THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER RECORD TO MAKE A CONVERSATION WITH JERRY LEGER “Some of the best songs are the ones that get left off the record. They just don’t fit with the story of the album. I’ll think, ‘Well, I’ll have them in my back pocket, or use [...]
MYLES GOODWYN @ HUGH’S ROOM LIVE, TORONTO NOVEMBER 4, 2019 Never mind the age-old question of whether or not white men can sing the blues. More importantly — can mature rock stars pull it off? Fans and friends of Myles Goodwyn, [...]
JOSEPH w/ DEEP SEA DIVER @ THE MOD CLUB THEATRE, TORONTO SEPTEMBER 24, 2019 Weeknights in the big city can be a bit on the quiet side, but a couple hundred fans found the fun at The Mod Club on a Tuesday night. Less than two weeks after [...]
NICK LOWE & LOS STRAITJACKETS w/ ESTHER ROSE @ THE HORSESHOE TAVERN, TORONTO SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 It was wall-to-wall humanity at Toronto’s venerable Horseshoe Tavern, as fans crowded in to welcome pub-rocker-turned-gentleman-songsmith Nick [...]
THE RACONTEURS w/ OLIVIA JEAN @ THE SONY CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, TORONTO SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 Is everybody in? Security was tight and mobile phones were locked as The Raconteurs made everyone look up and pay attention. The Nashville-based [...]
BEN FOLDS – A DREAM ABOUT LIGHTNING BUGS: A LIFE OF MUSIC AND CHEAP LESSONS BALLANTINE BOOKS BOOK REVIEW BY BRYAN WILLISTON Many music fans love to dig deep into the work of their favourite artists. “What does that lyric mean?”“What [...]
Christina Holmes The Beautiful Struggle Cove House Records No lie: it’s hard out there for independent acoustic guitar-playing singer-songwriters. What with the constant touring to grow their audience, attempting to rise above the hard sell and [...]
A TRUE MYSTERY MAN: CELEBRATING NASH THE SLASH A CONVERSATION WITH AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE NORMAL CO-DIRECTOR TIM KOWALSKI “Nash had a folklore to him. He was fine with it and he played it up, too. He was kind of like, ‘What you want to believe [...]
PARLEZ-ING ABOUT ‘NO PARLEZ’ A CONVERSATION ABOUT PAUL YOUNG’S BRILLIANT CAREER For music fans in the early 1980s, Paul Young was just about everywhere. He was topping music charts, headlining concert tours, and he was all over the [...]
Crash Vegas Brave New Waves Session Artoffact The clubs of Toronto’s Queen Street West were a hotbed of folk, rock, and country music fusion in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Springing from that scene, Crash Vegas – founded by Michelle [...]
TEENAGE FANCLUB @ THE PHOENIX CONCERT THEATRE, TORONTO MARCH 8, 2019 Like the welcome warmth of a spring wind, Teenage Fanclub blew through Toronto on this early March night–and fans were eager for their return. This current North American tour [...]
BE-BOP DELUXE: THE MAKING OF SUNBURST FINISH CHERRY RED RECORDS FEBRUARY 26, 2019 Two older men get together to reminisce about a job they did over forty years ago. Although the subject matter runs a bit deeper, that is the basic premise of the [...]
STING w/ THE CAST OF THE LAST SHIP @ TRIBUTE COMMUNITIES CENTRE, OSHAWA February 14, 2019 When it comes to pointing out injustice, Sting knows whereof he speaks, and sings. The 67-year-old native of Wallsend, UK witnessed first-hand, the demise [...]
KICK ASS SASS A CONVERSATION WITH CANADIAN QUEEN OF ROCK & WINEMAKER SASS JORDAN Sass Jordan has been a rock star, actor, Canadian Idol judge, and a Juno and Billboard award winner… is there anything she can’t do? Now, she has added [...]
Abby Zotz w/ Shout Sister Choir @ Beach United Church, Toronto January 26, 2019 Despite the sub-zero temperatures outside, there was plenty of warmth in the room for this double bill in east Toronto. The Concert of Hope benefit featured sets [...]
Alice Merton Mint Mom + Pop Music Somewhere in the shadows of modern rock is a netherworld where confessional singer-songwriters become alt-pop divas. If you visit this place, ask for Alice Merton. She is well-known to the inhabitants, for she [...]
Carpenters Carpenters With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Universal Music In recent years, there has been a spate of music reissues by acts from the classic rock and pop era of the late 20th Century. Box sets, outtakes, bootlegs, extended jams [...]
Corey Hart @ The Lounge At Live Nation, Toronto November 29, 2018 Never surrender, and never say “never”. Five years after giving a nearly four-hour “farewell” concert in Montreal, Corey Hart will be embarking on a new Canadian tour next spring. [...]
Don Ross w/ The Ontario Philharmonic Strings @ Regent Theatre, Oshawa November 17, 2018 For the uninitiated, Don Ross is a Canadian acoustic guitar icon. He has been releasing albums of fingerstyle guitar music since 1989, with his most recent [...]
Roy Orbison Unchained Melodies: Roy Orbison With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Legacy Recordings/Sony Music How do you add a greater sentimental feel to music already fraught with emotion? By adding an orchestra, of course! A recent addition [...]
Various Artists A Life In Yes: The Chris Squire Tribute Cleopatra Records Sitting here, listening to prog rock and considering the redundancy in the phrase “self-indulgent wank-fest”. But wait – what’s that sound? How does a music producer [...]
THE KIDS IN THE HALL: ONE DUMB GUY & TWO KIDS IN THE HALL (PAUL MYERS BOOK LAUNCH) @ THE TORONTO SKETCH COMEDY FESTIVAL/CROW’S THEATRE, TORONTO OCTOBER 29, 2018 On a brisk October night in Toronto, the Toronto Sketch Comedy [...]
Whispering Sons Image Cleopatra Records It’s a handy little tag, to refer to a band using the statement, “If Joy Division were female-fronted and Belgian”. One certainly gets the concept right away, and the comparison is well founded. Image, the [...]
10,000 LIGHT YEARS AGO A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN LODGE OF THE MOODY BLUES “I was never really interested in music. It was really strange. We used to have ‘quiet’ periods in my school, where they used to put a record on, of classical music. I [...]
