By Kerry Doole
Atom Egoyan’s new concert-film hybrid of Steve Reich’s Clapping Music awaits applause as a salute to the composer
The celebrated Canadian director, screenwriter, stage director and opera librettist is currently shooting the feature film Seven Veils in Toronto. And, later this month, Egoyan’s new concert-film hybrid version of Steve Reich’s self-explanatory song Clapping Music from 1972 awaits applause at a salute to Reich presented by Soundstreams in Toronto. – Brad Wheeler, The Globe and Mail
Vancouver Folk Festival revival is music to the ears of B.C.’s dedicated fans
The long-running Vancouver Folk Festival is back for another year, less than two months after funding issues threatened to permanently cancel the event. A statement on the festival’s website says it will be held July 14 to 16 at its usual location in Vancouver’s Jericho Beach Park. – CP
Video premiere: Leona Burkey's "Groundrush" is about to make mom rock a thing
If Brandi Carlile and Jimmy Rankin had a singer-songwriter offspring, it'd be Burkey. Here, she shares a new vid offering fresh perspective on ageing. –Morgan Mullin, The Coast
Drake & 21 Savage fans outraged by cost of tour tickets
March 15) Drake announced the highly-anticipated It’s All a Blur Tour (with 21 Savage) via Instagram. The announcement marks the first time the Canadian rapper would hit the road since 2018. Naturally, fans flocked to Ticketmaster (TM) before all of the seats were gone and became outraged at the cost of tickets; letting Twitter know all about it. –Celebrity Access
Laketown Shakedown just announced an absolutely bonkers lineup
If you weren’t already excited about BC’s summer music festivals, you will be now. Laketown Shakedown just released a behemoth of a lineup for its 2023 edition, with headliners including Shaggy, Third Eye Blind, and Portugal. the Man for the three-day festival. Other acts include Bif Naked, Classified, Aqua, and K’naan. – Chandler Walter Georgia Straight
Tara MacLean’s memoir ‘Song of the Sparrow’ will make you cry
The book is an oft-harrowing read of hardship and trauma, but it has a happy ending for the P.E.I.-born singer-songwriter. – Ben Rayner, Toronto Star
How the director of the new MuchMusic documentary found gold in a treasure trove of archives
Sean Menard's 299 Queen Street West takes viewers back in time to the heyday of 'the Nation's Music Station.' – Sydney Urbanek, CBC Arts
Ford government to drop $5M one-time arts grants but maintain Ontario Arts Council base funding
The Ford government says it will maintain its $60-million in base funding for the Ontario Arts Council in next week’s budget but will not renew about $5-million in one-time grants for the culture sector, after some arts organizations warned this week that any cuts to the OAC would be devastating amid pandemic recovery efforts. –Josh O'Kane, Globe and Mail
Herb Alpert’s trumpet provided the soundtrack of the Swinging Sixties
Herb Alpert and his Grammy-winning wife Lani Hall perform May 14 at Hamilton’s FirstOntario Concert Hall. – Graham Rockingham, Spectator
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts is getting a $400M facelift. Here’s how it will look
The St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts will be Canada’s first carbon-zero theatre when the centre re-opens in 2028. – Bruce Demara, The Star
Vancouver tour dates announced this week include Pink Mountaintops, Haley Blais, the Doobie Brothers
The Doobies roll into town for the band’s 50th anniversary in October. Keep reading for more fun tidbits and this week’s roundup of concert announcements—which also includes a couple of hometown hero shows you’ll want to highlight on your calendar. – Georgia Straight
A massive party is planned for Port Coquitlam's 100th May Days
Party in the Square to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Port Coquitlam May Days will take place at the Terry Fox Hometown Square (PCCC) on May 13. –Vancouver Is Awesome
Shania Twain’s eternal pop empire
On her genre-jumping new album, Shania Twain still luxuriates in her crossover appeal. – Richard Trapunski, Macleans
International
Recorded music market 2022 | Reality bites
Following a spectacular year of growth in 2021, global recorded music revenue growth slowed significantly in 2022 due to the combined impact of global economic headwinds and growth slowdown in mature streaming markets. – Midia Research
Global recorded music revenues reached $31.2B in 2022
The streaming-led global recorded music industry might be resilient in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty, but it’s definitely not immune. That’s the key takeaway from a new report from Midia Research, which estimates a dramatic deceleration in recorded music growth last year. – Murray Stassen, MBW
The Cure priced tour tickets as low as $20. Ticketmaster had other ideas
Ticketmaster, a division of concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc., has long been a punching bag for fans upset about the high cost of seeing their favourite acts live. – Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg
The Cure’s Robert Smith is ‘as sickened as you’ by Ticketmaster’s latest fees debacle
Scoring tickets to watch the Cure perform should be just like heaven ... but Ticketmaster is making the process hell for fans. – Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times
Virtual K-pop group explores metaverse future
At first glance, South Korean girl quartet MAVE: looks like any other idolized K-pop band – except it only exists virtually. – Reuters
Chrissie Hynde blasts 'total bollocks' Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Pretenders frontwoman, who was inducted into the Hall in 2005, aimed at the institution in a new post on Facebook. “If anyone wants my position in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, they are welcome to it. I don’t even wanna be associated with it,” she wrote. “It’s just more establishment backslapping. I got in a band so I didn’t have to be part of all that.” – UCR
‘I want to do this forever’: How Gracie Abrams’ searing songwriting led her to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour
Gracie Abrams plans to learn from “the best” when she opens for Swift, but her own sold-out tour shows she’s no slouch in connecting with fans. – Aisling Murphy, Toronto Star
Jack White shares tribute to Meg White after journalist calls The White Stripes drummer ‘terrible’
Questlove, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Ron Sexsmith were among the artists springing to her defense. – Richie Assaly, Toronto Star
The expansive sounds of an unsung album called “Black Music”
Marc Anthony Thompson, with the musical collective Chocolate Genius, produced some of the great confessional songs of the nineties. But critics seemed eager to define the project by what it wasn’t. – The New Yorker
Posthumous album set from ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ rapper Coolio
The estate of rapper Coolio plans to release a studio album later this year that the Grammy-winning hitmaker had been working on in the days before he died. – Mark Kennedy, AP
PizzaExpress to Launch new Record Label, PX Records
It is announced today that PizzaExpress is to launch a record label. The first two releases on PX Records, for release on 14 April are from the Scott Hamilton Quartet and Mamas Gun. – London Jazz News
Stephen Sondheim’s final musical ‘Here We Are’ to premiere Off-Broadway in fall
Stephen Sondheim’s final musical “Here We Are” is hitting the stage in the fall. The legendary musical theater figure, who composed “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Follies,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Company” and countless other Broadway classics, died in 2021 at the age of 91. – Rebecca Rubin, Variety
A billion listens? Is that a lot?’ John Cooper Clarke on penning possibly the world’s favourite poem
I Wanna Be Yours, a love poem that rhymes Ford Cortina with vacuum cleaner, has been a school text and a wedding staple. But now, thanks to TikTok and Arctic Monkeys, it has gone spectacularly global. So who was it written for? – Ben Beaumont-Thomas, The Guardian
