The bleak theme of the Regina-based death-metal quintet's latest CD emerged from the huge personal losses to cancer of Tim Roth, its principal guitarist and songwriter.

The gentle spirit who penned the delicate folk melodies on the recently released Oh! Mighty Engine is excited to be back on tour and well accustomed to nondescript rest stops along the way.

One of the best-known exponents of the genre has made a deliberate departure from the everything-louder-than-everything-else blueprint and mind-numbing blast beats of death metal.

Staind vocalist Aaron Lewis seemed to be in a particularly bleak mood during an MTV interview back in 2006. “I think nobody cares anymore.…We’re not the hip flavour of the moment…we’re not what’s cool right now,” he moaned.

Festival season isn’t over quite yet. Jammin’ 4 Jay is an annual one-day event held in the five-acre Fort Langley back yard of Surrey Fire Service Captain Greg Drew, in memory of Drew’s son Jayson. Jayson Drew was killed in a car accident at age 17 in 2003, and profits from the event go to the Jammin’ 4 Jay Charitable Society, which promotes “safe driving practices and education for young drivers”.  

It started out as a student film, but Shake, Rattle & Roll has travelled far and wide since filmmaker Melissa James completed the 23-minute movie in 2007. The BCIT graduate recently returned from L.A. after screening the award-winning documentary at the fifth annual Don’t Knock the Rock Film and Music Festival, which is curated by filmmaker and Quentin Tarantino pal Allison Anders.  

After more than two decades of faithfully giving Vancouver the blues from its location at the foot of the Granville Street Bridge, the Yale is moving. But it’s only temporary, Yale marketing manager Stella Panagiotidis assured the Straight.  

With a mesmerizing display of its methods, the U.K band had the young and excited crowd in the palm of its hand during a two-hour love-in at Thunderbird Stadium.

Priscilla Ahn’s old-school credentials go beyond sporting the same first name as Elvis’s ex. While many solo artists augment their sound with laptops, the Pennsylvania-bred singer-songwriter opts for the stripped-down Dylan-Shakey setup: acoustic six-string and harmonica neckgear. But don’t expect the weird grit of “Maggie’s Farm” when Ahn comes to play the Media Club on Monday (August 25).

The bullet-headed bozos of 3 Doors Down must be very proud of themselves these days, after landing their song “Citizen/Soldier” in a TV commercial for the U.S. National Guard, no less! Serving God and country makes a lot of sense if your tunes ain’t good enough for the devil, and cozying up to the cold steel of the American war machine never hurt Elvis’s career or anything. You want a world that’s safe for your kids and more importantly your favourite nu rock and alt-metal bands?

Fuck man, it’s been seven years since John Jackson first started giving us a reason to blaze up, and we’re still riotously baked. Right after Jack Johnny put out In Between Dreams in 1995, we quit our jobs as corporate lawyers and began spending our days on the beach, chowing down on weed-flavoured bananas and pancake-flavoured weed, all the while spinning ultra-mellow tunes like “Banana-Pan Weedcakes”. A bowl full of Maui wowee and a little bit of John Johnson, and we’re fucking set for the day.

It must truly blow to be bigger than Camilla Parker Bowles’s knockers in England, and yet be seen in North America as monobrowed cavemen whose last Stateside hit was 1995’s “Wonderwall”. There are many reasons to pity Oasis, at GM Place on Wednesday (August 27).

There has been a significant drop in the number of rental apartment buildings sold in Metro Vancouver in the first six months of 2008 compared with the same period last year.

The Straight’s highly subjective rundown of songs you need to download this week

You hire Gary Glitter to head up the music section’s daycare program, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt, two recently released major-label CDs, and two tickets to a Live Nation club show taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whine.