Karen and Trevor kicked things off with an interview with Brian Cheung of Awesome Ottawa to talk about the third year of these awesome grants. They were joined by Kyle McInnes, a successful Awesome Ottawa applicant who pitched an idea for a dumpster pool party in the Byward Market. The party is yet to happen, but Kyle told us all about the inspiration for the idea and where it might go. He likened winning an Awesome Ottawa grant to being pushed out of an airplane, but he meant it in the best way possible.

The Ottawa Jazz Festival kicks off on June 20, and this year it features a diverse mix of jazz and jazz-inspired artists like Wynton Marsalis, Mavis Staples, The Herbaliser, Kellylee Evans and The Flaps. Chris was able to have a chat with Jazz Festival Programming Manager Petr Cancura about this year’s lineup.

Our hosts rounded out the show with Jean Grandbois and David Rust-Smith, two winners of the Apps4Ottawa contest. Jean and Dave used the City of Ottawa’s open data to invent apps that make Ottawa a better place to live. Dave’s project uses gamification to speed up ambulance response times in the city, while Jean’s app makes it easier to find city-run recreation classes.

Here’s the music we played on the show this week:

Danny Michel – Survivor’s Guilt
Sunparlour Players – You Are a Bright Light
Evening Hymns – Arrows
A Tribe Called Red – Sisters
Young Galaxy – New Summer
Data Romance – Caves

This week, Ryan, Katie and Chris recorded the show from Apt613′s top secret lair in Centretown. Things kicked off with a chat with Shopify Chief Product Officer Harley Finkelstein. Shopify is hosting their inaugural Popify pop-up shop in the Byward Market this weekend, and Harley filled us in on all the details. Be sure to check it out if you’re interested in experiencing what Harley calls the next generation of retail.

Next, Trevor headed over to the Hintonburg Public House to talk to artists Dwayne Brown and Clare Brennan about Metalheads, a new mixed media exhibit at the HPH. The exhibit blends photography and found-object-sculptures inspired by the crowd of regulars at the Public House. The show is on now.

Here’s what we played on this week’s show:
Girlfriend and Boyfriends – Young Ones
Chains of Love – Strange Grey Days
Nina Simone – You’ll Never Walk Alone
Loon Choir – Bison
A Tribe Called Red – Bread and Cheese
A Tribe Called Red – NDN Stakes
A Tribe Called Red – Different Heroes
A Tribe Called Red – Sisters

A quick note of correction about something mentioned during the show: on Saturday during Westfest, Apt613 editor Yasmin Nissim will be hosting a greyhound meet-and-greet at Bushtukah on behalf of the Greyhound Supporters of the National Capital Region between 10am and 3pm, not 10am and 4pm.

For those who want to turn some heads as they commute around the city by bike, this Saturday’s Velo Vogue Fashion Show at Kichesippi  Brewery is just the thing. Coincidentally, it’s happening on the same weekend as the Capital Vélo Fest Bike Festival. The fest features an informative Bike Rodeo as well as a car-free Tour La Nuit, a cavalcade of cyclists riding their bikes along a 20km scenic route.

Happy Goat Coffee will host the iSupport Ottawa Originals Pop up Shop on Saturday in their new-ish digs on Laurel Street. The event will feature local fashion designers, artists and musicians displaying and selling their original creations in a trade show format.

Saturday and Sunday will bring this year’s instalment of the long-running Doors Open Ottawa series. In addition to the usual suspects, urban explorers can check out 13 new buildings including the new Wabano Centre in Vanier.

The Ottawa International Children’s Festival kicked off yesterday, and it promises amazing performing arts experiences for families. It runs until Sunday.

Those looking for a music fix can check out Six Shooter Amelia Curran at the National Arts Centre on Friday. For more local content, be sure to catch Tall Trees, Patterson Hall and Jimmy Song at Zaphod’s on Friday.

The Freshly Chopped Supper Club is looking to fuse music and food in what sounds to be an interesting night at Grounded Kitchen and Coffeehouse. Chef Carlton and DJ Zattar will be collaborating to create A Taste of the Tropics on Friday.

Brewhounds who also enjoy well-executed local surf music can hit the Hintonburg Public House on Sunday when the Empiricals will help Muskoka Brewery launch their Summer Weiss.

Theatre junkies can check out the opening of the Orpheus production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel on Friday.

Remarkably, the Enriched Bread Artists have ferreted out another art collective run out of a former bread factory in the Netherlands. Naturally, an artists exchange was in order, so the EBA’s Dutch counterparts have sent a team of artists to play in our backyard. The EBA will send a team to do the same in Holland this August. You can catch the opening night of this mashup on Friday.

Saturday’s Ottawa’s Got Game is a full-day gaming event being held at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be absolutely destroyed by a hardcore gamer during a round of Starcraft, this might be the event for you.

Poets Meredith Quartermain and Phil Hall will be at Raw Sugar on Sunday to read their work and launch Hall’s new book as part of the A B Series.

That’s it for now folks. As always, let us know about events we may have missed in the comments. Happy weekend!

It’s another huge weekend for the visual arts, and we’re kicking things off with a ticket giveaway. The Ottawa School of Art’s J’adart event is a fundraiser for their Children and Youth Outreach Program. This Roaring Twenties styled cocktail party is said to feature Koston Kreme of Capital Tease doing things in a vintage bathtub, but you’ll have to attend to find out just what. Did that get your attention? Apartment613 has teamed up with the OSA to give away two free tickets to the event, so if you’d like to go, just email us at apartment613@gmail.com before 1pm today with the subject line J’adart, and we’ll pick the winner by random draw. The event happens tonight at 6:30pm at the Karsh Masson Gallery.

Ever wonder if that painting you grabbed for a fiver at the Great Glebe Garage sale is actually a priceless Picasso? Ok, it’s not likely I know. But if you were in that kind of situation, you’d be glad to hear that the Ottawa Art Gallery is holding an Antiques Roadshow styled event on Saturday to help separate the Renoirs from the rejects.

It’s Mr. Sign, that’s his name, that name again is… You know where this is going. Creative Mornings is offering a workshop on making signs with Montreal sign visionary Mr. Sign on Saturday afternoon at Wallack’s. You need to register in advance and there is something of a fee, but with a little bit of coaching and talent on your side, maybe you could single-handedly disrupt the local sign industry.

On Sunday, you could check out Charles Stankievech’s The Soniferous Æther of The Land Beyond The Land Beyond at the City Hall Art Gallery. The film and sound installation was recorded during his residency at the Canadian Forces Station Alert, the northernmost settlement on Earth. Sunday’s activities will include an exhibition tour with the curators, but the exhibition is on until June 2.

This weekend would be a good time for local artists to start thinking about and preparing for their Nuit Blanche submissions. While the event doesn’t happen until the fall, the deadline for submissions is May 27 so it’s time to get cracking. This year’s theme is Supernova! How about this for inspiration: at the bottom of a very deep mine in Sudbury, Ontario, I once had the chance to see a supernova detector up close. To the untrained eye it’s just a series of rods and tubes, but in action it can help detect the supernovas that happen about once each second in our universe. Mind = blown.

In other news related in some small way to particle physics, this weekend is another milestone for supergeeks. Comiccon will return to Ottawa for its second year, bringing with it a whole raft of sci-fi celebrities for Trekkies, Browncoats and cosplayers to gawk over. There’s plenty to do on Friday, but Saturday brings Gillian Anderson of X-Files and Nathan Fillion, famously known the world over for his role as Captain Hammer in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Felicia Day will be there too.

If that’s not enough, on Saturday you can also head over the to Canada Aviation and Space Museum for the opening of the Star Wars Identities exhibition. This one runs until September, so you could be excused for spending your weekend at Comiccon instead.

On Friday and Saturday, you could check out the Glamour in the Glebe Jewelry Show at the Glebe Community Centre. In an interesting twist, EnviroCentre and Ottawa Velo Vogue are teaming up to bring a Cycling Photo Booth to the event on Saturday. If you bike to the event and buy jewelry,  you can take part in an impromptu photo shoot with your bike and your new bling.

On Saturday, the Ottawa Public Library will be holding several events around the city in its series of Celebrating Cultures in our Community gatherings. If you’re downtown, in Elmvale Acres or North Gloucester, you can discover traditions, music and dance, listen to stories and create crafts from different cultures.

We’ll mention just one dance party this week, and that’s Saturday’s Electric Pow Wow at Babylon. Organizers A Tribe Called Red have been on a tear lately, just releasing their new album Nation II Nation this past week. And they’re about to leave Ottawa on a tour that will take them across the U.S. and Canada, as well as into the U.K. So make sure to give them a warm sendoff this weekend.

That’s all for this week, but I’m sure there’s more going on around town. Let us know what we might have missed in the comments.

Ryan and Katie started the show off with an interview with provocative local photographer Jonathan Hobin. Though his images of children in metaphorical representations drawn from world issues may be familiar to Ottawans, his work is starting to make waves (and draw criticism) internationally. He is currently about to have his first solo exhibition in Toronto, but he took the time to call in from a hotel lobby in Hogtown.

Next, they chatted with Lee and Janik, who are both a part of this weekend’s Jane’s Walk Ottawa festivities. There are plenty of activities taking place across Ottawa, but you can also take part in a very special walk through Somerset Street West organized by Apartment613 editors on Saturday. Or check the Jane’s Walk website for a full listing of walks and other events.

Apt613 contributor Erika Nelson joined our hosts in studio to talk about her recent feature article on the best cocktails in Ottawa. Erika was pleasantly surprised to find some amazing cocktails around town and gives you the lowdown.

Here are the songs we played this week:
Young Galaxy – Pretty Boy
Billy Bragg - No One Knows Nothing Anymore
The Acorn – Flood Pt. 1
Hotel Morphée - La Bête et la mitraille
Aidan Knight – You Will See the Good in Everyone

This weekend also marks the last hurrah for Northern Scene. In keeping with the science fiction theme, check out Sci-Fi Double Feature on Saturday, a live performance by a theatre director with a love for sci-fi and a filmmaker with a passion for puppetry. This one takes place at the NAC Fourth Stage. Saturday will also see a live performance by Tanya Tagaq during a screening of Nanook of the North at the Mayfair. Though it’s wrapping up, Northern Scene still has a lot to offer this weekend so be sure to check the schedule here.

Centrepointe Theatre is celebrating its 25th anniversary this weekend, and they’re planning big things with an appearance by Rick Mercer, the free Alive@25 Block Party and more. The block party on Saturday sounds particularly interesting, with musical and theatrical performances, as well as workshops on how to make your own remote control robots, laser cardboard cut-outs and DIY elephant sculptures. Word on the street is that you’ll want to be there at 11:30am, as the whole building is set to come alive. Mysterious!

This weekend will also be a big one for visual arts. Tonight, Galerie St-Laurent + Hill will kick off an exhibition of new works by Ottawa artist Michael Harrington. On Saturday, Patrick Gordon Framing Studio presents a retrospective of Claude Marquis portraits. The event will feature a performance by Marquis’ band The PepTides. Sunday’s Art Battle Ottawa at Arts Court will pit eight visual artists against each other in a war where the only weapons are creative skill, artistic inspiration and, perhaps, water colours.

This year’s rendition of the Tulip Festival will launch on Friday with a performance by Manotick’s Hollerado. This is the first year that the fest will run independently of the National Capital Commission. Many of the festivities will move to Marion Dewar Plaza (confusingly renamed Tulip Plaza during the festival) at City Hall.

Dance rock trio Fire and Neon will release their new ep Intentions on Friday at Ritual with The Love Machine and Zoo Legacy. Just a few doors down and 24 hours later on Saturday, Peterborough’s Hello Babies will join locals Adam Saikaley and H. de Heutz at the Avant-Garde Bar.

If it’s a swing dance party you’re craving, you’re in luck! Not one but two local swing parties (the clean kind) take place in the Ottawa area this weekend: Saturday Night Swing takes place in Ottawa proper, while you’ll have to make your way out to Perth to catch the Swing Big Band Dance Night at the same time. Those looking for something a little more traditional (dubstep, dancehall, industrial, maybe a little bit of trap) can check out Frenzy, Tropikalo or Death Disco.

This weekend’s Jane’s Walk activities will be perfect for those who are looking for a little bit of urban exploration. Our very own Ryan Saxby-Hill is running a walk through Somerset Street West on Saturday. Visit the Jane’s Walk website for a full list of scheduled walks taking place this weekend.

Foodies will want to check out this year’s debut of the Ottawa Farmers’ Market on Sunday, which is setting up shop at Brewer Park again this year during the reconstruction of Lansdowne.

There’s a lot going on out there, so make sure to experience some local culture this weekend. And let us know about events we might have missed in the comments.

Hey loyal Apt613 readers! This week we’re trying out something new on the Apartment613 Live post. Now you can listen to each individual show segment by using the handy Soundcloud widget below each description. Let us know if you like this in the comments. If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

This week’s show was about eating and dancing, but not about eating while dancing, which would probably be uncomfortable and wouldn’t turn out well for anyone. Ryan and Karen were joined during the first segment by Jason Gray, Community Harvest Coordinator at the Ottawa Food Bank. Each summer, the OFB grows thousands of pounds of local, organic producer for those in need in the community, and Jason is the agricultural buff who puts it all together.

Next our hosts were joined by stalwart Apt613 Live guest Chris Sheppard. Kichesippi, Chris’ brewery, is celebrating its third anniversary this Sunday, April 28, and you’re invited to their party at 866 Campbell Avenue from noon until 5 pm for some beer and good eats.

Then our Vice Editor Katie called in to discuss the potential popping of the cupcake bubble. Both the Wall Street Journal and the Globe and Mail ran stories this week pointing to signs of the coming downfall of the cupcake empire. So, if the mighty cupcake does crumble for good, what will take it’s place? There’s a craft-baked donut lurking just around the corner, waiting to step into the spotlight. Good news for SuzyQ’s!

Here are the tracks we played on this week’s show:
Little Stella – Woods
Common Citizens – One Sweet Day
Ceremony exclusive Apt613 mix by Roberta Bondar’s Gary Franks
Jesse Dangerously – Slept Through a Landslide

Styrofoam. The bane of every environmentalist’s existence. How something so chemically complex ever managed to become so cheap and freely available, I’ll never understand. And it’s for these reasons that you’ll see Styrofoam take-out containers in restaurants and food vendors across the land.

I’ll concede on one point: every time I walk out of a restaurant with a sack full of little Styrofoam nightmares, I’m partially to blame. I could have decided to go to another, more environmentally-friendly establishment. Or I could carry around reusable food containers in the event that I might find myself in need of a mobile dinner solution, as some people already do.

But let’s be honest. In order for the shadowy, secretive Styrofoam cabal to crash and burn for good, we’re going to need more than just concerned citizens with a penchant for preparedness to take action. We need each and every food-serving establishment in Ottawa and beyond, from the most modest food truck to the priciest fine food destination, to take a stand against the styro-structure hegemony.

Look at the great plastic bag crash of the late 2000s. It wasn’t until businesses decided to explore alternatives that people stopped hoarding thousands of single-use bags, dusty and forgotten forever, in some dark corner of their basements. That’s not to say that plastic bags no longer exist, but the sea of change that has since taken place is proof that change is always possible.

Fortunately, there are non-styro alternatives. Biodegradable, compostable containers seem to be making strides in recent years. In fact, they’re becoming more and more common in Ottawa, especially in higher-end establishments. But for full-scale adoption to take place, I think we need to look at take-out containers, and their true costs, in a completely different way.

We’re used to take-out containers being free, and this is part of the problem. Cost must be a huge part of the equation for businesses when they’re making decisions about which containers to stock. Containers don’t necessarily equal higher profits for restaurants, so why invest in something environmentally-friendly when they’ll just be forced to give them away in the end? In this case, the cost should be passed down to the consumer.

That’s right, I’m actually advocating to have to pay every time I decide to take my food out as opposed to dining in. I would happily pay for an environmentally-friendly container every time, if it were an option. Actually, scratch that. It shouldn’t even be an option. As long as we’re hooked on to the idea that someone else should pay for our own convenience, things will never change for the better.

Some local foodie havens are already practicing this. The Green Door, Main Street’s best (and only) organic vegetarian establishment, has been charging its customers a small fee for environmentally friendly take-out containers for years. The best part about the Green Door’s options are that they’re reusable for a period of time, so the value you receive actually goes above and beyond the single meal you purchased the container for. (Editor’s note: they also offer a free alternative.) It’s this kind of thinking that can change the idea that take-out containers are throwaway, one-time-use products. The Green Door should be applauded for this.

You may think I’m totally wrong about this, and that is absolutely within your right. But either way you cut it, Styrofoam has been clogging landfills, consuming major amounts of natural resources and potentially contaminating our food for years. Admittedly, the alternatives aren’t perfect either, but their adoption would be a step in the right direction. And it’s up to us annoying foodie types to make it happen by voting with our wallets and making our views about Styrofoam take-out containers heard.

What do you think Ottawa? Is a modest fee for green take-out containers the way to go, or should I just stop worrying and learn to love the styro-bomb?

Ryan and Katie kicked things off this week by informing the world about an Indiegogo project by Mike Dubue, formerly of the Hilotrons. He’s been commissioned to set music to The Adventures Of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving animated feature film. The film will be screened alongside a live performance of Dubue’s score on April 30 at the Bytowne Cinema.

Next, our hosts were joined by Randy Innes, assistant director at the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa (SPAO). He told us about Exhibition No. 8, a yearly event featuring a collection of photographic work by SPAO Portfolio students. This year’s exhibition explores classic photographic processes and features projects that look at themes like nature, the environment, identity and self-discovery, many of which embrace the idea of photography as storytelling. The exhibit runs from April 19 until 26.

Katie then brought us some sobering news about the Byward Market’s prospect for the future. A report by a U.S. non-profit says that we risk losing the market’s distinctive flavour in the face of encroaching big business, bars and touristy establishments.

In other news, A Tribe Called Red’s new track Indian From All Directions, a collaboration with the now defunct Das Racist, was given an exclusive premier on Pitchfork this week. Congrats to one of the hardest working electronic acts in town. You can hear it on their Soundcloud page.

Here’s what we played during this week’s show:
Hilotrons - Lost in Yichang
Andrea Simms-Karp – Alternative to Flight
A Tribe Called Red – Indian From All Directions
Fevers – Passion is Dead (Long Live Fashion)
The Goodluck Assembly – Wait for Me
Aidan Knight – Telecommunicate

Katie and Karen held it down in the studio this week. They started the show off with the first in a recurring series of chats about local politics. This week’s iteration brought news that Ottawa’s Planning Committee has approved a 45-story tower called Icon that is slotted for Little Italy. Though there are still plenty of roadblocks in the way, this brings the neighbourhood-changing tower one step closer to being a reality.

Next, our hosts were joined with members of local “ouija-rock” band The Yips to chat about their show this Saturday with F Hood and Kings Quest at Club Saw. The band is really excited about the local reaction to their music, as well as the growth in and variety of the current scene.

Our hosts then took us through the efforts of Mayor Jim Watson to drum up interest in bringing a new baseball team to the city. The Fat Cats, who started playing out of the east-end Ottawa Stadium in 2010, have suspended operations as the prospect of a Double-A team is bandied about.

Here is what we played on the show this week:
Couples – Scar Teens
Suuns – 2020
Jokers of the Scene – John I’m Only Braindancing (Jokers of the Scene remix)
The Yips – Vicinage
Metz – Rats
Jenn Grant – The Fighter
Suuns – Minor Work