2 // FRONT
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
COVER
INSIDE
IssuE no. 788 // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
UP FRONT // 4/ 4 6 7 7
Wool on Wolves
Vuepoint Dyer Straight In the Box Bob the Angry Flower
//23
Local folkies reveal their Grey Matter
DISH // 10/ 12 To the Pint
FRONT
FILM
ARTS // 14 16 Prairie Artsters
FILM // 19 19 Screen Caps 22 DVD Detective
MUSIC // 23/ 26 Gutterdance 27 Music Notes 34 New Sounds 35 Old Sounds 35 Quickspins
5
19
EVERYONE'S DOWNSTREAM
127 hours
SLIDESHOW
BACK // 37 38 Free Will Astrology 38 Queermonton 38 Lust for Life
LISTINGS 18 21 24 37
Arts Film Music Events
Refinery
Late night art party Sat, Nov 20 / Art Gallery of Alberta VUEWEEKLY.COM/SLIDESHOWS >> for more of Chelsea Boos' photos
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IssuE no. 788 // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010 // Available at over 1400 locations Editor / Publisher.......................................... RON GARTH // ron@vueweekly.com MANAGING Editor............................................. EDEN MUNRO // eden@vueweekly.com associate mANAGING editor................... BRYAN BIRTLES // bryan@vueweekly.com NEWS Editor........................................................ SAMANTHA POWER // samantha@vueweekly.com Arts / Film Editor........................................... PAUL BLINOV // paul@vueweekly.com Music Editor....................................................... EDEN MUNRO // eden@vueweekly.com Dish Editor........................................................... BRYAN BIRTLES // bryan@vueweekly.com Staff writer....................................................... DAvID Berry // david@vueweekly.com creative services manager.................... MICHAEL SIEK // mike@vueweekly.com production.......................................................... CHELSEA BOOS // che@vueweekly.com ART DIRECTOR....................................................... PETE NGUYEN // pete@vueweekly.com Senior graphic designer........................... LYLE BELL // lyle@vueweekly.com WEB/MULTIMEDIA MANAGER........................ ROB BUTZ // butz@vueweekly.com LISTINGS ................................................................ GLENYS SWITZER // glenys@vueweekly.com
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CONTRIBUTORS Mike Angus, Meaghan Baxter, Chelsea Boos, Josef Braun, Rob Breszny, Jeremy Derksen, Pete Desroschers, Gwynne Dyer, Amy Fung, Brian Gibson, Hart Golbeck, Tamara Gorzalka, James Grasdal, Joe Gurba, Michael Hingston, Jan Hostyn, Carolyn Jervis, Brenda Kerber, Stephen Notley, Roland Pemberton Distribution Todd Broughton, Alan Ching, Barrett DeLaBarre, Mike Garth, Aaron Getz, Raul Gurdian, Justin Shaw, Dale Steinke, Wally Yanish
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
FRONT // 3
UP FRONT
EDITORIAL
Vuepoint Unsafe status quo samantha power // samantha@vueweekly.com
I
t's embarrassing to even write the words: there are people in Canada without access to clean drinking water. Half of the homes in the area of Island Lake, Manitoba, with a population of over 10 000, do not have running water. It seems a fairly simple idea: access to a basic human right. And it is a human right. The UN general assembly recognized access not only to water but also sanitation, as a human right—a vote Canada abstained from. This ideological position against clean, safe drinking water for citizens may explain why in addition to the community in Manitoba over 100 reserve communities are under boil water advisories today. Or perhaps why the infant mortality rate in reserve communities is three to seven times higher than the national average. Or why communities downstream from the tar sands here in Alberta are suffering from high rates of rare cancers. Considering these facts, it's equally embarrassing that the Canadian government has signed on to the declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples at the UN. But considering at this point the federal and provincial governments cannot currently guarantee access to a basic
GRASDAL'S VUE
human right, it does not bode well for the grander vision of the rights expressed in the indigenous declaration. Not only does the declaration outline that Canada has a responsibility to improving the economic and social conditions of indigenous peoples, but it lists the Aboriginal right to the "productive capacity" of their land and the right to the lands they have traditionally owned. There are also clauses regarding indigenous rights to self-determination, autonomy and self-government. While I'm not a legal expert, this would lead me to believe indigenous nations have a right to determine their political systems of governance and their status in relation to the state of Canada. But that's probably not the way the Canadian government has read it. In fact, considering it has taken Canada three years to sign the initiative and release the statement with the condition that it could be confident Canada can interpret the principles expressed in "a manner consistent with the Canadian constitution and legal framework," there seems to be an indication the Canadian government has figured out a way to keep the status quo while signing on to the international agreement. And if the Canadian government is OK with the status quo, it doesn't give a lot of hope for the 10 000 people in Island Lake looking for a safe glass of water. V
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE VUEWEEKLY.COM
YOURVUE
Your Vue is the weekly roundup of all your comments and views of our coverage. Every week we'll be running your comments from the website, feedback on our weekly web polls and any letters you send our editors.
COMMENTS FROM THE WEB go to vueweekly.com and send us your comments In response to "Political Crowdsourcing" (Nov 17, 2010)
Your closing paragraph is not entirely accurate. The Wildrose Alliance Party has said all along that it's the process that is broken, not just the current PC government. A wholesale change is required because the entire government bureaucracy is endemic with old, stale PC thinking. Too many deputy ministers are PC patronage appointments doing the ministers bidding rather than maintaining good governance. —Rick Newcombe
WEBPOLLS go to vueweekly.com and have your say
THIS week: Should MLA Raj Sherman be let back into caucus? Former British MP George Galloway will be speaking in Edmonton on Thursday November 25. Vue Weekly will have a podcast of his talk and comments from Galloway on issues of free speech, free Palestine and a free Afghanistan. Listen at vueweekly.com/podcasts
4 // FRONT
yes / no / Give him a cookie LAST week: After the recent policy convention are you more likely to join the Alberta Party? yes 40% / no 60% VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
A clear look ahead
Everyone's Downstream discusses democratic justice in the environmental movement samantha power // samantha@vueweekly.com
W
hen Aboriginal groups in Grassy Narrows charged international forest products company Weyerhauser with violating human rights this past fall, they did so without the ability to count on support from environmental groups like Greenpeace. Due to the recently negotiated Boreal Forest Agreement Greenpeace and several other
says Dru Oja Jay, co-organizer of the Everyone's Downstream conference and editor of The Dominion. "This concentration of power of foundation funding tends to be a secret deal and we've seen it quite a few times now." Oja Jay will be speaking on the subject at the fourth Everyone's Downstream conference, happening this weekend in Edmonton. The conference is aimed at preventing these types of secret deals from happening between activists. Oja
These organizations with an amazing amount of PR basically declared victory, and we see the same things in the boreal forest [agreement] on a more massive scale. environmental NGOs are obligated to take a backseat to the actions of forestry corporations like Weyerhauser. Signed without the involvement or agreement of Aboriginal groups whose land the agreement covers, the Boreal Forest Agreement has nine environmental NGOs and 21 logging companies entangled in an interesting web of negotiations that many view as a betrayal of the communities directly involved. "What we're drawing attention to is the anti-democratic nature of these things,"
Jay hopes to rally people around the idea of a climate-justice co-op which would unite diverse activist groups in a more democratic movement. The anatomy of a campaign can become difficult to navigate, and when large, international organizations responsible to their funders become involved the negotiations can become more about what those groups want than the community who stood up for their rights. The Boreal For-
We're all downstream
est Agreement is just one example of such a result. Oja Jay points to the results of the Great Bear Rainforest campaigns in BC. "You started with the First Nations groups and communities fighting clearcut logging,"Oja Jay explains, "and gradually it attracted more attention from foundation funding groups like Greenpeace and Forest Ethics and they took
the campaign global." And while having more people talking about your issue around the world puts pressure on the government and industry to change their actions, it can result in an undemocratic result for the communities who started the campaign in the first place. "The problem is they took it over and instead of proving leadership account-
NewsRoundup KILLING CLIMATE JUSTICE With the next round of climate negotiations starting in just over a week, the Climate Action Network has released documents revealing Canada's effort to stop environmental action in other countries. The Department of Foreign Affairs has used an Oil Sands Advocacy Strategy. "We have proof that the Harper government is aggressively intervening in Europe and the United States to kill clean energy policies in the name of promoting the tar sands," says Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada. "Canada is not just exporting dirty oil anymore—we're also exporting dirty policies." The documents were obtained through Access to Information and reveal three specific efforts by the Canadian government. Canada and Alberta have been attempting to weaken California's low carbon fuel standard, the US clean fuels policy and the EUs Fuel Quality Directive. The report from CAN reveals numerous other international situations listing efforts by Canada to prevent environmental initiatives. "A friendly neighbour does not secretly try to undermine your clean energy jobs and efforts to fight climate change," says Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Washington, DC-based Natural Resources Defense Council.
able to all involved, what they did was they announced they would be entering negotiations and violated the agreement they signed with the first nations groups," says Oja Jay. "These organizations with an amazing amount of PR basically declared victory, and we see the same things in the boreal forest [agreement] on a more massive scale." Oja Jay and organizers of Everyone's Downstream would like to prevent this from happening again: in its fourth year, the conference has gone from educating people on the very idea that tar sands and accompanying pipeline infrastructure exists to a familiar group of citizens ready to discuss what the next steps are. "People know each other well," says Oja Jay, "and a network has emerged." The conference's themes focus on building a democratic movement. In this vein there will be a proposal and discussion around a climate justice co-operative with local co-ops, an outline for democratic and transparent membership fines and distribution of resources and a spokescouncil to which each local group would report. Oja Jay is hopeful this will change the situation of a few large members taking ownership of a diverse campaign: "It is possible, but it's going to take a clear-eyed look of everyone involved." V
SAMANTHA POWER // samantha@vueweekly.com
PENALTY OF PRISONS
FUTURE SAVINGS The most secure route to old-age security may be through reform of the Canada Pension Plan, according to the Alberta Federation of Labour. The groups are calling on Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton to pay more attention to a national consensus on pension reform. In June of this year the federal government called for a national discussion between the provincial leaders to talk pension reform—Minister Morton was the only leader to reject the discussion. The AFL
and the Canadian Labour Congress are calling for the federal government to double benefits by increasing contributions today. According to the CLC, if workers and employers shared a six percent increase phased in slowly over seven years. The AFL believes the CPP is the answer to saving seniors from poverty in their retirement years as the program provides stable growth of income. Federal and provincial ministers are to meet next month to discuss reform.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK Tough on crime, tough on prisoners
Harper's prison agenda may not only be tough on the federal budget, but also on the people entering the system, according to a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. With Statistics Canada reporting a downward trend in crime rates for the last 20 years, the Harper government has made increased prisons across the country a budgetary priority with new federal money nearly doubling the budget of Corrections in Canada in the
next year. At the same time, the federal government has cancelled a successful prisoner rehabilitation program. At a cost of only $4 million a year the prison farm program provided successful rehabilitation, while also providing food for farms. The CCPA report focused on the fact that as larger amounts of money are funnelled into prisons, programs promoting rehabilitaiton, literacy and anger management are being cut.
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
“Let's say you don't care about people dying and getting poisoned in Tanzania. Should you not care about your own academic freedom either? Is that also up for sale?” —University of Toronto PhD grad Masrour Zoghi after rejecting his degree from the University of Toronto. Zoghi opposes the University's deal with Peter Munk, chairman of Barrick Gold. Nov 22, 2010 / The Varsity
FRONT // 5
COMMENT >> CIVIL LIBERTIES
Small acts of resistance Airport security has no sense of humour
The "tourists" (as South Africans used to call them in deliberate mockery of their attempts to terrorize everybody, and as George W Bush also called them because he didn't speak English very well) are always seeking to blow up our airplanes. Why else would we employ hundreds of thousands of people to stand around in airports and go through our baggage? True, they haven't actually caught anybody trying to board a plane with a bomb .com weekly e@vue in the nine years since 9/11. gwynn e Many terrorist plots were Gwynn nipped in the bud by good inDyer telligence work on the ground, but the few who did try to carry bombs onto aircraft (the shoe bomber, the underpants bomber, etc) got through "airport security" and were only defeated by their own incompetence. Despite all this, the airport security industry continues to flourish. Indeed, it Dangerous words in an airport serves a useful social function, providing employment to many people who would otherwise be roaming the streets lookpersonnel. That's why we are all coning for something to do, and perhaps ditioned, while going through airport falling in with bad companions. security, to avoid making remarks that However, common sense and a grasp even refer to the reason for all these of irony do not figure prominently in searches. the job description for airport security Should you politely inquire, as they
R DYEIG HT
STRA
6 // FRONT
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
ferret through an old lady's handbag, whether they really think there's a bomb in there, you will spend the next 12 hours in a side-room being interrogated. Indeed, CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 >>
COMMENT >> HOCKEY
Meet the players
Looking at some favourites during a rough season Since we last visited, the Oilers have been ality (Esa Tikkanen), their skills (Gretz), their busy. The team returned from its regretleadership (Mess), their ability to speak table road trip to face Chicago. The in full sentences (Dougie Weight) or Hawks won 5-0. That loss was other intangibles ("The Rat"), some followed by another Rexall loss players have the ability to gain against Phoenix. This one at a fan's support. It's not just the m goals and saves. What separates least went to a shootout. A visit ekly.co e w e u ox@v to Anaheim resulted in a 4-2 win a mediocre TV program or book intheb (the first victory in seven games). from a great one? Characters. Daveg This brings us to Phoenix last TuesWithout characters or personality Youn day, where the Oilers ended the week you're just cheering for laundry (I love just like it began—with a 5-0 loss. that cliché). I hate laundry. This year's team has a number of players I want to see sucIt's all about the people ceed. Here's my latest favourite Oilers: I tend to be a fickle fan. Blind obedience and rose-coloured glasses just aren't my bag. I find Sam Gagner it easier to cheer the Oilers when they have Reasons I want Sammy to succeed: players I support. Whether it is their person1. Seems to work hard
IN THE
BOX
DYER STRAIGHT
<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6
you don't even have to get aboard an aircraft to fall afoul of the vast security establishment that has sprung up since 9/11. Just send an e-mail containing keywords like "blowing up an aircraft," and they may visit you in the comfort of your own home. That's what happened to Paul Chambers, a 27-year-old British accountant. His flight to Northern Ireland to visit his girlfriend was cancelled when snow closed Nottingham's Robin Hood airport
The few who did try to carry bombs onto aircraft got through 'airport security' and were only defeated by their own incompetence. last January, and he vented his anger to his girlfriend on Twitter. "Crap," he wrote. “Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!!” Those who have lived among human beings for any length of time will recognise that as a lame attempt at humour, but if you spend your time in darkened rooms reading intercepted electronic messages you tend to lose contact with the human race. So Paul Chambers was arrested, charged, tried and convicted. He was fined $1500 plus legal costs. And as soon as he was arrested, he lost his job. He appealed his conviction, naturally, and in mid-November judge Jacqueline Davies rejected his appeal. She emerged from her cave to rule that Chambers' tweet has been "menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed."
So far, it's just another dreary tale of overweening securocrats and out-oftouch judges, but what happened next was more heartening. Thousands of people who were outraged by sheer stupidity of it all began to re-tweet Chambers' original message in a show of solidarity. So far, none of the people who did this have been arrested, because some senior person in the British security establishment finally realized that the whole sorry story makes them and the judges look like fools. Or, to be more precise, reveals them for the fools they are. But it would not be a good idea to re-tweet Chambers message anywhere outside Britain, for the equally foolish authorities elsewhere don't know the background story. What you could do, if you are minded to make some small gesture of resistance to this ignorant and oppressive system, is to include some reference to bombs and aircraft in your e-mails and tweets from time to time. Be careful how you phrase it—"I heartily disapprove of people who try to smuggle bombs onto aircraft" would be a safe comment—but as long as you use the key words, it will come to the attention of the system. The computer will flag the message, and some analyst will actually have to read it. They won't arrest you for it, although your name will probably go onto one of their data-bases. Don't worry about that: if you have ever done anything remotely interesting in the world, your name is almost certainly on several of their data-bases already. And if enough people sent messages like that, it might even clog up the system. Well, no, not really. Whenever they want more computing capacity, they get it, because no politician will risk being accused of stinting on "security matters." In reality, your small act of resistance will simply trigger the waste of more of the money you pay in taxes: no matter what you do, the house wins. But it might make you feel better for a little while. V
2. Is on my NHL 11 Ultimate Team 3. Samwise Gagner is a clever nickname The one thing that gives me pause: his Dad Dave was a Calgary Flame Jordan Eberle The good: 1. His Team Canada exploits 2. Seems unassuming, unspoiled and free of entitlement—so far 3. Making Rexall Place safe for gap-toothed folks again The bad: There seem to be way too many young kids out there named Jordan; same with Taylor. Ales Hemsky Go Hemmer!:
1. Brilliant and creative on the ice 2. Cool Euro demeanour 3. Tying goal and game-winner to knock Detroit out of the playoffs (2006) No Hemmer!: mental lapses and occasional bouts of head-up-ass.
Oiler player of the week
Ryan Whitney The Stars: 1. Showing quiet leadership 2. Making Tom Gilbert more expendable 3. Making up for unloading Lubomir Visnovsky The Stripes: American Bad Stat. Bad, bad stat With another pair of drubbings last week (5-0 losses) the Oilers have already been beaten by four or more goals six times this season. We're at Game 20. Think last year was bad? They only got beaten by four or more goals seven times the entire 2009-10 season. V
Shawn Belle: Years ago, while bartending at a sports pub, I met Shawn Belle's dad (really nice guy). He carried news clippings of his son, then just a promising junior player. It's good to see Belle in Oiler colours.
BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries. His column appears every week in Vue Weekly.
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
FRONT // 7
SNOW ZONE
In the owners' pool A 'Fair' look at mountain real estate Jeremy Derksen // jeremy@vueweekly.com
B
asking in a waterfall-fed natural hot pool in Fairmont, BC, I think to myself that here, in the timeshare capital of Canada, I've found a pretty nice piece of temporary personal real estate. And, being au naturel, it's a good guarantee nobody's going to encroach on my momentary paradise. Also, it's mid winter and the temperature is hovering around -5 C. But the views of the Columbia Valley below and the trail leading up to Fairmont Hot Springs Resort above make my location desirable despite the chill. Mists rise as the pool spills down over several steppes into Fairmont Creek, which winds down trailside past the Residences at Fairmont Ridge. It's about a five-minute walk, so I head back wrapped in just a thick white terry cloth robe. This is what it must feel like to own a piece. Mountain real estate has become one of the most prestigious and appealing forms of luxury for North Americans. But in a recession, luxuries are the first thing to go. One of the intriguing things about the Residences is that it's the first real estate development of its kind in Western Canada to break ground since the recession hit in 2008. I've stayed at posh mountain condos in Kicking Horse, Red and Sun Peaks, sheltered at boutique inns on Vancouver Island and luxuriated in Whistler hotels. And though I lean towards the rustic, it's always nice to be nestled in comfort. Hard not to get spoiled. My condo hosts in particular were often absentee owners, renting out their units through property management companies. At Fairmont, I wanted to see it from the other side—a prospective owner's standpoint. Ski lifts and realty have grown more and more closely intertwined over the past half-century. For the larger, publicly traded resort corporations who manage many of North America's resorts, real estate is a primary revenue generator. Lift tickets, on-hill services and merchandise might be enough to keep the lifts turning, but in general it's not sufficient to deliver substantial, consistent year over year
8 // SNOW ZONE
profits to shareholders. Revelstoke Mountain Resort opened just prior to the recession, in fall 2007. The resort was envisioned as a better version of Whistler, with more terrain and bigger luxury options. At the top end, RMR and its international real estate agent Sotheby's were offering up to six-acre plots and 10 000 square-foot mansions from $1.5 million. Select lots came with their own heli-pad. Entry-level prices for a twobedroom condo started at $749 900. By comparison, the Residences at Fairmont Ridge start at $32 000 for a onesixteenth ownership, or $479 900 for full ownership of a complete townhome. Only three whole units remain, and this without a big mountain full of super lifts and a village with themed streets lined with clubs and restaurants to enhance the appeal. Instead, says Allan Lingwood of Chatterson Drive (the real estate marketing company representing the Residences), the primary emphasis at Fairmont has been on community. "There's a demographic we've called the 'Fairmont loyalist,' someone who continuously returns to this area for the amenities, for the resort, the hot springs, the landscape and the views, but also because it's got this quaint community feel that everyone can be a part of. There's an immediate sense of belonging," he says. "It's very much a chooseyour-own-adventure kind of place." As young children, many of these loyalists took their first turns at the Fairmont Hot Springs Ski Area, just minutes away from the Residences. Now their children are doing the same. With just two lifts serving 13 runs, the resort hasn't changed much over time, making the experience a bit of a throwback to an earlier era of skiing. There's a new terrain park, of course, and snowmaking improvements have added to the natural coverage over the years. Expansion into the shaded northern aspect of the hill is in the works, but general manager Peter Harding stresses that it will progress slowly, in a way that is sustainable for a resort where skiing isn't the sole dominant attraction. That's not to suggest that the area isn't
Finding a sense of loyalty among the aspens
couched in ski history and alpine lore. The Wilder family founded the resort in 1957, owning and operating it until 2006, when they sold to Ken Fowler Enterprises. Turn in any direction and there's a resort, cat or heli-skiing operation within 30 to 90 minutes. Some of the first flight-assisted skiing took place just up the valley. The emphasis at Fairmont ski area, though, is on families. Full day lift pass prices reflect the low key, family focus: $39 for adults, $29 for youth (13 – 18), $19 for children 12 and under and free for children under and including five. As an added perk, all lift passes are good for a free entrance to the hot springs. Over the next few years the area plans to round out the family offerings with a tubing/tobogganing hill, several outdoor rinks and nordic and snowshoeing trails. With such affordable prices and a range of attractions, undoubtedly many more skiers will take their first turns at Fairmont, whether as owners or visitors. Families, after all, represent a key demographic in the front lines of marketing to keep the sport alive. Fairmont acts as a transition point between the bunny hill and the big mountains, a place where, for several generations now, the connection between dabbler and dedicated, lifelong loyalist has been made. Snowshoeing under a squalling cur-
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
tain of artificial snow to the still forest beyond is like passing through a waterfall into a bright, undiscovered oasis. For several moments I crunch uphill quietly behind BC Rockies Adventure guide Jocelyn MacGregor, until sufficient time has passed to appreciate the solitude. Before long, however, MacGregor is bubbling over with enthusiasm as she points out animal tracks: squirrel, deer, hare, coyote. The animals' meanderings in the snow tell fresh new stories each morning. MacGregor has been initiated into their midst through regular guiding and her joy and fascination in this hidden community are, I can discern, purely natural. As if to confirm it, she tells the selfcomposed joke that she acknowledges is the ultimate proof of her nerdy obsessions. It seems that aspen were the first tree species to grow and thrive in the valley following the ice age, she explains, making them the oldest trees in the region. "And they 'as bin for over 10 000 years," she smiles. Get it? ‘As bin? Aspen? It's a groaner, no question, but when the connection to place is so strong that it inspires such quirky humour, you can't help but laugh along. Another hot springs sojourn served to remind me of my actual status. In The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Mordecai Richler wrote "a man without land
is nothing." But a man without trunks can get ejected for wearing boxers in the Fairmont Hot Springs pool. Either you're in the pool, or you're out—there's no halfway. If you want the owner's experience, you need to either have or be able to leverage the necessary capital. At least, that's the way it used to be. But the Residences are among a new breed of recreational investment property that combine the benefits of ownership and timeshare. New fractional ownership models mean potential owners can buy in for as little as a one-sixteenth share, and still have deed, title and the opportunity to sell for whatever the market will bear. For a fee, Fairmont Creek Property Rentals cleans, maintains and rents properties out on owners' behalves, generating residual income to help with mortgage and upkeep expenses. It's possible this may all have the effect of lowering the bar for a new demographic to enter the market and put down roots in the mountains. However, such convenience, combined with the allure of luxurious townhomes that sing tony alpine tradition, seems almost too good. Paradoxically, turn-key simplicity and low investment costs may actually work against the "loyalist" or family tradition at Fairmont. If owners don't have to make a significant sacrifice to be a part of the community, will their ties be strong enough to form a real connection? Or will they drift through like a million other timeshare owners, oblivious to the community around them? As a new frontier opens up, with resorts across BC (Kicking Horse and Whitewater among them) establishing new real estate developments in the next few years, what remains to be seen is whether these new models of ownership capture the next generation of loyalist ski families, or just more disconnected weekenders. Back at the natural hot springs, all of these different streams of thought merge and swirl together, stirring the currents of time and spilling over the steppe as empty conjecture. As the warm water meets the air a thick blanket of mist rises up, shrouding the unknowable future. For a few brief, liberating moments, I occupied this spot and claimed it as my own. V ON THE WEB fairmonthotsprings.com fairmontridge.ca
FALLLINES
HART GOLBECK // HART@vueweekly.com
Record Your Snow Sport Video in HD
Every season, usually around spring time, many of the ski resorts unveil video contests for swag and even cash. This year there are several new camera options for you to choose and practise with before the big shoot. The Helmet HERO from GoPro and the Contour HD are two such devices that allow you to shoot yourself or friends when hitting the slopes. Hands-free operation with massive storage capacities allow you to turn them on and shoot all day. You can save the editing for later while in the warm confines of your hotel. The best part is you no longer have to shell out thousands of dollars for quality video, because the price of these devices has
come way down. Technology and competition can be a great thing when it comes to pricing. During last week's Warren Miller showing, most of the athletes had a mini camera just like this strapped to their heads. As a result, there were some amazing shots of steeps, pow and air. Shelling out some cash early will ensure you don't miss any great videos and there may be some payback when the contests start arriving. At the very least you'll always have some preserved memorable moments. I know that in Edmonton, both Vistek and Out Of Bounds carry either of these cameras, and I'm sure many others will be on board soon.
Mountains and cities get a blast of La Niña Rocky Mountain resort operators were holding their breath as their opening days neared. Lucky for us all, La Niña did not disappoint. Last weekend, weather advisories followed by massive snowfalls covered the entire province. As a result, resort operators increased the number of opening lifts on a daily basis, and by Saturday hills that were open had great snow and others couldn't wait for opening day. Here in town the cold weather allowed operators to get the guns out to create a base and then
good old mother-nature put a nice finish on top. No wind at -15 C makes for a great day on any slope. The best part is this early season snow blast isn't over by any means: 14-day trends by many of the forecasters are liberally sprinkled with snowy days. For those of you caught off guard still trying to replace last year's misplaced or broken gear, I suggest you get to it soon because this is a great start to winter and December is just around the corner when all of the resorts will be open.
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
SNOW ZONE // 9
DISH
Find a restaurant
ONLINE AT DISHWEEKLY.CA
Brand new Aroma
PROVENANCE
The history of Frogmore Stew
Venerable Italian eatery given a complete overhaul
// Bryan Birtles
Still a garlic lover's dream, but now 100 percent Italian Sharman Hnatiuk // sharman@vueweekly.com
T
hat's Aroma has been a garlic-lover's haven in Edmonton for years, but thanks to a new father/son duo, the restaurant has remodelled itself to become an authentic Italian destination. After closing for weeks of renovations in May, That's Aroma experienced a serious overhaul. Gone are the paintings on the wall of cartoon garlic figures—That's Aroma's make-
We had a completely different look in mind for an updated That's Aroma and we wanted this space to feel refined and stylish. over has taken the interior from so-so to sophisticated, a refined look that is exactly what new general manager Manuel Proaño wanted to create. "When I first came in here I thought
10 // DISH
the design was a nightmare," explained Manual. "I knew with the renovation I wanted to get rid of everything from the garlic paintings to the carpet to the VLTs in the lounge. We had a completely different look in mind for an updated That's Aroma and we wanted this space to feel refined and stylish." Manuel has the background and experience to make That's Aroma's revival a tasty success. His father Gonzalo Proaño was a chef within the Sorrentino's Restaurant Group for a few years before he and Manual were offered the opportunity to partner in Oliveto Trattoria in Riverbend Square. Two years later, four men in the Proaño family have taken a 50 percent partnership in That's Aroma with a vision of modeling the restaurant into a success similar to the south side location. "When we came in the menu was all over the place—there were pastas with East Asian and curry sauces, it had a Greek Salad, and the lounge menu had burgers," explained Manuel. "We're 100 percent Italian now; the menu still has a lot of garlic but
now everything is authentic Italian." With father Gonzalo taking over the reins in the kitchen, the dishes are now completely made fresh in house and boast recipes with a successful track record. "The menu is very similar to Olivetto, and the dishes there have been very popular with customers," describes Gonzalo. "Right now I am training the staff to learn the menu exactly how I make it. I want consistency. I want quality, every time." While some pre-reno regulars are surely missing some of the older items, the Proaño men are committed to the trattoria-style menu with traditional and rustic home-style roots. "If you want a curry sauce, go to the Indian restaurant down the street. If you want something with an Asian flavour, go to the Wokery across the street. If you want burgers, go to McDonalds. If you come to That's Aroma you're going to get quality authentic Italian food, every time." V Manuel and Gonzalo Proaño That's Aroma 11010 - 101 St, 780.425.6777
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
Frogmore Stew has nothing to do with frogs, but it is a stick-to-your-ribs seafood recipe from the Deep South that is mired in tradition and folklore. According to legend, a North Carolina shrimper in the town of Frogmore was running low on food at home. So he boiled up some potatoes he had, along with fresh corn and shrimp, since there was never a short supply of shrimp. He also had a single sausage left, which he added to the mix. He soon realized how great the items complemented each other and, from that point, started experimenting with spices and southern side dishes. The basic recipe was passed around to local seafood restaurants. Cajun spicing is considered the original flavour enhancer, although others say pepper is the only true additive. However, everyone acknowledges that true Frogmore Stew must be cooked with bay leaves, and some say it was originally cooked in beer. Frogmore Stew became a family tradition in many homes and can still be found at many restaurants across the Deep South. It is associated with large gatherings of friends and family, festive occasions and lots of dancing. It is also the basis for many modern-day stews and stir-fries of various names. The big difference is the addition of other vegetables and the elimination of the potatoes, since most stir-fries are served over rice or noodles.
By the way, shrimp used to be considered a staple for poor people since they were so plentiful, and since shrimp are essentially bottom-feeders. But as shrimp cuisine evolved, Frogmore Stew enjoyed resurgence in popularity and is still common on restaurant menus. V PETE DESROCHERS
// DESROCHERS@vueweekly.com
RECIPE CRANBERRY RELISH
An appropriate southern side dish for most stews, and a great alternative to cranberry sauce with turkey is Cranberry Relish, created by a lady known only as “Georgia Peach.” 1 orange 2 cups of raw cranberries 1/2 a lemon 1 apple 3/4 cup of sugar The zested peel from 3/4 of the orange Remove seeds from the fruit and put all ingredients (except for the sugar) in a food blender. Blend at low speed for several seconds, add the sugar then turn on the blender at a slightly higher speed until relish texture is reached. V
Tagine dream
Marvelous Moroccan Cuisine Jan Hostyn
// jan@vueweekly.com
M
y mom and I discovered Moroccan Cuisine tucked away in a quiet corner of an unassuming strip mall in Leduc, eclipsed by the brash lights and overpowering presence of a mighty fast food establishment. Tempted by the unknown, we decided to investigate. Awash in a sea of tranquil burgundy tones, it was comfortable and warm, and ornate little touches were everywhere. The lights could've benefited from a dimmer switch, though—we found them way too bright. We perused the menu for a few minutes before the waiter/owner made an appearance. He checked on the other table and threw a smile our way. After another brief exit, he reappeared with a jug of water and made his way over. He fielded a few questions, but his explanations weren't as enlightening as I was hoping for. Evidently it's his wife who does all the cooking. He did go back to the kitchen to clarify a couple of answers with her, however. Still not too sure of the differences between various dishes, we decided to experiment. The result: a Moroccan salad ($6.95), the lamb tagine with apricots, cinnamon and almonds ($11.95) and the Moroccan fish ($9.95). At the last minute we also added harira ($2.95), the lentil/chickpea soup of the day. We did learn that a tagine—one of the
defining dishes of Moroccan cuisine—actually refers to the heavy pot with a coneshaped lid that the food is cooked in, not the specific ingredients that are used. While we were waiting for our salad, the owner presented us with two gold cups full of green tea. Inside each cup was a single, amazingly magical mint leaf. Not only did it make the tea smell absolutely heavenly, it turned ordinary tea into something unexpectedly light, refreshing and positively addictive. In the midst of marvelling over the tea, out came our Moroccan salad. It was actually a medley of numerous salads: cabbage, both cooked and raw; carrots; potatoes; and a cucumber/tomato/onion combination. We fought over the potato salad—it redefined my definition of what a great potato salad should be—but the overcooked carrots sat lonely and neglected. That plate was soon ferried away, to be replaced by two steaming hot bowls of harira soup. It was thinner than I had expected, but the warm, slightly spicy undertones and bursts of flavour from the fresh cilantro grew on me with every spoonful. And then the tagine. Out it came, a glossy, cone-shaped marvel. And just as we were admiring it in all of its mysterious glory, off came the lid, releasing the most intoxicating aroma imaginable. Hidden under that lid lay hefty chunks of lamb and plump, dried apricots. A dust-
ing of ground almonds and a mass of saffron-tinged rice completed the dish. Evidently, the secret to tagines is low heat and slow cooking. I have to say, the bite of the lamb I managed to steal seemed to fall apart even before my fork made contact. The sweetness of the apricots added another intriguing dimension to the dish. Rich and complex, this was definitely the highlight of the night. My fish turned out to be salmon and it was fine—moist, juicy and flavourful. The red sauce smothering it was pleasantly salty with a complex depth, and it even came bearing unadvertised morsels of squid. The veggies were disappointing, though: just the standard mix of frozen peas, beans and corn, and I ended up pushing them to the side. The owner seemed less rushed and more relaxed by the end of our meal, and it gave us a chance to learn a bit more about the restaurant. He said that each dish relies on a mixture of many different spices but overall, saffron is used the most. It makes an appearance in almost every dish on the menu. Theirs is even imported from Casablanca, evidently. Moroccan Cuisine is a small, homey restaurant that is comfortable and unpretentious. The service can be spotty and, while it's not gourmet, it is inspiring. When I left, it was with a longer to-do list: pick up some fresh mint leaves for my tea, experiment more with using dried fruit in my cooking and hunt down a tagine. V Mon – Fri, (11 am – 9 pm); Sat (8 am – 9 pm) Moroccan Cuisine 6201 - 50 St, Leduc, 780.980.0068
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
DISH // 11
BEER
Going upscale
New Roughneck offerings leave the rigs
Brewmaster's Choice India Pale Ale and Brown Ale Roughneck Brewing, Calmar, Alberta $12.25 for six pack
draught-only pale lager called Pipeline Lager. As the name and packaging suggests, their goal was to market to the hardworking men and women of the oil fields and related sectors. However, in recent weeks You can be forgiven for not Roughneck has shifted direcrealizing that Calmar, the tion. They have sold their small oil town southwest of m canning line and have just o .c ly k ewee int@vu Edmonton, has its own mireleased two new beer untothep crobrewing operation. But der the brand "Brewmaster's Jasonr Roughneck Brewing has been Choice." The new packaging, Foste quietly going about its business complete with distinguished lafor three years. Their main focus unbeling, sends a clear message that til now has been selling cans of a light Roughneck wants to now compete in blonde ale called Driller's Ale and a the craft-beer segment of the market.
TO TH
E
PINT
12 // DISH
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; DEC 1, 2010
Roughneck's products were always well brewed, and the owner/brewer Terry Cameron has legitimate brewing chops. His decision to more openly wear his brewing credentials is promising. But sticking to his no-nonsense approach, Cameron avoided fancy names and simply calls the beer what they are. I made a point of being one of the first Edmontonians to pick up a six-pack of each. The Brown Ale is a mahogany brown with a thin off-white head that unfortunately fades away rather quickly. The aroma is of caramel, milk chocolate and plum with a noticeable cola-like quality. It has an expected sweetness upfront with chocolate and dark caramel highlighted. In the middle I detect some sharper notes that seem dark malt related. The finish is moderately sweet. This is an easy-drinking brown ale that hits the malt notes. Overall it could use a little more body and the carbonation is a bit prickly, but that does not detract from its general pleasant drinkability. Next up is the India Pale Ale, which tumbles into the glass dark gold with orange highlights, building a rich white head that leaves a trace of lacing down the side of the glass. The aroma reminds me of an English Bitter with some soft biscuit malt sweetness and a subdued floral hop. In the flavour the biscuit comes through, as does some honey, which slowly evolve into an earthy, piney hop flavour and bitterness. If anything it may end up a touch too sweet to allow the hops to fully take over. The beer is about balance, which exposes it as an English IPA, which are intended to be less hoppy and more subtle than their American brethren. Some beer geeks may disparage this beer because it is not a hop bomb, but I recognize it's not supposed to be. It reaches its target of a balanced, drinkable IPA. Welcome to where you belong Roughneck: among the artisans of the craft beer scene in Canada. V
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; DEC 1, 2010
DISH // 13
ARTS
ARTIFACTS
The Fifth Annual Sterling Christmas Pudding / Thu, Nov 25 (7:30 pm) The Elizabeth Sterling Awards Committee puts this little end-of-year bash on, replete with musical offerings, an excerpt from whizgiggling productions' upcoming The Best Little Newfoundland Christmas Pageant Ever and Teatro La Quindicina's take on a play called And No Birds Sing, described as a "hilariously grim study of disenfranchised people in a train station on a Christmas Eve in the 1930." It's the first time they've staged it in a decade, after finding it in a text entitled Non-Royalty Plays for All Occasions. (Varscona Theatre [10329 - 83 Ave], $20) The 9th Biannual Royal Bison Craft & Art Fair / Sat, Nov 27, Sun, Nov 28, (10 am – 5 pm) This ain't your grandmother's arts-andcrafts fair. More than 60 local art-types, spanning illustrators, jewelers, DIY craftspeople and so many more types of disciplines, put their wares on the tables and hope you engage in delightfuly quaint commerce with them. The proceedings are this year helmed by a trio of veteran Royal Bison vendors—Vikki Wiercinski, Josh Holinaty and Jeanie Andronyk—taking on the Herculean task of organizing this two-day craft-a-palooza in lieu of its original creator, Raymond Biesinger. Pray for them. (Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre [8426 Gateway Blvd], $2) HangTime First Anniversary Show / Tue, Nov 30 (9 pm) Local filmmaking/comedy duo Arlen Konopaki and Mike Robertson have been hosting a bizarre, monthly alternative comedy showcase in the basement of the Black Dog for a year now, and are celebrating this comedy show's first birthday by, well, putting on a comedy show. They describe it as "curated," meaning they keep the total squares out letting both veteran and amateur comics, sketch writers and other funny yuksters flex their comedy muscles. Not to mention musical acts—a varied bunch, from rappers to, once, a cellist from Berlin— that close out the night. Oh, and it's free. The price could not be better. (Black Dog Freehouse, Free) Uncorked! Book Signing and Wine Sampling / Sat, Nov 27 (Noon – 4pm) This might be the arts section of the paper, but what artist doesn't like a good drink? Uncorked! is Calgary Herald wine columnist Shelly Boettcher's guide to Alberta's best wines under $25 (alongside pairing suggestions and trivia), and she's in town on Saturday to share her wisdom, while deVine pulls out a spread of their own sour grapes. Go forth and cavort merrily. (deVine Wine and Spirits ([10111 – 104 St], free)
14 // ARTS
"I've been starting work at 7:30 in the morning, coffee in hand in front of the computer, and at no point in my life has that ever, ever happened before. It's bizarre for a poet, yeah?"
one man riot /17
AT VUEWEEKLY.COM
SLIDESHOW >> Refinery late night art party
THEATRE // revue
Middle finger to the institution Hard Core Logo: LIVE! has attitude, but lacks emotion David Berry
// Ian Jackson, EPIC
// david@vueweekly.com
I
t's fitting that this stage version of Bruce McDonald's cult film (originally based on Michael Turner's book, though the film has made the stronger impression) opens with a film of its own: a pisstake at old nature shorts, this "Punkerland Who's Who" introduces us to our specific beast, the Vancouver punk, a breed whose tamed anger and political involvement separates it from the more established LA, New York and UK varieties. It's a shame though that the film sets the tone for Hard Core Logo: LIVE!, which captures the bratty attitude and snide humour of punk so perfectly, but leaves the gut-level emotion that fuels so much of it under glass, something examined but never properly felt. The split is typified perfectly by the relationship between the eponymous band's frontmen and its rhythm section. Singer Joe Dick (Michael Scholar Jr) and guitarist Billy Tallent (Telly James) are the heart and soul of both the band and the play: friends and bandmates since childhood, years of toiling away in the punk trenches have left both them and their friendship as ragged as the shitty club that the Roxy stage has been transformed into. Joe is trying to redeem his past self-destructive streak by getting the band back together for a benefit and reunion tour, finally cashing in on their
Punk attitude carries Hard Core Logo: LIVE!
good name; Billy, meanwhile, might already have found some payback, closing in on a gig with an indie band set to blow up. It's Billy's impending choice—between loyalty to a friend who's already fucked him over or rock-star idols— that provides the tension here, besides also standing in for a wider comment on what was happening in the punk world. But the play has trouble really capturing the personal relationship between Billy and Joe, following too many tangential threads for their story to develop into a proper emotional core. By the time the big choice is made, it feels less like a climax than just another episode in this rather
extended—opening night went three hours—series of them. Luckily for the show, those tangents are roundly engaging, which is where the rhythm section comes in. Bassist John Oxenberger (Clinton Carew, who is perfectly cast) is a spaced-out hippie steadily going crazy without his meds, while drummer Pipefitter (Toby Berner) has a head roughly as full as his kick drum, and the play does a fantastic job of not only strip-mining them for comic relief, but also suggesting the underlying sadness of the fact that the band will forever be about the only thing in their life that even half works out. As a result, the best moments here are
when the band's full dynamic is working itself out, and all these actors can play off each other. There's an easy camaraderie that suggests why they were such a great band to begin with, as well as a mutual destructiveness that shows why they split up. The actual songs aren't quite what they could be—they're great as character pieces, but lose some punk edge in the Roxy's formal confines—but the bits of the boys driving across cold landscapes or stopping for grub have a rhythm that's easy to slip in to. There is enough here to keep the show engaging for the full running time— Rachel Johnston also does fine work as a chameleon of various band hangerson, though some (a Nardwuar cameo, an aging, obscure rock god) work better than others (the groupies)—but not so much as to make it linger. And the one thing any breed of punk will want is to make an impression that lasts. V Until Sun, Dec 5 (8 pm) Hard Core Logo: Live! Adapted by Michael Scholar, Jr Based on the book by Michael Turner, film by Bruce McDonald and screenplay by Noel S Baker Directed by Bradley Moss Starring Toby Berner, Clinton Carew, Telly James, Rachael Johnston, Michael Scholar Jr Roxy Theatre (10708 - 124 st), $23 – $55
THEATRE // Prevue
True fans
// Ian Jackson, EPIC
True Grid spirals into sports superstitions Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com
L
inda Wood Edwards is the type of sports fan any team would count themselves lucky to have. She books her yearly holidays around the CFL calendar, and carries the green and gold standard of the Edmonton Eskimos proudly, though she loves the sport itself more than just an affinity for the hometown team. "We just have misplaced priorities," she jokes, of herself and fans like herself. "We prefer to see the Eskimos, but if the timing works, we'll go see anyone play." It's doubtful there was anyone else more prepared to write a play about obsessive sports fans. True Grid follows a quartet of superfans, or at least three of them: when Mary shows up, the careful, decades-long
balance of football camaraderie and careful adherence to superstitions get thrown up into the air, in peril of being jinxed as much as the fate of the home team— the script's set back in 2006, when the Edmonton Eskimo's championship title hung in the fateful balance. "People may love their team, but nobody's ever had as much at stake as we did in 2006," she recalls. She'd already been writing a piece about obsessed sports fans, but found herself zeroing in on her own personal investment. "The more I got writing, the more I realized that it had to be the Edmonton Eskimos, and it had to be 2006, when the longest playoff streak in professional sports history was hanging in the balance." True Grid was a fringe hit in 2007, a rare, dual success with sports fans and the-
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
Rooting for the home team
atregoers alike. The remount has had no trouble reassembling the 2007 cast and director, which probably says something of Edwards' keen eye for the inner tics of sports fandom, particularly the more superstitious elements. "We know that the athletes are superstitious, but I don't think the athletes really understood that it went into the bleachers or the stands," she says. "It's this probably misguided belief that what we do matters, that we in some way can influence what happens on the field or the ice or the diamond, and nobody really wants to screw with that. You can say it's probably not true, but why mess with it?
So as an end result, we end up repeating the most bizarre behaviours, wearing the stupidest things, eating the same foods, driving the same way to the games. And it just escalates." V Thu, Nov 25 (6 pm), Fri, Nov 26 (5 pm) True Grid Written by Linda Wood Edwards Directed by David Cheoros Starring Stewart Burdett, Sue Huff, Andy Northrup, Kevin Tokarsky Stanley A Milner Library Theatre (7 Sir Winston Churchill Square [Basement Level]), $18
BOOK // revue
VISUAL ARTS // REVUE
By way of Slovenia
Familiar symbols
Slovenia's finest see translated releases
FAB Gallery's exhibits offer layers upon layers
Michael Hingston // HINGSTON@vueweekly.com
H
ow many writers can you name from Slovenia? Living or dead, doesn't matter. Let me take a guess and say zero. Maybe you came up with the philosopher Slavoj Žižek. So one. It's OK—until very recently that's all I had, too. Illinois's Dalkey Archive Press aims to fix this collective blank spot with its newly launched Slovenian Literature Series. A co-production with the Slovenian Book Agency, the three attractive paperbacks included in the series this year shine very different lights on the Central European nation (capital: Ljubljana; population: two million). In fact, the set doesn't have much of a cohesive mission statement beyond showcasing that diversity and range of voice—which, I suspect, is precisely the point, and a laudable one at that. Even the smallest of countries contains multitudes, and they don't have to all get along. Most recognizable to metropolitan North Americans will be Andrej Blatnik's 2009 collection of ultra-short fiction You Do Understand ($16, trans. Tamara M Soban). The book reveals a familiar world of social niceties and subtle romantic protocols, but Blatnik doesn't stop there. Instead, he keeps burrowing, in the process tapping into the vast pools of awkwardness that threaten to hit the surface at any moment. The collection is fluidly arranged, with select words and ideas bleeding from one story into the next, but no single piece lasts more than a couple of pages. Some of the stories involve magic, and take on the quality of fables. Most, though, are snapshots of tangled urban life. Each of the pieces is as immediate and briefly tasty as a piece of Juicy Fruit. A community of sorts starts to take shape, too—though this effect strangely reverses itself if you go overboard, and read more than a dozen or so in one sitting. Most of the content blends together; after a while, your jaw gets sore from all that chewing. For a darker, thoroughly more unnerving perspective, there's Vlado Žabot's extraordinary 2003 novel The Succubus ($17.50, trans. Rawley Grau and Nikolai Jeffs), which focuses on Valent Kosmina, a retired man who's taken to putting on his fanciest outfit and jutting down the streets of an unnamed city, pretending to have appointments all over town. Kosmina's own neighbourhood is perpetually covered in fog (exacerbated by the exhaust fumes from a nearby slaughterhouse), and his wife, who spends all day tranquilized and watching soap operas, doesn't provide much in the way of stimulation. What begins as a cynical social satire quickly turns into a full-on horror show when a murder is committed in a well-to-do suburb that Kosmina takes late-night walks through, and he real-
izes that he would make an ideal suspect in the case. From here a kind of runaway nightmare logic takes over, with Kosmina's hallucinations intermingling with his already-distorted everyday life. He's not afraid of being framed for murder, really; he's afraid that everyone will find out he only owns one nice suit. Before you know it, he's pulled the reader off the cliff with him. It's too bad Kanye West already snapped it up, because a good alternate title for Žabot's book would be My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The Succubus is able to sustain its full-speed-ahead paranoid streak for the full 200 pages. The reader is stuck with images of haunted penthouse lofts and Kosmina smashing cognac bottles on his apartment's floor, all while he calmly thinks, "This is what a man does in his own home with his own things if that's what he feels like doing." Žabot's portrait is all too convincing, though I imagine Slovenia's tourism board will probably want a word with him. If any part of the country is actually like this place, I'm setting my passport on fire right now. But Dalkey's series is surprisingly well triangulated by its third entry: a re-issuing of Necropolis ($13.95, trans. Michael Biggins), Boris Pahor's 1967 account of the 14 months he spent in a series of German concentration camps at the end of the Second World War. Stark and simultaneously lucid and disorienting, Pahor revisits his time spent as an impromptu medic—he was almost literally selected at random from a group of hundreds— as he wanders the grounds of one of the camps, since converted into a memorial, as a free man, years later. Necropolis has many of its own virtues, as well as the same basic one as every Holocaust memoir: it forces the reader to get stuck in the head of a prisoner for a few hundred pages. Pahor makes you study the carnage and brutality for much longer than you're used to, and he won't let you blink. The truly astonishing thing turns out not to be how many people died in the camps—it's how many survived, in what conditions and by what thin margins. The book also provides, almost by accident, the crucial historical context that helps bind the series together. In his prologue, written expressly for this new edition, Pahor describes the tumultuous history of the ethnic Slo-
venians who've lived in the same place for 12 centuries, helpless as the map keeps getting redrawn around them. These Slovenians had their homeland bandied about, from a possession of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to that of Italy following the First World War (this area now surrounds the Italian city of Trieste). Under Italian rule they met a series of fresh injustices, including the razing of their cultural centres and the banning of their national language in public places, even though, as Pahor notes, at that time there were more Slovenians living in Trieste than in Ljubljana. It's mildly comforting to learn that Slovenians are subject to the same petty squabbles as North Americans. But the most revealing fact about Slovenia itself comes from this prologue, where the fictional bonds of unlikely communities and the lingering presence of unforgotten ghosts are shown to have real-life roots—ones that run at least a century deep. V Available Now Slovenian Literature Series Featuring You Do Understand, The Succubus, Necropolis Dalkey Archive Press
Patrick J Reed's Derecho a successful study of failure Carolyn Jervis // cArolynjervis@vueweekly.com
P
atrick J Reed's exhibition at the FAB Gallery, Derecho, is a successful study of failure. In the body of work created for Reed's Master of Fine Arts studies in printmaking, the artist constructs a dystopia where "systems of organization and control fall apart like bread and water, slipping into a bloat of excess before disintegrating into the muck." Through images of familiar symbols failing to transmit meaning with an intelligible signal and male athletes doing poorly when measured to ideal masculinity, I was left to wade in soggy, deteriorating pop-culture references and malformed meaning. In some images, symbols such as catchphrases or familiar cartoon animals languish in the isolation of chaos created by the absence of clear meaning because of their desolate surroundings. Despite the dark, hopeless-sounding pursuits of the people and characters featured in Reed's work, the show gave me an optical and cerebral experience that was anything but unpleasant. I interpreted Reed's series of boxers as a
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
// Patrick J Reed
somewhat perverted Darwinian survival of the fittest, where competition proves fruitless. In these images, who is battling whom or what is entirely unclear. There is no glamour or even sense of superiority in victory. But in this created world, where no thing or symbol passes muster, is a humourous, kitschy commemoration. It is a celebration of the deterioration that accompanies the descent into meaninglessness, and the obscurity associated with an athlete who is a perennial loser. The tiny red light of Rudolph's nose in the Wadcutter series and the silver foil stars that surround the grotesque boxing matches suggest that these failures to reach proper meaning or the proper masculine physical ideal are perhaps worth following if not celebrating. Approaching ideas of obscurity from a completely different angle is Megan Hahn with her Master of Fine Arts exhibition, From the Shelter. Hahn has assembled an exhibition of works that are clearly process based: on photographs of urban CONTINUED ON PAGE 17 >>
ARTS // 15
COMMENT >> ARTS
He rides again
The Black Rider enjoyed a one-week run ... in Camrose? The infamous operatic theatre producToronto's Tarragon Theatre just a few years tion of The Black Rider: The Casting back. The production is highly complicated of the Magic Bullets first premiered in as it involves not just one, but three creative Hamburg's Thalia Theatre in the spring of minds at play in terms of executing its mu1990. As a creation and collaboration sical score, a deceivingly simple story between three of the 20th cenline and a deeply rooted nihilism tury's genre-benders—Robert within every direction. Musical Wilson, Tom Waits and Wilicons from Marianne Faithful liam S Burroughs—The Black and Mary Margaret O'Hara to m ekly.co Rider takes up the fable of sellRichard Strange have been invuewe amy@ ing your soul to the devil for volved in past productions, and y m A what price, and complicates the Waits' album of the same name Fung remains peasant folklore with twists of one of his most elusively subconscious desire as seen through magical albums in an already magically the filter of German Expressionism. elusive discography. Under Edmonton's own November TheSo when I learned that The Black Rider was atre, the show made its Canadian and Amergoing to be put up for a one-week run using ican premieres and toured from St John's to students from the Augustana University in New York, finally ending its sold-out run at Camrose, Alberta, I thought, "Really?"
IE PRASITRERS
ART
16 // ARTS
Directed and produced by Augustana's sessional theatre instructor, Kristine Nutting—who has successfully demonstrated through past productions an avid interest in pushing the boundaries through stylizing the macabre—The Black Rider ran all of last week in a small converted church to a crowd of mostly locals. Camrose in its present state is a town holding just under 17 000 people. The centre is surrounded by farmland and dark highways. With a crowd of supportive friends and parental guardians, a cast and crew of 25 young theatre students put on a hell of a show last Friday night. Led by Augustana alumni and current U of A student Nathan Huisman, these inexperienced artists from rural Alberta delivered an astoundingly professional show in less
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
than eight weeks. Due to the strictest licensing rights agreements, attaining the rights to put on The Black Rider is no easy feat. Robert Wilson does not give out the rights to his play very often. But Nutting appealed to Wilson's own rural roots, his childhood of growing up as an outcast queer with a speech impediment in Waco, Texas, who, according to the director's notes, "found solace or at least some semblance that something else existed beyond his homophobic town with the weird piano teacher ... the town eccentric [who] exposed Robert to art, music and everything that would save him ... ." This production of The Black Rider will not tour. Perhaps a couple hundred people saw it and no recorded document will exist of it. With a full band led by Curtis Ross and choreography by Kathy Ochoa, this show was a lot of work to put on, and that in itself was the sole reason it was put on: to go through the motions and process of staging a ridiculously complex show with almost no resources out in the middle of nowhere.
Throughout the show, I knew I was watching something special; I knew I was watching raw talent inexplicably throwing itself head first into experimental material with the confidence and ability to own the work. The energy of the production reminded me that anything is possible anywhere, anytime, so long as you go for it. The director's notes conclude, "I explained to Mr Wilson that just because an artist is limited by geography does not mean that they must be limited in their artistic palette. Although we are not the chosen few who are born to New York or anywhere fabulous that perhaps the spirit of the eccentric piano teacher could live on via the legacy of his work." Continuing on some 40 years after Wilson left Texas to become one of the most respected theatre artists in the world, the spirit of the eccentric theatre teacher lives on in rural Alberta. V Amy Fung is the author of prairieartsters.com
POETRY // PREVUE
FAMILIAR SYMBOLS
<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15
One man riot
Fringe staple Jem Rolls moves to town David Berry // david@vueweekly.com
T
hough he has lived most his life in his native UK, Jem Rolls is no stranger to our fair city: his appearances at the Fringe festival have been as regular as the effusive praise that greets his work, dense and propulsive spoken word performances that might most readily be called slam poetry, but which tend to be too expansive and clever to be reduced to any simple moniker. But though he knew what he was getting into when he set down stakes in our fair city this past fall—yes, even including the winters— not even Rolls himself could have predicted the glut of creativity that has so far been his Edmonton experience. "I've never been quite so productive," he admits with a twitchy energy befitting his restless stage presence. "I've been starting work at 7:30 in the morning, coffee in hand in front of the computer, and at no point in my life has that ever, ever happened before. It's bizarre for a poet, yeah?" Rolls will finally get a chance to show off some of his newfound productivity this Friday, when he performs with the Edmonton Slam Poetry Team as part of the first-ever Night of Performance
Poetry. Organized by Edmonton Public Library Writer in Residence (and fellow Fringe vet) Chris Craddock, the event is a combination chance to officially welcome one of the world's finest spoken word artists to our city, as well as celebrate the recent success of the inaugural Slam Poetry Team, who recently finished fifth overall at the recent Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Ottawa. Rolls admits he's humbled by the reception—"I normally have to organize these events myself," he points out dryly, having set up regular poetry jams in nearly every city he's lived in, most notably London and Edinburgh—but mostly he's just "gagging" for the chance to finally get up on stage after months of solitary work. Increased productivity or no, the real thrill for Rolls is getting in front of an audience and experiencing the visceral reaction that only it can bring. "Crucial doesn't quite say it strongly enough, really," he effuses. "Performance is a very no-bullshit thing, because you're in front of an audience—poetry is legendary for being jam-packed full of bullshit, but not with performance, because audiences can smell it, so you can't get away with it. "Obviously you want any poem to
Fringe vet Jem Rolls currently calls Edmonton home
work, yeah, but here you can tell it's working," he continues. "You could write a fantastic poem, and it could take 500 years before anyone realizes how good it is. And basically none of us have got 500 years. There's an immediacy to this that forces you to edit, to clarify your ideas, because you really can't be that arcane with an audience that has to
get it right now. The audience is a fantastic discipline, and a discipline that's unusual to the medium of poetry." V
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
garden scenes she layers paint, ink, graphite and other traditional art materials. While looking at these works where layers of materials on each photograph obscure the garden images, I was left wondering, who, or what, is being sheltered, as her exhibit name implies? And why? Hahn certainly uses her materials to great visual effect at times, most notably on the photographs layered thick with graphite. I hope that this is the technique she keeps exploring. The mood and dark sheen created by the liberal application of the mineral-based material obscured the image underneath in a way that was fascinatingly unconvincing. I wanted to keep looking into the mineral blackness to see if I could in fact make out the clear image that I know lies underneath. The use of white gouache, a paint lacking any shine whatsoever, was easy to relate to, having just crunched through the snow in my heavy winter boots on that crisp day. We know what image lies under the layers of gouache just like we know what layers of snow obscure. Hahn's photographs are not places I know, but are vaguely recognizable garden scenes, so I can connect and form the shapes in my mind, just as I do when I trudge through the snow as if I can see right through it. V Until Sat, Dec 4
Fri, Nov 26 (7 pm)
Derecho
A Night of Performance Poetry
Works by Patrick J Reed
Featuring Jem Rolls, Edmonton Slam
From The Shelter
Poetry Team
Works by Megan Hahn
Latitude 53, Free
FAB Gallery (112 st & 89 ave)
ARTS // 17
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18 // ARTS
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
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LITERARY AUDREYS BOOKS )(/(* BYkh]j 9n] /0(&,*+&+,0/ Bg[% ]dqf :jgof$ Ojal]j%af%J]ka\]f[] Yl 9m\j]qk :ggck ]n]jq Lm] Yf\ O]\ *%-he :ggc dYmf[` ^gj Kh]f[]j :]Y[` k$ In Case of Fire3 Nov 25$ /2+(he :ggc dYmf[` ^gj ?gj\gf Omkqc k Zggc$ From A Mess to a Masterpiece3 Nov 29$ ,2+(%.2+(he ka_faf_!3 /he j]Y\af_! :ggc dYmf[` ^gj EYjlq ;`Yf k Zggc$ The Mystery of the Cyber Bully3 Dec 1$ /2+(he CAMPUS SAINT�JEAN HYnaddgf E[EY`gf$ 0,(. EYja]% 9ff]%?YZgmjq Kl$ 1) Kl Hj]k]flYlagf2 L`] Ojal]j ;alar]f2 9]kl`]la[k Yf\ Hgdala[k oal` K`Yfa Egglgg2 Nov 26$ 0he3 >j]] e]eZ]j'Çjkl%lae] _m]kl!' )( \jgh%af ^gj j]lmjfaf_ _m]kl! Ogjck`gh2 L`] Hgdala[k g^ Ojalaf_ >a[lagf oal` K`Yfa Egglgg2 Nov 27, 12+(Ye%,he CANADIAN AUTHORS ASSOCIATION�Alberta Branch HYnaddgf E[EY`gf$ ;Yehmk KYafl%B]Yf$ Je +%(,$ 0,(. EYja]%9ff]%?YZgmjq Kl The Writer Citizen: Aesthetics and Politics: K`Yfa Egglgg3 Nov 26$ 0he3 ^j]] e]eZ]j'Çjkl% lae] _m]kl!' )( j]lmjfaf_ _m]kl! The Politics of Writing Fiction: K`Yfa Egglgg3 Nov 27$ 12+(Ye%,he3 ,( e]eZ]j!' /( fgf%e]eZ]j!3 af[d dmf[`3 hj]%j]_akl]j =2 j]_akljYj8 [YfYml`gjkYdZ]jlY&[Y CATALYST THEATRE 0-*1 ?Yl]oYq :dn\ Mf\Ymfl]\ =f[`Yfle]flk2 ;< DYmf[`'[gf[]jl ^]Ylmjaf_ klgja]k ^gj Y\mdlk Nov 25$ /%12+(he )- L&9&D&=&K& /0(&1+*&,,(1!$ \ggj ROSIE’S BAR )(,/-%0( 9n] KLGJQ ;9>z2 A Gift To Last2 L`] )kl L`m g^ l`] egfl` mflad Bmf3 gh]f ea[ ghhgjlmfalq Dec 2$ /%1he . STANLEY A. MILNER LIBRARY / Kaj Oafklgf ;`mj[`add Ki /0(&,1.&/((( Centre for Reading2 >jge :ggck lg >ade3 ]n]jq >ja$ *he Centennial Rm2 Lak¿ l`] K]Ykgf lg Z] J]Y\% af_2 :ggc dgn]jk ;`jakleYk kYd] `gkl]\ Zq l`] Ojal]jk ?mad\ g^ 9dZ]jlY O?9!3 ^]Ylmjaf_ Yml`gjk$ Zggc j]Y\af_k$ Yf\ Zggc ka_faf_k Dec 4$ )*%-he UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA Gd\ 9jlk :d\_ Dgmf_] eYaf >d :ggc dYmf[` ^gj Ukrainian Through its Living Culture Zq 9ddY F]\Yk`cankcY3 Nov 26$ -he Hj]%j]_akl]j Yl /0(&,1*&00+*
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FILM
"The dilemma for trapped-alive films is how to dramatize tedium. Waiting for death, unable to move, is a horrible thing to watch, but it can also be deadly dull." SIDEVUE: Digging Deep Online AT VUEWEEKLY.COM
Man as caged rat
James Franco and Danny Boyle do a lot and a little in 127 Hours
James Franco as Aron Ralston, before those 127 hours really begin DAVID BERRY // DAVID@vueweekly.com
A
ron Ralston's story isn't so much lifeaffirming as utterly insane, a testament to the survival instinct that would be completely unbelievable if it wasn't true. For those who missed it as media event in 2003, he's a climber who got his
arm trapped by a boulder while he was out canyoning in Utah. When he couldn't dislodge it after five days with minimal food and water, he cut it off with a makeshift tourniquet and a cheap utility tool—including not only sawing through flesh, but breaking his forearm in two places and snapping his own tendons— then walked eight miles and rappelled
down a cliff face to find help. (Personally, I usually can't get out of bed without unreasonable use of the snooze button.) Danny Boyle does both a lot and a little with that story, insomuch as he successfully dramatizes an event where his protagonist is literally trapped under a rock for most of it, but doesn't really find anything in it that you couldn't get from reading the brief recap above. Thematically, it's a story of how Ralston, as portrayed by James Franco, has come to decide he has lived his life too selfishly—he doesn't return his mother's phone calls, and he wasn't caring enough with his girlfriend—and uses his welling regret to perform an act that is pretty much unthinkable so he can get back on the right path. It is the kind of reductive and simplistic message better suited to a Hallmark movie: the only true path to fulfilment is love, specifically of the familial variety.
Franco are doing to keep this engaging. Franco is simply excellent as man as caged rat, his natural aloof charm—the blasé attitude that made Daniel Desario so appealing—forced to get along with impending mortality. He grounds the transition from devil-may-care to broke-down earnestness with far more pathos than that journey usually gets, and he's especially good at playing on the brink of insanity, self-loathing and hopelessness fighting with steely resolve for Ralston's life. Boyle captures this performance magnificently, too, finding a balance of motion, moving and cutting sharply enough to keep things to pace while zeroing on key moments to drive his point
home. The actual amputation is indicative of his fine touch: it is harrowing, visceral and punishing without ever crossing the line to gory or exploitative. Ralston's bones explode like cannons, his tendons snap like guitar strings, forcing the reality of the situation without overplaying it. It's a shame the same can't be said of the film as a whole. V Opens Fri, Nov 26 127 Hours Directed by Danny Boyle Written by Boyle, Simon Beaufoy Starring James Franco Garneau Theatre (8712 - 109 st)
A message that simple just doesn't seem worthy of the work that Boyle and
SCREENCAPS To Hold a Thought/ Play With Fire Mon, Nov 29 (7 pm) To Hold A Thought Directed by Alex Viszmeg Mon, Nov 29 (8 pm) Play With Fire Directed by Soren Johnstone Metro Cinema (9828 - 101A Ave)
The pair of Canadian films playing at Metro this Monday forms an interesting double bill, insomuch as one is about excessively ponderous people trying to figure out how to live in the moment and the other is all about people who don't have much going on besides living in the moment. It's almost as though they were programmed to be superego and id in one night of film. Not that either makes a particularly compelling case for how to be. To Hold A Thought is an essay film influenced by the writings of Eckhart Tolle, a new-agey spiritualist who has benefitted greatly from an association with Oprah, which should hopefully give you an indication of the level of philosophical penetration we're dealing with here. To Hold a Thought is essentially an exhortation to live in the moment dressed up with a lot of dorm-room spiritualism and philosophical musings, and I guess would be reasonably pen-
A moment held in To Hold A Thought
etrating if you're at that unique point in your life when you're searching for deeper meaning but haven't read too many books yet. I'll say flat-out that I am far too enamoured with the necessary messiness of life and the inherent benefits of self-awareness to buy any of this shit; by way of arguing my worldview, though, there is a point here when a man speaks reverently of his dog's ability to live in the moment: I'll never debate a dog's propensity for happiness, but they'll never be able to make a film about it. Score one for the unbearable lightness of being. Play With Fire, on the other hand, is a realist look at life in a remote BC town, where the only jobs appear to be working at the foundry or selling the coke that fu-
els everybody's time off from hard labour. Shot using non-actors, it's seriously held back by the amateurishness of the production. For starters, the look is so murky that there are numerous scenes where it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. More importantly, though, the performances vary wildly, from engagingly naturalistic—especially when it's lessthan-thoughtful guys bullshitting with each other and using the word "fuck" like it was punctuation—to disconcertingly stilted and unable to convey even basic emotions, which is most of the rest of it. The milieux here is admirable, but Play With Fire is ultimately too inept to really get much out of it. David Berry
// david@vueweekly.com
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
FILM // 19
SCREENCAPS
Faster
Now playing Written by Tony Gayton, Joe Gayton Directed by George Tillman Jr Starring Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton
s
Faster opens with the wrestler pecks of Dwayne Johnson's Driver already sweaty, already in motion. He's pacing around in some nondescript maximum-security jail cell; it's Driver's last day after 10 years in the slammer for a bank robbery gone wrong. When they uncuff him and turn him out into the world, he runs all the way to a junkyard where a beautiful sports car waits with a gun in the glove compartment. He gets a list from some shady fellow of the names of the people
who set him up, then goes on a rampage of revenge on those who killed his brother and friends and tried to do him in too. Toss in an obsessive assassin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and a junkie cop/deadbeat dad (Billy Bob Thornton), both on his tail, and the uneven trifecta that makes up the core of Faster is complete. Johnson holds up his part of the bargain: he takes up large amounts of frame with muscle, says little and shoots lots and broods silently during the long drives between targets, while an evangelical preacher over the radio rattles about redemption and forgiveness, or hazy '70s rock 'n' roll scores the empty highway. Thornton's grimy Cop doesn't get the focus he needs to get fully fleshed out, but Thornton sets his onscreen asshole to "weasley" and pulls some slick sympathy his way. Jackson-Cohen's Killer exists really only to be a foil to the others, and doesn't do much
with a largely empty role. There are some big gaps in Driver's past left unfulfilled and some plot points hurriedly crammed into expository dialogue or blurry flashbacks, but for the most part, Faster tries to embrace the B-movie clichés it's got under the hood and it putters along admirably on those alone. Director George Tillman Jr handles the action pretty well, with cameras speeding up like the bullets they trace. It's a revenge flick aiming for Kill Bill territory. Moments from there are echoed here, though truthfully, Faster's not up to that standard or fullness of vision. Still, uneven as it is, Faster entertains in a simpler way, with a man on a mission, one that's bloody and decidedly B-movie, but with a surprising sense of restraint rather than all the extra ham handedness that term usually implies. PAUL BLINOV
// PAUL@vueweekly.com
harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part one Now playing Written by Steve Kloves, JK Rowling Directed by David Yates Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
s
Beyond the money-making bestsellers, fog of hype and smoke of a box-office-blazing franchise, there lies a mere movie. And Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
20 // FILM
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
Part 1 turns out to be rather fantastically boring. The epitome of the current CGI crop of epics where brooding badness gets airbrushed in a sheen of blue-black darkness, this stagnating set-up for a finale wallows in self-seriousness. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe, full of wide-eyed sternness), Hermione (Emma Watson, full of brow-furrowed concern) and Ron (Rupert Grint, full of stirred-but-not-shaken resolution) are on the run for most of the film, searching for magic Horcruxes to destroy before the boy-wizard's showdown with newt-faced Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, full of wasted talent). The infection of the Deadly Hollows spreads from gloomy Muggle streets to death-eater-crashed wedding to cramped rowhouse to overcast moor. The British Isles—except, magically, a stretch of sunswept Scottish Highlands—seem to be under a spell of awfully grim weather while flooded by a constantly burbling score. This pathetic fallacy (speaking of phalluses, I won't dwell on the merely "10-inch wand" Harry gets after his special wand's broken or the odd vision Ron has of silvery, nude Harry and Hermione when facing his deepest fear) isn't grounded in any emotional complexity down on earth. The trio's adolescent feelings are reduced to a few kisses, flashes of anger and more merry old questing. At times—spacey Luna, a slitheringly spooky second-floor snake attack, the Fagin-like Mundungus Fletcher—this lumbering spectacle lurches to colourful life. The best sequence comes with the trio's infiltration of the Ministry of Magic, through their perplexed impersonation of civil servants, when they flush themselves down
A glum, lumbering trip to the Deathly Hallows
into another daily grind. The potential here's for a quaint old England (radio, newspapers, grille-doored elevators, steam trains, cottages), with Dickensian characters, to rub its patchily eccentric shoulders up against bursts of modern magic and flashes of the supernatural. Instead, colourful characters and genuine danger get snuffed out by car chases and foot chases, instant teleportation, waiting (unbroken by nuanced acting, dialogue or humour), telegraphed plot twists and a shrugging body count (five kills and piling or, to quote a non-Beedle bard, "O death, where is thy sting?"). There's so much glumness and lethargy in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, a new character—call him Excelsior Lugubrious—emerges from the mega-budget, moody mist, threatening to slay Death himself with Sleep. Brian Gibson
// brian@vueweekly.com
FILM WEEKLY FRI, NOV 26 – THU, DEC 2, 2010
THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse
language) FRI�SAT 1:10, 4:10, 7:00, 10:00; SUN�THU 1:15, 4:15, 7:15, 10:15
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) DAILY
s
CHABA THEATRE�JASPER 6094 Connaught Dr, Jasper, 780.852.4749
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,
not recommended for young children) FRI�SAT 6:30, 9:05; SUN�THU 8:00; SAT�SUN 1:30
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI�SAT 7:00, 9:05; SUN�WED 8:00; SAT�SUN 1:30 JASPER FILM CLUB'S, DAVID SUZIKI'S FORCE OF NATURE (STC) THU 7:30 CINEMA CITY MOVIES 12 5074-130 Ave, 780.472.9779
12:50, 3:10, 5:40, 8:10, 10:40
SKYLINE (14A violence) Digital Cinema: FRI�SAT 1:30, 4:00, 6:30, 8:45, 11:00; SUN�THU 1:15; SUN� THU 3:30, 6:00, 8:15, 10:30 MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse language) DAILY 1:45, 7:10
MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d DAILY 12:30, 2:50,
5:20, 7:35, 10:00
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) FRI�SAT 12:10, 3:50, 6:15, 8:40, 11:10; SUN�THU 1:20, 3:35, 5:50, 8:05, 10:20 FAIR GAME (PG coarse language) FRI�SAT 12:45, 3:15, 5:45, 8:15, 10:50; SUN�THU 12:40, 3:20, 6:20, 9:20
BREAK KE BAAD (STC) Hindi W/E.S.T. DAILY 1:45,
RED (14A violence) DAILY 4:30, 10:20 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: BORIS GODUNOV ENCORE (Classification not avail-
GUZAARISH (PG mature subject matter) Hindi
TANGLED (G) Star & Strollers Screening, No
TERE ISHQ NACHAYA (STC) Punjabi W/E.S.T. DAILY 1:05, 4:10, 7:00, 10:00 4:35, 7:15, 9:35
W/E.S.T. DAILY 1:15, 4:20, 7:10, 10:00
TILL MY HEARTACHES END (PG) DAILY 1:25, 4:05, 7:00, 9:30
able) SAT 10:00
passes THU 1:00
CITY CENTRE 9 10200-102 Ave, 780.421.7020
GOLMAAL 3 (PG violence) DAILY 1:35, 4:25, 7:30 WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (PG
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
YOU AGAIN (G) DAILY 1:40, 4:15, 6:40, 9:05 THE TOWN (14A coarse language, violence) DAILY
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,
coarse language) DAILY 9:25
1:50, 4:40, 7:20, 9:50
EASY A (14A, language may offend) DAILY 1:55, 4:45, 7:35, 9:55
EAT PRAY LOVE (PG language may offend) DAILY 1:10, 4:00, 6:50, 9:40
INCEPTION (PG violence) DAILY 1:00, 4:30, 8:00 DESPICABLE ME 3D (G) Digital 3d DAILY 1:30, 3:55, 6:30, 9:00
TOY STORY 3 (G) DAILY 1:20, 3:45, 6:45 CINEPLEX ODEON NORTH 14231-137 Ave, 780.732.2236
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended for children) No passes DAILY 1:20, 4:10, 7:00, 9:50
FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI�TUE, THU 12:20, 2:50, 5:30, 8:00, 10:20; WED 5:30, 8:00, 10:20; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00 TANGLED (G) No passes FRI�TUE, THU 1:10, 4:00,
6:45, 9:20; WED 4:00, 6:45, 9:20
TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes DAILY 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) No passes
DAILY 1:40, 4:30, 7:20, 10:05
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not
recommended for young children) No passes DAILY 11:50, 1:30, 3:00, 4:50, 6:20, 8:15, 9:45
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not
recommended for young children) DAILY 12:30, 3:50, 7:10, 10:30
THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse
language) DAILY 12:40, 3:40, 6:40, 9:40
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) Digital
Cinema FRI�SAT, MON�THU 1:15, 4:20, 6:50, 9:30; SUN 4:20, 6:50, 9:30
MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse language) DAILY 1:50, 4:40, 7:40, 10:10
MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d DAILY 1:00, 3:30,
6:15, 8:40
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) Digital Cinema DAILY 12:10, 2:40, 5:15, 7:50, 10:15
RED (14A violence) DAILY 12:50, 3:20, 6:30, 9:10 THE MALTESE FALCON (STC) SUN 1:00 TANGLED (G) Star & Strollers Screening, No passes
WED 1:00
CINEPLEX ODEON SOUTH 1525-99 St, 780.436.8585
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommend-
ed for children) No passes FRI�SAT 12:15, 3:00, 5:45, 8:30, 11:15; SUN�WED 11:30, 2:15, 5:00, 7:50, 10:30; Thu 5:00, 7:50, 10:30; Star & Strollers Screening: Thu 1:00
FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI�SAT 1:50, 4:15, 6:45, 9:00, 11:15; SUN�THU 11:40, 2:00, 5:00, 8:10, 10:40
TANGLED (G) No passes FRI�WED 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:45, 10:10; THU 5:00, 7:45, 10:10
TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes DAILY 11:30, 2:00, 4:30, 7:15, 9:45
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) No passes
mended for children) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating, No passes DAILY 12:30, 3:30, 7:15, 10:15
not recommended for young children) Dolby Stereo Digital, No passes, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:00, 12:35, 3:15, 3:50, 6:30, 10:00
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) Dolby Stereo Digital, No passes DAILY 12:45, 3:45, 6:45, 9:45
TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No Passes, Stadium
Seating DAILY 12:15, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:30
MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
9:35; SAT�SUN 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:35; MON�THU 7:00, 9:35
FASTER (14A brutal violence) Daily 11:45, 2:20,
FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI 4:30, 7:00,
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes,
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) No passes Fri-Tue, Thu 1:10, 4:10, 7:20, 10:15; Wed 4:10, 7:20, 10:15; Star & Strollers Screening: Wed 1:00
violence, not recommended for young children) No passes FRI 3:00, 6:30, 9:50; SAT�SUN 11:45, 3:00, 6:30, 9:50; MON�THU 6:30, 9:50; Digital Cinema: FRI 3:40, 7:00, 10:15; SAT�SUN 12:15, 3:40, 7:00, 10:15; MON�THU 8:00
not recommended for young children) DAILY 12:00, 3:30, 7:00, 10:30; No passes DAILY 11:30, 3:00, 6:30, 10:00; FRI�TUE, THU 1:00, 4:30, 8:00; Wed 4:30, 8:00; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00
FASTER (14A brutal violence) Dolby Stereo
Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:25, 2:55, 5:25, 7:55, 10:25
CLAREVIEW 10 4211-139 Ave, 780.472.7600
MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d FRI 4:10, 6:35,
language) DAILY 12:30, 3:40, 6:50, 10:10
MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,
4:20, 7:40, 10:20
3:40, 9:45; MON�THU 9:45
coarse language) FRI, MON�THU 6:55; SAT�SUN 1:10, 6:55
MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d FRI 4:00, 6:30, DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)
MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d DAILY 12:20, 3:20,
9:20; SAT�SUN 1:15, 4:00, 6:30, 9:20; MON�THU 6:30, 9:20
FRI 4:10, 7:25, 9:50; SAT�SUN 1:30, 4:10, 7:25, 9:50; MON�THU 7:25, 9:50
RED (14A violence) FRI 4:20, 7:10, 10:00; SAT�SUN 1:45, 4:20, 7:10, 10:00; MON�THU 7:10, 10:00
GARNEAU
8712-109 St, 780.433.0728
6:55; SAT�SUN 1:30, 4:25, 6:55; MON�THU 5:15
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes,
violence, not recommended for young children) No passes On 2 Screens: FRI 3:15, 4:30, 6:30, 7:50, 9:35; SAT�SUN 12:10, 1:10, 3:15, 4:30, 6:30, 7:50, 9:35; MON�THU 4:25, 4:50, 7:40, 8:00
THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse
language) FRI 3:40, 6:40, 9:40; SAT�SUN 12:40, 3:40, 6:40, 9:40; MON�THU 5:10, 8:10
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended for children) No passes FRI 4:00, 7:00, 9:45; SAT�SUN 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 9:45; MON�THU 5:20, 8:20
TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No Passes FRI 4:15, 6:45, 9:15; SAT�SUN 1:40, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15; MON� THU 5:00, 7:45
FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI 4:50, 7:10,
9:50; SAT�SUN 1:50, 4:50, 7:10, 9:50; MON�THU 5:30, 8:30
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) FRI 3:50,
6:50, 9:30; SAT�SUN 12:50, 3:50, 6:50, 9:30; MON� THU 5:40, 8:25
DUGGAN CINEMA�CAMROSE 6601-48 Ave, Camrose, 780.608.2144
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes,
violence, not recommended for young children) DAILY 7:30; SAT�SUN 1:45
THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse language) DTS Digital FRI 6:25, 9:25; SAT�SUN 12:15, 3:10, 6:25, 9:25; MON�THU 5:10, 8:30 WETASKIWIN CINEMAS
Wetaskiwin, 780.352.3922
MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse language) DAILY 6:55, 9:30
MEGAMIND (G) SAT�SUN 12:55, 3:25 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) SAT�SUN 12:40, 3:45; DAILY 6:40. 9:45
FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 7:10, 9:35; SAT�SUN 1:10, 3:35 TANGLED 3D (G) DAILY 7:00, 9:25; SAT�SUN
1:00, 3:25
4:25, 6:10, 7:50, 9:30
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) No passes
DAILY 12:50, 2:55, 5:05, 7:10, 9:20
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
mended for children) No passes DAILY 12:45, 3:05, 5:10, 7:20, 9:30
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY
HALLOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) No passes FRI�SUN 12:55, 3:40, 6:30, 9:10; MON�THU 12:55, 3:40, 7:45 LEDUC CINEMAS Leduc, 780.352.3922
mended for children) DAILY 6:55, 9:30; SAT�SUN 12:55, 3:30
violence, not recommended for young children) DAILY 6:40, 9:45; SAT�SUN 12:40, 3:45
FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 7:10, 9:35; SAT�SUN 1:10, 3:35
TANGLED 3D (G) DAILY 7:00, 9:25; SAT�SUN
1:00, 3:25
METRO CINEMA 9828-101A Ave, Citadel Theatre, 780.425.9212
TO HOLD A THOUGHT (STC) MON 7:00 PLAY WITH FIRE (STC) MON 8:00 LUKUS (STC) THU 7:00 PARKLAND CINEMA 7
130 Century Crossing, Spruce Grove, 780.972.2332 (Spruce Grove, Stony Plain; Parkland County)
FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 6:50, 9:15;
SAT�SUN, TUE 1:10, 3:30
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
mended for children) DAILY 6:40, 9:10; SAT�SUN, TUE 12:40, 3:10
TANGLED (G) DAILY 7:00, 9:20; Sat-Sun, Tue
1:00, 3:15
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) DAILY 7:10, 9:40; SAT�SUN, TUE 12:50, 3:45
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) DAILY 6:30, 9:30; SAT�SUN, TUE 12:20, 3:25
MEGAMIND 3D (G) DAILY 6:45, 9:00; SAT�SUN,
TUE 12:30, 3:00
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) FRI�WED 7:20, 9:40; THU 9:40
INSIDE JOB (PG language may offend) DAILY
SAT�SUN 2:00
FAIR GAME (PG coarse language) DAILY 6:50,
mended for children) No passes, DTS Digital FRI 6:55, 9:40; SAT�SUN 12:30, 3:35, 6:55, 9:40; MON�THU 5:25, 8:05
DAILY 9:00
mended for children) DAILY 6:45 9:10; SAT�SUN 1:45
GALAXY�SHERWOOD PARK
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)
not recommended for young children) No passes FRI 11:30, 12:00, 2:45, 3:15, 6:15, 6:45, 9:45, 10:15; SAT 11:30, 2:45, 6:15, 6:45, 9:45, 10:15; SUN�TUE, THU 11:30, 12:00, 2:40, 3:15, 6:00, 6:45, 9:15, 10:15; WED 11:30, 2:40, 6:00, 9:15; Digital Cinema: FRI�SAT 1:00, 4:15, 7:45, 11:00; SUN�THU 1:00, 5:00, 8:30; FriSat 12:30, 3:45, 7:15, 10:45; Ultraavx: SUN�THU 12:15, 3:30, 7:00, 10:15
FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 7:00, 9:05;
RED (14A violence) DAILY 3:15, 9:20 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: BORIS
FASTER (14A brutal violence) Dolby Stereo Digital FRI 7:10, 9:50; SAT�SUN 12:45, 3:50, 7:10, 9:50; MON� THU 5:35, 8:40
Grandin Mall, Sir Winston Churchill Ave, St Albert, 780.458.9822
MEGAMIND (G) Presented In 3d DAILY 7:05, 9:15; SAT�SUN 2:05
TANGLED (G) DAILY 6:50, 9:00; SAT�SUN 1:50 BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) DAILY 1:30, 4:00, 7:15, 9:40
not recommended for young children) No passes Dolby Stereo Digital FRI 6:40, 10:00; SAT�SUN 12:00, 3:20, 6:40, 10:00; MON�THU 5:00, 8:20
MEGAMIND (G) No passes DAILY 1:00, 3:00,
FRI 1:10, 3:40, 6:10, 8:35, 11:10; SAT 1:10, 3:40, 6:10, 8:40, 11:10; SUN, TUE 11:40, 2:15, 4:45, 7:20, 9:50; MON, WED�THU 11:40, 2:15, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,
6:30, 9:10
111 Ave, Groat Rd, 780.455.8726
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,
GRANDIN THEATRE�ST ALBERT
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes,
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI 4:25,
coarse language) DAILY 12:10, 6:40
WESTMOUNT CENTRE
DAILY 7:00. 9:00; SAT�SUN 2:00
FRI 4:40, 7:25, 9:55; SAT�SUN 2:00, 4:40, 7:25, 9:55; MON�THU 5:50, 8:40
coarse language) FRI�SUN 9:25; MON�THU 8:15
MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,
GODUNOV ENCORE (Classification not available)
MON 6:00
127 HOURS (14A gory scenes, disturbing content)
BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-
MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) DAILY 1:40,
SKYLINE (14A violence) FRI, SUN, TUE�THU 1:50, 5:00, 7:50, 10:45; Sat 5:00, 7:50, 10:45; MON 12:00, 3:00, 10:45
9:00; Sat-Sun 1:20, 4:10, 6:35, 9:00; MON�THU 4:45, 7:30
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)
THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI�SUN
FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 1:05, 2:45,
Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10
TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes Daily 11:30, 2:10, 4:40, 7:10, 9:30
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) No passes FRI 4:15, 7:05, 9:55; SAT�SUN 1:20, 4:15, 7:05, 9:55; MON�THU 7:05, 9:55
Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:20, 3:00, 5:30, 8:00, 10:40
DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)
mended for children) Digital Cinema, No passes Daily 12:40, 3:50, 6:45, 9:50
4:50, 7:30, 10:40
4:55, 7:00
MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d, Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:05, 2:35, 5:05, 7:35, 10:35
WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.444.2400
TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes FRI 4:45, 7:15, 9:45; SAT�SUN 11:50, 2:20, 4:45, 7:15, 9:45; MON�THU 7:15, 9:45
coarse language) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 7:25, 10:20
UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) Dolby
SCOTIABANK THEATRE WEM
mended for children) No passes FRI 3:50, 6:50, 9:40; SAT�SUN 1:00, 3:50, 6:50, 9:40; MON�THU 6:50, 9:40
MEGAMIND 2D (G) SAT�SUN, TUE 1:20, 3:40 PRINCESS 10337-82 Ave, 780.433.0728
7:00, 9:10; SUN 2:00 9:00; SAT�SUN 2:30
2020 Sherwood Dr, 780.416.0150 Sherwood Park 780-416-0150
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
FILM // 21
COMMENT >> DVD
A face to the name
John Cazale, Banksy offer two very different doc portaits He always seemed tormented, but what Rockwell and of course Steve Buscemi, set his performances apart were his who's obviously closest to some kind of painstaking efforts to hide that torment. cinematic heir. You can tell a lot about With those alternately dewy and Cazale by the actors who still revere reptilian eyes peering out from him more than 30 years after below a looming forehead covhis untimely death at 42. They ered by a sheath of skin so include not just the talents thin as to make its contents listed above, but also Meryl om eekly.c look unnervingly susceptible Streep, who met him when @vuew e v ti c to direct sun or strong winds, dvddete they did Measure For Meaf Jose John Cazale probably wasn't sure in the Park, quickly fell in Braun love, and stood by him through anybody's handsome, but given time he surely would have found his losing fight with cancer, as well the leading roles he deserved. Take a as Al Pacino, who looked up to him as look at the younger actors lining up to a thespian, let him steal a few scenes in sing his praises in Richard Shepard's I their movies together, and who says for Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Shepard's camera, "I think I learned more Cazale: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam about acting from John than anyone."
DVCD TIVE
DETE
You might not recognize the name, but if you don't know that face you either weren't watching movies in the 1970s or haven't yet caught up with that magnificent decade and its "New" Hollywood. The oft-cited factoid about Cazale is that he was only in five movies, but every one of them was nominated for Best Picture. Now, maybe that means something and maybe it doesn't, but whether adding texture to the already claustrophobic world closing in on Gene Hackman in The Conversation (1974), or having the world close in on him via a fraternal stranglehold in Godfather II ('74), Cazale left unforgettable traces of pathos, desperation and endearingly awkward acts of ingratiation in his wake. I Knew It Was You is a pretty standard sort of made-for-TV profile yet is elevated by its inspired choice of subject and the genuine affection bestowed upon him. I Knew It Was You, now available on DVD from Oscilloscope, is worth seeking out as an introduction to Cazale or a friendly reminder of what he achieved in such a short period. Among its supplements is an extended interview with Pacino that's both enlightening and very touching. Another documentary profile (maybe) of an artist (maybe) on the margins of the mainstream, Exit Through the Gift Shop is also out on DVD from Mongrel, and if you didn't catch it during its theatrical run last spring, do yourself a favour. Attributed to Banksy, the mysterious English street artist who rose from standard tags to audacious pranks of wry social commentary to sixfigure sales at Sotheby's, the film's about a guy named Thierry Guetta who ostensibly wanted to make a film about Banksy, but through a combination of incompetence and colossal enthusiasm became instead the subject of Banksy's crazy, clever and very, very funny work. Thierry is a modern variation on the obsessive-compulsive image archivist we find in the stories of Italo Calvino and Javier Marías, or in Camera Buff (1979), the brilliant early feature from Krzysztof Kieslowski. Once Thierry gets hold of a video camera he can't stop shooting for fear he might miss something—a foolproof way of missing out on an entire life. After Thierry logs countless hours of street art in action, and gains the trust of the ruthlessly camera-shy Banksy, he finally churns out a virtually unwatchable documentary about the whole movement that seems to take its designs from Lou Reed's legendary noise manifesto Metal Machine Music (1975), though without the sense of purpose. Banksy, as a way to get rid of him, talks Thierry into trying his hand at street art instead, and while Thierry seems hardly better with this new medium, his concept-free wildly appropriative pop art becomes a smash. It's been pointed out that Thierry's entire story might be complete bullshit. All I know is, whatever the facts are, the absurdly inarticulate but relentlessly game Thierry gives what's easily among the funniest performances of the year. V
22 // FILM
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
MUSIC
AT VUEWEEKLY.COM
SLIDESHOW >> Ozzy Osbourne
G
rey Matter, Wool on Wolves' shockingly mature debut, opens with twangy guitar, obviously affected, and quickly joined by piano keys. Moments later a distant glockenspiel makes itself heard, then one voice, then a rush of harmonizing and a lazy harmonica spreading out over the words. At some point an easily strummed acoustic guitar and an energetic drum fill sneak into the mix as well. By the time you get to the end, instruments are cascading over one another, trading off dominant spaces but weaving together a melody of irresistible drive. As an introduction to the album and the world, it perfectly establishes what the band is capable of doing. Not just a driving folk-pop song that expands from its simple core to encompass a rustic symphony's worth of sounds, it is also a testament to their instrumental chameleon tendencies, their collaborative process and finally their comfort with each other, an ability to play off one another's energy that seems almost inborn. How fitting, then, that the song is called "Thick as Thieves." Truthfully, there are few better ways to describe the fivesome, made up of singer/guitarist Thomas Reikie, drummer Kevin George, pianist Eric Leydon, guitarist Gordon Brasnett and bassist Brody Irvine. Friends long before they ever started jamming together, it's rather indicative of their collaborative nature that those traditional band labels don't actually mean much. They're really more starting points than anything, the instruments that might most regularly be found in their hands, but hardly capturing the band's full breadth: they trade off with an almost manic regularity, and as "Thick as Thieves" demonstrates, they're capable of throwing just about any instrument you can think of at a song to make it work. "There are songs where Brodie's got to put down the violin and pick up a bass, and Gord's got to put down drum sticks and pick up a lap steel and Kev's gotta put down the banjo and pick up drum sticks and Eric's gotta pick up a trumpet while he's playing keys," explains Reikie with a slightly admiring tone. "I somehow manage to sneak out of it, but I think all of us are just learning how to do that and learning about how and where to add texture." Though it's a technique that pays obvious dividends on Grey Matter— something to which the band credits Nik Kozub's assured production—it was never exactly a conscious choice on their part. Rather, it was simply a matter of them slowly discovering that they wanted more from their songs, and then figuring out how to add it. It's a fairly freewheeling way to build a band's sound, but then feel-
ture things a lot faster, I think, than most bands can manage." "As soon as the four of these guys moved in together, the writing process just completely flipped on its head," concurs Reike. "They were coming to me with almost complete songs saying, 'Can you put lyrics to this?' It's been incredibly freeing."
Wool on Wolves' members swap instruments in the name of the song By David Berry
ing comfortable enough to try new things is an essential ingredient in the band's ethos: when they started out, after all, they weren't a traditionally organized band but just a group of friends with the time and inclination to jam. "A lot of playing multiple instruments—playing any instruments, really—was born out of necessity," explains Irvine. "I think when it all started we had four guitar players and a piano player," adds Leydon. "Yeah, Kev basically learned drums for the band," picks up Irvine, in a give-and-take way that could stand in for much of the band's interaction. "Yeah, I learned the drums playing the songs," chimes in George. "Basically, I had won some money at the casino and bought a set of drums two or three months before we started jamming. So, in their minds, they knew I had a drum kit ... " "Therefore he was the drummer," interjects Reike, to a room-wide chuckle. "That's how it worked," finishes George. "I had nights of sweating nervousness, but I think the best way to
learn an instrument is playing in the room with other people, because you learn how it fits in with the band." Make no mistake, fitting in together is of the utmost importance for the fivesome, and they take it far beyond the stage or the jam space. For the past year, the entire band save for Reike has been living together in the same house, and though the phrase
cally and psychologically. For the band, it not only gives them an obvious practice space, but also has removed almost any physical barrier to spur-of-the-moment songcraft. The result, as evidenced on Grey Matter, seems to be songs that can expand and contract assuredly, as they've already been taken through the process enough times that the
There are songs where Brodie's got to put down the violin and pick up a bass, and Gord's got to put down drum sticks and pick up a lap steel and Kev's gotta put down the banjo and pick up drum sticks and Eric's gotta pick up a trumpet while he's playing keys, I somehow manage to sneak out of it, but I think all of us are just learning how to do that and learning about how and where to add texture.
"band house" should conjure up images of something slightly more organized than a Bosch triptych, they have managed to keep things smoothly put-together, both physi-
band has them pretty nailed down. "Having the luxury of pulling someone off the couch and get them to come hammer out parts is really nice," explains Brasnett. "It helps ma-
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
And its effects are still being felt. Truthfully, much of the base of Grey Matter was written while Reike was on an exchange to Quebec and in the semester after he returned, where he admits he had less focus on his grades than on putting together lyrics—"It was really conducive to writing," he admits wryly, "not necessarily for graduating, but for writing." From stripped-down acoustic numbers that he and Irvine used to play in coffee shops and at open mics, though, the songs on Grey Matter have grown into productions as expansive and atmospheric as a prairie field at twilight while losing none of their emotional core. "The Distance Between Us" is a slow strummer that gradually builds into wide-eyed crusher whose internal space seems as wide as the physical space Reike is trying to overcome in his heartfelt lyrics. "Red Roses" thumps with drums that almost sound electric, and its slow melange of affected instruments mirror the punishing pain of Reike's voice, creating an effect akin to following a funeral procession down a dirt road. Album closer "Reap and Sow" ends with an extended period of mournful horns and a chorus repeating "You reap what / reap what you have sown" like it's somewhere between a benediction and a curse. The final effect of the album is something that hits harder in the heart strings than in the head to which the title refers, but the band admits that they're less concerned with the specific effect of the album than the fact it has an effect on someone. It is obvious that for them the entire process is a slow tightening of the ties that bind, and their biggest concern once the process is over seems to be finding people who want to be knotted up with them, whatever brings them to that conclusion. "There was this really great interview with Jeff Tweedy, where he said, 'When you release a song, it's not yours anymore. Whoever listens to it, it belongs to them,'" explains Reike. "I think that really meant a lot to all of us, insofar as we're not trying to make somebody feel anything in particular, we just hope they feel something, they take something away from it." V Sat, Nov 27 (9 pm) Wool on Wolves With Ayla Brook Pawn Shop, $15 (advance), $20 (door)
MUSIC // 23
MUSIC WEEKLY FAX YOUR FREE LISTINGS TO 780.426.2889 OR EMAIL LISTINGS@VUEWEEKLY.COM DEADLINE: FRIDAY AT 3PM
THU NOV 25 ACCENT EUROPEAN LOUNGE Manuela Wuthrich (acoustic/pop/soul), Scott Cook (roots/folk/reggae); 9:30pm (show); no cover BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Three Quarter Round with Thom Golub, Cam Neufeld, John Woroshuk; 7.30pm; $8 BLUES ON WHYTE Big Hank Lionheart, Fist Full of Blues BRIXX BAR Dex and Gorys Bingo Death Match Bad Cop vs. Worse Cop; 8pm (door), 10pm (bingo); no cover CAFFREY'S IN THE PARK Helix, Vent CARROT CAFÉ Zoomers Thu afternoon Open Mic; 1-4pm CENTURY CASINO Paul Revere and the Raiders; 7pm (door); $49.95 at TicketMaster, Century Casino COLAHAN'S Back-porch jam with Rock-Steady Freddy and the Bearcat; every Thu 8pm-midnight CHRISTOPHER'S PARTY PUB Open stage hosted by Alberta Crude; 6-10pm
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 GAS PUMP Sophie And The Shufflehounds (blues, R&B); 8pm HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Wil, Leeroy Stagger; 7:30pm; $17.50 at Blackbyrd, foundationconcerts.com HOOLIGANZ Open stage Thu hosted by Phil (Nobody Likes Dwight); 9pm-1:30am J AND R Classic rock! Woo! Open stage, play with the house band every Thu; 9pm JAMMERS PUB Thu open jam; 7-11pm JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Lauren Gillis (rock singer/ songwriter); $10
RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Boogie Patrol; 9:30pm; $5
ON THE ROCKS Salsaholic Thu: Dance lessons at 8pm; Salsa DJ to follow
ENCORE CLUB 4 Play Fri
SECOND CUP�Varscona Live music every Thu night; 7-9pm
PLANET INDIGO�St Albert Hit It Thu: breaks, electro house spun with PI residents
FESTIVAL PLACE An Evening with Alan Frew (Glass Tiger; singer/songwriter); 7:30pm; $30-$36 at Festival Place box office
PLAY NIGHTCLUB Gameshow every Thu with Patrick and Nathan; 9pm
FRESH START BISTRO U22 Presentation: Paul Cresey, Lyra Brown and Dean Kheroufi
RENDEZVOUS PUB Mental Thurzday with org666
GIBBONS HOTEL Mr Lucky; 9:30pm
SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco: Thu Retro Nights; 7-10:30pm; sportsworld.ca
GLENORA BISTRO Edward Blicq
STARLITE ROOM Delhi 2 Dublin, Bonjay, Degree, Space Age, Vibe Tribe, Cyclist; 9pm (door); $15 at TicketMaster, Blackbyrd, Foosh UNION HALL Stereos Official afterparty hosted by the Stereos with DJ set by band members; 9pm (door); free before 11pm WILD BILL’S�Red Deer TJ the DJ every Thu and Fri; 10pm-close WILD WEST SALOON Gary Shade
DJs BILLY BOB’S LOUNGE Escapack Entertainment 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 Thu Men’s Wet Underwear Contest with DJ Phon3 Hom3; 9pm (door); no cover before 10pm CHROME LOUNGE Every Thu: 123 Ko
L.B.'S PUB Thu open jam with Kenny Skoreyko, Fred Larose, Gordy Mathews; 9pm-1am
THE DRUID IRISH PUB DJ every Thu at 9pm
DEWEY’S PUB Ncounters: Media: Zero Cool; 8pm (door); $5 (proceeds to supporting local music)
LYVE ON WHYTE Lee Harvey Osmond, Manraygun, guests
EARLY STAGE SALOON� Stony Plain Declan Mcgarry
ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Mourning Wood
CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Thu with DJ Nic-E
LIVE WIRE BAR Open Stage Thu with Gary Thomas
DV8 Open mic Thu hosted by Cameron Penner/ and/or Rebecca Jane
LUCKY 13 Sin Thu with DJ Mike Tomas
JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Graham Lawrence ( jazz piano); 8pm
CROWN PUB Crown Pub Latin/world fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing
DUSTER'S PUB Thu open jam hosted by the Assassins of Youth (blues/rock); 9pm; no cover
RIC’S GRILL Peter Belec (jazz); every Thu; 7-10pm
LEVA CAFÉ Vicky Berg (roots, folk); 8-10:30pm; no cover
MARYBETH'S COFFEE HOUSE�Beaumont Open Mic Thu; 7pm NAKED CYBERCAFÉ Open stage every Thu; bring your own instruments, fully equipped stage; 8pm NORTH GLENORA HALL Jam by Wild Rose Old Time Fiddlers
EMPIRE BALLROOM Greycup Weekend: DJ Colleen Shannon FILTHY MCNASTY’S Punk Rock Bingo with DJ S.W.A.G. FLUID LOUNGE Girls Night out FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Requests with DJ Damian GAS PUMP Ladies Nite: Top 40/dance with DJ Christian HALO Thu Fo Sho: with Allout DJs DJ Degree, Junior Brown KAS BAR Urban House: with DJ Mark Stevens; 9pm
STOLLI'S Dancehall, hip hop with DJ Footnotes hosted by Elle Dirty and ConScience every Thu; no cover
HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Wil, Leeroy Stagger; 7:30pm; $17.50 at Blackbyrd, foundationconcerts.com
TAPHOUSE�St Albert Eclectic mix with DJ Dusty Grooves every Thu
HORIZON STAGE The Barra MacNeils (Celtic); 7:30pm; $35 (adult)/$30 (student/senior)/$5 eyeGO at Horizon Stage box office, TicketMaster
FRI NOV 26
IRISH CLUB Jam session; 8pm; no cover
ARTERY Frosted Tipz Reunion Show, The Skinny
IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests
AXIS CAFÉ Zaac Pick (folk pop rock), Joshua Hyslop; 8pm; $10 BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Bob Jahrig; 8pm; $10
JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Randall MacDonald (jazzy Christmas concert); $10
BLUES ON WHYTE Big Hank Lionheart, Fist Full of Blues
JEKYLL AND HYDE PUB Every Fri: Headwind (classic pop/ rock); 9pm; no cover
BOHEMIA Tomas Marsh, The Fantastic Brown Dirt, Chris Mostoway and friends; no minors; 8pm; $8/$6 (member)
JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Graham Lawrence (jazz piano); 8pm
BRIXX BAR Jay Brannan, Jenn Beaupre; 8pm (door), 9pm (show); $15 at ticketmaster.ca CAFFREY'S IN THE PARK The Sessions CARROT CAFÉ Live music Fri: all ages; Tanya Lipscomb; 7pm; $5 (door) CASINO EDMONTON Suite 33 (pop/rock) CASINO YELLOWHEAD Robin Kelly (Elvis tribute) CENTURY CASINO Streetheart with Kenny Sheilds; 7pm (door); $39.95 at TicketMaster, Century COAST TO COAST Open Stage every Fri; 9:30pm EARLY STAGE SALOON� Stony Plain Jimmy Guiboche and the Sleepers
LEVEL 2 LOUNGE The Experience: MC Flipside, David Stone; 9:30pm-2:30am
EDMONTON EVENT CENTRE John Butler Trio, The Beautiful Girls’ Mat McHugh Solo and Acoustic; all ages; 7pm (door)/8pm (show); $27.50
780.488.4841 GIBBONS HOTEL 5010-50 Ave, Gibbons, 780.923.2401 GLENORA BISTRO 10139-124 St, 780.482.3531 GOOD EARTH COFFEE HOUSE 9942-108 St HALO 10538 Jasper Ave, 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 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 JUNCTION BAR AND EATERY 10242-106 St, 780.756.5667 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 LION’S DEN PUB�Red Deer Quality Inn North Hill, 7150-50 Ave, Red Deer 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 NIKKI DIAMONDS 8130 Gateway Blvd, 780.439.8006 NISKU INN 1101-4 St NORTH GLENORA HALL 13535109A Ave O’BYRNE’S 10616-82 Ave, 780.414.6766 ON THE ROCKS 11730 Jasper Ave, 780.482.4767 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 10220-103 St PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL 10860-57 Ave FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 10025-105 St QUEEN ALEXANDRA HALL 10425 University Ave REDNEX BAR�Morinville 10413100 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 ROBERTSON WESLEY UNITED CHURCH 10209-123 St ROSEBOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE 10111-117 St, 780.482.5253 ROSE AND CROWN 10235-101 St RUSTY REED'S HOUSE
LB'S PUB Chris Durrand LYVE ON WHYTE Early Show: Zerbin, Blunt Force Charm (CD release), Soundscape MYER HOROWITZ THEATRE Steven Page tour cancelled ON THE ROCKS The Mishaps, DJs; 9pm; $5 PAWN SHOP Sonic Band of the Month: White Lightning, Raptors RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm2am RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES 69th Birthday Celebration: Amos Garrett; 9:30pm; $20 ST BASIL’S CULTURAL CENTRE Full Moon Folk Club: Marc Atkinson Trio, Jim Hepler; 7pm (door), 8pm (show); $17 at TIX on the Square/$20 (door); child 12 half-price (door)
VENUE GUIDE 180 DEGREES 10730-107 St, 780.414.0233 ACCENT EUROPEAN LOUNGE 8223-104 St, 780.431.0179 ALL SAINTS’ ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL 10035-103 St 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 1042582 Ave, 780.439.1082 BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ 9624-76 Ave, 780.989.2861 BLUES ON WHYTE 10329-82 Ave, 780.439.3981 BOHEMIA 10575-114 St BONNIE DOON HALL 9240-93 St, 780.604.7572, sugarswing.com 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 12464153 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 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY 10255-97 St, 780.425.3662 COAST TO COAST 5552 Calgary Tr, 780.439.8675 COLAHAN'S 8214-175 St, 780.487.8887
24 // MUSIC
COPPERPOT Capital Place, 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 9013-88 Ave, 780.465.4834 DEWEY’S PUB UofA Campus DOUBLE D'S 15203 Stony Plain Rd 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 4911-52 Ave, Stony Plain EDDIE SHORTS 10713-124 St, 780.453.3663 EDMONTON MORAVIAN CHURCH 9540-83 Ave, 780.482.7649 EDMONTON EVENTS CENTRE WEM Phase III, 780.489.SHOW ELEPHANT AND CASTLE�Whyte Ave 10314 Whyte Ave ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove 121-1 Ave, Spruce Grove, 780.962.1411 ENCORE CLUB 957 Fir St, Sherwood Park, 780.417.0111 EXPRESSIONZ CAFÉ 9938-70 Ave, 780.437.3667, expressionzcafe. com 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 FUNKY BUDDHA 10341-82 Ave, 780.433.9676 GAS PUMP 10166-114 St,
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
OF BLUES 12402-118 Ave, 780.451.1390 ST BASIL’S CULTURAL CENTRE 10819-71 Ave ST VITAL SENIOR'S CLUB 5204-50 Ave, Beaumont, 780.929.8558 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 TREASURY 10004 Jasper Ave, 7870.990.1255, thetreasurey.ca WHISTLESTOP LOUNGE 12416132 Ave, 780. 451.5506 WILD BILL’S�Red Deer Quality Inn North Hill, 7150-50 Ave, Red Deer WILD WEST SALOON 12912-50 St, 780.476.3388 WINSPEAR CENTRE 4 Sir Winston Churchill Sq WOK BOX 10119 Jasper Ave 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
STARLITE ROOM Tuffhouse Records 12 yr anniversary party: Wayz, DJ Reno, Lay-Z, Peep Game, Sonik and K-Bitz, Yak Dollaz, Advokit, Mitchmatic, Ambiguous, Chubbs, C-Matt and Me Next and The Have-Nots Rockband; 9pm (door); $10 (w/ food donation)/$15 (without food donation) STEEPS�Old Glenora Live Music Fri TAPHOUSE�St Albert Letters to Elise, California Lane Change, The Freshman Years TOUCH OF CLASS�Chateau Louis Tim Lovett (pop/rock); 8:30pm-12:30am Friday/Saturday UNION HALL The Paul Brown Show: Really, Really Tough Contest wrap up party WILD BILL’S�Red Deer TJ the DJ every Thu and Fri; 10pm-close WILD WEST SALOON Gary Shade WOK BOX Fri with Breezy Brian Gregg; 3:30-5:30pm YARDBIRD SUITE Edmonton Jazz Society: Ubiquitous Orchestra
DJs 180 DEGREES Skinou *Wear*Red* Fri: with Femcee DJ Eden Lixx AZUCAR PICANTE Every Fri: DJ Papi and DJ Latin Sensation BANK ULTRA LOUNGE Connected Fri: 91.7 The Bounce, Nestor Delano, Luke Morrison BAR�B�BAR DJ James; no cover BAR WILD Bar Wild Fri BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Fri DJs spin Wooftop and Main Floor: Eclectic jams with Nevine–indie, soul, motown, new wave, electro; Underdog: Perverted Fri: Punk and Ska from the ‘60s ‘70s and ‘80s with Fathead BLACKSHEEP PUB Fri Bash: DJ spinning retro to rock classics to current BOOTS Retro Disco: retro dance BUDDY’S Fri: DJ Arrow Chaser; 8pm (door); no cover before 10pm CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Fri with DJ Nic-E CHROME LOUNGE Platinum VIP Fri THE DRUID IRISH PUB DJ every Fri at 9pm EMPIRE BALLROOM Greycup Weekend: Official Playboy Grey Cup Party 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 JUNCTION BAR AND EATERY LGBT Community: Rotating DJs Fri and Sat; 10pm LEVEL 2 LOUNGE House, techno, electro with Neighbor, Groovy Cuvy, David Stone, Neebz; no minors; 9:30pm; $12 (adv at Foosh) NEWCASTLE PUB Fri House, dance mix with DJ Donovan PLAY NIGHTCLUB Pretty People Get Nasty with Peep n Tom, Showboy and rotating guest; DJS; every Fri; 9pm (door) 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
HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Second Hand Smoke, guests; 7:30pm (door); $10 (adv at YEG Live)/$12 (door)
STOLLI’S Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ
HILLTOP PUB Open stage/mic Sat: hosted by Sally's Krackers Sean Brewer; 3-5:30pm
TREASURY Treasury In Style Fri: DJ Tyco and Ernest Ledi; no line no cover for ladies all night long
IRON BOAR PUB Jazz in Wetaskiwin featuring jazz trios the 1st Sat each month; $10
Y AFTERHOURS Mau5Trap: Michael Woods; no minors; $20
SAT NOV 27 180 DEGREES Dancehall and Reggae night every Sat ALBERTA BEACH HOTEL Open stage with Trace Jordan 1st and 3rd Sat; 7pm-12 AXIS CAFÉ�Metro Room Cat Jahnke (folk, pop rock); 8pm; $10 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Hair of the Dog: pre/ post with Mat Halton (live acoustic music every Sat); 4-6pm; no cover BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Eileen Laverty with Jesse Brown, Greg Hargarten; 8pm; $15 BLUES ON WHYTE Big Hank Lionheart, Fist Full of Blues BOHEMIA Art+Muzak!; art from Granger Vowel, Patrick and Krista Byers, Retrophiliac, iHuman, and more; music from Boy Rambler, Enter Medic, Red Sun, The Skaley Brothers; no minors; 9pm BONNIE DOON HALL Saturday Night Gala: Bullies of Basin Street (New Orleans styled jazz); 8pm-1am; $15 (adv until Nov 25, 780.604.7572, sugarswing. com)/$22 (door); $2 discount for students BRIXX BAR Oh Snap: Degree, Cobra Commander, Battery, Jake Roberts, Ten-O, Cool Beans, John Ohms, P-Rex; 9pm (door); $5 (door) CAFFREY'S IN THE PARK The Sessions CARROT Open mic Sat; 7:3010pm; free CASINO EDMONTON Suite 33 (pop/rock) CASINO YELLOWHEAD Robin Kelly (Elvis 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 Whiskey Wagon, Desert Bar, 3rd Branch EDDIE SHORTS The Benders (rockabilly, CD release party), Hellfire Special; no minors; 10pm; no cover EDMONTON EVENT CENTRE Bassnectar, Emancipator, Shamik, Knight Riderz; $30 at Rain Salon/Spa (WEM), Foosh (Whyte Ave), Shadified Salon (Northgate) EDMONTON MORAVIAN CHURCH TIME: WinterTIME featuring FORM, ‘Nuf Sed and J***Word Vocal Ensembles; Scott Leithead, John McMillan and Julian Macdonald (artistic directors); 7:30pm; $15 (adult)/$10 (student/senior) at door ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Mourning Wood FESTIVAL PLACE The Duke Robillard Band (blues); 7:30pm $30-$36 at Festival Place box office GAS PUMP Blues Jam/ open stage every Sat 3-6pm, backline provided GIBBONS HOTEL Mr Lucky; 9:30pm
IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests JAMMERS PUB Sat open jam, 3-7:30pm; country/rock band 9pm-2am JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Marco Claveria (Latin music); $15 JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Rufus Wainwright, Teddy Thompson; all ages; 6:30pm (door)/7:30pm (show); $29.50, $45, $65at TicketMaster JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Dennis Begoray ( jazz piano); 8pm L.B.’S Extended jam with Mark Ammar; Tanya Lipscomb LYVE ON WHYTE Early Show: U of A Engineers Without Borders–Battle of The Bands: Truman, Call Me Evil, I.E.D, Elphida Trio, Dangerstreet MORANGO'S TEK CAFÉ Sat open stage: hosted by Dr. Oxide; 7-10pm O’BYRNE’S Live band Sat 3-7pm; DJ 9:30pm ON THE ROCKS The Mishaps, DJs; 9pm; $5 PAWN SHOP Wool On Wolves (CD release) QUEEN ALEXANDRA HALL Edmonton Blues Society; 8pm RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm-2am RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES 69th Birthday Celebration: Amos Garrett; 9:30pm; $20 ST VITAL SENIOR'S CLUB� Beaumont An Evening of Art and Jazz in Beaumont: Charlie Austin and his jazz trio, Andrew Wagantall, Wes Caswell; 7-9pm; free STARLITE ROOM Bedouin Soundclash, Charlie Winston, Michael Rault; no minors; 8pm (door); $25 at unionevents.com, Blackbyrd
WINSPEAR CENTRE Rolston and Fewer play Brahms: Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Shauna Rolston (cello), Mark Fewer (violin), Mei-Ann Chen and Lucas Waldin (conductors); 8pm; $20-$71 at Winspear Centre box office
CROWN PUB Latin/world fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing
DJs
DOUBLE D'S Double D's Open jam every Sun; 3-8pm
AZUCAR PICANTE Every Sat: DJ Touch It, hosted by DJ Papi
EDDIE SHORTS Sun acoustic oriented open stage hosted by Rob Taylor
BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sat DJs on three levels. Main Floor: Menace Sessions: alt rock/electro/trash with Miss Mannered BLACKSHEEP PUB Sat DJ BUDDY'S Sat: Feel the rhythm with DJ Phon3 Hom3; 8pm (door); no cover before 10pm CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Sat with DJ Nic-E THE DRUID IRISH PUB Sat DJ at 9pm EMPIRE BALLROOM Greycup Weekend: Grey Cup Party ENCORE CLUB So Sweeeeet Sat
Classical ALL SAINTS’ ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL Edmonton Metropolitan Chorus: Brilliance of Bernstein; 8pm; $12 (adv adult), $15 (door adult)/$10 (adv (senior/ student), $12 (door senior/ student); adv tickets at TIX on the Square MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH A Ceremony of Carols: Ariose Women’s Choir; 7:30pm; $20 (adult)/$15 (student/senior)at TIX on the Square ROBERTSON WESLEY UNITED CHURCH Edmonton Chamber Music Society: Paolo Pandolfo, viola da gamba; 8pm; $30 (adult)/$20 (senior)/$10 (student) at TIX on the Square
O’BYRNE’S Open mic Sun with Robb Angus (Wheat Pool); 9:30pm-1am
ORLANDO'S 2 PUB Sun Open Stage Jam hosted by The Vindicators (blues/rock); 3-8pm
FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian
ROYAL COACH�Chateau Louis Petro Polujin (classical guitar); 5pm
HALO For Those Who Know: house every Sat with DJ Junior Brown, Luke Morrison, Nestor Delano, Ari Rhodes
RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Sun open stage with the Rusty Reed Band; 3-6pm
JUNCTION BAR AND EATERY LGBT Community: Rotating DJs Fri and Sat; 10pm LEVEL 2 LOUNGE D Rude I with Sat residents Josh EP, Micky Sasso, Battery; 9:30pm2am; $5 NEWCASTLE PUB Top 40 Sat: requests with DJ Sheri PALACE CASINO Show Lounge Sat night DJ 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
YARDBIRD SUITE Edmonton Jazz Society: Ubiquitous Orchestra
NEWCASTLE PUB Sun Soul Service (acoustic jam): Willy James and Crawdad Cantera; 3-6:30pm
FLUID LOUNGE Sat Gone Gold Mash-Up: with Harmen B and DJ Kwake
TOUCH OF CLASS�Chateau Louis Tim Lovett (pop/rock); 8:30pm-12:30am Friday/Saturday
WUNDERBAR The Ancestors, Steven Johnson, Tim Folkmann (visuals), guests (improvised experimental electro-acoustic music, mixed media); 9pm-2am
J AND R BAR Open jam/stage every Sun hosted by Me Next and the Have-Nots; 3-7pm
ON THE ROCKS Seven Strings Sun: Movember Shave Off Party: Katie Perman, Russell Dawson; 9pm; $5
PLAY NIGHTCLUB Every Sat with DJ Showboy; 8pm (door)
WILD WEST SALOON Gary Shade
HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Songwriters Association of Canada Presents: Bluebird North Edmonton: Brian McLeod, Karyn Ellis, Dave Newberry, Kim Wempe; 7:30pm (door); $12 (SAC member)/$16.75 (non-member) at TIX on the Square
ESMERALDA’S Super Parties: Every Sat a different theme
TAPHOUSE�St Albert Keep 6 with Desousa Drive, guests
UNION HALL Celebrity Sat: Chris Jericho and Fozzy
DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB Celtic Music Session, hosted by KeriLynne Zwicker, 4-7pm
RENDEZVOUS Survival metal night SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Sat; 1pm4:30pm and 7-10:30pm STOLLI’S ON WHYTE Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ Y AFTERHOURS Release Sat
SUN NOV 28 BEER HUNTER�St Albert Open stage/jam every Sun; 2-6pm
SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment Co-op Live music every Sun; 2-4pm
Classical FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Concordia University College and Concordia High School, Concordia Christmas Concert; 3pm; $12 (adult)/$10 (student/senior) at TIX on the Square WINSPEAR CENTRE Edmonton Youth Orchestra; 2pm; $15 (adult)/$10 (student/senior) at TIX on the Square
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 EMPIRE BALLROOM Grey Cup Weekend: DJ Starting from Scratch, hosted by Cabbie from The Score FLOW LOUNGE Stylus Sun PLAY NIGHTCLUB Rotating Drag shows; every Sun; 9pm (door) SAVOY MARTINI LOUNGE Reggae on Whyte: RnR Sun with DJ IceMan; no minors; 9pm; no cover
BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Who Made Who–The Rock and Roll Resurrection: The Maykings (revive The Who), The Dirty Dudes (revive AC/ DC); 10pm; no cover
SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Sun; 1-4:30pm; sports-world.ca
BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Sunday Brunch: Will Cramer; 10am2.30pm; donations
BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sleeman Mon: live music monthly; no cover
BLUE PEAR RESTAURANT Jazz on the Side Sun: Lionel Rault (guitar); $25 if not dining
BLUES ON WHYTE Boogie Patrol
B�STREET BAR Acousticbased open stage hosted by Mike "Shufflehound" Chenoweth; every Sun evening CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY Open stage; blues and original, all welcome every Sun; 7-9:30pm
MON NOV 29
DEVANEY'S IRISH PUB Open stage Mon with Ido Vander Laan and Scott Cook; 8-12 EDMONTON EVENT CENTRE Alexisonfire, Norma Jean, La Dispute; all ages; 7pm (door), 8pm (show); $32.50 at TicketMaster PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic instrumental old time fiddle
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
MUSIC // 25
COMMENT >> EDMONTON
The short goodbye
David Berry's heart pangs for the city he's leaving behind I've been covering music and the arts over the years, I've always aimed to supfor Vue for a mind-boggling-now-that-Iport the Edmonton scene in all its forms: count-it six years. In that time, I've been the way I think you do that, though, is called everything from a vital supporter by thoughtful and engaged criticism, not of our artistic community to an the mindless boosterism that too ignorant asshole, occasionally often plagues our city, especially for the same story. I have seen at the higher levels. and heard work from local I don't think we need to be coy artists that I would gladly about the fact that Edmonton m ekly.co stack up against anything the is a hard place to live, especially vuewe david@ world has to offer and things if you're an artist: attention to Davidy I literally could not be paid to our distant outpost is fleeting, err B experience again. and though some talented folks Far less important to me than manage to break through, many more sussing out the good from the bad, will be overlooked, denied the opportunithough, was providing Edmontonians— ties that greets similarily talented artists in artists or otherwise—with some perlarger centres. This lack of attention grants spective on how our art fits into our a certain freedom that shouldn't be overworld around us. However it's appeared looked, but it will forever be a struggle to
R GUTTE E
DANC
jam hosted by the Wild Rose Old Tyme Fiddlers Society; 7pm ROSE BOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE The Legendary Rose Bowl Mon Jam: hosted by Sean Brewer; 9pm RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Blue Mon Open Blues Jam with Jim Guiboche; 8pm
Classical WINSPEAR Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: U of A Mixed Chorus, Faculty of Education Handbell Ringers, Marnie Giesbrecht and Joachim Segger (organ); 7:30pm; $15; benefit for the Campus Food Bank
DJs BAR WILD Bar Gone Wild Mon: Service Industry Night; no minors; 9pm-2am BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Eclectic Nonsense, Confederacy of Dunces, Dad Rock, TJ Hookah and Rear Admiral Saunders 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
TUE NOV 30 BLUES ON WHYTE Boogie Patrol BRIXX BAR Troubadour Tue: J.P. Fournier, Shawn Gramiak, Matt Alaeddine, host Mark Feduk; 8pm (door); $5 (door) 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
26 // MUSIC
stage with Chris Wynters; 9pm; guest Nicola Devinej
Chaser; free pool all night; 9pm (door); no cover
L.B.’S Tue Jam with Ammar; 9pm-1am
ESMERALDA’S Retro Tue; no cover with student ID
O’BYRNE’S Celtic Jam with Shannon Johnson and friends
FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Latin and Salsa music, dance lessons 8-10pm
PADMANADI Tue open stage with Mark Davis; all ages; 7:30-10:30pm
RED STAR Tue Experimental Indie Rock, Hip Hop, Electro with DJ Hot Philly
RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Kevin Cook Band; 8:30pm
WED DEC 1
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 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 Sessions: Dino Dominelli Nu Jazz Quartet
Classical WINSPEAR Edmonton Symphony Orchestra's special with Michael Kaeshammer’s The Days of Christmas with Lucas Waldin (conductor), Jill Barber; 7:30pm; $28-$71 at Winspear box office
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 BUDDYS Tue with DJ Arrow
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Glitter Gulch Wed BLUES ON WHYTE Boogie Patrol 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 CROWN PUB Creative original Jam Wed (no covers): hosted by Dan and Miguel; 9:30pm-12:30am EDDIE SHORTS Goodtime jamboree Wed open stage hosted by Charlie Scream; 9pm-1am EDMONTON EVENT CENTRE Gwar, The Casualties, Infernaeon, Mobile Death Camp; 7pm (door); all ages; $30 at TicketMaster, Blackbyrd, Unionevents.com ELEPHANT AND CASTLE� Whyte Ave Open mic every Wed (unless there's an Oilers game); no cover EXPRESSIONZ CAFÉ Wed Open stage; 7-11pm; admission by donation FIDDLER'S ROOST Little Flower Open Stage Wed with Brian Gregg; 8pm-12 GOOD EARTH COFFEE HOUSE Wed with Breezy
make a wider impression (never mind a living) from Edmonton. Still, the best way to serve a scene like ours is to hold it to our highest standards. That means being effusive with praise when something meets them, but also (and maybe especially) holding them to task when they don't. I will grant this might read as self-justification, but so be it. The only criticism that has ever stung me was when it was suggested that I didn't care about the city, didn't support it enough. I want the best for this city—something, ironically, I feel acutely as I'm getting prepared to leave it—and one never, ever accomplishes that by settling for good enough. Put another way, though, maybe this whole farewell should read thusly: please take care of my city while I'm gone. V
Brian Gregg; 12-1pm HAVEN SOCIAL Open stage with Jonny Mac, 8:30pm, free HOOLIGANZ Open stage Wed: with host Cody Nouta; 9pm JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Alash; 8pm; $62.15
MUTTART HALL World Aids Day Benefit concert: SimonMarc de Freitas (Piano), Josephine van Lier (cello), Jennifer Bustin (violin), Laura McAlpine (mezzosoprano); 7:30pm; $30 at TIX on the Square, simon-marc. com, door
DJs
LYVE ON WHYTE Erin Ross, guests
BANK ULTRA LOUNGE Wed Nights: with DJ Harley
NISKU INN Troubadours and Tales, Tim Harwill , guests; 1st Wed every month; 8-10pm
BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Blue Jay’s Messy Nest Wed Night: Brit pop, new wave, punk, rock ‘n’ roll with LL Cool Joe
PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic Bluegrass jam presented by the Northern Bluegrass Circle Music Society; Slow pitch for beginners on the 1st and 3rd Wed prior to regular jam every Wed, 6.30pm; $2 (member)/$4 (non-member) RED PIANO BAR Wed Night Live: hosted by dueling piano players; 8pm-1am; $5 RIVER CREE Wed Live Rock Band hosted by Yukon Jack; 7:30-9pm RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Little Charlie Trouble with Rusty Reed Unplugged; 8:30pm SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment Open Mic every Wed; 8-10pm STEEPS TEA LOUNGE� College Plaza Open mic every Wed; 8pm
Classical MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH Celebration of Christmas: Edmonton Columbian Choirs: Young Columbian Singers, Junior Columbian Singers, Edmonton Catholic Honour Choir, Chanteuses Ladies’ Choir; ending in a carol sing-along; 7:30pm; $15 (door)
BRIXX BAR Really Good... Eats and Beats with DJ Degree and Friends BUDDY'S Wed: DJ Dust 'n' Time; 9pm (door); no cover 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; 9pm-close; all DJs welcome to spin a short set LEGENDS PUB Hip hop/R&B with DJ Spincycle NIKKI DIAMONDS Punk and ‘80s metal every Wed PLAY NIGHTCLUB Movie Night every Wed; 9pm (door) 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; 9pm2am; beatparty.net Y AFTERHOURS Y Not Wed
MUSICNOTES John Butler Trio / Fri, Nov 26 (7 pm) The Aussie trio will be making a stop in Edmonton during its North American tour promoting the album April Uprising. The John Butler Trio has garnered impressive critical praise from the likes of Rolling Stone and Billboard magazine, and the group's easy-listening sound straddles blues and bluegrass with Southern rock and Celtic elements evident in various tracks. (Edmonton Event Centre, $37.70)
Fozzy / Fri, Nov 26 (10 pm) WWE wrestling superstar Chris Jericho steps out of the ring and up to the mic for his band Fozzy's fourth studio album, Chasing the Grail. Fozzy's inspiration comes from metal pioneers such as Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and Iron Maiden, which sets the tone for a night of don't-hold-back, head-banging good times. (Sports Central [9221 - 34 Ave], $10)
The Benders / Sat, Nov 27 (10 pm) Frontrunners of Edmonton's rockabilly scene, the Benders will be celebrating the release of its new album, Three Sheets to the Wind. The Benders have toured extensively throughout western Canada and will be serving up a swingin' good time. (Eddie Shorts Bar & Grill)
Paolo Pandolfo / Sat, Nov 27 (8 pm) Critics have named Paolo Pandolfo as "the Yo-Yo Ma of the viol," and his music revives classic baroque and Renaissance music for modern audiences. The viol preceded the cello and was popular in the 16th and 18th centuries. Pandolfo has been credited with the resurgence in popularity of the deep, rich sounding instrument. (RobertsonWesley United Church, $10 – $30)
Rufus Wainwright / Sat, Nov 27 (6:30 pm) Sir Elton John has crowned him with the honour of "greatest songwriter on the planet" and the Canadian singer-songwriter has had tremendous success at home and abroad, his accomplishments branching into the realm of theatre with his acclaimed opera Prima Donna. He has also penned a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's famous sonnets in collaboration with director Robert Wilson, which consistently plays for sold-out crowds. (Jubilee Auditorium, $41.40 – $77.90) —Meaghan Baxter
Bluebird North / Sun, Nov 28 (7:30 pm) This collaborative event is back for a second season and will be hosted by Edmontonian singer-songwriter Ann Vriend, with this rendition featuring Brian McLeod, Kim Wempe, Dave Newberry and Karyn Ellis. Over the span of two sets, the artists will take turns playing and talking about their songs. Bluebird is set up in songwriter-in-theround fashion and promises to be an intimate and interactive evening of original song. (Haven Social Club, $16.75) —Meaghan Baxter
SLIDESHOW
Ozzy Osbourne Thu, Nov 28 / Rexall Place
// Eden Munro
VUEWEEKLY.COM/SLIDESHOWS >> for more of Eden Munro's photos
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
MUSIC // 27
28 // MUSIC
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
COMMENT >> THE KIDS
Youth in revolt
Willow Smith, Odd Future are kids in control Envision this scene: a monochromatic lunchroom filled with robotic children is cross cut with a singular character imbued with colour. That character is our protagonist, here to bring vibrancy to a blank world and palette that only she can alter. She steps into this dystopian environment with the knowledge that she singularly has
Willow Smith is a new breed of young popster, a relatively talented young vocalist whose success is seemingly free of nepotism and stereotypically exploitative 'beauty pageant' childrearing.
Michael Rault Sat, Nov 27 (8 pm) With Bedouin Soundclash, Charlie Winston Starlite Room, sold out
Michael Rault has always seemed preternaturally capable of writing garage-rock bumpers that will get your feet stomping, if not your ass shaking. But on his latest release, Ma Me O, the young but heavily experienced wunderkind has found some other kind of gear, a hypnotic blend of garage and classic R&B that would be subliminally intoxicating if it wasn't so brash about its hip-swiveling intentions. "I think one of the major influences on it was DJing, actually," Rault explains over a coffee that looks like it's sorely needed. "I was doing a night at Prohibition around the same time as I was demoing it, and all I was playing was old R&B and rock 'n' roll. So when I was thinking about what kind of record I wanted to make it, I just wanted to make a record that sounded like that. I
wanted to make people dance when I put it on in a club." He seems perfectly on track, then. Though the record has had a long gestation process—it was recorded almost right on the heels of his fantastic solo debut Crash Boom Bang, but has taken its time getting public thanks to the demands of working with his new label, Pirates Blend—it feels ceaselessly vital, the kind of thing that could have waited three more years and still not lose an ounce of its energy. Whatever its influences, though, part of them seem due to Rault's still-recent decision to go as essentially a one-man band. Hands on the strings and feet working drum pedals, it's a set-up that suggests the boundless energy Rault can instill in his music, like one instrument couldn't possibly hold his wailing assault on standing around at a rock show. "It's the most meditative way to play music, honestly," Rault explains. "Sometimes you just get into a space where
you completely lose your mind for a few minutes or hours, just making all this noise with your feet and hands. It gives me a particular rush that's very rare." David Berry
// david@vueweekly.com
Rault's latest was inspired by old-school rock 'n' roll DJing // Ryan Fujiki
the opportunity to set the minds of the world (and the audience) SH // Pete Nguyen free. But instead of a hammer ACKLA B flying into the digital visage of Eminem's early horrorcore, Big Brother, you have Willow the Neptunes and electronic om eekly.c @vuew Smith, recent Jay-Z signee and underground rap, they have roland d n Rola rton fashioned an appealing lifestyle 10-year-old girl wonder, whipping paint around the room with brand through free album downPembe her hair. loads and viral videos. One parThe video's a good fit for the song. ticular video ("Earl" by lead rapper Earl Willow Smith is a new breed of young Sweatshirt) features them allegedly drinkpopster, a relatively talented young voing a blended mixture of drugs and malt calist whose success is seemingly free of liquor, skateboarding around LA, bleeding nepotism and stereotypically exploitative from their nipples and having seizures. The "beauty pageant" childrearing. Her parents group's youngest members are 16. are Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, famous Despite their youth, they seem well entertainers who wouldn't need their child aware of the major label shell game and to be successful in the family business. the people around every corner looking Something gives me the feeling that "Whip for fresh young meat to keep their comYour Hair" is less manufactured than most pany afloat. A post about an upcoming pop radio singles, even if it was written by December 1 homecoming show tells their people other than her (Ronald "Jukebox" young fans to get tickets before the press Jackson and Janae Rockwell). because they are "Pedophiles And They It's a genuine hit (she reached number Just Want To Fuck Us." During the group's 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, making her highly anticipated show at NYC's Webster the youngest artist to land at that point) Hall, leader Tyler, The Creator exclaimed, and for good reason. The song builds on "Fuck every label and magazine in here." Rihanna's formula for pervasive pop, a The music isn't bad either. Conceptually, spunky, confident vocal with crunk rap it's typical shock rap (ultraviolence and rape drum programming, great melodic cues jokes) but with a higher technical acumen and a schoolyard clap-a-long bridge. It has than most rappers 20 years their senior. more hooks than many similar songs on Their production choices, mostly handled the radio combined with a performance by Tyler, usually eschew pop-rap standards, that belies her age in a way that's reminissuch as the cycling creepy thump of "Tina" cent of Michael Jackson. (which is about hanging out at the mall and As an adult music journalist, the video eating chips) and Earl's massive verse over is slightly hard to watch. You can't shake Rich Boy's "A Milli"-baiting "Drop." the connotations that modern music Tyler recently had a fit on Twitter about video direction is inherently connected his mom finding out about his rap career. to, even when watching a 10-year-old Even if the content isn't exactly something girl shake her hair around. The editing you want to share during Christmas dinner, and costuming are subtly sexualized. the achievement is valuable nonetheless. I recently had an argument about this Tyler and his crew have labels outbidding song's merit where my contrarian friend each other to be the corporate face of Odd considered the video to be a new Shirley Future, which is certainly something his Temple concept, subconsciously implying mother should be proud of. V something far less wholesome. Roland Pemberton is a musician and writBut consider the other side of today's er, as well as Edmonton's Poet Laureate. youth revolt, the Californian rappers of His music column appears in Vue Weekly the Odd Future Wolf Gang. Indebted to on the last Thursday of each month.
BLUES
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
MUSIC // 29
Alexisonfire
// Vanessa Heins
Mon, Nov 29 (7pm) With Norma Jean and La Dispute Edmonton Event Centre, $32.50
Canada's premier post-hardcore band Alexisonfire is on tour with new material from a new EP titled Dog's Blood. Fitting, as the band wrote songs for the four-song EP while on the road over the last year touring in support of 2009's Old Crows/Young Cardinals. "We wrote two of those songs on the road," explains frontman George Pettit over the phone. "We spent a lot of time at sound checks messing around with them, and then the idea came up to make an EP." Recorded with producer John Drew (Fucked Up, Stars, Tokyo Police Club) in just one day, Dog's Blood was an experiment in both songwriting and recording: the hard-working five-piece, which has worked mostly with producer Julius "Juice" Butty since 2004's Watch Out!, opted for a more stripped-down, classicpunk approach compared to Old Crows or the 2006 platinum-selling Crisis. It's also been a time for the band to stretch out on an individual level— members' side projects include City and Colour, Fucked Up, Black Lungs and Hunter—as well as recalibrate life at home. "We worked 11 months solid on Crisis, and we were all just dizzy from that," Pettit explains. "I think people needed some time to go home and get back to reality. I think we strained a lot of home relation-
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VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
From left: Wade MacNeil, Dallas Green, George Pettit, Jordan Hastings, Chris Steele
ships, and it felt good to get home and not be in a band for a little while." Despite rumours of the band breaking up during the hiatus leading up to 2009, Pettit expands on the benefits of taking time off from AOF. "I think [side projects have] a really positive effect on the band because it allows us to get all those influences and weird stuff that we wouldn't want to thrust on Alexisonfire. Like Dallas [Green] doing [City and Colour] en-
sures there isn't a banjo part, and Wade [MacNeil] doing his thing [Black Lungs] ensures we don't do a Clash song," Pettit laughs. "We all want to play different types that we love, but sometimes those influences won't reflect well on Alexisonfire. We're very self-aware; you can try to mash stuff up until it comes out, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good." Mike Angus
// mikeangus@vueweekly.com
Sans AIDS Fri, Nov 26 (8 pm) With Sean Nicholas Savage, Jom Comyn Wunderbar, $5
To call Peter Sagar unflappable seems like a crushing understatement: the kid has the demeanour of someone who could be watching the entire Godzilla pantheon in a battle royale on Whyte Ave and barely be troubled enough to make sure his tea doesn't spill. Combined with a penchant for shaggy unkemptness and an ear for fuzzy pop hooks that would put Doug Martsch to shame— evidenced both as a member of Outdoor Miners and in Sans AIDS, the lo-fi two-piece in which he is the driving (or at least most present) force—it gives him the aura of a '90s college kid who got detoured on his way to buy the newest Pavement album and has just decided to roll with it. "I listen to '90s rap all day every day. I used to listen to other stuff too, obviously," he shrugs. "I just really like the era. It's so ... lazy."
Lazy would seem to be the dominant theme of most of his output to date, although it's more of a lyrical mood than an actual listening experience. As evidenced as much by the quantity of his output—this year alone, he's had one seven-inch with each band as well as a split tape with Lake Country and now the solo tape Loaners— as much as its quality, he is not lackadaisical so much as capable of filtering the slacker ethos through jagged and deceptively minimal pop music. He's a fuzzed-out poet of the hanging-out-on-the-couch set. "My roommate was actually making fun of me, because I think three of the songs [on Loaners] are about me hanging out at home. That's basically all I do, is hang out at home with my roommates," he explains nonchalantly. "I guess you write about what you know, and it's hard leaving Riverdale. There's a hill and the bus only comes every half an hour." David Berry
// david@vueweekly.com
Peter Sagar of Sans AIDS
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
// Eden Munro
MUSIC // 31
The Frosted Tipz
Hey, I think the one on the right is on the left.
Fri, Nov 26 (9 pm) With the Skinny, DJ Thomas Pringle The ARTery, $13 Events of the Frosted Tipz' career (2004 – 2008-ish) aren't lost to the mists of time, but to the fog of fuck-uppedness. Thankfully, the music survives (as do all members, somewhat surprisingly) and the band's preparing for its first posthumous show. Guitarist Curtis Ross relates what he can remember: "Classic Tipz was me, Alan, Roz and Darren*: the lineup that caused all the fucking havoc and insanity. Every rehearsal was a party. We described it like, 'Blondiemeets-Iron Maiden.' We'd start with a riff and think of the stupidest lyrics, and we'd mostly write while everyone was fucked up. Roz and Alan started to fall apart, so there was this crazy tension, which made for exciting shows—everyone was a mess,
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VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
we were all going through shit, always "Our last show was at Shambhala in partying, total debauchery all the time. 2008. We were on this huge stage with "When they broke up we went crazy. big speakers, in the shadow of this beauWe recorded an album [2005's Head vs tiful mountain. Everyone was on ecstasy. Hips EP] and somehow made it work. They were expecting rave music but we We started getting bigger shows, selling went out there and rocked it real hard out. With Roz and people CHECK OUT VUEWEEKLY.COM touring [with loved it. I don't another band] To download a song from each version of the Frosted Tipz: know if we in 2006, we "Head vs Hips" with Roz Christian on vocals and "This Shit knew it was were on hiatus. Writes Itself" with Amy van Keeken at the mic. going to be She came back our last show. and we worked on a full-length, but she There was always chaos with this band. burned out and quit. I noticed it again when we got together "Amy van Keeken joined around 2007. for the reunion. This group of people, Amy just wanted to sing, so we lost the somehow we turn out this fun chaos, a synthesizer electro-sheen and turned certain weird excitement." more straight-up rock 'n' roll. We finished the full-length. Everyone fought in the *Alan "Camino" Hildebrant, Roz Christianson, studio. When it was done we weren't Darren Chewka super-happy with it and the band disinteMary Christa O'Keefe // marychrista@vueweekly.com grated before it got released.
Bahamas Fri, Dec 3 (8 pm) With Doug Paisley The ARTery, $12
Afie Jurvanen, who performs as folk-pop duo Bahamas with drummer Jason Tait (Weakerthans), made his mark backing Feist and Jason Collett before finally stepping up to the mic with his own songs on 2009's Polaris-nominated Pink Strat. Recorded in a cabin in the winter of 2008, Jurvanen recalls meeting Tait—who somehow already had a demo copy of Pink Strat—at a gig in Toronto. "He [Tait] said, 'Call me—Weakerthans aren't all that busy,'" the multi-instrumentalist laughs. "And it's worked out that we've been able to play a lot together. It's been one of the most rewarding musical dynamics I've played in, for sure." This is no small statement, considering his list of collaborations and opening slots: Elvis Costello, Wilco, Feist, Jason Collett and Great Lake Swimmers, to name a few. Now that Bahamas is headlining its own tour for the first time, Jurvanen is enjoying the transitions from sideman to centre stage, from opening slot to headliner. "So far the shows have been sold out, so it's been really nice," he deadpans. "People know the record and they sing along, which is a new and strange and welcome experience for us. "When you're opening for people, it's a comfortable position because there's seemingly little pressure and you can play whatever you want," he continues. "But on this tour [as headliners], because we're a duo, it forces you to come up with new and different arrangements for the songs." And Bahamas' success means that he doesn't have to keep his "day job" supporting others, at least for the time being. "It's definitely something I've done a lot of in the
Decorative plates are all the rage in the indie scene and in Grandma's house
// Dave Gillespie
past, and I really enjoy it. It's such a different musical thing you're doing when you're supporting other people's career," he offers. "I feel really comfortable in that position, and I feel like I've been really lucky to play with my friends and proud to say that I was a part of creating that music. "But I'm just busy with my own stuff, and I like it that way." Mike Angus
// mikeangus@vueweekly.com
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
MUSIC // 33
NEWSOUNDS Girl Talk All Day (Illegal Art)
Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com
B
lack Sabbath's "War Pigs" and Ludacris's "Move Bitch (Get out the Way)" come together as some forgotten nü-metal jam. The '70s funk-sex of "Strawberry Letter 23" blends with Dorrough's "Ice Cream Paint Job," modernizing the former and making the latter more sensual, with "Blitzkrieg Bop" acting as the figurative cherry on top, scrapping for placement with Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On." All of the above, and a whole bunch more, comprise "Oh No," the first track of mash-up maestro Gregg Michael Gillis's fifth full-length All Day, available for free on his Illegal Art label's website. Like the four albums before it, it's a music obsessive's partly-disintegrated sample mixtape of recognizable guitar riffs, vocal hooks, drum beats and other sounds that Gillis has meticulously found, ripped and cut and pasted together. There are 372 samples on All Night, which averages out to about six samples per minute for the whole hourlong runtime, or approximately 21 samples per song. (You can follow along at alldaysamples.com).
The brilliance of Girl Talk is that you don't have to be just as much of a music-obsessive as Gillis is to fully appreciate this, because, really, you already are: each sample pulls from recognition of itself and its new, sandwichedtogether context—even if you can't name the song, you probably recognize the riff, or the hook or the synth line or whatever. Gillis's skill is in sticking to the hooks you already know despite being borderless when it comes to what genres his samples come from—he definitely favours rap for vocals, which I suppose makes sense. But it's dance music through and through, which also makes sense, because you don't have to dwell on it; recognizing "We Didn't Start the Fire" simply enhances the dance party without pulling you out of it. But that dance floor end zone also makes the whole Girl Talk project a double-edged sword when taken out of the live context: his post-modern pop pastiche is always impressive, but on headphones, you start to notice just how disparate these tracks can be. Some moments work incredibly well, and then others just sort of happen and then get left behind. If you were on a dance floor I doubt you'd care—and if you ever get the chance to see him do this live, don't hesitate—but here the less immediate moments stick out (or perhaps more accurately, blend into one another), like the awkward trip from the "ohh la la" vocal from "Bad Romance" through Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" and into Soulja Boy's "Pretty Boy Swag." Ultimately, it's hard to argue there's much on All Night beyond more of the same: well-known pop jingles getting crammed together, then left behind, as disposable as some of the one-hit wonders they've been culled from. Don't get me wrong: Gillis is very good at what he does—look at the star rating on this review—but five albums in, the magic of that is starting to dissipate.V
Sean Nicholas Savage Mutual Feelings of Respect and Adoration (Arbutus)
Savage has been called Canada's Daniel Johnston, but with his mounting eclectica he's beginning to build a legacy akin to Bowie. On this outting he challenges the long-abhorred bastard of pop: disco. With a great deal owing to the gorgeous production of Silly Kissers' David Carriere, Sean sets out to destroy convention. Whether it's the deep down grooves of "In My Dream," or the dreamy smoke-and-mirror arrangement of the opening "Oo La la," Savage creates a new niche for this jettisoned genre. Do not be confused, nothing on this record conjures images of sequins or bell bottoms or the hairy-chested '70s. This record is very well set in the present. It's the enchanted way the drum tracks blend with the bass lines and the synth that creates a vibe entirely disco. Joe Gurba
// joe@vueweekly.com
Hauschka Foreign Landscapes (fatcat)
Volker Bertelmann's new collection of piano, string and wind compositions is a large departure from his breakthrough Ferndorf in its esthetic. Whereas Ferndorf was an intimate and musing digest of personal emotions and introspection, the images evoked in Foreign Landscapes are far more cinematic. Many of the songs on this new record are redolent of an inventor tinkering in a moment of inspiration or any number of plots and characters the imaginative listener can conjure. Joe Gurba
// joe@vueweekly.com
Gregory & The Hawk Leche (fatcat)
Meredith Godreau has poured new wine in old wine skins and they haven't cracked. Maintaining the soft beauty of Moenie And Kitchi, she has created something less impossibly adorable and pioneered a much more provocative sound for herself. Ultimately, the unmistakable advance on Leche is the whole range of emotions the record speaks to in contrast to the ambrosia content of M&K. The lyrical content is much broader and more interesting. Musically speaking, almost every song has some unexpected quirk in the instrumentation. Leche is an intoxicating album and a huge leap forward for G&TH. Joe Gurba
// joe@vueweekly.com
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VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
Bad Religion The Dissent of Man (Epitaph)
The punk veterans are back with another collection of in-your-face, k n o c k- yo u - o n your-ass punk goodness. Many bands in the genre discover a few power chords and end up sounding monotonous, but The Dissent of Man serves up 15 hard-hitting rock anthems that are anything but. Standouts include "Cyanide," "Pride and Pallor" and "Won't Somebody," which slows the tempo down a little before diving right back into the previous pulse-racing beats. Expertly crafted guitar and tough-yet-harmonizing vocals create an overall sound that is a testament to precisely why the group has managed to stay on top of the scene for 30 years. Meaghan BAxter
// meaghan@vueweekly.com
The Jezabels Dark Storm (Independent)
At only five songs, the third EP from the Aussie quartet feels all too short. Frontwoman Hayley Mary's distinctive vocals, which range from velvety alto to powerful soprano, are backed by a beautiful blend of instrumental accompaniment. Hard-hitting guitars, elegant piano and pulsing percussion create a backdrop for thought-provoking lyrics throughout which social awareness plays a common theme. Standouts are the title track as well as "She's So Hard," which paints a relatable picture of hardened feelings towards romance. Meaghan Baxter
// meaghan@vueweekly.com
Ash Koley Inventions (Sony)
Ash Koley and Phil Deschambault create an album that is a culmination of cheery, sing-along pop songs with a gratuitous serious song or two thrown in for good measure—such as the mellow, "Balance," one of the album's better songs. The eight-track set (with one bonus song) feels repetitive and the simple lyrics will be stuck in your head long after it's done, which may or may not be a good thing. From the skip-down–the-sidewalk single "Don't Let Your Feet Touch the Ground" to the narrative "Mary the Inventor," which shows Koley's great vocal range, the album ends up becoming too similar to any other catchy pop album. Meaghan Baxter
// meaghan@vueweekly.com
OLDSOUNDS MICK RONSON
Play Don't Worry (RCA)
Originally released: 1975 The strangest part of David Bowie and Mick Ronson's four-year, five-album collaborative streak is how often the give-and-take of it gets overlooked, usually mistaken for Bowie's first creative peak instead of the shared rock 'n' roll duality it was. Obviously, Bowie's the one who ascended into timeless superstardom and did the bulk of writing while Ronson remained on the sidelines after the Spiders from Mars disbanded. His solo output is limited to a pair of cover-heavy albums (not counting 1994's post-humous Heaven and Hull, released after Ronson lost his battle with liver cancer in '93), ending on 1975's Play Don't Worry. For the most part, Play sounds like Ziggy-era Bowie. But perhaps more accurately Ziggyera Bowie sounds like Ronson: the original and cover songs on Play Don't Worry similarly underscore just how responsible he was for launching his bandmate's career. Even two years removed from his time with Bowie, their mutual influence over one another shows up all over Play: Ronson attacks melodies in the same way Bowie does and has an eerily similar intonation: in
QUICKSPINS
among its otherworldy bounce, Play Don't Worry's opening "Billy Porter"—the standout Ronson-penned work here—has vocals that could easily be mistaken for Bowie's own, and comes complete with a Bowie-like mid-song sax solo. Ronson's guitarwork made for beefy muscle to play off of Bowie's lithe androgony and is similarly on display here for that very reason: it's quality, stadium-packing stuff. What it lacks in border-pushing vision it makes up for in sheer execution. But Ronson was particularly adept at working other people's rock 'n' roll melodies and structures into incredibly melodic flurries, as well as string arrangements or whatever else was required. Five of the nine songs on Play Don't Worry are covers—Ronson's own original ideas, while quality, don't appear to have come with the speed and volume of Bowie's. There's an electrifying take on "White Light / White Heat" here, salvaged from the Pin Up sessions, that shows just what Ronson could do with even the most basic, primal elements of rock 'n' roll. At the other extreme, Claudio Baglioni's "Empty Bed (Io Me Ne Andrei)" is all sweeping cinematic strings and bittersweet observations, dipping into deeper sentiments with a heaving sort of grace. After Play, Ronson became a sought-after studio musician, working with the likes of Bob Dylan (on Hard Rain), John Mellencamp and Van Morrison; meanwhile, without him as a grounding rock 'n' roll force, Bowie's interests drifted towards pushing the edges of pop music. It's doubtful Ronson would have been able push in the same way, but their early partnership yielded some of Bowie's most accessible work of his early career, and helped cement the fanbase for Bowie to then challenge and take with him, while Ronson went on strengthening the works of others instead of demanding his own limelight: an admirable trait for someone to possess, especially in an industry known for big egos and self-aggrandizating superstars. Paul Blinov
// paul@vueweekly.com
WHITEY HOUSTON // QUICKSPINS@vueweekly.com
The Flowers of Hell "O" (Independent)
Swedish House Mafia Until One (Virgin)
Epic and forlorn Drones seem to last forever Yet end all too soon
Pretty sweet-ish mix Even reworking Coldplay Can't wilt my boner
Orange Juice Coals to Newcastle Sampler (Domino)
Carl Palmer Working Live Vol. 3 (Eagle)
My favourite band Gets royal treatment at last Ten Priapisms!
New genre alert Prog meets wank... aka... Prank On the consumer
Laila Biali Tracing Light (Independent)
Henry and the Nightcrawlers 100 Blows (Independent)
Refined torchy jazz Interesting selections Cures insomnia
It's smart, cool-guy rock Like riding a fixie but Wearing a helmet
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
MUSIC // 35
Béla Fleck & the Flecktones // Senor McGuire
Wed, Dec 1 (8 pm) With Alash Jubilee Auditorium, $102 – $172 "For some reason that I cannot explain, the banjo is very important to me. I know there are lots of very important things in the world, but I just fell in love with it when I first heard it and it became my means of expression," Béla Fleck offers. He first heard the instrument as a teenager, and in the 40-odd years since, everything he's encountered or experienced has been bent through a sort of banjo-shaped prism inside him. The banjo has been a defining force in his life, taking him across geographies and cultures and genres as he hungered to learn more about its origins and progeny. "There's a lot of focus on this instrument with that premise—that it's really important for some reason," Fleck says, stretching out the "really" for emphasis, indicating an intensity in his attachment that borders on obsession. "The more I get into it, the more I find out why it might be important for this reason or that and how it can be used for lofty goals like breaking down cultural stereotypes and broadening peoples' perceptions of things and making people stop to think twice before they assume something about a person or a thing, or just simply as a unique tool to make art with in this day and age that is not typical and presents lots of
36 // MUSIC
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
Spreading the word of the banjo
new opportunities because it is unique, because of its heritage." Much of Fleck's career has been spent exploring the porous boundaries of musical exchange, and the banjo has proven a well-connected ambassador. "A lot of people who play banjo know where it comes from and that awareness is out there among aficionados, but most of the public don't know that it comes from Africa, or that it was a slave instrument that somehow got
transformed into an instrument that came from the American South," he explains. "I think it's crappy it's become a symbol of a sort of bigotry in the South—but that's only a little piece of the puzzle. So I like to be aware of that and spread the word, if I can, without taking away from how great bluegrass is and its place in American music is, because I love it—it's just great." Mary Christa O'Keefe
// marychrista@vueweekly.com
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OUR FIRST SWIM, DRINK, AND FISH Dakl]j ;gf^]j]f[] ;]flj]$ 9mjgjY Je$ M g^ 9$ 0/ 9n]$ )). Kl Afljg\m[lagf g^ l`] Fgjl` KYkcYl[`]oYf Jan]jc]]h]jk2 Hj]k]flYlagf Zq Ea[`Y]d ?& KmddanYf L`m$ Nov 25$ /%1he >j]]
EDMONTON PRIME TIMERS (EPT) MfalYjaYf ;`mj[` g^ =\% egflgf$ )(0(,%))1 Kl 9 _jgmh g^ gd\]j _Yq e]f o`g `Yn] [ge% egf afl]j]klk e]]l l`] *f\ Kmf$ *2+(he$ ^gj Y kg[aYd h]jag\$ k`gjl e]]laf_ Yf\ _m]kl kh]Yc]j$ \ak[mkkagf hYf]d gj hgldm[c kmhh]j& Kh][aYd afl]j]kl _jgmhk e]]l ^gj gl`]j kg[aYd Y[lanala]k l`jgm_`gml l`] egfl`& =2 ]\egflgfhl8qY`gg&[Y
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THE JUNCTION BAR )(*,*%)(. Kl /0(&/-.&-../ Gh]f \Yadq Yl ,he$ ^gg\ k]jna[] YnYadYZd] ^jge l`] ]Yl]jq mflad )(he3 jglYlaf_ <Bk >ja Yf\ KYl Yl )(he3 Egna] Egf\Yq3 Oaf_q O]\ -%1$ Yf\ CYjYgc] Yl 1he3 ^j]] hggd Lm]%L`m
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EDMONTON ESPERANTO SOCIETY )((*-%)(*9 9n]$ Je )0)*0 /0(&/(*&-))/ =n]jq >ja Yf\ l`] *f\ L`m g^ ]Y[` egfl`3 )*%)he
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JINGLE ON INDOOR SANTA CLAUS PARADE ]\egflgf\goflgof& [ge ;gdgmj^md ÈgYlk Yf\ ]fl]jlYaf]jk oaf\ l`jgm_` ;gee]j[] HdY[]$ EYfmda^] HdY[]$ ;alq ;]flj] EYdd Yf\ l`] \goflgof h]\oYqk Kmf$ Dec 5$ )(Ye%)*he
MEDITATION e]\alYlagf]\egflgf&gj_ KljYl`[gfY DaZjYjq$ 0++)%)(, Kl2 L`m /%02+(he ?d]f 9ddYf J][ ;lj$ K`]jogg\ HYjc2 Lm] 02+(%12+(he
JUST CHRISTMAS 2010 9dZ]jlY 9n]fm] ;geemfalq$ 1*)(%))0 9n] bmkl[`jakleYk&gj_ 9dl]jfYlan] ?dgZYd EYjc]l HdY[] >ja$ Nov 26$ -2+(%1% he3 KYl$ Nov 27$ 12+(Ye%,he
OILSANDSTRUTH.ORG ]n]jqgf]k\gofklj]Ye&gj_'k[`]\md]& `led M g^ 9$ =LD; )%((/2 Akkm] dYmf[`2 Beyond Parts Per Million: voices from the frontlines of Climate Justice3 L`m$ Nov 25, .he M g^ 9$ =LD; )%((/2 HYf]d \ak[mkkagf2 Environmental NGOs2 K][j]l \]Ydk$ lgh \gof \][akagfeYcaf_$ Yf\ Zmad\af_ Ydl]jfYlan]k3 >ja$ Nov 26$ .he M g^ 9$ =LD; )%((+2 ;geemfalq j]hgjlk2 Stories from Ground Zeros Near and Far; KYl$ Nov 27$ 1Ye%-he M g^ 9$ =LD; )%((+2 <ak[mkkagf Yf\ HYf]dk2 From Cochabamba to Cancun and back to Calgary: The Outlook for Climate Justice Movements in 2011; Kmf$ Fgn *0$ 1Ye%-he3 ^j]]
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VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
A VERY CHERDARCHUK CHRISTMAS /0(&1+1&,,,0 @ge] Yf\ QYj\ Lgmj Dec 3-4$ .2+(%1he <gfYlagfk lg kmhhgjl l`] EYrYfcgokca 9dZ]jlY @]Yjl Afklalml] WORLD AIDS DAY EmllYjl @Ydd$ 9dZ]jlY ;gdd]_] ;Yehmk$ ?jYfl EY[% =oYf Mfan]jkalq$ )((-( EY[<gfYd\ <j :]f]Çl [gf[]jl lg []d]ZjYl]$ j]e]eZ]j Yf\ Zmad\ mhgf l`] ^mlmj] g^ @AN =\egflgf& 9dkg$ Y Zggc dYmf[` ^gj Around Michael’s Table: 25 years of AIDS in Edmonton Dec 1$ /2+(he +( Yl LAP gf l`] KimYj]$ kaegf%eYj[&[ge$ \ggj
BACK // 37
COMMENT >> LGBTQ
COMMENT >> ALT SEX
Historical revisions
Through the back door
It's been 12 years since the death of Matthew to friends and family of the murderers who told Shepard, a 21-year-old from Laramie, Wyoming everyone that it was a drug-motivated robbery, who was beaten and left to die because he was gay. that they were on the tail-end of a meth binge and A couple years after the murder members of New didn't care that Matthew was gay. York's Tectonic Theatre Project and author Moises But the theory doesn't match the evidence at the Kaufman travelled to Laramie and interviewed trial. Both perpetrators were tested at the time of many people involved with either Shepard or their arrest without drugs in their system, both the murderers. They recorded a wide varireadily admit in The Laramie Project that ety of reactions and thoughts, from suit wasn’t about drugs. In the play, McKpreme sadness to the angry bigotry that inney seems to have grown even more had created the mood for a homophobic callous and cruel, stating, "Matthew m murder in the first place. They put toShepard needed killin'." ekly.co e w e u v tam@ gether a play out of the transcripts and a eventually the piece was performed all This revisionist history sullies all the Tamar ka good that came from Matthew Shepard l a z r over North America. o G Before the play premiered here, Fred the martyr. It had been so easy to garner Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church ansympathies when the victim is a sweet, young, nounced they would protest, as they do for every blonde, white boy from the heartland. The boy single showing of The Laramie Project. Though next door, the innocent-looking kid. He wasn't extremely unlikely that he would show up, some something complicated like a person of colour community members organized a highly successor a trans woman or a bull dyke or a sex worker. ful counter-protest. Phelps' plan backfired in an Matthew could be the younger brother or the high utterly fabulous way: money was raised for the school crush. And we could all watch him for six Pride Centre, awareness on The Laramie Project days as he lay comatose in hospital. There was production was heightened and a bunch of people time for the public to become attached, to hear got together to show queer support. the story and pray for his life. When he died, the Meanwhile, somewhere between the vigils, the public was there. first showings of The Laramie Project and today, Matthew Shepard’s death became an important a shift began in the collective conscience thanks moment for the big gay cause. His murder helped to a vicious myth created all too easily by a hunus, in some way. Now that it’s being rewritten, gry media. One night-time news show shifted the we lose that positive sentiment. Reggie Fluty, facts. I remember watching the piece on 20/20 the police officer who came to Matthew's aid, in 2004. I was young but I had seen the movies wonders in her interviews why Laramie residents and read the stories about Shepard in my budseem to quick to shift blame. "I've heard some ding interest in queer history. I sat, aghast, as they people say that it's time to move on. I ask them, twisted the Matthew Sheppard story. According to 'Where do you want to move on to, you know?' 20/20, the murder had never been about sexual I just hope the community remembers truly how orientation. They interviewed Aaron McKinney and ugly hate is. We just got to be bigger than that, Russell Henderson, Shepard's killers. They talked you know?” V
Dear Brenda: My husband and I are curious about anal sex but I'm worried about the mess. Do I have to give myself an enema? I know it's gross, but I just really need to know before I get into this and I don't know who to ask. Cautiously Curious
Shepard's death an important moment in queer history
EERN Q UN TO MO
Tips for a mess-free adventure
ing washed or wiped as meticulously as you could have. Wash the area thoroughly before sex or even take your partner into the shower and take turns washing each other. Heck, you can even have sex in the shower! Any potential mess is taken care of right then and there. There can be just a little bit of residue or leftover particles in the rectum and that could be what Dear Brenda: you're seeing. A little bit can look like a lot if I am a gay male new to anal sex. Sometimes the whole idea of it really freaks you out. To it can get a little messy. This is embarrasshelp minimize the chance of this, you can ing and a real mood killer. I am just wonrinse the area using an anal douche. This om dering if there are any steps I can take to is basically a turkey baster full of warm eekly.c w e u v @ try and prevent it from being a messy exwater that rinses out just bottom of the brenda perience. rectum and the anal canal. You can find Brendear Averse to mess these little devices in health-supply stores Kerb and sometimes in sex shops. Hi Curious and Averse. You definitely don't need an enema. That's a pretty Please don't be embarrassed: as you can see you're invasive procedure that can be dangerous if you do it not alone. Anyone who's ever had, or even thought too often. Having said that, some people enjoy them about having, anal sex (which is pretty much every and feel more at ease if they've had one. If it turns you adult on the planet), has this question. We have some on, by all means, do it. But do some research as to pretty strong cultural taboos against all things toilethow to do it safely and don’t do it frequently. related so I understand the uneasiness. But you don't My last bit of advice is to think a bit about what this have to let the worry spoil your fun. all means to you. Sex is messy. There are all kinds of It's important to understand how your body works. body fluids, and functions, smells and stains that can Contrary to what most of us believe, fecal matter be involved. What is it about this specific one that (poo, if you prefer), is not stored in the anal tract. It's bothers you? Or is it that it bothers your partner? I all stored in the colon which is really far up. Just before know it can be embarrassing, but try making a joke we need to go, it moves into the rectum, which is just about it and having a conversation about what it is above the anal canal. If you have sex when you may that really makes you uneasy—you might find that need to go, there's a small chance that you're reaching you are both assuming the other is freaked out when stuff in your rectum. That could be why you're finding neither of you really cares all that much. it's messy sometimes and not others. And for some more detailed info on anal sex, google Jack Morin or Tristan Toarmino. V The first tip is to take a trip to the bathroom not too long before you're planning to have sex, just to be Brenda Kerber is a sexual health educator who has sure. If you do that, usually there won't be anything in worked with local not-for-profits since 1995. She is the the rectum to make a mess with. owner of the Edmonton-based sex-positive adult toy A tiny bit of mess could be the result of just not havboutique, The Traveling Tickle Trunk.
LUST E LIF
FOR
FREEWILL ASTROLOGY ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 19) Should you rely on hard facts or soft feelings? Can you get better results by mingling with staunch allies or with rebel upstarts who have a knack for shaking things up? Only you can decide on these matters, Aries. My opinion? You'll probably generate more interesting developments by going with the feelings, the mandrake root and the upstarts. TAURUS (Apr 20 – May 20) "We cannot have any unmixed emotions," said poet William Butler Yeats. "There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike." I hope you regard that as a peculiar blessing—as one of the half-maddening, half-inspiring perks of life on earth. The fact is, as I see it, that you are in the thick of the Season of Mixed Emotions. The more you invite it to hone your soul's intelligence, the better able you'll be to capitalize on the rich and fertile contradictions that are headed your way. GEMINI (May 21 – Jun 20) Louisiana porn star Stormy Daniels considered running for a US Senate seat in 2010, although she eventually dropped out because it was too expensive. I admired one of her campaign strategies: she went on a "listening tour," travelling around her state to hear what potential constituents might want to tell her. I encourage you to embark on your own listening tour in the coming weeks, Gemini. It will be prime time for you to find
38 // BACK
out about everything you don't even realize you need to know. Adopt a mode of maximum receptivity as you ask a lot of questions. Wipe your mind clean of assumptions so you can get all of the benefits possible from being innocent and curious. CANCER ( Jun 21 – Jul 22) I love astrology. My study of the mysterious meanings of planetary omens provides guidance, keeps me humble and is a constant reminder that poetry provides an understanding of reality that's as useful as science. On the other hand, astrology sometimes feels oppressive. I don't like any system to come between me and the raw truth about reality. I aspire to see the actual person who's in front of me, not be interpreting everything she does through the lens of her horoscope. Now I urge you to do what I've just done, Cancerian: express your appreciation for something in your life that provides beauty and power, even as you also critique its downsides. LEO ( Jul 23 – Aug 22) Bees pollinate apples. Butterflies perform the same service for lilies and moths do it for tobacco. Horse chestnut requires the help of hummingbirds to pollinate, wild ginger needs flies and oak trees depend on the wind. My point is that in the natural world, fertilization is species-specific. Bees don't pollinate lilies and butterflies don't pollinate horse chestnut. A similar principle holds true for you,
ROB BREZSNY // FREEWILL@vueweekly.com Leo. Can you name the influences that fertilize you? Now's a good time to get very clear about that, and then seek out a more focused connection with those influences. VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sep 22) Native Americans took care of the land better than the white people who appropriated it, but they were by no means masters of sustainability. Recent research reveals they had a sizable carbon footprint, pumping lots of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as they cleared and burned forests. Taking a cue from that little shock, I'm encouraging you to see if there are aspects of your personal past that should be reinterpreted. The astrological omens suggest that you'd be wise to revise some of the stories you tell about what happened to you way back when. LIBRA (Sep 23 – Oct 22) British engineer John Reid wants to translate dolphins' speech into human language. For years, he has been working on the Cymascope, a machine that will help him analyze the basic patterns of dolphin grammar and vocabulary. I encourage you to be inspired by his efforts, Libra. It is now an excellent time for you to devote your ingenuity to improving the way you communicate with alien species like black sheep, fallen angels, odd ducks, co-workers who resemble raccoons and bears and zombies who don't share your political views.
VUEWEEKLY // NOV 25 – DEC 1, 2010
SCORPIO (Oct 23 – Nov 21) An African proverb says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." I think that sums up the choice you have before you. There is something to be said for going fast; it may be that you can get as far as you need to go by starting immediately and speeding along by yourself. On the other hand, the distance you have to cover may be beyond your ability to estimate in the early days. If you think that's the case, you might want to opt for the slower-paced power of a joint operation. SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21) It's Experiment with Your Self-Image Week—a time when it would be invigorating to shift and play with your identity. You might find you can change yourself on the inside simply by rearranging yourself on the outside. So have fun wearing clothes you've never donned before. Entertain yourself with a new hairstyle. Amuse yourself with a variety of novel approaches to walking, laughing, gesticulating, and moving your face. Think of your persona as a work of art that you love to tinker with. CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19) "It's not that some people have willpower and some don't," said physician James Gordon. "It's that some people are ready to change and others are not." That's why you may soon appear to the casual observer, Capricorn, as someone who's able to call on enormous reserves of will-
power. You are now more amenable to change than you've been in a long time. In fact, I suspect that in the coming weeks you'll be willing and even eager to initiate transformations that seem heroic to people who are addicted to the status quo. AQUARIUS ( Jan 20 – Feb 18) All belief systems, ideologies, philosophies and religions are mostly wrong, even though many of them have chunks of useful information that contribute to the common good. Said another way, absolutely no one has the whole truth, but pretty much everyone has a part of the truth. Your little fraction of ultimate wisdom is currently clearer and stronger than usual. That makes you especially valuable to your gang, family or tribe. It doesn't mean you should be the supreme arbiter of correct thinking forever, but it does suggest that right now you should exert extra leadership with forceful grace. PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20) Have you fallen in omnidirectional love these past few weeks? By my reckoning, you have an urgent need to be caught up in a vortex of free-form affection. Your receptivity to being tickled and spun around by an almost insane outpouring of libidinous empathy is crucial to your education. If for some reason this has not been the case, please find out what you've been doing to obstruct the boisterously tender feelings the cosmos is aching to fill you up with.
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Want to be part of Edmonton's New Art community collective? Send info ASAP to d_art_man@hotmail.com for jury in upcoming show Novastarz. Singing / songwriting competition. cash prizes and more. Pre-register at novastarz.com; 587.989.6243 Expressionz Café: looking for family friendly performers and presenters for the monthly marketplace at 9938-70 Ave. Info E: expressionzcafe@gmail.com Expressionz Café: looking for visual artists and creative business/wellness, green vendors for the Monthly Marketplace. Located south of Whyte Ave, 9938-70 Ave. Info/ book vendor space E: expressionzcafe@gmail.com Free art demo Saturdays: Naess Gallery–Paint Spot, 10032-81 Ave, 780.432.0240
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Need a volunteer? Forming an acting troupe? Want someone to jam with? Place up to 20 words FREE, providing the ad is non-profit. Ads of more than 20 words subject to regular price or cruel editing. Free ads must be submitted in writing, in person or by fax. Free ads will run for four weeks, if you want to renew or cancel please phone Glenys at 780.426.1996/fax 780.426.2889/e-m listings@vueweekly.com or drop it off at 10303-108 St. Deadline is noon the Tuesday before publication. Placement will depend upon available space Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival, Jan 8-9, Alberta Ave, looking for art to feature in the gallery and artisans for the art market. Submission deadline: Nov 31. Info at deepfreezefest.ca Hook'em Revue Berlesque is holding auditions. Contact Sally at 780.902.6468 or e-mail hookemrevue@hotmail.com Auditions for the New Works Festival 2011! Nov 29-30, 5pm at FAB 2-46, U of A. An Audition sign-up sheet is on the notice board outside the Drama Department Office, 3rd Fl, U of A Musicalmania! needs experienced violinist w/strong acting/communication skills for upcoming musical theatre production. Call 780.460.2937 The Edmonton Singing Christmas Tree 2010: Home For Christmas Contest: Edmontonians are invited to submit their stories by Nov 26, about family members or friends who live away and are not able to be home for Christmas. Info: edmontonsingingchristmastree.com Writers Guild of Alberta: Submissions open for the 2011 Alberta Literary Awards. Deadline: Dec 31. For info/submission guidelines, W: writersguild.ab.ca
Singer-songwriter, playwriter, dancer, R&B funk, director, voice actor, actor stuntman, ready for anything, Katz 587.785.4481; OKatz33@telus.blackberry.net Morango's Tek Café is looking for bands and musicians for shows on Friday nights....contact Dr. Oxide at ..... doctoroxide@shaw.ca Latin/Gypsy/jazz guitarist, bassist and percussionist wanted for original band. Practice twice/wk, music theory a must. Songs are ready. Alin 780.237.2546 Vocalist wanted – Progressive/Industrial/metal; age 17-21. Contact justinroyjr@gmail.com
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Stage Struck! 2011, Call for entrants. Submissions for ADFA/Edmonton one-act play festival, Feb 25/26, accepted until Dec 13, 2010. Info/registration package from MaryEllen, 780.481.3716, mperley@shaw.ca. Night 32 Productions Inc. seeks a qualified screen writer for a TV pilot titled “Dogs 'n Snakes and Innocent Women”, a comedy set at the Blues on Whyte, Sat afternoon jam. The first draft has been written. Contact us with contact info and sample of work. Kevin Sisk, Associate Producer, drsiskphddd@msn.com Any artist, musician, or performance artist interested in being featured for the Local Art Showcase @The Old Strathcona Antique Mall, please be inspired to contact Jenn@oldstrathconamall.com
Volunteers needed for Buy Nothing Day–Free Exchange Event at St Paul's United Church, Upper Hall, 11526-76 Ave. Help needed with supervising the event, set-up on Nov 26; take-down/clean-up on Nov 27, people and vehicles to transport leftover items. T: 780.240.2551 Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival, Jan 8-9 and experience the arts on 118th Ave. Info on volunteer opportunities E: deepfreezevolunteers@gmail.com Edmonton Meals On Wheels Needs Christmas Elves: There are plenty of ways the community can help from volunteering in the kitchen to collecting gifts for seniors to assisting in the gift assembly workshop; Info: 780.429.2020 Volunteer receipting clerk needed: Info on this and the Christmas Bureau’s other volunteer opportunities contact Darlene at 780.414.7682, christmasbureau.ca
Expressionz Café is looking for café and special concert events volunteers. T: 780.437.3667. General kitchen help: front of house, food prep, baking, etc. Shifts available MonFri, 9am-12pm, 11am-2pm, 1-4pm, and evening shifts for special concert events (Wed-Sun 6-10pm)
The Sexual Assault Centre: recruiting volunteers for the 24 hours crisis line. If you're empathetic, caring, non-judgmental, want to gain experience contact Joy T: 780.423.4102, E: joys@sace.ab.ca for info
Call for entries: 2011 Dreamspeakers; Deadline: Mar 31, 2011; Info E: info@dreamspeakers.org. Send entries to: Attn: Executive Director, Dreamspeakers Festival Society, 8726-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5B 0G6
The Candora Society of Edmonton–Board Recruiting; candorasociety.com; promotes positive growth in the lives of women, children/families in Rundle/Abbottsfield communities. Info: Elaine Dunnigan E: edunnigan@shaw.ca
Musicalmania! needs a strong tenor with musical theatre experience. Paid position, some touring involved. Call 780.460.2937
Volunteer Meal Deliverer/Driver: "Life is a Highway" why not volunteer to be in the driver's seat? Come make a difference every day. Volunteer with Meals on Wheels as a driver. Call 780.429.2020
Call to local artists, musicians, performers for Yuk Yuk's new "Thursday Night Variety Show". Call 780.481.9857 and ask for Chas or email: chaz_beau@hotmail.com for info Actors to meet monthly to work on scenes and monologues with optional coaching from professional director and actor. email: elaine.elrod@telus.net Night 32 Productions Inc. seeks a qualified screen writer for a TV pilot titled “Ghostwater” a horror-cop drama. The first draft has been written. Please contact Kevin Sisk, Associate Producer at drsiskphddd@msn.com with contact info and sample of your work
MUSICIANS Musicalmania! needs a strong tenor with musical theatre experience. Paid position, some touring involved. Call 780-460-2937 Musicalmania! needs experienced violinist w/strong acting/communication skills for upcoming musical theatre production. Call 780.460.2937
SHARE THE WARMTH WINTER LIGHT
Warm socks, mittens, parkas, scarves and toques are redistributed to people in need, and to agencies that serve the inner city community Items should be clean and warm. Wool socks are particularly useful Donations for Share the Warmth will be accepted at the Winter Light office adn festival sites, and at Snow Valley. To donate used clothing before the festival starts, The United Way will take them through their Coats For Kids program. Drop-off your new or used coats at any Page the Cleaner location www.coatsforkids.ca
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Bluebird North: Where Writers Sing and Tell: Sun, Nov 28 at The Haven Social Club with Brian McLeod, Kim Wempe, Dave Newberry, Karyn Ellis; MC Ann Vriend; $15 at door or TIX on the Square/$12 (door for S.A.C. member)
Profiles Art Gallery–St Albert are looking for functional and decorative pieces and are interested in hearing from fibre artists and artists working in wood and glass. E: jennyw@artsheritage.ca for info
Musicalmania! needs strong supporting cast members for upcoming shows. All ages welcome. Call 780-460-2937
BACKWORDS
Musician available: Experienced upright bassist w/ strong music reading skills available. Adept improviser within most genres, esp. folk, roots, country, and bluegrass. Steve 780.718.2269
A larger than life portrait of Pierre Cochard, proprietor of Chez Pierre Cabaret, greets you while approaching Jasper Avenue along 105 Street. Its painterly, playful style captures an infamous public figure who started Edmonton's first topless dancing club in 1970, much to the chagrin of the moralists in our then-ultra-conservative city. In the tradition of popular community murals in Mexico and California, "Chez Pierre" celebrates a colourful piece of Edmonton's history and collective culture.
The mural is an early work of painter and street-art advocate Ian Mulder. Completed in 2000, "Chez Pierre" was a rarity in Edmonton. Since then, Mulder Studios has worked long and hard to reintroduce the work of the hand to Edmonton's public spaces. He has helped to improve public views and make the city more visually engaging. Like Cochard, Mulder challenged the conservative tendencies in this city. He continues to harness the creative energies that make our urban environment vibrant. V
The Learning Centre Literacy Association: Seeking volunteer tutors to help adults develop reading, writing, math skills. Require High School reading, writing, and/or math skills; openness to tutor and learn with adults with various life experiences, including homelessness. Locations: Boyle Street Community Services and Abbottsfield Mall. Contact: Denis Lapierre, DowntownCentre, 780.429.0675, E: dl.learningcentre@shaw.ca; Susan Skaret, Abbottsfield Mall Centre, 780.471.2598, E: sskaret@telus.net Cityfarm Growing Assistants: Volunteer with children and see their fascination with plants, seeds and soil; help a teacher/leader feel successful in growing plants indoors. Green thumb is not a pre-requisite but gardening experience and a passion for children and youth are an asset. E: claudia@city-farm.org Edmonton Immigrant Services Association: looking for volunteers to help with Youth Tutoring & Mentorship, New Neighbours, Language Bank, and Host/Mentorship programs. Contact Alexandru Caldararu 780.474.8445; W: eisa-edmonton.org Carrot Café seeks volunteers: baristas to serve coffee, tea and carrot muffins; full training given on making specialty
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