Arts

Star Wars: The Force Awakens 4/5 How Star Wars: The Force Awakens executive producer J.J. Abrams has gone almost 50 years without ever encountering the concept of subtlety is beyond me. Fortunately, he subsidizes this gaping hole in his creative efforts by jamming every second with dazzling imagery and exciting action. Star Wars: The Force […]

Around the holidays, Christmas music is inescapable. From shopping malls to private parties, the blithe choruses of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Deck the Halls” will follow you from Thanksgiving dinner right up until your Christmas feast. Some relish how these songs carry with them the spirit of the season, while others fiercely detest them. […]

Reversing Falls Reversing Falls 2 (Independent) 3.5/5 This Montreal-based noisy rock band storms out of the gates strong with “This Is Why,” the song taking an almost-surf-rock guitar line and filtering it through shoegaze production and a ragged garage-rock/indie-rock sound. It’s a stellar way to start off their second album, and it doesn’t stop there. […]

Shawnigan Lake School is celebrating the centennial year of their grand opening. With that grand celebration they wanted to do something big with their Performing Arts department, and Victoria gets to reap the rewards of it. “As it turned out, in the school’s 100 years, The Wizard of Oz had never been done before,” says […]

Back in the ’70s, young Raffi Cavoukian, long hair and all, started his career as a children’s singer on the carpet of a nursery school. From this, he sprang into stardom very unexpectedly, and his music, both quirky and fun, gave a rather joyful vibe to the homes of stressed-out parents and energetic children. “When […]

Little You, Little Me I’d Watch the Day Til It Died (Monopolized Records) 3.5/5 The second album from Saint John, New Brunswick indie/garage rockers Little You, Little Me is enticing: no small task, considering it was recorded on a selection of broken or sort-of-broken equipment. With heavy guitar sounds and gritty vocals, I’d Watch the […]

Local thrash metal band Torrefy started out as many local bands do: they were a bunch of friends jamming (at a house party on New Year’s Eve, to boot). But they kept at it, and now they’re hard at work on their second album. “We went ahead as most bands do, just jamming as colleagues […]

One million dollars in ticket sales is not what comedian Dan Quinn had originally set out for when planning a snowboard vacation in 2007. Quinn had just anticipated booking a few gigs along the way to pay for the trip; after mentioning his tour plans to other comedian friends, they all wanted to join in […]