Arts

Jets Overhead Boredom and Joy (Warner) 4.5/5 Textures. Soaring, otherworldly melodies. Unforgettable pop tunes that become part of your life. Here, on album three, locals Jets Overhead prove that in a different era (that’s the ’80’s), they would have been radio heroes, because they’ve got all of the above, and more. Take one listen to […]

Around the age of 16, Seth Smith abandoned his small east-coast town in search of greener grasses… or at least somewhere where the high schools had music and art programs. Smith found this place in Victoria, where he attended Vic High for a few years before the east lured him back with that Maritime twang […]

We’ve seen him on Saturday Night Live and followed his career trajectory in over 30 really bad motion pictures (anyone remember Rat Race?), but not many of us have thought of Jon Lovitz as a standup comedian, never mind a piano-playing, singing one-man show comedy act. In his recent performance at the Alix Goolden Hall, […]

You know when critics start talking about how a certain actor will be in the running for an Oscar nomination this year for a recent performance and you just roll your eyes and picture some over-the-top performance where someone plays a character with some debilitating speech impediment, or a missing leg, or something? And you […]

Every year throughout Canada there are tons of music festivals, most of them profit-based ventures for the production companies that organize them. But once in a while someone comes along and breaks the mold, putting profit aside and, instead, focuses on music, community, and sustainability. This is exactly what Victoria-based Radio Contact Productions has done […]

There’s a moment in most peoples’ lives when they wish they didn’t speak (or understand) the English language. In The Foreigner, the main character pretends just that… and gets away with it. Director Toshik Bukowiecki says Larry Shue’s play is a perfect way to conclude the 2011/2012 Langham Court Theatre season. “It’s a wonderful play […]

Ah, yes, paintings of boats, the ocean, the sun setting over a wharf. Blissful? Serene? Peaceful? No, sounds about as cliché and dull as the rest of your grandma’s goddamn décor. But paintings of boats don’t have to be cheeseball. Tony Grove’s exhibition A Boatbuilder’s Perspective, being shown at Dales Gallery, shows the Gabriola Island-based […]

Rush Clockwork Angels (Anthem/Universal) 4.5/5 A new Rush album. Always, there is a certain crispness, hidden away in a sonic place between the hi hat and the vocal mix. Vocalist Geddy Lee, song one: “I can’t stop thinking big.” There are lonely men in record stores all across North America at this very moment. The […]

Men Without Hats Love in the Age of War (Big Fat Truck) 3.5/5 Everything old is new again. Or, at least, everything old has a new album. The tunes on ’80’s Canadian hitmakers Men Without Hats’ new release, Love In the Age of War, harken back to a different era. A time when real instruments […]

When you see the best show of your life, do you know it? At what point does it surpass the best memories you have of shows you saw when you were younger, the first time you saw one of your favourite bands (finally), or that time when that upstart hip-hopper blew your mind in a […]