By Heath McLeod
I’m confused. It seems like I’m watching Kids in the Hall spliced with The Tom Green Show. The cast is different, but the humour is the same. I’m half expecting to see Tom Green shag an animal carcass, or start squishing heads between his thumb and forefinger.Tom Green, as Walter "Duff" Duffy freaks out like… Continue reading Tom Green, funny?
By Heath McLeod
Joseph Gaï Ramaka’s debut feature film takes a French opera and superimposes it on reality in Senegal. The setting changes from Paris in the late nineteenth century to Dakar, 2000 and Ramaka twists reality into Georges Bizet’s operatic tragedy, Carmen. The story of Carmen takes on much more when put into an African setting. Ramaka… Continue reading African free-love revolution infects The Plaza
By Heath McLeod
What could go wrong with a free festival in the sixties with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Rolling Stones, and an abundant supply of drugs and liquor? Well, the possibilities are endless, but you add in The Hells Angels, Black Panthers, and over a hundred-thousand hippies, and you’ve got the 1970 docmentary Gimmie Shelter.… Continue reading The end of the Sixties
By Heath McLeod
We’re going back in time, folks. Hacking through the jungles of bad hair in the eighties and strutting past disco in the seventies, we end our journey in the anti-war music of the sixties. Listening to the likes of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in North America, Bob Marley in Jamaica, and the Beatles worldwide,… Continue reading Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra heads to Jazz Fest
By Heath McLeod
The Fishbone crew’s latest EP needs a track-by-track breakdown to show the problems that we, the unfortunate listeners, are exposed to."A Friendly Psychosis" starts the album off with George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk, doing an amusing rave on producers as the voice of God. The album then takes a turn for the worse, and… Continue reading Fishbones Familyhood Experience, The Friendliest Psychosis of All
By Heath McLeod
I’m waiting around the office for an interview with Duotang. An hour passes, and they still haven’t called. I go over my options of what I can do if I don’t get to chat with them. Perhaps I could review something special, like eating an apple. Or maybe I could regurgitate some scores from the… Continue reading The Bright Side of Duotang
By Heath McLeod
Hollywood love stories–with their buxom beauties, chiseled male counterparts, and horrendous scenarios–are far from Majid Majidi’s mind in his latest film.While Baran takes on several aspects of a love story, it is far from your ordinary roll in the hay. The strangely familiar landscape and the unfamiliar working conditions create a captivating picture that Majidi… Continue reading Washing Hollywood into oblivion
By Heath McLeod
Ben Kweller’s lack of creativity and insufferable lyrics are well displayed on his debut album Sha Sha. A motley mix of folk and pop-rock using pianos and violins, the album maintains an decent overall sound. Kweller’s contentedly lazy voice on “How It Should Be” produces a catchy tune, while on “Wasted and Ready” he shows… Continue reading Ben Kweller, Sha Sha
By Heath McLeod
Excluding the occasional forays into soulful-funk, Rusted Root has a multiculturalfolk-rock sound on their latest disc, Welcome To My Party. Using African percussion, folk drums from northeastern India (khol), and a never-ending barrage of tambourines, congas, bongos, harmonicas and cow bells, the Pittsburgh natives show they’re a giftedbunch. Incorporating his strange brand of lyricism with… Continue reading Rusted Root, Welcome to My Party
April 4 marked the 26th anniversary of refugee rights day. In 1985, the verdict known as the Singh decision was delivered by the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the rights of refugee claimants in Canada to life, liberty and security of person. Before this, Canada’s… Continue reading Refugee rights day focuses on improvements