Amorphis interview @ exclaim.ca (and other music writing stuff)

Last month I got a chance to do an email interview with Amorphis guitarist Tomi Koivusaari. Read it over at exclaim.ca. My review of their latest, The Beginning of Times, is up too.

Other recent Exclaim reviews:

Devin Townsend Project – Deconstruction

Devin Townsend Project – Ghost

And if you haven't checked it out yet, swing by hellbound.ca to peruse our staff members' favourite Canadian metal song picks for Canada Day. Devin Townsend is well represented, but Voivod is on there as well (with a great write-up by Steve Earles) alongside some lesser known / less expected selections.

Plus... Hellbound Summer Metal Meltdown continues on McMaster's CFMU. I pulled out some nostalgic CanCon for our post-Canada Day show, including local(ish) 90s artifacts like Varga and Soulstorm. Tune in Saturday nights at 10:30pm (though I've heard there may be a podcast archive as well).

pigs in space, as opposed to crates

On the radio last weekend I mentioned the fact that the largest producer of pork in America had agreed to stop keeping breeding mama pigs confined in gestation crates, or to at least phase it out. Whether they actually care that living in a crate makes for unhappy and unhealthy pigs... Probably not, but as long as they don't put them in something worse...

I also mentioned that the Winnipeg Humane Society, at the very least, was putting pressure on Canada's Maple Leaf Pork to do the same. Turns out Maple Leaf has just agreed.

Thus my title pigs in [more] space.

Check it out for yourself:
The Humane Society of the United States (pig page)
peta2 (pig blog)

p.s. I've been previewing the new Virgin Black album. All I can say so far is "WOW."

p.s. [v.2] went to a presentation on all-girl metal and hard rock tribute bands today. wow in a very different sense. extremely interesting stuff. I'd heard of the Iron Maidens, but... if you have no idea what I'm talking about look 'em up (and stay tuned for the book and documentary)