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.
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
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
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
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
