Igloofest playlist: filling your weekends up until February

Here at Forget the Box, we made some New Year’s resolutions. One of them is to have our playlists back on a monthly basis. I guess the summer’s festivals were pretty rough on our livers but no worries, dear music lovers, we’re back for good! We’re starting the year with a subjective guide on what not to miss during the three weekends of Igloofest…

2011 Year in Review: Arts

From infringing on corporate culture in Montreal and Buffalo, venue hoping in Toronto during Canadian Music Week, catching experimental music in Brooklyn and hanging with bonafide rock stars at Osheaga, 2011 proved to be yet another exciting year for the arts section at Forget the Box…

Bran Van, Thank You Mam

Bran Van 3000 are legendary in the Montreal music scene. Ever since making it big with their hit Drinking in LA, which, by the way was originally entitled Drinking in Longeuil, they’ve been touring and bringing their eclectic sound to adoring fans everywhere. (I don’t know how much fun drinking in a metro or on the South Shore would be?)

Bran Van doesn’t release albums very often, in fact they’ve only released 4 albums since 1994. Which makes a Bran Van album release kinda like getting laid in the back of a Chevy, it doesn’t happen that often, but when it does – You’re really lucky!

Raindance Montreal Booze n’ Shmooze Tonight

I’m no cinematographer, but I’m pretty stoked about this. Strarted by a Canadian in London 19 years ago, Raindance is an indepnedent film festival, but from the looks of things it’s way more than that. With 55 000 members worldwide and offices in six cities (including Montreal, woohoo!) they hold courses, learn from each other and make collective art. When you think about all the creative people it takes to put on a movie (which I never really considered) you start to realize,,,

Shout it out loud: Artist Gina Birch does post-punk girl art

L’Ecole Des Beaux-Arts is pulsating with art and energy on Saturday as artists, students and punk rock enthusiasts come together to contemplate a very unique female experience. The Raincoats: Adventures art show, at the top a winding staircase, starts behind an ominous black curtain. Inside, a woman screams wildly. Cautiously peeling open the curtain, I crash into the chest of a sheepish-looking young man. He apologizes and sails down the stairs to the lobby. God, what’s happening in there? Then I see her – the screamer – the frame focused tightly around her face, catching a moment…

A Day at the Races: Prepare Yourself!

People get ready, rummage through your closet and get out your Sunday best and your Friday worst because Montreal is about to witness a once in a life time opportunity. This Saturday A Night At the Races is gonna rock your world. At Espace des Arts (9 Ste-Catherine Est) the dream team of promoters, producers and artists are coming together for the first time ever. Three rooms, 17 dj’s,live performances and every hip to be square queer personality that Montreal has to offer. All of these legends have come together…

Four Days of Madness…The Good Kind: A Report from the 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival

As the bus takes me back to Montreal away from a weekend away from the ordinary at the 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival, one thought seems to dominate my mind: next year, I’m going to go for longer. I’ve been for longer, in fact last year I spent a little over a week at the BIF, but this year circumstances limited my time there to four days. Four wonderful days jam-packed with underground art and chillin in the park, sometimes both at the same time. A mere ten minutes after arriving in town, I was in The Bend watching Infringement cab driver (yes, the fest has its own cabbie), visual artist and now spoken-word comedy artist Scott “Skitchy” Steele…

Down The Rabbit Hole: Friday’s Osheaga Experience

Last Friday, I fell down the rabbit hole. Standing up, I brushed myself off and looked around. “Holy shit, holy shit, this is awesome!” Pure glee. In front of me, two giant stages had been erected and a crowd of hundreds grooved in unison to Broken Social Scene. I had fallen into the psychedelic landscape of Osheaga. Let it be known that this was my first time at Osheaga, this being my first year living in Montreal. For purely monetary reasons, I wasn’t planning on going (you may recall last week’s article “Keeping cool on a (penniless) budget”…) but then the Champion of Fun [i.e. Shit Shows], Chris Zacchia, called me and informed me I was coming with him. Um, yeah, no problem…

Buffalo Infringement Festival: Just Get There, They’ll Do The Rest

For those readers who live in Western New York State, Toronto or the area surrounding it who are looking for something to do, for my fellow Montrealers and friends in New York City who can travel a bit and for pretty much anyone into original and underground theatre, independent music and bearing a will to be artistic and different, I have one destination to recommend for the next ten days: Buffalo, New York and in particular the seventh annual Buffalo Infringement Festival…

Montreal Osheaga Festival Round-Up

Montreal Music festival Osheaga is coming to town this weekend and with it a plethora of bands for you to lush over. This year the festival has expanded to a three day bonanza featuring five outdoor stages and a ton of Musicians! This is gonna be a hell of a trip, I hope you’re ready! As with any good outdoor music festival worth its spit, Osheaga is gonna have a bunch of great bands all playing at the same time. And it’s going to take a well weathered and speedy heel to catch all the good stuff when it goes on and not to miss any of the hidden gems. A good look at the schedule and a solid plan would be our first suggestion. Osheaga’s website actually provides a handy schedule creator that comes in quite useful when trying to plan your day…

Tales from the Fringe border, or Why can’t we all just work together?

The Infringement is a festival dedicated to using art to challenge oppressive structures, and having fun while doing it. It was designed to capture the spirit of the original Fringe, lost when the festival started charging artists several hundred dollars to perform and…

Festival International de Jazz de Montreal is back: Where’s the Jazz?

Another year, another Festival International de Jazz de Montreal experience. Thankfully this year I spent less time being detained by security for smuggling in contraband beer and more time listening to some really good tunes – but seriously, I have to ask this question every year: where is all the jazz?

Every year, I expect to hear some bebop or post-ragtime jazz – it is the type of jazz I play all the time in my head, the kind of jazz played on vinyl (with cracks, pops, imperfections and all) – but mostly I really appreciate music that makes me feel like I am marching in a New Orleans funeral procession. Is that so wrong?

Infringement Part 1: Picnics, Pigs and Pints

It’s been one of those mornings where, upon waking and peeling open bloodshot eyes, the first logical step is finding some sunglasses and liquid. Ah yes, Infringement Festival is underway and the first few moments of my days are beginning to form a pattern…

An Infringement virgin’s cherry popping

Of all the festivals happening this Spring/Summer, it was the Fringe festival which was top of my hit list. Ireland, being relatively close to Scotland, made word of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival pretty common place. The idea of an anti-establishment and reactionary festival was somewhat enchanting to somebody with no Fringe experience. So it was much to my surprise and disappointment when I learned a little about the commercial aspect of Montréal’s Fringe TM…but I need not have feared…

Montreal, take a breath and hear this: Clara Engel

First of all…that voice, that voice, that voice. You couldn’t talk through something like this and get the point.Clara gets on stage in the dim room and I’m already pretty stoned. She takes the stage with this big blue hollow body guitar obscuring most of her androgynous self, fiddles with a few peddles, then stands and opens her mouth. The room is so silent that even whispering is rude. Clara says …

Mutek 2011: A Mix of Pleasure and Disappointment

I’m slowly getting back to what’s supposed to be normal life. After spending two weeks blasting my ears out to electronic music in two festivals, it’s now time to give you my impression about this year’s Mutek festival.

Here’s a list of the best and the worst acts this year’s edition had to offer…