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I think historically I’ve probably been to the Vans Warped Tour more than Scott has but here we are in the year 2026 and I was sitting home and our boy Scott was out there at the Vans Warped Tour watching punk rock, skateboarding and pro-wrestling like it’s 1997. How much did tickets to the Warped Tour cost this year? I’m not even sure. Pretty sure it was more than $30 I paid when I was in high school though. Montreal has always been a city that has loved punk rock. You don’t even need to look that far back to see the two nights of sold out shows at Olympic Park for NOFX last year. Of course,
The Montreal podcast that asks Montreal actor and filmmaker Sam Félix: If you had could run your own festival, what would that festival be? That question asked by the boys of summer back in episode 340 talking about the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival 4. With festival season almost in our rear view it’s time to return to our regularly scheduled episodes of Go Plug Yourself – this week Lawrence Corber and I were back at Grumpy’s to sit down with one of Montreal’s many talented citizens. This time around we were talking with Sam Félix. Sam is an actor and director who’s been working on projects
So I’ve been with Sarah over 18 years. In that time we have watched probably hundreds of horror movies. We’ve both got a stomach for even some of the more “hardcore” films the like of High Tension and Martyrs. Heck – we watched A Serbian Film in theaters at Fantasia. But there was always one movie that was too horrific for her to ever consider watching. That film? Gremlins. Why? “Because they pop out of the toilet.” For years I have tried to tell her that first of all, that’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch and that second of all: she’s a grownup now and hard as that hit when she was a kid there is
The Montreal podcast that asks the folks behind the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival 4: Would you rather have $200 or $20 sunglasses? That question asked by Pat Guay back in episode 339. If you’re a listener of the Go Plug Yourself podcast you really should already be a fan of the World’s Smallest Comedy Night – and guess what? The fine folks behind the World’s Smallest Comedy Night are back for the 4th edition of the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival. Walter J. Lyng, Troy Stark and Dan Carin join me at the back of Grumpy’s to talk about Prince Edward Island, the storied career of Weird Al Yank
Festival season is wrapping up and we’re finishing off our Fantasia coverage with three more movies. Sarah checked out the world premiere of The Last Footage, Myanmar’s found-footage horror from writer-director-editor Arkar Soe Oo. It’s shot entirely in first-person through a pair of camera glasses, plays out in near-real time, and follows a group of friends heading to an inherited rubber plantation that turns out to be significantly more haunted than expected. Classic horror tropes, not much gore, no score leads to almost documentary-style tension. Perfect Friday-night watch if you’re into th
It’s… it’s… over? It’s over. Just like that Osheaga 2026 has come and gone. Sarah and I made it out to all 3 days despite a broken leg and saw nearly 20 acts. Getting around the festival site was relatively easy while pushing Sarah around in a wheelchair so we managed to make the most of it. No afterparties this year though. We’re not THAT hardcore. So here it is, the breakdown of the many highs and very few lows of this year’s edition of Osheaga and as always we take a stab at who just might be headlining next year’s historic 20th edition. Fun fact: we’ve basically never been right with any o
Sarah and I are still at it for the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. Healing is pain, as Sarah keeps reminding me, but we’re still getting out to movies. On July 29th we actually split up because two interesting films were screening at the same time. Sarah decided to go full intellectual and catch the documentary. I went for the zombies-in-a-mall option. Both were worth talking about. First up is Colony, the latest from Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan). A bioterrorist unleashes a fungal-style zombie virus inside a big Seoul office-mall complex that gets locked
If you haven’t seen the clip of Tommaso Ciampa pulling a Bobby Orr jersey out of a trash can in the middle of a hardcore match at AEW Redemption then you can probably go ahead and do that now. Or don’t. (That’s what they call a “callback“). AEW had their first pay-per-view in Montreal and I was happy to have made it out. Seeing Kenny Omega hit the One-Winged Angel in the middle of the Bell Centre is kind of like the wrestling equivalent to seeing Sidney Crosby score an OT game winner live. We spend the first half of the episode giving a rundown of the whole PPV so fair warning there. You know
Sarah and I are still grinding deep within the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. We’re not getting to as many screenings as we’d like (broken leg will do that), but we’re still hitting a solid mix of the classic Fantasia checkboxes. Fresh episode of 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia is up, and this one covers two strong ones. First is The Mouths, the North American premiere from Takashi Shimizu. Classic Japanese horror setup: a cursed tree outside a cemetery, a group of teens daring each other to touch it for a courage test, and then the usual (and very well-executed
Sarah and I are well into the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. The fest runs until August 2nd, and we’re doing our best to catch as many films as possible while keeping these chats spoiler-light and pretty honest. This time around we covered three very different movies. Sarah still refers to them as “the baby one,” “the black and white one,” and “the indigenous one,” which somehow works. First up is Nightborn (Finnish title Yön lapsi), directed by Hanna Bergholm and starring Rupert Grint. A young couple moves into her grandmother’s old cottage in the Finnis
It’s once again time for Go Plug Yourself and our Osheaga podcast series to have what has become their annual crossover episode! We asked Pat (among many other things): Where are the best fries and pizza in Montreal? That question was asked by Abby Stonehouse & Dawn McSweeney back in episode 349. Patrick Guay from evenko returns to talk about all the ins and outs of booking festivals like Osheaga, Lasso and Ile Soniq. It’s a great chat where we talk about some memorable concerts, the changing landscape of live music and so much more. It’s a must-listen if you’re a music fan in Montreal, sit ba
Sarah and I are still deep in the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival here in Montreal. It’s time for the second episode of 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia. As usual, we’re keeping it loose, chatting about the movies we’ve seen, and trying not to spoil anything big. Our dog Clementine made us do a few extra takes again, but we got there. In this episode we talk about two very different Canadian premieres. First up is After School (also known as Straf), a Dutch dark comedy directed by Merijn Scholte Albers and Tobias Smeets. It follows Edwin (Rutger de Bekker), a music teacher who
Sarah and I are back for the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival (July 16th to August 2nd). We have turned our usual post-movie rambling once again into a podcast this year, so welcome to 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia 2026. Each episode we’ll chat about the films we catch, share what we thought and give you honest reviews and opinions of the films we saw. We kick things off with You Are the Film, the North American premiere from Makoto Ueda (the screenwriter of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes). It’s a short, super breezy time-bendy movie that plays with reality in clever ways.
Osheaga 2026 is only 11 days away! Our Unofficial Osheaga Podcast is back for 2026! We’re into July already and that means it’s time to keep digging into Sunday’s lineup (More or less) every two weeks Sarah and I have been digging into the entire lineup of this year’s Osheaga to give you music recommendations all summer long. We pick ten acts from each day, we talk about them, play clips of their tunes to give you a feel for their music and tell you why we think they’re worth checking. As always we’ll be listening to music and talking about some of our favorite acts all summer long. If you’re
If you haven’t seen the clip of Conor McGregor doing a flying jumpkick and then immediately blow his knee out at UFC 329 then you can probably go ahead and do that now. Or don’t. It’s like 15 seconds long. We do talk about it for a long time though because despite being an absolute crazy person the man is somehow always interesting. Another interesting man? Sam Neill. He certainly didn’t have the most prolific of careers but he was in a LOT of stuff that I enjoyed. Even if he did nothing other than Jurassic Park, Event Horizon and In the Mouth of Madness he would still sit comfortably as one o
Osheaga 2026 is 23 days away! Our Unofficial Osheaga Podcast is back for 2026! We’re into July already and that means it’s time to take a look at Sunday’s lineup (More or less) every two weeks Sarah and I have been digging into the entire lineup of this year’s Osheaga to give you music recommendations all summer long. We pick ten acts from each day, we talk about them, play clips of their tunes to give you a feel for their music and tell you why we think they’re worth checking. As always we’ll be listening to music and talking about some of our favorite acts all summer long. If you’re like us
The Montreal podcast that asks Dawn McSweeney & Abby Stonehouse (both repping the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival): “How would you re-design the Montreal Canadiens logo?” That question was asked by Wassim El-Mounzer and Simon Peacock a few episodes ago (perhaps when the Habs were still in the playoffs, this has been a bit of a summer). Anyways Montreal, we’ve got big news and you’re hearing about it here first kids. The gang at World’s Smallest are doing it again. The World’s Smallest Comedy Festival is returning for it’s 4th edition August 10th through 17th. Troy Stark and I are joined by Da
If you haven’t seen the photos of the massive crowd that Angine de Poitrine drew at the Jazz Fest last weekend you should do yourself a favour and check them out. I haven’t really hear precise estimates of attendance but I think it’s easily around 100,000 people based on what I know of the layout and rough capacity. We’ve talked a little bit about what makes Angine de Poitrine the band of the moment right now and I think their popularity is almost a direct rejection of AI. Something that sounds and looks so different from everything else while still being pretty accessible just pierces through
In case you haven’t heard the co-founder of Go Plug Yourself Mister Walter J. Lyng himself is headlining the Comedy Nest for the first time ever this Sunday June 28th at 8 pm, he’s also turning 40! To celebrate we bought a train ticket for the one and only Inés Anaya to come back to Montreal to help celebrate this historic confluence of events. We also paid for Troy Stark’s travel arrangements to come to Grumpy’s all the way from NDG. We did neither of these things. The four of us got together to catch up, talk about Walter’s 20 years of comedy and of course Taskmaster. Head to ComedyNest.com
So Sarah broke her leg pretty badly a few weeks ago so we kick this episode off with our first hand experiences with the Quebec healthcare system. You know, the Quebec healthcare system that Scott works for? I guess we’re kind of experts on the subject. You heard it here first, this podcast is a medical drama now. Against my better judgement I watched about 10 minutes of UFC Freedom 250 (it was in between periods of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final). It was… something else. From some jackass yelling “Michelle Obama is a man” to chants of “Fuck Him Up!” ringing out across the White House lawn it
Osheaga 2026 is 42 days away! Our Unofficial Osheaga Podcast is back for 2026! We’re into June already and that means it’s time to take a look at Saturday’s lineup (More or less) every two weeks Sarah and I have been digging into the entire lineup of this year’s Osheaga to give you music recommendations all summer long. We pick ten acts from each day, we talk about them, play clips of their tunes to give you a feel for their music and tell you why we think they’re worth checking. As always we’ll be listening to music and talking about some of our favorite acts all summer long. If you’re like u
So normally this time of year Sarah and I would be interviewing a bunch of artists performing at the Montreal Fringe Festival and up until last Wednesday I promise you: that was the plan. Then, unfortunately, Sarah took a bad fall on a bike path while heroically saving a child and broke her leg pretty badly. 10 days in the hospital later she’s finally home and the Montreal Fringe Festival is in full swing but we’re not doing much of anything except for rehabilitating Sarah’s leg. So that means for the first time in a long time, we won’t be Fringing this year. It got me thinking: When was the l
There’s more than a few photos kicking around of Brendan Gallagher, Andrei Markov and Tomas Plekanec all together on the Habs. They were all on the team from 2012 when Gallagher got called up to Markov’s departure at the end of the 2016-2017 season. All three of those guys played over 900 games for the bleu-blanc-rouge. I feel like only Markov has a real chance of having his number up in the rafters and even then I wouldn’t consider it a lock. All the same Brendan Gallagher is certainly a player who I think most Habs fans will remember fondly for a very long time. Pretty sure it’s the right ti
Osheaga 2026 is 56 days away! Our Unofficial Osheaga Podcast is back for 2026! We’re into June already and that means it’s time to take a look at Saturday’s lineup (More or less) every two weeks Sarah and I have been digging into the entire lineup of this year’s Osheaga to give you music recommendations all summer long. We pick ten acts from each day, we talk about them, play clips of their tunes to give you a feel for their music and tell you why we think they’re worth checking. As always we’ll be listening to music and talking about some of our favorite acts all summer long. If you’re like u
The Montreal podcast that asks Simon Peacock & Wassim El-Mounzer: “What is your ‘seed’ song for streaming music?” That question was asked back in episode 336 by Tom Murphy. On this week’s episode we’re joined by the President of ACTRA Montreal Simon Peacock and the host of this year’s ACTRA Awards in Montreal Wassim El-Mounzer. Simon and Wassim talk about this year’s ACTRA Awards in Montreal, Canadian content, Degrassi and so much more. We have a fun conversation about what people look for today in entertainment and in our very humble opinions, maybe they’re looking for something different. So
