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Charles Bradley’s Music for the Austerity Era

by Ian Beattie The sixty-four-year-old soul singer has become the unlikely voice of American anger.

Charles Bradley backstage at the Corona Theatre. Above and display photographs by Ellie Payne Smith.

ON A RECENT EVENING, while Portugal erupted in marches, rioters torched Athens and Occupy Oakland clashed with police, Charles Bradley stood in the exposed-brick basement of Montreal’s Corona Theatre, ironing his suits and listening to the Marvelettes. He was due onstage in an …

Anarchy in the QC

by Sam Sutherland In the summer of 1977, one makeshift, beer-soaked venue brought punk rock to Montreal. Then the mafia showed up.

Illustration by Fred Casia.

Carlos Soria slinks down an Old Montreal street in a hockey jacket and blue jeans, broken streetlamps glowing overhead. It’s 1977, and Soria’s a burgeoning punk. He hasn’t found his tribe yet, or figured out the right clothes and chords, but he knows there must be something different in this town—something raging …

The 75 Best Songs of 2011

by Chandler Levack From Rich Aucoin to Rihanna, Young Jeezy to Yuck, here are the finest singles of the year.

Young Jeezy. Photograph by J Blues.

Here are the finest singles of the year, as selected by Maisonneuve’s Music Room columnist. Some were technically released in late 2010 as the lead singles from albums that came out in 2011, so don’t get smart. Enjoy.

1. Young Jeezy featuring Jay-Z and Andre 3000: “I Do”

Not since “International Playas …

Pop Montreal: The Corner Store

by Drew Nelles An interview with James Irwin, Katherine Peacock, Shaun Weadick, Carl Spidla and Neil Holyoak.

On September 25, five Montreal musicians—Katherine Peacock, Carl Spidla, Neil Holyoak, James Irwin and Shaun Weadick—will play a special little show at La Tour Prisme, as part of the Pop Montreal festival. It’s an updated version of something called the Corner Store, a regular event the performers used to hold at various apartments around the city. I …

Pop Montreal: R. Stevie Moore’s Best Video Moments

by Natasha Li Pickowicz Our favourite video offerings from lo-fi legend R. Stevie Moore, who will speak at the Pop Montreal Symposium on September 23.

Since 1967, outsider pop savant R. Stevie Moore has recorded over four hundred albums. Though most of them have been released only as super-limited-edition cassettes, CD-Rs or home videos, and are available only through his personal label, the R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club, a surprising amount of his work has wound up on the internet.

I first discovered Moore’s …

Devo’s Crisis of Late Capitalism

by John Semley How the pioneers of irony sold out without selling out.

My favourite Devo song is probably “That’s Good,” from 1982’s Oh, No! It’s Devo. I have several mp3 files of “That’s Good” on my computer. These range from the album version to live performances of the song to a dispassionate, synth-only MIDI version. And an instrumental one that’s mostly harmonica, with some horns I can …

Tenth Anniversary: Spring

ISSUE 43 Tenth Anniversary: Spring 2012

online content:

also in this issue:

  • Face the Music

    by Tim Falconer How can someone who passionately loves music also be a terrible singer? Tim Falconer takes up voice lessons—and discovers the surprising science of tone deafness.

  • The Big Job

    by Deni Y. Béchard As a teenager, Deni Y. Béchard went to Vancouver to live with his father, an ex-con with a penchant for telling tall tales. He met a man desperate to forget the past.

  • The Homesickness of Astronauts

    by Johanna Skibsrud "She felt a great sadness. She would remember next to nothing of this, even soon."
  • [see full issue contents]