A date has been set for a tribute show to honour multi-instrumentalist and iconoclastic individualist James Gray. The event will be held at Dakota Tavern (249 Ossington Ave. at Dundas St. W. in Toronto) on Monday, August 19. In a message posted on Gray’s Facebook page, musicians are asked to message Glenn Milchem via Facebook…
According to several sources and posts on his Facebook page, former keyboardist with Blue Rodeo, accordion player and eccentric occasional jam host James Gray has died of a heart attack. The news first broke on Facebook around 10 a.m. today, Tues. August 6, 2013. A sometimes awkward personality, Gray was also a very humourous fellow…
A large crowd of fellow musicians, fans, family and friends of the late Brian Maxim gathered 3-7 on Sat. July 27 at Birchmount Tavern in Scarborough to remember the affable and fun-loving Rock singer and songwriter. As reported earlier, Brian passed away July 12 after a long battle with cancer. The crowd included members of bands…
Rock singer the late Brian Maxim, who passed away on Fri. July 12 after a long battle with cancer, had a lot of musical friends. As the singer for MOXY early in the century, a member of the Classic Albums Live troupe for several years and frontman for the iconic Stumblin’ Blind that was part of the scene…
Drummer and shows promoter Jon Long seems to be popping up all over the place these days. Ever since resuming his role as a jam host at Black Swan Tavern a few months ago —albeit for a biweekly Sat. afternoon jam instead of a weekly Wed.— it seems there’s no end to his relentless campaign…
It’s been ten years since Brian Michael Maxim left the band MOXY after four years as its lead singer in a re-formed version of the seminal 70’s group. But for many fans, he remains as much identified with the hard Rock band as its original singer, Buzz Shearman, who was tragically killed in a motorcycle…
The untimely death yesterday of hugely talented Folk songwriter and entertainment reviewer Greg Quill serves as a sad and harsh reminder that we can never take usually treatable or seemingly just annoying medical conditions such as pneumonia and sleep apnea for granted. I’ve survived pneumonia (barely) five years ago after ten days in hospital but…
Although it was his brother John Smale who was mostly identified with the now legendary and forever iconic Smales Pace coffeehouse in London, Ont. during the 1970s, the alcohol-free venue was actually founded, in Feb. 1970, by John along with his brother Jim Smale and another brother, Bob. According to an excellent article by James…
www.songtown.ca
I have been rather surprised at the lack of lamentations on local music forums and paucity of coverage by other media of the death of Juno-winning Blues guitarist Johnny V Mills, who passed away suddenly at 59 years of age on March 31. [See story from Moon 130401.] The Calgary Herald did publish an obituary-eulogy…
At two Scarborough shows I attended the night of Sat. April 6 the bandleaders stopped to pay tribute to one of their own, guitarist Rodger Walker, who had fallen prey to cancer early that morning. Walker [at right in the pic from his Facebook page with fellow veteran performers Sab and Tony Springer] had been…
Unconfirmed reports late Sunday night said that award-winning Blues guitarist Johnny V has passed away after suffering a heart attack. The first post on the MapleBlues web group was at 11:20 p.m., followed shortly by a post with a link to www.americabluesscene.com that quoted the president of the Canada South Blues Society as saying John’s…
Lisa Gunn The daughter of Rock-Blues guitarist Rick Gunn, who passed away March 25 after an 18-month battle with cancer, has announced details of his funeral and an after-gathering. The service has been set for Thurs. April 4 at 1 p.m. and will be held at the R.S. Kane funeral home at 6150 Yonge St.…
by Diane Wells SPECIAL TO TORONTO MOON MAGAZINE I first met guitarist Rick “Boogieman” Gunn in March 2002 at the ill-fated Blues on Bellair club in Toronto, co-owned by Peter and Diane Jermyn. He was sitting in with the Paul Fenton Band for a live recording. At that time I had mentioned to him that…
It wasn’t easy during the past two years to tell whether or not guitarist Rick “Have Strat Will Travel” Gunn was in pain from the cancer that infected his back or not. It wasn’t that he particularly went out of his way to hide the pain —it was that the lanky-jawed duck-tailed Rock ‘n’ Roller,…
Like any jam or open stage, you can never really predict what Tuesday nights will bring at the event hosted weekly at Rusty Nail in East York by affable songwriter Kevin Davies. The bar attracts a diverse clientele, ranging from scruffy-shoed locals magnetized by the cheap drink prices, to well-off professionals who dote on friendly…
Often when I approach people about advertising in Toronto Moon I get a response like: “Oh, we’ve got a Facebook page and a website and we do all our promotions on those.” I also hear similar variants from musicians who claim to be promoting their gigs and who think they don’t need the extra buzz…
This is an amazing new feature for Toronto Moon subscribers! Now you can upload your news directly to Toronto Moon magazine from your home computer from Microsoft Word. It’s very simple! When you create a NEW document, it will ask you to select ‘Blank Document’ or ‘Blog Post’. Simply select ‘Blog Post’, and it will…
