Back in the days before the internet when the music industry sold plastic discs at high prices, you could get away with just a slick production. To produce a good album in the 70/80 and 90’s there was a different set of rules. First of all, it was very few releases. Mainly because it was expensive to get the music out. It was pressing, mastering, recording, photographs, or, and much more. In the end, an album could have the same budget as a small independent movie. Of course with that risk, you also needed to be very sure what to pick. You had to choose carefully with songs that should be on there and if they were good.

Back in the days these were called demos. A quick, dirty recording of just how the song really sounded. Mainly it showed if the song was a good song. You always knew there would be a producer that would change the sound and the final recording. I remember in the studio when I was hanging and learning about my first recording session, there was a sign on it that said “You can’t make gold out of cowshit”. Closest I guess would be “You can’t polish a turd”.

Canadian singer/songwriter Joseph Brooks Organ is anything but bereft as he celebrates the release of his freshly pressed album offering, Lovelorn.

From start to finish, lush arrangements reinforce Organ’s lyrical storytelling, field guiding listeners along a narrative path through all the stages — for better or worse — of a love ultimately lost.

There’s hand wringing, there’s reflection, and even a dark comedic underbelly; in other words, it’s Joseph Brooks Organ’s signature song-based storytelling in prime form.

Mixed, mastered and featuring Damian Dobrowolski (Re:Verse, Tribe Called Red), the release also showcases the sonic stylings of Zach Bines (Weaves, Tim Baker, Sarah Harmer), Michael Tobin (L’Dor V’Dor, I Lost My Mind), Anh Phung (Hairbrain, Tullstars), Daniel Pencer (Andy Shauf), Taylor McGee (Musica Reflecta), Andrea Stewart (Collectif 9), and Spencer Cole (Weaves).

It’s a remix for the JUNO Award-nominated and chart-topping Canadian all-girl supergroup Girl Pow-R in more ways than one… The Toronto-based teen popsters have divvied up their mega-talents into three mini-groups, and released two hi-hat trap remixes for “Fun All Day” and “Friends Click”.

“Friends Click (Remix)” is the premiere offering from the newly minted Girl Pow-R branch, The Squad — featuring Arielle, Cindy, Emma, and Ida-Maria. Listen to “Friends Click (Remix)” here on YouTube:

“This song is all about that magic chemistry that happens between you and your good friends — like the girls in Girl Pow-R,” says The Squad. “You don’t need 100 friends, just one. And when you find that one, and you click, the rest is history!”

I have been spending a lot of time on online conferences again. Last year I did over 30 of them and now they are becoming frequent again. But online conferences will never replace the real meetings at an “in-person" conference. One thing has really stood out though during these times. The online world is a much harder place for the artist to connect and get anything done.

Too many of the people I meet at these conferences are doing two serious mistakes. Mistakes I personally also do, so it’s a human thing. Either they contact everyone they just see at the conference, more or less just asking the person if they have an opportunity for them. A hard question since I haven’t checked you out or know what you are doing. The other mistake is just hanging around and really not presenting yourself to anybody. You feel that you don’t have anything to offer  so you mainly just sit there and wait for the persons that contact everybody to show up. In the end, the match between these two is non-existent.

Upbeat, futuristic, and slightly surreal: It’s electro art-pop project David Poole’s world, and by the sounds of his new EP, DPEP, and single “I’m a Snake,” we’re lucky to be spinning in it.

Check out the video on YouTube of “I’m a Snake”:

After more than 25 years apart, London, ON’s hard rock influencers, Blu Bones, have reunited to bring fans a colourful and rockin’ new single, “She’s Got a Way with Love”. Watch the Video on YouTube here

This week we spotlight:
Thornhill Food Bank 1 Leaside Park Dr Unit 5B, Toronto, East York Office phone  647-428-9755
Email thorncliffefb@icnareliefcanada.ca

COVID19 -- Food bank open by appointment only, call and leave message at any time but please do not call Mon or Thurs * counselling service by phone -- call for appointment or visit website to register

Stepping in with this pumped up Motown flavoured number that doesn’t need to wave its politics in your face, but such is the nature of the times that being about the music just isn’t enough anymore.

This week we spotlight Second Harvest Central Food Bank
1450 Lodestar Road Unit 18 Toronto.
Tel: 416-408-2594 email@secondharvest.ca

Member agencies have been coping with the new realities of providing emergency food relief during COVID, whether it’s changing their community dining programs to take away meals or offering prepared hampers instead of food bank access. Many agencies have closed their doors, which has put further strain on the food resources of agencies that have remained open. Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

One of the bands I work with once said, “Better to do something than do nothing at all”. Another quote is the circus owner Phineas T. Barnum that said, “There's no such thing as bad publicity”. Of course, in the worst situations, there is bad publicity and doing things totally wrong. In most cases, it’s not. And I feel many withhold themselves just by being afraid making a mistake.

Doing nothing is really safe, I can admit that. Progression wise though it’s pure stupidity. Without taking chances you are not going further. My biggest successes have been through mistakes. Also, a lot of knowledge comes from making mistakes. There is a difference between making mistakes and making mistakes.

I sent out a newsletter today. It was very fast because I had just two hours between two different quite important panels and today was the last day we could get the letter out before we got new numbers to send to in our mailing system. Of course, I had to put things together in no time. No chance to double-check. Not even the links and spelling were just through the spelling program.

Multi-GRAMMY and JUNO Award-winning artist Chin Injeti releases a rallying cry of self-love and reliance in this, his new single “For The Love Of Life”.

Check out the YouTube video of “For The Love Of Life” here:

And it wasn’t completed without some of Injeti’s tenured collaborative magic; he called upon fellow Vancouverite Teon Gibbs to feature on the track.

With a burgeoning catalog at 255,000+ streams across Spotify alone, “For The Love Of Life” is Injeti’s first of the year, and follows 2020 offerings of “Let Go,” “Serious,” and “Falling” — the latter of which featured Esthero on accompanying vox and Delhi 2 Dublin’s Tarun Nayer on tabla.

I just saw a local government that is supporting local artists doing another meet-up. This time it was that their local artists should learn social media. It’s nice for the artist that they get a chance to learn something around the business. Still, it won’t help their career. Social media today is so advanced that the normal artist really can’t be their own social media manager. This course will just get them some small tip-offs and people think that they can do it on their own.

Instead, if they were serious about it, they should hire a social media manager. The artist will have enough problems to keep up with all that content that should be produced then be able to follow up on the information they got from that government sponsor meeting. In the end, the information they get is old by the time that meeting is over. To handle social media today you need to follow the trends and be active all the time to find out about the new functions and what is working. That is a professional's job. Either the artist must choose from being an artist or a social media manager. There is a reason even small businesses hire a social media manager.

Brooklyn, NY’s Kate Koenig is a very hungry experimental-folk caterpillar that eats Fleet Foxes’ progressivism and Kate Bush’s iconoclasticism and Jeff Buckley’s zeal and Leonard Cohen’s disenchantment, and is still eating while you read this line. She’s an experimental folk singer/songwriter who is bringing new spirit to a tiring season with her sophomore album Etemenanki.

The new album features 40 minutes of contemplative, cinematic, and inventive compositions, some of which are influenced by Middle Eastern tonalities.

Etemenanki is a concept album that is written from a place of great emotional and spiritual introspection, but at the same time, doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s an aural folktale: Each song is told from the perspective of a mythological creature of Koenig’s own invention that goes by the tongue-in-cheek name of Bʌfdɔg (pronounced “Buff Dog”). The creature has existed at every time there has been and ever shall be, and as every person who has been and ever shall be. Some songs are sung by Bʌfdɔg themselves, while others are sung from the perspective of individuals whom Bʌfdɔg has embodied.

Six-time JUNO Award nominated jazz vocalist and pianist Carol Welsman is serving up “A Taste Of Paradise” with this, her newly reimagined single with Randy Bachman.

“I had the good fortune of meeting Randy recently,” Welsman shares, “and, when I heard him sing ‘A Taste of Paradise,’ I immediately included it in my repertoire.”

Check out “A Taste Of Paradise” on YouTube here:

As founder of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and with multi-Platinum, chart-topping, and multi-award winning status in the sphere, Bachman is ultimately known for his rock-influenced songs — but notes early-life inspiration from guitarist Lenny Breau; it was Breau who introduced him to Bossa nova, and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

This week we salute the venerable Yonge Street Mission. 381 Yonge St, Toronto 416-977-7259. Open Mon-Fri. 9-5.

The Mission usually feeds 6-800 people a week with its grocery services. Because of COVID-19, chief executive Angie Peters said demand has skyrocketed and the food bank is now stretching to feed nearly twice as many.

Stepping in with a cross-pollinated mashup for the ages. JUNO nominated jazz vocalist and pianist Carol Welsman is serving up “A Taste Of Paradise” her newly reimagined single with Randy Bachman — available now!

“I had the good fortune of meeting Randy recently,” Welsman shares, “and, when I heard him sing ‘A Taste of Paradise,’ I immediately included it in my repertoire.”

As founder of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and with multi-Platinum, chart-topping, and multi-award winning status in the sphere, Bachman is ultimately known for his rock-influenced songs — but notes early-life inspiration from guitarist Lenny Breau who introduced him to Bossa nova, and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Let me guess if you are an artist, you don’t have a homepage. Or your homepage is not updated! How can I tell? In the past few days, I have been adding independent artists to both my festival Future Echoes and our radio station Cashbox Radio. And I’m usually surprised when an artist really has a homepage. If it’s updated with the latest, I’m really impressed. Most do not this and it had made my work so hard.

You don’t need a homepage some artist tell you. We have our social media, that is where the fans are hanging out.

There is a problem with this. You actually own a website and you decide how it should be presented and also have the opportunity to collect the fans there. The ugly truth with social media is that you don’t own your followers, they are actually owned by Facebook, Tiktok, and other multi-national companies. They just let you have access to your own fans for a little bit. In reality, they actually let you pay to reach your own followers by paid messages. Think about it, a post in these networks only reaches around 10% of your fanbase, if you pay you can reach more.

This week we salute ACSA Food Bank, 1911 Kennedy Rd, Toronto, serving the Malvern area. Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Stepping in with Strippers Union,  fronted by the harmonic duo of Rob Baker (The Tragically Hip) and Craig Northey (Odds), who have released Disc 1 of their new double LP, The Undertaking. Disc 2 of the album will arrive March 12. The album is also available on limited edition vinyl today which includes both discs.

In 2006, Strippers Union released their debut LP, Strippers Union Local 518, and then followed it up with The Deuce a short five years later. Now, nearly a decade later the band is ready to share their third LP, The Undertaking, a double LP recorded at The Bathouse Studio with drummer Pat Steward and bassist Doug Elliott.

I guess many of us that work in the music industry are failed musician. My first band was not even a band. We were incredibly young and started a band even though we could not play any instruments. Instead, we played air instruments to our favorite songs. Cute yes, but there is one thing here. The first thing we did before we even rehearsed with our air instruments, was to take a band picture. To be honest to get the right location and background and pose took so long that we missed our first rehearsal and we had to get home before curfew. And the second rehearsal we looked at the pictures and the girl that sang was not pleased because the guys in the band looked better than her. In the third rehearsal, we went to take new pictures.

I have just gone through 100 applications for my new festival, Future Echoes. I started to see a trend. Many of the pictures were blurry or out of focus. Another thing was that the artist was not in the whole picture. It was like a gallery of modern art. A place where you really don’t know what the art is, or if you are staring at the radiator and no art at all.

This week we spotlight Second Harvest Central Food Bank 1450 Lodestar Road Unit 18 Toronto
Tel: 416-408-2594
email@secondharvest.ca

Member agencies have been coping with the new realities of providing emergency food relief during COVID, whether it’s changing their community dining programs to take away meals or offering prepared hampers instead of food bank access. Many agencies have closed their doors, which has put further strain on the food resources of agencies that have remained open.

Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Stepping in with a comeback single from a band that thankfully keeps coming back. Recorded remotely in lockdown by band members in their homes in Toronto and Montreal, and assembled and mixed by Moist guitarist and producer, Mark Makoway, “Tarantino” is Moist’s first new release since their 2014 album, Glory Under Dangerous Skies.

An Evening with Pomeranz & Brickman will be the virtual musical experience of the season.

2 hitmakers - 2 pianos - 1 goal….to give the world a musical hug at a time when we all need it most.

This will be an intimate evening of warmth and wit with each performing their hits, separately and together. A once-in-a-lifetime event.  Part of the set list includes songs like “Tryin’ To Get The Feeling Again”, “The Gift”, “Born for You”, “Valentine”, “Got to Believe in Magic”, “Simple Things” and “On This Day” with many more favourites for fans and music lovers.

The show will be broadcast 3 times on February 20^th, 2021 via a private online link to accommodate fans all over the world in different time zones. The Gents will also host a Meet and Greet Zoom Room for fans who have purchased an additional VIP ticket.

Times / Dates / Tickets
bit.ly/pomeranzandbrickman
SE ASIA
Saturday, February 20
9 PM PHST

EUROPE
Saturday, February 20
7 PM GMT

This week we spotlight Haven on the Queensway 1533 The Queensway Toronto, Ontario

Hours of Operation: Phone: 416-640-2005 Email: info@havenontheq.com.  Open by appointment and pick up only due to COVID-19.

Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Stepping in with new material from the irrepressible Begonia. In late February of 2020, Begonia (Alexa Dirks) hosted five spectacular sold out shows in her hometown of Winnipeg, which capped off the Fear Live Tour supporting Begonia’s acclaimed new record, Fear (out via Rex Baby Records). Those concerts are now available as the Fear Tour Live Album.