Category: rock
The ultimate conglomerator
Thunder and lightning: Rock & roll’s climatologists
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.”
The girls of summer Pt. 1: The Truth Untold has some personal things to say, with a distortion pedal!
After Rose and MUSICAlive! get through the naming of guitars and cats and other home furnishings (Shakespearean & Marvel Universe, to be exact), we finally settle down to actually talking about MUSIC (sometimes our conversations have to be reined in like a running mare who’s escaped from the pen). The good news is, to maintain the metaphor, this isn’t the songwriter’s first rodeo! …
Grimelda rocks: Sort of feeling, sort of fooling
Skyler plays guitar, and Blair plays drums, and apparently they “both shriek like idiots!” Their words, not mine.
That simple list does NOT do them credit, though, because this 2-piece sounds like a 4-piece: with complex melody lines and sequencers and samples clearly being triggered and used during a set that includes songs with . . . movements …
Trash pop punk rock but not too heavy: The Mad Ones belie their name
“But compared to a world where MuchMusic was the main way people saw things, I think there’s still somewhat more democracy now.”
So sayeth Andrew DeVilliers, the songwriter, producer, lead singer and guitar player of Mad Ones, a trash pop band centred in Toronto. …
If ‘You Know That You Want To’, there’s no sense going half-assed: Redhead Mack Band is rockin’ for fun!
Apparently Kevin Phillips, lead singer and songwriter for the newly minted rock quartet Redhead Mack Band, plays a custom electric guitar made by Northwood, a Canadian company that “normally makes acoustic but occasionally electric guitars.” …
