Shawn Desman Announces Headlining Show at Toronto’s HISTORY
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Rock Icon Billy Idol Announces Rebel Yell Canada 2024 Tour

A Music Mag is Born!

Keith Sharp
A Music Mag is Born!
Alberta Music Express was launched the first week of October 1976 without much fanfare. I had secured a printer, The North Hill News and Joe Thompson, branch manager at Kellys Record Mart in Calgary had agreed to circulate AME in all their Alberta retail outlets. As mentioned, Daltrey was on the cover of No.1 with my feature on The Stampeders... Read More

Record? What Record? – Kenny Shields in Conversation

Music Express
Record? What Record? – Kenny Shields in Conversation
Kenny Shields has been a musical mainstay since Streetheart first hit the Canadian scene in 1976. His distinct vocal timbre and intense power defined the band’s sound and helped them achieve a number of platinum and gold albums, collect numerous awards (including a Music Express People’s Choice Award), and build a hardy and dedicated fan base. Resilient to many personnel... Read More

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychadelic Pill

Keith Sharp
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychadelic Pill
(Warner Music Canada) There are some Neil Young fans that will delight in the idea of being exposed to a 27-minute lead-off track (`Driftin Away’)…and then there are the rest of us! Fans who caught Young rejoining Crazy Horse’s Frank Sampedro, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot after an eight-year hiatus would have been warned of this album’s extended contents when... Read More

Blue Rodeo and Friends in Toronto

Music Express
Blue Rodeo and Friends in Toronto
Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto | October 29, 2012 With Hurricane Sandy raging outside, the state of Canadian roots music may have been in peril for a moment. If, heaven forbid, the roof had caved in on The Glenn Gould Studio, we’d have had to imagine that scene without Blue Rodeo, Great Big Sea, Ron Sexsmith, The Sadies, Whitehorse, Justin Rutledge,... Read More

Alanis Morissette in Toronto

Music Express
Alanis Morissette in Toronto
Sound Academy, Toronto | October 15th, 2012 Alanis Morissette’s recent concert in Toronto wasn’t an outright nostalgia show, but the jam-packed crowd seemed to be feeling that way. Jagged Little Pill, the album that made the singer-songwriter an international superstar and today has sold some 33 million copies, is 17 years old. The Ottawa-born Morissette, now 38, and married with... Read More

Colin James – Too Much of a Good Thing

Keith Sharp
Colin James – Too Much of a Good Thing
Every night during his current national tour, Colin James faces a major dilemma. What to include or exclude from that concert’s set list. With a brand new album, `Fifteen’ chock full of hot new tracks plus three stunning covers, James simply doesn’t have time during his 21-song performance to acknowledge his catalogue while accommodating the new material. Reached during a... Read More

Billy Talent – D’sa Takes Control

Music Express
Billy Talent – D’sa Takes Control
After almost 20 years together — the first eight as the underground indie band Pezz — multi-platinum rock band Billy Talent lead guitarist Ian D’sa take charge as producer of their new album, Dead Silence. He hadn’t done that since he produced a four-track cassette of Pezz 19 years ago. He was always interested in producing a proper album for... Read More

Loverboy Launches Rock N Roll Revival

Music Express
Loverboy Launches Rock N Roll Revival
Loverboy is touring right through until December behind its latest album, Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival, and what’s truly a revival is that the legendary Vancouver rock act is on the road with Journey — for the first time in three decades. The two bands linked up this summer for more than 60 dates all over North America, including some upcoming... Read More

Klaatu – Calling Occupants!

Keith Sharp
Klaatu – Calling Occupants!
As the first issue of Alberta Music Express was about to roll off the presses in October 1976, an album arrived on my desk, displaying a garish Sun face. The album entitled “3:47 E.S.T” was released by a band called Klaatu. A furtive search of the album cover and LP credits revealed nothing about the band. No group photo, no... Read More

Four Dudes & A Lady

Roman Mitz
Four Dudes & A Lady
So who is the good looking singer firing up her sparklers in the country music video for ‘A Little More Work’? That would be Kira Isabella, the bubbly brunette who is presently burning up the country charts with the single from her recently released debut album ‘Love Me Like That’. Isabella has a decade of experience under her belt performing... Read More

Delving Into Blue Rodeo’s Treasure Trove

Music Express
Delving Into Blue Rodeo’s Treasure Trove
It seems like Blue Rodeo have been around forever, doesn’t it? In fact, 2012 marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Toronto roots rockers to Warner Music Canada. This record deal and the subsequent release of their debut album, Outskirts (also in 1987), marked the band’s transition from favourites of T.O.’s Queen Street West scene to national stardom.... Read More