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FYI

Music Biz Headlines, March 8, 2019

Snow (pictured) on the comeback trail, musicians fight climate change, and Drake opens a sports bar. Others in the headlines include B.A. Johnston, NAC, Solange, ESO, vinyl stores, Kanye West, Jenny Lewis, Pete Townshend, Keith Flint, Nils Lofgren, Michelle Obama, and Somali disco.

Music Biz Headlines, March 8, 2019

By Kerry Doole

Drake is opening a new Toronto sports bar this month

Drake's new bar Pick 6ix Sports is set to go at the end of March. –  Patrick Gilson, Narcity


How musicians are taking action on climate change

Artists like The Weather Station and Ansley Simpson are using their platforms to inspire change on an issue that's just getting more urgent. –  Michael Rancic, NOW

Toronto’s own Snow of ‘Informer’ fame has fun with surprise comeback ‘Con Calma’ — but fame? ‘That don’t matter to me’

It’s a bit more of a haul than expected, via transit and feet, to the studio on the neglected, lower-western industrial fringes of North York where Snow is holed up on a recent Friday night, so this conscientious music writer feels apologies are in order for intruding at the end of what must have been a long and tiring day of recording. –  Ben Rayner, Toronto Star

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Graham Rockingham: B.A. Johnston’s new TV series celebrates all things Hamilton ... except hipsters

Of the six episodes of “HamJam” in the can, two are on the city’s subculture (as in submarine sandwiches). –  The Hamilton Spectator

NAC Orchestra's biggest ever creative project inspired by lives of four Canadian women

Life Reflected, the biggest creative project ever undertaken by the National Arts Centre Orchestra, didn’t start as a feminist manifesto, according to musical director Alexander Shelley.  – Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen

Review: Solange celebrates Black Americana on triumphant When I Get Home

With her dreamy tribute to her Houston roots, the R&B/soul auteur shows the South has still got something to say. –  Sumiko Wilson, NOW

Wildlife: The ESO charts course for two stellar nights with The Music of Star Trek

On Tuesday and Wednesday next week at Winspear Centre, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra is presenting a specially-programmed The Music of Star Trek, led by American conductor Robert Bernhardt. – Fish Griwkowsky, Edmonton Journal

47Soul finally Shamstep into Toronto

The group's hypnotic and political mix of traditional Palestinian street music and electronic beats has created a worldwide movement. –  Ayah McKhail, NOW 

international

10 appointment-only record shops you have to visit

From Detroit to Jo’burg, we’ve selected the apartments, lock-ups and converted camper-vans, that offer a personalised record shopping experience like no other. –  Jack Needham, The Vinyl Factory

Kanye West is banned from retiring, according to his record contract

The Stronger rapper filed a lawsuit at the Los Angeles Superior Court in January against bosses at EMI in which he demanded “to be set free from” their contract. The complaint was heavily redacted at the time, but it has been released in full following EMI’s response. –  WENN

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Jenny Lewis starts over

After saying goodbye to her mother and a 12-year relationship, an indie-rock icon finds a new clarity in art and life. –  Jonah Weiner, Rolling Stone

Pitchfork review: T-Pain 1UP

Features by Canadian singer Torey Lanez and rapper Russ, known for their simplistic and sometimes crass approach to heavy subject matter, don‘t help.  –  Reed Jackson, Pitchfork

Pete Townshend pens first novel ‘The Age of Anxiety’

Who guitarist also plan opera and art installation around “rock novel” that arrives in November. –  Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone

‘Captain Marvel’ composer shatters glass ceiling for superhero movies

With the March 8 opening of “Captain Marvel,” composer Pinar Toprak becomes the first woman to score a Marvel superhero movie — possibly the most high-profile accomplishment yet for a female in a notoriously male-dominated profession. –  Jon Burlingame, Variety

Nils Lofgren resurrects lost Lou Reed songs on new LP ‘Blue With Lou’

Lofgren’s new LP Blue With Lou (out April 26th) contains five songs he wrote with Lou Reed in the late Seventies but have never been released before in any capacity. –  Andy Greene, Rolling Stone

My heart is broken for him”: Sex Pistols icon Johnny Rotten pays tribute to Keith Flint

"Nobody loved him and he was left alone and he got destroyed." –  Nick Reilly, NME

Michelle Obama to speak in Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto

She has added four shows to her speaking tour and will now present her book, “Becoming,” in four additional Canadian cities. Produced by Live Nation, the tour continues next Wednesday, March 13, in St. Paul, Minn. –  Celebrity Access

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Sony made $250 million bet on Michael Jackson before documentary

HBO’s ‘Leaving Neverland’ could complicate efforts to profit from music distribution deal. –  Anne Steele and John Jurgensen, WSJ

The little-known story of Somalia's disco era

In the 1970s and '80s, Mogadishu's airwaves were filled with Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae. Musicians rocking afros and bell-bottom trousers would perform at the city's trendiest nightclubs during the height of the country's golden era of music. –  The Guardian

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H.E.R.
Steven Moran
H.E.R.
Awards

See Who Was Nominated — and Who Was Passed Over — in Oscars’ 2025 Music Categories

This is the fifth year in a row that one or more non-English language songs has been nominated for best original song.

Diane Warren received her 16th Oscar nomination for best original song on Thursday (Jan. 23) — a tally equaled by only three other songwriters in the 91-year history of the category. Sammy Cahn leads with 26 nods, followed by Johnny Mercer with 18 and Paul Francis Webster, also with 16. Warren was nominated this year this year for “The Journey,” sung by H.E.R. in The Six Triple Eight.

Moreover, this is the eighth year in a row Warren has been nominated, which enables her to tie Cahn for the longest continuous streak of nominations in this category. Cahn was nominated eight years running from 1954 to 1961.

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