Mother Mother unlocks sonic mysteries with The Sticks

Transcendental magic and cheese-based creative experiences: Vancouver-based art-pop quintet Mother Mother have been busy. Hot off the heels of a whirlwind year of touring in support of their third album Eureka, the band recently released their most eclectic (yet, at the same time, most cohesive) offering to date: The Sticks. The Sticks carries on with […]

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Local, Live, and Loud: November 28, 2012 – January 8, 2013

Thursday, November 29 Eliot Lipp Lucky Bar, $15, 8 PM I haven’t watched E.T. in a really long time. I might have to get a big bag of Reese’s Pieces and sit down with my family for a classic-movie night. I wore a blue long-sleeved E.T. shirt in my grade two school photo. It had […]

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The Coup returns with first album in six years

It’s been six years since the politically conscious Bay Area rap ensemble The Coup dropped Pick a Bigger Weapon. Now, with the release of Sorry to Bother You, the band is back, although with a slightly different sound. Straying away from a strictly sample-based approach to production, The Coup adds an assortment of sounds you […]

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Local symphony celebrates John Cage’s legacy

Is banging pots and pans music? Is street noise music? Is silence music? US composer John Cage, who died in 1992, thought so. And now, a Victoria Symphony concert entitled Cage 100 will celebrate the influential musician. The concert is part of the Cage 100 festival happening between November 8 and November 22 that will […]

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Dead-on writing

An anthology of obituaries sounds like it would be just right for what’s shaping up to be another gloomy Victoria autumn, but it turns out there’s nothing morbid about Tom Hawthorn’s Deadlines: Obits of Memorable British Columbians. The focus of this collection is life, not death, and a colourful cast of real-life heroes and antiheroes […]

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Rudd rocks, stands on head

Xavier Rudd, the ultimate one-man band, who typically hits the stage with three didgeridoos, a guitar, stomp box, assortment of drums, banjos, harmonicas, bells, and a bass guitar, is bringing all of his gear, and himself, to Victoria once again. The fact that Rudd is self-taught and able to execute all of these talents by […]

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Julie Doiron gets over fear of recording, finally

Believe it or not, Canadian singer-songwriter Julie Doiron had a fear of recording her music until now. That’s eight full-lengths she recorded while combating that fear. But after recording her ninth, she’s finally really starting to enjoy it. Doiron’s fears weren’t conjured up the way most people’s are. She didn’t imagine her albums growing fangs […]

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New Music Revue: November 14th, 2012 issue

  Julie Doiron So Many Days (Aporia Records) 3/5   The past three years have seen Canadian singer-songwriter Julie Doiron move from Montreal to Sackville to Toronto. Also, bear in mind that So Many Days is the last in a trilogy of Doiron solo records. It’s been said that good things come in threes. I […]

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Diamond Rings back and larger than life

Ask most Canadian indie rock darlings who they’d like to collaborate with if they could pick anyone and the stock answer is usually someone from The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, or that dude from the Black Keys. (I could just barf all over their hipster clothes.) But ask John O’Regan, better known as Diamond […]

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Local, Live, and Loud: November 14th – 27th, 2012

Wednesday, November 14 Patrick Watson, Wake Owl Alix Goolden Hall, $25, 7 pm There used to be this owl that lived near my house. I’d hear him when I’d come home late at night, hooting from the darkness. I’m pretty sure he’d sneak up on me every once in a while. I never actually saw […]

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