JUNO

Bryan Adams: 15-Year Love Affair

This expanded version was to have been published by Toronto on-line magazine Magnet, which sadly folded after one issue.     BRYAN ADAMS: 15-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR   NICK KREWEN   Before we get started, there are four things you should know about Canadian rock superstar Bryan Adams. First, he’s a strict vegetarian. “Eight years!” shouts Adams, as his voice voraciously leaps off the long-distance line from his home in London,…


Shania: From Pain to Fame

    NEED TO KNOW: Shania Twain at the Canadian Country Music Awards, at Hamilton Place, 9 p.m. Tonight. Sold out. Tune into CTV at 9 p.m.   BY NICK KREWEN Special To The Spectator September 18, 1995   Don’t let her dazzling beauty fool you. Beneath the glamorous exterior of Shania Twain beats the heart of a survivor. The 29-year-old Windsor-born singing and songwriting sensation, who leads the pack…


Roadside Hip

PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR Thursday, July 13, 1995   NICK KREWEN   Gord Downie really likes Hamilton. In fact, when the 31-year-old singer of The Tragically Hip and his wife were looking for a new locale to live a few years back, they almost moved here. “I know a lot of good people there,” said Downie Monday during a rare phone interview from outside The Hip’s Kingston rehearsal space….


Ron Sexsmith reveals his Secret Heart

NICK KREWEN Hamilton Spectator Thursday, March 2, 1995       “Secret Heart What are you made of? What are you afraid of?”   — from “Secret Heart”, written by Ron Sexsmith, © 1995 Ronboy Rhymes Inc./Interscope Pearl Music/Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., BMI.   French fries. When I first met Ron Sexsmith, his two favorite foods were French fries and Yorkshire pudding — mainly because they were British. At the time,…


A little Hip talk

PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR ON Thursday, February 9, 1995 Only in Canada could being so famous be so ordinary NICK KREWEN TORONTO — Anonymity has its rewards. Gord Sinclair and Paul Langlois — respectively bassist and guitarist for Canada’s coolest band of the moment, The Tragically Hip, are crossing a busy strip of Toronto’s Queen Street West en route to a Mexican restaurant. There are no glass-shattering screams of instant…