Live Music Is A Once In A Lifetime Experience
“What is the formula to make a great rock record? Cover a synth-pop record from 1981!” (laughter)
José Contreras, guitarist composer vocalist etc. for By Divine Right, is very clear about the latest release they’re bringing to this year’s (2016) Sled Island Music & Arts Festival, Speak & Spell US …
As for irony, there’s a healthy contingent of that as well: despite luxuriating in the Atlantic Coast accent from arrival to departure, these interviewees both live in B.C! Both John Oliver, and Haddis Fard composed and performed and participated in events around the St. John’s port, …
These are the kinds of conversations you have when REALLY committed individuals spend inordinate amounts of time attached to a musical instrument . . . professionals, in other words, usually to OUR benefit: BB King had Lucille, a guitar he’d rescued from a burning building; Brian May (Queen) has his family-made Red special; and Andrea Case, Baroque cellist and 4th generation Calgary musician has …
In the middle of July 2026, before the wildfires & heat domes had taken over the news forums, the intrepid MUSICAlive contributor Polina Tognonmegni, photographer painter & graphics diva, travelled with another enthusiast to the northern wilderness to experience . . . Rockin’ Thunder Music Festival. Which claimed “a high-voltage festival experience where the guitars are louder, the energy is wilder, and the rock never stops! We’ll be rocking out with you at the Exhibition Lands Racetrack in Edmonton AB July 11-12, 2026.”
And part of that ritual is that MUSICAlive! stands in a parking lot next to the passing C-trains, with small crowds of musically sated enthusiasts swirling about (and occasionally joining in) as we talk with musicians about what’s to come, what’s happened so far, and where they exist here on the gravel today. …
I have nothing to say about music today. It’s kind of a strange thing, when you consider that my ears are continually massaged throughout the day and evening by rhythms and harmonies, the wide variety of styles that give me great pleasure: whether there’s the live U2 playing (from the movie I’ve never seen); or the 12” …
Pete wraps up our conversation with the phrase that immediately gets into the title of this article, which is certainly not where we expected to end when talking with the Finlandian hard rocking band Dharma Guns, that sounds like it escaped from the 90’s with it’s heart intact! Here’s the guitars the songwriter plays which kind of explains some of this: …
