#39: Dave Bidini

Dave Bidini is a founding member of The Rheostatics, an author of 12 books, and Editor in Chief of Toronto’s community newspaper The West End Phoenix. He is the only person to have been nominated for a Gemini, Genie and Juno as well CBC's Canada Reads. We talk about his brainchild The West End Phoenix and he highlights the importance of having an analogue hard copy paper that has a local focus in the 21st-century. We discuss documenting Toronto as a changing city and how people are leaving the city as priorities change & prices rise. We also dig into his music and songwriting with The Rheostatics and touch on how the notion of “selling out” has all but evaporated in the modern artistic landscape.

“Anytime you give anybody a voice, whether you’re making records, or whether you’re publishing books, or whether you’re staging a play, if your voice is being amplified, that’s a political act. ‘Cause I think we live in a time now where, if people had their druthers, they’d want those voices suppressed. And as Canadians too, we’re not always that comfortable raising our voices to be heard, but it’s getting a lot better and The (West End) Phoenix is an expression of that I think.” 

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DAVE BIDINI
 WEB: https://www.westendphoenix.com
 WEB: https://www.rheostatics.ca
 TWEET: https://twitter.com/hockeyesque

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