What is it with music and clowns?

Puddles Pity Party and Mac Sabbath brought very different musical clown acts to Toronto, suggesting the modern fear of clowns might be exaggerated Nick Krewen NOW Magazine, Nov 20, 2018 PUDDLES PITY PARTY at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, November 8. Rating: NNNN MAC SABBATH at Lee’s Palace, Thursday, November 15. Rating: NNN Our music scene delivers new trends all the time, but over the past few weeks Toronto has played host to a…


Nick Cave mesmerizes the faithful in Scotiabank Arena show

Oct 29, 2018 Nick Krewen Special To The Star Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds At Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, Oct. 28 Four stars. Eons ago, when this concert was announced and the venue was still known as the Air Canada Centre, there was speculation that Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds might have overreached by booking an arena show. After all, despite being around since the early 1980s and releasing…


Matt Mays – Seeing Double

October 25, 2018 Nick Krewen   Saturday night and Sunday morning. That’s how Matt Mays describes the difference between his albums Once Upon A Hell Of A Time and the just-released Twice Upon a Hell of a Time: the former, an energetic, electric offering and the latter, its mellower acoustic twin. “I thought these songs should have been a bit more torn-down,” says Mays of his motive behind making Twice….


Cape Breton’s Fertile Music Scene

Story by Nick Krewen | September 17, 2018 For SOCAN Words & Music On Cape Breton Island, the music flows like water. Despite its relatively modest population, at 132,000 residents, this Northeastern tip of Nova Scotia, spread over 10,311 square km, has launched a number of tuneful tributaries surnamed MacMaster, Rankin and Sampson: artists that have impacted lands and listeners far beyond its borders. The Island’s musicians are largely known…


U2, Dylan, Hip Producer Talks Melanoma, Breakthrough Immunotherapy, and A-List Benefit

Aug 17, 2018 Nick Krewen Mark Howard, the Grammy-winning and Juno-nominated producer and engineer who has worked with everyone from Bob Dylan and U2 to The Tragically Hip and Willie Nelson, has organized a benefit concert featuring Sarah McLachlan, Randy Bachman, Sass Jordan, Sam Roberts and Ian Thornley, and more,  to be held at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall on Oct. 6. The Mark Howard & Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Grand…