Attending an art exhibit can be a lot more than just looking at artwork and interpreting the artist’s intended meaning. It can be an entertaining, interactive experience, as a group of fourth-year fine art students demonstrated in their exhibit, First Glance.
In movie theatres these days, it’s hard to ignore the depressing number of quick cash-lifts that the movie industry has taken from classic television series. From the funny—but not particularly enduring—Starsky and Hutch to the downright stupid Dukes of Hazzard, TV adaptations are fun, but not exactly great cinema.
When one thinks of New York City, the thoughts of frenzied citizens, countless skyscrapers and a myriad of taxis come to mind. However, the city also has a thriving acoustic folk music scene in which band Crescent and Frost have found their niche. Fortunately, this well-kept secret from New York is about to be released in Kingston.
There is nothing remotely trendy about Matt Barber. Despite his association with bands of such indie rock caliber as Stars, Barber retains a much more organic style, holding him closer in comparison to Canadian songsmiths like Neil Young and the enduring Emm Gryner. Barber’s lyrics seem to contain simple philosophies that touch upon staple singer/songwriter themes—love, loss, and life—and are complemented by the sturdy foundation of a healthy classic rock sound.
How much can a man really understand about being a woman? As it turns out, plenty. Writer Charles Robertson goes inside the heads and hearts of five of them with Ghost of the Tree, opening this week at Theatre 5.
The Organ will be rolling into Kingston for its third-ever visit to the Limestone City this coming Thursday. Playing a show at The Grad Club with Gentleman Reg, the five-piece all-girl band will go over familiar territory from their album Grab That Gun, which was released last year on Mint Records.
David Cronenberg is without a doubt the strangest Canadian director around. Despite working in a country that is known for an excessively polite and repressed attitude, Cronenberg actively explores the extremes of sex and violence in his work.
Quarter to 10 on Monday night is no time to start a revolution. Yet this was the mission facing the young, bright-eyed of You Say Party! We Say Die!. They took to the stage at Clark like radical cheerleaders dispatched to a rainy, early-morning protest with a faulty megaphone.
Far away from the busy metropolitan landscape lives a family on a private island. Here, they have their own rules and live according to their own desires. They like to think of it as a Utopian place which they’ve named Excellence, Ontario.
Anyone who thought that the only things that ever emerged from the seedy underbelly of Oshawa were cars needs to take a long look at the brightest export from the ’Shwa: Cuff the Duke. Riding the wave of their recent success, as well as the hype behind their newest self-titled offering, Cuff the Duke sauntered into Kingston for a two-night stint at their favoured Grad Club.
Record Keeping by Sarindar Dhaliwal is a combination of sensual prints and compelling installations that create a forum for self-discovery, language and narration. Record Keeping spans a 15-year period of the artist’s life, from 1988-2003.
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas had a modest reception when it was released in 1993. The full-length stop-motion animated film was a visual feast with a simple yet clever premise, made by a team of extremely talented artists and technicians. It was well-liked at the time, but hardly a huge success. Over the past ten years, the film’s popularity has grown steadily. Finding some piece of Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise is hardly a challenge.
Separated from their well-respected groups, Will Kidman of The Constantines and Chad Ross and Andre Ethier—both of the Deadly Snakes—relied solely on acoustic guitars and charm to woo the crowd. Billed as the “Tall Tales Tour,” the singer-songwriters promised something different, something a little unexpected.
The Pocket Dwellers, a Toronto-based septet—that means seven, count ’em, seven people—are veterans of the scene, but of what scene is hard to say. The group incorporates aspects of hip hop, jazz, rock, and most other imaginable genres into their music.
Do you love the populist euphoria of the Aberdeen street party, but hate all the unnecessary violence and nasty aggression? Well, I suggest you head on over to The Grad Club this Thursday and Friday to experience the fist-pumping frenzy that is Cuff the Duke.
Saturday night, for the second time this month, the Miller Hall parking lot was transformed into a rock arena. For the concert’s organizers it was all about spectacle—“HOMECOMING ROCKS QUEEN’S ALUMNI AND STUDENTS” was projected in white letters onto two nearby buildings, while a chain of balloons arched over the Union Street entrance.
While the film is definitely a worthy addition to his career, it is a little too slight to be considered one of his best works. Broken Flowers is fun, but it is so light and breezy that it does not really stick with you long after you see it unlike Stranger than Paradise and Dead Man. But, if you are a fan of either Jim Jarmusch’s distinctive style or Bill Murray’s recent work, then it is a film that cannot be missed.
The simplicity that their name suggests is a blatant contradiction to their diverse sound. Don’t be fooled. This Austin, Texas band isn’t about dres in uniforms and playing John Philip Sousa medleys between football games at KCVI.
Before a visitor even gets a chance to see any of the works featured at Modern Fuel Gallery’s Disquiet exhibit, his or her ears are assaulted with the harsh screeches and haunting vocals of the Japanese or Russian national anthems. For anglophone ears, the effect is cold and unsettling, but it impacts the way visitors look at the images that preface the exhibit’s video installations.
