that Lonsdale made his name with. "I used to have a rock band, Jets to Theory, and I did an EP and ended up with a hit song and so I started taking myself too seriously because I got airplay across Canada. So I thought, 'Well, I'll always get airplay across Canada now,'" he says. "I wasn't even having fun anymore in rehearsal and the songs I was writing I wasn't happy with, so I scrapped the whole idea. I decided I was going to write songs that were honest. "I just got rid of my ego," he says of that time period. "It was like, 'Why am I making music?' I had too many expectations and they ended up as resentments, so I thought, 'Why don't I just make music to to feel good, to feed the soul?' If anyone likes it, great, and if not, I'm happy. Let's face it, the world beats you up as it is and to have any sort of expectation attached to a creative process is just out of ego I think." (The ARTery, $10) —BRYAN BIRTLES

—BRYAN BIRTLES

Sun, May 2 (8 pm) / Dean Lonsdale & the Ramifications

Fri, Apr 30 (8 pm) / The Omega Theory As local group the Omega Theory takes to the stage this Friday, its collective mind will no doubt be focused on tightening up the band's newest songs in advance of a planned recording session on the Victoria Day long weekend in May. These sessions, set to take place at Edmontone Studio, will produce an EP which will, as lead singer Matt Misenas explains, hopefully be released this summer. "Our first album [2007's self-titled effort] was a good album, it was very representative of all the music we enjoyed and stuff, but at the same time we had songs that were between five and eight minutes long," he says. "That's not really sustainable from a marketing standpoint when you're trying to get your songs spun on the radio." Prior to recording the album, however, Misenas will likely be handing out resumes and pounding the pavement looking for work. The singer hasn't held a job for quite awhile, he laments, but at the same time is somewhat grateful for the lack of commitments which let him concentrate on songwriting. "I've written some of the best songs in the last little while, so there's definitely an upside. The downside is I'll probably die in the next three months if I don't get a job." (Pawn Shop, $5)

Because bad-assery and rock 'n' roll go hand in hand, prisons and rock concerts seem to go together, even if logically it might seem that they ought not too. Nonetheless, Johnny Cash, Metallica and local group Dean Lonsdale & the Ramifications have all had the opportunity to play for a, um, captive audience within the walls of a prison. "It's surreal—you go there and the gear gets X-rayed and they swab your wallet. It's like, 'Wow—this is prison,'" he says of the experience, which he was lucky enough to have done twice. "In the summer this woman came up to me on the break and said, 'There's all these songs about men in prison ... there's no songs about women's prison.' So I said, 'OK, I'm gonna write a song about women's prison and next time we play here I'll play it for you.'

Sat, May 1 (9 pm) / Living Legends Hailing from the city of Los Angeles, Living Legends is firmly on the other side of the city's culture divide. Though Los Angeles is well-known for its ability to push the glitz and glamour of neighbouring Hollywood through entrenched business cabals, the city has also been home to many independent cultural movements, especially within the field of music. Hardcore punk has roots here and a similar DIY spirit is deeply ingrained in the members of Living Legends. The group got its start in the early '90s, recording, promoting and performing its music independently. Led by Sunspot Jonz, the group has collectively sold more than 300 000 solo and group records to date. (Starlite Room, $20) —BRYAN BIRTLES

TIMELINE // THE RAMONES Fri, Apr 30 (8 pm) / CJ Ramone 1965 Born Christoper J Ward in Queens, New York, CJ Ramone shares his birthday—October 8—with future bandmate Johnny Ramone.

and Joey begins to let CJ sing more and more songs onstage. The Ramones final studio album, ¡Adios Amigos! features CJ on lead vocals for four tracks and two songs written by the bass player.

1989 After founding member and main songwriter Dee Dee Ramone left the band to pursue an ill-fated rap career under the name Dee Dee King, CJ Ramone is brought in as his replacement. Prior to joining the Ramones, CJ had played in a few bands and served as a member of the Marine Corps. 1992 CJ makes his recording debut as a member of the Ramones on the group's 1992 effort, Mondo Bizarro. He even gets to sing a bit, doing lead vocals on the track "Strength to Endure," a song that was penned by Dee Dee as payment for the band bailing him out of jail. "Strength to Endure" became the album's second single. 1995 As time goes on, the Ramones seems to be starting a slow wind-down

later featured the likes of Jerry Only. 1997 CJ formed a hard rock band called Los Gusanos which recorded one self-titled album before calling it quits in 1998. CJ Ramone took a number of years off from music—even reportedly turning down the chance to play with Metallica—to raise his children and provide the additional attention needed by his son Liam, who was diagnosed with autism. 2002 Though CJ was not formally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the other members of the Ramones, original drummer Tommy Ramone credits the bassist with "keeping the band young."

1996 The band calls it a day, retiring after a final show at the Palace in Hollywood on August 6. CJ would go on to form a band with Marky Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone and Dee Dee's wife Barbara called the Remains—a tribute band that

2008 CJ's newest band, Bad Chopper, releases its debut, self-titled album. 2009 CJ begins touring as "CJ Ramone" with longtime Ramones producer Daniel Rey on guitar. (New City, $15) —BRYAN BIRTLES

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

MUSIC // 39

PREVUE // BOB WISEMAN

Looking for the next challenge

Iconoclastic singer-songwriter mines success while opting for the tough road MIKE ANGUS // MIKEANGUS@VUEWEEKLY.COM

anadian singer-songwriter Bob Wiseman is on tour celebrating the vinyl re-release of his 1989 solo debut In Her Dream: Bob Wiseman Sings Wrench Tuttle. It's a vindication for the outspoken outsider, who saw his label at the time destroy all original pressings for lyrics deemed "libelous," and moreover, is symbolic of the iconoclast's instincts for integrity and innovation. This is, after all, the same Bob Wiseman who walked away from Blue Rodeo at the crest of its meteoric rise to fame. "At the time, it wasn't hard for me to leave [Blue Rodeo]. I just didn't identify

with it anymore. After it became big, I didn't really enjoy how that affected people. Fame and money will do that, and I came to a point that things were hollow, and I didn't enjoy the politics of how we conducted business after we became successful. "My hope was to figure out how to leave this thing and still have a career." Since then, the ever-politically-minded artist has released 12 albums, scored for films and TV, produced bands, helped launch careers of numerous luminous Canadian artists, from Ron Sexsmith to Owen Pallett and Fucked Up, and currently helps steer Toronto's Blocks Recording Co-op, a musician-run-andoperated cooperative founded by former

bandmates from the Hidden Cameras. But for all of Wiseman's artistic outlets, the most invigorating has been his love for video and film, which he stumbled upon 10 years ago and has integrated into his live show. "Making films has changed the perception of me—it has made the net wider in terms of who attends my shows or why people are interested in what I do," he reveals. "I was really inspired by this outside-the-box experience—there was something charming and seductive and provocative about it, and I became interested in trying to figure it out. "I naturally morphed into trying to do things with video and film in my own

show, because I'd been doing the singersongwriter-band thing, and it only goes so far in bar settings," he adds. "Once I started making films, everyone [in the audience] shut up. It changed my relationship with what I'm doing and why. It made it more meaningful." Wiseman's films have included guest actors Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall), Levi MacDougall and Feist, to name a few, and it serves as one more outlet for his underlying passion: political activism. "Activism in art is wonderful," he says. "I like how people can really shock ideas and consciousness in other people through art, and I think that's a tradition, in my own humble way,

I would like to take part in. It makes me feel less impotent … [and] a little less fucked up to write about something that's really going on, especially if I don't see it being held accountable in the mainstream media." V WED, MAY 5 (8 PM) BOB WISEMAN WITH TORONTO ANIMATED IMAGE SOCIETY SHORT ANIMATIONS THE ARTERY, $12, $9 WITH FOOD BANK DONATION

ARTISTIC ACTIVIST >> Bob Wiseman uses music and film as a political voice

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// Supplied

SLIDE SHOW

VUE

Sat, Apr 24 / Alice Kos / The Empress Ale House / Watch the slideshow on vueweekly.com

FINDE

om cktor.c

jpro

jprockt

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

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ALBUM REVIEWS

New Sounds

Justin Rutledge The Early Widows (Six Shooter) 

Eden Munro // eden@vueweekly.com

ustin Rutledge has until now turned in a trio of careful, studied albums. His latest, The Early Widows, carries on logically from where he left off with Man Descending, and while it certainly sits comfortably within Rutledge's work, it pushes into new territories that expand upon the shapes and sounds he carved out previously. The sparseness of Rutledge's earlier albums is still there—that seems to be a natural approach that he slips into easily—but there's also a sense of urgency that is new to his work. It could be that the addition of Hawksley Workman as producer here has given Rutledge a new lease, freeing him from the chores of production and leaving him to focus more on the writing and delivery of the songs. Maybe Workman pushed Rutledge towards an edge he'd previously only gazed at from a distance. Or maybe it's just age that's playing into the equation here, Rutledge growing as the best songwriters do, each year gone past another log upon the fire, persepctive doing much for the songwriter's eye.

Whatever it is, clearly Rutledge is moving forward rather than back on The Early Widows. The opening moments of "Be a Man" are wide open sonically, guitars panned to the left and the right, ringing out with chords and scattered single notes; but it's the drums that drive on here, with a rolling beat delivered in intertwined sheets by two drummers, violinist Jesse Zubot darting through the background—and occasionally peaking into the fore—with deftly timed strikes on the strings. The weight of all that atmosphere hinges on the instruments, leaving Rutledge's voice to settle into the centre where he ruminates on suitably difficult internal conflicts: "Be a man about this / Be the coward or the kiss," he sings, his voice creaking and groaning with uncertain contemplation. Of course, the lyrical approach has not swayed far from the path Rutledge has always been on: the words are full of detailed images, but the whole often remains obscured by clouds, the vagueness lending itself to a wide range of interpretations. While the crossover between poetry that might be at home on the page and lyrics that work within a song is a difficult one to bridge, Rutledge does just that in carefully worded passages ("You hang me as though crows would scatter afraid / How quiet these lives that our mothers and fathers have made / We speak in shadows / Our shadows are lost in the shade / I've been all around this world.") But the words are wasted without the music to support them, and The Early Widows delivers on all counts. Beyond the opening track Rutledge dips into the country strums of "Jack of Diamonds," the gentle slides of "Islands" (another song where the drums provide the momentum), the forceful "Mrs Montgomery" and the swelling "Snowmen." The Early Widows stands as a nuanced and expanding evolutionary stone in Rutledge's career. V

Plants and Animals La La Land (Secret City)  There are gratifying moments of organic, expansive beauty here to counter the clipped excitement of Plants and Animals' post-progrock sensibilities. Song ideas veer from hard-hitting urgency ("The Mama Papa" and "Jeans Jeans Jeans") to soaring reprises ("Game Shows" and "Future from the '80s") and back again, sometimes in the same song ("Fake It"), reflecting the recording process that was split between Montréal and the Paris countryside. La La Land will haunt you—not just for the addictive rock hooks and Spicer's vocal swagger, nor the quieter, textured moments that beckon you to come crawling back in—but for its maturity in knowing the difference.

Mike Angus

// mikeangus@vueweekly.com

AC/DC Iron Man 2 (Columbia) 

AC/DC providing the soundtrack for a film was a cool idea the first time the band did it for Maximum Overdrive back in 1986. Except then the group offered up three new tracks to flesh out the older material. Sure, this is a solid lineup of tracks, but it ultimately feels like a well-plotted cash grab rather than something essential to either the band or the film.

Eden Munro

// eden@vueweekly.com

Jesse Malin & the St Marks Social Love it to Life (SideOneDummy) 

Backed by the St Marks Social band, solo rocker Jesse Malin takes a risk with Love it to Life, jumping from punk to roots to pop in the space of an album. The result isn't always great: the opening track, "Burning The Bowery," blows through the gates with a driving drumbeat but quickly trips over its own clichéd, anthemic chorus, and Malin drops another monstrosity with the very next track, "All the way from Moscow," and one begins to wonder if every song on the album will follow the same terrible formula. Fortunately, Malin finally hits his stride with "The Archer," a slower, rootsier song, holding steady with a few more laid-back tracks—all of which help save the album from its earlier breakdown. Bryan Saunders

// bryansaunders@vueweekly.com

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VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

Devon Sproule ¡Don't Hurry For Heaven! (Black Hen)  They say Virginia is for lovers, and none of the venerable American state's inhabitants could be more suffused with love than Ontario transplant Devon Sproule. Love leaks out all over her fourth album: love for her producer and fellow-musician hubby, love for her family and friends, love for the lush Charlottesville landscape, love for bar-ripping good times and backyard parties and, most of all, love for music in several stylistic guises that mingle at the crossroads of the South (with occasional Caribbean flourishes). Sproule's eminently comfortable in her skin, craft and supple voice, and convincingly blends soul, gospel, backporch roots, smoky jazz, honkytonk, folk, old-fashioned sweeping pop, hot southern-fried rock and even reggae in her skillfully wrought tunes. The record's initially confounding—the opener sounds like the spiritual heiress of Karen Dalton and Dolly Parton covering Canned Heat after listening to Burning Spear in a gently stoned dreamy haze—but stay with it until delight overtakes bewilderment and you'll trip on Sproule's aural inventiveness and lyrical sharpness, which possesses all the observant poetry of a Dorothea Lange photo.

Mary Christa O'Keefe

// marychrista@vueweekly.com

Brazilian Money Friendly Neighbor (Independent) 

Primarily known for his work with the notably great Wicked Awesomes, bassist Garrett Johnson has developed a side act that actually exceeds the pop promise of his other project. Done at home with all instruments played by himself (he's recently expanded it to a full band), Johnson's Friendly Neighbor EP is shockingly diverse. "Ghetto Lung (Gettalong)" is a total slam dunk, an unhinged, skipping, antifolk screed with extremely hooky guitar and the first reference to flipping caps ("Tradin' Poggies") I've heard in years. "1994 (I Was a Child)" is a druggy carnival bark that recalls Black Lips. "Beringia" is demented, sounding like a David Byrne sprechgesang produced by Tom Waits. Johnson is a versatile vocalist too, oscillating between blistering garage howls, screechy blues and hooky Bolan-esque glam trilling. Arguably the most exciting band in Edmonton today.

Roland Pemberton

ALBUM REVIEWS Jean-Jacques Burnel Euroman Cometh (United Artists)

tation and a chance to unload even more of the girl-baiting nonsense hinted at by early Stranglers songs such Originally released: 1979 as "Peaches" and "Princess of the Streets." So while it's The Stranglers were an '80s dependant on your temperam pop band that transitioned ment and tolerance level for ekly.co e w e u @v roland into international stardom sophomoric dude shit, Burd n a Rol rton nel's debut does have some with a lushly mellifluous hit single "Golden Brown." Before clever, prescient ideas within: Pembe this, the group was well-known "Euroman" is a Suicide-like French in its native Englanguage dirge, land as a pubwhile "Jellyfish" rock group that is a spidery matraded on workchine-gun burst ing-class values of bratty elecreminiscent of tronic post-punk, Ian Dury. It was all done about a two-headed 20 years before monster on voit was en vogue. cals: Hugh Corn"Do the Eurowall's dynamic pean" (knowing everyman bellow this guy, probacontrasted well bly another fuck with occasional joke) should've blurts of deadbeen a new wave pan from basssmash, honking ist Jean-Jacques horns, ominous Burnel. Given an STRANGLED >> Burnel's solo experiment synth pads and avenue to express himself following the flanged bass leading to Burnel kicking 1978 release of Black and White, Burnel a fried-sounding offbeat rap to a driving produced a generally unheralded oddity Gary Numan-esque motorik beat. Album called Euroman Cometh. closer "Eurospeed" finally displays the This is not a particularly likeable regravitas expected from the writer behind cord: Burnel is not one to ingratiate "Don't Bring Harry": it's a layered existenhimself to the listener. It is starkly mastial meditation that is the late '70s equivculine. In my experience, this album realent to those repentant God-flavoured pels women with both its content and songs that close out late '90s Def Jam musical structure. "Crabs" is totally ofgangster rap records. fensive ("I just don't know where she's I can't imagine how it must have felt been / And she hasn't been fishing in to have released such a unique album the sea") but melodically unique with to relatively no fanfare with a two-year muscular lead bass, atonal keyboards interim before striking paydirt with the and pulsing rhythm box. "Pretty Face" Stranglers's La Folie. Judging by the prois breakneck blues rock that would be lific rate of release and the dismissive, excitingly hooky if not for the absurd, dry tone of Burnel's writing, Euroman unfortunately misogynist lyrics ("Your Cometh was probably even a blip to the lips are for kissing my feet / Your little author. Still, this is a unique achievehands are for my special part"). ment, a rebellious, experimental punk Burnel seemingly took his first solo outrecord that goes further than its peers in ing as equal opportunity for experimenthe business of being abhorrent. V

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The Tallest Man in the World The Wild Hunt (Dead Oceans)

Top drawer "real" talent From Canada's true ghetto; Winni-fucking-peg

Impossible task Attempt Blonde on Blonde rewrite Yet make it better

Cursed Arrows Run Forever (Noyes)

Sam Spence Sam Spence Sounds (Finders Keepers)

Co-ed rock duo Comes in handy for touring And for band orgies

Krautrock pioneer A Moog goldmine, he wins the Coolest grandad prize

// roland@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

MUSIC // 43

PREVUE // HOLLERADO

Tag it and bag it

Hollerado's Record in a Bag goes beyond DIY Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com

ll the time spent on the road might be starting to blur in Hollerado frontman Menno Versteeg's mind. To hear him talk about tours, they're all "kind of the same but different; lots of work and lots of meeting new people." But once he gets into the details of his travels, and the particular places he's been, his voice picks up, audibly more excited than worldweary, a good sign, considering how much of the world his band's seen in the last two years. First came the Residency Tour. Hollerado rolled into seven different towns for a week apiece, playing a different bar each of seven nights the group stayed. More recently, financed by winning a massive quarter of a million dollars through an Ottawa radio station's battle of the bands, Hollerado went globe-trotting, ditching its van for an airplane and touring, among other exotic locales, China. Twice. "China is just a completely different world, especially for a rock band," Versteeg chuckles. "We laugh that we

played in New York City, and we had a really successful show by our standards, and New York standards, but the crowd has seen everything. Even if they like it, there's kind of a murmur from the crowds and applause, or whatever. But in China, they haven't seen anything, so a cover band gets up and butchers a cover for "Johnny B Goode" with all the wrong words, and people go nuts." Though Versteeg points out there isn't much money to be made playing shows in China—cover for a show works out to about $1.25 Canadian— he sees it as a labour of love that he'd happily do again, given the chance (and finances). His odds aren't too bad, either: Hollerado's still promoting its very first record, 2009's straight-shot-of-rock Record in a Bag, to growing acclaim here and abroad. The record's success had brought some changes to the band's previous DIY approach: Record in a Bag originally came in a resealable plastic bag—possibly a Ziploc, though that's uncomfirmed—hand-filled by the band with goodies, stickers and coupons for such prizes as "free drinks at a show" or the granddaddy "All-

you-can-Hollera-DO," consisting of free tickets to shows for a year, plus T-shirts, pins and more. But growing record sales have made it impossible for the band to keep doing it themselves; Record in a Bag's now being made in a factory, Versteeg laments. But he and the band are still adding loot to the bags they sell on tour, and honouring any winning coupons that arrive—though some of the prizes have been claimed in ways Versteeg never predicted. "We wrote 'free drinks at shows,' and we assumed the person would come and have some beers with us," Versteeg says. "And it turns out that the kid was like 15, and he showed up for an all-ages show at a record store." Beers ended up being a round of chocolate milk, as per the winner's request. And the "Hollera-DO" remains unclaimed, thus far. "Not yet," he says, "I can't wait to meet the person." V Sat, May 1 (8 pm) Hollerado With the Besnard Lakes, Jeff Stuart & The Hearts Pawn Shop, $14

HOROSCOPE ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 19)

to rejuvenate yourself, and it must have qualiHip-hop music definitely needs to include ties of deliciousness and delight. You not only more tuba playing. I think that's what's misshave a need to rest and recharge in a lush noing from it. Likewise, the sport of skateboardwhere—you also have the right to do so. ing would benefit from having more dogs and monkeys that can master its complexi- CANCER (Jun 21 – Jul 22) ties; the state of journalism could be A while back, I gave my readers this improved by including more babies homework: "Tell a story about the as reporters; and you Aries folks time a divine intervention reached would significantly upgrade your down and altered your course Y G O L life by learning how to play the A S T R O in one tricky, manic swoop." A m .co weekly game of cricket. If you believe woman named Kelly testified as l@vue freewil everything I just said, you'll be follows: "At first I was disturbed Rob y equally gullible when a little voice to find I couldn't identify the last Brezsn in your head tries to convince you to time spirit descended into my midst seek out things you don't really need or with a forceful intervention. But finally I adopt behavior that doesn't suit you. realized why: I have been working to make my whole life be guided by the spirit of my TAURUS (Apr 20 – May 20) higher power, as a deep undercurrent. That Among the ancient Anglo-Saxons, the month way I don't need bolts of lightening to fix my of May was called "Thrimilce." The word re- course." This is a useful lesson, Cancerian. It's ferred to the fact that cows were so produc- an excellent time for you to follow Kelly's tive at this time of year that they could be lead. Ask yourself how you could cultivate a milked three times a day. I thought of that deep, abiding undercurrent of the good influas I studied your current astrological data, ence you want to have guide you, thereby making lightning bolts of divine intervention Taurus. During this year's Thrimilce, you are unnecessary. almost impossibly fertile and abundant and creative. My advice is to give generously, but not to the point of exhaustion: the equivalent LEO (Jul 23 – Aug 22) of three times a day, but not four. The exact height of Mount Everest has proved challenging to determine. Even using GEMINI (May 21 – Jun 20) modern scientific methods, different teams In accordance with the astrological omens, of surveyors have come up with varying meaI encourage you to seek out a concentrated surements. The problem is not simply with period of sweet oblivion. Not a numb, narco- the calculations themselves. The world's tized limbo. Not a mournful unconsciousness tallest peak is definitely evolving. Shifts in that's motivated by a depressive urge to give the earth's tectonic plates work to raise it up. No, Gemini: The mental blankness that up and move it northeastward. But there's you cultivate should be generated by a quest also evidence that the melting of its glaciers

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ILL

due to climate change is causing it to shrink. A member of one mountain climbing expedition said, "If Everest is bobbing up and down, we must hope to catch it on a low day." I bring this to your attention, Leo, in order to offer you a metaphor for the coming weeks. Your version of Mount Everest is shrivelling. Get ready to ascend.

VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sep 22)

Have you been lusting after spiritual traditions other than your own? If so, Virgo, that's a good sign. I suspect you could use a few adjustments to your familiar relationship with the Divine Wow. After all, you have gone through a lot of changes since the last time you hammered out your definitive theories about the meaning of life. What made good sense for you back then can't be completely true for you any more. So feel free to let your mind wander in the direction of holy experiments.

LIBRA (Sep 23 – Oct 22)

When a girl is born, her ovaries already contain all the eggs she will ever have. What this means, of course, is that a part of you was in your grandmother's womb as well as in your mother's. Now would be an excellent time to celebrate that primal fact. Your connection with your mother's mother is especially important these days. I suggest you meditate on what gifts and liabilities you received from her (genetic and otherwise), and how you might be able to make better use of the gifts even as you take steps to outwit the liabilities.

SCORPIO (Oct 23 – Nov 21)

Who is the person most unlike you in the

world? I suggest you study that person for tips on how to improve your life. What are the healthy experiences you are least attracted to? You might want to meditate on exactly why they're so unappealing, and use that information to update your ideas about yourself. What are the places on the earth that you long ago decided you would never visit? I invite you to fantasize being in those places and enjoying yourself. Can you guess why I'm calling this Opposite Week, Scorpio?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21)

Are you in a trance or a rut or a jam? If so, excuse yourself. It's break time! You need spaciousness. You need slack. You need to wander off and do something different from what you have been doing. If there's any behavior you indulge in with manic intensity, drop it for a while. If you've been caught up in a vortex of excruciating sincerity or torturous politeness, shake it off and be more authentic. Of all the good reasons you have for relaxing your death-grip, here's one of the best: Life can't bring you the sublime gift it has for you until you interrupt your pursuit of a mediocre gift.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19)

The state of Texas is a Capricorn, having become part of the United States on December 29, 1845. At that time, it was granted the right to divide itself into five separate states at some future date. So far it hasn't chosen to do so, and I would advise it to continue that policy. I extend the same counsel to all of my Capricorn readers. From an astrological perspective, this is not a favorable time for you to break yourself up into sub-sections. On

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

the contrary: I suggest you sow unity and solidarity among your various parts.

AQUARIUS (Jan 20 – Feb 18)

I'm all for recycling, composting and carpooling. Anything you and I can do to reduce our carbon footprint is brilliant. But I also agree with author Chris Hedges, who says, "The reason the ecosystem is dying is not because we still have a dryer in our basement. It is because corporations look at everything, from human beings to the natural environment, as exploitable commodities. It is because consumption is the engine of corporate profits." So beyond our efforts to save the earth by adjusting our own individual habits, we've got to revise the way corporations work. Now let's apply this way of thinking to the specific personal dilemma you're facing right now: It's important for you to change yourself, yes — and I'm glad you're taking responsibility for your role in the complications — but you will also have to transform the system you're part of.

PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20)

Every year Americans fork over six times as much money on buying lottery tickets as they do on going to the movies, according to the documentary film "Lucky." Yet many people who actually buck the improbable odds regard their "luck" as a curse. "Winning the lottery is like throwing Miracle-Gro on all your character defects," said one person. Let this serve as a cautionary tale for you in the coming months, Pisces. To get ready for the good things that are headed your way, you should work to purify any darkness that's lurking in your unconscious. V

EVENTS WEEKLY FAX YOUR FREE LISTINGS TO 780.426.2889 OR EMAIL LISTINGS@VUEWEEKLY.COM DEADLINE: FRIDAY AT 3 PM

CLUBS & LECTURES

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VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

BACK // 45

COMMENT >> LGBT

Let the rain fall

In Edmonton it is impossible not to think By early last week we had all seen the about dust. It is so dry here. Visions of worn down, beaten woman's face and heard the story of what had happened dust bowls, real or imagined, factor into to Shannon Barry—how her and our being a northern prairie outpost near the top of the melther friends had been walking ing world, not even benefiting home and had been attacked from trickling down moisture, by a group of men, how being a woman had saved her to a the sun absorbing it before m o .c ly k uewee degree. Her friend yelling to it reaches us. Even the snow ted@v we do endure does not absorb the attackers that Barry— Ted into our soil. Once the snow already on the ground inhalKerr ing dust, as her body was being disappears dust blankets the city kicked—was a woman. The attackers leaving a thin brown layer over our stretched-out, already brown town. Dust stopped, fled. As the joke has been informs like sand rivers between our sideappropriately made: who said chivalry is walks and the streets making it harder dead in tumbleweed Alberta? As news of what happened to Shanto bike. Dust gets into our teeth as the non circulated, so did anger at how the wind slaps across our mouths. Dust buries itself into our scalps, lover's fingers Edmonton Police Service mishandled the attack. Not arriving until 30 minutes afunearthing it as we lay in bed—if we ter the ambulance, the responding officer should be so lucky.

EERN Q UN TO MO

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46 // BACK

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It rained on Friday night, cloud coverage providing shelter for expression, hungry vegetation soaking up the moisture. As the city streets grew slick with rain the Community Response Project gained steam with over 400, 500, 600 members and counting. The Facebook wall filled up with messages of support, suggested next steps, plans to meet up, links about hate crime framework and stories of violent attacks including the

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did not interview witnesses, nor file a report until four or five days later and thus did not put into play resources that the EPS has. On Thursday Police Chief Mike Boyd refuted a report that an internal investigation was underway to understand why procedure had not been followed, instead he categorized it as a review, a downgrade that mocked the fact that it was National Victim Awareness Week, with a theme of "Every Victim Matters." As if all of that was not enough, earlier in the week Edmonton's Pride Centre was broken into, a window smashed and among other things the computer containing payroll information was stolen, a poetic injustice considering the Centre is in financial need, barely able some months to make payroll. By the end of the week an updated face of Shannon Barry emerged post recon-

structive surgery. Her face looked tender, more painful. A photo by Larry Wong in The Edmonton Journal attempted to pick up the angry colors of her bruises and the brutality of the attack by juxtaposing Barry in between blooming flowers—a kind gesture, a nod to a fertile future. On Thursday two women, friends of Shannon started the Community Response Project, a Facebook group "dedicated to crafting a queer, systemic response to the recent assault against Shannon Barry (and others)."

Expressionz Café - The School of Life 9938 - 70 Ave is a centre for the arts. We are currently looking for visual artists and artisans for a weekly art market and a rotating gallery space. 780.437.3667 Actors to meet monthly to work on scenes and monologues with optional coaching from professional director and actor. email: elaine.elrod@telus. net ASA Gallery at Walterdale Playhouse seeks proposals for art exhibitions. Info at www.artists-society.ab.ca Deadline May 31, 2010 Northern Light Theatre: general auditions for 20102011 Season on Fri, May 21, 9am-5pm, Studio B, TransAlta Arts Barns. Send a headshot, resume, cover letter to nlt.publicity@telusplanet.net. Auditions are by invitation after you have sent your submission The Allied Arts Council of Spruce Grove welcomes all Alberta Artists to submit a proposal as a Feature Artist for a solo or group show to be held at the Spruce Grove Art Gallery. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2010. For more information call (780) 962-0664 or go on our website: www.alliedartscouncil.com Seeking visual artists and artisans to display work in Kaleido Festival's Art Market and Gallery, Sept 10-

VUEWEEKLY // APR 29 – MAY 05, 2010

12; E: kaleidoprogram@gmail.com, artsontheave.org Smaller Than A Breadbox Exhibit: no piece larger than 3"x3"x6"; Works Festival: June 25-July 7; deadline: Mon, May 1; info at theworks.ab.ca New Works 2011 submissions! Deadline for new plays for the 2011 festival is May 15, midnight, E: newworksfestival@gmail.com for info Musicalmania! is looking for strong, preferably older, tenor for production at end of May. Paid position. 780.460.2937 Seeking musicians, buskers, dance groups, installation artists to help shape an avant-garde extravaganza during Kaleido Festival, Sept 10-12 E: kaleidoprogram@gmail.com/artsontheave.org

brutal story of a young aboriginal man who was abducted, beaten, scarred, burned and abandoned. On Saturday afternoon the EPS released information that a 14-year-old boy had been charged in Shannon's attack. The news made nothing better. No longer was it just about the awful one-way brutality absorbed by Barry but rather now it was the network of violence that hangs over all of us. The air felt dry again. "Let the dust settle" is a phrase meant to suggest one should wait before taking action. This is impossible when the dust is unrelenting. Edmonton is a young citystill shifting in its own footprint, kicking up earth as it decides who it wants to be. In response us queers have a chance to mould this place, secure a better foundation for everyone. With a radical questioning queer approach we can work this land and make it hospitable for all. What can we grow here? Where do we want to go from here? V

COMMENT >> ALT SEX

The world owes me a buzz Dear Andrea: cause I will never be young again, and never How is it humanly possible that I, a 42-yearexperience young love. I am a person who always deserved that, but never got it. old man, talented, accomplished, tall and Love, fit, cannot get laid to save his life? I have often been ridiculed by my 42-Year-Old Etc friends for my bulletproof virginDear Etc: ity. I have gone out on literally Yikes. OK, you have legitimately hundreds of dates, but nothing om .c ly k e vuewe got a problem. You have also ever seems to go my way. For exaltsex@ a ample: I get into bed naked with a Andreson got a bit of an attitude on you, woman and she will not fuck. This understandable but still perhaps Nemer off-putting. Your bitterness, wellhas happened at least three times. I earned or not, may be at least as reliable try not to act desperate, but women seem to smell it on me or something. I have spent a girl-repellent as your desperation. And do 12 years in therapy, tried whatever advice is try to remember that while it may seem reathrown my way, but nothing seems to work. sonable to feel that the universe owes you a boinking, any individual female owes you Why is the relationship aspect of life, which nothing of the kind. Forget this at your peril. seems to find every living douche-bag, eluding me? Given who I am, this should techniI won't tell you that there is someone out there for you, although of course there may cally be impossible, but it is not. Please don't be. I will tell you though, and just as unweltell me there's someone out there for me, be-

comely, that it appears that the problem is not them, it's you. No really, I am sorry. But a record like yours, well, I suppose it is technically possible that you are suffering the world's most protracted streak of bad luck, scoring wise, but it is simply not very likely.

ALT.

SEX

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VOLUNTEER Volunteer website for youth 14-24 years old. youthvolunteer.ca Volunteer with Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, help immigrant Children and youth of all ages–volunteer in a homework club. Contact Phillip Deng at 780.423.9516 or pdeng@emcn.ab.ca The Edmonton Immigrant Services Association is looking for new volunteers to help with its Youth Tutoring & Mentorship, New Neighbours, Language Bank, and Host/Mentorship programs. Please contact Alexandru Caldararu (Volunteer Coordinator) at 780.474.8445 for details Volunteer for the International Children’s Festival, June 1-5. Info Line: 780.459.1522, childfest.com. Registration deadline: May 21, 2010 Volunteer Edmonton is looking for Edmonton Festivals to participate in the third annual Festival Volunteer Fair on Wed, May 12 at the City Room in City Hall. Call 780.732.6649 Volunteers Needed: Instructors –Tap Dancing, Line Dancing and Calligraphy. Wed: kitchen helper, Fri: dining room servers; Wed evening dinners: dishwashers, kitchen prep and servers. Mary 780.433.5807 Volunteer at ElderCare Edmonton: help out with day programs with things like crafts, card games and socializing. Call Renée for info at 780.434.4747 Ext 4 The Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts: looking for artists to provide mentorship to our artists with developmental disabilities. Share your talents and passion while gaining work experience. Info: Anna at volunteer@ninahaggertyart.ca E]Ydk gf O`]]dkºNgdmfl]]jk f]]\]\ Lg \]dan]j fmtritious meals (vehicle required) Weekdays 10:45am)he Lg Ykkakl af l`] cal[`]f O]]c\Yqk .Ye Yf\ *he3 k`a^l lae]k Yj] È]paZd] /0(&,*1&*(*( Canadian Mental Health Association/Board Recruiting 2009 Learn about our community work: cmha-edmonton.ab.ca S.C.A.R.S.: Second Chance Animal Rescue Society. Our dogs are TV stars! Watch Global TV every Sat at 9:45 AM where new, wonderful dogs will be profiled. scarscare.org CNIB's Friendly Visitor Program needs volunteers to help and be a sighted guide with a friendly voice. If you can help someone with vision loss visit cnib.ca or call 780. 453.8304

What are you telling those women who are willing to go as far as getting into bed starkers with you and then won't do anything about it? What are they telling you? Do you ever ask them just what they expected to happen after the stripping-off and hopping-in part? Because unless you were about 12 at the time or everyone had done a lot of X, that is just not ... people just don't do that. Likewise, I wonder what it is about all those dates that is "not going your way." You do know you have to actually do something, right? Just waiting for things to go your way is a good way to end up a 42-year-old virgin.

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People between 18-55, suffering from depression or who have never suffered from depression are needed as research volunteers, should not be taking medication, smoking, or undergoing psychotherapy and not have a history of cardiovascular disease. Monetary compensation provided for participation. 780.407.3906 HEALTHY VOLUNTEERS required for studies at UofA. Call 780.407.3906; E: UofADep@gmail.com. Reimbursement provided U of A is seeking major depression sufferers interested in participating in a research study. Call 780.407.3906; E: UofADep@gmail.com The Support Network: Volunteer today to be a Distress Line Listener. Apply on line thesupportnetwork. com or call 780.732.6648 Volunteer with the Aboriginal Health Group. Plan events (like Aboriginal Health Week, Speaker Series). Promote healthy habits to high school students. Set up events. E: abhealthgroup@gmail.com; aboriginalhealthgroup.org Canadian Mental Health Association, cmha-edmonton.ab.ca Education Program offer workshops to give skills to intervene with people who may be at risk for suicide. Follow the links to ASIST or call 780.414.6300 Jewish Family Services Edmonton/TASIS (Transforming Acculturative Stress Into Success): A free program aimed at minimizing culture shock and displacement for trained professional immigrant women. T: Svetlana 780.454.1194 Do you remember someone who believed in you when you were a child? Be that person in a child's life today. All it takes is one hour a week, which may not be much to you but will make all the difference in the life of a child. Be a Big Brother or Big Sister! Be a Mentor! Call Big Brother Big Sister today. 780.424.8181 Volunteer drivers and kitchen help urgently needed. If you’re available weekdays, 10am-1pm call Meals on Wheels. 780.429.2020 CANADIAN LIVER FOUNDATION is looking for enthusiastic volunteers for presentations and special events. Carmen 780.444.1547 Volunteer with your Pet, The Chimo Animal Assisted Therapy Project uses animals in therapy sessions with trained therapists to help the clients achieve specific goals. Info: chimoproject.ca. E: volunteer@chimoproject.ca, T: 780.452.2452

I would not, if I were you, continue to fixate on the "lost youth" and "never to experience young love, alas" parts of the equation. Young love is overrated, and 42 is not so old, anyway. It's way old to still be a virgin though, so I suggest quitting that. Seriously. Hire a pro or run a Craig's List ad, looking not for love and certainly not for anything as possibly apocryphal as a soul-mate, but for some floozy who thinks the idea of contributing to the delinquency of a major sounds like hot dirty fun. In other words, just do it. Get rid of that thing. At least getting past the virginity element will dispel the stink of desperation (along with the fear of having to make an embarrassing confession), which ought to take some of the pressure off the next date. Also, since I cannot see you or smell you or hear you laugh or gauge your handshake for dryness and firmness, you need some data I cannot provide. Do you know any women? Do you have female friends? Could you ask them if you seem, well, "do-able"? Like if she weren't married or 85 or not into men or whatever, could she imagine ever hooking up

with you? If not, why not, and is there anything you can do about it? At this point I'm assuming that you are stuck in a cycle of defeat and despair and that your dates can, in fact, smell it on you. That, combined with your possibly projecting the same slightly irritating combination of entitlement, passivity and bitterness on display in your letter, could act as one killer anti-aphrodisiac. But on the off chance that there is something else, some mannerism or failure of personal hygiene at work here, you really need to find out more about how people are perceiving you. You may not believe me but it actually isn't too late. It sure isn't any too early though, so get on with this. Get yourself a nice, expensive escort and at least get in some practice. Hell, she may even have some pointers for you—if there's anyone who knows a whole helluva lot about what makes a man sexually unappealing, it's going to be her. Love, Andrea

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