By Alan Cho
Listening to this debut from the Star Spangles evokes an imaginary childhood we all should’ve had in the 80s. One wrapped in a battered leather jacket and torn jeans, spent sedated in a pungently smoky bathroom with a punk named Judy and a headbanger named Suzy. Bazooka!!! is so singularly derivative of the Ramones, one… Continue reading Star Spangles
By Jeff Kubik
Comedy is a serious business. Delivery, timing and a thousand variables must be carefully considered before a finished product is shown to an audience. So you can be assured that when you finally see Stephen Hawking take the stage and sing the greatest disco hits of the ’70s, you’re taking part in something magnificent. Beginning… Continue reading Of disco singing physicists and “Name That Bum”
By Jeff Kubik
On September 6, the Uptown Stage and Screen will host a screening of a film that is uniquely Calgarian. While the production values may remind the audience that the movie was made in a time before Spielberg discovered the joys of CG, there are still a few thrills for Calgary natives. After all, it’s not… Continue reading Weathering the Storm
By Alan Cho
“Protect the knickers,” the affable director jokingly warns his cast as actors Tracey Vance and Janos Zeller pose for a picture for a photographer in need of a money shot. Despite the warning, someone gets a quick peek and mentions the knickers are yellow. The director calms Tracey Vance, saying “Don’t worry, they’ll just airbrush… Continue reading Take my wife, please
By Jael Wong
Who would have thought foul language could get such a warm reception? On Tues., Sept. 2, the crowd attending the first of several performances of American Buffalo at the Reeve Theatre responded with delight as the cast cussed and engaged in verbal jousting. The David Mamet play, which won the Drama Critics Circle Award for… Continue reading No honour among thieves, but obscenity abounds
“The music you listened to in high school is no longer cool,” warns Mark Macarthur, bass player for Calgary’s Hot Little Rocket. “If you don’t listen to indie-rock you’ll get beat up, you won’t get a girlfriend, and you won’t get passing grades.” Of the three members of Hot Little Rocket sitting around the table… Continue reading Hot Little Rocket explains what they do and why they do it
They’re talented, they’re edgy, they do alt-country-bluegrass and they do it well. They are the Austin-based Meat Purveyors and on Monday night they were at Inglewood’s Ironwood Stage and Grill for their first Calgary gig. With double bassist Cherilyn diMond, front woman Jo Walston, guitarist Bill Anderson and mandolin-tickler Pete Stiles, this band pushes the… Continue reading Meet the Meat Purveyors
Dinos middle blocker Sean Kendal scored a game-high 19 points on Aug. 30 to net Canada a 3-1 win over Germany, grabbing the seventh spot in men’s volleyball at the 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu, South Korea. It is Canada’s best finish since 1983 when the men took silver in Edmonton. It was a hard-fought… Continue reading Best Universiade result since 1983
I received an email last week that is part of a growing trend in North America. It was about the separation of church and state and the decline in morals it has produced–or so the argument goes. The email essentially argued a correlation exists between the Bible’s decline in society at large (no prayers in… Continue reading Freedom of choice
By James Keller
“Judicial activism” has become something of a dirty phrase in this country lately, particularly within the realm of the political (not to mention the religious) right. Members of Parliament, from Canadian Alliance leaders to Liberal backbenchers, cried foul after the Ontario Superior Court effectively rewrote the legal definition of marriage over the summer. Those cries… Continue reading The righteous power of judicial activism