BTW - Gord Downie, Rich Aucoin, Tamar Ilana, Elina Filice/Claudia Crampton, The Silverbeets, Becky Bowe

Fri Sep 25 2020
Gord Downie

This week we spotlight The Yonge Street Mission at Yonge/College providing hot meals and nutritious snacks daily to youth at the Evergreen Centre and to all ages at the Christian Community Centre. The food bank welcomes adults and families and offers clothing through a voucher system at their Double Take store. Donations are always in need and can be made online. Food services are available from 12 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.

Please donate to your local food bank. The need is real.

In keeping with the seasonal vibe, here’s the final solo album from Gord Downie, Away Is Mine. Steered to life by “my oldest Toronto friend,” guitarist and co-writer Josh Finlayson, Downie recorded the ten songs of Away Is Mine in July 2017 at The Tragically Hip’s studio in Bath, Ontario, mere months before he died on October 17th that year.

Gord Downie 1964-2017

Fri Oct 20, 2017

There are a handful of artists that by name alone are broadstroked with a red and white Canadian brush. Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray and Leonard Cohen to name a few are as Canadian as hockey and maple syrup.

Gord Downie, the lead singer and founder of the Tragically Hip, who passed away last week, also fits into that elite group. A statement released via the band's official Twitter account and posted on its website read as follows "Last night Gord quietly passed away with his beloved children and family close by. Gord knew this day was coming -- his response was to spend this precious time as he always had -- making music, making memories and expressing deep gratitude to his family and friends for a life well lived, often sealing it with a kiss ... on the lips." He was only 53 years old.

BTW-starring Black Lips, We Are Scientists, Emm Gryner, Gord Downie, The Sadies and The Conquering Suns, The Heavyweights Brass Band and Aretha Franklin

Fri Apr 18 2014
Black Lips

This week’s big indie guitar showdown happens Tuesday Apr. 22, putting Black Lips (Phoenix Concert Theatre) up against We Are Scientists (Lee’s Palace). Breakups, breakdowns and a death in the band has not slowed down Black Lips. Eleven years on, these Atlanta garage legends continue to provoke and freak out audiences all over with their live show. This is, after all, the band which recorded their major label debut album, Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo, live off the floor of a dive bar in Tijuana, Mexico, that the band solemnly described as "absolutely nuts." Then there was India 2009, where the dudes got up to some onstage “antics’ which so outraged the audience, the Lips fled the city and eventually the country, abandoning the tour on account of the very real fear they’d be busted and thrown in the slammer for "homosexual acts". The band’s view: “Ian and Cole kissed, some weiners got pulled out, people lost their shit.”