Speed Date with musician and songwriter Mal Blum

The folk-punk singer embraces alt-rock and country in their new album

Mal Blum quips that their latest album was inspired by loneliness and having time on their hands. “It was during the first lockdown and I was no longer in practicing distance of my band,” Blum says. They also talk to Xtra about their experience being a trans person in the music industry and their dream of co-writing songs with break-up song sensation Olivia Rodrigo.

Lito Howse (they/them) is a queer and trans/non-binary identified videographer, editor and producer based in Toronto. They previously worked for the CBC where they wrote TV stories, edited and control room produced for News Network. They also produced videos for CBC Radio and wrote web articles for shows like The Current and As It Happens, among other roles. They speak English.

Senior editor Mel Woods is an English-speaking Vancouver-based writer, editor and audio producer and a former associate editor with HuffPost Canada. A proud prairie queer and ranch dressing expert, their work has also appeared in Vice, Slate, the Tyee, the CBC, the Globe and Mail and the Walrus.

Read More About:
Music, Video, Culture, Video, Speed Date

Keep Reading

Book ban lists from Edmonton, Calgary school districts released

The Alberta government has mandated that school libraries remove titles with “inappropriate” content

Advocates mount new challenge to Alberta anti-trans law

Skipping Stone and Egale Canada are headed back to court to try and overturn Alberta’s youth gender-affirming-care ban

Dylan Mulvaney’s Broadway debut is about more than the backlash

Mulvaney’s casting in “SIX: The Musical” is the latest example of Broadway platforming trans stars
A side by side of Radclyffe Hall and her lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness, with was subject to censorship and obscenity laws

Inside the censorship campaign against this 20th century lesbian novel

Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” was the target of obscenity laws in 1928