Music on two wheels
We know that the tour life can be gruelling for a musician, but a few local musicians are taking it that extra step – or pedal.
On Sunday (August 11), three Toronto folk artists – Abigail Lapell, Jessica Moore and Dana Sipos – set off on an eastern Ontario bike tour (with all their gear in tow!) from Toronto to Ottawa, stopping along the way for a total of 10 outdoor shows in 12 days.
And they won’t be the only ones doing all the legwork. All the show electricity will be powered by the audience using bike generators. Whew.
Just bounce
There was so much happening over the long weekend (Caribana, VELD, the actual OVO Fest) that the first annual OVO Bounce basketball tournament went slightly under the radar.
The Drake-organized basketball tournament paired NBA stars (Brandon Jennings, Amir Johnson) against Toronto AAU players as well as current and former pro-ballers. By the fourth day, lineups for the games at Ryerson University snaked around the block Brampton-bred Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Thompson, teammate and first overall pick Anthony Bennett and soon-to-be-megastar Canadian wunderkind Andrew Wiggins had all dropped by and Team OVO (Jennings, Johnson, Drake’s bestie Niko) took top prize.
And the winners are…
Congratulations to the winners of 2013’s SoundClash Music Awards – Harbourfront Centre’s live-music contest that rewards forward-thinking artists.
First place went to the soulful, electro-fused sounds of singer Brendan Philip, the folk-jazz trio the Jessica Stuart Few scooped second prize, and alt-indie-rocking band Grounders took third.
RIP James Gray
On Tuesday we heard the sad news via Facebook that a former Blue Rodeo musician, keyboardist James Gray, passed away, allegedly of a heart attack late Sunday night while walking home from playing a show.
Gray, a Toronto music scene staple, left Blue Rodeo in 2005 and was also briefly a member of the Rheostatics in the early 80s. For a complete obituary, see nowtoronto.com.
