Magazine

For the past six years, since the demise of his last band CPC Gangbangs, Roy Vucino has been crafting an ongoing music and art project known as Red Mass. With a revolving door membership both on stage and on record, Red Mass has finally evolved into what Vucino had envisioned almost a decade ago. With a core of himself, Hannah Lewis (keyboards/vocals), Jonathan Bigras (drums), and Phillippe Caouette (bass), set to tour this summer and their first full length album, A Hopeless Noise: The Story of Diamond Girl, soon to be released, Red Mass took to the stage at Quai des Brumes on Friday night and showed all in attendance that this band is ready for the next step.

On a Saturday evening in late March, Basia Bulat played to a sold out crowd at the Corona Theatre in Little Burgundy. Her performance was incredibly pleasurable both audibly and visually. The packed audience was quite a mixed demographic of both older and younger folks. She performed on stage with a bass player and drummer, while she played keyboards. For a three piece they presented an astonishingly powerful, unanticipated sound. They played really well together, kicking out tight grooves, playful rhythms alongside Basia Bulat's almost lofty cloud-like vocals.

I have lived in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and travelled solo through the Middle East, but for some reason, since moving to Montreal four years ago, I have been terrified to set foot in les Foufounes Électriques. I didn't even know it was called Foufounes until the night of the show. I always just thought of it as "that place on St. Catherine's that seems like it's seen a lot of knife fights." That's probably not fair. If you have never been to Foufounes it's actually pretty impressive on the inside, meaning huge. It has that sickly sweet bar smell and gives off an air of stickiness.