Vue Weekly issue 746 Feb 4-10 2010

INSIDE

COVER

#746 • Feb 4 – Feb 10, 2010

UP FRONT // 4/ 4 5 6 7 8 8 8

Vuepoint Dyer Straight Media Links ZeitGeist Well, Well, Well In the Box Bob the Angry Flower

DISH // 12/ 14 To the Pint

ARTS // 16/ 19 Prairie Artsters

FILM // 22 22 DVD Detective

MUSIC // 26/

16

30 Enter Sandor 38 New Sounds 39 Old Sounds 39 Quickspins

Spine experiments with technology in theatre

FILM

MUSIC

22

27

BACK // 40/

40 Free Will Astrology 42 Queermonton 43 Alt.Sex.Column

EVENTS LISTINGS 21 Arts 25 Film 28 Music 41 Events

Channing Tatum juggles romance and military service in Dear John

Dan Mangan talks about the making of his sophomore album

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MUSIC Vuefinder: Joe Perry and Airbourne slide shows FILM // SIDEVUE Fountain-Headed: Brian Gibson examines the cinematic evolution of a classic scene FACEBOOK We're listening, so let's talk. Join the conversation on Facebook Join our Vue Weekly Facebook group DISH // DISHWEEKLY.CA Restaurant reviews, features, searchable and easy to use dishhweekly.ca

Wed, Jan 27 / Mötley Crüe / Rexall Place

2 // UP FRONT

// gravy

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

UP FRONT // 3

EDITORIAL

// news@vueweekly.com

E

arlier this week Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice, made what could be taken as a positive step toward improving Canada's action on climate change, if you didn't read his next two statements. Prentice stated that Canada needed to improve environmental regulations regarding the tar sands as it was an issue of Canada's "reputation on an international stage".

Unfortunately, he wasn't referring to actually cleaning up the tar sands.

Prentice was more concerned with the image the international community had with Canada's tar sands. And it got worse. Prentice went on to say he was not willing to implement any stringent regulations not implemented in the US. First, let's admit that this might be slight progress. Previously Canada set it's target at twenty percent below 2006 levels, and it's moved marginally ahead to 17 percent below 2005 levels. But this is nowhere near prevailing scientific opinion from the IPCC stating emissions reductions would

have to be 25 to 40 percent below the 1990 level.

Prentice must not have picked up on the prevailing sentiment at the Copenhagen Conference or Canadians expressed concern over climate change and instead continues to believe the problem is that Canada is just not hiring the right PR firm. Instead, Minister Prentice has decided to take his lead from the United States.

Which brings us to Prentice's second statement: Canada will not “go it alone” but will follow the US on the climate change issue. Instead of forging a path of environmental responsibility Canada will continue to follow the US. It's unfortunate that Canadians continue to live on the glories of previous international victories such as the creation of a United Nations peacekeeping force or our role in numerous Second World War battles. Canada could do something courageous today and take leadership on a devastating issue and years from now our children could look back on our actions as a victory. Instead we continue to toe the line of one of the largest polluters in the world. V

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Vegan diets for fat-free living

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KATHERINE THOMAS // thomaskatherineanne@gmail.com Mike Angus, Steve Anderson, Bobbi Barbarich, Rob Brezsny, Josef Braun, Jonathan Busch, Jim Dean, Pete Desrochers, Gwynne Dyer, Jason Foster, Amy Fung, Mike Garth, Michael Geist, Brian Gibson, Hart Golbeck, James Grasdal, Gravy, Whitey Houston, Connie Howard, Ashley Kascak, Ted Kerr, Maria Kotovych, Fawnda Mithrush, Andrea Nemerson, Carolyn Nikodym, Stephen Notley, Mary Christa O'Keefe, Siavash Saffari, Steven Sandor, Bryan Saunders, Kelsey Stroeder, Adam Waldron-Blain, David Young Barrett DeLaBarre, Alan Ching, Raul Gurdian, Dale Steinke, Zackery Broughton, Wally Yanish, Justin Shaw

ost people realize that it's unwise to eat foods that are high in saturated fat and cholesterol ("Well, Well, Well: Fats not so bad," Jan 28 – Feb 3). Those who eat high-fat diets are more likely to develop coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and several types of cancer. Heart disease is caused primarily by high cholesterol, and cholesterol is found only in meat, eggs, and dairy products. You can reduce your blood cholesterol and lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the amount of saturated and trans fats you eat. According to Dr. William C. Roberts, the editor-inchief of the American Journal of Cardiology, "A vegetarian diet is the least expensive and safest means of achiev-

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4 // UP FRONT

Iranian revolution

5

Dyer Straight

8

Bob the Angry Flower

GRASDAL'S VUE

Vuepoint Canada refuses to take lead samantha power

INSIDE // FRONT

UP FRONT

5

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

Vue Weekly welcomes reader response, whether critical or complimentary. Send your opinion by mail (Vue Weekly, 10303 - 108 Street, Edmonton AB T5J 1L7), by fax (780.426.2889) or by email (letters@vueweekly.com). Preference is given to feedback about articles in Vue Weekly. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

ing the plaque-preventing LDL (good cholesterol) goal." If you want to stay slim and healthy, skip the fat and cholesterol and eat a balanced vegan diet.

See GoVeg.com for more information, recipes, and product suggestions. heather moore research specialist People for the ethical treatment of animals (PETA)

Health facts wanted

O

n the one hand, I agree that saturated fat intake is not an absolute indicator of health ("Well, Well, Well: Fats not so bad," Jan 28 – Feb 3). Two people can eat remarkably similar diets with varying saturated fat amounts (with lean beef, skim milk, etc.). Saturated fats are not the problem in and

of themselves. Vegetarian populations are almost always found to have lower rates of the so-called "Western diseases." There is, however, abundant evidence showing a correlation between high cholesterol and heart disease.

You seem to dance around that fact, in favour of oversimplifications and generalizations. That we use less butter than we did in 1910 isn't evidence on overall saturated fat intake and cholesterol levels. To allude to a connection is just misleading. To say people consume more sugar in place of saturated fats isn't an argument for the benefits of the latter. Shouldn't one rather work to cut down on both? I don't read health articles for baseless conjecture; I tend to prefer articles that are a little more ... saturated with facts. They tend to lead to more satiety.

Jason Halbauer

WORLD // IRANIAN REVOLUTION

Iran's democratic evolutions Siavash Saffari // SSAFFARI@vueweekly.com

I

t's been 31 years since the Iranian revolution, and Iranians are on the streets once again. There are similarities between what happened in 1979 and what's happening in Iran these days. But there are also important differences. The Green Movement isn't history repeating itself; it's what Iran's new history is going to look like.

In the winter of '79 the main chant on the streets of Tehran and other cities across Iran was, "Esteqlal, azadi, jomhoori-e Eslami" (independence, liberty, Islamic republic). In 2009, in the days after June's fraudulent presidential election, "Ray-e man kojast?" (where is my vote?) became the slogan of choice for Iran's green protesters. It became the rallying point for Iranians in the country and around the world, and for the first time since the revolution it moved the diaspora community into spontaneous acts of solidarity and unity.

But this wasn't the first time that votes had been rigged in an Iranian election. In 1928, after the election results for the Seventh National Assembly were announced, Seyyed Hassan Modarress, a member of the last two assemblies and a staunch opponent of Reza Shah Pahlavi, learned that not a single vote had been read in his name.

Modarress, who was a highly popular and respected cleric, is reported to have said: "Even if all of those 20 000 people who voted for me in the last election are now dead or have decided not to vote this time, then where is the vote that I cast for myself ?"

Demand for political rights and rule of

law is not exactly a new thing in Iran.

The country's first parliament was established in 1906 as a result of the Mashrutiyyat Movement. The constitutional laws of 1906 – '07 supported freedom of press and equal rights for religious minorities.

But there was another social movement that started even before Mashrutiyyat. The anti-colonial Tobacco Movement of 1890 was against a deal that the Shah made giving monopoly over the production, sale and export of Iranian tobacco to Great Britain. These anti-colonial sentiments played a major role in the movement that led to nationalization of Iranian oil in the 1950s, and later in the 1979 revolution. And they were certainly reinforced after the 1953 coup.

The nationalization of Iranian oil was in direct conflict with American and British interests. There was a fear it could set an example for other countries around the world. So, in 1953, with funding and planning from CIA and support from the British, Mohammad Mosaddeq's democratically elected government was brought down. The coup allowed Mohammad Reza Shah to rule over the country as an absolute monarch for the next two decades. Perhaps there was a lesson in this: without a sufficient level of independence, the accomplishments of social movements can easily be jeopardized.

For about 150 years, in most of the popular social movements in Iran, anti-colonial and anti-imperial tendencies have been more pronounced than demands for civil and political rights.

But in the years since the 1979 revolu-

tion, especially beginning in the 1990s and now with the Green Movement, the main demand has become recognition of civil and political rights of all Iranians. As one analyst put it, after a long history of anti-colonial struggles, Iranians can now "afford to express an entirely future-oriented vision."

It's true that one of the chants in last summer's protests was "Death to Russia," an indication of the opposition against foreign intervention. But at the very heart of the Green Movement is a demand for recognition of basic civil and political rights. In viewing the current events in Iran from the narrow and

sional women's associations, secular feminists and Muslim feminists—including the head of Muslim Revolutionary Women's Society, Azam Taleghani, who was also the first woman to register as a presidential candidate, once in 1997 and again in 2009, both times disqualified by the Guardian Council. The coalition also included Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Iran's first female publisher, Shahla Lahiji.

What the coalition called for in its public statement still captures the essence of the demands made by Iran's civil rights movement: "Women have always, alongside men, struggled to

In the years since the 1979 revolution, especially beginning in the 1990s and now with the Green Movement, the main demand has become recognition of civil and political rights of all Iranians.

As one analyst put it, after a long history of anticolonial struggles, Iranians can now 'afford to express an entirely future-oriented vision.' fictitious lens of Ahmadinejad versus Mousavi, or the lower classes versus the upper and middle classes, or the Islamic and pro-regime rural population versus the Western-oriented urban population this reality is lost.

A few weeks before the June 12 election the "Iranian Women's Movement Coalition" was formed to make particular demands from all the presidential candidates. The coalition included representatives from a diverse range of groups including women's organizations in Tehran and other cities, profes-

achieve democracy, individual and social freedoms and civil rights. Thus, today like any other day we, in solidarity with other social groups, demand the recognition and fulfilment of our constitutionally asserted public freedoms, such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, etc. We also demand the halt of various pressures on women, students, workers, teachers and ethnic and religious groups."

The statement then adds: "We know very well that gender equality is the prerequisite for the fulfilment of de-

mocracy, sustainable development and reaching a healthy, humane and violence-free society—one without poverty and injustice."

The fact is that some non-Iranian observers and opposition groups outside of the country simply don't get this civil rights nature of the Green Movement. In a context where Iran's nuclear program seems to be the only issue that matters to the Iranian government as well as to many Western governments, and where the US remains the hegemonic global power undertaking and supporting violent occupations, military interventions, coups and colour revolutions around the world, it might be easy to miss the most important issue of all: the voices of the Iranian people. For that you can hardly rely on New York Times, BBC or the Angry Arab News Service; and you definitely can't depend on the political rhetoric of Brown, Sarkozy or David Kilgour, or that of Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei. Your best bet is to pay attention to the voices of the Iranian people like Shadi Sadr and her colleagues from the One Million Signatures Campaign, or Emad Baghi and other human rights activists, or people like Shahin Najafi, Fatemeh Sadeghi, Mehdi Saharkhiz and Hamid Dabashi (like Dabashi says, "Google them").

The 1979 revolution still remains a defining moment in the trajectory of social movements in Iran. Nevertheless, in its third decade, a popular, indigenous and peaceful movement to gain civil and political rights is writing a new page in the social and cultural history of Iran and the Middle East. V

COMMENT >> AFRICA

Secession is the answer Sudan's only solution may be separation

Ban Ki-moon is not the best secretarya Comprehensive Peace Agreement general the United Nations ever had, that created a unity government in but he has grasped the essential na- Khartoum and a separate regional govture of his job. The UN is an organiza- ernment in the South—and promised tion made up of sovereign states, and the southerners a referendum on setheir highest priority is the preserva- cession next year. That promise was tion of their own privileges. It is the what stopped the fighting, and despite trade union of the sovereign states of many crises and clashes it has held for the world, and Ban is their shop stew- five years. ard. Which is why he said what he did Not only that, but the dictator in Kharlast weekend. toum, President (and ex-general) Speaking just before the AfOmar al-Bashir, recently derican Union summit opened clared yet again that he will in Addis Ababa, the UN respect a southern decision secretary-general declared to secede. "The National .com ly k e e w e@vue that both the UN and the Congress Party favours unigwynn e AU had a big responsibility ty," he said in December. "But Gwynn "to maintain peace in Sudan if the result of the referendum Dyer and make unity attractive." It is separation, then we in the NCP is not immediately obvious that will be the first to take note of this "peace" and "unity" are compatible in decision and to support it."

Sudan, where civil war killed about two So here is this Korean bureaucrat, Ban million people and created four million Ki-moon, urging African countries to refugees between 1983 and 2005, but back the unity campaign of the regime Ban was in no doubt about it. in Khartoum—a regime whose leader, The fighting in Sudan ended in 2005 President Bashir, is under indictment by when the northern-based government the International Criminal Court for the and the southern-based rebels signed massacres carried out by government-

R DYEIG HT

STRA

backed militias in Darfur.

What’s more, Ban Ki-moon is ultimately in control of the United Nations troops who are stationed in Sudan to guarantee the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Yet he clearly said which side he backed in the referendum: "We'll work hard to avoid a possible secession." Who does this guy think he is?

He knows. He is the shop steward of the Federation of Sovereign States and Allied Trades (also known as the United Nations), and his job is to preserve the rights and privileges of its members.

Their most important right, of course, is to keep control of all their territory forever, regardless of the views of the local people.

The African Union is particularly devoted to "preserving the unity" of all its members, because Africa’s borders are particularly arbitrary and irrational. If any of the disparate ethnic groups that are trapped together in country A were allowed to secede, then the demand for similar secessions in countries B to Z would become irresistible, or so the African orthodoxy has it.

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

But there is another way to look at this, and that is to count the cost of all the wars that have been fought in Africa to prevent secessions. From the Biafran war in Nigeria in the 1960s down through the various secessionist movements in Congo and Ethiopia and on to the breakaway movements in Sudan’s south and west (Darfur) today, at least 10 million Africans have been killed. For what?

Nobody except some ruling elites would be worse off if the secessions had been allowed to succeed. The Nigerian elite would have somewhat less money to put into its overseas bank accounts, since the oil money would have stayed in the Southeast (Biafra), and a new Biafran ruling elite would have bigger Swiss accounts.

Maybe what remained of Nigeria would have split into a Muslim north and a Yoruba-speaking Christian southwest, since without Biafra the country would have become a Muslim-majority state.

So what? Maybe everybody would have been happier that way.

Most people will probably be happier

if Sudan does split in the referendum planned for January, 2011. Those in the Muslim, Arabic-speaking north would have co-existed peacefully with the various Christian and animist ethnic groups of the South if they had been left to their own devices. However, the northern ruling elite imposed Islamic law to consolidate its power, and the southern elites responded with appeal to ethnic solidarity.

If the South leaves next year, it will take most of the oil with it. That is why the northern elite fought so hard to save "national unity." But the oil still has to go out to the sea through northern territory, so the revenue will still be shared. After two decades of killing, Sudan is broken, and the best solution is independence for the South. Unless Ban Ki-moon and his trade union get their way, in which case the war will resume. V Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries. His column appears each week in Vue Weekly.

UP FRONT // 5

COMMENT >> MEDIA

Olympics and new media

Vancouver's Olympics a coming out for independent media It was a holiday gathering much like new independent media taking up inany other, until I was introduced to a creased amounts of market share, mefellow "media person." To my surprise dia, communications and society itself and amusement, he happened to be are in a state of flux. Canwest has lost the director of communications for the many of its leading newspapers to credCanadian Olympic Committee (COC). itors and Rogers has fired media workI had a million questions: what did he ers across the country at its various think of independent and social me- CityTV operations. The Tyee’s overall dia? What about the resistance to the traffic has increased to 3 167 783 visits games? What does his job actuin 2009. ally entail?

Bloggers like newly liberated Apparently, the director of journalist-turned-blogger communications is primarFrances Bula are also helpily responsible for keeping ing fill the void. Citizen mea .c ia ed raticm the "rights holders" happy dia platforms like NowPubdemoc steve@ and making sure they get to lic, and social media tools Steve the front of the line of any on have increasingly become goAnders sought media moment. His job to sources for breaking news seems to be to ensure that big and first-person accounts. Social media maintains its gatekeeper status. media is now recognized not merely As for social and indie media, he didn't as a tool for news, but also a driver have much to say—they aren't a part of it. Look at the 216 000 people who of his job. When I asked him about have now joined the Canadians Against those critical of the games, he gave Proroguing Parliament Facebook group me a look that read, "Yeah, there's a and the 60-plus rallies and media senfew people who don't like the games, sation that resulted. In terms of hard and that's too bad ... " At the very least numbers, stats published by Nielsen he seemed unprepared, at the worst, show that social media usage has inhe’s working in a media ecology that creased by 82 percent in the last year! doesn't exist anymore.

Fellow Fresh Media co-founders Kat, With new venues emerging in VancouVivian, Jacqueline and I have noticed an ver that are dedicated to citizen-prointeresting development through our duced art, ideas and journalism—like work with Fresh Media—there is an W2's Media House—and with Vancouinflux of public interest in innovative ver's active social justice scene, the web-based media. Why? Perhaps be- Olympics could be a lot more inclusive cause of the excitement and optimism and dialogue-focused than other mega people feel for the new dynamics cre- media events. With so many resources ated by the open web, and the general set up for Vancouver residents to get web practices and values that are em- involved—as legal observers, citizenbedding themselves across the spec- media analysts with blog stations at trums, from electronics to medicine to W2, tweeters sharing updates with the public space. world from the streets (see The VanWith big media in a state of crisis and couver Observer), or protesters/participants of the Games themselves—there will be a truly awe-inspiring variety of voices and views represented both on the web and in the physical world.

All this activity doesn't necessarily mean that the overall metanarrative of the Olympics will be that different. But it does mean that everyday people have an opportunity to participate in creating a narrative around the games and that as a result, there will be more than just one story or version of the Games.

It's hard to say what those stories will be, but everyday people will get to play an active role in shaping them.

With social media tools in the hands of Olympic fans, and pervasive reporting by citizen journalists and bloggers, will social media have its real journalistic coming-out party this February? We'll soon find out. V

MEDIA

LINKS

Steve Anderson is the national coordinator for the Campaign for Democratic Media. He is a contributing author of Censored 2008 and Battleground: The Media. Media Links is a monthly syndicated column on media issues supported

by CommonGround, The Tyee, Rabble.ca, Vancovuer Observer and Vue Weekly.

6 // UP FRONT

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

COMMENT >> CANADIAN YOUTUBE

Canada's Internet success NFB's Screening Room a hit on the Internet In recent years, Canadians have be- nied by a massive increase in audience. come increasingly accustomed to There have been 3.7 million online film hearing about Internet success sto- views over the past year—2.2 million ries elsewhere with fewer examples from Canada and 1.5 million from the of homegrown initiatives. However, rest of the world. That number is set an unlikely Canadian online video suc- to continue to grow as daily views have cess has emerged recently that has jumped from 3000 per day in January not received its due—the Na2009 to more than 20 000 film tional Film Board of Canada's views per day in January 2010.

Screening Room.

The site also uses mobile The NFB may never replace technology to increase pubYouTube in the minds of lic access and exposure to kly.com most when it comes to InCanadian films. In October uewee v t@ is mge ternet video, but a series of 2009, the NFB launched an l e a Mich innovations have highlighted iPhone application that has t s i e G the benefits of an open distribeen downloaded more than bution model and the potential 170 000 times and led to more for Canadian content to reach a global than 500 000 film views on the ubiqaudience online. uitous mobile device.

Last year, just months before the Interestingly, the NFB reports the NFB celebrated its 70th anniversary, most popular viewing time is in the it launched the NFB Screening Room, evening hours, suggesting that watchan online portal designed to make its ing a film online is an effective subfilms more readily accessible to Cana- stitute for conventional television dians and interested viewers around programming. the world. To meet its objective, it The NFB also rolled out new parcommitted to be as open, transparent, ticipative initiatives. For example, it and accessible as possible, including launched an "open content" project making the films freely available and called GDP, an interactive one-year efembeddable on third-party websites. fort to document the economic crisis.

In January 2009, the site started with The NFB invited Canadians to submit 500 films. Today, the number of avail- their own videos discussing the effects able films has nearly tripled, with al- of the economic downturn, leading to most 1500 films, clips and trailers. The more than 25 videos along with hungrowing selection has been accompa- dreds of photos and text comments.

ZEIT

GEIST

The NFB success story is noteworthy for two reasons beyond the impressive statistics. First, the project is instructive from a public policy perspective. As the NFB's content manager recently noted, the Screening Room "puts the films back in front of the people who paid for them in the first place: Canadian taxpayers."

That philosophy ought to be emulated by other publicly funded cultural bodies. For example, CBC.ca recently began promoting an online licensing system that charges sites as much as $250 per month to embed a single article on a website. While the desire for additional revenue is understandable, the goal for a publicly funded body surely must be to make public access the priority, rather than to garner small incremental revenues.

Second, the NFB has demonstrated the

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

potential of the Internet and new media to attract new audiences for Canadian content. The old regulatory models premised on scarcity that led to Canadian content requirements are disappearing quickly, replaced by a world of abundance in which artificial barriers do little to keep content out.

As the NFB recognized, remaining relevant in that world requires ensuring your work is accessible as possible. While there are unquestionably risks, there are tremendous potential benefits for Canadian creators and the export of Canadian culture. V Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at michaelgeist.ca.

UP FRONT // 7

COMMENT >> ALT HEALTH

Worth another look

One factor rarely causes a disease, and writing off co-factors is potentially dangerous What I've said about vaccines and autism, When we haven’t yet found a cause for contrary to what some have understood, a disease, it's not helpful—or scientific— isn't that vaccines cause autism, but that to dismiss inconvenient facts. But malign many scientists and researchers and dismiss is what we tend to do to believe mercury to be a potenthose who propose new theories L L E W , tial co-factor worth investithat don’t line up with the existWELL gating further. ing wisdom in which we have inIt's very rarely any one thing vested much. One of those very om .c ly k e e @vuew that causes disease. Diseases, recently again misrepresented, health e like car accidents, happen in a January 17 Chicago Tribune Conni d when one too many contributpiece, is Dr. Boyd Haley.

Howar ing factors converge. Combine unThe story, in short, is that a powprecedented levels of new toxins with erful antioxidant called OSR (Oxidative genetic predispositions, and disease sets in. Stress Relief), manufactured by Dr. Haley's About half of us, says Dr. Mark Hyman, are biotech firm, CTI Science, has been helpmissing a key gene—GSTM1—which helps ing autistic children. CTI Science makes no the body rebuild its stores of glutathione, claims for OSR’s ability to treat disease or our last defense against toxicity. We are act as a chelator, though according to Hathe ones who haven’t yet evolved to deal ley, anyone with knowledge of chemistry with the new level of chemical exposure. will know that it does have potent antioxi-

WELL

dant and chelation abilities. It raises glutathione levels, allowing the body to maintain its natural detoxification processes.

It has an antioxidant capacity score many times higher than that of more commonly known antioxidants such as blueberries, cranberries or garlic.

The families of autistic children have discovered OSR, and word has spread.

What the Chicago Tribune reported is that OSR is an industrial chemical. "It's technically true," Dr. Haley told me over the phone from Kentucky, "but many chemicals have an industrial application.

Production standards depend on application, and they’re very stringent when the product is intended for human consumption. We have to prove rigorous purification every time we make a batch."

BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER

COMMENT >> HOCKEY

It's not that bad It’s been a stretch since an Oiler weekly summary has featured the word "win" so let’s get summarizing. The Oilers spent the last week losing 2-1 (loss number 12 in a row) to St. Louis at Rexall, losing 6-1 (Lucky 13) to Calgary on the road and (cue the half-hearted coronet fanfare) WINNING 4-2 to Carolina in Edmonton.

For any of you who don’t watch the best continuing drama—do not say soap opera—on television, living with Gail at the Platt household is akin to playing on a last place team in the NHL. Not a great place to be.

Sound Bite With the first Oiler win since December 30 (13 games and 32 days later) I had this vision of shellshocked Oiler players during the post-game interview following the Carolina win.

Reporter: "So, how did you feel about tonight’s game?"

The soap opera continues I’ve waited about five seasons for a chance to really incorporate my shameful guilty pleasure and Oiler news. It’s time. Sorry.

During last week’s Coronaly.com eweek ox@vu tion Street (yup) Gail Platt Oiler player (purely out of intheb oung reflex and habit): "Well, we and Joe McIntyre were on the Dave Y tail end of an on-again/off-again worked hard and tried our best relationship. Joe was ready to and gave 110 percent. The other leave Gail’s home to move in with his re- team was ready. They took it to us most cently estranged daughter and make up of the game. All the goals we gave up for lost years. Unfortunately, as he was were bad goals ... " moving his bags and belongings from the Platt home, Joe wrenched his back and Reporter (attempting to interrupt): "You was unable to go through the housewon." hunting and to complete the move and get the hell out of there. He was carried Oiler player (continuing, oblivious to the back into the house and, after all was said reporter’s comment): " … we should have and done, remained with Gail. He almost had this one. We had a good start but got broke free, but an untimely injury pre- outplayed. We’ve got to give credit to vented the move. the other guys. We’ll bounce back. We’re What does this have to do with the Oil- keeping our heads up but we’ve had a ers? Substitute Joe McIntyre with Oiler dpretty tough go … " man Sheldon Souray and Gail Platt with the Oilers and there’s a parallel. Souray Reporter (trying again): "You won. was at the top of the trade rumour list Really." and was, if you believe the hype, ready to be traded to another team. He publicly Oiler player (after a long, thoughtful admitted he gave Steve Tambellini a list of pause): "Shuuuutuuup." (calls out to the approved clubs that would allow Souray dressing room) "Joey. Bring me the game to waive his no movement clause on his sheet!" contract. The scuttlebutt revolved around Souray’s desire to leave Gail (er, Edmon- Oiler Fan Rationalization of the Week ton) to spend more time with his children. (helping you cope): It’s not that bad. Back Just like Joe McIntyre planned to do. in the 80s, when Gretz, Mess, Kurri, Fuhr However, a fight with Jarome Iginla last et al were tearing up the league, beating week resulted in Souray suffering a frac- opponents, setting records, winning Cups tured wrist. He’s likely out for the season. and getting all the attention, rivals from This injury will derail a Souray trade, so other NHL cities called Edmonton Oiler he’s still an Oiler. If he’s traded, it likely fans spoiled and arrogant. They don’t won’t be until the off-season. See. Same think that anymore! They might even story line (sort of?). feel sorry for us. It’s not that bad. V

IN THE

BOX

8 // UP FRONT

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

The Chicago Tribune also suggested that Haley has not been forthcoming with the FDA. "We submitted a ton of pre-market safety data to the FDA," he says. "We do nothing without clearing it with our lawyers, who are experts in FDA regulations. The FDA knows everything about the product."

Is the product safe? "Animal studies with doses several thousand times higher than would be given humans revealed no toxicities. It’s not mutagenic. It doesn’t bind with essential minerals. The FDA approved it to test on humans, which we did. We did blood and urine testing on 200 different parameters. It elevated glutathione to healthy levels, and nobody’s had an adverse reaction."

The Tribune article also implied dishonesty on the part of CTI Science around

the availability of OSR. The company’s website says it is available by prescription; the Tribune was able to secure some without one. "Pharmacies must sign an agreement to provide it only by prescription," Haley says. "The Tribune was able to find a pharmacy willing to break that agreement. That pharmacy is no longer selling it."

I can't help but wonder what purpose the tone of the Tribune article serves. "It’s a scare tactic," Haley says. "It’s a way to come after the doctors who treat these children being helped. We make no medical claims, but everyone knows that reducing oxidative stress is a good thing to do. Oxidative stress is another way of saying low glutathione levels."

It's easy to see why some may not particularly like Dr. Haley. He has hypothesized that the mercury in vaccines is a significant contributing factor to our alarming autism rates. And he's developed a compound that helps autistic children, making the connection between mercury and autism more difficult to dismiss. V

INSIDE // SNOW ZONE

SNOW ZONE

11

Fall Lines

OLYMPIC // SPECULATION

Mt. Elsewhere

Will Olympic impact spread to resorts beyond the coast?

If proximity to Vancouver is the betting hand Big White and Mount Washington are playing, Kicking Horse and Whitewater are banking on the spotlight the Olympics are casting across BC. "We're that much further away," reasons Kicking Horse media relations and events manager Jordan Petrovics.

"We won't see the major backlash from people leaving Vancouver. But the hype of the games will bring people to BC." Resorts in the BC interior are joining package offers with tour operators and wholesale groups for tourists coming to the games—or those who've heard about BC as a result of the games.

"BC Tourism has done an amazing job promoting the province," notes Petrovics, "but there is a far fetched perception that it's complete chaos out west. I heard several times at different ski shows that people want to avoid BC altogether."

Whitewater vice president of operations Ann Pigeon agrees BC Tourism "has been incredibly active in advertising the province. They've been filming and photographing the area for three years."

Pigeon reasons the tourists coming a week before or staying after the Olympics will make the trek to interior BC. "Getting here is tough. Recent ski and snowboard films featuring Whitewater and its unique boutique atmosphere are giving Whitewater major side trip mystique, so we're hooking up with Red Mountain and Revelstoke in safari trips offered by German, Australian and Swedish travel companies."

BOBBI BARBARICH // BOBBI@vueweekly.com

M

edals and misses, economic gains or losses, whether Canada or British Columbia will even benefit from hosting the games—the Olympics are wrought with speculation. Since learning Whistler would host the bobsled, luge, skiing and snowboarding events, other British Columbian ski resorts have been doing their own speculating.

Nearly every year since 2001, North America's largest resort, Whistler-Blackcomb, has hosted over two million skiers and snowboarders per year. In spite of this, the 2010 numbers are expected to fare far lower as regular riders find less chaotic powder to shred throughout the interior and Okanagan resorts.

However, there are other factors determining whether other BC resorts will cash in on the effect of Whistler aversion. Thus far, proximity is a good predictor of Olympic outfall. Big White near Kelowna reports a 60 percent increase in bookings this past Christmas.

Michael Ballingall, senior vice president of Big White and Silver Star, feels the Olympics are displacing regular lower mainland skiers who need somewhere within reasonable distance to travel.

Says Ballingall, "Our bookings in February are three to four hundred percent higher than previous years. These are coming from Vancouver, especially West Vancouver private schools.

They're out of school during the Olympics and need somewhere to go."

In an interview with the Toronto Star, Whistler-Blackcomb president and CEO Dave Brownlie notes ticket sales are down, but he thinks the long-term impact of the Olympics is far greater than 17 days in February. Bringing the Olympics to Vancouver means huge infrastructure improvements and massive publicity for the province. To Whistler regulars, though, getting access to the mountain, finding parking and wading through innumerable swaths of people may not be worth even the best powder turns.

Reports Greg, author of WhistlerBlackcombSnowReport.com, a Whistler local and blogger for the unofficial "real" scoop on Whistler conditions, "The expected number of day skiers on the mountains during the Olympics is around 2500 ... from my previous knowledge and experience, the busiest days hit skier numbers of just over 20 000 with the average 'busy' day around the 12 – 15 000 mark. If you use the overall numbers released by Whistler Blackcomb ... the 'average' number of skiers per day is just over 11 000 ... only having 2500 skiers per day during the middle of winter ... is going to be absolute bliss for those people."

// Pete Nguyen

Blackcomb is entirely open during the Olympics, and only 10 percent of the entire resort will be used for the events. Essentially, the main issue for those choosing Whistler in late January through the Olympics will be where to sleep. Village accommodations are almost fully booked for Olympics-related staff.

For those avoiding the Vancouver lower mainland, travellers and locals are beckoned to cross the Georgia Strait to Mount Washington Alpine Resort.

Though public relations director Brent Curtain doesn't yet have the numbers, web inquiries and the call centre are certainly buzzing.

"We're hearing people would rather

deal with a ferry than be in the pressure cooker of the [Sea-To-Sky] highway," says Curtain. "People are literally saying, 'I don't want to be near this place.'

"So our ads are, 'Spend the winter on Vancouver Island.' We decided to increase promotion via Global and BC Ferries around 100 percent this year."

Though Curtain anticipates the tourists will likely wait to jump ship until the Olympics actually descend on Whistler, those who venture to the island resort by flight or ferry will undoubtedly see numerous Olympic athletes prior to and during the games.

Looking for similar elevation and snow conditions as Whistler, snowboard, biathlon, Nordic and ski teams from the

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

United States, Russia, Germany, Sweden, France, Switzerland and others will be on Mount Washington leading up to the Olympics.

The island resort has been planning to cash in on Olympic athletes for the past eight years. "We had delegates from Comox Valley at Torino and Beijing, talking to coaching staff and promoting Mount Washington as the place to train."

Curtain also hopes the Olympic preview will bring curious locals and destination skiers and riders, beyond those in the exodus, who want to see the athletes without the hefty ticket cost. "It's the best way to see the athletes before the Olympics," Curtain said. "And all you need is a lift ticket."

Erik Kalacis, Red Mountain's general manager, reports bookings are up by seven percent over last year. But it's likely inaccurate to compare a year of recession and mediocre snow against a season with expected increases in tourism due to an Olympic games—and comparably better snowfall.

A ski resort's success is most dependant on a single most unpredictable factor: weather. Next in line is the economy. The global recession kept so many butts off the chairlifts that Intrawest CEO Bill Jensen told 2009 Canadian Ski Council conference attendees in Whistler that the North American ski industry will likely not recover for another two seasons.

Whether we hope for gold or a boost in the economy, Olympic speculation may be futile. The best a resort can hope for is a favourable sky to blast the mountains with white, and a few extra curious tourists looking for a new place to ride.

"What the skiers are really thinking is, 'Where's the best snow?'" laughs Pigeon.

"We'll have to wait and see." V

SNOW ZONE // 9

10 // SNOW ZONE

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

ALPINE >> NEWS groomed corduroy under a full moon would be awesome.

Bottling success On January 16 – 24, 2010, Sun Peaks Resort held its 12th annual Winter Wine Festival. This culinary extravaganza has steadily grown in events and participants and this year it hit an all-time high with numerous sold out events.

Along with the usual wine tasting where 24 wineries set up throughout the village for a progressive tasting there were several new events including Wild Meats and Wild Wines, The Varietal Showdown and Dinner and Mixology to Music. All three filled up and are sure to be back bigger and better next year. If this is something you could get into, next year check the resort's events calendar early and start booking your trip.

Night moves During the day, most of the busy Last weekend up at Sunshine Vilruns get dished out in the cenlage I had an opportunity to go tre; Chris and four other cat for a ride on a groomer. What operators spend the nights made this special was that it pushing the snow back into was 11 pm and although I'd ridthe middle. Most of the kly.com e e w e vu den on one before, grooming time we just cruised along hart@ Hart k under the stars was going to be but then Chris tagged a rock Golbec a new experience. and he got down to some seChris Mueller was the snow cat oprious business harvesting snow erator and he loves his job. Groomers here from the sides and below, working it work a 10-hour shift but the first hour is until there was no chance of a rider hitting spent cruising the slopes, looking to see it the next day. what parts of the runs are in need of reThe groomers' shift ends at midnight at pair. With bright lights leading the way which time four graveyard operators take we headed up Ecstasy run where Chris over grooming well into the morning. I set the front blade down a few inches, the forgot to ask if their first hour was spent tiller and roller mounted at the back fin- cruising down the slopes. I only wished I ishing off a smooth corduroy track. had my skis with me because cruising on

FALL

LINES

Better off TEDx On February 18 during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games the Whistler Centre for Sustainability will host TEDxWhistler: Tourism's Place in a Sustainable World—a live event that will be webcast across the country and around the world featuring thought leaders in tourism and sustainability.

This webcast is scheduled to go from 1 – 4 pm and has a limited number of entrants. If you know how to twitter, there are plenty of opportunities for that. The idea behind this event is to provoke some deep discussions about the aforementioned topic. If you're interested go to their website at tedxwhistler.com and find out all about it. V

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

SNOW ZONE // 11

INSIDE // DISH

DISH

Online at vueweekly.com >> DISH

14

Restaurant Reviews Provenance

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

REVUE // RUTH'S CHRIS STEAK HOUSE

Worth every penny

Ruth's Chris Steak House the best splurge you can make Pete Desrochers // desrochers@vueweekly.com

S

imply stated, Ruth's Chris Steak House is one of the finest dining establishments in Edmonton. That said, my buddy, Graham, and I decided to give it a try. I'd have taken my wife, except she's not a real fan of beef, and I knew Graham would better appreciate the experience.

The restaurant is surprisingly large and finely decorated. Dining is on two floors, and there is a large lounge to the left of the main entrance. The premises used to be a CIBC bank.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the lower level private dining rooms are the "vaults." Graham and I were seated on the main level, in a room with a huge fireplace and impressive mantle.

As for our meal, we decided to share an appetizer of mushrooms stuffed with crab meat ($12). We found this to be a very good choice, as there was more than enough for two. The mushrooms were broiled and stuffed with lump crab stuffing and sprinkled with Romano cheese.

The crab had a sweet seafood savour and a very refined texture—a good pairing with broiled mushrooms. The hobby chef in me would like to play with this

COME FOR THE BEEF >> But stay for the atmosphere recipe, just a bit. But I'm not sure what I could do to make it better.

For an entrée, I selected the mixed grill ($44). As a restaurant reviewer, it gave me the opportunity to sample smaller portions of three key menu items.

// Renee Poirier

The mixed grill consisted of a roasted chicken breast that was stuffed with garlic herb cheese and served with lemon butter. Adjectives like "moist", "juicy," "flavourful" and even "outstanding" don't do their chicken justice. With this

now in print, my wife is going to kill me.

The second item was what they referred to as a "medallion" of shrimp, or several shrimp curled inward to roughly form a circle. They were lightly spiced and properly cooked. By "prop-

erly," I mean they weren't overcooked.

Overcooked shrimp can be chewy, or rubbery. These ones were fine.

The third item was a four-ounce ten-

between sweet and spice.

experience the guilt that comes from eating the mystery meat on a donair.

On special for the evening was a homemade chicken stew ($15 with rice). Slow cooked, the chicken fell apart at the touch of a fork. However, the flavour of the stew did not live up to promises. After listening to the description we both expected a dish with slightly more complexity, as the inclusion of herbs was emphasized.

However, the only flavour that shined was the sweetness from the tomatobased sauce.

Keeping with their philosophy, Sabzy scores big points in offering healthy, homemade food. It provides a good nutritious food alternative on Whyte Avenue. Perhaps the food didn't strike my palate with a big wow factor, but I did get a big taste of cultural pride, which I had not anticipated. V

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 >>

REVUE // SABZY

Little Persia

Healthy food and a big dose of national pride fills Sabzy Kelsey Stroeder // kelsey@vueweekly.com

T

aking a break from the bustle of Whyte Avenue, I wandered into Sabzy the other evening to check out what Persian cuisine is all about. As I stepped inside, the interior was different than I had perhaps anticipated, and it proved to be the first in a number in ways Sabzy defied expectations.

The space was bright and airy, adorned with simple but functional furnishings. There was a large number of tables, but also some cozy nooks to puff away on a hookah. Sabzy seems a little unsure as to whether it is restaurant or café, but judging by the number of people filling the seats early on a Thursday, the distinction did not seem to matter to their patrons.

One of the family members running Sabzy greeted me at the table with a menu. As I mulled over which style of coffee to drink, I couldn't help but resist this woman's natural charm. As she spoke of the daily specials, it was clear that she was very passionate

PUT YOUR HAND UPON MY HIP >> When I dip, you dip, we dip about her culture and food, and was eager to share.

My cappuccino ($3.75) appeared at my table in about five minutes. The mound of perfectly thick and creamy foam was worth the wait. My co-diner arrived, settled in and opted for a hon-

12 // DISH

// Renee Poirier

ey chai tea ($3.75) to ward off the cold from outside. Chai tea is truly satisfying when done right, but I've had too many sickly sweet concoctions and usually avoid ordering it. However, this chai tea, like my coffee, was a mini-masterpiece—a perfect balance

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

We settled on the trio of dips with pita chips ($10) to nibble on as the rest of our food was being prepared. Included on the platter was the must'o kheeyar dip (yogurt, cucumber, herbs), the must'o moo-seer dip (yogurt, wild shallots, herbs) and simple spinach dip.

Exotic sounding dishes but extremely familiar flavours were revealed when we dug into the dips. For example, the must'o khee-yar dip was very similar to tzatziki, except for instead of shredded cucumber it was diced. All the dips were yogurt based and mild in flavour, and as a result the platter lacked variety. Better off only sampling one and trying something else.

Good things come wrapped in pitas, so I chose the kobeedah wrap ($8). The hand-formed mixture of ground lamb and beef was well seasoned, and grilled just right. The acidic bite of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and a signature yogurt sauce cut through the richness of the meat. Overall, this wrap was light and fresh, and I didn't

Mon (3 pm – 9 pm); Tue – Sun (11 am – 9 pm) Sabzy 10416 - 82 Ave 780.758.1005‎

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

DISH // 13

RUTH'S CHRIS STEAK HOUSE << CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

derloin steak. Hey, that's what I came for, right?

After telling them I wanted it medium to medium-rare, our server then invited me to tell him exactly what shade of pink I wanted the center and the periphery.

To boot, they prepared it exactly the way I ordered.

At Ruth's Chris everything is a la carte, so you order your vegetables and side dishes separately for about $8 each. However, each side dish is enough for two.

We went for the green beans with slivered almonds as a vegetable, as well as selecting the potatoes au gratin, sliced potatoes prepared in a cream sauce with melted cheddar cheese.

I felt like something quite rich and the potatoes au gratin was just the rich creamy indulgence I was wanting. The restaurant does, however, offer potatoes prepared seven different ways.

They also have a sweet potato casserole with a pecan crust.

For years I've professed that you can tell

a good restaurant by the way they prepare their veggies, and my thoughts have never wavered. They represent the most naturally healthy and most naturally tasty part of the meal, yet so many restaurants totally destroy their vegetables.

Fortunately, Ruth's Chris Steak House addressed their vegetables with the same eloquence as their other preparations.

By the way, although we focused on the featured fare, they also offer lamb, veal, salmon, tuna and even lobster selections. Most of the entrées range between about $35 and $50, with a few of the filets slightly more.

To be honest, I was nearly full after that incredible chicken, never mind the rest.

So when dessert time came, even after a bit of a breather, I assumed my buddy and I would share one. The trouble was, we couldn't agree on which one. It was a question of preference, not cost, as all the desserts are $12.

Graham definitely wanted the bread pudding with whiskey sauce, which is one of their signature desserts. I chose the warm apple crumb tart, which they describe as baked Granny Smith apples in a round pastry with streusel crust and

vanilla bean ice cream.

If you like apple pie and apple crumble, this dessert clearly takes you to the next level. But, alas, Graham was right. As a reviewer, I pride myself on being fairly difficult to please. Therefore I'm getting a bit tired of writing all these superlatives.

Suffice it to say that the bread pudding with whiskey sauce has to be considered one of the premier desserts offered in Edmonton. Even if you don't normally like bread pudding, this is a must.

Just a warning: Ruth's Chris Steak House is a higher end establishment with higher end prices. A fine meal of several courses, with a nice bottle of wine, will likely total $150 to $200. So for many of us, coming here might be limited to special occasions.

Consider it an investment in memories. V Mon – Fri (11:30 am – 2 pm & 5 pm – 10:30 pm); Sat & Sun (5 pm – 10:30 pm) Ruth's Chris Steak House 9990 Jasper Avenue 780.990.0123

PROVENANCE

History of the Caeser As Canadian as back bacon, the Caesar, sometimes known as the Bloody Caesar, was invented in Calgary in 1969. In that year, bartender Walter Chell was asked by his boss at the Owl's Nest Bar at the Calgary Inn—now the Westin Calgary—to invent a new cocktail to help celebrate the grand opening of a new Italian restaurant called Marco's. Chell was only too happy to oblige and created a cocktail similar to a Bloody Mary, combining mashed clams, tomato juice, worcestershire sauce, vodka, salt, pepper and celery garnish after being inspired

RECIPE

by the flavours found in spaghetti vongole.

The Duffy Mott company, in consultation with Chell, developed Mott's Clamato juice to aid in the creation of the drink and also capitalize on its burgeoning success and thus a Canadian legend was born.

Attempts have been made to introduce the drink into other markets—most notably in America—but it has never gained any sort of traction outside of the land of moose and beavers.

14 // DISH

BRYAN BIRTLES

// BRYAN@vueweekly.com

Ingredients 6 oz Clamato juice 1 1/2 oz vodka 2 dashes hot sauce 2 dashes worcestershire sauce Celery salt Pepper Salt Lime wedge Celery stalk Directions Rim glass with lime wedge and then celery salt Fill glass with ice Add Worcestershire sauce Add hot sauce Add vodka Fill glass to top with Clamato juice Add salt and pepper to taste Garnish with celery stalk and lime wedge

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

BEER

What you smokin'?

For Les Trois Mousquetaires, the answer is beer Trois Mousquetaires Rauchbier Les Trois Mousquetaires Microbrasseurs, Brossard, Quebec $10.99 for 750 ml bottle

TO TH

E

I have mentioned before that Quebec brewers have an affinity for Belgian-style beers. ly.com Maybe it's the shared laneweek int@vu tothep guage, the cultural connecJason tion to gussied-up deep-fried Foster potatoes or just an adventurous spirit, but Québécois brewers make the best Belgian ales this side of the Atlantic.

But then there is Les Trois Mousquetaires from Brossard, across the St. Lawrence from Montréal. A relatively young brewery, opened in 2004, it offers a long list of German-style lagers and ales. About seven of its beers arrived in Alberta in mid-2009.

As I continue my series on beers suited for winter drinking, I decided to take a closer look at its rauchbier, a little known traditional German style. More SMMMMMMMMMMMOKIN'! >> The accurately, it is intimately linked to the only rauchbier available in Alberta // Jason Foster city of Bamberg. "Rauch" is German for smoke, which is exactly what distinguish- some dark roast quality. I also pick up es this style. Part of the malt in the beer prune and raisin flavours. The smoke is smoked over beechwood, resulting in makes its entrance around the middle by a beer that exhibits smoke aroma and drying out the beer and laying down an flavour unique in the world. Albertans earthy, woody smoke character. It is in have had no opportunity to try rauchbier the finish and linger where smoke makes as until now none have been available in itself most known. A soft, distinct wood our province. smoke remains behind after the beer is gone. This linger builds as the beer is As it splashes into the glass, it builds a consumed, making each successive sip huge tan head on top of an opaque, dark more pleasantly smoky than the last. chocolate brown beer – darker than traTrois Mousquetaires offers a darker, ditional rauchbiers. The head seems like more robust version of a rauchbier with it lasts forever, leaving moderate laca restrained smoke character. Some ing down the glass as it subsides. The beer geeks would criticize the mellowaroma presents dark fruit, raisin, some ness of the smoke. Personally, not becaramel and chocolate and a slightly ing the biggest smoked beer fan, I like rough edge which is not a full-blown the balance the brewery has found. I smoke quality, but rather the esoteric believe this a wonderful introduction to impressions of it. the world of rauchbier and would be a At first, the flavour is reminiscent of lovely winter sipper for anyone who apa porter with chocolate, caramel and preciates a dark beer. V

PINT

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

DISH // 15

INSIDE // ARTS

ARTS

19

The Unexpected Man

19

Prairie Artsters

20

Pirates of Penzance

Online at vueweekly.com >>ARTS

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

COVER // SPINE

Identity upgrade

Spine explores the gap between the physical and the virtual worlds through disability and Second Life Fawnda Mithrush // fawnda@vueweekly.com

W

hen it came time for Kevin Kerr to fulfil his commission as Lee Playwright in Residence at the University of Alberta this spring, he dusted off an idea that had already been in the works for years with his friends at RealWheels Theatre in Vancouver—James Sanders' theatre company, which produces works encouraging understanding of the disability experience, had already accepted a separate commission for this year's Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver. The original pitch, Sanders describes, was for something resembling a re-telling of the Frankenstein story.

But while fulfilling his residency at the U of A, Kerr hoped to team up again with actor Bob Frazer, who performed in Kerr's Governor General Award-winning play Unity (1918) in 2002, and actor/producer Sanders—all three had also worked together on the aerial action-adventure play Skydive in 2007—it just looked like both timelines wouldn't jive. Plus, the stipulation of Kerr's commission was that his resulting play would include the graduating BFA Acting class of 2010, and had to be presented at the U of A before the cast's graduation this spring.

"I knew I wouldn't be able to work both projects, and James said, 'Well, what if the two projects were the same project?'"

Kerr describes, adding that Sanders, who became quadriplegic from a spinal cord injury in 1990, was the one who really got the ball rolling for Spine— as he has a tendency to do with most of his undertakings. "His fearlessness and his belief is what got this institution on board with the idea," says Kerr.

Enter Frazer and Sanders as Studio Theatre's Distinguished Visiting Artists for 2010—Frazer this time as Director and Sanders joining the onstage ensemble— and bada-boom: you've got Spine, which is scheduled to premiere at the U of A before packing up all 12 BFA grads and shipping them off to Vancouver to perform the show in conjunction with the Paralympic Games later this month.

Now, Spine actually exists on two different planes of reality; much like our modern existence is increasingly mediated through virtual networks of people (or their consciences, if you like), Spine's story lies on stage and in the bodies of actors, but is also told through the actors' avatars in a Second Life simulation. (meaning: the corporeal BFA class will be there along with Sanders onstage, but the audience will also experience them through various technologies—don't worry, explanation on the multimedia to come shortly.)

The basis of the story surrounds a collective group of artists, known as the

VERSION 2.0 >> The cast of Spine goes digital Precursors, who hit a roadblock in their creative process when one of their cohort is injured. As Carmela (played by Carmela Sison) recovers from the recent accident that has left her paraplegic, she meets peer counsellor James (played by Sanders), who has suddenly lost his job.

Meanwhile, a visitor from Japan named Hokuto (Nikolai Witschl) arrives in Vancouver in search of links to his Canadian past and meets the Precursors, whom he tries to help by navigating them through a Second Life plotline.

Somewhere beyond the fray of the Precursors and their Second Life project, there's a pair of researchers (Darren Paul and Sarah Sharkey) toying with human experiments that attempt to bridge responses in the nervous system with psychological and emotional cues. There's yet another character played by the petite Karyn Mott, an avatar that oversees everything from the year 2152 named, cheekily enough, Lee Playwright (which does conveniently resemble a Second Life-style moniker).

"Maybe it's what Kevin hopes he could be, a five-foot nothing, red-headed pretty girl," laughs Frazer. "Essentially, the idea is that somewhere outside the theatre, outside of our avatar lives, is someone controlling this entire project: and that is the Lee Playwright. God." Collective chuckles aside, it's this character that emphasizes the audience's role as avatars watching the play, too.

The fun of creating the commission was that there were so many pre-given variables to include, explains Kerr.

"Producing independent theatre, it's pretty rare that you can do a show with 13 actors onstage, so we looked at it as a

16 // ARTS

// Ed Ellis

gift," he says. "A really great part of the process is knowing the group of artists that are going to be onstage and wanting to capitalize on that. They've been fantastic: they are fearless, talented, enthused and inspired individuals. This [BFA] group has been noted through their journey in school as an unusually cohesive group and have formed a very strong ensemble, and that energy has really influenced and aided the project."

In essence, Spine explores the modern idea of identity, and the gap between the physical body and who we actually are in a world mediated by virtuality. The point of the show's query, the three collaborators insist, lends to a theme that resembles the trials and tribulations that many people with disabilities experience, as their physical bodies can often be mistaken for who they are instead. This idea, Sanders notes, is summed up by a single line in the show, when Carmela expresses her frustration in rehabilitation: "I hate having this catheter in me so I don't wet my pants, I hate shitting myself. And mostly, I hate how much I have to talk to the staff about pissing and shitting myself."

"It's not so much what Carmela is going through physically in her body," explains Frazer. "It's more what she's going through mentally or emotionally: 'physically I shit and piss myself, big deal—it's the talking about it that really bothers me.'"

"There's more than the bodily functions that's at stake when you go to rehabilitation," adds Sanders. "You have to explain everything and you have to talk about it and rationalize, and I can see how that

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

frustrates Carmela, and James relates to that because he's been there," he says, noting that there's a lot of instances in Spine that ring close to home for him.

"There is a bit of personal risk in doing a character that is this close. When I look at James the character and I look at my own life, there are a lot of parallels, but the parallels have been fictionalized to provide a what-if. What if my life took a different direction?" Truly: what if you got the chance at your own Second Life?

Which leads us to the multimedia bit.

Theatre traditionalists (and many a reviewer) are notoriously reluctant to accept techno-integration onstage. The Edmonton Sun's Colin McLean has gone on record saying, "I often approach dramatic multimedia productions with unease.

Too often enthusiastic directors pile on the visuals, obliterating performers and overcoming subtlety." Even arts and film editor Paul Blinov at our Vue offices expressed a similar feeling: "If you're lucky, there's some interaction between the actors and the media, but multimedia often tends to be dispensable, a quick trick that sometimes feels lazier than it does innovative." (Both comments, it should be noted, come from reviews of Theatre Network's Buddy last season, which went on to receive city-wide accolades on how effectively the play used live video to tell its story).

In Spine, projections and video are used to manifest the Second Life world, while onstage sensors and actor-controlled Bluetooth devices are used to conduct a soundscape.

"I mean really, what is multimedia?" quips Frazer. "They started out at one point with candles onstage, and then

they invented lightbulbs, and was that met with reservations? Then they introduced phonographs—oh my God, sound that's not live? It's just part of the process of growing as people as technology grows, too. It's gone beyond candles on the stage."

It's the technologically mediated world, Sanders says, that often causes the most visceral emotions in people on a daily basis. Think about how a simple status update on Facebook can send one reeling, or an anonymous comment can provoke uproar in an online community.

"My interest in the technology is to meet the demand of a more contemporary audience, and to try and attract people into the theatre that wouldn't normally go, because theatre is more traditional and it is something they're not familiar with," says Sanders. "The way we've employed technology in this show, some of it can be a little slick and sexy and some of it can enhance the experience for the audience—just as that they might have similar experiences with their computer, or with a film, or listening to music. I have no problem with people that want to do traditional, straight-up theatre, but what we're trying to do is provide an experience that people will enjoy and that they will invest their emotions in." V Thu, Feb 4 – Sat, Feb 13 (7:30 pm) Spine Written By Kevin Kerr Featuring the U of A's Graduating BFA Acting Class Timms Centre for the Arts (87 Ave & 111 St), $10 – $20

PREVUE // NEW WORKS FESTIVAL

The kids are all right New Works festival puts students in charge

PUSH ON >> New Works shows span the theatrical spectrum David Berry // david@vueweekly.com

C

hange is almost constant when something is young. Without the weight or ties of history to bind, things will stop and start in any number of directions, run out on worthy branches only to hop off to something that looks more promising halfway down. And as a festival devoted to rooting out the new and different in the U of A's drama department, it's only fitting that the 10-year-old New Works Festival has not only changed

// Supplied

its direction some, but handed over its reigns to the young up-and-comers that the festival is all about promoting.

"We've really given it to the students, so they can take it and make it what they want it to be," explains Ben Janko, New Works' festival manager, and a five-year vet of the fest. "A couple of years ago, BA students weren't so happy with where New Works was, so in the last three years, we've really shifted the control into making it ours, and being able to take responsibility and ownership of it."

New Works had a good base to start from in that regard—it's always been entirely written and performed by current U of A drama students and recent alumni—but has only expanded in the last few years, not only giving its students more say and sway in the ins and outs of the fest, but also giving them more mentorship and chances to develop their work, calling on the expertise of everyone from faculty professors and MFA directing candidates to playwright-in-residence Kevin Kerr. The combination of controlling their own destiny and having a deep well of resources to draw on has given the young playwrights, actors and directors more confidence, which Janko says shows itself in the festival's dynamic lineup.

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

"It really is a really brilliant spectrum this year," he says, "from a collective creation piece that didn't even have a script when it was submitted, but was a process I thought we should support, all the way over to a really polished and developed hour-long one act."

This year, the fest will be split into two nights with distinct themes, what you might call traditional and non-traditional methods of theatre creation. Night one is a walk on the more esoteric side, with the poetic white moon pie, the "indescribable" Juvyline Cubangbang Show, the movement-based Us: Trey, Leah and the aforementioned collective creation piece Qualia, a story told entirely without words. Night two gives us some more straight-ahead theatre, with the screwball comedy Salt Water, the family drama of Tight Rope and the end-of-the-world comedy The Rapture!.

It's a sampling of what's going on through the minds of the U of A's theatre-inclined, and a good window into what Edmonton may see in the coming years: New Works plays have a history of second lives at both Nextfest and the Fringe, and Janko only expects that to go further with the students taking more control, and more pride, in what they're creating.

"We're really able to showcase our work now," he explains, adding with a laugh, "and it's great to be able to say, 'We did this, this is our work, this is what we can do. Now hire us!'" V Tue, Feb 9 – Sun, Feb 14 New Works Festival Presented by the U of A's Department of Drama Featuring white moon pie, The Juvyline Cubangbang Show, Us: Trey, Leah, Qualia, Salt Water, Tight Rope, Rapture!

Second Playing Space, Timms Centre for the Arts (87 Ave & 112 St), $5

ARTS // 17

VISUAL ART // BOOK DESIGN IN CANADA

Judge this book by its cover

Book Design in Canada awards showcases the highlights of literary designs Amy Fung // amy@vueweekly.com

T

he 27th Annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada as organized by the Alcuin Society currently makes its Edmonton stop at the FAB Gallery, with specimens from the best of the best in Canadian book publishing from 2008.

Judges Frank Newfeld, Alan Stein and E.A. Hobart (Zab) selected 32 winning titles from 243 entries, eight provinces and 89 publishers to be exhibited across Canada, at the Tokyo International Book Fair in Japan, the Frankfurt and Leipzig International Book Fairs and compete in the biggest annual book-design competition in the world, in Leipzig, Germany, in February 2010.

With categories ranging from children, limited editions, pictorial, poetry, prose fiction, prose non-fiction, prose non-fiction illustrated and reference, it should be noted that this year there were two categories (prose non-fiction and reference) where a first prize was not awarded, a sign that the awards are used beyond congratulatory back patting and seriously contended to encourage the very best in Canadian design.

In the front room of FAB Gallery, the handsome category of Pictorial prominently displays Geoffrey James' Utopia/ Dystopia as designed by George Vaitkunas and published by National Gallery of Canada and Douglas & McIntyre, but unfortunately the display copy appeared in pretty rough shape with a damaged spine.

Dominated by excellent photographic prints and minimal text, Vaitkunas' handiwork was bold, but Harry Thurston and Thaddeus Holownia's Silver Ghost: An Homage to the Atlantic Salmon Rivers of Eastern Canada as designed by Andrew Steeves and Holownia (Anchorage Press) was seemingly more elegant in its understated appearance.

In the lower gallery, there was a palpable meta-moment as The Surface of Meaning: Books and Book Design in Canada by Robert Bringhust, (CCSP Press / Simon Fraser University) took home the top prize for prose non-fiction illustrated for its bold use of graphics. The urge to flip through the "Do Not Touch" samples, especially Tony Urquhart's Off the Wall as designed

by Tim Inkster, (Porcupine's Quill) is a constant struggle when viewing book

18 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; FEB 10, 2010

exhibitions, as often a lone double-page spread from a book does not do justice to the book as a whole object.

Interestingly enough, each category is judged by a different set of criteria, with each book assessed from cover to cover as a whole entity. From the detail of dust jackets to harmonious front paging and of course, attractive type, the two categories that stood out the most were poetry and children.

While children is one of the most difficult categories to judge, poetry offered the

It should be noted that this year there were two categories where a first prize was not awarded, a sign that the awards are used beyond congratulatory back patting and seriously contended to encourage the very best in Canadian design. most desirable items to covet, including an elongated print for Stefan A. Rose's "The House that Stands" designed by Andrew Steeves (Anchorage Press) and a striking reissue of Gertrude Stein's seminal "Tender Buttons" by Bookthug and designed

by Mark Goldstein.

The raison d'etre of the exhibition, however, lies in the limited editions, where the U of A's own Jonathan Hart and Sean Caulfield's Darkfire, as designed by Susan Colberg and published by the University of Alberta, took home first place for their stunning unbound sheets wrapped in Japanese black-and-red silk. With two winning entries this past year alone, the exhibition as a whole is another fine example demonstrating the long history of the U of A achieving national recognition for its achievements in print and design. V Until Sat, Feb 20 Book Design In Canada FAB Gallery (87 ave & 112 st)

PREVUE // L'HOMME DU HAZARD

So that's my motivation

L'homme du hazard reveals its characters' inner thoughts Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com

S

ubtext is the vital undercurrent of any play. Unspoken thoughts, the deeper reasons and meanings behind how we act are a necessary part of making storytelling dynamic and interesting, even if those inner motivations never get revealed outright.

That said, L'homme du hazard (The Unexpected Man) reveals the secret thoughts of its two principle characters in full—in fact, the dialogue audiences get to hear goes completely unsaid between the onstage pair, a man and woman in a train compartment, travelling to Frankfurt from Paris. They don't speak to each other, nor to the others in the train. They just think, and those thoughts make up the show's audible dialogue, the vocals pre-recorded and pumped out through speakers, not vocal cords.

"I thought it was a good piece, almost as a kind of installation art piece, art object or performance art piece rather than a regular evening at the theatre,"

BUT WHAT ARE WE THINKING? >> Silence says plenty in L'homme du hazard director Guido Tondino explains. His interest in the script stemmed from a recent fascination with automatic writing, and its way of, as he puts it, "Uncovering the unconscious."

"This piece sort of floats around [that idea], partially because it deals with the

// Supplied

way ideas arrive, and the way things are associated together," he explains. "Those kinds of ideas remain incredibly interesting to the way we access ideas and concepts, but also how those are used in terms of art, and how we act them out in terms of creative activity."

There are plenty of thoughts simmering away in L'homme's unnamed characters' heads: the woman first recognizes the man to be a famous author—his latest book is stashed in her purse. She hesitates to voice that recognition though, and while he ponders life's fouler disappointments and his own private obsessions, she ponders him, and her own deeper issues and whether or not she should pipe up about it at all.

To prepare, Tondino notes, there were meditations before rehearsals; not to block out thoughts and clear their heads, but rather to see how ideas formed, developed and played out without being spoken aloud. "It was kind of useful to find out what thoughts happened, what thoughts occurred and how they occurred," he says.

Isabelle Rousseau, who notes that performing the female role in L'homme might be the most difficult role she's worked on, found her way into acting in that silence in stages.

"I worked it out at first that I was ac-

tually speaking to him," she explains.

"Then we erased that, and then built sort of an imaginary wall, so I could feel that pressure mounting. I really want to speak to this man, I so want to speak to this man."

Her onstage companion, Bernard Salva, notes acting out that style of inner revelation came easier due to some of his previous credits.

"I think I'm used to it because I had a chance to do Hamlet once in my life," he explains. "It's funny that, in the history of theatre, the most famous speech is a soliloquy: 'To be or not to be.' And why? I had to reconsider that. Because it's a confession. It's a very special connection to an audience, when you think about it." V Thu, Feb 4 – Sun, Feb 14 (8 pm) L'homme du Hazard (The Unexpected Man) French, with projected english subtitles written by Yasmina Reza directed by Guido Tondino starring Bernard Salva, Isabelle Rousseau

PRAIRIE ARTSTERS >> JANET CARDIFF & GEORGE BURES MILLER

Seven year itch

A pair of world-acclaimed artists return to Edmonton On a weekend morning in the late spring of seums and galleries were touring tombs 2003, a fold-out advertisement fell out of my for art historians, and though certain obnewspaper. The cover of the fold out featured jects were of great totalitizing beauty, I a single eye looking out from a seemhad never experienced that gestalt ingly pristine-yet-deserted movie moment before a work of art, theatre screen. As a still from The and therefore, did not really Paradise Institute, a work created believe it existed. by then Lethbridge-based artists I still have not seen it to this m o .c ekly Janet Cardiff and George Bures day, this emotion that overvuewe @ y m a Miller, artists I had never heard of whelms you upon first sight, my A and a work I knew nothing about, but sitting inside that forced Fung perspective the lone black and white image of the balcony of The Paraeye, framed by the shadowy curvature of dise Institute, I felt and heard an expean anonymous brow down to the jaw, was rience that would change me forever. curious enough for me to make my ever first Binaural audio, reverberating through art trek down to Banff. my inner ear canals, narrating a story that Being then still an English and Film Stud- weaved between the fictional film visually ies student at the U of A, the eye in the playing in the theatre and the fictional sencentre of the screen reminded me of two sation of sitting in a theatre, sent a physical things: the opening of Luis Buñuel's sur- chill all the way down my spine. The movrealist Un Chien Andalou for its eye-slicing ing image has never ceased to bewitch me, scene that revolutionized cinema and how but here was a creation that opened up we view it; and on a more personal level, a world between the work of art and our the empty theatre setting signaled the physical experiences of that art. It would death of the single screen cinema experi- be in this liminal world where I began exence, which was something of great inter- ploring the histories of art, film and literary est to me. Where sight and sound once theory, criticism and the cross-pollination enveloped audiences united in a common of thoughts and forms between disciplines experience, the multiplex has become a and the limitations we place on how we phenomena in bombarding viewers with perceive each discipline. stadium-seating entertainment. The experience of cinema has changed the content of Almost seven years later, I have still cinema, and The Paradise Institute seemed kept these thoughts in mind as I grow as to offer another way of experiencing the an arts writer and sometimes curator, exmoving image, one that was completely panding further into the visual arts, perforforeign to my modes of perception. mance art, multimedia and interdisciplinary As far as I had known, the visual arts re- worlds. There is a long history in believing mained purely fixed in the realm of objects that every seven years brings a significant inside of galleries, existing as flat surfaces change evident in our molecular structure, placed against the wall or fashioned into and so chalk it up to an act of serendipity strips and shapes of forms and colour. Mu- that the artists who launched my interest

IE PRASITRERS

ART

in contemporary art would appear again with their largest and most immersive installation to date after first seeing their work seven years ago.

Having continued to blaze the art world since The Paradise Institute wowed Venice in 2001, Cardiff and Bures Miller have continued to play on the false realities of our perceiving minds and bodies. Their use of technology has progressively become more sophisticated in tandem with the technology itself, and their reputations are more international in scope with a studio and home base in British Columbia. Creating the The Murder of Crows, the work currently showing at the AGA, for the Sydney Biennial in 2008 in an empty 200 metre wharf, it is without a doubt they have reached a level of artistic creation and production where budget, logistics and resources are no longer barrier issues.

Packing the house for the their lecture at the Telus Centre on campus last week, where Cardiff and Bures Miller first met as a graduate student and soon-to-be drop out respectively, the pair informally presented selections from their career to a room consisting largely of old friends, former teachers and wide-eyed art students. The talk wasn't riveting by any means, or even all that insightful, but it was warm and charming, much akin to a homecoming where all that matters is that they were standing in the room with you. I left wondering if their reputations had become more valued than the art itself, as the long shadows of The Paradise Institute and certainly Forty Part Motet still hover as the benchmarks that each new subsequent work will be invariably compared with.

The night before the grand opening of the

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

gallery, with an industry night and the energy of numerous out-of-towners swirling throughout the building, I sneaked away to stand inside their freshly completed new work, Storm Room. The seamless illusion of standing in a Japanese-inspired room surrounded by a thunderstorm was surprisingly more realistic than it was magical.

From the perfectly timed short circuiting of the lights to the dew drops pitter pattering against the window panes, the installation was perfect in every each way—except I wasn't interested. It was enchanting, but there was no curiosity. Dreading I would have a similar experience for The Murder of Crows, a piece I have been waiting two years to experience in full, I completely

bypassed it all together that evening.

Hearing from people who had entered the exhibition that night, echoing my experience during an earlier and abbreviated media tour, the acute intensity of everyone in the room-—the pressing desire to be impressed—was far too overpowering to actually take in the art.

Pulling out the worn and creased fold out for The Paradise Institute that's been saved and kept in an ever-growing pile of old programs and postcards, I am having a difficult time remembering the eye opening affect that this art once had over me. V Amy Fung is the author of prairieartsters.com

ARTS // 19

VISUAL ART // BOOK, JACKET & JOURNAL SHOW

OPERA // PIRATES OF PENZANCE

Off limits

Pirates of the North Saskatchewan

FAB show intrigues, but hands-off set-up makes it difficult to appreciate Adam Waldron-Blain // adamwb@vueweekly.com

L

et's make this clear: I can't really knock the content of the two book shows up right now at FAB gallery, the Association of American University Presses' Book, Jacket & Journal Show or the Alcuin Society's Excellence in Book Design in Canada. The obvious reason for this is that these are essentially awards shows, works selected by people who know what they are talking about, even if I might have a few to quibble about.

But there is another reason, too: even if I, or more likely the design students and other enthusiasts that the show is aimed at, would like to make an argument about the quality of the work, it would be hard to do so intelligently, due to the limiting displays totally unlike the actual experience of handling a book. Although the Book, Jacket & Journal Show is a little better than its Canadian sibling because a large portion of the works are single-sheet book-jackets, rather than full publications, the shows make it awfully hard to see the design in question in anything like the circumstances it was intended for.

The result is that the show itself, for those of us who aren't working on a book-design assignment for a University course, is pretty dull, despite being a celebration of designs meant to intrigue and invite the viewer. Part of the problem is that they work, and browsing the carefully arrayed displays makes me want to actually read some of the works—especially when the placards tell me about how well-designed the books' interiors and how beautiful the illustrations are.

But there are almost as many "do not touch" signs as there are design prizes.

The kicker is that under many of the display copies lies a second copy, for all purposes bound to the table-top and

hidden from the dirty-fingered public, and that a portion of the upstairs gallery, behind the Book, Jacket & Journal Show, is fenced off, although it might otherwise hold, perhaps, a bookshelf. If the AAUP and the Alcuin Society don't have the imagination or the budget to let the public touch things in the gallery, and

Gilbert and Sullivan return to Edmonton Opera with Pirates of Penzance

intricacies of opera without beating you over the head with another language or a tragedy; all of [Gilbert and Sullivan's operas] are comedies.

"Most operas are entirely sung," he continues, "but, with Gilbert and Sullivan, all of their work usually has some dialogue within it. So, it really does a wonderful job of bridging the gap between musical theatre and opera ... they usually call Pirates of Penzance an operetta."

The result is that the show itself, for those of us who aren't working on a bookdesign assignment for a University course, is pretty dull. maybe have a chance to actually experience the allegedly well-designed pages that are being celebrated, they should be holding their show in a library, a bookstore, or not at all. Aside from a few highlights, especially in the Alcuin Society's Canadian show, of limited-edition and handmade letterpress works that can be somewhat appreciated even behind glass, these two collections are best experienced through their catalogs, since the displays are really no better than photographs of their contents.

I am sure that the design students who see this show will get some good discussion out of it—I am sorry to have missed exhibited author/designer/poet Robert Bringhurst's talk last week, for instance—because otherwise, this seems like a terrible waste of perfectly useful gallery space. V Until Sat, Feb 20 Association of American University Presses' Book, Jacket & Journal Show FAB Gallery (87 ave & 112 st)

a-hoy mateys >> Pirates of Penzance returns Gilbert and Sullivan to Edmonton Bryan Saunders // bryansaunders@vueweekly.com

E

at your heart out, Somalia: Edmonton has pirates too, and not only are they a lot funnier than the ones that have been making the news lately, but they can sing a lot better as well.

The pirates in question, of course, are the ones taking the stage for Edmonton Opera's latest production, Pirates of Penzance. This is the second time in as many years that the company has put on a Gilbert and Sullivan show (the other one was H.M.S. Pinafore), and for

// Lyric Opera

good reason: the music is catchy, the comedy is as witty and sharp as the day it was written and, well, audiences just love them.

Actor Andrew MacDonald-Smith has his theories as to why. MacDonaldSmith plays the police sergeant in charge of capturing the goofy band of pirates, and—as an actor—he finds that Gilbert and Sullivan shows are simply more accessible than most operas.

"They're not as obscure or as intimidating an introduction to opera as some other shows are," he notes. "Gilbert and Sullivan really make you appreciate the

The operetta in question revolves around Frederic, an orphan who is celebrating his 21st birthday—the official end to his pirate apprenticeship—and preparing for his return to "respectable" civilization. Once on dry land, Frederic instantly falls in love with a girl named Mabel, but before their romance can blossom, the pirates reappear on the scene and kidnap Mabel and her two sisters. The father of the three girls, a Major-General, soon shows up to rescue his daughters, and that's where the plot, the songs and the comedy really take off.

As Kendra Connor, who plays Mabel's sister Edith, points out, even if you've never seen Pirates before, you've probably heard a song or a parody of a song from it before "You'll sit back and listen to it and go 'Oh, I know that song!' And, you do, even if you're completely unfamiliar with Pirates of Penzance, because these are songs that have ended up in episodes of the Simpsons or Family Guy," she laughs.

Not surprisingly, Connor's favourite song of the show is also the one that has been most frequently parodied: "I am the very model of a modern Major-General ... " she cheerfully patters.

MacDonald-Smith's favourite song, on the other hand, is "A Paradox."

"It's like the lesser-known, equally entertaining, 'Modern Major-General Song.,'" he explains. "It's a patter song as well, and it's a three-part harmony between the Pirate King, the pirates' maid and Frederic."

While they may not share the same favourite song, there is one thing that MacDonald-Smith and Connor both agree on.

"Gilbert and Sullivan shows are such a treat to do," grins MacDonald-Smith.

Connor echoes her co-star verbatim.

"Plus," she adds, "Who doesn't love a show with pirates?" V Sat, FEB 6, Tue, Feb 9, Thu, Feb 11 (7:30 PM) PIRATES OF PENZANCE WRITTEN BY GILBERT AND SULLIVAN DIRECTED BY ROBERT HERRIOT STARRING CURT OLDS, LAWRENCE WILIFORD, ANDREW MACDONALD-SMITH, KENDRA CONNOR JUBILEE AUDITORIUM (11455 - 87 AVE), $26 – $165

20 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

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

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FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

ARTS // 21

INSIDE // FILM

FILM

Online at vueweekly.com >> FILM

24

Fountain-Headed Film Capsules

by Brian Gibson Brian Gibson examines the cinematic evolution of a classic scene.

FILM // DEAR JOHN

Long-distance love

Channing Tatum juggles romance and military service in Dear John you can't even imagine. And then after we had the script we all liked, trying to find a director that we think is right for it, and all the different possibilities that it could go.

It's just infinite.

Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com

B

oy meets girl during two weeks of R&R away from the army. Boy and girl fall in love and promise to keep in touch while she goes back to school and he returns to military duty. But as their time apart grows, the realities of life spent at a distance set in and boy and girl's simple romance get complicated. Dear John, based on romance king Nicholas Spark's novel of the same name, follows the bumpy, war-torn path that endangers the love of the eponymous John and sweetheart Savannah.

To its credit, the movie's far from overblown, finding some middle ground between overt emoting and atmosphere; director Lasse Hallström (What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) underplays the romance, which makes for a strong, investing start but a strangely paced second half, with actors trying to manage the sudden emotional rises and falls, and jumps in time that the script puts them through. Still, the simple chemistry and performances of Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum does much to turn what could've been a photocopy of The Notebook into its own little struggling long-distance love story.

Vue recently had a phone conversation with Tatum, who sounded warm and relaxed mid-way through a press day full of interviews. It's not the kind of day

LOVERS FROM AFAR >> Dear John seperates its couple every actor enjoys, but to him, handling hours of questions is "Easy when you love the film."

VUE WEEKLY: What first drew you to the script of Dear John?

CHANNING TATUM: I was actually on before we had a script; Temple Hill [Entertainment] sent me the book, and I had seen The Notebook and A Walk to Remember and Message in a Bottle. I liked those films and kind of what they do, and the opportunity to maybe do a different ver-

// Supplied

sion of that was really interesting. I read Dear John and I just fell in love with John.

So we started looking for a writer. It's crazy, hearing all the different writers come in with their takes, and going through that side of things. I loved it. It was the first time I've ever been on the ground floor of a film being made like that. And then going through all the different versions of the script once we hired Jamie [Linden] for the writing of it, and all the different incantations of the script and where it went—up, down, left and right,

VW: What set Jamie's script apart from the other ones?

CT: This isn't his type of movie. He's never done a romance or anything like that.

Nicholas Sparks is so powerfully romantic and emotional. We didn't want to go too far in that direction that it becomes too heavy-handed. We wanted someone that had a good sensibility, that would almost go away from the emotion and the melodrama of it. And then we did the same thing with the director as well. We wanted to find someone who had a subtle hand with it. When you write for a love story, it's a lot different than putting it onscreen. You can calibrate all the melodrama out when you read something, because it's whatever that means to you when you read "he kisses her." [laughs].

You can kiss someone really over the top, even just how you get into that scene.

VW: So is that how you approached the material as well? Trying to avoid the inherent melodrama of a romantic story?

CT: With every character that you do, you try to make it ... I think you would want to try to find the right tone that is the most real to you. And to me, I wish

people did wear their emotions on their sleeve. I wish people were just outwardly open and romantic, and that's not the case. People usually try to cover what they're feeling at all times. So that's kind of who I thought John was: he's trying to figure out what he's feeling, instead of just emoting it.

VW: One of the things I quite liked about Dear John is that it's that kind of story, between a soldier and the girl waiting at home, that doesn't really get explored these days.

CT: What we tried to do with the constructing of the film, is we don't want people thinking it's a war movie. Because that's not the film that we made. He happens to be a soldier. I think you could put him as anything that would take him away, put him in any job, but it just so happened Nicholas Sparks picked the soldier because it is such a courageous job. But any time we could not have John in a uniform, we took him out of it. We really just wanted to make a story about two kids that fall in love for the very first time, and have no idea how to do that, don't know how to be in love. They're just trying to figure it out and life just sort of gets in the way. V Opening Fri, Feb 5 Dear John Directed by Lasse Hallström Written by Jamie Linden Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks Starring Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried

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DVD DETECTIVE >> PARIS, TEXAS

There's no place like no place

The mystery of Paris, Texas reveals lonely American lives and landscapes There is the man in the desert. Brown moving pictures I know. It's now available suit and tie, red cap, bearded, shrouded in in a beautifully put-together two-disc set dust like some forsaken antique no one's from the Criterion Collection. touched. Four years ago he tried to The first half of Paris, Texas has Walt disappear, a difficult thing to do, driving Travis back to California, even in country as vast as this. where he and his wife live with He got as far as shaking off Travis' seven-year-old son Hunthis voice. When Travis Hener. Along the way Travis recov.com ers his speech, though he does derson's found passed out weekly e u v @ tive on the floor of some Texas dvddetec not reveal where he's been or Josef tavern they call his brother why he left. The second half finds Walt, a maker of billboards Braun Travis reunited with Hunter and in Los Angeles. Walt comes for driving the two of them back to Texas, Travis, to reintroduce him to the world. where Travis believes he can find his wife Travis could be mentally ill, autistic, or on Jane, who, like Travis, vanished four years the lam. But he's the hero of Paris, Texas back, leaving Hunter in Walt's care. Their (1984), a sort of interrogation of American reunion takes place in a strange sort of life and landscape, directed by a German, peep show, on either side of the one-way photographed by a Dutchman, financed glass—Travis can see her, but she can't see with European money, written and scored him. Travis speaks into a telephone, while

by Americans, performed by an interna- Jane communicates through a speaker on tional cast—the arresting hybrid of cultur- the other side. They tell each other stories al sensibilities is right there in the title— that may or may not be precise retellings that's still one of the most mysterious and of their troubled love and its collapse. So

DVCD TIVE

DETE

22 // FILM

over the course of this movie Travis goes from being no voice to nothing but voice, a disembodied phantom from Jane's past who has come back to restore something.

What, exactly, is a little ambiguous, and more than a little heartbreaking. Questions linger. What makes a man give up his life, his voice, to go somewhere "without language or streets"? What makes him abandon his own child? But by the time we've reached the end of Travis and Jane's stories the emotional specificity overwhelms the spare facts and unexplained actions.

The weight of Travis and Jane and Hunter's story is alleviated by the lightness of Wim Wenders' direction, his lack of judgment, his dogged attention to actorly nuance, his deep affection for American horizons, truck stops and music. The score is by Ry Cooder, a bottleneck improvisation based around Blind Willie Johnson's old blues "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," veering between wind-carved desolation and Mex-

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

ican-tinged nostalgia. The movie was shot

by Robby Müller in such a way that emphasizes the expanse of the settings, splitting focus between faces and backgrounds and weather. The script, as such, comes from great playwright and handsome actor Sam Shepard, and if Criterion's package focuses heavily on Wenders' authorship, I'd argue we should consider this just as equally to be a Sam Shepard movie, so in keeping with his themes and voice that even the bits not conceived by Shepard—the peep show device came from Kit Carson, who filled in as scripter while Shepard was knee-deep in Country (1984)—feel ripped directly from the imaginative world of his writing, one of lonesome places and bad genes, ghostly fathers and opposite brothers.

In any event, Paris, Texas is easily among the greatest achievements of everyone involved, including the actors.

Wenders wanted Shepard to play Travis, but it's impossible to imagine once you've spent two minutes with Harry Dean Stan-

ton, in what sadly remains his sole credit as a leading man. He was pushing 60 then, while Nastassja Kinski, who plays Jane, was only in her mid-20s, if radiating preternatural maturity onscreen, having already worked with—and in some cases been romanced by—Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader.

Kinski's depth of character, the suspicion and longing in her gaze, and the gentleness and frustration mixed into Stanton's voice, gestures and face—itself a sort of road map—doesn't leave you preoccupied with how Jane could love this man. Their long climactic scene together more than assures us that a thick and thorny story lay behind their union. Hunter Carson as their son feels playful and alert, yet never falsely ingratiating in his scenes with Stanton, while Dean Stockwell gives a warm performance as Walt, patient and anxious and mystified by this guy who happens to be his kin. To think that when Wenders cast Stockwell he was ready to give up movies for a career in real estate, a footnote in the movie's history that nicely echoes one of its key moments, when Travis shows Walt a dog-eared photo of some land he bought in Paris, Texas. It's just an empty lot, but it only makes sense that Travis would want to invest in a place where there's nothing. V

FILM // THE COCA-COLA CASE

A bitter aftertaste

The Coca-Cola Case shows how hard it is to take on a huge corporation Coke does nothing but smokescreen the issue, obfuscating facts with platitudes and carefully crafted empty gestures.

But that's barely half of it. The union in-

Friedman actually advised Pinochet on several matters—which have been pretty good for business and pretty bad for democratic rights in Colombia for more than

What comes across is the endless frustration of attempting to battle a multinational in our corporate-controlled world.

rate value dropped a whole percentage point, but that seems a pretty small price to pay to get away with murder. The CocaCola Case is a good introduction for anyone unaware of Coke's malfeasance, but I can't say it will fill you with a lot of hope for the prospect of getting the corporation to fess up to it. V Wed, Feb 10 (6:30 pm)

COOL, REFRESHING ... PROTEST? >> A group takes to the streets against Coke's alleged crimes // Creative Commons David Berry // david@vueweekly.com

A

ndy Warhol once said that the nifty thing about Coca-Cola was how the president of the United States couldn't get a better one than the bum on the corner. He was speaking to the inherent democracy of mass-production: there's a kind of liberty in normalcy. Shame that liberty doesn't apply to Coke's actual production.

The Coca-Cola Case follows the attempts of a group of lawyers, activists and unionists to bring the soft drink giant to justice for its (still technically alleged) involvement in the murder of eight union leaders at its Colombia bottling plant. They were murdered as part of a rash of anti-union violence in Colombia carried out by paramilitary organizations with tacit support of the government, a campaign of terror to break up union activity that included threats, intimidation, kidnapping, torture and the murder of more than 470 unionists across professions in the country. Stymied by corrupt courts in Colombia, they took their case to the US, making use of a loophole and also starting the "Killer Coke" campaign to spread the word of the company's shadier dealings.

And while The Coca-Cola Case does a great job in showing what's at stake— interviews with union members who have been personally threatened, some shots of a funeral where a bullet hole is clearly visible in the middle of one unionist's forehead and an interview with two grossly underpaid, overworked and put-upon Colombian Coca-Cola employees—really what comes across is the endless frustration of attempting to bat-

tle a multinational in our corporate-controlled world. Directors Carmen Garcia and German Gutierrez do end on a note of moral victory, in a sense, but honestly watching everyone struggle to get the most meagre kind of justice—an out-ofcourt settlement, which the unions ultimately reject because it doesn't include any admission of Coke's culpability—is just plain discouraging.

There are, of course, the usual hurdles:

timidation has been effective enough that the two Coke employees tell us most of the unionists are older, with the youth remaining outside: if you can't outright kill them, just engage in a war of attrition until all the old guys leave, I guess. The public hearings on Coke's behaviour are derailed by the revelation that one of the lawyers, gasp, once had his picture taken in front of a poster of Che Guevara, evidently enough of an offence to completely torpedo his moral standing against a corporation accused of murder. Worst of all, Coke has its fair share not just of the blissfully ignorant, but active supporters who oppose the work of Killer Coke and the like as so much socialist paranoia.

(It's awfully clever of the directors to show these anti-protests at the University of Chicago: Colombia was a kind of proving ground for the theories of the neoliberal Chicago school of economics—Milton

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

30 years now.)

And, of course, on top of that, Coke's dominance of the sugar-water market continues more or less unabated. I mean, yes, as Killer Coke's frontman Ray Rogers points out, a number of campuses in the States have banned Coke, and its corpo-

The Coca-Cola Case Directed by Carmen Garcia, German Gutierrez Featuring Daniel Kovalik, Terry Collingsworth, Ray Rogers ETLC 1-007, U of A Campus

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FILM // 23

FILM REVIEWS 



E BOY LOV RSE ITH HO SW THE ARI MP FRO

Film Capsules Opening Friday From Paris With Love

Directed by Pierre Morel Written by Adi Hasak, Luc Besson Starring John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers

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Charley Wax, a bald, goatee-d John Travolta whose gun is pointed at the head of the sobbing waiter of a Chinese restaurant/ drug front, has a message for the guy's boss: "Wax on, wax off."

Later, Wax explains to his bewildered new partner James (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) he was just giving the guy some nonsense to stew on. But the scene's inexplicable use of the Karate Kid reference proves quite a nice summation of From Paris With Love: namely, that Travolta's apparently reckless, loose-cannon cop, is actually more of a Mr. Miyagi, surprisingly wise and always two

steps ahead of everyone else—oh, that's why they carried around an urn filled with cocaine for so long—including logic.

Far be it for me to use the L-word to demean a movie clearly placing all its focus on action, but even for the genre, the script is rife with clichés —a version of the phrase, "His methods are a bit unorthodox, but he gets the job done," actually gets uttered here, in all sincerity, and unexplainable plot gaps that spiral wildly away, quickly and without reason, from the pretty basic set-up: James, a secret agent wannabe finally gets his call up to the big leagues, gets partnered with Wax and gets told to assist however he can. Of course, it's a classic oddcouple, buddy-cop scenario, except neither Travolta nor Meyers have much to build on with a script that rushes them through all the plot points, and most of which could really use a little more explanation: when the assignment turns from following the trail of a drug lord to foiling international terrorism, the dots are never properly explained enough to connect. Charlie Wax probably knows, but he isn't telling.

Partially redeeming is the action; seeing Travolta make short work of an approaching gang is well-done and legitimately exiciting, and there are a few other well-executed sequences. From Paris wants to be a serious action movie, but to be one of those, it needs a storyline with less bulletholes than the bad guys.

Paul Blinov

// paul@vueweekly.com

Openining at the Metro The Horse Boy

Fri, Feb 5, Sun, Feb 7 (9 pm) Sat, Feb 6, Mon, Feb 8 (7 pm) Directed by Michael O. Scott Metro Cinema (9828 - 101A Ave)



Six-year-old Rowan Isaacson is the autistic son of two very loving parents whose lives have, since his diagnosis, been devoted to finding a lasting treatment for his devastating disorder. Like in many cases of autism, Rowan has shown a resistance to all kinds of Western therapies and medications. But his gentle and immediate relationship with

24 // FILM

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

animals inspires his father Rupert to take his son on a Mongolian trek on horseback to seek the help of curing shamans.

The film begins by addressing and portraying the challenges of raising an autistic child, as clips of Rowan throwing wild tantrums are shown as his father Rupert narrates a troubled testimonial. Experts and doctors detail the current awareness of autism, as the types of diagnosis continue to expand and get more complicated. Attention quickly shifts to a daring-yet-simple solution as Rowan shows a fascinating rapport with a farm horse, which inspires the family to take the journey. It becomes apparent that their respect and pursuit of mystical treatments is a result of the failure of every conventional one to help, and in turn creates an intriguing narrative with spiritual hope.

As The Horse Boy's central voice, Rupert respects both the sincerity of the shaman's practices and the audience's skepticism. Despite hinting at the success of the experiment, the film expresses a locatable anxiety that doesn't expect us to buy into anything right away.

The sheer production around the scenario might bait skeptics to question how experimental the whole process may be, that the audience is being shouldered into anticipating specific results. The camerawork and editing demonstrate a lyrical patience that teeters into high drama, most of the time accompanied by a heavily emotive musical score of sentimental violins with a tinge of Eastern-type percussion. The increasing awareness of dramatic techniques in reality television and pop documentaries surfaces rather uncomfortably during the parts with the greatest amount of feeling, especially as the film climaxes into Rowan returning home and demonstrating a supposed all-around improvement.

Maybe the sentiment gets carried away, but for some, especially those having witnessed and been closely affected by individuals with autism, should prove to be touching and familiar. The lengthy and exhausting trip is by no means tightened together as it might be on a segment of Oprah, where uplifting stories culminate in hardcore tragedy or easily read heroism. It's tough to resolve, even for the parents as they return home and Rowan is suddenly a breeze to toilet train. A slight stutter in their following interviews suggest that they hope the effects of the treatment will indeed last. Such uncertainty feels as anxious as if there had been no resolve, and even as they open their home to provide a service to other parents

FILM REVIEWS

Film Capsules

and their children, there is still a quiet acknowledgement that are no easy answers.

Jonathan Busch

// jonathan@vueweekly.com

Liverpool

Fri, Feb 5, Sun, Feb 7 (7 pm) Mon, Feb 8 (9 pm) Directed by Lisandro Alonso Written by Alonso, Salvador Roselli Starring Juan Fernández, Nieves Cabrera, Giselle Irrazabal Metro Cinema (9828 - 101A Ave)

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We never find out how long Farrel (Juan Fernández) has been out at sea. Long enough, it seems, for his visage to attain an almost inscrutable neutrality, to covey nothing of whatever degree of contentment or despair he's accumulated by a life of landlessness and lonesomeness. I'd guess he's in his late 30s, though his grey hair might argue with that. He's also a tippler, which can do things to how a face wears its years.

Farrel's cargo ship docks in Ushuaia, capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego and commonly regarded as the southernmost city in the world. So you could say he's at the end of something. He tells his superior he wants to visit the village where he grew up, to see if his mother is still alive.

But is there more to this? He packs a bag while onboard, only to stash it away somewhere near the docks before setting out to traverse a snowbound landscape that sees a minimum of human life. It is unclear to us whether or not he plans to return. It may very well be unclear to him, too.

Like the protagonists of Lisandro Alonso's previous films, Farrel's journey from one world to another supplies the bulk of Liverpool's decidedly spare narrative. The shift from sea to rough roads to a remote and wintry logging village offers countless images of stark, rugged beauty, while causing us to feel that we're also somehow sliding deeper into Farrel's hidden anxieties. When he comes home hardly anyone recognizes him. A young woman of ambiguous mental facilities seems to have taken up his role in the place where he used to live. He keeps drinking, remains reticent, though something in him seems to be changing in this place. By the time we arrive at the film's final, pivotal image, we've gleaned just enough to understand what this journey was really all about.

I've seen Alonso's two previous features, both of which share Liverpool's rigorously detached, largely observational, almost anthropological formal strategy. I found Los Muertos (2004), the story of an ex-con returning to the scene of the crime, a masterful example of this sort of filmmaking, as well as surprisingly moving. By contrast, I found Fantasmas (2006), which I won't bother to describe except to say it centres around a screening of Los Muertos, to be a turgid parody of this same style, as though Alonso wanted to take the piss out of his own work and do so in the most annoyingly pretentious and unfunny way possible.

I thus came to Liverpool with a great deal of skepticism, but the film quickly won me over. Whatever pitfalls Alonso may stumble into as he develops his body of work, he clearly has a tremendous affinity for these stories of solitary, stoic figures working their way through the world.

Josef Braun

// josef@vueweekly.com

FILM WEEKLY FRI, FEB 5 – THU, FEB 11, 2010 9 CHABA

SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG, violence, not recom-

Sun 1:00

CINEPLEX ODEON SOUTH 1525-99 St, 780.436.8585

DEAR JOHN (PG) Daily 12:40, 3:50, 7:00, 10:00 FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse language) Daily 12:30, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:20

THEATRE�JASPER

WHEN IN ROME (PG) Fri, Sun-Thu 12:20, 2:40,

6094 Connaught Dr, Jasper, 780.852.4749

5:10, 7:40, 10:10; Sat 12:20, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory

TOOTH FAIRY (G)

scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 12:15, 3:10, 6:40, 9:45

Fri-Sat 7:00, 9:00; Sun-Thu 8:00; Sat-Sun 1:30pm scenes) Fri-Sat 7:00, 9:00; Sun-Thu 8:00; Sat-Sun 1:30

Daily 1:30, 4:15, 7:00, 9:20

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory scenes) Daily 1:20, 4:30, 7:15, 10:10

CINEMA AT THE CENTRE Stanley A. Milner Library Theatre, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq, 780.496.7070

TRAFIC (STC)

THE LOVELY BONES (PG, violence, mature subject matter) Daily 3:45, 6:50, 9:50

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recom-

Wed, Feb 10, 6:30;FILM French w/English subtitles EDMONTON SOCIETY

mended for children) Daily 12:50, 3:40, 7:10, 10:05

Royal Alberta Museum, 102 Ave, 128 St, 780.439.5284

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (PG)

CRAZY HEART (14A, coarse language, substance abuse)

Mon, Feb 8: 8:00

Fri-Tue, Thu 12:25, 3:30, 6:30, 9:15; Wed 12:25, 3:30, 6:30, 9:40

LEAP YEAR (PG)

5074-130 Ave, 780.472.9779

RANN (PG, not Recommended for young children)

Hindi W/E.S.T. Daily 7:00, 9:50

CREATION (PG, mature subject matter) Daily 1:15, 4:05, 6:50, 9:25

4:15, 7:40, 11:00; Sun-Thu 1:00, 4:15, 7:40

DAYBREAKERS (18A, gory scenes) Fri-Sat 1:50,

7:45, 11:05; Sun-Thu 12:50, 4:10, 7:45

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: SIMON BOC� CANEGRA (Classification not available) Sat 11:00 RACE ACROSS THE SKY (G)

FANTASTIC MR. FOX (PG) Daily 1:25, 4:40, 6:45, PLANET 51 (G) Daily 1:40, 4:30, 7:15 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON (PG,

Sun 1:00

CITY CENTRE 9

violence) Fri-Sat 1:20, 4:00, 6:55, 9:50, 12:15; Sun-Thu 1:20, 4:00, 6:55, 9:50

10200-102 Ave, 780.421.7020

DEAR JOHN (PG) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium seating Daily 12:20, 3:45, 7:10, 10:00

2012 (PG. not recommended for young children,

frightening scenes) Fri-Sat Fri-Sat 1:10, 4:20, 7:35, 11:15; Sun-Thu 1:10, 4:20, 7:35

AVATAR 3D (PG, violence, not recommended for young

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN (18A, brutal violence)

Fri-Sat 1:45, 4:45, 7:20, 9:55, 12:10; Sun-Thu 1:45, 4:45, 7:20, 9:55

COUPLES RETREAT (PG, sexual content, not CINEPLEX ODEON NORTH

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse

language) Daily 1:50, 4:30, 7:50, 10:20

Daily 12:10, 2:30, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50

scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 12:50, 3:40, 7:10, 10:05

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Fri-Tue, Thu 12:20, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10; Wed 5:10, 7:40, 10:10; Star & Strollers Screening: Wed 1:00 LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory

scenes) Daily 2:00, 5:00, 8:00, 10:40

THE LOVELY BONES (PG, violence, mature

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory scenes) Stadium seating, DTS Digital Daily 12:15, 2:35, 5:10, 7:35, 10:10 SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG, violence, not recom-

mended for young children) Stadium seating, DTS Digital Daily 12:30, 3:25, 6:40, 9:35

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory scenes, not recommended for children) Stadium seating, No passes, DTS Digital Daily 12:45, 3:35, 6:50, 9:40

CLAREVIEW 10 4211-139 Ave, 780.472.7600

AVATAR 3D (PG, violence, not recommended for young children) Digital 3d, On 2 screens Fri 4:20, 4:50, 8:00, 9:00; Sat-Sun 12:45, 1:15, 4:20, 4:50, 8:00, 9:00; Mon-Thu 4:30, 7:30, 8:00

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G) Fri 4:15; Sat-Sun 1:20, 4:15; Mon-

recommended for children) Daily 1:40, 4:40, 7:30, 10:30

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recom-

LEAP YEAR (PG)

Fri-Sun 1:00

SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG, violence, not recom-

mended for young children) Fri, Mon-Thu 1:10, 4:10, 7:15, 10:15; Sat-Sun 4:10, 7:15, 10:15

IT'S COMPLICATED (14A)

Fri-Sun 3:20, 6:35, 9:20; Mon-Thu 9:00

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

Daily 12:00, 2:10, 4:20, 6:45

AVATAR 3D (PG, violence, not recommended for

young children) Digital 3d Daily 12:30, 2:15, 4:15, 6:30, 8:15, 10:00

PRINCESS AND THE FROG (G) Daily 1:30

UP IN THE AIR (14A, coarse language) Daily 12:40, 3:30, 6:50, 9:40

THE BLIND SIDE (PG, mature subject matter)

Daily 3:50, 6:40, 9:30

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: SIMON BOCCANEGRA (Classification not available) Sat 11:00

RACE ACROSS THE SKY (G)

scenes, not recommended for children) Fri 4:20, 7:50, 10:40; Sat-Sun 1:00, 4:20, 7:50, 10:40; Mon-Thu 7:50, 10:40

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Fri 3:45, 6:50, 9:30; Sat-Sun 12:20, 3:45, 6:50, 9:30; MonThu 6:50, 9:30 EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES (PG, coarse language) Daily 9:50

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not

recommended for children) Fri 4:10, 7:45, 10:30; Sat-Sun 1:10, 4:10, 7:45, 10:30; Mon-Thu 7:45, 10:30

SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG, violence, not recommended for young children) Fri 4:00, 7:20, 10:15; Sat-Sun 12:15, 4:00, 7:20, 10:15; Mon-Thu 7:20, 10:15

IT'S COMPLICATED (14A)

Fri, Sun 4:15, 7:15, 10:00; Sat 12:10, 4:15, 7:15, 10:00; Mon-Thu 7:15, 10:00

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 6:50, 9:25; Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 12:50, 3:25

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 1:10, 3:15

AVATAR (PG, violence, not recommended for young children) Daily 7:30; Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 2:00

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory scenes) Daily 7:10, 9:15 GARNEAU 8712-109 St, 780.433.0728

CRAZY HEART (14A, coarse language, substance

abuse) Daily 6:45, 9:15; Sat-Sun 2:00

PRINCESS 10337-82 Ave, 780.433.0728

A SINGLE MAN (PG, mature subject matter not recommended for children) Daily 7:00, 9:00; Sat, Sun 3:15

THE YOUNG VICTORIA (PG)

Sat, Sun 1:15

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNAS� SUS (PG, coarse language, frightening scenes)

Daily 9:10; Sat, Sun 3:30

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘PUSH’

BY SAPPHIRE (14A, sexual violence, coarse language, disturbing content) Daily 6:50; Sat-Sun 1:00

SCOTIABANK THEATRE WEM WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.444.2400

DEAR JOHN (PG)

Fri-Tue, Thu 12:50, 3:50, 6:50, 9:30; Wed 3:50, 6:50, 9:30; Star & Strollers Screening: Wed 1:00

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse language) Daily 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 8:00, 10:45

Sun 1:00

subject matter) Fri-Sun 9:00

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

mended for children) DTS Digital, Stadium seating Daily 12:35, 3:15, 7:00

Stadium seating, DTS Digital, No passes Daily 12:10, 2:25, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

Fri 3:30, 7:10, 9:45; Sat-Sun 12:30, 3:30, 7:10, 9:45; MonThu 7:10, 9:45

mended for children) Daily 6:55, 9:20; Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 12:55, 3:20

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

WHEN IN ROME (PG)

WHEN IN ROME (PG)

DEAR JOHN (PG)

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recom-

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse language) DTS Digital Daily 12:05, 2:45, 5:15, 7:40, 10:05

DTS Digital, Stadium seating Daily 9:55

14231-137 Ave, 780.732.2236

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

Daily 6:45, 9:00; Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 12:45, 3:00

young children) Digital 3d Fri 3:15, 7:00, 10:30; Sat-Sun 11:45, 3:15, 7:00, 10:30; Mon-Thu 6:30, 10:00

UP IN THE AIR (14A, coarse language)

DEAR JOHN (PG) Fri-Tue, Thu 1:20, 4:00, 7:00, 9:45; Wed 4:00, 7:00, 9:45; Star & Strollers Screening: Wed 1:00

GALAXY�SHERWOOD PARK

Daily 7:05, 9:10; Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 1:00, 3:10

TOOTH FAIRY (G)

WHEN IN ROME (PG)

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recom-

recommended for children) Fri-Sat 9:30, 11:50; SunThu 9:30

THE LOVELY BONES (PG, violence, mature subject matter) Daily 6:45; Fri, Sat, Sun 1:45

Daily 7:00pm & 9:30; Fri, Sat, Sun, Tue 1:00, 3:30; Movies For Mommies: Feb 9: 1:00

Fri 4:45, 7:30; Sat-Sun 12:00, 2:30, 4:45, 7:30; Mon-Thu 7:30

children) Digital 3d, Stadium seating Daily 12:00, 1:00, 4:00, 5:00, 8:00, 9:00

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (PG, not recommended for young children) Daily 1:30, 4:35

scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 7:00, 9:10; Fri, Sat, Sun 2:00

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

Fri-Sat, Mon-Thu 1:40, 4:40, 7:30, 10:25; Sun 4:40, 7:30, 10:25

9:20

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

Fri, Sun-Thu 1:10, 4:10, 6:55, 9:40; Sat 4:10, 6:55, 9:40

UP IN THE AIR (14A, coarse language)

4:25, 7:05, 9:40, 12:00; Sun-Thu 1:25, 4:25, 7:05, 9:40

Daily 7:10 9:20; Sat-Sun 2:10; Movies For Mommies: Fri Feb 5: 1:00

Fri 3:50, 6:45, 9:40; Sat-Sun 12:45, 3:50, 6:45, 9:40; MonThu 6:45, 9:40

Daily 1:05

THE ROAD (14A, disturbing content) Fri-Sat 1:25,

DEAR JOHN (PG)

IT'S COMPLICATED (14A)

PRINCESS AND THE FROG (G)

(PG) Fri-Sat 1:35, 4:15, 7:10, 9:35, 11:55; Sun-Thu 1:35, 4:15, 7:10, 9:35

WHEN IN ROME (PG)

WHEN IN ROME (PG)

AVATAR 3D (PG, violence, not recommended for young children) Digital 3d Daily 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 10:15

4:50, 7:25, 10:00, 12:20; Sun-Thu 1:50, 4:50, 7:25, 10:00

3 IDIOTS (PG) Hindi W/E.S.T. Fri-Sat 12:50, 4:10,

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Daily 7:05 9:05; Sat, Sun 2:05

scenes) Daily 7:15; Fri, Sat, Sun 2:15

mended for young children) Daily 1:15, 4:20, 7:20, 10:30

Fri-Tue, Thu 12:45, 3:20, 6:45; Wed 12:45, 3:20

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

DEAR JOHN (PG)

SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG, violence, not recom-

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

VEER (14A, violence) Hindi W/E.S.T. Fri-Sat 1:00,

PARKLAND CINEMA 7

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory

language) Fri 4:30, 7:40, 10:10; Sat-Sun 12:50, 4:30, 7:40, 10:10; Mon-Thu 7:40, 10:10

Daily 9:45

CINEMA CITY MOVIES 12

mended for young children) Daily 9:10

Thu 4:50

AVATAR 3D (PG, violence, not recommended for

RACE ACROSS THE SKY (G)

GRANDIN THEATRE�ST ALBERT Grandin Mall, Sir Winston Churchill Ave, St Albert, 780.458.9822

DATE OF ISSUE ONLY: THU, FEB 4 EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory scenes, not recommended for children) Thu, Feb 4: 1:05 3:15 5:20 7:30 9:45

THE LOVELY BONES (PG, violence, mature

subject matter) Thu, Feb 4: 2:15 4:45 7:15 9:40

WHEN IN ROME (PG) No passes Fri 4:30, 7:00, 9:20; Sat-Sun 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:20; Mon-Thu 5:50, 8:20 EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

scenes, not recommended for children) No passes Fri 4:00, 6:50, 9:35; Sat-Sun 1:10, 4:00, 6:50, 9:35; Mon-Thu 5:20, 8:40

DEAR JOHN (PG) Fri 4:10, 6:45, 9:25; Sat-Sun 1:30, 4:10, 6:45, 9:25; Mon-Thu 5:30, 8:30

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse

language) Fri 4:45, 7:20, 9:40; Sat-Sun 1:50, 4:45, 7:20, 9:40; Mon-Thu 5:10, 8:15

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

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recommended for children) Daily 9:15

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

THE LOVELY BONES (PG, violence, mature subject matter) Fri, Sun-Tue, Thu 12:30, 3:30, 6:40, 9:40; Sat 3:30, 6:40, 9:40; Wed 12:30, 3:30, 9:40

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recommended for children) Daily 1:00, 4:00, 7:40, 10:40

SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG, violence, not recom-

mended for young children) Daily 1:20, 4:20, 7:10, 10:10

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

Thu, Feb 4: 1:15 3:05

THE BOOK OF ELI (14A, brutal violence, not recommended for children) Thu, Feb 4: 4:55 7:15 9:30

AVATAR (PG, violence, not recommended for young children) Thu, Feb 4: 12:40 3:30 6:20 9:15

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Thu, Feb 4: 1:00 3:00 5:00 7:00 9:00 LEDUC CINEMAS Leduc, 780.352.3922

AVATAR DIGITAL 3D (PG, violence, not recom-

Fri 4:40, 7:15, 9:45; Sat-Sun 1:40, 4:40, 7:15, 9:45; MonThu 5:15, 8:50

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory scenes) Daily 12:00, 2:40, 5:10, 7:50, 10:45

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (G)

matter) Fri-Sun 6:35, 9:30; Mon-Thu 8:10

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory scenes)

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Daily 1:10, 4:10, 6:45, 9:20

IT'S COMPLICATED (14A)

Thu, Feb 4: 12:30

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Fri 3:45, 6:40, 9:10; Sat-Sun 12:50, 3:45, 6:40, 9:10; Mon-Thu 5:40, 8:25

scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 1:30, 4:40, 7:30, 10:20

THE SPY NEXT DOOR (PG)

mended for children) Fri 3:50, 7:10, 9:50; Sat-Sun 1:00, 3:50, 7:10, 9:50; Mon-Thu 5:00, 8:45

THE LOVELY BONES (PG, violence, mature subject

Fri-Tue, Thu 12:10, 2:30, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50; Wed 4:50, 7:20, 9:50; Star & Strollers Screening: Wed 1:00

scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 7:00, 9:30; Thu–Sun 1:10, 3:30

mended for young children) Daily 6:45 pm and 9:45; Thu-Sun 12:30, 3:35

DEAR JOHN (PG)

Daily 7:10, 9:35; Fri-Sun 1:10, 3:35

TOOTH FAIRY (G)

Daily 7:05, 9:20; Thu–Sun 1:05, 3:20

METRO CINEMA

9828-101A Ave, Citadel Theatre, 780.425.9212

LIVERPOOL (STC) Fri, Sun 7:00; Mon 9:00 THE HORSE BOY (PG, coarse language, mature

subject matter) Sat, Mon 7:00; Fri, Sun 9:00

MOSTLY WATER PRESENTS: METRO DIGI� TAL SHORTS (Classification not available) Sat 9:00 MADE IN EDMONTON: VISUAL ACOUS� TICS (Classification not available) Wed 8:00; Free STEM CELL: EXPERIMENTAL DOCS 1: VARIATIONS ON THE HOME MOVIE (Classification not available) Reeling: The MZD Badlands Project: Thu 9:00

Fri-Tue, Thu 4:30, 7:15, 10:00; Wed 4:00, 10:00

Fri-Tue, Thu 11:50, 2:15; Wed 11:50, 2:00

AVATAR 3D (PG, violence, not recommended for

young children) Digital 3d Fri, Sun-Thu 12:45, 2:00, 4:45, 6:30, 8:45, 10:15; Sat 12:00, 2:00, 3:45, 6:30, 7:30, 10:15, 10:45

AVATAR DIGITAL 3D (PG, violence, not recom-

mended for young children) Fri, Sun-Thu 11:45, 3:15, 7:00, 10:30; Sat 10:00, 1:20, 4:45, 8:10, 11:30

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: SIMON BOC� CANEGRA (Classification not available) Sat 11:00 WESTMOUNT CENTRE 111 Ave, Groat Rd, 780.455.8726

INVICTUS (PG, coarse language)

Dolby Stereo Digital Fri 6:40, 9:40; Sat-Sun 12:45, 3:50, 6:40, 9:40; Mon-Thu 5:10, 8:10

THE BLIND SIDE (PG, mature subject matter) Fri 6:25, 9:20; Sat-Sun 12:30, 3:30, 6:25, 9:20; Mon-Thu 5:20, 8:20

DEAR JOHN (PG) DTS Digital Fri 6:55, 9:30; Sat-Sun 1:00, 3:40, 6:55, 9:30; Mon-Thu 5:30, 8:30

TOOTH FAIRY (G) DTS Digital Fri 7:10, 9:50; Sat-Sun

1:15, 4:00, 7:10, 9:50; Mon-Thu 5:00, 8:00

WETASKIWIN CINEMAS

Wetaskiwin, 780.352.3922

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (14A, violence, coarse language) Daily 7:05 pm and 9:25; Fri-Sun 1:05 pm and 3:25

THE BLIND SIDE (PG, mature subject matter) Daily 7:00; Fri-Sun 1:00, 3:30

EDGE OF DARKNESS (14A, brutal violence, gory scenes, not recommended for children) Daily 7:10, 9:35; Sat-Sun 1:10, 3:35

TOOTH FAIRY (G) Daily 6:55, 9:20; Thu-Sun 12:55, 3:20

LEGION (14A, violence, coarse language, gory scenes)

Daily 9:30

FILM // 25

INSIDE // MUSIC

MUSIC

36

Raekwon

PREVUE // RAE SPOON

In-between places

Rae Spoon's singular voice lingers at the stations Mary Christa O'Keefe // marychrista@vueweekly.com

G

et right down to it and there are really only two kinds of songs: those about Home, and those about Elsewhere. Even when it's not an explicit trope, like in the travelling songs of the bluesman, groupie-loving arena rocker, itinerant folkie or meditative cowboy, larger notions of Home and Elsewhere are tucked into all musical expression.

What is love if not a home for your heart, a cottage in another's ribcage under the sheltering eaves of familiar arms? All love songs, then, become songs about Home, and those about unabashed carousing, joyous searching, painful longing or the bereavement of separation are songs of Elsewhere. Anthems are by nature intensely preoccupied with Home, literally ("Oh Canada") or declaratively tribal ("I Wanna Rock"), and entire genres—rap, roots, country, big 'F' Folk music—are devoted to limning the authenticity of origins.

Bach's Passions and shamanic drumming posit a homecoming to an eternal divine after the rift of mortality, while music's evolutionary ancestry appears in our primate cousins' vocalizations used to declare territory and cement social relations—physical and emotional homes mapped by sound.

Rae Spoon's most recent musical projects are almost wholly concerned with the vast and varied realms of Elsewhere: the stuttering rhythm of journeys, surreal moments of way-station pauses and blurred backroads, the sense of expectation and transcendence, the thrill and uncertainty of the unfamiliar. His breakout album, 2008's SuperiorYouAreInferior, was a reckoning of flight from people, places and the confining regrets of the past pinned to Canadian and European landscapes. Spoon's Berlin-based collaboration with sound artist Alexandre De Coupigny from late 2009, Worauf Wartest Du?/What Are You Waiting For? (available as a free download at djcpi.blogspot.com/2009/10/ rae-spoon-and-alex-decoupigny-whatare.html) is a public art project centred around an underground train line that was planned but never actually built.

Both sets of songs enfold a sophisticatedly broad aural palette—analogue and digital, feminine and masculine, rootsy-folk and grandiose glossy pop.

And both are connected to Spoon's long-peripatetic life. Emerging from Calgary's '90s singer-songwriter scene as a country musician with his 2001 debut, Honking at Minivans, Spoon delivered three progressively more honed records in that genre in between hectic periods of touring and moving around Canada and Europe.

"It was really honky-tonk," Spoon re-

26 // MUSIC

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

HOME AT LAST >> Rae Spoon found home by leaving the country behind calls. "I actually started playing country when I left Calgary, while I was in Vancouver or Victoria. It was a way of exploring where I was from. I'd be on the Coast or somewhere, writing about oilrigs. It was also that time when everyone had a country band, you know?"

Spoon laughs, and adds earnestly, "Country can be serious, but often it gets taken less seriously—almost camp.

But if a show ever started backfiring I'd play some country music. It's universal, everyone loves it, and in that sense, it's great, but there came a point when I felt finished with what I was doing."

He continues: "I wasn't sure if I was finished with music or country. The genre is not really the kind of music that's hospitable for queer people. It's kind of hostile to it, really. Just picture me in Red Deer, or all these small towns, alone, playing to a conservative country crowd. You know when they chase you around with beer bottles?

Was I brave or stupid?"

Spoon's disarming honesty is punctuated by disclaimers: "I'm not saying I hate small towns or had all bad experiences," and, "I'm not saying country people are

// Supplied

all like that," but you can hear the weariness threaded through his tale, even as he studs it with self-deprecating wit.

Superior was a last-ditch effort to come home to himself, creatively speaking, and integrate his wanderings. Spoon consciously changed his writing and singing styles along with his genre, seeking a more appreciative and ultimately cosmopolitan audience.

"I realized after years of being bothered that it was because I look like a boy and sing like a girl—people can't quite put it together," Spoon laughs. "Sometimes I can't!"

He's contradicted by the powerful coherence of his music. Maybe there's really only one kind of song, a musical Moebius strip that puts us on some kind of perpetual continuum of seeking and finding. Maybe Spoon's genius is his willingness to show this geometry, to sing of the in-between places as if they were home. V Sat, Feb 6 (8 pm) Rae Spoon With Geoff Berner & his Klezmer Trio The ARTery, $12 – $15

ALBUM >> DAN MANGAN

Very Nice

Dan Mangan talks about the making of his latest album Dan Mangan's been on a bit of an upswing lately—his sophomore album, Nice, Nice, Very Nice, has been garnering some impressive praise, his shows are getting more and more crowded and he's even taken his songs overseas to Australia—but it's been a long time coming. The Vancouver songwriter is a hard-working-type who's been plying his trade and writing a stack of new songs ever since his 2005 full-length debut Postcards and Daydreaming. Mangan spoke to Vue Weekly while on the tail end of his Australian tour about the creation of Nice, Nice, Very Nice.

VUE WEEKLY: How long did it take to make Nice, Nice, Very Nice, from the initial songwriting through to the end of the recording?

DAN MANGAN: The songs started coming together just after I recorded Postcards and Daydreaming in the summer of 2005. I think "Basket" was written within a few weeks of mastering P&D. We mastered NNVN in January of 2009, so there was a lot of time for digesting, processing, second-guessing, etc.

I didn't really write a batch of songs for the new album, but they were collected over that stretch of years—sometimes I'd get really active and spew out a few songs in a week, and some of them took months to finish. The songs for NNVN were spawned over such a long period of time that I think we were able to capture a lot of different vibes and really pick the best ones.

VW: When you were writing the songs, did you come at them in a particular way: lyrics first? Music first?

DM: When I first started writing songs, the music always came first—then a series of mumbles would work their way into words.

I think as I got more comfortable as a writer, the lyrics started becoming more and more important to me. These days it can come from any direction, and take any amount of time to finish. Sometimes a pile of lyrics will find a melody and guitar, sometimes it's just a simple rhythm or vibe that will stem a song. I like to keep it different, and changing.

Every time I feel like I've gotten locked in a "style" I start aching for change.

DAYDREAM BELIEVER >> Dan Mangan is garnering some Very Nice praise for the follow-up to 2005's Postcards and Daydreaming // Supplied VW: How did you choose the other players on the album? Are they people you play with regularly, or were they brought in specifically for the album?

DM: The stand-in band were people I'd been playing with for a few years. John Walsh (bass), Kenton Loewen (drums) and Aaron Joyce (guitar/weisenborn) really made up the staple instruments. Aaron also did a number of arrangements (horns/strings) for the album and it was great to have people involved who already really knew the songs inside-out. The album credits list 20-something people, though. I kept asking people to be involved and they kept saying, "Yes" —it was so great to have so many talented people dropping in their creativity here and there. Some cameos are more prevalent or noticeable (Veda Hille) and some are more subtle (Mark Sasso from Elliott Brood). Either way, everyone kept blowing me away with their performances. There were definitely varying levels of familiarity—both in a personal sense, and in a musical sense. I'd toured with Elliott Brood a bunch, and same with Mark Berube. Veda, however, I had met years earlier (she played at my sister's wedding and went to highschool with my brother-in-law) but it was a bit of a cold-call asking her to play.

VW: Did you bring the songs to the studio fully formed, or are they sketches that are

then filled out as a group?

DM: Totally varied. "Robots," "Some People" and "Sold" were pretty much together beforehand (though the up-tempo clapping section of "Sold" was a last-minute addition). "Tina's Glorious Comeback" was one of the last songs we tracked, and it was just a matter of throwing a lot of ideas at the wall to see what would stick. "The Indie Queens Are Waiting" was a completely different song before Veda's duet vocals—she really changed the song's vibe, and I loved the direction it took. "Set the Sails" was originally twice as long with an extra verse.

John (Critchley, producer) figured we should cut the song entirely, but my gut wanted to fight for it—I suggested shortening the song, and now it sounds simply like an extra track to the album, which is kind of cool.

I like the idea of approaching the studio not knowing what is going to happen. Experimentation should abound within the studio walls, I figure. It might be different for a rock band where the parts should all be written and rehearsed, but for now I'm pretty happy to go in somewhat blind in some areas. The important thing is not to just stick to an arrangement formula: it's important to try to bring out the best aspects of each individual song and hope that they fit together nicely.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 33 >>

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 27

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

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Cuba; 7:30pm; $30 at TicketMaster, Arden box office

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Joel Fafard; $15

BLUES ON WHYTE Scott

HOOLIGANZ PUB Open stage Thursdays hosted by Shane and Naomi HORIZON STAGE Rodeo Riders (comedic cowboy musicians) Up Close and Personal; 2pm; $20 for all ages at Horizon Stage box office

JAMMERS PUB Thursday

and others; 7pm (music and dinner); $150, proceeds to the Canadian Red Cross's Haiti Relief Fund

Thursdays: with DJ NV and Joey Nokturnal; 9:30pm (door); no cover

Christan Hansen and the Autistics; all proceeds to the Red Cross

SECOND CUP�Varscona

LUCKY 13 Sin Thursdays with DJ Mike Tomas

AXIS CAFÉ Chris Naish, Steve Wirzba

NEW CITY SUBURBS

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ House

Live music every Thursday night between 7pm and 9pm

SHELL THEATRE�Dow Centennial Centre Soaring Strings with Samantha Fraughton; 7:3pm

WILD WEST SALOON Tera Lee

ON THE ROCKS Salsaholic Thursdays: Dance lessons at 8pm; Salsa DJ to follow

Classical

PLANET INDIGO�St Albert Hit It Thursdays:

SHELL THEATRE�Dow Centennial Centre

Soaring Strings, Samantha Fraughton; 7:30pm; $24.50 (adult)/$22.50 (senior/ student) at Dow ticket outlet, TicketMaster

Holt

open jam; 7-11pm

DJs

BRIXX BAR Greg Sczebel

JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis

BILLY BOB’S LOUNGE

and Jaird; 8pm (door); $12 (door)

CHRISTOPHER'S PARTY PUB Open stage hosted by Alberta Crude; 6-10pm

CROWN PUB Crown Pub

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

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

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

DV8 Open mic Thursdays ENCORE CLUB With A

Latin Twist: free Salsa Dance Lessons at 9pm

HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB

Open jam, 6:30pm; 100 Mile House, Lorrie Matheson, Carrie Hryniw; 8pm; $10 (door)

Graham Lawrence ( jazz piano); 8:30pm

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

LIVE WIRE BAR Open

Stage Thursdays with Gary Thomas

NAKED CYBERCAFÉ Open stage every Thursday; bring your own instruments, fully equipped stage; 8pm NORTH GLENORA HALL

Jam by Wild Rose Old Time Fiddlers

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

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

SABOR DIVINO RESTAURANT Sabor

Escapack Entertainment

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE

Big Rock Thursdays: DJs on 3 levels–Topwise Soundsystem spin Dub & Reggae in The Underdog

BUDDY'S DJ Bobby Beatz; 9pm; no cover before 10pm; Shiwana Millionaire Wet Underwear Contest 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

GINGUR SKY Urban Substance Thursdays

HALO Thursdays Fo Sho:

Divino's Concert and Dinner for Haiti Relief: Music

by Chris Andrew, Alfie Zappacosta, Christian Mena, Dave Babcock, Jeff Hendrick

Bingo at 9:30pm followed by Electroshock Therapy with Dervish Nazz Nomad and Plan B (electro, retro)

with Allout DJs DJ Degree, Junior Brown

KAS BAR Urban House: with

DJ Mark Stevens; 9pm

LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Absolut

breaks, electro house spun with PI residents

PROHIBITION Throwback

Thursday: old school r&b, hip hop, dance, pop, funk, soul, house and everything retro with DJ Service, Awesome

RENDEZVOUS PUB Metal

Thurzday with org666

SPORTSWORLD Roller

Skating Disco: Thursday Retro Nights; 7-10:30pm; sports-world.ca

STARLITE ROOM Music

1st and The Techno Hippy Crew: Bassnectar, Kush Arora, Shamik and guests; 8pm

STOLLI'S Dancehall, hip hop with DJ Footnotes hosted by Elle Dirty and ConScience every Thursday; no cover

TEMPLE Surely Temple Thursdays: with DJ Tron, DCD, Optimixx Prime, Miyuru Fernando; 9pm (door); $5 (cover) WUNDERBAR DJ Thermos

Rump Shakin' Thursdays: From indie to hip hop, that's cool and has a beat; no cover

FRIDAY 180 DEGREES Sexy Friday night every Friday AVENUE THEATRE The

Weekend Kids, Radioforhelp, Christan Hansen from

Kats; $10

BLUES ON WHYTE Scott Holt

BRIXX BAR The Zola's, We

Are the City, Call Before You Dig; 9pm (door); $12 (adv) at Brixx, Blackbyrd/$15 (door)

CARROT Live music Fridays:

Proper Charlies; all ages; 7:309:30pm; $5 (door)

CASINO EDMONTON Stars

Tonight (Tribute)

CASINO YELLOWHEAD The Classics (nostalgia)

COAST TO COAST Open Stage every Friday; 9:30pm

THE DRUID IRISH PUB

Live music with Darrell Barr; 5:30-8:30; DJ at 9pm

DV8 TAVERN Live music every Friday; 9pm; $5

EARLY STAGE SALOON� Stony Plain Jimmy Gaboosh

with the Fender Benders featuring Gord Matthews

EDDIE SHORTS Red House (blues, R&B); 9pm; no cover

ENCORE CLUB 4 Play Fridays

FESTIVAL PLACE Simone

on Simone ( jazz); James Clarke; 7:30pm; $40 (table)/$38 (box)/$34 (theatre) at the Festival Place box office

FRESH START CAFÉ Live music Fridays: Kira Hladun; 7-10pm; $7 HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB 2nd Early show: Dan Mangan, Aidan Knight, tickets at TicketMaster, Blackbyrd, Megatunes, Haven; 6pm (door), 6:30pm (show); Late show: Dan Mangan, Aidan Knight, Sold out

VUEFINDER VENUE GUIDE 180 DEGREES 10730-107 St, 780.414.0233

FRESH START CAFÉ Riverbend Sq, 780.433.9623

ON THE ROCKS 11730 Jasper Ave, 780.482.4767

ALMANAC RESTAURANT�Stony Plain 5202-50 St, Stony Plain

FUNKY BUDDHA 10341-82 Ave, 780.433.9676

ORLANDO'S 1 15163-121 St

GAS PUMP 10166-114 St, 780.488.4841

OVERTIME Whitemud Crossing, 4211-106 St, 780.485.1717

ARTERY 9535 Jasper Ave AVENUE THEATRE 9030-118 Ave, 780.477.2149 AXIS CAFÉ 10349 Jasper Ave, 780.990.0031 BANK ULTRA LOUNGE 10765 Jasper Ave, 780.420.9098 BILLY BOB’S Continental Inn, 16625 Stony Plain Rd, 780.484.7751 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE 10425-82 Ave, 780.439.1082

GINGUR SKY 15505-118 Ave, 780.913.4312/780.953.3606 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 PUB 10704-124 St, 780.452.1168

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 PROHIBITION 11026 Jasper Ave, 780.420.0448

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ 9624-76 Ave, 780.989.2861

HORIZON STAGE 1001 Calahoo Rd, Spruce Grove, 780.962.8995

BLUES ON WHYTE 10329-82 Ave, 780.439.3981

HYDEAWAY 10209-100 Ave, 780.426.5381

BOOTS 10242-106 St, 780.423.5014

IRON BOAR PUB 4911-51st St, Wetaskiwin

RED PIANO BAR 1638 Bourbon St, WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.486.7722

BRIXX BAR 10030-102 St (downstairs), 780.428.1099

IVORY CLUB 2940 Calgary Trail South

RED STAR 10538 Jasper Ave, 780.428.0825

BUDDY’S 11725B Jasper Ave, 780.488.6636

JAMMERS PUB 11948-127 Ave, 780.451.8779

RENDEZVOUS PUB 10108-149 St

CASINO EDMONTON 7055 Argylll Rd, 780.463.9467

J AND R 4003-106 St, 780.436.4403

RIC’S GRILL 24 Perron St, St Albert, 780.460.6602

CASINO YELLOWHEAD 12464-153 St, 780 424 9467

JEFFREY’S CAFÉ 9640 142 St, 780.451.8890

CHATEAU LOUIS 11727 Kingsway, 780 452 7770

JEKYLL AND HYDE 10209-100 Ave, 780.426.5381

ROBERT TEGLER STUDENT CENTRE Concordia Campus, 73 St , 112 Ave

CHRISTOPHER’S 2021 Millbourne Rd, 780.462.6565

JOJO’S�LA PIAZZA DASEE 8004 Gateway Blvd, 780.437.5555

ROSEBOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE 10111-117 St, 780.482.5253 ROSE AND CROWN 10235-101 St

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM 11455-87 Ave, 780.429.1000

SABOR DIVINO RESTAURANT 10220-103 St, 780.757.1114

KAS BAR 10444-82 Ave, 780.433.6768

ST BASIL’S CULTURAL CENTRE 10819-71 Ave

L.B.’S PUB 23 Akins Dr, St Albert, 780.460.9100

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

CHROME LOUNGE 132 Ave, Victoria Trail COAST TO COAST 5552 Calgary Tr, 780.439.8675 CONVOCATION HALL Arts Bldg, U of A, 780.492.3611 COPPERPOT Capital Place, 101, 9707-110 St, 780.452.7800

LEGENDS PUB 6104-172 St, 780.481.2786

CROWN AND ANCHOR 15277 Castledowns Rd, 780.472.7696

LEVEL 2 LOUNGE 11607 Jasper Ave, 2nd Fl, 780.447.4495

CROWN PUB 10709-109 St, 780.428.5618

LIVE WIRE 1107 Knotwood Rd. East

DIESEL ULTRA LOUNGE 11845 Wayne Gretzky Drive, 780.704.CLUB

MACLAB CENTRE�Leduc 4308-50 St, Leduc, 780.980.1866

DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB 9013-88 Ave, 780.465.4834

MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH 10025-101 St

DRUID 11606 Jasper Ave, 780.454.9928

MEMORIAL ARTS CENTRE�Wetaskiwin 5206-50 St, Wetaskiwin

DUSTER’S PUB 6402-118 Ave, 780.474.5554 DV8 TAVERN 8307-99 St, DV8TAVERN.com EARLY STAGE SALOON 4911-52 Ave, Stony Plain

VUE

ENCORE CLUB 957 Fir St, Sherwood Park, 780.417.0111

R FINDE

FESTIVAL PLACE 100 Festival Way, Sherwood Park, 780.449.3378, 780.464.2852 FIDDLER’S ROOST 8906-99om St

MORANGO’S TEK CAFÉ 10118-79 St MUTTART HALL�Alberta College 10050 Macdonald Dr, 780.489.9580 MYER HOROWITZ THEATRE Student’s Union Bdg, U of A NAKED CYBERCAFÉ 10354 Jasper Ave

REDNEX BAR�Morinville 10413-100 Ave, Morinville, 780.939.6955, rednex.ca

SHELL THEATRE�Dow Centennial Centre 8700-84 St, >gjl KYkcYl[`]oYf /0(&11*&.,(( SIDELINERS PUB 11018-127 St, 780.453.6006 SPORTSMAN'S LOUNGE 8170-50 St SPORTSWORLD 13710-104 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 SUEDE LOUNGE 11806 Jasper Ave, 780.482.0707 TAPHOUSE 9020 McKenney Ave, St Albert, 780.458.0860

UNION HALL Argyll, 99 St, 780.702.2582 WED, JAN 27 / MÖTLEY CRÜE / REXALL PLACE >> READ Gravy's review and see more photos of

NEWCASTLE PUB 6108-90 Ave, 780.490.1999 WILD WESTat SALOON 12912-50 St, 780.476.3388 ekly.c Mötley Crüe and openers the Joe Perry Project and Airbourne vueweekly.com. vuewe10511-82 Ave, 780.916.1557 FILTHYgMCNASTY’S ravy@ NEW CITY 10081 Jasper Ave, 780.989.5066 WUNDERBAR 8120-101 St, 780.436.2286

Gravy

FLOW LOUNGE 11815 Wayne Gretzky Dr, 780.604.

CLUB FLUID LOUNGE 10105-109 St, 780.429.0700 FOXX DEN 205 Carnegi Drive, St Albert

28 // MUSIC

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

NIKKI DIAMONDS 8130 Gateway Blvd, 780.439.8006 NORTH GLENORA HALL 13535-109A Ave O’BYRNE’S 10616-82 Ave, 780.414.6766

Y AFTERHOURS 10028-102 St, 780.994.3256 YESTERDAYS PUB 112, 205 Carnegie Dr, St Albert, 780.459.0295

HYDEAWAY Steve Bowers

and Erin Faught; 8-11:45pm

IRISH CLUB Jam session;

8pm; no cover

IVORY CLUB Duelling

piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests

JEFFREY'S Celcius Jazz Quartet ( jazz); $15

JEKYLL AND HYDE PUB Every Friday: Headwind (classic pop/rock); 9pm; no cover

JOJO’S�La Piazza Dasee Mark Ceaser; 9pm

JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis Graham Lawrence ( jazz piano); 8:30pm

L.B.’S PUB The Tomatoes; 9:30pm-2am

LEVA CAPPUCCINO BAR Live music every Friday

MYER HOROWITZ

THEATRE Celebrate with Susan Aglukark; 7:30pm; $15 (student)/$35 at TIX on the Square, International Centre, SUB Infolink booth, Pembina Hall Rm 1-38 NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE Rockers vs. Mods: Blue Jay, Nikki A-Go-Go

NEW CITY SUBURBS

Health, Desiderata, Bayonets, Dusty Grooves; no minors; $14 (adv)

ON THE ROCKS Bonafide with DJ Crazy Dave

PAWN SHOP Fukkk Offf:

Presented by Easy Love with Easy Love residents DJ Tron, Optimixx Prime, Miyuru Fernando; tickets at Foosh, Blackbyrd

RED PIANO BAR Hottest

dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm-2am

ST BASIL’S CULTURAL CENTRE Full Moon Folk

Club: Amos Garrett Jazz Trio, Heather Blush (instead of Ferron); $17 (adv) at TIX on the Square/$20 (door)/child under 12 half price at door

STARLITE ROOM Age of Aquarius 3, Ill Gates, Blue Lunar Monkey, The Protégé, guests; 9pm (door); $15 at Blackbyrd, Clubzone.com/$20 (door) TOUCH OF CLASS�

Chateau Louis Dan Coady (pop/rock); 8:30pm WILD WEST SALOON Tera Lee

X�WRECK'S Kyler Schogen

Band; 8pm

YARDBIRD SUITE Jeff

Hendrick; 8pm (door)/9pm (show); $12 (member)/$16 (guest) at TicketMaster

Classical HORIZON STAGE Soaring Strings, Antoine Bareil and Sébastien Lépine (violin and cello duo); 7:30pm; $20 (adult)/$15 (student/senior) at the Horizon Stage box office, TicketMaster MUTTART HALL�Alberta

College Edmonton Classical Guitar Society: Dimitri Illarionov (guitar); 8pm; $25/$20 (student/senior/ ECGS member) at TIX on the Square, Avenue Guitars, Acoustic Music Shop, ADW Music, ECGS website, door WINSPEAR CENTRE Duo

Nevine–indie, soul, motown, new wave, electro; Underdog: Perverted Fridays: Punk and Ska from the ‘60s ‘70s and ‘80s with Fathead

BOOTS Retro Disco: retro

dance

BUDDY’S DJ Arrow Chaser;

8pm; no cover before 10pm

CHROME LOUNGE

Freakin Frenzy Fridays: Playing the best in country

FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian

GAS PUMP Top 40/dance with DJ Christian GINGUR Flossin’ Fridays:

with Bomb Squad, DJ Solja, weekly guest DJs

LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Formula Fridays: with rotating residents DJ's Groovy Cuvy, Touretto, David Stone, DJ Neebz and Tianna J; 9:30pm (door); 780.447.4495 for guestlist

NEWCASTLE PUB Fridays

House, dance mix with DJ Donovan

NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE DJ Anarchy Adam (punk)

PAWN SHOP Fukkk Off, DJ

Tron, Optimixx Prime, Miyuru Fernando

PLAY NIGHTCLUB The first

bar for the queer community to open in a decade with DJ's Alexx Brown and Eddie Toonflash; 9pm (door); $5 www.playnightclub.ca

RED STAR Movin’ on Up

Fridays: indie, rock, funk, soul, hip hop with DJ Gatto, DJ Mega Wattson

ROUGE LOUNGE Solice Fridays

SPORTSWORLD Roller

Skating Disco Friday Nights; 7-10:30pm; sports-world.ca

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

STONEHOUSE PUB Top 40

with DJ Tysin

SUEDE LOUNGE DJ Nic-E Remixed every Friday TEMPLE T.G.I Psydays; 9pm WUNDERBAR Fridays with the Pony Girls, DJ Avinder and DJ Toma; no cover Y AFTERHOURS Foundation

Fridays

SATURDAY

40 Sons, September Stone, Acronycal; 7:30pm (door), 9pm (show); $10 (door)

HILLTOP PUB Open stage/

mic Saturday: hosted by Sally's Krackers Sean Brewer; 3-5:30-3pm

HYDEAWAY�All Ages Art Space White Lightning,

guest; 8:30pm (door); 9pm (show); $5 (door)

IRON BOAR PUB Jazz in

Wetaskiwin featuring jazz trios the 1st Saturday each month: this month: The Don Berner Trio; 9pm; $10

IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests JAMMERS PUB Saturday open jam, 3-7:30pm; country/ rock band 9pm-2am JEFFREY'S Peter

Hendrickson ( jazz quartet); $10

JOJO’S�La Piazza Dasee Mark Ceaser; 9pm

JULIAN'S�Chateau Louis

Petro Polujin (classical guitar); 8:30pm

L.B.’S PUB Molsons Saturday afternoon open stage hosted

by Lenny and The Cats at 5pm; Jimmy Giboche and Friends at 9:30pm-2am

MEMORIAL ARTS CENTRE� Wetaskiwin

Lethal Dose (First Gear, CD release party), Side B, Justin Littlechild (comedy mc); all ages; 8pm (door); $10 (door)

MORANGO'S TEK CAFÉ

Saturday open stage: hosted

by Dr. Oxide; 7-10pm

NEW CITY LIKWID LOUNGE Run Runner, The Benders

O’BYRNE’S Live Band

Saturday 3-7pm; DJ 9:30pm

OIL CITY ROADHOUSE

Red Bull Thre3style search for Canada's most versatile DJ; tickets at TicketMaster, Foosh Audio and Apparel, Oil City, UnionEvents.com

ON THE ROCKS Bonafide with DJ Crazy Dave

OVERTIME Jamaoke: karaoke with a live band featuring Maple Tea

ALMANAC RESTAURANT�

PAWN SHOP The Dudes,

Stony Plain The Back Pages (classic rock); 9pm ARTERY Geoff Berner

and his Klezmer Trio, Rae Spoon; 7:30pm (door); 8pm (music); $12 (adv)/$15 (door) at Blackbyrd, Listen

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE

Hair of the Dog: live acoustic music every Saturday afternoon; this week; Faye Blais and Sarah Burton; 4-6pm; no cover

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Ellen McElwaine; $20

Afternoon Jam; Scott Holt (evening)

Raptors, the Secretaries; 8pm (door); $12 (adv) at Ticketmaster, Megatunes, Blackbyrd

RED PIANO BAR Hottest

dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm-2am

RIVER CREE�The Venue

Loverboy, Barney Bentall and the Ledgendary Hearts; 8pm

STARLITE ROOM Raekwon, The Chef of the Wu-Tang Clan, I.P., guests; 9pm (door); $30 at TicketMaster, FS, Foosh, Blackbyrd TOUCH OF CLASS� Chateau Louis Dan Coady

(pop/rock); 8:30pm

Degree, Battery, Cobra Commander; 9pm (door)

WILD WEST SALOON

CARROT Open mic

YARDBIRD SUITE Peter Zak,

Tera Lee

CASINO EDMONTON Stars

Walt Weiskopf; 8pm (door), 9pm (show); $18 (member)/$22 (guest) at Ticketmaster Event

CASINO YELLOWHEAD

Classical

Saturdays; 7:30-10pm; free

Tonight (Tribute)

BAR WILD Bar Wild Fridays

bands every Saturday; 9:30pm

Friday DJs spin Wooftop and Main Floor: Eclectic jams with

Scott Dunbar from Montreal with Scott Cook; 4-6pm

180 DEGREES Dancehall and Reggae night every Saturday

BAR�B�BAR DJ James; no

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE

Saturday: DJ Touch It, hosted

by DJ Papi

HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB

The Classics (nostalgia)

cover

EDDIE SHORTS Gaye

Music: Mr Lucky (rock 'n' roll)

ESMERELDA'S Ezzies

DJs

Connected Fridays: 91.7 The Bounce, Nestor Delano, Luke Morrison

DJs

EMPRESS ALE HOUSE

BRIXX BAR Oh Snap:

BANK ULTRA LOUNGE

EARLY STAGE SALOON� Stony Plain Saturday Live

Rampage: Bohdi, As It Stands, No Witness, Soundscape; $10

EMPIRE BALLROOM Rock,

BLUES ON WHYTE Saturday

Friday: DJ Papi and DJ Latin Sensation

DV8 TAVERN Rock 'n' Roll

Platinum VIP Fridays

hip hop, house, mash up; no minors

COAST TO COAST Live

CROWN PUB Acoustic Open

Stage during the day/Electric Open Stage at night with Marshall Lawrence; 1:30pm

COLLEGE Société

Tonus Vivus Society for New Music: QUASA– Quatuor de saxophones; 8pm; $10 and $20

Delorme, Johhny Tornado; sold out

Majoya, Alvin Lowrey, Brian Jones and Kathryn Sparks; 8pm; tickets at the Winspear box office

AZUCAR PICANTE Every

(sign-up), every Saturday, 2-5pm

CROWN PUB Latin/world

fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing

DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB

AZUCAR PICANTE Every

Celtic Music Session, hosted

by Keri-Lynne Zwicker, 4-7pm

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE

EDDIE SHORTS Sunday acoustic oriented open stage hosted by Uncle Jimmy; all gear provided; 9pm-1am

Saturday DJs on three levels. Main Floor: Menace Sessions: alt rock/electro/ trash with Miss Mannered

HYDEAWAY Sunday U22

BUDDY'S DJ Earth Shiver

Songwriters' Stage hosted

by Rhea March; 7-10pm every Sun

EMPIRE BALLROOM Rock,

J AND R BAR Open jam/ stage every Sunday hosted by Me Next and the Have-Nots; 3-7pm

'n' Quake; 8pm; no cover before 10pm

hip hop, house, mash up

ENCORE CLUB So Sweeeeet Saturdays

ESMERALDA’S Super

Parties: Every Saturday a different theme

FLUID LOUNGE Saturdays Gone Gold Mash-Up: with Harmen B and DJ Kwake FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian

GINGUR SKY Soulout

Saturdays

HALO For Those Who

Know: house every Saturday with DJ Junior Brown, Luke Morrison, Nestor Delano, Ari Rhodes

LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Sig-

nature Sound Saturdays: with DJ's Travis Mateeson, Big Daddy, Tweek and Mr Wedge; 9:30pm (door); $3; 780.447.4495 for guestlist

NEWCASTLE PUB

Saturdays: Top 40, requests with DJ Sheri

NEW CITY LIKWID

MACLAB CENTRE�Leduc

Eli Barsi; 2pm; $27 (adult)/$22 (student/senior) at TIX on the Square, Leduc Recreation Centre

NEWCASTLE PUB Sunday acoustic open stage with Willy James and Crawdad; 3-6pm

NEW CITY Open Mic Sunday hosted by Ben Disaster; 9pm (sign-up); no cover O’BYRNE’S Open mic jam

with Robb Angus (the Wheat Pool)

ON THE ROCKS Seven

Strings Sundays: Mourning Wood, Matt Biais (acoustic); 9pm

ORLANDO'S 2 PUB

Sundays Open Stage Jam hosted by The Vindicators (blues/rock); 3-8pm

ROYAL COACH�Chateau

Louis Petro Polujin (classical guitar); 5pm SECOND CUP�Mountain

LOUNGE Punk Rawk Saturdays: Todd and Alex

Equipment Co-op Live music every Sunday; 2-4pm

NEW CITY SUBURBS Black Polished Chrome Saturdays: industrial, Electro and alt with Dervish, Anonymouse, Blue Jay

WINSPEAR CENTRE Elvis

OIL CITY ROADHOUSE

Echo vs. J Fresh vs. DJ Chad vs. Johnny Infamous vs. Mark Daniels vs. Battery vs. Degree vs. Mikey Thomas, Skratch Bastid; 8pm; tickets at Foosh, Oil City, TicketMaster

PAWN SHOP SONiC Presents Live On Site! AntiClub Saturdays: rock, indie, punk, rock, dance, retro rock; 8pm (door) PLANET INDIGO�Jasper

Ave Suggestive Saturdays: breaks electro house with PI residents RED STAR Saturdays indie

rock, hip hop, and electro with DJ Hot Philly and guests

RENDEZVOUS Survival

metal night

SPORTSWORLD Roller

Skating Disco Saturdays; 1pm-4:30pm and 7-10:30pm; sports-world.ca

STOLLI’S ON WHYTE

Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ

SUEDE LOUNGE The Finest Underground House with DJ Nic-E every Saturday

TEMPLE Oh Snap!: Every

Saturday, Cobra Commander and guests with Degree, Cobra Commander and Battery; 9pm (door); $5 (door)

WUNDERBAR Featured DJ and local bands

Y AFTERHOURS Release

Costello; benefit for the Fort Edmonton Foundation; 7:30pm; $107-$317 (VIP, incl post-concert reception with Elvis in attendance) at Winspear box office

Classical ARDEN THEATRE 2009 Honens Laureate (piano): Gilles Vonsattel; 11am, 8pm; tickets at TicketMaster, Arden box office ROBERT TEGLER STUDENT CENTRE

Concordia Symphony Orchestra, Francis Dunnigan (conductor); $12 (adult)/$10 (student/senior) at TIX on the Square

MCDOUGALL UNITED

CHURCH Pro Coro: The Heart of Kyiv : with guest Mark Bailey (guest conductor); 2:30pm; $30 (adult)/$27 (student/senior) at Winspear box office

DJs BACKSTAGE TAP AND

GRILL Industry Night: with Atomic Improv, Jameoki and DJ Tim BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sunday Afternoons: Phil, 2-7pm; Main Floor: Got To Give It Up: Funk, Soul, Motown, Disco with DJ Red Dawn

BUDDY'S DJ Bobby

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

FLOW LOUNGE Stylus

Saturday

Sundays

SUNDAY

Sundays

BEER HUNTER�St Albert

Get Down Sundays with Neighbourhood Rats

Open stage/jam every Sunday; 2-6pm

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Sunday

GINGUR Ladies Industry NEW CITY SUBURBS

SAVOY MARTINI LOUNGE

Brunch: Rosette Guitar Duo; donations

Reggae on Whyte: RnR Sundays with DJ IceMan; no minors; 9pm; no cover

Edmonton Opera: Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance; 7:30pm; tickets at TicketMaster

BLUE PEAR RESTAURANT

SPORTSWORLD Roller

KING'S UNIVERSITY

BLUES ON WHYTE Tiff Hall

WUNDERBAR Sundays

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM

Jazz on the Side Sundays: Andrew Glover

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

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 29

COMMENT >> CONCERT INDUSTRY

Big trouble

A new megamerger could be bad news for smaller promoters Regulators in Canada, the United States "When I put a show on sale, I have a feeland the United Kingdom have approved ing that the show that's going to be promithe biggest megamerger that the concert nent on the Ticketmaster site isn't going to industry has ever seen—allowing the be mine." world's biggest promoter, Live Nation, to Sure, it's easy for the old punk rockers marry the world's biggest ticket seller, to say go underground, sell tickets only at Ticketmaster. record stores. Do it yourself. But OliBut what does that mean for the ver said that research has shown little guy, the promoter is putthat less than 20 percent of ting on shows for 250 people ticket sales are physical sales. a night.

You need to have an online m o .c ly k ee Well, let's put it this way. presence. And Ticketmaster is @vuew steven Since the deal was approved, the best in the biz. tevenr S Brent Oliver, director of EdmonAs well, Ticketmaster has exSando clusivity ton's Foundation Concerts, has had deals with many venues trouble sleeping or eating. across North America, so if you want "No matter what kind of show I do, if I am to put a show in, let's say, Rexall Place, you going to be using a sophisticated ticketing don't have a choice. system, I'll be funding my competition."

And, some of that money will go to the Why is that? OK, here's how it works. giant concert arm that wants to stomp the Concert promoters, whether small or large, little indie promoters into dust. need to get someone to sell their tickets.

Oliver, and many other promoters will The big break in the merger talks came agree, says Ticketmaster has been develwhen Live Nation struck a deal with Anoping its online system for so long, it's the schutz Entertainment Group, the No. 2 best in the industry. So, promoters make concert promoter in North America, and deals and pay Ticketmaster to sell seats to the people—as the owners of the Los Antheir shows. In return, Ticketmaster pro- geles Galaxy—who sign David Beckham's motes those shows online and in print. paycheque.

But, now that Ticketmaster will be part AEG will get access to Ticketmaster's of one giant concert promoter, will it still system for five years and can then use the put smaller, independent shows front and knowledge of the technology to develop centre in its promotions, or will they be a system of its own. So down the road a buried under all of the Jay-Z and Madonna promoter could have the choice between arena gigs—as both those acts have exclu- corporation A or corporation B, neither sive Live Nation deals. which would care all that much if the local

ENTER

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OR

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30 // MUSIC

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OVERTIME Tuesday acoustic jam hosted by Robb Angus SECOND CUP�124 Street Open mic every Tuesday; 8-10pm

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VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

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Canadian touring act's show at the Pawn Shop was selling all that well.

"We are confident that the arrangements we have reached with the parties will serve to increase competition and further the interests of consumers and other participants in the live entertainment industry, not only in the United States, but in a number of key international markets," said AEG president and CEO Timothy J. Leiweke in a release issued after the USapproved the merger.

Oliver's hope is that the white knights may be the agents who represent bands.

Why? Because Live Nation is cherry-picking top artists and signing them to allencompassing deals that cover recording, merchandise and shows, so once the deals are struck, agents aren't needed anymore.

The cheques come in, the shows are guaranteed. No one has to do legwork for the likes of Jay-Z. And, if the big commissions from the likes of U2 go away, agencies can't simply scramble for scraps from smaller bands. They need big clients. So, for these other people in the business to survive, they need some sort of divisions between labels, concerts and ticketing.

But that's not the scene at the moment.

"Live Nation wants to become the WalMart of entertainment," said Oliver. V Steven Sandor is a former editor-in-chief of Vue Weekly, now an editor and author living in Toronto.

FIDDLER'S ROOST Little Flower Open Stage with Brian Gregg

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FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 31

PREVUE // HEALTH HEALTH’s music has been described (at recording, it gets really superstitious ... this least once) as two robots having, well, rela- pseudo-science of spirits and crap and nothtions. And it’s not a bad depiction. On the ing is reliable. It was too difficult in retroone hand, the California band’s songs spect and next time we’re not going to do often begin with logic, with diait on tape. There’s too many things grams and words, and the quarwe want to do electronically and tet makes it a point to stick to it would be more convenient to the program when playing start on the computer and end om live. On the other, the result on the computer—instead of eekly.c w e u v @ of HEALTH’s conceptual flowthis jump back and forth thing.” carolyn charts, its banging drums and Carolyynm sawing guitars, is also deeply visDespite how the band may feel Nikod ceral. Like the band’s all-caps name about going through the process in and album titles, theirs is music whose hindsight, there isn’t a lot of indication that pleasure is measured in decibels. critics or fans are put out at all. GET COLOR The metaphor gets a little messy when marks a natural progression, from both the talking about the band’s third release, GET band’s 2007 self-titled debut and its remix COLOR. The way the guys wanted to mix album, HEALTH // DISCO released a year analogue and digital sensibilities was a little later. While the latter might have seemed like trying to mate the quirky warmth of R2an odd move for a young band barely out D2 and the malleable slickness of T-1000. of the “promising” stage, the album (and By starting on tape, then fiddling in digital particularly Crystal Castle’s take on “Crimeand then laying back down on tape, HEALTH wave”) garnered HEALTH a lot of attention. had hoped to give its electronic sensibilities (The quartet even landed a spot opening for the classic feel of tape. The experience was NIN’s 2008 Lights in the Sky tour.) intense.

The remix album provides insight into how “It was a real big technical nightmare,” songs on GET COLOR took shape, how this admits bassist John Famiglietti, “and with California band has cushioned the blow of its

MUSIC

NOTE

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VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

S

noise. The music’s driving, repetitive nature dips and soars—this is music to heighten its audience’s journey, not dictate it.

“You just hear some contrasts and you’re, like, wow; they really, really made that very, very different,” Famiglietti says. And because it was our own sounds, especially the vocals, you could immediately see how different it could be, I think indirectly that influenced us. And because we worked so much on that remix album and it became so much a part of the band’s identity, it became part of the music and that is now a part of our sound palette, and we were also meeting people who thought the remix album was just the second album and were waiting to hear the third—so it created this weird dynamic.”

Weird or not, the dynamic led the band to a place where it could overcome the tyranny of the mundane and the decepticons of far more mainstream music. V Fri, Feb 5 (8 pm) HEALTH With Desiderata, Bayonets!!!

New City, $20

DAN MANGAN

PREVUE // SOARING STRINGS

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27

Freebird

Duo flies high with one precious cello Maria Kotovych // maria@vueweekly.com

W

hen packing for a flight we generally ensure that our carry-on luggage is air-travel-friendly. We put our large bottles of shampoo and lotion into our checked baggage. We stick small tubes of liquids into those plastic bags we get at security. But when Sébastien Lépine flies, he has to ensure that he has purchased a ticket for his cello.

Lépine, cellist of the duo Soaring Strings, plays on a Stradivarius cello borrowed from a foundation in Quebec that collects rare instruments. He acknowledges that playing on his "Strad," as he calls it, is a lot of fun; however, he also knows that taking this cello on airplanes is, well, not fun.

"We have to make many preventions for the cello," says Lépine, who notes that one such prevention is arriving very early at the gate to explain his needs to the crew—and yes, the cello does get its own seat. "It's more work than a person."

After a successful flight, the soaring Strad is ready for the show. For Lépine, the beauty of playing on a Stradivarius lies in the amazing ability to project sound, and in the kinds of details that he can create with this instrument.

Lépine compares this instrument with

those of the non-Strad variety, using colour as an analogy to compare the quality of sound produced by the two types of instruments.

"For a modern cello, it's the red, blue and yellow colour," he explains. "The Stradivarius is like thousands of colours."

A Soaring Strings concert will produce thousands of colours, but not just from the instruments; the duo also includes a light show as a component of the performance.

"We try to use all the space on stage, and also electric instruments, just to show the different colours of the sound between acoustic and electric," Lépine says.

The modern element also shows up in the duo's choice of music—they play a lot of contemporary music, a repertoire that, in Lépine's opinion, does not receive as much attention.

"To be different is really good," he observes, summarizing the duo's attitude towards the selection of music, and the decision to use lights during performances. "[It's] like a rock show—we try to make the same thing with the classical show." V

VW: What did producer John Critchley bring to the album?

DM: Lots of experience. John was great.

He's a really even-keeled kind of guy, and I was more up and down during the recording period, so he was a bit of a ying to my yang. He's a great engineer and I love the sound he brought out of the instruments.

I like how the album sounds nice and full, but yet kind of rough and unpolished. That's exactly what I heard in Mountain Meadows

by Elliott Brood, and the reasoning behind why I asked John to work on Nice, Nice, Very Nice. He's also been a staple in the Toronto indie-music-scene for years and his studio seemed to be a drop-in zone for all kinds of great Canadian musicians, which was fun.

VW: Were there any other songs written that were left off the album?

DM: Many. I narrowed 30 songs to 22, then sent them to John and the label, who helped me narrow them down to 16, then to 13.

There was only one song that was recorded that isn't included, but we didn't get very far

with it—I don't even think there was enough work done on it to call it a B-side. It's called "Kerouac Spelled Wrong"—I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up on the next album.

VW: Did the Roboteering EP have any effect on the way that the full-length turned out?

DM: I would say Nice, Nice, Very Nice had an effect on the way Roboteering EP turned out. The album was finished when the EP was assembled. We couldn't put it out until months later for a few reasons, but we wanted to put something out and not just sit on it, so I found a few extra B-side-type recordings and put them together with a few tracks from the album we felt were a good cross-section of what was to be expected on the full-length. It was cool, we just released it off-stage and online, and it worked really well to muster some excitement for the LP. VW: If you were to trace the musical map that led you to Nice, Nice, Very Nice, what would it look like?

DM: The scenic route, no doubt. A lot of the press I've received has alluded to the idea that I'm young for my sound, but I feel

like I've taken the long route to getting to here. Postcards and Daydreaming bounced around for years. It took me a seemingly really long time to figure out exactly what kind of music I wanted to make. In a sense, I'm still not there, but am excited to keep learning and growing.

I went from bad high school band to solo acoustic open-mic guy to solo acoustic open-mic guy with a demo to solo open-mic guy with an album to solo internationaltouring artist and money-loser to dude who had spent far too much time with the name "Dan Mangan" floating around and couldn't go back and make a moniker, no matter how many marquees had the name spelled wrong to international-touring artist only beginning to understand what's available for someone who works hard enough VW: Is there anything else you’d like to say about the album or the making of it?

DM: I hope I'm able to listen to it in a decade without cringing. V Fri, Feb 5 (6 pm & 7:30 pm) Dan Mangan Haven Social Club, $15

Fri, Feb 5 (7:30 pm) Soaring Strings Horizon Stage, $20 – $25

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 33

PREVUE >> ELVIS COSTELLO

Nothing funny here

Just a few reasons to see Elvis Costello live MIKE ANGUS // MIKEANGUS@vueweekly.com

A LITTLE MORE CONVERSATION >> Elvis Costello's been chatting it up on his talk show, but he can still play a mean guitar // James O'Mara

Aside from supporting the Fort Edmonton Foundation, here are five reasons to attend Elvis Costello in concert at the Winspear Centre:

1. Not only is he timeless, enduring and

relevant, Costello is the original rock 'n' roll rebel. He changed his name to Elvis, and don't mistake those iconic frames for a wholesome Buddy Holly image; over his 40-year career Costello has compiled the most literate, seething and heart-broken catalogue out of any of his contemporaries. He's also been banned from Saturday Night Live (only to be awarded his own talk show), accused of drunken, racist tirades (for which he was later forgiven) and is on his third marriage. If you're looking for the real deal, there are few artists around who can touch him.

2. The legend is surely embellished, but

it's a damn fine tale: Costello was 23 years old when he started busking outside a Columbia Records executives' meeting in London and refused to leave until he was signed to a record deal. He was arrested for obstruction, and signed to Columbia upon his release. Aspiring singer-songwriters, take note: get serious or go home.

The gauntlet's been thrown down.

3. Now in its second season, Spectacle:

Elvis Costello With … is a music talk show hosted by the man himself, and it seems absurd that this idea hadn't come along sooner. Known for his outspokenness and encyclopedic knowledge of music, Costello has proven to be the ideal host for such a format. His guests have already included Sir Elton John, Bill Clinton, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, M. Ward, Ron Sexsmith and on and on. Not only does he join guests onstage for musical collaborations, he draws candid, intimate conversation

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VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

from the featured guest thanks to his easy-going charm and intelligence. Costello's success comes from being a huge fan of music himself, and the show has already provided viewers with legendary performances, and it marks Costello's arrival as rock 'n' roll's premier ambassador and statesman.

4. There's really no use trying to sum

up Costello's greatest hits here. Yes, he's as well known for "Veronica" (co-written with Paul McCartney) as he is "Pump It Up" or "Watching the Detectives," yet it speaks volumes that I came to know and love his music for the records he made much later in his career, songs that made me want to go back hunting for the rest of his catalogue. His greatest songs, like all great songs, are ones that can be performed both live with a band or simply alone with a guitar. I've seen him perform both ways and both are engaging and spellbinding.

5. The man has done it all. Musically,

there are no boundaries to his muse. He's collaborated with everyone from Burt Bacharach to the Pogues, the Brodsky Quartet to Beastie Boys, and his catalogue boasts albums of country, blues, jazz, opera, ballet and covers. He's as prolific and varied as Dylan or the Rolling Stones, yet his voice hasn't changed one bit with age, nor has his passion and wit dimmed with time. V Sun, Feb 7 (7 pm) Elvis Costello Winspear Centre, $105 – $315

PREVUE // FAYE BLAIS

Three's company Trio of singers hit the road together Ashley Kascak // ashley@vueweekly.com

W

hen their own ventures along the music-making thoroughfare finally aligned in 2009, it didn't take long—actually, it didn't take more than one conversation—for Faye Blais, Sarah Burton and Jacquie B to recognize that a collaborative tour through Western Canada and down the coast to California was more than just a sure thing.

Since last week Blais and Burton have been wayfaring across the country via the Canadian Via Railway, the two songstresses stopping in places like London, Ottawa and Montréal for a few stage shows and serenading passengers in the common area and back car of the train.

"It's really an interesting way to go about touring the country, but there was something about it that just felt unreal. To be honest—I think all three of us can say the same—this is one the easiest tours we've ever had to book and it's looking like one of the strongest tours any of us will have been on up until this point," explains Blais. "We thought why not turn the tour into a life experience as well as a business venture or a musical tour."

The strength of the tour lineup can be traced to the strong personalities involved, with each of the three women bringing their own personality to the stage born of their unique experiences:

Blais recently moved back to Canada after living abroad in Taiwan and Australia for four years; Burton is usually found fronting the folk/country Sarah Burton Band in Toronto; and it's Edmonton's Jacquie B's first time venturing out of her typical up-front role to charm audiences with the mystique of her back-up vocals and accordion playing behind the other two.

"It's nice to a have a kind of female powerhouse show with three distinct personalities and three distinct musical styles and bringing them all together as sort of nice little bowl of cherries, I guess," says Blais. "New flavour comes into the things you've written and all of a sudden your song takes on an entirely new life, a new meaning maybe even, for those who are listening. It's a bit of an adventure for us on our own material and that's the real pleasure of it." V Faye Blais With Sarah Burton, Jacquie B Thu, Feb 4 (9 pm) Prism Fri, Feb 5 (8 pm) With Low Flying Planes House concert (95A St. & Jasper Ave), $10 Sat, Feb 6 (4 pm) Black Dog, free

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 35

PREVUE >> RAEKWON

Enter Raekwon

Rapper's career is spotted with highlights Maybe he always should have stayed a Wu-Gambino. Though Raekwon's solo debut is rightly regarded as a rap masterpiece, having virtually invented both the cinematic storyline and rap's obsession with mob tropes, it took The Chef a long time to match the powerful wordplay and sharply observed detail of the legendary Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... . Appropriately enough, though, the sequel captures the original's spirit, maybe in part due to the fact that it finds a Raekwon as hungry as he was at the beginning: after a public feud with Wu-impresario RZA and a host of delays and label troubles, he had a lot to prove, and characteristic of his feisty persona, he didn't disappoint.

But the talent was always evident. As these six tracks display, Raekwon has always been one of the Wu-Tang Clan's most dense, lyrically gifted members, a storyteller and rap visionary with few peersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;most of whom have shared time with him at one point or another.

DAVID BERRY // DAVID@vueweekly.com

"C.R.E.A.M." Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

"Incarcerated Scarfaces" / "Ice Cream," Only Built for Cuban Linx ...

The quintessential Wu-Tang song, the sleepy bass line, twinkling piano and soul sighs set the stage, but it's Raekwon's first verse, telling a crime story of redemption with sharply specific details, that really sets the stage.

Released as opposite sides of the same single, this is Cuban Linx in its most distilled form. The A-side captures the spirit of his cinematic gangster opus while showing off some of The Chef's most intricate lyrics ("Wanna battle for cash / Let's see who's Sun Tzu") while "Ice Cream" is one of WuTang's purest pop songs, a breath of summer freshness among the album's city grit.

"Let My Niggas Live," The W

After Cuban Linx, Raekwon was considered with Nas and Biggie as one of the new kings of New York, but his relative reluctance to trumpet his own horn kept him out of the spotlight, paving the way for the Nas/Jay Z rivalry after the death of Biggie.

No matter: Rae reveals his real strength to be collaboration on this choice cut from an under-appreciated Wu-Tang album.

"R.A.G.U." Fishscale

Solo or on Clan albums, Raekwon never had his best work between the two Cuban Linx records, but his natural chemistry with Ghostface couldn't help but shine through on this cut from Ghost's career-topper.

"Surgical Gloves," Only Built for Cuban Linx ... Pt. II

If there were any doubts that the sequel to Cuban Linx would live up to its predecessor, they were erased with the leak of "Surgical Gloves," which showcases the best non-RZA beat Rae's ever rapped over with his renewed lyrical intensity.

Sat, Feb 6 (9 pm) Raekwon With I.D., guests Starlite Room, $30

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VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; FEB 10, 2010

PREVUE // MICHAEL BERNARD FITZGERALD

Loud and crazy

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald brings a 30-person choir to town Bryan Birtles // bryan@vueweekly.com

I

t wouldn't be a stretch to call Michael Bernard Fitzgerald an absolute nut.

The Calgary singer-songwriter, known as much for his love-heavy pop songs as for his wild and out-of-control live shows, is going to head out on the road for an extended run. But it's not the fact that things can get out of control that sets Fitzgerald apart from his peers— rock 'n' roll is full of people who can shake, rattle and roll—but the scope of his performances.

With more than 100 people onstage sometimes, Fitzgerald's shows can rightly be called spectacles. They've left the world of mere shows and entered into another realm, one where bringing a 30-person choir come on tour with you seems natural.

"In music, especially in performing music, I like the moments that are just there. I like the moment where a chord gets rung out and you can hear it and it's super stripped, but I also like the moments that are epic, just huge.

I believe in the live show a lot of that goosebump factor comes from the audio but combined with [seeing] what you're hearing," he says of the impetus to hold such huge shows. "The last one we did was at the Jack Singer in Calgary for a CD release—you look onstage and there are 120 people. At that show there was a 28-person drum section, there was a 25-person orchestra, 15 dancers, 15 acoustic guitar players, a 40-person choir and a live band. You look onstage and it's just mayhem, but it sounds and looks huge."

For this tour, Fitzgerald won't be bringing along that many people— because, obviously, any more than 30 people on tour would be nuts—instead choosing to strip away the percussion and extra instrumentation and focus on the choir.

"On all these big shows I've had all the

IT MIGHT GET LOUD >> Michael Bernard Fitzgerald is bringing along a choir big enough to bring down the house // Supplied elements like the percussion and stuff but this time around I wanted to focus all of my attention and energy on the choir, just trying to come up with some neat parts for the choir and have a fun time with them," he says. "I'm really excited for this show because it's a lot more stripped down than other shows, but there's still some neat texture."

And while an undertaking such as this one would seem daunting to any mere mortal, it was a background in theatre that prompted Fitzgerald to begin thinking seriously about how his live show could be amped up.

"I took two years at the U of L drama program," he says. "I got a chance to see what it was like to be part of a pro-

duction and be in character and how much someone in theatre thinks about what the lighting wash means and how someone in theatre thinks about when someone enters the stage [from] stage right and then leaves stage right, there's a whole thought process about how that makes the audience feel alienated and off-balance. That kind of stuff is really neat to think about, to incorporate some of the theatrical esthetics and some of the ideas that make theatre work and put it into a live show." V Thu, Feb 11 (8 pm) Michael Bernard Fitzgerald and the Loud Love Choir Starlite Room, $15

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 37

ALBUM REVIEWS

New Sounds

Beach House Teen Dream (Merge) 

David Berry // David@vueweekly.com

O

ne thing the recently departed J.D. Salinger really understood about teenagers was that nothing just sort of happens to them: it'd probably be a bit flippant to call them melodramatic, but the fact they haven't built up adult scar tissue has a way of making them take every nick and bump as a mortal wound. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Teen Dream finds the always dreamy but usually reserved Beach House embracing the full weight of the members' joys and sorrows, plumbing depths of emotion that were always there but never quite as fully realized as they are here.

This isn't to say that the band has lost any of its subtlety or grace, though.

More like its mature talents have shaken off some of wisdom's blasé; pricking a raw nerve can be as cathartic as it is painful and profound. Still here are the melodies that float like curtains in a soft breeze, the occasional flourishes of thumping urgency of its last effort, Devotion, and Victoria Legrand's vocals; cool, light and earthy as burying your feet into the sand on a scorcher. But the band is more willing to go over an edge—this is still music too airy to actually have one—exemplified in the slight

differences in Legrand's voice: she's close as she's ever been to soul, and her lyrics resonate with all kinds of love and longing.

Easiest place to see this is "Real Love," which pairs little more than a metronome click and full-voiced piano against Legrand's singing, keeping the focus where it should be. The sentimental melody is enough to suggest the mood, and while Legrand's lyrics are cryptic little snippets, she tells you everything you need in the way she moans, "I met you," stretched and elevated like it's more prayer than fact.

We get a more melancholy subject on "Walk in the Park," but lose none of the feeling. Electric pianos that point back to the beauty of the Zombies crash into fluttering guitars on the chorus, while Legrand cries "In a matter of time / it would slip from my mind" like an unfortunate promise, some reminder that her subject's brooding walks aren't going to keep her body around anymore than her thoughts. We should all get dumped so beautifully.

Those are highlights, but by no means on their lonesome. "Norway" engrains itself with its puppy-love "ay ay ay"s but they are snowflakes passing over a landscape that's a little more bleak and punishing. Legrand could pick "Used to Be" for her next collaboration with Grizzly Bear, her voice lilting with the piano as the song keeps adding bouncy little bits of orchestration that only add to the nostalgia. "10 Mile Stereo" heads back towards romantic territory, background synths as ghostly as Legrand's lingering line extensions, both trying to stretch out this incredible little moment as long as it will last. It's hard to be this sunnily positive without sounding a twit, but the song never feels anything but gorgeously exhultant, the rare kind of effortless love that people besides the lovers can fully embrace.

And ultimately, it's that full embracement that makes this proably Beach House's finest. Gorgeous songs are nothing for the band anymore, but this sort of depth of feeling is rare for anyone, and an amazing pairing.V

Daniel, Fred and Julie Daniel, Fred and Julie (You've Changed Records) 

When all you've got are a few acoustic instruments and some vocal harmonies, there's not much room for error. Add to that the fact most of the songs are folk standards—there's even a take on "Clementine," though it has a broke-down spirit that's enough to erase previous memories—and this could sound just like what it is: some good friends messing around during the sleepiest parts of summer. But Daniel Romano, Fred Squire and Julie Doiron not only have impressive chops, but enough easy chemistry to make this sound like the kind of thing musicians should be doing all the time.

Really, haven't there been enough God damned songs written anyway? Just sit down and sing.

DAVID BERRY // DAVID@vueweekly.com

Jom Comyn From Far, Far Away (Champion City)  If we handed out awards for apt album titles, my vote would go to ex-Hills Like White Elephants guitarist Jom Comyn's solo debut.

His music has a distant, almost mythical quality, and not just because it sounds like he recorded it from the other side of the room. It is the kind of stuff that you might catch drifting over a calm ocean, or rolling over a featureless prairie landscape, magical and comforting. But Comyn's lyrics reveal a kind of distance rare for a man his age, too: songs like "Born in the U of A" and especially album standout "Being Young" reveal a cleverness and wisdom about making it through life more befitting of someone looking back than in the thick of it. Thank God he finally decided to get up close.

David Berry

// David@vueweekly.com

Galactic Ya-Ka-May (Anti-)  In New Orleans one of the best-known and loved dishes is Jambalaya, which is made by throwing a wide variety of ingredients into a large pot and cooking them together.

The results are delicious. Galactic, also originating from New Orleans, takes the same approach with its music.

Mixing blues, soul, funk, rock and hip hop, Ya-Ka-May is a smorgasbord of musical flavour that explodes in your ears. Featuring many of New Orleans' musical legends, balanced by several younger legends-to-be, the album is busting with energy, life and attitude.

It is truly a tasty post-genre gem.

Jim Dean

// jim@vueweekly.com

38 // MUSIC

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

Fanshaw Dark Eyes (Mint)  Fanshaw's Olivia Fetherstonhaugh is apparently the type of perfectionist who spend's months developing a single song, and her band's debut album Dark Eyes (apparently the culmination of five year's work) shows all of that tweak-time creates sparse, quietly beautiful songs that brim with carefully stated emotion. Lightly strummed electric guitar, Korg synths and classical drumming (rarely all together in the same song) hang in the air while Fetherstonhaugh's chanteuse vocals and ghostly overdubs waver above.

The breathy whispers 'n' bass of "Diana" sets a subtle mood as she chants, "I wore my worship like a crown / You were what I wanted so I burned it down," while one of the largest arrangements, "Strong Hips," pulses with a bouncing bass and a hooky chorus. Nothing here's overdone—Dark Eyes may be carefully crafted, but it's never overworked.

Paul Blinov

// paul@vueweekly.com

Jake Ian An Awful Sky (Independent)  One need look no further than Jake Ian's sophomore release, An Awful Sky, for a true slice of Alberta. Songs of heartbreak, travelling well-worn paths through small towns, and working on a thrashing crew are all balanced beautifully with instrumentation that doesn't overstep its boundaries. The irresistible title track embodies this effective approach as harmonica, steel guitar and backup vocals do just enough to help the song along, Ian's fundamentally strong songwriting bringing each track to life. His quivering, urgent vocals purport a compelling sense of longing, heard in the downtrodden essence of "Broken Hinges": "It's hard to reach for the sky when you're passed out on the floor / I used to love you but I can't any more." An Awful Sky proves that Jake Ian is on track to success in Alberta's alt-folk music scene.

Mike Garth

// michael@vueweekly.com

Epica Design Your Universe (Nuclear Blast) 

ALBUM REVIEWS Guns N' Roses "The Spaghetti Incident?"

(Geffen)

was a rather subtle shift in sound, the band becoming plenty more polished and professional onstage, hitting all the right notes, Originally released: 1993 but also far less exciting. m o .c ly k e vuewe It was with 1993's "The SpaMusic is a slippery beast. The eden@ same group of musicians can Edeno ghetti Incident?" that it became clear just how lost the band play the same bunch of notes Munr was; what had originally been two times in a row, and one of planned as an those perforEP of old-school mances can very punk covers, easily stand out blasted out with while the other Stradlin still on elicits little more guitar during the than shrugs all recording of the around.

The already bloating equation gets Use Your Illusion even more comtwo-album set, plicated when finally emerged musicians are as a full-length swapped in and record.

Stradout of bands, or lin's guitars were a song travels wiped off the from its original early recordings version through and replaced by the instruments his stand-in, Gilby of another SPLAT >> A messy begining to the end Clarke, and the disc was filled out with group—sometimes it's good, sometimes some newly recorded material. not so much.

The end result? Well, an album that And it can be hard to pinpoint exactly captures a band in decline, really. It's not what it is that works or doesn't. Somea good record, but there's something times its just a feeling that arises as sevfascinating about that. "The Spaghetti eral musicians lock in with each other.

In the case of Guns N' Roses, when Incident?" is the sound of a last gasp, one final attempt to corral the band the band hit the streets with 1987's Apand summon its original punk-rock spirpetite for Destruction the original quinit. But it was already too late: Nirvana tet's raw sound was a breath of fresh had already filled the void for careening air in a landscape where rock 'n' roll was both slick in production and stiff punk-rock, and the polished, pieced-together recordings that GNR offered up in style. There was a decided focus on were nowhere near enough to reclaim grooves on GNR's debut, and that was the band's old status as scene leaders. something that had been sorely missing While most of the notes are in the right at the time. spots—and the few tracks sung by bassThe thrill of the band is apparent in ist Duff Mckagan summon some raging, a 1988 performance at the Ritz in New pent-up energy—but it just doesn't feel York, filmed for MTV as the band was right, and the band sounds insignificant on the rise. Chaos is a word that comes for the first time. to mind as the instruments practically "The Spaghetti Incident?" stands as a collide with each other, the band barely document of a band that had made it as holding together, yet somehow rearing a far as it did by sheer force of will, the unified head as it tumbles along. Watchunified front the members had formed ing that group was almost like watching on the LA streets eroded by success as a smash-up derby: it's exciting because it they teetered on the brink of destrucmight fall apart at any second. tion. In hindsight, it's an interesting time But then the band began to fracture, first capsule of a group struggling to emerge losing drummer Steven Adler in 1990 and from the shambles. V then guitarist Izzy Stradlin in 1991. There

OULNDDS

SO

HAIKU Dan Black Dan Black (The:Hours) Casually cool like A baby with sunglasses Dancing on YouTube

QUICK

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Whiteoyn Houst

Malachai Ugly Side of Love (Domino)

Making things sound old For the sake of sounding old Is getting ... uh ... old

Zeus Say Us (Arts & Crafts)

Various Artists 2010 Grammy Nominees (Capitol)

Epica doesn't bring a new playbook to the symphonicmetal game on its latest—intricate guitar lines, guttural male and operatic female vocals mark the music —but the band does a fine job with the tools it has.

Just a great album Can't even be a smartass I love this here shit

I would rather have Raging ball cancer than hear That Black-eyed Peas jam

Field Music (Measure) (Memphis Industries)

Keravel Must (Kassure)

// eden@vueweekly.com

Sweet instrumentals Vocal accompaniment Yep, it has it all

Perfect montage tunes For prime time crime lab scenes or Teenage conundrums

Eden Munro

Epica plays the Starlite Room on Wednesday, February 10.

FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

MUSIC // 39

PREVUE // THE DUDES

The Dudes abide

Calgary band takes success as it comes

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME >> The Dudes have no plans to trade the band's Calgary home for Vancouver or Montréal // trevorweeks.com Mike Angus // mikeangus@vueweekly.com

T

here are many myths surrounding the lives of musicians, and one of the biggest fish tales is the one where a band gets "discovered" by a record label at a music festival showcase and is signed to a record deal of fame and lucre. And while the Dudes were indeed discovered and signed in such a fashion, lead singer and guitarist Dan Vacon couldn't be more of an anti-rock star. The self-described "poor man" with few expectations for rock stardom dispels further rock clichés by staying put in Calgary and resisting the pull of bigger market cities.

"The funny thing is, we got signed to our

label, Loadmusic, whose office is actually four blocks from my house [in Calgary], but they saw us in Toronto," he laughs.

"I got some good advice once: if you can make it in your home town, you can make it anywhere. If you can't make it in your hometown, you can't make it anywhere.

I've seen friends go off to Vancouver and Toronto and they find the same thing. It's not the people—you gotta make a quality product. It doesn't matter where your bed is, as long as you're willing to get out on the road and promote yourself."

The Dudes are, of course, most wellknown for the band's break-out single "Do the Right Thing" from its 2006 release Brain Heart Guitar. Along with guitarist

Bob Quaschnick, drummer Scott Ross and bassist Brady Kirchner, the band has returned with 2009's Blood Guts Bruises Cuts, another album full of ultra-catchy guitar anthems and Vacon's signature soulful pop melodies. If the pressures of following up the success of Brain Heart Guitar never come up in the conversation, it may stem from Vacon's no-sweat attitude about a career in the spotlight.

"A big thing for me, and a secret for being happy, is having no expectations, just doing what you love. When we released Brain Heart Guitar, before that we had no label and no money, and that's when I was really happy," he admits gleefully. "When we got a label deal, I think they might have had crazy expectations that we were going straight to the top, but I was just like, 'All right man, I'll keep writing and living my crazy life, and we'll just see what happens.'"

The origins of this modest approach to the Dudes' success may lie in the band's commitment to its hometown music community and the members' involvement with outside projects, whether it's side projects like Dojo Workhorse or inviting vocalist Lisa Lobsinger (most notably busy with Broken Social Scene) and Chris Vail to contribute on the record.

"I'm super juiced on the community, we're really tight, and I'm trying to include everyone in what I do," Vacon says. "It's a great community and supportive of itself and each other." V Sat, Feb 6 (8 pm) The Dudes With the Secretaries, Raptors Pawn Shop, $12

HOROSCOPE ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 19)

CANCER (Jun 21 – Jul 22)

"Those who know how to win are much I wonder if you can you handle this much more numerous than those who know healing intensity, Cancerian. The possibilihow to make proper use of their victo- ties for transforming difficult parts of your ries." So said the ancient Greek historian life are substantial. I'll name a few ways this Polybius, and now I'm conveying the mes- could play out: 1. A confusing riddle may be sage to you. I hope it will serve as a spur in partially solved through a semi-divine interthe wake of your recent triumph. Will vention. 2. A sore spot could be soothed you be content with merely baskthanks to the power of your curiing in the glow, frittering away osity. 3. An ignorance that has the provocative potentials? caused you pain may be illumiY G O Or will you get down to businated, allowing you to suffer L O R T ness and use your new advan- A S kly.com less. 4. If you can summon the uewee v l@ il freew tages to upgrade your destiny capacity to generously tolerate Rob y uncertainty, you may find and to what we might refer to as Brezsn rehabilitate an orphaned part of Aries 2.0? your life. I'm not saying for sure that TAURUS (Apr 20 – May 20) any of this stuff will happen, but the odds "Whatever shines should be observed," said are favorable that at least one will.

19th-century astronomer William Herschel, discoverer of the planet Uranus. He was LEO ( Jul 23 – Aug 22) referring to his specialty, heavenly bod- What will it be, Leo? A time of rampaging ies, but I'd like to expand the meaning for ids and slamming doors and lost opporyour use. According to my analysis, it has tunities? Of strange smells and sweeping become very important for you to notice, views of other people's hells? Or will this observe, and think about anything that be the week you finally slip into the magshines. Doing so will tune you in to exactly ic sanctuary and track down the secret what you need to know in order to make formula? Will this be the breakthrough the best decisions in the coming weeks. moment when you outmaneuver the "dragon" with that non-violent "weapon" GEMINI (May 21 – Jun 20) you've been saving for when it was ab"One doesn't discover new lands without solutely necessary? It really is up to you. consenting to lose sight of the shore for Either scenario could unfold. You have to a very long time," wrote French author decide which one you prefer, and then Andre Gide. I'm guessing that 2009 was a set your intention. time when you embarked on such a search, Gemini—a half-blind, groping exploration VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sep 22) that asked you to leave the past behind I don't mean to alarm you, but I think you without knowing where the future lay. By may be in a light hypnotic trance right now, though, I suspect you have sighted the now. It's possible that the thrumming shore of your new frontier. If you haven't hum of your routine has shut down some yet, it'll happen soon. of your normal alertness, lowering your

FREEW

ILL

40 // BACK

awareness of certain situations that you really need to tune in to. Let's do something about this! When I count to three, you will hereby snap out of your daze and become fully awake. 1 ... 2 ... 3. Now look around you and get yourself more closely in touch with your immediate environment. Make an effort to vividly see and hear and smell everything that's going on. This will have the effect of mobilizing your subconscious mind. Then, for a period of at least five days, you'll have a kind of X-ray vision.

LIBRA (Sep 23 – Oct 22)

You would stir up some good fortune for yourself if you brought meals to shut-ins or gave a little presentation at an old folks' home or donated your old laptop to a low-income family. Oddly enough, it's also an excellent time for you to scratch and claw for a bigger market share, or to get the upper hand on a competitor, or to bring your creative ideas to people in a position to help you. That's the odd thing about this week. Capitalist-style self-promotion and actualized compassion will not only coexist—they'll have a symbiotic relationship.

SCORPIO (Oct 23 – Nov 21)

Last week was the anniversary of my very first weekly horoscope column, which appeared years ago in the Good Times, a newspaper in Santa Cruz, California. My initial effort was crude and a bit reckless compared to what I eventually learned to create. And yet it was imbued with a primal fervor and heartfelt adventurousness that had a certain charm, and many people seemed to find it useful. Today I bow down to that early effort, honoring

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010

it for the seed it sprouted and thanking it for the blessings it led to. I encourage you to do something similar to what I just described, Scorpio: Pay homage to the origins that made it possible for you to be who you have become.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21)

In the Choctaw language, there are two kinds of past tenses. In one, you speak about an event or experience that you personally know to be a fact. In the other, you deliver information that you have acquired second-hand and therefore can't definitely vouch for. In my perfect world, you Sagittarians would find a way to incorporate this perspective into all your communications during the coming week.

In other words, you would consistently distinguish between the unimpeachable truth and the alleged truth. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, this would give you great power to influence the rhythms of life to flow in your favor.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19)

"The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired," wrote music critic Ernest Newman, "but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration."

I think what Newman said applies to those working in any field where creativity is needed—which is really just about every field. Given your current astrological omens, Capricorn, it's especially apropos for you now. This is an excellent time to increase your mastery of the kind of discipline that spurs inventive thought and surprising breakthroughs.

AQUARIUS ( Jan 20 – Feb 18)

I got an email from an Aquarian reader complaining that the astrologers she consulted in early 2009, including me, were wrong about the year ahead. All of us said it would be a time of expansion and opening for your tribe, a phase of rapid growth and fresh energy. But according to this reader, 2009 turned out to be very different. Every Aquarius she knew had a tough ride. Here's my response: Expansion and opening did indeed occur, but their initial effects weren't what you expected.

They shattered the old containers of your life in order to make it possible for you to create new, bigger containers that would be more suitable for the person you're becoming. And this year, 2010, is when you will work in earnest to create those new containers. Now's a good time to dig in.

PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20)

I wish you could aim tachyon particles through an inverted positronic array while simultaneously modulating synaptical relays through an anti-matter torque-buffer.

This would bend the space-time continuum back to a point before your recent detour began. Then, armed with knowledge of the future, you'd be able to navigate your way more elegantly through the crazy mash of illusions and misunderstandings. But since the high-tech solution I described may not be possible, I suggest that instead you clear your head of theories about why people are doing what they're doing. Slow yourself down so completely that you can see the majestic flicker of eternity hidden in every moment. Be a flame of love, not a swamp of self-justification. And send humble notes and witty gifts to anyone whose links with you got tweaked. V

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FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

BACK // 41

COMMENT >> LGBT

Horny is irrelevant Rape culture in the queer community

It was a typical high school day; my felt lucky that I didn't have to deal with friend and I were walking away from it. Sure I was boy crazy but I didn't want school towards the mall. We were play- to make out with them, I just wanted ing a guessing game. She was thinking them to like me. And yet here was one of a word that she said was largely as- of my best friends, who I saw everyday, sociated with gay people and assuming that all I ever thought frogs. I was racking my brain about was sex. When I think trying to figure it out. Her about it now I understand. Our face was turning red with dominant culture was louder frustration. "It is so obvithan her ability to witness my om .c ly k e uewe ous!" she squealed. Finally lived experience. Movies, the ted@v after me guessing wrong a Internet, magazines, gossip, Ted thousand times she shouted ideas around pornography, all Kerr "HORNY." "Horny?" I giggled. At dictated and still does, that gay that point in my life horny was the guys are first and foremost sexual belast thing I was. At that time the only ings. And some are. But I wasn't. action I had ever had was a Jr. High spinA few weeks ago at Dr. Lise Gotell's the-bottle kiss with a girl named Cleo. talk about Canadian sexual assault law I Sex was something I thought I had the thought about how the perception of gay privilege of avoiding because I was gay. I guys as "horny" (so what if we are!) af-

EERN Q UN TO MO

CLASSIFIEDS

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Profiles Gallery call for submissions for 2011.

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I started thinking about how gay guys think about their own experiences and their ability, and possible inability, to Wanted: male actor, 20-30 years old, Aboriginal or Metis for: Stage Struck One Act Festival and 2010 Fringe. Contact: cndngothic@yahoo.ca

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fects how we think about sexual assault and gay men, especially considering the lack of understanding around women and sexual assault. I wonder if the way people wrongly justify rape through excuses like, "She was asking for it" factor into how people view the possibility of a gay man being raped? I wonder if people who have a hard time understanding a man, any man, can be raped, have an easier or harder time thinking of a gay man being raped? If one can conceive of a gay man being raped how do they categorize him? Not masculine? Assume it was anal sex? Would they write it off as a function of gay culture?

ARTIST TO ARTIST

ʸ ʸ ʸ ʸ ʸ ʸ ʸ ʸ ARTIST/NON PROFIT CLASSIFIEDS 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 office@ vueweekly.com or drop it off at 10303-108 St. Deadline is noon the Tuesday before publication.

Placement will depend upon available space McMullen Gallery seeking proposals for May 2011-Apr 2012. Deadline: Mar 31, 2010, 4pm; info: Diana Young Kennedy 780.407.7152; diana.youngkennedy@albertahealthservices.ca

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Participate in 2010 at The Works Art Market and Food Street (deadline Feb 15) and Street Stage (deadline Mar 15). Application at theworks.ab.ca St Albert community Band conductor required Application deadline: Feb 28; submit to Colleen Dec at colleenmdec@shaw.ca; questions contact Gerry Buccini at 780.459.7384 Artist Volunteers needed at the Today Family Violence Centre to develop murals in their new facility to help create a positive environment for clients. Patrick Dillon at 780.455.6880

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recognize when they may have been assaulted. I was thinking about this after the talk when I ran into a wise friend. We started talking and he said that when he thinks back at stories he told and has heard he realizes for sure that assaults have happened and gone unnoticed, unlabeled and unreported. It was clear through our conversation that too often assaults are not seen as such and rather are chalked up to "an experience."

In thinking about one's own experience it might be helpful to know that in Canada a sexual assault is not understood based on "no means no" but rather an affirmative consent standard or "only yes means yes." This means, and I quote from a presentation given

by Gotell, "Consent is specific. After someone has said no, one must take active steps to re-establish agreement.

Silence and ambiguous conduct do not constitute consent."

In Gotell's talk she shared information on the Sadaatmandi 2008 case where a woman met two guys online, went over HELP! Edmonton's Rock scene is staggeringly DULL. Need to join an experimental band. Inf: X-girl, Removal, Baffin Island Party. Bill 633.3849 Professional metal band is seeking a dedicated guitar and bass player. Please, no cokeheads, etc.

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to their house, was drugged and raped while being filmed. The woman charged the men. In my mind it is easy to imagine this story with a man in place of the woman but with a different outcome.

I wonder if this had been a Manhunt hook up if the victim would have seen it as an assault. If they did, would they have reported it? I can imagine this story being told over drinks, no one batting an eyelash, everyone relating to it in our own way. This is not to pathologize online sex or state that everyone should report everything to the police or a therapist. This is not even to suggest that one needs to label what may have legally been an assault as such.

Instead this is an understanding that unresolved trauma exists within the gay community and affects people. I wonder what the long-term effects for individuals and a community are if trauma is left to fester and becomes an unspoken norm. The possibilities, which I am sure we live with everyday, are bigger than I dare guess in this small column. V

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ADVICE >> SEX

Practise, practise, practise Dear Andrea: address in order to ... OK, fine. It was a bad After a long time doing everything but "the metaphor. You started it! real thing" my girlfriend and I finally had It's true, though. You are not lost. You sex. So far we've done it three times and I know perfectly well how to get there. still haven't had an orgasm. I was afraid It is sad but also true that many people I'd put it in and come right then like people think of masturbation and marriage (or say and be embarrassed but nope, I any relationship but that was the just keep going until she finally one that alliterated) as somegets sore and and asks me to how antithetical. Many people stop, and then she'll give me think all kinds of silly things. a hand-job or a blow job, just Not only can they comfortably m o .c ly ek vuewe like before. That always works. coexist, but masturbation can @ x e s lt a And I come when I masturbate.

Andresaon of course, function as a useful So I can come, just not like that. adjunct to partnered sex, a presNemer Help! Should I stop masturbating? sure-release valve and a laboratory Try some other position or something? for experimentation. Also? Fun. Not My girlfriend is getting frustrated and so only need you not give it up, you may need am I. How do I get there? it for yet another purpose: "teaching tool."

Love, Need Directions Let's hope your girlfriend is a quick study, but even if she turns out not to be, you can Dear Di: always take affairs into your own hands. So You already have a map. Or maybe you yay for masturbation but not, perhaps, just have GPS, but you need to enter the right before she gets there. "Masturbate first" is

ALT.

SEX

VOLUNTEER

the quick'n'easy fix for coming too fast and, as such, is not for you.

Actually, it is largely men who are taught to believe or otherwise come to believe that jacking off is for the single and unloved. Women are forever being breezily advised to provide their own clitoral stimulation during activities which fail to provide any for them, which is fine sex advice as far as it goes but ignores two glaringly obvious realities: 1) many if not most women are going to feel just a little self-conscious rubbing away up there while their partners soldier on, and b) you do not need to own a clitoris to learn how to stimulate one. So, lots of talk about (the majority of) women who don't reach orgasm through intercourse alone, and about taking responsibility for one's own pleasure as a feminist act, but far fewer articles in magazines about men taking responsibility for their own orgasms. Is it that women are simply expected to shoulder this one as they do the

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housework and the social calendar, or just that fewer men have the problem to begin with? Both, actually, but let's talk about your penis.

You are fully functional, so this is not a function question. It's about habituation and stimulation, and the fact that your girlfriend's vagina, while I'm sure it is in every way above reproach, is not your hand, to which you have become accustomed.

Assuming it bears some resemblance to other vaginas it's probably both wetter and less clenchy than your manly paw, so you're just not getting the kind of pressure and friction you're used to . I don't advocate doing anything about the wetness, but you can add friction and pressure by changing positions (anything where her legs are tighter together, woman on top, or missionary with her butt tilted up on a pillow) or grabbing hold of whatever's not currently inside with a stern fist, yours, hers or anyone else's that happens to be handy. Yes, this requires admitting that it's currently not working for you, but that ought to be doable as long as you don't make any jokes that end in "Throw me

your keys and I'll drive us out." Don't imply that she is too big—or too anything, really.

It's not her, it's you!

Oh, and if you're using condoms, maybe it's the condom. I can't in good conscience advise you to skip these, so I'll just suggest trying one of the loose-at-the-tip sort, which vaguely simulate not wearing a condom, and maybe a drop of lube on the inside.

I should also point out that you were having perfectly fine sex before you started having "sex," and that your girlfriend knows perfectly well how to get you off, and that there's no shame in just stopping when it starts getting tedious and switching to something that works. If everyone just did what works when it comes to sex I might be out of a job and most people, who aren't me, would be a lot happier.

And finally, dude, you've done it three times. Those are not going to be your three best times, or your only three times.

Here's where I use another old punch-line and ask you if you know how to get to Carnegie Hall.

Love, Andrea

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FEB 19 � 25, 2009 // VUEWEEKLY FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010 // VUEWEEKLY

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44 // BACK

VUEWEEKLY // FEB 4 – FEB 10, 2010