Touted as an engaging songwriter and gifted storyteller, Carleton alum Jay Aymar has certainly made waves in the Canadian folk music industry.

A Toronto-based country-folk musician, Aymar has been busy at work over the past year on his fourth studio album, entitled “Halfway Home.”

He speaks fondly of his days at Mike’s Place and cites it as the place he truly got his start.

“It was just a really great place where I could express myself and my poetry. I also was able to grow so much as a performer.”

CD Review: Backspacer
Pearl Jam
Monkeywrench

It’s a rare case when we find a band that nearly 20 years down the road continues to put out stellar, re-inventive material. However, Pearl Jam, however, proves with itstheir latest instant classic, Backspacer, that the bandy isare far from an aging nostalgia act.

Whale watching has never sounded quite so good.

Said the Whale, one of Canada’s up-coming indie talents, just released a new album, Islands Disappear, Oct. 13. Coinciding with this release, the band has planned a cross-country tour, including a stop in Ottawa on Oct. 15 at the Live Lounge with supporting act, Hannah Georgas.

Zombieland
Ruben Fleischer
Columbia Pictures

Zombieland, a take-off on the revived zombie subgenre, has plenty of guts and gore.

But, Ruben Fleischer’s directorial debut is too glorified with itself for us to take it seriously.

It’s a movie that hopes we’ll love it for its wild (and awfully bloody) visual flair and cheeky sense of fun.

But take away that flashy amusement and we’re left with a script as lazy in its storytelling as the zombies are in their movement.

About 300 family, friends and followers of the late Ottawa-based independent filmmaker Frank Cole, who was murdered during his second voyage across the Sahara Desert in 2000, packed an auditorium at Library and Archives Canada on Saturday, Oct. 3 to celebrate the launch of a book and an award-winning documentary about the career of the enigmatic artist.