// Category Archive for: Canadian Content

Cillian’s Bounty: Toronto International Film Festival

By Less Lee Moore

This piece originally appeared on the The CillianSite.com on September 14.

For our review of Perrier’s Bounty, go here.

Toronto, Ontario is a big city. And as befits such a place, it has its share of big buildings, big festivals, and sometimes, big celebrities. They descend on the city every year for the Toronto International Film Festival, and for those two weeks, one cannot escape news coverage of which films are playing, what parties are being held, who was seen where (and with who), and what they said/did/were wearing.

For film buffs and celebrity spotters, it’s a dream come true. Truth be told, I’m one of the former not the latter. . . with one exception. Cillian Murphy has been my favorite actor for several years now, and for several of those years, one of his films has premiered at the TIFF.
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Don’t Touch That Dial: TV That Shaped My Musical Tastes

By Jesse Roth

Like many members of my generation (and those of the previous one), I received a decent yet incomplete music education via the radio, MTV, and my parents’ eclectic record collection. By the time I hit high school however, I was quickly seeking new avenues for discovering music.
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Sports: The Band, S/T EP

By Megashaun

In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in quality regarding the debut releases of bands. Now, there are many bands with such strong debuts that listeners can’t imagine how they can possibly get better. Toronto, Ontario’s Sports: The Band is certainly guilty of this. Their debut album, technically only an EP, sounds so mature you’d imagine the band has been together for ages instead of the few short years they actually have been around.
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John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band, Live In Toronto ’69 DVD

By Less Lee Moore

“It gave me a great feeling, a feeling I haven’t had for a long time. It convinced me to do more appearances, either with or without the rest of the Beatles. Everything went down so well.”
—John Lennon, as quoted on the Ottawa Beatles Site

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Danny Echo, S/T

By Less Lee Moore

Danny Echo has been blessed with a great big rock and roll voice. This was apparent when I saw the band live at NXNE 2008: they played their hearts out and even though there were only a handful of people in the crowd at Lee’s Palace, you’d never know it by their enthusiasm.
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Peter Project, S/T

By Megashaun

His MySpace page may label him as “Disney-core” but don’t think this means he’s as whack as the Fresh Prince. Peter Project’s compositions are the closest thing to old-school hip hop without jumping into a DeLorean and going back to the early 80s.
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Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains, S/T

By Less Lee Moore

Listening to these songs on Sebastien Grainger’s MySpace page and hearing them on CD is like the difference between reading about eating a crème caramel and actually eating one. Granted, the MySpace music player doesn’t have the greatest sound quality, but that does not adequately explain it. There’s something more, something that makes this album better than the sum of its parts.
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The Bicycles, Oh No, It’s Love

By Less Lee Moore

The Bicycles are a Toronto-based band, but one for whom the word “band” seems terribly limiting. Their live shows traditionally feature not only the four core members—Matt Beckett, Andrew Scott, Drew Smith, and Dana Snell—but also members of several other local bands and musicians such as Henri Fabergé and the Adorables, Laura Barrett, and many others.

Oh No, It’s Love, reflects the collaborations of this collective of musicians but also retains the signature sound the band established on their first album The Good, The Bad, and The Cuddly: captivating pop with ironic lyrics.

Yet Oh No, It’s Love is far more ambitious and fully-fledged than the band’s first album, and not just because it features more than twenty contributors (in addition to the four “official” band members) and a vast array of instruments, from harp and harmonica to kalimba and pedal steel. Although there are many current bands who also use less traditionally rock & roll instruments, many of them are utterly boring and passionless. The Bicycles are the complete opposite.
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Television Verité: Degrassi High

By Jesse Roth

A few years ago, I found myself home during a break from college happily engaging in my two of my favorite pastimes: grazing in the kitchen while watching way too much TV. I used this particular break to become re-acquainted with the television shows that I adored in my childhood; ones that had recently made their way into the lineup on a digital cable channel then known as Noggin. As part of their block of evening and late-night programming (known as “The N”), the channel showcased my personal favorites such as Clarissa Explains It All and The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Later hours were devoted to even older classics such as The Electric Company, a show that predated my childhood (and thus my nostalgia radar) by at least a decade. Nonetheless, I now had the chance to watch and find out what I had missed out on by being born too late.
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Rue Morgue’s Festival of Fear: Toronto FanExpo 2008

By Less Lee Moore

Being a tremendous fan of things Halloween- and horror-related, I look forward to the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear each year at the Toronto FanExpo. It’s a genuine thrill for me to look at original artwork, drool over horror movie posters, create my ongoing DVD wish list at the Anchor Bay store, and watch people wander around in costume.
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