Sorry I really don’t have time to sit down and discuss the music of an artist that I have no interest in. I know that you have put all your heart and soul into your music. To tell you the truth, I don’t even sit down and talk music with artists that I’m a bit interested in. In most cases I don’t even discuss music with artists I work deeply with as a manager. Why not you ask?

The same reason the artist never discusses what I’m doing. They expect me to give them results in PR, bookings, development and opportunities. It’s not that we sit down and discuss how I fulfill these requests either. I also don’t really want to. They wouldn’t understand half of the meetings and logistics that I’m doing to create their career. In reality, I don’t understand either how they create their songs or what went into them.

Actor, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and pianist Ian Lake releases his debut album What It Is on Friday, April 22^nd and to celebrate, Lake will perform live, with an audience, from 6:30-8:30 pm, doors at 6:00 pm, at The Dakota Tavern, 249 Ossington Ave, Toronto ON. What It Is will be available on all major platforms, and will also be available in vinyl and CD formats via Lake’s website: ianlake.com/

Toronto-based charity Chai Lifeline Canada is pleased to announce that Grammy-winning and music legend Kenny G (and Friends) will headline their annual concert at the Roy Thomson Hall on June 20, 2022.

An Evening Of Ballads And Bravery Benefit Concert At Roy Thomson Hall June 20, 2022
Concert in support of Chai Lifeline Canada / Tickets on sale NOW

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT roythomsonhall.mhrth.com/tickets/chai-2022/
Tickets $75.00 – $165.00; All Ages / Reserved Seating

Chai Lifeline Canada youth Ambassador Jess Rosenbloom will also be on stage, sharing her story of strength and bravery in the face of pediatric cancer. The evening will also include silent and live auctions and awards to celebrate extraordinary community service in support of Chai Lifeline Canada.

Featuring Ojibway Elder Dr. Duke Rebird and Indigenous artists Twin Flames, NY Times and BILLBOARD charting band Sultans of String have released their collaborative new single, “The Power of the Land” – check it out on YouTube here:

The orchestral version of the song is the latest to land from the multi-award-winning and JUNO-nominated group’s most recent album, 2021’s Sanctuary — an 11-track offering featuring a broad range of incredible talents from the USA/Canada, many of whom arrived as recent immigrants and refugees, and essential Indigenous voices.

For most, our weekly to-do lists usually consist of a laundry list of different tasks… Including laundry. For prolific, multi-honoured British singer-songwriter Fiona Ross, her’s always features something music-related, including one recent week devoted entirely to creating new music. Now, she’s treating us to its beautiful results with her brand-new EP, 7 Songs in 7 Days.

Productivity is not a problem for this highly accomplished multi-award-winning music maker. To clear out the remnants from writing and recording her latest, big production and Global Music Award-winning full-length release, Red Flags and High Heels, Ross took on this new project as an ambitious palate cleanser.

“7 Songs in 7 Days is exactly that!” Ross explains. “Each time I work on an album, I seem to get bigger and bigger with the instrumentation, and having just finished my Red Flags and High Heels album, my head is already full of big brass sections and string orchestras…

“So, I wanted to pull myself back a bit before I started, and I tasked myself with writing seven songs over seven days — all acoustic, simple, straightforward, and nothing fancy.”

Ensemble Vivant channels their rich stylistic diversity and innovative programming to create a classical fusion track that’s one-of-a-kind with their latest single, “iFugue,” and album, iFugue ~ A World of Fugues – check it out on YouTube here:

A sonic expedition of musical discovery, and harnessing all the brilliance of Antonio Vivaldi’s Sinfonia in E minor for strings and continuo, RV 134, Ensemble Vivant puts their own spin on an old compositional technique for the new offering.

The most common approach I receive nowadays with what I consider demo level recordings are:
“I want to create music that is different from others, I don't want to be a mainstream artist. I do music for fun, not money.”

I guess everyone that does music wants to be unique. I don’t think that anyone really sets out to copy another artist. When a style of course is successful, you have several artists that sound and look the same, but I still think that it’s more inspirational than these artists stealing. I don’t think an artist just sets out doing music to copy another artist, to be a total copycat, if so then you can be a tribute band, then you can even play your idol's hits.

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from September 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021.

The following is a list of the nominees and the winners:

Record of the Year
"I Still Have Faith In You," ABBA
"Freedom," Jon Batiste
"I Get A Kick Out Of You," Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga
"Peaches," Justin Bieber Featuring Daniel Caesar & Giveon
"Right On Time," Brandi Carlile
"Kiss Me More," Doja Cat Featuring SZA
"Happier Than Ever," Billie Eilish
"Montero" (Call Me By Your Name), Lil Nas X
"drivers license," Olivia Rodrigo
"Leave The Door Open," Silk Sonic *WINNER

Whether we’re alone or in a crowd, listening to the radio has always felt like a one-on-one experience. It seems like the DJ is talking directly to us. It’s where many of us have formed unique, personal connections with the songs we’ve heard as if they’re our own personal playlist. As a broadcaster himself, Danny Marks knows the power of radio very well. And as a lifelong musician and singer-songwriter, he’s celebrating radio’s enduring influence with his new single, “Man on the Radio” – check it out on YouTube here:

“Radio has come up big to reach people at home and heart in trying times, an intimate connection that reaches around the globe,” says Marks. “‘’Man On The Radio’ comes from this place.”

I was checking out a service that would give artists coaching and help with their careers. I was checking it out TO see who the coaches are. Two out of five are people that really don’t know anything about the music industry. People that haven’t taken any artist anywhere. They run a record label in their bedroom. Both of them are also failed musicians.

Sure, I don’t know everything. There are things I’m not good at or the perfect person to ask. This thought makes me angry to fool artist with info that has the same truth as a Donald Trump speech to pair up new artists with people that has second to no knowledge. This is like you taking a person that failed the exam and now putting them in as a teacher.

And I get more and more of this lately.  Several times I get students fresh out from the University of music that has none to nothing in knowledge and you just ask them who their teacher was and you find out that the bad guitar player that did everything wrong now teaches these kids his knowledge. No wonder they don’t know a thing after three years of education. And the little education they got has passed its best before date ten years ago.

We all have a list of artists and songs that were major influences on us from youth to adulthood. They were the posters on our bedroom walls. They made up the playlists on our cassette cases or now, in our apps. They’re the audio bookmark in all the chapters of our lives. In reverence to the power of music and the indelible influence, it has had in his own life, Canadian entertainment executive, music historian, and author Tom Locke brings us his new book, “Moments In Time - Stories About Artists and Songs of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. For Fans of Music…From a Music Fan”.

“This book is the culmination of a journey that started back in 1986 with an idea I had about creating a legacy to the music that shaped my life, and a desire to share this legacy in an entertaining and informative way with others,” says Locke.

It takes so much more than a strong voice, songs, and performing ability to break through the ocean’s swell of talent out there; it also takes a special ‘something’ that, while hard to pinpoint, is undeniably irresistible… With that, there’s no denying powerhouse blues singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Angelique Francis has ‘it,’ and she’s letting it flow for the immense pleasure of listeners everywhere with the release of her highly anticipated second album, Long River.

Check it out “Storms From My Eyes” on YouTube here:

Featuring the release’s first single, “Storms From My Eyes, the stunning slow-burner of a song sets a languid, classic blues heartbreak start to the engrossing voyage down the Ottawa-based artist’s new 14-track collection.

For 16 years now I have had the pleasure of owning Cashbox Canada, which came at a time when I had already put in decades in the music industry and at the time, I was looking for a new challenge.

The one constant love I have always had was my career in radio. My home has antique radios I have collected over the years, and many of my best memories were when I was a young Music Director in Montreal, Quebec. Back then, a Music Director was given the privilege and the power to ’break’ a record. I relied on the promo guys who would bring product to the weekly music meeting every Wednesday without fail. When I realized that radio in its current stat was no longer experiencing what it was like to give a record a chance.

Recently I have bumped into really enthusiastic people that want to work in the music industry. They claim to love music, and I think they really do. After getting to know them better you just feel that there is something wrong. They pick the wrong songs; a lot of the decisions are more in the vein that they like the artist and can’t hear that this song from this artist is not that much of a hit.

I know when I played football there is a word in Swedish called “bollkänsla” which translated means that you have a good ability to control a ball. Something I really don’t have. I loved to play football, but I was mainly just kicking the ball and was more like the average player in my age group. I got more and more of that feeling that it is the same in music, let’s take it under musicology.

Spontaneity may well be the most important element of jazz expression — the immediacy of creativity in its purest and most adventurous manifestation. For extraordinary pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, the live performance represents the pinnacle of that level of spontaneity and, in his outstanding new release on Justin Time Records, Alive – Live at Dièse Onze, Montréal, Pilc and his bandmates Rémi-Jean LeBlanc and Jim Doxas on bass and drums respectively, splendidly offer proof of this concept.

Available now, the liner notes of Alive reveal Pilc describing this state as “improvising musicians in their natural habitat, the jazz club, playing music for the sake of music, never repeating themselves, and creating sounds that they will never replicate.”

“Improvisation is often associated with freedom, but beware of appearances,” Pilc expands. “When inspiration strikes, music has a way to lead you from one moment to the next that gives you no choice but to follow the flow. And when all the members of the band hear the same sound, all of it, and react not as individuals but as part of that sound, then it feels like home, or family.”

Spike – The Bulgarian Music Showcase is scheduled to take place in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria between May 26-28, 2022. Bulgaria’s most historic town will welcome music business delegates from over twelve countries, including the USA and Canada. Their expertise will cover every part of the music industry, including artist booking and management; publishing, royalties, and sync licensing; digital technology workshops; and equality and diversity in the music industry. 

Formerly known as the Sofia International Music Conference (SIMC), Spike is Bulgaria’s first showcase and conference festival.  We manage to get a hold of founder Boyan Robert Pinter while he was visiting different venues for the festival.

“The festival’s primary goal is to create learning and networking opportunities for Bulgarian artists and professionals and to introduce international delegates to Bulgaria’s music scene. This will be done in a spirit of diversity and inclusivity. We also hope to be part of the big European showcase circuit and this will be an annual stop for people to visit and find new music ” Says Boyan.

A new band of multi-award-winning not-so-new blues players are set to make their musical mark: The Hogtown Allstars will release their debut album, Hog Wild, this May 6th, 2022 via Stony Plain Records.

stonyplainrecords.com/hogtownallstars/

Featuring eight new all-original songs, and two covers, Hog Wild was recorded throughout 2021 once the group nailed their first challenge: coordinating everyone’s schedule to hit the studio. It’s the first release for the undeniable supergroup that first started in 2013 as a collaborative, creative outlet for Toronto-based musicians dedicated to the genre.

As for ‘Allstars,’ they come by the moniker honestly; built with some of the most dynamic and experienced players on the global blues scene, the 7-piece adds up to Downchild Blues Band alum Chuck Jackson, Pat Carey, Gary Kendall, Jim Casson, and Tyler Yarema alongside Maple Blues Band alums Teddy Leonard and Howard Moore.

Check out the link here on YouTube:

Photo Credits: Peter Astedt and Future Echoes

It was the first full edition of Future Echoes in Norrköping, Sweden, 17 to 19 of February 2022. The Festival planning had begun in 2020 when participants from various showcase festivals in Sweden joined together to build a new International Showcase Festival in Norrköping, Sweden.

While the planning was discussed and the first actions were taken to start the Festival,

COVID hit the world, and everything was pushed. The first edition was first postponed from February 2021 to September and then from September to the original dates on February 17 to 19, 2022.

Then the variant Omicron hit and Sweden was put  in lockdown as of January  2022. The Festival then made a  decision to make it with the restrictions just to make it happen. Luckily the restrictions in Sweden were lifted on the 9th of February, just a week before the Festival.

“Sorry for bombarding you with demo emails.” This was the first line in an email I got in from an artist that kept on writing that he or she (the artist name really doesn’t give it away) had written fifteen songs in different styles, love songs, ballads, pop songs, and dance love pop songs. Strange styles to write songs in, but hey, who am I to judge?

Then it was a new link to a song on SoundCloud. The song sounds like you just bought a beat online somewhere and then you wrote a really bad poem to a dead mummy. Yes, the song is about a dead mummy, I shit you not. Clearly, the music wasn’t up to any standards. Nowadays it doesn’t need to be in any standards to be given out either. In one way if the Soundcloud link wasn’t private it had still been given out. That it was a bad song and not that interesting, it’s the rest of the letter. Directly after the link, they jump to this:
I wish to acquire a record deal. There are three types of deals that interest me:             

-          The 360 Deal     

-          The Single Deal Recording Contract; and         

-          The Major Label Deal        

Alongside today’s release of new single and video, “Solace,” multi-Platinum/Gold award-winning and internationally acclaimed producer, composer, and guitarist Jesse Cook announces newly updated Canadian dates for his highly-acclaimed “Tempest II” tour.

Check out “Solace” on YouTube here:

Originally marked for 2020 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of his acclaimed debut album, Tempest, the newly announced 18 homegrown shows will span from Quebec to B.C.; with 43+ cross-continent dates on the docket, Cook recently kicked off the tour in the U.S. alongside the release of his 11th studio album, Libre — to rave reviews.