Tanya Tagaq performed in Calgary at the Palace theatre last week, but this article is NOT about her amazing event. … Continue ReadingThis article is not about Tanya Tagaq, the remarkable Inuk experimental singer ..read more

Apparently Kevin Phillips, lead singer and songwriter for the newly minted rock quartet Redhead Mack Band, plays a custom electric guitar made by Northwood, a Canadian company that “normally makes acoustic but occasionally electric guitars.” Given what Kevin tells me about his own musical development, he’s kinda like the guitarmaker, in that he normally makes acoustic but recently electric music. This comes up because their recent album release, You Know You Want To, is 4 on the floor rock without traditional rock lyrics: so we ask, of course, “How do you explain that?” … Continue Reading > ..read more

Firstly, I need to reinforce a bias I have for drummers, as more than one are mentioned in this article: drummers get *gold stars*. I can’t always manage the gold part, but that’s what’s happening. I mention this because both *Clarence M. Wolf Leg* and his father are drummers from Siksika. and because I ask him why powwow music is so powerful, you are about to learn a bunch of new stuff, I guarantee! Just like Clarence did. “Long story short, I asked a similar question. I asked n an elder and a long time singer, probably over 10 years … Continue Reading >‘Drumming is the Boss’: According to ..read more

Double Rider’s drummer, Lennon the Loomer (because he’s 6 foot something) finds me at the Palomino Smokehouse bar during Sled Island’s annual closing day Pig Roast. I’m not at the bar because I’m weeping into my beer, but in fact I’m celebrating the cornucopia that is Sled Island’s week-long sensory romp (“Music & Arts Festival”), by tripping up and downstairs to catch the different bands playing simultaneously, because there’s just so much music! … Continue Reading >Sled Island 2023: Music from Siksika to Montreal, and everywhere else ..read more

When MUSICAlive! reconnects with Jared Daniel, after a 6 year interval since our first interview about his Fireside Music events, we ask if he’s gotten married and divorced and had kids and now is starting up a rock band to express all that? “Yeah,” he laughs. Like, how did you know?” HE DOES now have a 2 year old daughter! “And she’s the inspiration for a lot of my new music.” (we both laugh) “Performance was always the intention (when he was running Fireside). I grew up the son of a musician, so music was … Continue Reading >The Jared Daniel Experience: Neo-soul with a hint of more ..read more

“I’m Jamie Serafi. I am the Founder and Creative Director of Cool Choir.” MUSICAlive! notes the growth of “non-audition choirs” in the last couple of decades, and asks Jamie why did he choose this place (Calgary) and this genre (pop and rock music) to start this very successful local endeavour? “Cool Choir is a British concept, reinventing the format of what a choir looks like in this day and age. When most people hear about a choir, their immediate idea is a load of people stuck in a church in robes, singing classical music. Or hymns, basically. And with all due respect to Canada, and everyon ..read more

The Magnettes sing about Go’ing Ugly, but their press photos are cutesy-psycho. does it work? It worked for Alice Cooper: though he used less cutesy in his psycho, it would reappear occasionally. The gendered difference between a man whisking these together and 2 women doing it are obvious upon listening, but we think they serve the same purpose. MUSICAlive! spoke with the founders, first Sanna and then Rebecka when they passed through Calgary during the Western Canada Music Association’s conference in late September this year: what’s with the expletive genre label? … Continue Reading >The ..read more

Beyond 2040 and depending on the level of global warming, climate change will lead to numerous risks to natural and human systems (high confidence). For 127 identified key risks, assessed mid- and long- term impacts are up to multiple times higher than currently observed (high confidence). The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming (very high confidence). . . . Biodiversity loss, and degradation, damages ..read more

Really, it’s not “Sled Island in Calgary” so much as “Calgary at Sled Island”. Because we are, finally (at Sled Island again), and there are (Calgarians listening and performing here), ecstatically! We’re happy to be talking to new Calgary musical adventures, as further proof of the fertility of the local musical garden; not just a reaction to our pandemic isolation, but a result of the cross-fertilization that we’ve somehow achieved out here on the prairies. … Continue Reading >Sled Island returns to Calgary: A cornucopia of musical flavours ..read more

Crystal Shawanda is driving fearlessly across Michigan while we speak: unlike earlier less-pragmatic musicians we’ve spoken with (I’m looking at you, Ms. Hou!) she’s a passenger in the Shawanda travelling revue, and the simple fact that this exists following the Dark Ages of the Covid Times is a delight! … Continue Reading >Crystal Shawanda isn’t bigger than the blues, but her voice might get close ..read more