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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …