Lana Gay, of the Good Book Drive
Throughout the month of February an initiative to hand out free books to underprivileged youth called A Good Book Drive has been mobilizing the likes of Erica Ehm and George Stroumboulopoulos to donate their favourite kids books to the cause.
I spoke to Lana Gay, the organizer of the Toronto portion of the book drive, for Samaritan Mag.
To read the full story go here.
Filed under Books, Shameless Promotion
The scene at a previous Dudebox event
With the NBA All-Star Game/cultural circus dominating Toronto right now there are parties everywhere.
One of the few noble, affordable and super-cool ones happening tonight is the Dudebox party featuring DJ Windows 98, better known as Win Butler from Arcade Fire.
As cool as that sounds, the best part is probably the fact that 100 per cent of the profits from this party will go to the Kanpe charity.
I spoke to Dudebox organizer Daniel Tal about this for Samaritan mag.
To read the full story go here.
Filed under Booze, Concerts, Music, Shameless Promotion
MusiCounts concert
MusiCounts, the music education charity that’s run by Juno Awards overseers CARAS, has been around for 19 years.
In all this time, though, the organization has never put on its own charity show.
Until now.
I wrote about this new venture for Samaritan Mag.
To read the full story go here.
Filed under Concerts, Music, Shameless Promotion
Broken Social Scene at Pemberton Music Festival
The organizers of the massive Pemberton Music Festival in the scenic mountain community of Pemberton, British Columbia recently gave $100,000 to local arts and community groups.
I spoke to Evan Harrison, the CEO of Huka Entertainment, the company behind the festival, to find out what motivated them to give back.
To read the full interview head over to Samaritan Mag by clicking here.
Filed under Concerts, Environment, Music, Shameless Promotion
Damian Kulash Jr. at Bataclan. Photo by Austen Risolvato.
Damian Kulash Jr., the lead singer of sophisto-pop band OK Go, was tremendously affected by the terror shootings at the Bataclan theatre in Paris in November.
So much so that he wrote a reflective song about it called “Bataclan” and released it as a free download.
Kulash Jr. explained his motivations to me in a story for Samaritan Mag.
To read the full story go here.
Filed under Culture, Music, Shameless Promotion
I Overcame My Autism And All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder: A Memoir
Risky Fuel 