End of August Events
Yes, Edmonton, summer is winding down. But, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of great stuff going on to lift your spirits. (And pretty good weather recently too.)
On the festival circuit this weekend, there’s DEDfest, In/stall/ed, East Meets West, and Open Sky.
DEDfest is Edmonton’s annual horror film fest. In/stall/ed is is a unique performance and visual art display, happening in the McCauley neighbourhoods in parking spaces. Yeah, public art baby! Latitude 53 is running this, and there will be 17 performances and installations on Saturday. East Meets West continues up in Little Italy and the McCauley neighbourhood, and there’s Mercury Opera performing Madame Butterfly in Giovanni Caboto Park. The Open Sky Music Festival is packing Hawrelak Park with bands and bands and musicians and more musicians.
If you’re into walking, the Highlands neighbourhood is kicking off their walking map this weekend. These maps are great ways to get to know an Edmonton neighbourhood.
I haven’t heard a whole lot about MEAET but it sounds like a cool idea. A bunch of people get together, have some food, enjoy themselves, then vote on who to give some money to for a project.
You can also Show What You Grow, at Fort Edmonton Park.
In music, there’s the earlier mentioned Open Sky Music Festival, with plenty of bands and artists down in Hawrelak Park…Wunderbar’s got Fire Next Time tonight and The Joe and Doug Hoyer triumphantly returning to Edmonton (after a national tour) on Saturday night. Also on Saturday, Hale Hale, Southroot, and Zero Something play the Starlite Room. Back to Friday night, Warped Tourers Inner City Elegance are at Expressionz Cafe. Now back to Saturday (surely I should have done this in chronological order) there’s live music at Ricky’s in Mill Woods (with Consilience and Tyson Skakun).
Oh, and if you walk by CKUA on Jasper Avenue tonight and it seems like something cool is going on it’s because they’re celebrating their amazing record library and have a live performance from 100 Mile House.
Down in the river valley, the Edmonton Capitals host the Calgary Vipers through the weekend.
And over at Clarke Stadium (beside Commonwealth) the Edmonton Huskies are home to Saskatoon Hilltops in Prairie Football.
A night of fine Edmonton music
As we’ve talked about before, Thursday can be a great night for live music in Edmonton.
Tonight is one of those nights.
Over at Wunderbar, you’ve got a fantastic early show. Double-fantastic since you won’t be all groggy tomorrow at work. Cadence Weapon, fresh off his two-year stint as Edmonton’s Poet Laureate, is playing fresh material at the little bar that is big. He’ll be with Mitchmatic and Ghibli, so, yeah, it’s a huge show.
Down the street (the street being Whyte Avenue) at the Pawn Shop tonight you’ll be able to find Black Mastiff, Hale Hale, The Get Down, and Misha and The Spanks playing as part of the New Music West festival and conference. That conference runs through the weekend.
For something a little different, there’s Edmonton: The Musical up on 118 Avenue. Live bands, theatre, fundraising for local arts groups; it’s pretty much a perfect package of Edmonton arts.
There will probably also be music, if only as accompaniment, to Latitude 53′s Thursday night patio party too.
The First Crazy Weekend of Summer
Get ready for a busy weekend, Edmonton. (And the festivals are just getting started too.)
The 10th Royal Bison Craft Fair is at the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre. This one’s gonna be good, with Culina serving up food, and more craftsters than you can shake a knitted-stick at.
Not too far from the Royal Bison, it’s the first East Whyte Street Party. The block party, including Eva Sweet Waffles!, is on 100 Street, between Whyte Avenue and 81st Ave. Businesses up and down Whyte (between 99 Street and the tracks) will have specials and deals for you too. We’ll see you there!
A few blocks away from that…the City of Edmonton is talking food and agriculture policy, outside of the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market.
Sticking with the City…Saturday sees the 3rd annual ETS Community Fair at West Edmonton Mall. And Big Bin Events continue, so you can get rid of all of your old couches.
The Edmonton Energy are in action tonight, playing the USA All-Stars. (The Edmonton Energy are our IBL basketball team.)
In music…Hale Hale, Raptors, and Randy Graves are playing the Pawn Shop tonight with Andrew W.K. So you know it’ll be a party. Anvil is at the Starlite Room. Rusty Reed’s and the Sherbrooke Community League are putting on the “Blossom into the Blues” festival this weekend. Opera Nuova’s Vocal Arts Festival is on right now too. On Sunday…Timbre Timbre at the Avenue Theatre
On Saturday watch out for people running around Edmonton in the City Chase (kind of an Amazing Race style event) and then on Sunday, you’ll see folks running and biking in the Subway Coronation Triathlon – which brings with it road closures.
On the political side of things…the Alberta Party’s got Big Idea Night to kick-off its leadership convention this weekend…and there will be a rally at the Alberta Legislature Sunday, to pressure the provincial government into funding education and avoiding hundreds of teaching cuts this fall…
SEE Magazine might be disappearing, but Merge is back. They re-launch with a party tonight.
You can still catch new one-act plays from local playwrights at the Walterdale.
There are always movies to be watched.
On Sunday, buy some baked goods to help the Slave Lake fire victims. Never before has gorging yourself on brownies been so helpful.
You can wash down all those brownies and cupcakes with beers. Zombeers.
Weekend Eventing
The good times continue! To get ready for this weekend you can ready all three previous installments of events today – Angela’s Events, Brazilian Money, Tim Gilbertson – and then jump in here. Needless to say, it’s gonna be a good weekend.
The Edmonton Poetry Festival is finishing with a flurry.
FC Edmonton plays its first official home game of the season (the game against Toronto FC wasn’t part of the NASL schedule).
boygroove finishes “playing” the Catalyst Theatre. It’s a play about a boy band. Speaking of plays…Chris Craddock’s new one-man show “Public Speaking,” is killing at the Roxy…Brad Fraser, a native Edmontonian now living across the pond, has his play “True Love Lies” on at the Citadel – though he won’t be here to see it.
Still on the stage…Riverdance is at the Jubilee Auditorium…and Into the Woods, from ELOPE Musical Theatre, is at the Timms Centre for the Arts…Little Women, the broadway musical, is at the Citadel’s MacLab Theatre.
Slow Food folks will be at Eat Alberta this weekend. I hope they can finish their meals by the time our show is on Sunday night.
I’m kidding, of course. Slow Food’s got lots to teach us about enjoying what we eat, knowing about where the food is coming from, and exploring the social aspects of eating. And the Eat Alberta conference is about our “local food heroes.”
There’s derby at the “Grindhouse” (14420 112 Street) with the Oil City Derby Girls’ Tank’Er Girls taking on BC’s Raggedy Rollers, at 7pm.
Outside of Tim Gilbertson there are plenty of other great shows this weekend. Hale Hale is at Brixx with an early show tonight…Sherry Lee Wisor is playing Hair of the Dog at the Black Dog Saturday afternoon…and The Pixies are in Edmonton, playing the Shaw Conference Centre on Sunday night.
And, as the poster in this post may have already informed you of, Wunderbar is celebrating one glorious year with owners Craig, Chris, and Levi. They have a whole Sunday of good music, starting at 2pm, with Edmonton bands and artists such as The Joe, Mitchmatic, Scenic Route to Alaska, Miek Headache, Caity Fisher, Fire Next Time, and more, more, more! I may have to stop by and toast a great year of fantastic beer and live music.
Wunderbar’s got great shows tonight and Saturday too, with Fist City, Krang, and The Group Sound tonight, The Dyeing Merchants, Doug Hoyer, Service: Fair, and Ghost Cousin Saturday.
Oh, and if you’re not doing anything Sunday night at 9pm (and again at 9:30) I hear a certain website is debuting a show called the edmontonian presents on ShawTV (channel 10 for you Shaw subscribers, but it will be online shortly after).
All Hale’s Breaking Loose (sorry) OR How #yeg’s Hale Hale Got to Open for Sam Roberts
In life, my friends, we are afforded opportunities at every turn. So many, in fact, that we cannot possibly be expected to go after them all. I, myself, tend to filter these opportunities, choosing the ones that appear to be the most easily attainable. You will not find me pursuing, say, a doctorate in neurobiology, or an Olympic Gold medal, or building a better seahorse. These things all seem exhausting, complicated, and ultimately demanding of A LOT of human effort. NO THANKS.
But! Perhaps that is a mistake. Let the following tale be a lesson to us all – sometimes, the shortest distance between two points is just calling the venue and asking if your band can open for Sam Roberts (this will make sense in a minute). (more…)
Let’s do it
Actually, there’s a lot of “it” we could do.
This is Hale Hale. They are good.
It will all depend on what we define as the it thing to do.
Wow, I’m getting confused.
Onto weekend fun!
The Wheat Pool is returning to the Pawnshop, as Sonic’s band of the month. That will make tonight special.
Also, a win by Team Canada would make tonight special. Where are you watching the game? I’ve got to get home and find something red to wear.
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Yes, of course, I’ve been checking ShareEdmonton for event ideas. Why wouldn’t I?
They’ve reminded me that Winefest Edmonton is this weekend.
And WinterLight continues (what a great weekend of weather we’ll have for getting outside) with The Big Winter. Sounds fun. And big.
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Now, back to my rambling selections.
Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.
Over at the Haven Social Club (A place which I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing.) Hale Hale is going to melt some faces with rock.
I will never get tired of mentioning the babysitter blues.
Go Canada!
…All Hail…Hale Hale!
Hale Hale (Cody McLauchlin, Evan Tardif, Scott Steele & Trevor Neary)
Okay, you guys, I know there’s a seventeen foot wall of snow outside right now, and all anybody’s thinking about is how the hell they’re going to get home from work without getting stuck in some nightmare bottleneck of traffic. But let’s set aside the Winter Wonderland for a minute. I would like to challenge the conventional “go home and hide under your bed in a bathing suit pretending it’s still summer” mentality, and suggest that you put on your dancing Sorels and hit the town tonight. Because it’s going to be a very, very good night over at New City.
Local band Hale Hale is launching their spanky new EP this evening, and they are definitely worth braving walls of snow to see. I first heard of them about a few months ago, when a couple of the members turned up at a friend’s house to play some music. I only met them once or twice, but even just messing around, they were so good, and such nice guys to boot, that I had no choice but to go home, dig a hole in my front yard, put my guitar in it, and light it on fire. Now let us never speak of this again.
Anyway, I talked to the Hale Hale crew about their new record via the ‘lectronic mail yesterday.
SALLY: How did you guys get together?
HALE HALE: We’re not really sure how everything fell together. Everything just kind of did. A mish mash of previous projects and jam friends who eventually started playing together and it stuck.
SALLY: Who would be your guys’ top 5 influences?
HALE HALE: All four members influences vary greatly. That’s one thing that keeps the music interesting. It was never “I love this band” , “I love that band too, let’s play together!”. Cody originally comes from indie roots, Trevor is a post-grunge 90′s kid, Scott grew up with NOFX, the misfits and a skateboard, and Evan, from classic rock, grindcore and black metal to dance music.
SALLY: How has your reception been in the Edmonton music community? What’s your experience been like playing here?
HALE HALE: We’ve been received well, we think. We’ve been told we have a fresh sound. As for playing in Edmonton, it is hard to get anywhere with the lack of venues, but we’re making do with what we got and staying positive for sure. Playing is playing, regardless of where it is, as long as we are getting our music out and growing together as a band.
SALLY: Can you give me a brief description of the EP? What do you hope people take away from it ?
HALE HALE: We just want people to put it on, have a good time, and shake their ass to it. F*ck we are deep.
And finally, if you dig Hale Hale but can’t make it out tonight, you can get a copy of the EP by emailing halehalemusic@gmail.com.
