Shad replaces Action Bronson at NXNE
First, he replaced Jian Ghomeshi on CBC’s Q; now, Canadian hip-hop artist Shad has replaced another controversial figure, rapper Action Bronson, as the headliner for a North by Northeast event at YongeDundas Square on June 21.
Bronson was supposed to play a free show at the festival’s outdoor stage. He was pulled after a petition citing misogynistic lyrics in his song “Consensual Rape” gained more than 42,000 signatures.
Shad will join fellow performers NÜE, Casey Veggies and Ty Dolla $ign at the Yonge-Dundas Square show closing the festival, which runs June 17 to 21.
NXNE has also confirmed that L.A. synthpop artist Cold Cave will join Programm, Greys and Deafheaven for an event at Adelaide Hall on Saturday, June 20. Star staff
Coupland art gets Toronto home
Douglas Coupland is returning to Toronto to unveil a permanent public art project in the city’s north end.
The acclaimed Vancouver artist and author is behind Four Seasons, which will be displayed within the Emerald City condo community.
The artwork will include brightly hued cone-shaped pylons ranging between 14 and 16 metres in height drawn from colours used in Laurentian pencil crayons.
Coupland’s creation is meant to represent the four distinct seasons as well as conveying “both optimism and a sense of joy in being outside in the physical Canadian world.”
Seven cylinders will also be a part of the public art installation, along with municipal signage resembling crayons in a box.
Toronto recently hosted Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything at the Royal Ontario Museum and Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.
Coupland is to speak about Four Seasons at Emerald City on June 20.
Christian Grey’s followup gets stolen
A copy of the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey sequel has been stolen, just over a week before publication day, publisher Penguin Random House said Wednesday.
The publisher said Kent Police in southern England are investigating the theft of a finished copy of E.L. James’ new book Grey.
The erotic Fifty Shades trilogy has sold more than 125 million copies and a movie released this year has grossed more than $500 million worldwide.
The first three books followed the romance between S&M-loving young billionaire Christian Grey and college student Anastasia Steele. Grey, the fourth in the series, tells the story from Christian’s point of view.
Penguin Random House said Grey would be published as planned on June 18, Christian Grey’s birthday.
Piracy can be a major headache for publishers of bestselling books. In 2005, thieves stole copies of the much-anticipated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from a warehouse north of London and tried to sell them to tabloid newspapers.
Canadian singer dies in Australia
A Winnipeg-raised aspiring country singer has reportedly died of carbon monoxide poisoning while camping with his partner in Australia.
The Daily Telegraph in Sydney reported Derek Kehler died on Monday along with his companion, Helena Curic of Australia, while they were sleeping in a makeshift cabin in the Blue Mountains northwest of Sydney.
A music lover who released two albums under the name Steel Audrey, Kehler performed traditional country music that could be described in much the same terms that friends used for Keller himself on Wednesday: gritty and genuine.
“He was one of those rugged people with a heart of gold,” said Matthew Rogers, a good friend of Kehler’s who produced both his albums.
The couple reportedly died in their sleep after taking a pot of hot coals from a bonfire into a converted steel container they were staying in.
The newspaper says Kehler, 32, and Curic, 31, began dating after they met working at an IT firm in Vancouver a couple of years ago and later transferred to its Sydney office.