At the Heart of Her Craft

Marcia Poirier’s wampum shell jewelry began as a fun project but grew into so much more- a thriving business, a creative outlet and, most importantly, the source of a deep bond between the artisan and her husband. By Kyle Mullin for New Brunswick’s Telegraph Journal, August 21 2010

Marcia Poirier’s pulse raced at the sound of the rising tide. For the first time, she had found her heart.

As the chilly, foaming seawater lapped against her toes, rings of gleaming purple stripes popped amongst the endless identical grains of sand. Marvelling at the symmetrical curves that made it look like a valentine, she rushed to scoop up the little shell.

Poirier knew instantly that with a little crude cutting she could transform it into a heart-shaped pendant. But she had no idea it would become her obsession over the next decade.

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At the Heart of Her Craft Pg. 1

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The Colour and the Sound

Japanese heavy hitters Boris will unleash their cerebral level of metal at the Starlite lounge on Friday. By Kyle Mullin for Edmonton’s SEE Magazine, August 19 2010

Japan’s heaviest, hungriest, hardest hitting band doesn’t use skull symbols, sinister logos or other infernal apparel to capture their essence — they would rather be symbolized by a simply soft, rosy hue.

“There is no colour besides pink which leaves such totally different impressions on people, so I thought pink was perfect for (representing) our sound,” said Boris drummer and front man Atsuo Mizuno of the shade that the band named its most adored album after, a disc containing many songs the trio will shred through at the Starlite on Friday, Aug. 20.

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http://www.seemagazine.com/article/music/music-previews/the-colour-and-the-sound-4549/

California Crooners come to town

Founding Beach Boy Mike Love hopes to collaborate again with cousin Brian Wilson. By Kyle Mullin for Edmonton’s SEE Magazine, August 10 2010

With his legs crossed and his eyes firmly shut, Mike Love holds a breath he hopes is deep enough to lift him higher, past the level of conscious thought, to a whole new plateau.

“It’s called transcendental meditation because it takes you to the source of pure thought,” said the cofounder of the Beach Boys of the ancient technique he once learned during a pilgrimage to India with many of his psychedelic pop peers.

“That’s what it does for the mind, but at the same time (meditation) helps the body get rid of fatigue. Some like to drink or use drugs to reach that place, but I appreciate feeling relaxed, clear and rested, especially with all the activity we have on tour.”

Love fronts the Beach Boys’ current incarnation on a tour that brings the California crooners to Moncton’s Casino New Brunswick entertainment centre today and Wednesday.

All that touting of deep thought may come as a surprise from a man who has been infamously depicted as undermining many of his cousin and fellow Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s more ambitiously multifaceted songs, all before Love’s songwriting partner tumbled into reclusive depths in the late 1960s and early 1970s, bedridden with his sheets like shackles in years of depression that were partly attributed to all his dabbling in LSD.

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California Crooners Come to Town

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Natural Born Singer

Movie star Juliette Lewis acts on instincts and finds raw emotion in her music. By Kyle Mullin for Edmonton’s SEE Magazine, July 29 2010

Music has always been Juliette Lewis’ miraculous muse-from her efforts to fulfil her rock star dreams, to the times she rehearsed the words of a murderer.

While learning the lines for her role as Mallory Knox in OliverStone’s Natural Born Killers, Lewis often cranked Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” and let his gypsy guitar conjure the trembling chaos she needed for nearly every scene.

“I tweak out over songs, they’re a shortcut to emotion,” she says of her erratic rehearsal process. “Sounds connect to vibration, which connect to energy and emotion. Even if you don’t know it, that’s what you’re talking about when you say a person has a good vibe or aura — and a good guitar riff or snare beat amplifies the vibration of (the player’s) spirit.”

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A Sizzling Sermon of Sound and Fury

Dedicated fans continue to kneel at the alter of the Reverend Horton Heat. By Kyle Mullin for Edmonton’s SEE Magazine, July 29 2010

Under a blistering, merciless sun, the Reverend clenched his machete and longed to carve a niche that defied anyone’s expectations. As he lifted that gleaming blade he thought not about the brush his father had tasked him to hack down. But he also wasn’t dreaming of the punky rockabilly fusion he would one day christen. Instead, he hoped that a strange storm of sorts would block out the sky’s endless blaze.

“I was young and didn’t know anything except that I loved playing guitar, and uprooting tree trunks on my dad’s property was hard work,” he says of the days before he fronted his rollicking trio (comprised of himself, bassist Jimbo Wallace, and drummer Paul Simmons). 

“Out of nowhere this navy jet flew overhead, no more than 200 feet off the ground. You could see the pilot’s face but couldn’t hear it until it was there, because it was as fast as the sound it made. I couldn’t help but wish that it would accidently drop some coke or something that I could sell in Dallas, instead of uprooting those damn trees. And that’s when ‘Bales of Cocaine’ just kind of wrote itself.”

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http://www.seemagazine.com/article/music/music-previews/the-sound-the-fury-4477/

Driving Songs

 The Bricklin is the first New Brunswick musical to have its stage originals recorded for a studio album. By Kyle Mullin for New Brunswick’s Telegraph Journal, July 2010

The Bricklin may be a musical bristling with punch-drunk funk anthems, but Allen Cole says the smallest song he wrote for the production resounds as loudly as any of his other epic numbers.

It’s not sung by a flamboyant premier, his coy accountant or a floundering business tycoon. Instead, it’s a duet between a young couple weighing the merit of their small town before an infamous automobile runs them over.

“It’s called Minto, and it’s basically a boyfriend and girlfriend arguing over whether or not the town’s a hellhole or a paradise,” said Cole, who wrote every note for the first New Brunswick (and one of very few Canadian) musicals to ever have its stage originals recorded for a studio album. He said he believes Minto will gain more airplay than any other on the album because of its catchy chorus.

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http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/rss/article/1137916

Sky High Robotics

ING Engineering opens in Fredericton with technology that wows audience. By Kyle Mullin for New Brunswick’s Daily Gleaner, Summer 2010

The propellers turn to a blur and then seem to disappear altogether as they climb higher and higher from the ground.

They only make a slight gust and sound no louder than a swarm of wasps as the pilot weaves a path that literally takes the vehicle over his head.

He can look straight up at it because there’s no cockpit for him to sit in, he’s controlling the tiny propellers with a joystick from below in an effort to showcase the stratospheric heights of unmanned flight.

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ING Engineering opens in Fredericton

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http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/rss/article/1135944

Fighting Forest Fires in the Digital Age

Modern methods for an age old trade. By Kyle Mullin for New Brunswick’s Business Journal, Summer 2010

It only takes a spark, in one of the driest of summer’s dogs days, to set every timber in sight ablaze.

But Jeff Betts, fire centre operations officer at the Hugh John Flemming Forestry centre in Fredericton, says the means to best combat those furious flames must be much more sophisticated – bringing breakthrough software and equipment to bear on the forest fires that plague our province.

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Using Technology to Fight Forest Fires

The DNA of Disease

UNB researcher fights cod aquaculture parasite. By Kyle Mullin for New Brunswick’s Business Journal, Summer 2010

Cod aquaculture may be a budding business in Atlantic Canada, but for all its promise it is also literally plagued with a huge problem – an affliction that a University of New Brunswick biology student is studying in order to help find a solution.

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UNB Researcher Fights Cod Aquaculture Parasite

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http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/gleaner/article/1025640

The Building Blocks of Biology

UNB student’s research could help fight cancer. By Kyle Mullin for New Brunswick’s Business Journal, Summer 2010

In his study of the building blocks of life, University of New Brunswick chemical biology student Jonathan Keow hopes to discover something special – by examining how those fundamental fragments form properly, creating multicellular life, scientists could better understand how that progression goes awry, creating diseases like cancer.

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UNB Student’s Research Could Help Fight Cancer

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http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/gleaner/article/1010224