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Toronto’s Queen Street, with its clothing jobbers, alternative art galleries and fringe music clubs, has become a major source of brave new musical talents. No group reflects that community’s diversity better than the Parachute Club, whose seven members mix radical social messages with eclectic musical styles. And lately the group’s daring formulas have reaped unexpected rewards. Its self-titled debut album has become a gold record in Canada, and its single, “Rise Up,” an infectious, carnival-style anthem of liberation, has earned the band nine awards and an international audience. This week the Parachute Club launches a second album, which promises to carry its fortunes to even greater heig...

A battle of the bands is usually won by the group with the best guitar pyrotechnics and drum solos. But last year at an indoor rink in Toronto’s west end, some of Canada’s best-known musicians settled the score with slapshots, glove saves—and punches. The Black Stokes were facing their archrivals, the Morningstars, in the playoff semi-final of a recreational hockey league. Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, Cowboy Junkies’ Peter Timmins and Skydiggers’ Andy Maize were all playing for the Black Stokes, while Rheostatics’ Dave Bidini and members of such bands as Lowest of the Low and the Morganfields were among the Morningstars. In a previous game between the two teams, a bitterly fought contest won by t...

Is storytelling the art of words or the alchemy of sound? For Paul Simon, master songwriter, it all begins with a beat. “You have to catch the right rhythm to get people’s attention,” he told Maclean’s recently. “If you get it wrong, people don’t hear you.” Sitting backstage last month at Toronto’s Massey Hall, prior to one of two sold-out concerts, Simon explained the genesis of his latest album, You’re the One, an exquisite collection of warm, gentle songs about fate and mortality. Rhythm and rhyme have been the cornerstones of Simon’s celebrated career, as far back as the mid-1960s when he and partner Art Garfunkel first gained prominence as America’s top folksinging duo. T...

Radiohead Kid A  The most adventurous rock album of the year takes dreamy twists and turns while veering off into nightmarish cul-de-sacs. But it ultimately arrives at its hopeful destination with a message about survival in an alienated world. Sarah Harmer You Were Here  The brilliant solo debut from the former lead singer of Kingston, Ont.’s Weeping Tile signals the arrival of an exceptional singer-songwriter—and a major new star. Shelby Lynne I Am Shelby Lynne  She’s all that Nashville isn’t— passionate, tortured, rootsy and real. That makes Lynne’s soulful album easily the year’s best country release. Paul Simon You’re the One  With songs about fat...

It is a particularly eerie case of life imitating art. In Paul Quarrington’s novel Whale Music, rock musician Desmond Howell writes a song called “Claire” that unexpectedly becomes a hit single. Recently, the Rheostatics, a Canadian rock band with no previous hit singles to its credit, recorded a sound track for the film adaptation, including their own version of “Claire.” The song, a dreamy slice of melodic pop, is now getting airplay on commercial radio stations across Canada, exposing the critically acclaimed group to its largest audience to date. “Normally, we just follow our instincts on our albums,” admits guitarist Dave Bidini. “Here, we got a chance to pretend to be someone else...

He sang songs steeped in melancholy with a voice that could hit the sweetest heights. As a member of the first generation of rock-and-rollers, he was a loner, a shy teetotaller who, despite his tough-looking, dark attire and ever-present sunglasses, preferred wrenching ballads to the rugged side of rock. And when he died last week from a heart attack at 52, Roy Orbison touched off a new wave of emotion from a diverse range of musicians and fans. At the peak of his career in the 1960s, Orbison had 27 consecutive records on the charts, including “Only the Lonely” and “Oh Pretty Woman.” Recently, he returned to the charts by collaborating with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Tom Petty in the gro...

It is a long climb up two flights of stairs, past a wall of hanging hats, into Jane Siberry’s private world. In many ways, her third-floor apartment in Toronto’s west end is a typical artist’s garret: small, bright and sparsely furnished. And like her songs, which offer unexpected views of daily life, Siberry’s living quarters reveal an assortment of striking snapshot images: a sundrenched guitar leaning against a wall, an unused painting easel standing in a corner, a solitary oak table sitting in the front room. With a piano squeezed in next to the kitchen sink, it is an unusually modest dwelling for one of Canada’s most celebrated singer-songwriters. Yet, for the past year, Siberry, who wa...

Sarah Harmer is no technical whiz. Sure, like any musician, she knows her way around a recording studio. She has a cellphone and an email-equipped laptop computer, which she tries to use to correspond with family and friends. Her record distributor even gave her a digital voice recorder for Christmas, which Harmer took on a Mexican vacation in the hope of capturing song ideas. Unfortunately, she left it switched on and the batteries were dead before she could figure out how to use it. Then, when Harmer returned to Canada, her old Ford Econoline van, which she’d left parked at her parents’ farm outside of Burlington, Ont., wouldn’t start. Alone in the farmyard, she was more than a little frus...

Dressed in white lace stockings and a silky smoking jacket, she fluttered tentatively around the stage. With her frail figure and whispery voice, she seemed fragile under the spotlight’s glare. But as her pulsing, ethereal music gathered momentum, Jane Siberry spun a web around her audience in Detroit two weeks ago. At 29, Siberry has been hailed in Rolling Stone magazine as a “fascinating” new artist, and many critics feel she is the finest Canadian songwriter to appear in a decade. Once considered too eccentric for popular tastes, the Toronto singer is emerging into pop’s mainstream: her North American tour of 50 cities is currently under way, and last week 30,000 copies of her t...

Elvis Costello is rock’s renaissance man. Along with writing and recording his own songs — some of the wittiest and most acerbic in the pop catalogue, Costello has produced a number of Britain’s best bands, including the Pogues, the Specials and Squeeze. The husband of Diana Krall has also become something of a pop commentator, penning liner notes for CD reissues and acting as a contributor to Vanity Fair. A future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer himself, Costello has collaborated with some of pop’s biggest heavyweights, including Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach. His latest partner is Allen Toussaint, the legendary New Orleans artist, best known for writing numerous R&B hits and produ...