Features

This Friday, I will be returning to the third edition of ‘77 Montreal at Parc Jean-Drapeau. This year’s lineup is catered to punk rockers with all tastes, whether it’s pop-punk, hardcore or ska. There will be newcomers and legends, local and international. And if you ever need to kill time between bands, you can check out the punk rock flea market, the vintage poster and record fair, and for the punk parents, there’s the Kids Zone

Monday July 22nd was the first of four performances at Café Cleopatra for Dan Soder’s Son of Gary show at the Just For Laughs festival and it’s subject matter is exactly what you want from a comedy show located in a strip club. Opening for Dan was fellow New York comic Anthony Devito, featured in The Ethnic Show, who started the show off with a bang, giving the audience a treat of two headliners for the price of one.

On Saturday July 20th, comedienne, singer, producer, and writer Tranna Wintour captivated Cafe Cleopatra with her stunning covers of Alanis Morissette songs. With piano and backing vocals by musical director Les Friesen, Wintour’s Dear Alanis: A So-Called Musical Comedy was a deeply moving emotional journey into Alanis Morissette’s complex inner workings.

SXSW is a difficult creature to try to describe to someone. Sure, one could just say: "It's a music festival that's in Austin, Texas." But that fails to describe many of the nuances that are present at the festival.

For instance, the festival has expanded to more than just music. It has now incorporated tech, film, comedy, and video games under it's umbrella. True, all of them are segmented into their own "mini-festivals", but they overlap with one another over nine days, making a combination of artists, business people, film critics, gamers, and general festival goers into a large mass.

Le festival Chromatic d’art et de musique célébrait son dixième anniversaire en grand cette année, avec une plus vaste programmation et un parcours d’exposition atypique.

En entrant dans l’ancienne usine de confiture au cœur du Village gai, à la soirée d’ouverture le 11 mai, on comprenait rapidement d’où venait l’engouement pour cette semaine d’expositions, de conférences, de films et de musique électronique. Le bouquet d’artistes et de DJs invités était à l’image du public, jeune et dynamique.

Photo: Xenia França by Thomas Artuzzi

At this year’s SXSW, I saw a lot of female artists.  On Thursday March 14, I saw Xenia França from Bahia, Brazil who was part of a showcase for world music day at the Austin Convention Centre. She put on an incredible show.  She sang about female empowerment and loving yourself while being backed up by her band playing sounds of Brazil that made you want to move.

Photo: Manvs

When it comes to TV, a series’ best episode is often what’s known as a “bottle episode,” where the entire plot takes place in one sole location (e.g. Seinfeld and the Chinese restaurant).  What makes these episodes so good is that they give the characters a chance to let their chemistry shine through without distractions.