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Newspapers to ask online readers to pay up
It’s no secret that the New York Times is in a heap of financial trouble. In April, the paper announced an operating loss of US$61 million — way down from an operating profit of $6.2 million a year earlier — and the publication’s parent company threatened to close the Boston Globe unless employees took a pay cut. There are a host of reasons why the Grey Lady is seeing red,...
Demi Lovato — Here We Go Again
Demi Lovato
Album: Here We Go Again
Label: Hollywood/Universal
Rating: ***
Demi Lovato’s sophomore disc is exactly what you’d expect from a Disney darling — it’s vibrant, infectious and only for 14-year-old girls. For that Miley Cyrus loving demo, this is a superb disc. She’s perfected the watered down Avril Lavigne, faux-anger sound to a tee, and naïve songs about boys will resonate with...
Fiery Furnaces — I'm Going Away
Fiery Furnaces
Album: I’m Going Away
Label: Thrill Jockey
Rating: *** 1/2
If there’s one thing most people know about the Fiery Furnaces, it’s that their music has been pretty weird. So it was a surprise to find out that their sixth record is one of the more straightforward albums in their oeuvre. That’s not to say this still isn’t incredibly quirky. The title track is a wacky hillbilly blues...
Sports: The return of the Jets?
On April 28, 1996 the Winnipeg Jets, flanked by a sold-out crowd of pompom waving fans, said goodbye to the city the team called home for 24 years, and moved to Phoenix. Nearly a decade and a half later the team’s memory still looms large in Winnipeg. While the old Winnipeg Arena was torn down to make room for an expanded shopping centre, you’ll still see people wearing Jets jerseys, reminiscing...
Is it better to rent than own?
Denis Hancock’s family is your typical Canadian clan. The program manager and his wife Sophie live in a spacious three-bedroom house in Toronto’s trendy High Park neighbourhood with their 15-month-old daughter. He works, she stays at home, preferring afternoons playing with her child in their backyard than slaving away at an office. There’s only one difference between Hancock’s...
Is it better to rent than own?
Denis Hancock’s family is your typical Canadian clan. The program manager and his wife Sophie live in a spacious three-bedroom house in Toronto’s trendy High Park neighbourhood with their 15-month-old daughter. He works, she stays at home, preferring afternoons playing with her child in their backyard than slaving away at an office. There’s only one difference between Hancock’s...
You Oughta Know: Rock Plaza Central
Rock Central Plaza is more literate than your average indie act. They’re led by a twice-published author who wrote an entire album about robot horses and their latest effort was inspired by a William Faulkner novel.
While Toronto’s vibrant music scene has produced a number of big name indie bands — Broken Social Scene and Feist to name two — you’d be hard pressed to find...
Bryan Borzykowski is a Toronto-based writer and editor working mainly for business and entertainment publications. He regularly contributes to Canadian Business magazine, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, PROFIT, MoneySense and the Advisor Group. Bryan's the editor of Review magazine and is a senior editor with Connected for Business magazine. He's also a contributing writer with Hello! Canada and was once a weekly music columnist for Metro News. He's been nominated for several National Magazine Awards and recently co-authored