New Music Revue: Ex-local boy Leeroy Stagger still delivering the goods 10 albums inLeeroy Stagger Dream It All Away (Rebeltone Records) 4/5 Victoria’s Leeroy Stagger is now on his tenth album, a landmark achievement for any singer/songwriter, so it’s pretty cool that Stagger, now based one province over in Alberta, has managed to make it this far. And it’s not without reason: Stagger’s take on foot-stomping roots rock […] Continue Reading |
New Music Revue: Fans & Motor Supply Co. bring lazy ’70s rock to Victoria with much successFans & Motor Supply Co. Quiet Dream (Independent) 3.5/5 These Victoria locals have been spending time with some classic ’70s rock albums. By the sounds of it, Fans & Motor Supply Co., whose name even evokes homage to bands from that great decade of music, reached even deeper beyond the classics to get inspired for […] Continue Reading |
New Music Revue: Seafair show promise with The QuerenciaSeafair The Querencia (Independent) 3.5/5 Cleveland-based six-member indie-rock ensemble Seafair show promise with their sprawling 13-track album The Querencia. Developing a sound similar to early Paramore, Seafair lend an extensive classical background to fill out tracks, creating a cinematic soundtrack to rural life in Ohio. The album’s production is clean, with each melody easily isolated […] Continue Reading |
New Music Revue: Husky use Australian suburbs for powerful inspiration on Rucker’s HillHusky Rucker’s Hill (Nevado Music) 4/5 Inspired by Australian suburbia, Rucker’s Hill is a tempestuous indie-rock EP that will tug your heartstrings. Upbeat vocals with a hint of melancholy drive abstract chord progressions, reminding one immediately of The Shins, with nostalgic and bittersweet lyrics similar to Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. The album is refreshingly honest […] Continue Reading |
New Music Revue: Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten explores the lost rock and roll of CambodiaVarious Artists Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll (Dust-to-Digital) 3.5/5 This soundtrack to the film of the same name documents the history of rock and roll in Cambodia: it ain’t pretty. Cambodian rock musicians have been killed for being rock musicians, making both this album and the documentary fascinating and important looks […] Continue Reading |
Lit Matters: Umberto Eco and the power of learning“To survive, you must tell stories,” wrote Umberto Eco, an Italian scholar and novelist best known for mind-bending intellectual thrillers like The Name of the Rose. Eco, born in 1932, is a titan of 20th-century intellectual history and continues to make scholarly contributions to a boggling array of disciplines; his personal library includes some 50,000 […] Continue Reading |
Langford-based film studio aims big with new productionJust over a year ago, a dream was put into production. Alexander Panagopoulos and his team over at Langford’s Ragnarock Studios wanted to create a film project to get their company up and running. They had developed a story set in ancient Greece, and, as a fan of action movies like 300 and having Greek […] Continue Reading |
A look at two perspectives on Victoria’s sewage controversyOn Tuesday, May 12, a formal debate on the subject of sewage was held at Camosun’s Lansdowne campus. But it’s nothing new: Victoria’s sewage controversy has been stewing for nearly two decades. The last few years have seen things intensify, with plans, counter-plans, and failed proposals stacking up at the Capital Regional District (CRD) to […] Continue Reading |
Know Your Profs: Camosun Visual Arts instructional technologist Mike McLean knows the power of knowledgeKnow Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better. This time around, we talked to Visual Arts instructional technologist Mike McLean about knowledge being power, […] Continue Reading |
Open Space: Never neglect the written word“Readership is at an all-time low.” These aren’t just words that editors and writers see in their nightmares: if we’re not careful, they could become the fate of our society. So what’s going on with reading these days? A huge problem seems to be what people are reading. Different demographics are given different things to […] Continue Reading |
