Celebrating Music in Durham Region, the 2022 OMAs Take Place September 29th

Public Voting is Open Now - theomas.ca/

Under wraps no more, the Oshawa Music Awards have announced this year’s nominees! 

Marking its fifth year celebrating music in Durham Region, the 2022 OMAs are set to take place Thursday, September 29th, and will honour artists across multiple categories — including Songwriter of the Year, Album of the Year, Emerging Artist or Band of the Year, Durham Song of the Year, and Music Teacher of the Year, to name a few. 

Launched in 2018, previous Oshawa Music Award recipients include Shawn Mendes, Crown Lands, Tania Joy, Three Mile Islanders, Zaftig, Skye Wallace, Hollowsage, and Mogens Galberg; returning OMA winners Lindsay Schoolcraft and Gal George Gjurin are also up for 2022 nods. 

“Our list of 2022 nominees demonstrates once again that Durham Region is front row to so many incredibly talented artists,” OMA Co-Director Julius Allan Rondilla says. “Our arts scene is home to some of the nation’s best.”

There’s nothing like getting together with friends you haven’t seen in forever, and Ottawa-based Americana artist Francine Honey bottles the excitement of a wild, all-out reconnecting of pals in her new single and video, “One Big Party”.

Check out “One Big Party” on YouTube here:

Rocking and rollicking with a driving rhythm and a singalong chorus, “One Big Party” is an ode to the reunions we’ve all been longing for during the pandemic — as well as reunions of every kind.

“I had my group of high school friends in mind when I wrote it,” Honey shares. “We reconnected at a high school reunion some years ago and have gotten together regularly since then. Our parties almost always involve being outside around a fire and howling at the moon by the end of the night!”

Travis VanderHorst is a country music artist that has the perfect vocal blend of traditional country music and today’s fresh sound. His voice will draw you in and leave you wanting more. Born in 1994 in Orlando, Florida, Travis spent much of his younger years in a small town of Bellevue, Ohio.

This is where Travis was introduced to the traditional country music sound of artists like Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt and many others.

Check out All the Time on YouTube here:

The world has changed a great deal since 1992, when Don Breithaupt first collected an album’s worth of his irresistibly hooky and jazzy pop songs and formed Monkey House.  Since then, the talented and prolific Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, composer, arranger and producer has stamped the band’s Kurt Vonnegut moniker on five albums of original material, including Headquarters (2012), Left (2016) and Friday (2019), the latter a blazing tour de force which topped the iTunes jazz chart and went to # 11 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.

Check out “Muddy River Rising” here on YouTube:

I have previously written about the new technology that allows musicians to just sit home in front of a computer and create songs. To understand the best songs in the world, you must understand how they are done and that is far from doing everything yourself.

Today you can easily do a song a week (I bet some think they can do a song a day) get it online and send it out to all the corners of the world. A bit like just throwing it against the wall to see if it sticks.

I got into this fun conversation on Submithub the other day. I got a very mediocre song sent to me. It’s a party progressive rock with supposedly uplifting lyrics. For me, it sounded like Christian rock that you hear  in bad elevators in Texas. Just the intro of the song was like thirty-five seconds with just a guitar the whole time. I was already bored at ten seconds. Since I am required to send feedback on Submithub I wrote the following:

“The intro is a bit too long it takes almost 30 sec before something happens. The hook is not strong enough.”

 Since I’m nice enough to also let the artist respond, I got this response.

During the pandemic, we created a smaller version of Future Echoes called Norrköping Music Day 2021. It was a great event, so we decided to keep the event and develop it further.

Norrköping Music Day is like an upstart to Future Echoes. The event is free, and we are educating people that want to get into the business on how a showcase festival works, and what to do to make the most of a showcase festival. This is the place to learn how it all works for free. The event will be on Hallarna in Norrköping, where we had our past festivals.

We have three panels with big international speakers during the day. In the evening we have three to four acts playing.

We are aiming the event at the music industry that is in the Norrköping area, but we hope that people from other places that want to mingle with both local and international industry professionals who are in attendance. It’s a good start to understanding how to navigate Future Echoes or any other bigger showcase festival.

Multi-award nominated St. John’s, NFLD pop sensation Rachel Cousins dazzles with a resonant new song about moving through the unpredictability of life and finding your happy place with the courageous new single “For Myself”.

Check out “For Myself” on YouTube here:

An infectiously catchy anthem about self-love, “For Myself” is the eclectic new single from Cousins’ expertly crafted third studio album AURA, which has been making waves since its release earlier this year.

As Cousins persevered through several personal obstacles during the pandemic, the themes surrounding AURA revealed themselves. “These songs show a soft side, a vulnerable side, a fearlessness, and a side that has grown stronger,” says Cousins. The sonic direction of the album is as joyous in its rhythmic arrangement as it is inspired by the positivity of new beginnings.

Time is the ultimate healer, but music is one of the strongest medicines that can help along the way. Often, all it takes is a song that your mind, heart, and soul connect with to bring relief to whatever may be troublesome. That’s the prescription award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Henry Lees aims to fill with his very personal but widely relatable new single, “Walking With Fear” released alongside Action Anxiety Day!

Watch and listen to “Walking With Fear” on YouTube here:

An empowering folk-rock anthem built on a bed of beautiful acoustic and electric guitar interplay and a driving, heartbeat rhythm, “Walking with Fear” isn’t about being scared stiff. It’s about feeling those uncomfortable, fearful and anxious emotions and still finding the resolve to stay your course.

On one of the boards, I’m working on we got into a discussion about how to help DIY artists. Today many artists are DIY much longer than they were twenty years ago. Mainly because the technology today provides a lot of what the midsize record labels were providing in form of knowledge and opportunities. Twenty years ago, it was a tough question to get  distribution, something that today you can get just a click away and reach the whole planet in very little time.

This led to that more of the development is now dependent on the artist. What you can see on the market is also a rise of new people working as consultants to bring in the knowledge that is lost from the midsize labels to the artist. In fact, what the midsize label was providing in form of knowledge and marketing is now available to be bought in the form of a consultant.

This is though not in phase with the development with the DIY artists. They still hear that you should have been signed and developed where they are now, but the truth is that they probably have to develop themselves for at least a couple of years.

Celebrated Canadian musician Julian Taylor is releasing “S.E.E.D.S,” a new single from his extraordinary sophomore solo album coming in October 2022. The single comes out today on Howling Turtle/Warner Music Canada, and is available on all major platforms. For more information please visit any of the links below or Taylor’s website.

“S.E.E.D.S,” which stands for “Somehow Everyone Eventually Dreams Someday,” was inspired by Taylor waking up to a text that his cousin sent him the morning after the announcement in Kamloops, where 215 uncovered remains of buried Indigenous children were discovered at a former Residential school. Says Taylor, “Her text simply read, George Floyd and Kamloops, with a tear emoji, and following that, ‘They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds’.” These very words became the chorus of the song.

The long-awaited live Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival presented by Rio Tinto returns June 21 to 26 at the festival’s new home, Mādahòkì Farm in Ottawa’s west end, with an exhilarating celebration of Canadian Indigenous culture.

Mādahòkì Farm (formerly the Lone Star Ranch) is located on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Nation at 4420 West Hunt Club Road.

Because of the pandemic, this is the first time since 2019 that the festival, now in its 26th year and welcoming Indigenous and non-Indigenous visitors alike, has had a live component. The festival, produced by Indigenous Experiences on behalf of the National Indigenous Peoples Day (NIPD) Committee representing all of Canada’s National Indigenous organizations, was previously held at Vincent Massey Park, where it grew to 50,000 visitors. For the past two years, the festival has held virtual programming that reached millions across North America.

This year’s festival is a blend of live and virtual programming accessible to all Canadians, throughout June.

In Swedish we have the word “Ord bajsare”, I don’t know if it can be translated to English, in total translation it means word pooper or word shitter. The expression is about someone that uses a lot of nice words but in reality, has no meaning.

The most famous word poppers are of course politicians. Especially when they are creating projects that have no real function or are useless. To be able to keep these projects alive they create PDFs:s with just words that are pointless like reaching Agenda 2020, or the new metaverse. Most of the time you see this through by that they are not getting anywhere. It never tells you what the project is doing.

Like this that just came by my inbox “is creating an open and fair decentralized network to connect credible and verified promoters”. Que?

So, what you say is that you connect promoters, to be honest, you can get this sentence down to two words: connect promoters. What it all shows is that this project has no info, so they become word poopers to fill out the press release with something.

If you have a hankering for soulful blues and big band swing, then reggae icon Jay Douglas is the perfect choice of sweet, sweet symphony with his newest single, “I’m In Love With You” – check it out on YouTube here:

Following the release of a string of reggae singles, including “Stone In Love With You,” “Muschange,” and “Pattidemic,” Jay Douglas slows things down and takes a stroll down the bass line to deliver a smashing blues single – “I’m In Love With You.”

Jay Douglas has always had a strong connection with blues and jazz, which shows throughout this icon’s catalog. What makes “I’m In Love With You” special is its ability to transport the listener to a time when big bands were the norm and warmly embraced. Warm brass swells and slick guitar riffs draw the listener in, reminiscent of the appeal of jazz bars back in the 60s.

On Cashbox Radio where I work as a playlist programmer as well as a co-owner and Station Manager, one of the ways we choose songs is through Submithub. Submithub is a service where you pay to get your song reviewed by bloggers, playlists, or influencers with the chance of being heard and played. In there you can give an elevator pitch. In many cases nowadays the artist writes how many people they have on social media, so if I chose the song, they would share a post on their social media that our station is playing the song.

I just saw an email like that where the artist wrote “If you share our song we will be sure to promote your platform to our 2,100+ followers on Instagram!”

I can see it’s tempting for many of these outlets to just go on the followers of an artist. The problem is that social media is not really a working tool in the music industry. What? Did I just write that, yes, I did! Right now, after the pandemic and when we open again the proof that social media is not a very good channel to push your music out. Live is still the biggest outlet by far.

There are few things in this world as cold as isolation… And Mattmac’s ambition to bring warmth to such a dark concept is what makes his newest hard-hitting rap single, “Isolation,” so powerful – check it out on YouTube here:

As Mattmac’s music has always showcased, life isn’t always as easy as “point A to point B;” in fact, it’s a long and self-conscious road of struggles. Mattmac’s ability to express his grievances in such a vulnerable and heartwarming way is what makes his music so special. Add the fact that he was born blind into the mix and you’ve got a fairytale story of “rags to riches.”

“Isolation” encapsulates that messaging perfectly. As a music producer located in the rural area of Garden Hill First Nation on a Canadian Reservation, Mattmac found himself struggling with a lack of fundamental resources — like he was set up to fail from the beginning.

Toronto dance-pop artist Ana Pac is breaking down the boxes of societal norms and showing the world its infinite and limitless possibilities with a new single, “Bite The Rainbow” — available now just in time for her to perform at Toronto’s Pride Festival on June 25.

Check out “Bite the Rainbow” on YouTube here:

It’s a song about “respecting and celebrating true diversity — whatever path you take, whatever your style, whatever interests and drives you,” the Montreal-born, Toronto-based artist shares. “All the pieces of you should be a reflection of the real you!”

It seems like every country has its own showcase festival now. They are popping up like mushrooms and today you can visit a showcase every week somewhere around the world. The problem right now is many of the new ones might not have the quality to is sufficient to spend your money on them. It’s getting harder and harder to be relevant and the competition is high.

SPIKE is Bulgaria’s first showcase and had its premiere 26 to 29 of May in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. A reason why showcase festivals haven’t been present in Bulgaria before is the lack of an export office and a production company. This edition has been brought up by the private companies PanHarmony and Blue Hills Events that wanted to invest in the Bulgarian scene and take Bulgarian music out of Bulgaria.

I was in a meeting with a new artist in one of the showcase festivals I recently visited. Yes, the ones that follow me on social media had seen that I generally do a showcase festival a week, traveling around the globe to just restart my network that is lighting up again after the pandemic.

So here I was again, having a meeting with an artist. The artist had done their homework and presented their career and what they wanted to do, so far so good. They had pretty good plans and did understand the problem they would face doing different things to get their career going. I gave some of my tips of what I thought would be good things to do. I didn’t have a chance to listen to their music before the meeting, but afterwards they sent me links to their new unreleased stuff to listen to it.

Here starts the problem. The music they sent was really not good. If it was just the production you maybe just could have told them to re-record the stuff, but here it was down to the level that the song was not even well written.

For many artists, revisiting their archives can unearth a creative gem initially overlooked or forgotten about altogether. Montréal singer-songwriter, guitarist, and storyteller Danny Blueberry discovered such treasure by traveling back to his imaginative beginnings to bring forth a raucous, cautionary tale for his new single and video, “Space Guppies” – check it out YouTube here:

A trippy, rockin’ dive into the deep waters of Blueberry’s fervent imagination, “Space Guppies” has the perfect sing-along-able chorus that conjures up images of packed clubs of pogo-sticking fans shouting “Ahhhhhh - space! Ahhhhh- guppies!” while Blueberry and his band rock it out on stage.

“This is one of the first songs I wrote,” says Blueberry. “I was about 17 years old and I had a small aquarium in my room.”

“My older sister used to tuck me in as a kid by playing Bob Dylan,” multi-Platinum-selling and JUNO Award winner Barney Bentall shares on the topic of his newly released single and video, “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” – check it out on YouTube here:

Available now, and fresh from the -based artist’s new album, Cosmic Dreamer, the family’s choice of a lullaby library “left an indelible impression that continues to this day.”

So much so that the -based artist would include his own take on the Dylan piece on the release of his most recent album, Cosmic Dreamer — out now via True North Records.

In it, Bentall collaborates with long-time friend Valentino Trapani — a pal he met just over a decade ago “on a beautiful road in Tuscany,” he recalls.