One of the many instruments on display (and playable!) at the National Music Centre in Calgary.
Listen
09 Wednesday Aug 2017
Posted in Alberta, art, Calgary, Canada, music, photography, photowalk, photowalking, random, urban
Category Archives: music
No strings
01 Tuesday Aug 2017
Posted in Alberta, art, Calgary, music, photography, photowalk, photowalking, random, urban
Night out in Portland
25 Tuesday Apr 2017
Posted in music, photography, Portland, Travel
Tags
alternative, music, Oregon, photography, Portland, rock, Travel
Blossoms of Manchester, England, above, and The Arkells of Hamilton, Ontario, below, take the stage at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, Oregon, about two weeks ago.
King Eddy reborn
12 Tuesday Apr 2016
Back after a few weeks AFK.
Also (soon to be) back is Calgary’s venerable King Edward Hotel, a noted blues venue, which was carefully dismantled and rebuilt as part of the new Canadian Music Centre in East Village.
Above, how things looked a few weekends ago … and below, when the King Eddy stood alone at the corner of 9 Ave. and 4 St. S.E., almost five years ago.
Check out this guy’s set of pipes!
27 Wednesday Aug 2014
Posted in music, Oslo, photography, photowalking, random, Travel, urban
Flowers for Jimi Hendrix
18 Sunday May 2014
Posted in art, music, photography, photowalking, random, Seattle, Travel, urban
Tags
art, HDR, photography, photowalk, random, Seattle, Travel, urban, Washington
From my recent visit to Seattle.
Time for a tune in Cochrane
11 Sunday Aug 2013
Posted in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, fun, iPhone, music, photography, photowalking, random
Tags
alberta, calgary, canada, Cochrane, instrument, iPhoneography, music, photography, photowalk, piano, random
Feel like tickling the ivories? You can do so anytime in downtown Cochrane, Alberta, thanks to this sidewalk piano.
Rocking and rolling
22 Monday Apr 2013
Tags
alberta, b.c., canada, Edmonton, Jasper, Manitoba, music, Ontario, rail, railroad, railway, Sask, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Sudbury, Toronto, tourism, train, trains, transcontinental, vancouver, Via Rail, Winnipeg
If you’re on Via Rail’s western transcontinental train, “The Canadian”, keep your eyes — and ears — open for two members of Toronto-based band Running Red Lights, who will be performing aboard the train that leaves Vancouver on Tuesday, April 26, 2013.
I had the pleasure of enjoying Scarlett Flynn and Kevin Howley’s music as I travelled westbound with them through much of last week.
Check out their website to learn more about the whole band and to see blog entries recounting their epic cross-country journey.
They’re also all over social media:
Facebook — http://www.facebook.com/RunningRedLights
Twitter — http://twitter.com/rrlmusic
YouTube — http://www.youtube.com/user/rrlmusic
Top photo: Kevin and Scarlett performing in the second Skyline car aboard Via Rail’s “The Canadian”.
Below: A little boy listens intently as Scarlett and Kevin perform a quick gig at Winnipeg Union Station.
Bottom: Scarlett and Kevin entertain the crowd at Jasper train station.
Smells like teen spirit
23 Saturday Feb 2013
Tags
art, culture, EMP Museum, horror, museum, music, Nirvana, photography, Seattle, Travel, Washington
Another great attraction in Seattle is the EMP Museum, which focuses on popular art and music.
The museum, housed in a building designed by Frank Gehry, covers topics spanning modern music and popular culture.
The photo above is in the first display in an exhibit on the emergence of punk and grunge, focusing on Nirvana. The guitar is a Mosrite Gospel, played by Kurt Cobain during the Seattle show in which the song Smells Like Teen Spirit was performed publicly for the first time.
Other parts of the exhibit include such seminal artifacts as Nirvana’s first demo tape and the original photo that would become the cover art for Nevermind.
It’s a fascinating journey through the first days of the Pacific Northwest punk/grunge scene, all the way through its popularization and its acceptance by mainstream media.
Nearby are a historical guitar gallery and an exhibit on Jimi Hendrix.
Elsewhere in the museum are exhibits on horror movies, science fiction and the art of video games, the museum’s newest installation, whose opening I missed due to timing, unfortunately.
If you’re in Seattle for a visit (and especially if you call Seattle home), do make time for this museum.
Music to my ears … and eyes
01 Friday Feb 2013
I’m a little late to the party with this review of the latest version of TuneIn Radio, which was rolled out shortly before Christmas.
You see: I mainly use TuneIn on my smartphone while commuting or travelling and so didn’t notice the massive redo of the interface on the tablet version until the last few hours.
The general look of the app is more polished than in the last iPad version and it doesn’t result in any apparent loss of features.
Although some of the logos and fonts got a refresh, features (especially quick access to recent, related, favourites) introduced in 2012 remain.
There’s handy access to the timer/recording function right in the player and a new button from the station info screen (at least I haven’t noticed it before) to navigate streams forward. Oddly, there is no ‘last stream’ button, just a ‘back’ button that takes you back to the main interface.
The only thing I wish the iPad version of the app could do, is to allow users to swipe across any station to immediately choose which sub-stream to invoke. (Many channels offer streams of varying bandwidths to suit your requirements.)
The app remains a very enjoyable way to enjoy streaming talk radio and music, despite its handful of flaws.
All in all, a great effort to refine an already great app.
