Ryan Walter Wagner
Local musician record label proprietor and artist Kevin Stebner may have the moustache of Wario but he’s also got the heroic good-natured spirit of Mario. This weekend his post-hardcore group Prepared will perform on Saturday February 28 at The Palomino with Single Mothers and The Dirty Nil but first he’ll belt out some raspy alt-country with his group Cold Water. They’ll perform on Thursday February 26 at Broken City alongside The Ruby Plumes and Raw Blues.
Last week’s Fast Forward Weekly cover stars Viet Cong are currently completing a lap around the world in support of their critically acclaimed self-titled debut album. Their homecoming album release show takes place on Thursday at Commonwealth. Unfortunately for the latecomers it’s long long sold out. Of course we’ve written about Viet Cong (and the members’ many other projects) plenty in the past. This is an example of why you should trust us when we tell you about things that are good first long before you’ve heard about them somewhere else. We were trying to help.
Though he’s based in Boston performer JSTJR (pronounced “gesture”) has a global sound adding Latin and African tinges to his bouncy compositions. It’s bass music that’ll surely rumble your ass into dancing when he performs at the Hifi Club on Thursday night.
Dr. Dre is one of the most seminal figures in all of hip-hop with his production guiding the genre through multiple decades. All that said the producer and performer born Andre Romelle Young will likely never release a relevant album again. He’s been working on Detox his supposed final studio album since 2001 and it’s been perpetually delayed. He was almost peer pressured into releasing something under that name a few times in the past few years but faced a major distraction when Beats by Dr. Dre — the colourful and mediocre-sounding headphones he peddles — were sold to Apple for an estimated $3 billion last year. He’s now officially the richest man in hip-hop and it’s unlikely that he’ll release rap’s Chinese Democracy any time soon.
It’s almost as though Dr. Dre hip-hop performer is dead. At least that’s what it seems like as venues across North American have paid tribute to his legacy with the Dre Day celebration. Every year on the month of the producer’s birthday venues band together and play the artist’s hits with a tribute show. The first ever Calgary edition of Dre Day takes place on Friday February 27 at the Hifi Club and features sets from DJ Pump C-Sik Ivan Rankic DJ Reece and Beni J plus special guests. R.I.P. Dr. Dre who turned 50 last week.
