Articles by Michael Barclay

The Edgy Grace of Neko Case

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2016

Anyone who's followed her career will know that Neko Case isn't your average country singer, even though her sound is deeply rooted in the...

Real Life is Stranger Than Fiction

"Get a life!"

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2016

Every music-obsessed geek has been susceptible to this belittling phrase, meant to imply that to be lost in song is to be a lost soul, remo...

The Late, Late Show

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2016

I turn 30 years old in October. I have trouble staying awake for more than the first 30 minutes of CBC Radio's "Brave New Waves." My previo...

Pull My Strings

Everybody Hurts in the Dead Kennedys Debacle

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2016

"When you look behind the music, everyone you look up to turns out to suck anyway," Jello Biafra tells an audience on his new spoken word a...

Rheostatics

Kids Wanna Rock

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2016

If the demographic for today's pop music keeps getting younger, then the new Rheostatics record is one step ahead - it's a children's conce...

The Smugglers

Kings of the Party

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2016

"Ambition, good times, and denial" are the holy trinity of rock'n'roll essentials that have kept Vancouver's Smugglers a symbol of longevit...

Various

Released! The Human Rights Concerts 1986-1998

PUBLISHED Nov 5, 2013

Remember when torture was unimaginable, not a cheap plot device on TV thrillers and an accepted part of American foreign policy? Remember w...

Leonard Cohen

Beautiful Loser

PUBLISHED Jan 30, 2012

He's the little Jew that wrote the Bible, who believes love is the only engine of survival. He is still the thinking woman's sex symbol, an...