Meet the New Feeling Co-op
Tom Beedham (he/him) is a Toronto-based freelance journalist and an organizer of the inter-arts series Long Winter. His work focuses on interdependent culture, postcapitalism, experimental art, protective spaces, and their relationships to the mainstream. His byline has appeared in Exclaim!, NOW, Musicworks, A.Side, Chart Attack, and VICE, among others. He is a juror on the annual Uproxx Music Critics Poll, and edited Somewhere Else, a 2019 documentary about a pocket of Toronto’s underground music community. Follow him on Twitter at @Tom_Beedham.
Sarah Chodos (she/her) was involved in the 90s indie punk scene in Toronto and then spent fourteen years working in shelters and drop-in centres in Toronto and the surrounding area. Writing has appeared in Exclaim!, IASPM Automusicologies, and Bunch Family. Passionate about community because that is where music comes from, after all.
Rosie Long Decter is a writer and musician based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. She is a contributing editor at Reader’s Digest Canada and writes the Music Room column at Maisonneuve. Her work has appeared in Herizons, THIS, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Xtra, and elsewhere. She also releases music as part of dream pop band Bodywash and under her own name, Una Rose. Sometimes she sings backup in a Fleetwood Mac cover band. Follow her on Twitter at @rosielongdecter.
Leslie Ken Chu (he/him) is a Vancouver-based writer whose work has appeared in Exclaim!, CBC Music, Musicworks, Xtra Magazine, and more. Outside of writing, he has worked in live event marketing and publicity for the Rickshaw Theatre and Vancouver Folk Music Festival. He currently serves as a juror for the Polaris Music Prize and Prism Prize and is a board member of Artspeak. He also works with the Media Arts Committee to run an annual sound art residency program. He tweets about music and nonsense at @LeslieKenChu.
Max Mertens (he/him) is a Nova Scotia-born, Toronto-based music curator at BELLOSOUND. As an arts and culture journalist for over a decade, his writing has appeared in Canadian and international publications including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, GQ, The Creative Independent, Bandcamp, and more. Follow him on Twitter: @Max_Mertens
Michael Rancic (he/him) is a freelance journalist and juror for the Polaris Prize, who has been writing about Canadian music for the past ten years. His byline has been featured in The Walrus, NOW Magazine, MusicWorks, Spacing and University Affairs, among others. His work primarily focuses on emerging artists and the way public policy influences music scenes. He retweets Twin Peaks memes on Twitter at @therewasnosound.
Tabassum Siddiqui is a multimedia journalist with 20 years’ experience as a reporter, editor and producer for newspapers, magazines, digital and radio.
She has written, edited, and produced for most major Toronto media outlets, including CBC Radio and digital (where she currently works), the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, NOW Magazine, and many more. She is also an organizing member of the Shared Bylines scholarship and mentorship program for BIPOC student journalists.
Tabassum has deep roots within Toronto’s arts and culture scene, particularly as a longtime music critic who serves on the Polaris Music Prize and Prism Prize juries.
As New Feeling’s first Public Editor, she acts as a liaison between readers and the co-op to help communicate and uphold the collective’s values.
Laura Stanley (she/her) is a freelance writer from Toronto. Her work has appeared in Exclaim!, NOW Magazine, No Depression, She Shreds, Musicworks and more. She has a lot of Feelings. Sometimes she tweets about them: @lstanley24.
Melissa Vincent (she/her) is a writer, editor, curator, and community organizer based out of Toronto. Her work has appeared in Pitchfork, Billboard, The Fader, Elle, The West End Phoenix, and The Globe and Mail. She has appeared as a guest on CBC Metro Morning and Day 6. In 2019 she was selected to become the Polaris Prize jury foreperson and join their board of directors. She also books metal shows, sometimes.
Daniel G. Wilson (he/they) is a writer, musician, and concert organizer based in Mississauga, Ontario. He has written for Noisey and BeatRoute in addition to his own independent work. In his free time he moonlights as the front person of the noise-rock band Joncro and the organizer of the BIPOC-focused Festival Lingua Franca event series.
Founding Members and Prior Organizers
Paul K. Lawton (he/him) is all over the map in the worst way possible. A former sociology professor and ethnographic researcher, Paul was behind some Canadian record labels (Mammoth Cave Recording Co and Pleasence Records), and played in a few too many bands (Ketamines, Century Palm, Myelin Sheaths, for example). His music blog “Slagging Off” made people mad, causing CBC to label him “the most hated man in Canadian music.” Paul was a contributor to Weird Canada, organizing the WYRD FEST traveling music festival, as well as a monthly punk 7” review column in Beatroute Magazine that he was convinced no one actually read. Follow his wildly unpopular tweets @quartermass.
Jesse Locke (he/him) is a writer and musician based in the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, also known as Vancouver. He currently contributes to outlets including Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, Xtra, Musicworks, Tone Glow, and Aquarium Drunkard. Jesse hosts the music interview podcast Tracing Spaces and is the author of the biography Heavy Metalloid Music: The Story of Simply Saucer. He plays drums with the bands Tough Age, Motorists, and Chandra. Follow him on Twitter! @wipeoutbeat
Lenore Maier (she/her) is community arts organizer, musician and sporadic music writer based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She organizes the Manitou Boogaloo and Saskatoon’s annual One Take Super 8 festival. She plays the drums in The Garrys and also creates ambient electronica as Ursa, often working in film/documentary scoring and live theatre sound design. She is the co-founder of Grey Records, a small label that puts out tapes and organizes live shows on the prairies.
Alec Martin (they/them) is a fourth-year journalism student at The University of King’s College in Halifax. Originally from Quispamsis, NB, they spent their teens playing shows in Saint John or writing about the city’s music scene. Alec’s recent work can be found in The Coast or The Signal Halifax—where their honours project was published…and you should totally read it! Follow them on Twitter @__AlecMartin__.
Galen Milne-Hines (he/him) aka Bonhomie is an artist, designer and musician from Toronto. In 2019, after moving back from 5 years in Germany, he began to reconnect with the local music scene, running the AM Radio music mix site, interviewing local and independent artists, and collaborating with other creatives across the country. His work has appeared almost nowhere. Twitter: @bonhomie_g.
Luke Ottenhof (he/him) is a freelance writer and musician based in Toronto (and sometimes Kingston). He’s written for The Guardian, Pitchfork, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, MEL, and others. He bullies his city councillor on Twitter: @lukeottenhof
Katerina Stamadianos (she/her) is a civil servant, community volunteer and (looking to be less) occasional writer from Toronto. She is primarily interested in exploring the ways government can better advocate for local and Canadian art. Hiccups frequently, bad at twitter: @ktrnstm.