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.

I read another column from “mainstream media” as a pillage Trump voter would call it. They just saw a chance right now to get rid of one of their biggest competitors. Social media has taken over what people read. They don’t read normal newspapers instead they scroll through social media posts and there the algorithms feed them whatever makes them tick. If you are totally hooked on cat pictures you will get cat pictures. You will probably almost never discover something new you like instead you will fall into the rabbit hole of cat pictures.

Multi-award-winning Toronto-based vocal group, Countermeasure, has just released the video for Hold On - the first single off their concept album, Guest Sessions. Countermeasure's musical director, Aaron Jensen, composed Hold On, inspired by a conversation with bandmate, and vocal soloist Qwyn Alexis. The song reflects the experiences of motherhood: the fear and helplessness of setting your children out into the world, and the hope that by instilling them with love, decency, and pride, they'll be equipped to face whatever life has in store. The track features award-winning Toronto-based vibraphonist, Michael Davidson.

For the past weeks I have been on several seminars involving artists and their creativity. It seems like many feel that they are not productive and have writer's block. As well, a lot of anxiety is discussed during  these seminars.

That is ok, but I’m a bit tired watching the whole industry treating the artists as a creative genius and the sole person treated as a creative genius. To be kind of frank, the artist's creativity is often very unlimited and free, it’s should not stop there. It seems like we never talk about those people that have to be creative afterward. These people have to be triple creative with the material they get in. I’m talking about the team around artists like PR agents, managers, producers and consultants.

Hunger never takes a holiday. Highlighting Thistletown Community Services Unit (22) Food Bank 248 Jamestown Crescent. Hours may have changed due to COVID. Please call (416) 745-2822.

Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Opening with the dawning of a big talent, TiKA, who at the beginning of the album making process, was without home or hope, has become a burgeoning icon in Canada with her presence on TV, as a spokesmodel for Sephora, and as a go-to music composer. Her debut album Anywhere But Here will be released February 26th. The third single from the record and the accompanying compelling video, is for the Prince classic "I Would Die 4U”. The video was directed by NASKADEMINI, who has been at the helm for all of the visuals from Anywhere But Here. Once a champion and promoter of local talent such as Daniel Caesar, Jessie Reyez, Clairmont the Second and more, the time has arrived for TiKA to take centre stage. TiKA, in her own words, on the song, and the video:

Ottawa synthpop band Church of Trees has hooked up with legendary Rough Trade vocalist, Carole Pope, on a new single WORLD’S A BITCH. The single captures the global angst over the COVID pandemic and the desperate need for vaccine distribution.

The JUNO award-winning Pope, who pushed the boundaries of sexuality and sexual politics both in Rough Trade songs and on stage, says “I think the song encapsulates how we’re all feeling about being locked down… and you can dance to it!”

WORLD’S A BITCH is the lead track off Church of Tree’s forthcoming EP PAUSE, which drops in late February.

Church of Trees founder Bernard Frazer brims with excitement describing his experience with the rock icon. “She was delightful! They say to never meet your heroes because they’ll disappoint, but Carole was extraordinary, and in such fine form!”

“The papers said Ed always played from the heart
He got an agent and a roadie named Bart
They made a record and it went in the charts
The sky was the limit”

Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open” catches the dream very well and it is one of my favorite songs. It’s about and artist rise and fall and the lines above here is the essential dream of the music industry.

Someone said that the music industry is selling a dream; we make smoke and mirrors to keep that dream still true. The question now is when will this dream change? The dream will always be there, that a lot of people will enjoy my art. But the rules have changed.

In the dark middle-ages when we didn’t have cell phones or internet, yes I’m talking the 80’s and early 90’s.  Recording a record was expensive. To get a good sound you needed to be in a professional studio with the right equipment. The record label put up money for artwork, a producer, pressing, and recording. An album was an achievement.

Brand new year, same old sins.

Spotlighting Wigwamen Waabnong Food Bank 20 Sewells Rd, Toronto, ON Scarborough North  Phone 647-607-5943

Websitetorontoeastsda.ca

Service contact Faye Moffett, Coordinator, fayemoffett@rogers.com

HoursCOVID19 -- Food bank open Thu 2 pm-4:30 pm; serving outside

Support your local foodbank. Thank you.

How does your songwriting garden grow after a decade of silence? Been just that long since Small Sins, pet project of Canadian writer/performer/producer Thomas D’Arcy, has put out music so this new release is large for him.

The curiously titled Volume II (his fourth release) is due out on February 12th (Thomas D'Arcy Music Inc) and includes the lead single “Andre” out today. The new album was recently included in Exclaim's 29 Most Anticipated Albums of 2021, with the single premiering on CBC q.

Although Alex Pangman grew up a couple of generations late to have sung with Benny Goodman, the vibrant vocalist is the say-no-more quintessential jazz and swing artist Canada knows and adores. Pangman possesses the requisite taste, talent, and the historical knowledge of an avid record collector to breathe new life into the sturdy songs of the classic jazz era. She is also the host of Swing Set, a weekly program on Jazzcast.

She has recorded four albums for Justin Time Records, toured internationally including several mainstage appearances at the prestigious Montreal International Jazz Festival, recorded with her own Alleycats group, plus Bucky Pizzarelli, Kevin Clark, Jeff Healey, Ron Sexsmith, Dick Sudhalter, and many more classic jazz luminaries.

And now Canada’s ‘Sweetheart of Swing,” JUNO Award-nominated singer Alex Pangman & Her Alleycats has released a heartfelt new video for her take on Louis Armstrong’s classic composition, “If We Never Meet Again.”

Listen and watch “If We Never Meet Again” here on YouTube:

The 60’s in Greenwich Village in New York was a magical time for the folk boom and there is no shortage of legends that were there in the mid to late 60s to talk about it and share their experiences. The likes of Eric Andersen, Tom Paxton and Tom Rush are still out singing their songs and telling their tales but how about that period of time that led to folk explosion?

Brooklyn born Art Podell was there in 1957 and was a big part of the Village scene. “ Back then there wasn’t a lot of folk clubs. The village was more of a “beat” scene. There were poets and some singers. My influences were Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. There was a place called Café Wha? where we got to play folk music. I teamed up with Paul Potash and formed a duo called Art and Paul. We performed regularly at Café Wha? with and incredible guitarist named Dick Rosmini.” The Kingston Trio’s Tom Dooley sold an impressive 3 million copies in 1958 and the search was on for the next big “folk act.”

This week we spotlight Second Harvest Central Food Bank 1450 Lodestar Road Unit 18 Toronto, Ontario
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.

The punk’s punk, Art Bergmann is now a member of the Order of Canada. Tell me it still ain’t 2020. Dude was the walking, singing, shouting face of punk, rubbing people the wrong way for the right reasons, creating a nationwide conversation among punknation and oh, influencing the Canadian punk sound, his current iteration of which can be heard on 2020’s Christo Fascists single.

The Signs are everywhere, 2021 is going to be a breakout year in music. Do you know what kinds of trends we will see in the music industry over the coming year?

If you are involved in the music industry then you’ll know that a lot changed this year. Top artists released songs that no one ever thought they would and smaller artists gained notoriety much faster than usual. Artists have been shaking up the music industry and this is setting us up for an exciting 2021.

In this article, we are going to look at some of the top music industry trends to watch in 2021.

Lack of Genres

You may have already noticed this but the way in which music genres are categorised has been changing a lot recently. With so many new artists creating music, allocating their songs into specific genres has been increasingly more difficult. You can’t simply say that a song is pop now when it could be a mixture of four or five genres. This trend is set to make playlisting and chart lists more difficult in 2021.

Shorter Songs