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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...
Jonas bros. ready to take on T.O.
If there’s any doubt whether or not the Jonas Brothers are still one of the most sought after bands in the world, just look at their travel schedule.
“We’re en route to the New York airport, then going to Madrid, then London and then to Texas,” says Kevin Jonas, the oldest member of the musical family.
“And then we’re with you guys.”
It’s that last stop that thousands of Toronto teens...
Music fans watching wallets
David Silverberg is your typical music fan. The Toronto-based writer buys about seven albums a year and goes to shows every six weeks. Or at least that’s what he did until the recession forced him to take a hard look at how he spends his cash.
“I’m definitely buying less music and going to less concerts,” he says. “I can put my money towards more applicable things. Concerts are nice...
Music Meltdown
“I’m feeling this depression,” said Montreal and New York-based musician Martha Wainwright in December, before embarking on a Canadian tour. “No one’s buying records anymore; we’ll have to go back to the life of a touring artist in the 30s, where they’d sleep upright on a school bus and go from town to town.”
While Wainwright might be joking about the school bus, she’s dead serious...
Taking the recession on tour
When U2 put out an announcement about their North American tour recently, there was one detail in the press release that stood out: $30 tickets.
It’s a move, the band’s manager Paul McGuinness said, that was designed to “ensure that U2 fans can purchase a great priced ticket with a guaranteed great view.”
While that’s a welcomed gesture from thousands of followers who are struggling to make...
Travel: Rock Cities
Don’t be a slave to your iPod–pack up your leather pants and hit the road to explore these rock ’n’ roll towns.
Winnipeg
It may be easy to knock the ’Peg for its sub-zero climes, but without the frigid temps Neil Young may have taken up surfing instead of the guitar. There’s not much else to do in the winter besides bundling up and heading out to watching top-notch indie talent, such as...
This album brought to you by — you
It’s unlikely you’ll see Walter Braunsteiner on the Grammys’ red carpet or rubbing shoulders with Kanye West, but that doesn’t mean this 36-year-old Austrian can’t be the world’s next big music mogul. An insurance industry IT specialist by day, Braunsteiner has given up buying CDs of up-and-coming artists, instead focusing his energies, and money, on developing them....
Digital music: Don’t blame your public library
Unfortunately for the thousands of Canadians who borrow music from the library, the days of flipping through a library’s CD collection could be numbered. In 2007, the Toronto Public Library saw music checkouts decline by seven per cent, while the Winnipeg Public Library saw its numbers drop by five per cent. The reason? More people are finding music online.
Like retail music stores, which saw...
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