River City Writer

An online friend of mine, who has recently moved to Edmonton, requested that I write more about the music/concert scene here in River City. I told him that I would try to do so.

Hopefully, most of my music-related posts will be about Edmonton-based musicians, but this particular post isn’t. This post is about Minneapolis, Minnesota’s Brother Ali.

Brother Ali is coming to Edmonton on Sunday, October 07 at the Velvet Underground (downstairs at the Starlite Room). Because the show is in the Velvet Underground (formerly the Victory Lounge), Starlite Room membership is not required to get in.

If you’re a fan of hip hop, Ali is one of the best emcees out there right now. His style and lyrics are heavily influenced by the Golden Age of hip hop. KRS-One, Rakim, and Public Enemy are some of his most obvious influences.

If you’re into lyrics that are both smart and witty, with beats that are completely rocking, I highly recommend checking out Brother Ali.

He is one of the most passionate performers I’ve ever heard on a record. The amount of passion that comes through the records can’t be faked. Despite that, something tends to get lost in the studio, so I suspect that he’ll be even more intense live than he is on disc.

Brother Ali plays the Velvet Underground (10030-102 Street) on October 07, 2007 @ 8:00pm. Tickets are $16 ($18 at the door), and are available at Megatunes, Blackbyrd, Foosh, and Soular.

Just a quick post to let you know that I will be live twittering all night from the Roar. If, for some reason, you can’t make it out to the Festival, you can still keep track of what’s happening by following my Twitter stream, either on the side bar of my personal blog, on my Facebook profile, or my Twitter page.

If you have a Twitter account and a cell phone, you can set it up so that you get messages sent directly to your phone.

Facebook and the blog seem to be the best places to keep track of the messages. I’ve noticed that messages sent from my cell phone sometimes don’t appear on my Twitter page, but still show up on the blog and on Facebook.

If you can’t make it to the Roar, be sure to keep up to speed by watching my Twitter feed.

Tomorrow night is the Roar. It’s gonna be an ass-kicker. Because I’m shameless, I’m pimping the shows that I’m involved in. Check out the Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque (details above), where I’ll be tearing up the stage with Michael Appleby, Nicole Pakan, and Patrick Pilarski. It will be a barn-burner, a pants-dropper, and a mind-blower.

Immediately following that event will be Night Moves, a show that I’m hosting at the same venue. Night Moves features Corine Demas, Laurie MacFayden, and Lisa Pruden. These women know how to rock it. They will blow your mind. Confessions and confusions about sexuality, identity, nostalgia, femininity, and the journeys in between. It’s not to be missed. I’m left breathless whenever I hear one of them read, and I’m proud to be able to present them to the festival with this show.

For complete event listings and show times, check out the Roar schedule.

It is officially Edmonton Poetry Week. This means that I’m going to be busier than usual, as I’m going to be attending events, and also performing in one, and producing/hosting another. I will try to blog about the Festival as much as possible, but my posts might be sporadic, and may not be published at the usual 10:00am (Mountain Time) publishing time.

In the meantime, here’s a brief listing of some of the events that I’m hoping to check out. There are a few that I probably won’t get out to, just because of the time and location at which they’re occurring, but hopefully those constraints won’t stop you from checking things out.

CORTEX - Cortex is a multidisciplinary event, featuring poetry, visual & video art, music, and dance. I know a few of the people involved, and they’re all insane geniuses (some more insane than others, but all artistic geniuses, in my opinion). Cortex occurs today at Latitude 53 (2nd Floor, 10248 – 106 Street), from 7-9:30pm. Admission is $5.

Poets Across Borders - Showcasing the incredible cultural and ethnic diversity that exists in Edmonton, Poets Across Borders teams poets from Sudan, Pakistan, Croatia, the Phillipines, Chile, Kurdistan, India, and the Caribbean with English-speaking poets to perform collaborative works. I believe that the writers who have come from non-English countries will be performing in their native languages, but I’m not 100% sure about that. Poets Across Borders will be performing daily, at noon on CBC Centre Stage in City Centre Mall.

The Roar Spoken Word Festival - On Friday, September 21, the dynamo of spoken word and performance poetry in Edmonton is back for a 3rd year. A 3 hour literary pub crawl across the downtown core, the Roar features the best and brightest poets from Edmonton, and beyond. A blowout finale party featuring the Raving Poets Band follows the pub crawl. The finale will be held at Axis Cafe (10349 Jasper Avenue).

Small Words, Big Moments - Edmonton-based DailyHaiku launches it’s first ever print edition on Saturday, September 22. Current editors, and poetic power couple, Patrick Pilarski and Nicole Pakan host a Zen-like afternoon of tea and haiku at Cafe Select (8404 109th Street). A haiku workshop will follow the readings.

Coffee Lines Stroll - 40 readers, 4 coffee shops, 2 hours. Some of Edmonton’s most prolific poets will be out in full force on Sunday, September 23 from 2-4pm. Check the event web page for locations and a full list of readers.

For a full listing of Edmonton Poetry Week events, visit the www.edmontonpoetryfestival.com.

Last night, I was at a meeting with some of my fellow poets to finalize the details of our show for this year’s Roar Festival—Patrick Pilarski’s “The Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque,” which I am performing in. I’m also producing a show called “Night Moves,” which will take place immediately after the Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque. Both of this shows will be absolutely kickin’.

Because I was at this meeting, and because the Roar is only 7 days away, there is little else on my mind. Next week is Edmonton Poetry Week. The Roar will be the highlight of the week, but there is a lot of other stuff happening that week, as well. Check out the schedule for full event listings.

There will be something for everyone at this year’s Edmonton Poetry Festival, as well as at the Roar. Both festivals include a wide range of poetry. If you’re into confessionals, you’ll be able to see that. If you love Zen and haiku, you’ll find some of that, as well. And, of course, there will be a full metric tonne of ass-kicking performance poetry going on during the Roar.

If you think that you don’t like poetry, I invite you to check out any of the events happening at Three Bananas Cafe during the Roar. It will be the poetic equivalent of a rock show. You might find that you like poetry after all.

Edmonton Poetry Festival: Now in it’s 2nd year, the Edmonton Poetry Festival is a week long poetry extravaganza. From September 17–23, poetry will flood the city—especially downtown. Events include a hip hop night, the Roar Lit Crawl (see below), and Leonard Cohen Nights.

The Roar Spoken Word Festival: The 3rd annual Roar Spoken Word Festival will be kicking ass on Friday, September 21. The Roar will take over downtown’s cafes and pubs, and turn them into rocking spoken word concert venues. Mics will be rocked, and minds will be blown. It will be the most intense 5 hours of performance poetry that you’ll witness this year.

Arts Alives! Kaliedo Festival: Head down to 118th Avenue on September 28 & 29 for the Arts Alive! Kaliedo Festival, sponsored by Arts on the Ave. The festival will bring musicians, performance artists, and visual artists to the Alberta Avenue (118 Ave) community for a huge showcase of local talent. With over 100 acts in total, this may just be the biggest arts festival in Edmonton.

My friend and fellow poet Patrick Pilarski joins the ranks of published Edmonton authors today, with the launch of Five Weeks, his collection of haiku and haibun. Alongside folks like Thomas Trofimuk, Linda Goyette, Gail Sobat, Todd Babiak, and Mingus Tourette, he’s in good company.

I haven’t seen the book yet, but I know Patrick’s work, and he definitely deserves to be counted among Edmonton’s top authors. I’ll be picking up a copy of the book tomorrow night, and will write a review in the coming weeks.

Details:

Wednesday, July 25th, 8:00pm
The Kasbar Lounge (under Yianni’s Taverna, 10444 – 82 ave.)

Launch and reception for Patrick Pilarski’s new chapbook of haiku and haibun: Five Weeks (2007). Doors open at 7:00pm, reading at 8:00pm, socializing, merriment, refreshments, and prize draws to follow. Evening hosted and introduced by DailyHaiku founder Mike Gravel. Throughout the evening copies of the chapbook will be on sale at special launch discount price of $10.

This weekend marks the 3rd annual Grand Prix of Edmonton. I won’t be in town to cover this event, and don’t have tickets even if I were going to be in town. I can, however, provide you with a brief list of things that you might want to do this weekend, if auto racing is your thing.

In addition to the race itself, there are a number of supporting events going on around Edmonton.

Things start off with a bang tonight at the track. The entertainment tent is going to be having a variety of drink specials until 8pm. Tonight’s musical entertainment includes ZOO 2K, the ultimate U2 tribute band. I’d link to them, but the only link I can find leads to a Geocities site that doesn’t appear to exist anymore.

Saturday has a much wider variety of events going on. DJ Kwake is playing a retro/old school party in the track tent at 6:00pm. Jamie Murray’s #26 Crown Royal NASCAR will be at O’Byrne’s on Whyte from 4-7pm. Finally, at Overtime South, there will be a BBQ honouring the NASCAR Canada drivers following the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race. This event starts at 7pm.

Keep in mind that these are only the official events. It’s likely that half the bars in the city are putting on Grand Prix-related events. The One on Whyte has hosted events for the past two years, with a Champ Car on display in the dining area, so I’d be surprised if they weren’t doing something again this year. I know they already had an event on Thursday, but I’m sure there will be more this weekend.

Sunday caps off with a Post-Grand Prix Patio Party at Overtime’s downtown location (10304-111 Street) starting at 3pm. This event includes a BBQ, prize giveaways, and race replays.

Additionally, all weekend long, Smitty’s/Shades Lounge Kingsway will be giving all customers an opportunity to win tickets to the races[1]. If you don’t have tickets, grab a bite to eat at Smitty’s and you might win some. Besides, Smitty’s is a decent place to eat. They manage to have a bit of that small town diner feel, even though they’re a large franchise chain. Plus, the food is good, if somewhat unhealthy.

If you’ve got the inside scoop on any Grand Prix-related events that I haven’t mentioned, please leave the details in the comments section.

*****

[1] Please note that the picture on that site is completely inaccurate; the restaurant is inside the mall.