Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

Oh, how we wanted Holy Fuck to win the 2008 Polaris Prize. For a competition whose winner seems to be chosen on the basis of context as much as content—a year later, can anyone really argue that Patrick Watson's album had more "artistic merit" than Feist's?—it would have been perfect: here, after all, on the brink of a federal election, is a band recently and uncomfortably cited by the Conservative government as one good......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

While there can be no doubt that Toronto loves metal in all its deliciously absurd incarnations, the genre has definitely had its share of ups and downs. In the 1980s through the very beginning of the '90s, metal rode right alongside rock, fledgling commercial rap, and pop music, and was a viable arena (get it?) for any dedicated musician. But the nineties took flight, friends, and metal's baggage was left on the ground as......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

As orientation weeks get ready to overwhelm Toronto's many post-secondary institutions, there is one question more important than the hemming and hawing over academics, new friends, and leaving home: who will have the best Frosh Week concert? This year's race is as stacked as ever: U of T gets Tokyo Police Club, Cadence Weapon, and Basia Bulat on Friday, September 5 on their Back Campus; York gets Stars (U of T's /hidden_cameras.php">leftovers), Sweet Thing,......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.......

It's been a quiet year for Pearl Jam. Apart from a brief excursion into the United States (which featured a stunning, career-defining performance at Bonnaroo), the band's been spending most of 2008 recording the follow-up to its 2006 release, variously known as Pearl Jam, self-titled, or Avocado (on account of its unusual cover art). The waiting (to quote one of the band's better-known songs) is driving Pearl Jam's legions of fans mad; bless Eddie Vedder,......

While metal lord Lemmy Kilmister publicly embraces Canada, he also rubbed a few bangers the wrong way when he mentioned in 1999, that he didn't like Toronto because it was "full of ugly women." Whoops. Unlike some other people though, he had the good graces not to let this slag slip at the show. Lemmy's had a few notable incidents in Toronto, but perhaps the most momentous was in 1975, when he got himself......

Photo by fotograf416 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Ever-eccentric King Khan hit up Toronto a few times last week, playing at the Horseshoe on Wednesday and Thursday, Sonic Boom on Thursday, and Rancho Relaxo on Friday. While the Rancho gig consisted of "punks force-mingl[ing] with jock runoff...and some the finest hipster douche scum in Toronto," according to Eye, the real fun apparently came at the Horseshoe earlier in the week. How awkward the 'shoe......

The name George Michael generally conjures up images of a guy in tight jeans and black jacket, stuck in the 80s, crooning lightweight pop fluff. It might also conjure the memory of the guy who got arrested for indecency. Or the guy who was busted for drugs after passing out in his car. But go back to when CFTR wasn’t all news, when acid wash was in, and when pop music (good pop music) was......

Still listening to indie rock? If so, time to get amped for that other cellular service provider–sponsored outdoors concert: the Rogers Picnic. This year's spread includes the usual grub—ubiquitous preps Vampire Weekend and local flavour-of-the-year Tokyo Police Club—as well as finer treats, like the lovable, esoteric Animal Collective, or Cat Power and her smuggled-whiskey voice. The egg salad sandwich, if you will—love it or loathe it—is headliner City and Colour, the Dallas Green solo......

From Napster to Morpheus, iTunes to .torrents (not to mention the popularity of indie-kid and kid-at-heart collector's favorite record shops), CD sales are on the decline. While this isn't exactly a news-making statement today, it becomes one when the retail giants finally decide to step up and er, face the music. HMV (His Master's Voice, inspired by the 1899 Francis Barraud painting of his dog listening to a gramophone) announced yesterday that the new......

Big news! According to MuchMusic's (quite reliable) blog, Led Zeppelin will be in Toronto in August to play (and, we assume, easily sell out) four dates at the Rogers Centre. No other details have yet been leaked. Since tickets for London's show on December 10 of last year were resold easily online for more than $3,000; since tickets are to be available via Ticketmaster; and since, according to MuchMusic's blog, there will be "no fancy......

In the latest chapter for one of the area's longest-running bands, Teenage Head are celebrating the release of a new album this week with a concert on Friday at Jeff Healey's. Originally hailing from Hamilton, Teenage Head were one of the seminal bands at the infancy of the Toronto punk scene, along with bands like The Scenics, The Viletones, The Mods, and The Ugly. Frequently cited as Canada's answer to The Ramones—although their new......

On Thursday night at the Silver Dollar, Jay Reatard's show got ugly. The Memphis band's shows usually do, but almost never like Thursday's: Reatard punched a patron who climbed on stage square in the face and angrily packed up his gear (video above), before Dan Burke, the Dollar's legendary and notorious booker, hopped on stage himself, delivering a tirade against Reatard ("fuck this American...that's fucking pussy shit"). On his blog on Friday, Reatard recapped......

Let's just get this out of the way right off the bat—Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are a very very very good band. When we wrote about them last February on the heels of a way-too-short performance at Sneaky Dee's, we ran through the band's history with drummer Philip Dickey, and gushed that they "have a knack for hooks, likeable melodies, and a kind of rough, untidy rock and roll sound that is......

Just like last year, the television show/concert series Beautiful Noise is filming next week at Berkeley Church (315 Queen Street East), which means one really really terrific thing: totally free concerts! Like, Yo La Tengo! My Morning Jacket! British Sea Power! Stars! Islands! Ted Leo and the Pharmacists! The Constantines! And, like, a dozen more! Here's what you've got to do to get in. The full list of dates and bands follow after the fold......

On the opening track of Pink Martini's latest album, lead singer China Forbes croons, "Everywhere I go, I see a world designed for you and me"—and every time you spin the record, you hear songs from all over the world. This Saturday, one lone performance at Massey Hall will echo in a mass of different languages, sung in a million more exquisite styles. Says founder and artistic director Thomas M. Lauderdale of the unique......

Photo of Les Breastfeeders from lesbreastfeeders.ca Starting tonight, Canadian Music Week goes full-fledged—coming to every lounge, parlour, house, and palace near you. With nearly thirty gigs tonight, each showcasing three to seven acts (we'll let you do the math), Torontoist has done the homework to help you narrow your overwhelming night down. But don't give us too much extra credit; we did have to ask for a little help from the CMW stars themselves.......

The final lineup for the benefit concert for the O'Keefe family has been announced. Organized by Andrew Copland—John O'Keefe's close friend and the Duke of Gloucester's head bartender—the concert aims both to honour John O'Keefe, who was killed walking home from the bar a month and a half ago, and to raise money for an education fund for John's son, Iain. This Sunday, March 2, the Mod Club will host a mix of Toronto......

According to MuchMusic, Radiohead is on the verge of confirming details about their stop in Toronto––expected to be August 15 at the Molson Ampitheatre. The stop, on the second half of Radiohead's tour, comes in the wake of their latest album In Rainbows, which is neither the best album ever, nor the best album of last year (hello, Boxer), but is still pretty wonderful. While tickets aren't yet on sale (watch this space to......

It's been a little over a month since John O'Keefe was killed outside the Brass Rail, walking to the subway from the Duke of Gloucester. While the makeshift memorial outside the Rail is gone now, the man it was for is far from forgotten––by friends, family, or city. Many of the stories about O'Keefe have told of a dedicated, loving father; indeed, the reason why he left the Duke of Gloucester early––a friend wanted him......

For some magically ridiculous reason, CBC Radio 3's weekly countdown, the R3-30, is broadcasting from a skating rink this week in a move that's heavily dividing the hipster set after the announcement of another free—and markedly less active—event that same night: Tokyo Police Club at Nathan Phillips Square. But host Craig Norris offers this pitch in their favour: "If you've ever listened to The R3-30 in the comfort of your warm, cozy home and......

Is 1996 retro yet? Probably not, but that doesn't mean Toronto isn't way overdue for some good, old-fashioned ska-punk sounds courtesy of Less Than Jake, who are playing a free show this Saturday (January 19) at 8:00 p.m. at The Sound Academy (aka. The Docks). They make us all nostalgic for the old days...you know, hanging out in dirty parking lots with skateboards and big puffy shoes, dreaming about when your first chair trombone......

The Hidden Cameras are back home, and we are all better off for it. As we mentioned in this week's music listings, the Cameras––they of the Mississauga-bred now world-famous exuberant gay pop fame––are playing an AIDS benefit concert this Thursday night at the Great Hall in Hart House (7 Hart House Circle), with proceeds going to Toronto People With AIDS Foundation and AVERT International. The show, with Montreal's Sister Suvi and Toronto's Allie Hughes, will......