March 15th, 2009 Oh My, this has totally been the busiest month for us Steel Bananas folk. We've been running around like crazy people, attending shows, checking out new talent, and trying to keep up with personal projects while, for most of us, also keeping up with homework. This issue emerged from the sleepless haze of the last month with some really cool pieces, including interviews with Corbin Murdoch and the Nautical Miles, Montag and Josh Reichmann, coverage of the What Are you Doing Down There Arts Fest '09, previews of cafes and upcoming LG Fashion week, among new installments of Nerdventures ...Read More
You know that it’s kind of a weird day when it’s eleven at night and you hear your roommate waking up to go to work for twelve; you hear him rumbling around, coughing or whatever, and you’re sitting there trying to write your piece half thinking that you’ve stayed up all night sitting at your computer screen and lamenting all the time you’ve wasted. And then you realize that it’s not actually that late and you’re tricking yourself into thinking that it’s time to go to bed because you don’t know where to start with your article. Yeah that’s what ...Read More
For years now I’ve been telling people that there are few material things in this world I’d like more than a banjo, and people always think I’m being ironic – “Yeah, a banjo, that’d be great! Ha! Ha!” – because you know, banjos are for like rednecks and such. I still don’t have that coveted instrument but I don’t see what’s so funny about it; banjos are fucking wicked, whatever. So are mandolins: I figure I’d like a mandolin as well, perhaps also a pedal steel or a dobro and I would rock the shit out of them and love ...Read More
“I’m probably the most Canadian French-Canadian I know,” chuckles Antoine Bédard, usually known by his electro-moniker, Montag, to which I inwardly sigh a heavy groan of relief. Have I become so complacent in my Canadian ways that I forget that to ask a staunch Montreal Man like this a question like “how would you describe yourself in terms of being a Canadian artist?” is a potentially inflammatory query? Apparently yes. Yes I am. I didn’t even think about the ramifications of my harmless and probably generic interview question until the phrase “French-Canadian” escaped his lips and then I had a ...Read More
Can I be perfectly sincere for a moment? Is... is multiplayer gaming, despite being more technically competent than ever, dying? I remember inviting everyone over for Goldeneye, or hitting the Playdium for House of The Dead 2 on time card and having unshakably the best times of my life. Nowadays I find myself turning on my Xbox Live only to be turned off by crude, whiney and most disturbingly, younger gamers spawning, I can only assume, from the depths of my own worst nightmares. The last time I turned on Team Fortress 2, I was greeted by a kid from ...Read More
Madame ou Monsieur, do you remember the first time you saw magic? For many people it was likely an older member of the family, like a grandfather performing a simple trick and it would generally go something like this: he’d show you his hands, Okay, the hands are empty you’d think. Then he would wave those hands around, what’s next?! you would wonder in anticipation. He’d then reach behind your ear, …okay…. you’d quietly say as your heart rate increased, not knowing what it was that was about to blow your mind. All of a sudden …Wooosh… the hand would ...Read More
Do you ever find that when you try to do anything productive in your house, you always just end up reading arbitrary Wikipedia pages and back-articles from Pitchfork? Does the combination of rumbling roommates, a cat that's always doing something weird and having all of your personal belongings in one spot make accomplishing things a grotesque ordeal? Do you ever just need to get the fuck out of your pad? Well, if you live in a shit-hole in North York, this would definitely ring true. Living downtown, on the other hand, is a whole new bushel of apples, with all ...Read More
Daft Punk are devout creatures of habit: they create all their album covers in the same motif, they’ve hosted large live tour circuits on both ends of a decade and, regularly as clockwork, have released a studio album every four years in March (please don’t disappoint me!). In lieu of the fact that that Daft Punk are known to have been recording and their routine cues the release of new material, I thought I would look back at their last studio album and reminisce in eager anticipation. Back in 2005 when some Daft Punk tracks were leaked online, supposedly a new ...Read More
Mr. Stephen Harper was right (I’ll pause a moment to let you get over the shock…), apparently artists do throw galas, and do it quite well. Mind you, this was a gala run by “ordinary folks”, and largely attended by those with “regular” jobs… Saturday March 14th, 2009, was the first ever Cuttin’ It For Cancer Benefit Gala at the Comedy Club. Organized and run by a group of young Toronto artists, it was a celebration of life and strength, both of the individual and the community. With the ambitious goals of raising $10,000 and collecting enough hair donations to build ...Read More
Oh yes, it's that time of year again, when forward-thinking fashion trendsetters in the GTA - who have been salivating, trembling and planning for weeks prior - break out the vintage BCBG pumps, buy a new Vena Cava dress, and get an edgy (albeit pretentious) haircut. From March 16th-21st, fashion-savvy couture lovers and designers, obviously including the editor of this zine, will be totally decked-out in full force to worship and critique the forthcoming collections from Toronto's finest designers at LG Fashion Week. Held under the lazy gaze of Toronto's City Hall, the runways erected in Nathan Phillips Square will ...Read More
...thinks it's time for a Raffle! These awesome dudes (see below) - who just released a badass Final Fantasy Cover - will be tearing up the Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto on March 26th! To celebrate, Steel Bananas is giving away a pair of tickets along with a copy of the band's full-length, Endless Water. As always, send your contact info to contests [at] steelbananas [dot] com by noon on the day of the show to enter the raffle! The Darcys The Darcys are the cutting edge of masculinity. They are the new men. Men at home wherever it is they find themselves. They have been ...Read More
I walk down College Street, struggling against the throng of Torontonians moving briskly in the opposite direction to try and escape the cold weather. As I get within sight of Fran’s diner I only have one, pervading thought: it is time to eat. As I walk in the front door, before I even have a chance to unzip my jacket, a gruff voice sounds: - Just one? Without even waiting for a response she takes a menu and motions for me to follow her to a booth near the window. She is everything I hope to encounter in an experienced diner waitress: An ...Read More
1. You behold, therefore I am. In Toronto if you ever have eye contact with a stranger on the street, the common logical ensuing action would be looking away. Unless you’re trying something, it’s just rude and uncalled for to stare. Flying back to Hong Kong for the first time in seven years last summer, it suddenly occurred to me that the whole city was in fact a mega fashion walkway. Where a brief and casual glance would simply be the beginning and end in random human encounters here, in Hong Kong you have just initiated a grueling fashion showdown. Of ...Read More
A spectre is haunting Western societies- the spectre of Political Incorrectness. All the Powers of old Western liberal societies have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre: multicultural liberals (for whose agenda is to create a space of inclusiveness through advocating the of ‘tolerance’ of the Other), proponents of cultural pluralism/relativism, various members of the ‘rainbow coalition’ (different groups which all advocate one single agenda: Gender equality; race equality; religious equality, etc). Despite their differences, they all unite against their common enemy: Political Incorrectness. Got your attention, didn’t it? Good. Let me elaborate. As a fourth-year undergraduate University student in ...Read More
(Photo credit: Maxime Côté) There’s something to be said about watching a play in a foreign language. Of course, had I been a good and fully literate Canadian citizen, French probably wouldn’t have been a “foreign” language (apparently it is useful after grade 9, who knew?), but I digress: there’s something to be said about watching a play in a foreign language, but that something isn’t always good. Regardless of language, seeing the current studio show at the National Theatre School was an interesting experience. As one of Canada’s most “prestigious” theatre schools, I went in expecting greatness and found myself somewhat ...Read More
I first met performance artist Jeff Giles at a burger joint in North York. After realizing we both hailed from Steeltown, we sat down to discuss theatre experiences in our native city - but somehow it became a discussion about the fact that he had recently learned to hammer nails into his nose. It sounds rather terrifying, but for Jeff, a man who also breathes fire, stilt walks, and can lie comfortably on a bed of nails, this was just another thing to add to his jack-of-all-trades persona. A few years later, we met again, this time at the In House ...Read More
Photography has always been a recognized aspect of my life. Growing up, I was constantly reminded by my father to make sure that I wasn’t cutting off heads in portraits and he did his best to help me understand the difference between a good photo, and a not-so-great photo. Little did I know that his training of quality composition would come in handy years later. When I was fifteen, I took a trip to Italy - it was one of the first times I was able to experiment with images and perspectives on my own. Not thinking much of my ...Read More
Street Fighter 4 (PS3/XB360, Pub/Dev: Capcom, Rated T for TAIGUR) Lowdown: It took thirty seconds after starting the game for me and my pal to exclaim, “Oh DAMN” ++++ This is Not Quite SFII (But Most Definitely NOT SFIII) But not quite a total departure either. This is something magical. Returners will be very comfortable with SFIV, the original cast returns (sans T-Hawk and Deejay, alas, spilt milk) with all the moves we’ve grown oh so fond of. Hadouken is still Hadouken, Sonic Booms are still Sonic Booms,Yoga is still Yoga (but you know, Yoga) but it goes without saying, all have received ...Read More
Here we are post-Oscars, now the year in film can truly begin. It always seems that everything that is released before the Academy hands out their awards is simply garbage dumped on an unsuspecting public, now we can finally start to see some quality entertainment… Or maybe not. It looks to me that nearly everything that is coming out in the next month is just more bile, however, we are starting to see some quality shining through. There may be a few hidden gems in the next month like Duplicity (could be fun) or I Love You, Man (could be funny). ...Read More
This basement isn’t big enough for the energy it contains. It is bursting at the seams with people from all walks of life who have found their way down dark alleys and stumbled into a haven of emerging artists, I myself had trouble getting here, relying solely upon the kindness of fellow audience members to lead me in the right direction. Tucked away, a short walk from St. Clair subway station is the In House Theatre. And this is not your typical theatre. The In House Theatre is a unique and endearing concept, it is a house that also happens to be ...Read More
I'm a shameless litslut. I devour short fiction. There is nothing more intriguing to me than the immediacy of short prose; the narrative's directed focus and inherent sense of urgency within a limited space. In the same way, I've courted a mistress in the contemporary prose-poem, with its stricter boundaries of form lending greater structure to the narrative voice, while granting greater freedom to the poetic. Who can forget the prosaic poetry of Lyn Hejinian? Who doesn't love the LANGUAGE poets? All these things came to mind when The Laundromat Essay dropped into my hands. As a lover of contemporary and ...Read More
An expressionist drama about zombies and war, what more could you ask for from theatre in Toronto? For one, maybe a better audience turn-out… The best theatre that you weren’t watching last week was Banquo’s Banquet and Back Burner Productions’ portrayal of Irwin Shaw’s surrealist drama, Bury the Dead. With stellar performances by the entire cast, great costumes, a decent set, and a delightfully absurd script, the only thing this show lacked was an audience. Still Bury the Dead played out its full week, often to only a very intimate few. The story is a poignant one in this day and age, ...Read More
