In the mood for easy-listening, well-crafted, non-offensive pop music? It’ll be interesting to see how well fun‘s new album “Some Nights” does upon release this Tuesday… Love the lead track above. Nothin’ fancy, no harm done.

Seriously digging the new CBC Music platform with features, news, music on demand and a nice array of streaming genre channels, all available free on your desktop or smartphone. Well done, CBC folks, well done.

I’m really excited to hear that The Lumineers, a still relatively unknown band from Colorado, are playing at the Media Club in a month and a half. This should be a blast for any and all who enjoy warm folky music to sing-along to, yet still with a youthful and indie edge. If that’s not enticing [...]

A longtime great pal, a wicked barber and all-around incredible musician- Vancouver’s Rich Hope did a little Green Couch Session recently!

n + 1 tackles the history of Pitchfork, “The only publication, online or print, that can have a decisive effect on a musician or band’s career.” By constantly updating and adjusting its archive—whether by deleting early reviews or by writing up a reissued album for a second time—Pitchfork has become the only music publication to [...]

Behance Network’s Peter Stults imagines familiar movies in an alternate universe. Cool stuff.

Totally floatin’ my boat these days…

And may I add, what a treat to see it on the big screen while it’s still theatres! Totally recommend you treat yourselves.

The timing is coincidental, but I can’t imagine how massive this news could be once finally hitting these shores to properly extend the gravity of such a dire situation. The story that made headlines around the world this week was about a mass-suicide protest at Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer of technology products: Foxconn, which manufactures [...]

I finally got around to watching Bill Cunningham New York last night and totally enjoyed the ride. A critically-acclaimed 2010 documentary (98% on Rotten Tomatoes!) about the New York Times’ legendary ‘On The Street‘ photographer – it’s such a good glimpse of New York as a whole, but more than that- a touching portrait of [...]

Geist offers a behind-the-scenes peek from the making of Stan Douglas’ iconic photo-recreation of the 1971 Gastown Riot, currently making its home at Woodward’s.

I was just perusing the New Yorker blogs and learned about Codecademy’s ‘Code Year‘, a service that will email you a weekly interactive programming lesson and according to their website,  ”You’ll be building apps and web sites before you know it.” If you had a New Year’s resolution to pick up a new skill, this may be [...]

It could be all the rain or the fact that it gets chilly and dark so early, but I’ve found myself really digging Tilda Swinton King Krule these last few months…

I quite enjoyed this online-exclusive interview from The Believer with Mindy Kaling, the whip-smart (and hilarious) executive producer, writer and co-star of The Office.

One of my favourite holiday traditions: Darlene Love performs Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) on the last Letterman before Christmas FOR THE 25TH YEAR IN A ROW! (…and sounds as amazing as ever!) Update: An hour after posting this, I noticed this link making the rounds on Twitter of CBS’s mash-up of all of her [...]

So glad and surprised that James Blake opted to give ‘A Case Of You‘- his Joni Mitchell cover – a video treatment since it’s not an official release from his album (one of my 2011 favourites.) A beautiful portrait of love, with Vicky Christina Barcelona‘s Rebecca Hall.

Advertising Age picks the Top Ten Magazine Covers of 2011, including the New Yorker’s brilliant take on Japan’s post-Tsunami nuclear crisis and the ‘eerie silence’ that permeated its coverage.

Had a fantastic moment yesterday while I was doing the dishes, of all things. I was listening to the NPR All Songs Considered podcast, which is one of my favourite things to do. It was the Year In Music edition, 90 minutes of excellence. I particularly like this episode every year because, not only do [...]

I began watching out of curiosity and was quickly hooked for the full 30 minutes on the New York Times’ 3-part feature on NHL tough guy Derek Boogaard (called Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer). It explores the role these guys play, the emotional effects and brain damage associated with hundreds [...]

No, we’re not trying to turn this into a Black Keys blog, but their new album ‘El Camino’ comes out tomorrow. Best to acquaint yourself with it quick and enjoy it while you can, because if it’s anything like Brothers, you’ll still be hearing it cycled in every restaurant and bar a year from now. [...]

I have a penchant this time of year for songs that sound like they could be holiday songs, but actually aren’t. Lanterns On The Lake‘s ‘I Will Lay You Down’ has been on constant rotation for me as of late. They’re certainly not reinventing the wheel and I’m sure there’s inevitable comparisons to Mazzy Star‘s Hope Sandoval, [...]

The competition is now closed, but there’s some pretty cool concepts that have been entered to re:CONNECT, the City of Vancouver’s call to re-imagine the space where the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts currently stand. Take a gander…

During the last few weeks I spent a good amount of time travelling along open, winding roads in Australia. Much of this time was spent listening to Triple J Radio, a staple for Australian music fans both home and abroad. Sometimes it seemed like every second song that played had me launching the Notepad on my [...]

On the 48th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Errol Morris explores the story behind the one man seen standing under an open black umbrella at the site. I loved this little clip from the NY Times Op-Docs about an intriguing story tied in with JFK’s assassination that I hadn’t heard before. [...]