Alison Moyet (formerly of Yaz) kicked off her first solo tour of North America in 14 years at Toronto's newly renovated Queen Elizabeth Theatre last night.

After a successful world tour (Yazoo: Reconnected) that saw her reunited with her old bandmate Vince Clarke of Erasure, I was hoping for a more electric show. Instead we were treated to a handful of hits from her Yaz days (Don't Go, Situation, Only You) interspersed among some lesser-known songs from her solo career, accompanied by a five-piece band.

The crowd was made up of nostalgic couples in their late thirties and forties, most of them men. Not too unlike the Blondie show earlier this year. It was great to see the enthusiastic crowd cheer her on, even though they were sparse in number. The venue could have easily held 1,500 but the show was less than half sold.

I didn't know whether to cringe or laugh when a particularly enthusiastic guy in the front row stood up after each song and hollered in approval, only to sit down again with the rest of the audience until the end of the next song. And so on. The entire show. It's nostalgic acts like this that bring out the giddy fanboy in all of us.

This week we're following a handful of Toronto musicians as they navigate the bilingual lotus land of Pop Montreal.

It's so rare nowadays you get a chance to see 1970's gay porn on the silver screen. There's something magical about the jerky camera zooms, the appalling dialogue about "cornholing" and of course the winsome 19-year-olds having bareback sex.

The only thing that could heighten the experience is a live orchestra of some of the top musicians in Canada, including Owen Pallett of 'Final Fantasy'.

This week we're going to follow a handful of Toronto musicians as they navigate the bilingual lotusland of Pop Montreal.

Thursday night, 11:30 PM. A Rivoli-esque bar called 'O Patro Vys'.

When I was a kid I was obsessed with Archie Comics. I had 300 of them.

On a fateful trip to New York City, when I was about eleven, I decided to try to find a C.D. by 'The Archies'. They were featured regularly in the comics but their real life music was difficult to find in pre-Napster Toronto.

Rollie Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon) is an amazing hip hop producer/emcee from Edmonton. He infuses his killer beats with pretty much every other style of music he likes - mainly electro, house, and techno. His lyrics and rhyming patterns are refreshingly influenced more by the UK grime scene than they are American hip hop and at age 22, he's also a retired Pitchfork writer. That's a lot of "cool" for one guy from Edmonton. Maybe that's why he's blowing up so fast?

His Dad was a pioneering hip hop DJ in Edmonton, so I guess it's also in the genes. Cadence Weapon released his debut album Breaking Kayfabe in 2005 and just released the very amazing follow-up Afterparty Babies on various indie labels around the world. The first single "In Search of the Youth Crew" has made it's way around the blogs and it's a perfect blend of futuristic hip hop and underground house. He just got back from a European tour and he also played some of the biggest festivals in the UK this summer.

Cadence Weapon plays Lee's Palace next week. I exchanged some words with Rollie about his goals as an artist, his new album, and plans to form a futuristic power gang.

If you're looking for an earful of music tonight, mixed with a dash of atmosphere at an unusual venue, swing on over to the highly anticipated CD release party for Toronto 'vintage sci-fi indie rock band' and overly-enthusiastic Battlestar Galactica fans, Radius and Helena.

The album in question is their first full length CD release and this whole shebang will be going down in the swanky Centuries Lounge which can be found in the basement of The Old Lady of Shuter Street herself, Massey Hall!

But before you go any further, you may want to catch up on our story thus far...

This week we're going to follow a handful of Toronto musicians as they navigate the bilingual lotusland of Pop Montreal.

Thursday morning, 1:30 AM. Montreal's Portuguese Association.

The crowd wobbled like a large, amorphous junkie. It was begging the empty stage for a hit of filthy electro pop.