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Toronto’s Cold Specks making her mark

Entertainment / Music Etobicoke native Al Spx, turns heads in London, is now in Toronto opening for St. Vincent on Thursday.      Al Spx is Cold Specks. Nick Krewen Special to the Star Published on Wed Dec 14 2011   If you were a betting soul, you could safely wager that Cold Specks is glad her telemarketing days are over. But it was only recently that 23-year-old Etobicoke native Al Spx,…


Laura Marling winning folk over

Entertainment / Music Star of the U.K. scene back in Toronto for shows at Camera.  KRISTIN WILSON Laura Marling. By: Nick Krewen Special to the Star, Published on Wed Dec 07 2011 Can she make it three in a row? Considering that U.K. folk darling Laura Marling‘s excellent first pair of albums — 2008’s Alas I Cannot Swim and 2010’s I Speak Because I Can — earned prestigious Mercury Music Prize nominations (and helped bag her a Brit Award…


Concert review: Sting at 60 can still command the audience

Concert review: Sting at 60 can still command the audience | Toronto Star Sting’s adoring middle-aged fans were willingly taken on a sonic adventure but some classic hits were left off the list   Nick Krewen  Special to the Star,  Published on Tue Nov 01 2011 The busman’s holiday is officially over. After spending the greater part of 2010 fronting a behemoth of an orchestra for his global Symphonicities tour,…


Pop fans, meet Jonny

Pop fans, meet Jonny | Toronto Star Duo with grunge and neo-psychedelic roots take their new lighthearted approach to the Drake.      Jonny is band formed by the collaboration between Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub and Euros Childs from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. Nick Krewen Special to the Star Published on Thu Jun 02 2011 Norman Blake and Euros Childs are no Jonny-come-latelies. Then again, perhaps they are: the principal…


Plundering the past with Phil Collins

Plundering the past with Phil Collins | Toronto Star A mature pop titan becomes a covers act for the first time.  Nick Krewen Special to the Star Published on Fri Oct 08 2010 “I just bought a second cannon.” Not exactly the words you expect to hear flowing from the mouth of Phil Collins. But the 59-year-old’s chief passion these days is no longer music, but collecting 1820-1840 era Texas…