What is your musical fantasy? Does it involve copious amounts of liquid chocolate and a select Barenaked Ladies album? Or do you simply long to walk in the footsteps of a certain Liverpool quartet at the crossing at Abbey Road? (I could watch that webcam all day!) Or maybe you’re more the adventurous sort. Maybe […]

Tomorrow night at Café Alt, Roberta Bondar is releasing a new album. Just for clarification, I’m talking about the Ottawa band named Roberta Bondar, not the Canadian female astronaut. I wonder if that’s a coincidence. In either case, Roberta Bondar is about to become a pioneer, not of outer space this time, but of a […]

Ottawa has entered a golden age of hip hop. Seriously. With acts like Jesse Dangerously, Philly Moves, Flight Distance, Atherton, and Homebased, you don’t have to go that far from the Transitway to find some really seasoned, talented rappers and turntablists making their way in this new capital city reality. Funnily enough, if one of […]

Here’s a question: do you like Biggie? I mean Notorious B.I.G.; do you like him? He’s a rapper. He died 16 years ago (gawd I feel old). He was a pioneer, a visionary, an exceptional rapper. And so, this month, some of the localest of local deejays and rappers are throwing a big party in […]

There’s probably a lot I could say about Wellington End. But, since this is web writing, I’m going to try to condense it into a sentence.  Here it is: Fantastic music, great beer, delicious food, all local. Cheap, too! Just 30 bucks for the whole thing, and that gets you access to 40+ artists across […]

The Soundcloud embed isn’t working, so here’s the direct link. It’s 10 minutes long. A couple weeks back, Cafe Alt hosted the second edition of the aptly named Cafe Alt Concert Series. It was a resounding success, in no little part due to the gentlemen you are about to meet. James and Blackburn is a […]

Emcee Julie Nesrallah flips the last page of her prepared notes. Everyone gathered in St.  Andrew’s Church on Kent lets out an audible breath of relief. We empathize with the poor CBC Radio 2 host, who seems to be a little short of breath herself. It seems there’s simply too much to say about the […]

Game Summit is in full swing over the river at the Palais de Congres in Gatineau, and apt613 is hitting the floor to play some… some games of giant Catan? Kafkaesque? Yes. Fun? Also yes! I discovered some brand new board games that now hold a special place in my cold heart. So, now I’ll […]

Here at Apartment613, we like our digital media. Heck, for all you know we could be computers, sent from the future to enslave all humans with our blog posts. But as enamoured as we are with the world of ones and zeroes, it still doesn’t eclipse our love for clunky, physical board games. Nothing beats […]

Every day, a kazillion University of Ottawa students walk by Simard Hall, eyes forward, headphones on. Being a student is a tough gig, and each of them has numerous things to focus on, like not getting hit by that car at the cross walk or figuring out where the heck CUBE building is. Some will […]

As Ottawa’s love affair with the beer brewing industry rages on, hot and heavy, new brew pubs seem to be popping up every other day. Last year saw the opening of so many such establishments that to list them all here would be futile. Instead, take a gape at our beer map. Yup. There’s a […]