Wintersong Music Festival has officially announced the headliners for their 4th edition, taking place January 20th - 21st, 2023 in Stouffville, ON. The annual festival draws thousands to the local area in the shoulder-season of Winter, giving a much-needed boost to the local economy.

Wintersong will be headlined by Montreal indie-pop band Stars; two-time JUNO award winning musician Dan Mangan; and 80’s new wave/synth-pop band Men Without Hats.

They will be joined by 2022 Polaris shortlisted OMBIIGIZI - a collaboration between Zoon’s Daniel Monkman and Status/Non Status’ Adam Sturgeon; and local indie-folk band Man Made Forest.

I have been attending a lot of meetings with industry people the past week. Since it’s a lot of people from the live industry the discussions have been about what has happened since COVID was left behind and everything opened up again.

This is mainly in Sweden so I can’t really say yet if it is an international trend. Of course, here we got an overproduction of events this summer. You had several events that were postponed during COVID that now had to take place at the same time as new events were coming around. I thought that we would see some events going really bad since it was so many and that people now with economic crisis would keep their money tighter.

In the end, though most events seem to have succeeded. The ones that got hit and didn’t go that well are located in bigger cities. Events in the countryside seem to go fine. But one big problem seems to be the same for everybody. People are buying tickets late.

Jeff Bova may not be a household name but his body of work and the list of the iconic artists he has produced and worked with is known in most households that have radios, televisions or computer, phones and all streaming services.

Bova is a Grammy Award-winning producer, arranger, and musician with hundreds of platinum and gold records to his name. He won his Grammy for Album of the Year as the producer on Celine Dion’s, “Falling Into You” and during a career spanning over 40 years, he toured as a member of Herbie Hancock’s Rockit Band and has contributed to hundreds of recordings by significant mainstream artists, including Katy Perry, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Luther Vandross, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Robert Palmer, Billy Joel, Bee Gees, Backstreet Boys, Cher, Meat Loaf, Cyndi Lauper, Iron Maiden and many more.

CMW recently celebrated its 40^th Anniversary so it’s a legendary music mainstay that has been there for many years. The festival has changed locations various times during those years as well. This year they went back to InterContinental Toronto Centre in downtown Toronto.

This was CMW’s post-COVID comeback to be held in person. Of course, during the pandemic, there were some digital things for CMW but being back in person was an important step. COVID  had so much impact on the festival since Canada has been one of the stricter countries with its COVID rules and the festival has been forced to switch dates a couple of times as well.  This year it was 6 to 11th of June, quite late compared to earlier editions.

You can say that Athens Music Week is the last showcase before the summer break. It’s the end of June and after it, nothing really comes up until the end of August. This year the whole south of Europe had extreme heatwaves so during Athens Music Week the temperature out in the sun reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). So, getting to the place where the panels are held is like a sanctuary with air-conditioning that is working hard trying to cool it down.

Canadian 3x JUNO Award-nominees and 4x Canadian Folk Music Award-winners Sultans of String & Friends are now embarking on the most ambitious and essential project of their career: Their ninth album entitled “Walking through the Fire”, which will be a beautiful collection of collaborations with First Nations, Metis, and Inuit artists across Turtle Island/Canada. The band has launched an INDIEGOGO campaign to raise funds and they would love your support. With your help they we can make this recording a reality! 

Visit Sultans of String's INDIEGOGO page: indiegogo.com/projects/indigenous-collabs-w-sultans-of-string-friends#/

During COVID, we had to go over to online showcases and meeting points. It was interesting to make that experiment. We had heard that online will be the future. Now after two years of online events, we are getting the answer. And it’s so clear. No, online is not even close to doing what a real event is doing.

These are the usual comments on why you should do it online. The cost to be at an event is hundreds of dollars for registration and with the trend of inflation, flights and hotels the costs are high. Expenses besides the conference itself such as meals and other miscellaneous expenses.

On Tuesday, September 27th, live at Bar Cathedral (54 The Esplanade), The Magnettes are performing a free show at 10:00pm to launch the new global initiative EuroCan. Industry professionals and true music fans are expected to attend in celebration of the new initiative and to experience the transformative blending of cultures. Spark Houston, one of Canada’s most promising and exciting rap talents and The Magnettes, Sweden’s brash, beautiful, feminist punk icons are sure to own the stage.

This pop-trio was founded in Pajala, Sweden and speak the language Meänkieli, which was forbidden in Sweden and was not recognized until 1999. The Magnettes incorporate parts of Meänkieli into their songs. They crafted their own blend of electro-pop and riot grrrl punk. In 2015, they performed at SXSW in Austin, TX and signed with the label Digsin, where their debut album Ugly Youth was released in 2017. Their single “Young & Wild” premiered on prime-time TV and became the 10 most played Swedish song on Swedish radio the same year.

 The highly anticipated Kensington Market Jazz Festival (KMJF) returns this year for the 7th year of performances, boasting an incredible lineup. Since its inception, the can’t-miss festival has brought the biggest names in jazz music and up-and-coming superstars to Toronto in a series of ticketed and curated busking shows.

The KMJF will return to in-person entertainment Oct. 1-2 in Toronto’s vibrant neighbourhood of art, vintage shops and multicultural cuisine, a designated National Historic Site of Canada.

Created and helmed by award-winning jazz vocalist Molly Johnson, KMJF will kick off at Tom’s Place (190 Baldwin St), the hub of the festival’s solo piano series, hosted by Holly Nimmons. The other participating venues include Tapestry (formerly Poetry Jazz Café), Handlebar, Supermarket and Pamenar with seven shows each per day. There are also Pay-What-You-Can shows in Bellevue Square Park on Saturday and Sunday from 1-2:30pm and 4-5:30pm.

The weekend concerts run from 1 p.m. until 11 p.m. The media invite and details to the festival’s kickoff is below.

On September 30, Steven Page will release Excelsior digitally; it’s his first solo album since 2018. The album on Page’s Fresh Baked Goods imprint will be available on CD November 11 with a 2-LP vinyl version out early in 2023. 

The album’s 11 tracks were composed and produced entirely by Page, who co-founded the band Barenaked Ladies, before departing on a solo career in 2009. The lion’s share of material on Excelsior was “workshopped” for audiences on his wildly popular virtual concert series Live From Home that Page has been conducting via Zoom since April of 2020 from his home near Syracuse, NY. Thousands of fans throughout the world have been tuning in on Saturdays (5 PM Eastern, 2PM Pacific,10PM/UK, 7AM Sunday - Australia-Eastern), which are limited to 1000 ticketed audience members per show, with an estimated to-date paid viewer total of 85,000+. The more than 90 episodes of Live From Home are available through Patreon.  The Excelsior track titled “Zoom” is, in fact, the album’s first single and out this week.

Today, emerging Canadian Pop R&B artist, and the 2022 Toyota Searchlight winner, Chad Price is releasing a brand new album titled “Introversion”, available everywhere and distributed via AWAL. “Introversion” marks Chad’s third full-length effort in his rapidly rising career, but in many ways, feels like his first:
“I’m incredibly proud of this album and proud of myself for reaching emotional and creative depths that I was too afraid to reach for in the past. This one feels like an actual representation of who I really am and all the things that swirl around in my head that I’m usually apprehensive to talk about as an introvert. For me, this is how I’ve always wanted to present myself to the world.”

Check out “Love Song” on YouTube here:

An evening of music celebrating Canada's shared history with the US titled "A Tribute to Blues and Jazz" starring Jay Douglas and Kollage featuring Alexis Baro.

Singer Jay Douglas’ untold musical history is played out on stage with selections from his ground-breaking new album “Confession.”  The album was inspired by his love for Blues and Rhythm & Blues then a new music in post WWII America that was coming out of Memphis and New Orleans. All this music had a big impact on Jay as a young artist growing up in Jamaica and that influence would eventually travel with him to Canada. Jay has been awarded NOW Magazine’s Best R&B Act, the Annual Toronto Reggae Awards’ Male Reggae Vocalist of the Year, and the BBPA Harry Jerome Awards’ G98.7 Entertainment Award.

The new artist will be a stripper playing quirky songs? I’m following the different channels where artists are discovered, right now it’s mainly Tiktok. The trend now is that all the creators online are mainly forced to get their income from patrons in different forms and ways.

I was scrolling through my Tiktok and all the time it was a very beautiful model-like woman doing different videos. In several cases, they even did movies where they actually complained that to get followers and likes you had to show more skin, which they did in many creative ways.  Guess with this new trend a brilliant artist like Shane MacGowan doesn’t stand a chance.

As much as I Iike the new digital trend where the artists can use tools to get closer to their audience it is nagging me that are we just creating the digital version of a jester or even worse a digital beggar.

Toronto, ON-based Jazz impresario, Ori Dagan, invites you to Click Right Here on a brand new album of jazz tracks that’ll leave you swinging, sashaying and singing along.

Pairing with Simone Denny for the completely recreated “Video Killed The Radio Star” (originally recorded by the Buggles), Dagan is slipping a quarter into a nostalgic jukebox with this reimagined classic. With Click Right Here, Dagan slips into his songwriting shoes to provide an album stacked with originals.

Check out “Video Killed the Radio Star” on YouTube here:

With a storied, 45-year-plus career filled with success and accolades to reflect on, Canada’s “First Lady of the Guitar” Liona Boyd has certainly earned that title and the international love she and her music have shown. There’s no resting on laurels going on here, just a lot of gratitude, love and new music to share with the world. Liona Boyd’s 29th album, L.O.V.E. has arrived, along with the new single “Gracias” – check it out on YouTube here:

When our global pandemic slowed the world down to an isolated crawl, the multi-honoured guitarist, composer, vocalist, and author was all about the forward momentum of creating new music.

“I was writing and recording extensively over the last three to four years,” the five-time JUNO winner recently told Canadian Musician.

Jameson Street - set for worldwide release on October 7, 2022 via True North Records, is like a guided tour down a cobblestone road in Dublin delivering a record packed with “positivity and good vibes”.

“Jameson Street is meant to make you feel like you’re having a night out,” frontman Finny McConnell explains. “No politics, no religion, just good times, and everybody having fun. Unity is the underlying message.”

Listen and pre-order album here: truenorthrecords.com/themahones/

For this fun-loving group of musicians, there are few things better than loving, drinking, fighting, and a splash of hope to get them through the day. It is no surprise that these are the elements fueling the songs on Jameson Street - with shanties harking on good times and comradery – and a little bit of tin whistle and fiddle for good measure. The song “Holloway Jack” is a perfect example of what it means to be in the Mahones. The song features lyrics by the late Paddy Cuncanon, a long-time friend of the band, sending their friend off with a pint and good cheer.

Known for his catchy pop melodies, Canadian singer/songwriter, Peter Foldy has enjoyed musical success on major labels such as Capitol/EMI Canada as well as Polydor and RCA in the US.

After a successful 10 year run in the music business which included two Juno Award nominations, Foldy found himself in Los Angeles where he soon began writing and eventually directing films, working with stars such as Paul Rudd, Beverly D’Angelo and Eugene Levy. But music is a tough mistress to leave behind. Realizing that there was still a fan base out there who were requesting his songs on Canadian radio, Foldy returned to the studio and recorded a ten track CD entitled Nine Lives. Released in 2015, it received favorable reviews from a number of outlets, including The Toronto Star.