GOOD2GO rock Ottawa for 20 years

 Photo: Michelle Valberg Whether it's through a poster or a marquee, a GOOD2GO show is something that's just been ever-present in Ottawa for two decades. In fact, the Ottawa punk legends are in their 20th year as a band, and by all accounts, they're as strong as ever. We caught

Ottawa’s Top Concerts of 2017

 Photos by Renée Boucher Doiron, Kamara Morozuk, Sean Sisk, Dan Nawrocki and Andre Gagne As a live music junkie, 2017 in Ottawa was a near endless buffet slathered in awesome sauce! Along with the usual crop of fests and club shows, the city brought in even more concerts to celebrate the country's

Greatest Hits or Better Than Nothing? Q&A With Brad Sucks

 While spinning Ottawa musician Brad Turcotte’s (aka: Brad Sucks) new Greatest Hits album you learn two things once the dizziness wears off. One, this dude is kinda’ ballsy to put out a Hits disc after only three albums and, two, this guy sucks less than a broken pawn shop vacuum cleaner.

The Top 25 People in the Capital: 11-20

 Photo by Valerie Keeler This year we teamed up with Crusoe, the Celebrity Dachshund, to sniff out the top dogs in the city that are actually people. Crusoe got his game face on and scouted out Ottawans that are the ones to watch. They are the best that the capital has

BEST OF OTTAWA: Live Music Venues

 With 20-years writing about Ottawa life we think we have a pretty good idea of the best of what this city has to offer. In this new weekly summer series we’ll share it with you. From our top picks of hotels, live music venues, local brews, bands and more, check,

Invitation to the Blues

 Photos courtesy of Blues & Company Before 1993, Kevin Ficzere was living a regular life filled with bills to pay, kids to raise and work to do. Then he got the blues. First he found a guitar God. A still self-professed Hendrix junkie, Ficzere discovered the legend in the late

Talking jazz with Mike Essoudry

 Just two years ago the Ottawa Citizen’s Peter Hum suggested that local drummer Mike Essoudry was “downsizing musically”. At the time, a musician who’d surrounded himself with big sounding big bands of up to ten members had decided to pair things down to something smaller. Even at that, there was

Monthly Series Aims to Bring Women to the Front of Local Music Scene

 Photos by Kamara Morozuk The newcomer adjusts her microphone as a veteran of the Ottawa music scene looks on. Perhaps she is wondering to herself what this new voice will sound like. Pat Moore was there once, after all, in another era. There at the beginning of the road facing an

Ottawa’s Top 10 Concerts of 2016

 All photos by Andre Gagne. When you are an event photographer / reporter you can tell it’s been a busy year when should you attempt to wear all the lanyards accumulated over the 12 months you risk cervical dislocation or, at the very least, one hell of a case of

Honey & Rust

 Photo by Toni van Eeden. Before she learned to talk Johanne Beattie was sharing songs. She’d sit in her bike-seat humming gibberish melodies as her mother rode through town. At seven she was reluctantly enrolled in piano lessons. As it was with her singing, her mother saw a natural gift in

Better Living Through Chemistry

 Flashback to the last time you actually took a chemistry class…and enjoyed it? I would say many of us are not too passionate about the kind of chemistry that exists in equations between protons, neutrons and electrons. But let me tell you the band: Better Living Through Chemistry is a

Lynn Miles – Songs of Love and Truth

 I was fortunate enough to attend a Lynn Miles show at Irene's Pub on Bank Street a few weeks ago. Irene’s Pub is an amazing live music venue. Alex Golota, the owner, recently finished some major renovations to the bar's performance area, and let me tell you, the sound and