Curran Faris
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Five years clean, and counting
The Red Road Lodge, an alcohol and drug-free rooming house, is celebrating its five-year anniversary this month. Thanks to volunteer support, improved funding, effective programming and constant renovations, the Red Road Lodge continues to be an urban oasis for the impoverished in Winnipeg’s downtown.
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A great place to be a musician
Whether it’s indie rock, pop, hip-hop or raging hardcore, Winnipeg musicians have seen a surprising amount of commercial success for a city of only 700,000 people.
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Midnight Dawns - Beyond the Threshold
Now that heavy metal has returned to the commercial mainstream (once again), the music scene becomes flooded with bands that try desperately to grab hold of the hottest sound and ride the lightning.
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A ridiculous, goofy time
Whether breaking toilets in recording studios, being hassled by Czech Republic border guards or playing shows in a rat-infested squat house in the deep south, Under Pressure have always maintained an obsessive work ethic and genuine passion for hardcore punk rock.
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Tim Hecker - An Imaginary Country
Canada’s purveyor of sonic dreamscapes returns with his proper follow-up to 2006’s Harmony in Ultraviolet. On An Imaginary Country, dense layers of drones swirl amidst shimmering melodies and shifting tones.
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Awesome experiments
While finishing up their debut EP in the summer of 2008, local rock four-piece Crosstown Rivals were feeling less than confident.
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Haunter - Lighthouse/Great Northern 7”
Haunter is one of the few local bands who should actually be called ‘indie rock.’
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Local band makes a dent in the American market
For Canadian bands, charting on American radio and having their music appear on television shows are but mere fantasies right next to private jets and gold plated Jacuzzis. For Winnipeg’s Tele, cracking the American market is becoming a reality – but their journey hasn’t been easy.
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Saskatoon Rock City
For most Canadians, Saskatchewan brings to mind but few things: painfully long, boring drives; farmer’s fields; tractors; the astonishing flatness; and bad jokes about an unfortunately named city.
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Activism without the austerity
Naomi Klein calls them “the Jonathan Swift of the Jackass generation,” university activists may call them genius and big business has surely labeled them as muckraking scourges. Acclaimed political activist-pranksters The Yes Men will be rolling into the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) Tuesday, Mar. 3 to discuss their latest film The Yes Men Fix the World.
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dd/mm/yyyy - Black Squares
Obscure, impossible to pronounce band name? Check. DIY silk-screened artwork? Check. Non-sensical song titles like Infinity Skull Cube? Check. I won’t lie, upon first glance, I wrote this band off as mere hipster dance-rock. Boy, was I wrong.
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Five local artists to watch in 2009
If you’re anything like the music critics at The Uniter, you love the fact that it’s impossible to walk two feet downtown without seeing a gig poster. If your problem isn’t deciding whether or not to go to a show, but rather, deciding which show to go to, here are five local acts you should make a priority to check out.
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How to win fans and influence people
Remember when punk-rock was challenging? When kids would cram into dark, sweaty basements to hear bands scream about real issues and radical ideas? Winnipeg legends Propagandhi do, and they’ve returned to make the rest of us take our medicine.
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Wab Kinew - Live By the Drum
Local rapper and ex-Dead Indian Wabanakwut Kinew sounds fresh, fierce and confident on his debut full-length.
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A pinch of this and a dash of that
Not many bands take hundreds of years of musical history from diverse genres and present it in a way that packs dance floors and makes any musician in the audience run back to their teacher in tears, but Winnipeg’s Flying Fox and the Hunter/Gatherers have proven to be such an act.
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Honesty is always the best policy
However cliché it may be, it’s rare to see musicians who stay true to themselves. Winnipeg rapper Wab Kinew makes it look easy and, most importantly, makes it sound refreshing, urgent and original.
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Combating the sameness
Lyle E Style occupies that increasingly rare point on the country music continuum that’s far away from generic Top 40 pop country - and that’s exactly how he likes it.