Sheeran has confirmed his official return with the announcement of his brand-new single “Bad Habits,” out everywhere June 25, 2021.

Sheeran hinted at his return to music last week in a now viral clip alongside actress and close friend Courtney Cox. In addition to this, Sheeran has also unveiled the single’s accompanying artwork that reveals him as a vampire character, which he has been teasing on his social channels recently, including in overnight posts featuring a string of London landmark projections, including the Tate Modern.

Commenting on his comeback, Ed Sheeran says: “I’ve been working away in the studio over recent months and I can’t wait for you to hear ‘Bad Habits.’ I always aim to push myself and my music in new directions and hopefully you’ll hear that on the new single. Feels great to be back!”

Check out Bad Habits on YouTube here:

Before in the industry, there were filters for everything. Like when an artist recorded in a studio there was a producer that made decisions. Then the producer took it to the record label and they made decisions. The record label took it to the distributor, and they had their opinions. Not optimal for sure, many of the complaints back in the days were a long time between when the artist had recorded a song until it actually was out on the market. Another complaint was that much of the artist's work was changed by different opinions, right or wrong.

All that has changed. Today an artist can record in the day and get it out to the audience the same minute the song is finished. That is why the demo is no longer exists. Demo was the song roughly recorded for different people in the chain to give comments, so they didn’t have to get back and do it again. Today with all digital it’s so easy to change you consider everything release ready, the demo is gone.

Spotlighting Wigwamen Waabnong Food Bank 20 Sewells Rd, Scarborough North Phone 647-607-5943
Service contact Faye Moffett, Coordinator, fayemoffett@rogers.com
Food bank open Thu 2 pm-4:30 pm; serving outside.

Support your local food bank. The need is real.

So, you got booked to a Showcase Festival or are planning to attend one. Congratulations if you got booked and great if you plan to visit one, good choice. In this part of Showcase Festivals for Dummies, I will go guide you through the dos and dont’s of how to make the most out of a Showcase Festival.

Firstly, don’t overdo it. Many artists get really excited that they will get a show at a Showcase Festival and suddenly they are planning a show of a lifetime. Yes, its can be an opportunity of a lifetime but the people that are going to see you want to see what they get. So, if you book a small choir of singers for the background vocals and an extra person on the saxophone, yes, it will sound great and be amazing on stage, but for the professionals, we will think “okay, the promo picture showed four people in the band do we really need the other extra eight? That will be a massive cost in transportation. Try to make a great show that you can re-create every time. So even if it’s tempting for this time using some fireworks, if it’s not in the show every time just skip the extravaganza, be excellent at everything else.

This week we spotlight Beeton Cupboard Foodbank at St. Michaels All Angels Church.611 St. Clair Ave. West. (416) 653-3593. Our outreach program remains a high priority at this time. The Beeton Cupboard Food Bank is an essential service and will continue serving our community on Wednesdays. Steps have been taken to adjust service delivery in line with up-to-date Public Health advice.

Open 11:30 - 12:30 on Wednesdays

If you missed Catalyst for Change Pt. 1 here you go:
cashboxcanada.ca/features-cover-story/merck-mercuriadis-catalyst-change/4860

In 2013 The Wu-Tang Clan created the NFT, when they sold the only copy of “Once Upon A Time in Shaolin” for 2 Million. The group wanted it to be a bankable investment like Renaissance Art…

The album was played for 13 minutes at MoMA PS1 for 154 people on March 2, 2015, there were no recordings made of this event, security confiscated attendee's cell phones before the event began. After the event, the album was stored at Royal Mansour Hotel and all backup copies were destroyed. Later on, it was sold at Paddle8 for 2 million dollars to Martin Shkreli. Making it the most expensive record ever sold.  The first NFT.

Hipgnosis is at the right place in the right time.

#1 best selling author Glenn Dixon takes on the whirlwind life of a rock star in his fourth and latest book, Bootleg Stardust — available now via Simon & Schuster!

It’s 1974 and Levi Jaxon is about to become very famous. He’s a young guitarist from nowhere, and he’s been dutifully sending out demo tapes to record companies when, miracle of miracles, he gets a call to audition for an already famous band called Downtown Exit. They’re recording their second album at Abbey Road Studios and are about to embark on a European tour.

Nothing is as it seems, though, and when things start to go wrong, Levi has to escape before he loses everything; the love of his life, the rights to his songs, and about a hundred thousand dollars worth of Greek Drachma. 

And although the band (and Levi) are entirely fictional, the songs are very much real; the Vancouver-born, Calgary-based author, Glenn Dixon, put together a top notch band to write and record all the songs in the book.

I guess this is one of the more important and pertinent articles that are in my series if you are trying to get accepted as a Showcase act at a Festival. If you have not already read them check out Pt. 1 and Pt 2 of the series Showcase Festivals for Dummies.

How do you secure a spot on a Showcase Festival?

Even though Showcase Festivals usually don’t pay any or at best a minimum fee, they still get a lot of applications. A midsize festival can get around 1500 to 2000 applications. How do you stand out when there are so many other artist’s applications?  I have been working on many Showcase Festivals over the years and they all deal with it differently. And yet, some things never change.

This week we spotlight Haven on the Queensway 1533 The Queensway Toronto. Monday to Thursday 8:30 am to 4:00 pm Phone: 416-640-2005 Email: info@havenontheq.com   Haven on the Queensway operates a food bank that provides groceries, household products, personal hygiene items and even pet food to anyone in need in the community.

It’s a lady laden line-up this week. Stepping in with Legacy singer/songwriter Joan Armatrading's new forthcoming album, Consequences, one of her most intimate and direct yet and one that wears its conscience and its heart on its sleeve.

As a teaser, Armatrading has released the album's first single "Already There". Due to drop June 18th (Digital) and August 13 (CD/LP) via BMG, her 22nd studio album to date, Consequences ably illustrates the fact that Armatrading never likes to repeat herself. It is in no way a follow up to 2018's UK's Top 30 oeuvre Not Too Far Away.

If you read my last posting (cashboxcanada.ca/features-music/showcase-festivals-dummies/4854) it was about the difference between a Festival and a Showcase Festival, check back and read that if you don’t know the difference. Don’t be shy that you don’t know I just explained the concept to one of the biggest bosses in one of the biggest booking agencies in the world last week. Here is my next part into my Showcase Festivals For Dummies.

You can think of a Showcase Festival as a fair. You know the trade shows where they gather under one theme. Like a trade show based around boats. You have exhibitors showing off their latest boats, engines, lights, life vests. A Showcase Festival and its conference is the same just that you show off music and artists for the global music industry.

With a hand cupped to an ear the echoing whisper can almost be heard: '……Who?.... Bonnie who?…..Bonnie Dobson….who?,' as it filters through the hall. A strange state of affairs indeed, because Bonnie Dobson is one of music's true survivors, a lady with a gorgeous, glorious voice that over half a century since her emergence in New York's nascent roots-music scene, still glints like gold.

Originally from Toronto, Canada, Dobson worked the incipient US folk scene alongside Judy Collins and Joan Baez, and was ranked by Time Magazine as one of the top three female musicians and singers in 1960s USA alongside those two musical giants.

She played all the famed haunts, now steeped in legend and musical myth and folklore, hanging out in Gerde's Folk City, The Gaslight, The Bitter End. The lady toured extensively with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Mississippi John Hurt, and worked with Pete Seeger, Reverend Gary Davis, Lightnin' Hopkins, Artie and Happy Traum, Big Joe Williams, John Lee Hooker - always working her way and looking astutely around the world surrounding her as she wrote songs of love and loss and prescient, at times disturbing, thought.

I am still amazed about the fact that so many people in important positions really don’t understand how a showcase festival works? By now people that work in the industry should be aware of how it works. I even lecture on Universities for new students about this subject. I guess the problem will be solved with the new milleliums. Still, for me, it is an annoying issue.

So here it is - Showcase Festivals for Dummies.

Let’s start with a simple explanation of the difference between a festival and a showcase festival. A festival contains artists that will sell tickets to an audience. For the festival, the mandate is to book major acts as cheaply as possible to sell as many tickets as possible to an audience. Of course, this is not easy as it sounds. Choosing an artist is depending on if they are on tour, what price range, and what the rest of the tour and it is no easy task. Just calling up the Rolling Stones and try to book them is not going to happen. Here it’s important which contact name you have on your roster and a network to get to the right artists.

This week we spotlight Parkdale Community Food Bank, 1499 Queen St. W. 416-532-2375.

Parkdale Community Food Bank continues to service clients during this challenging time for our community. We are following Public Health Ontario guidelines and taking additional precautions to keep our employees, volunteers and clients safe.

Open Wednesday 11a.m.–3p.m.
Thursday 11a.m.–3p.m.
Friday 10:30a.m.–1:30p.m.
Saturday 10:30a.m.–1:30p.m.

This week highlighting The Sharing Place, 624 Annette Street. This non-profit compassion organization provides warm meals on a weekly basis as well as a food and clothing bank for all people regardless of faith, income, or culture. Donations of non-perishable food items or funds are always needed.

One thing I have learned during the pandemic that I’m not a guy wearing many hats. I’m a serial entrepreneur in the music industry.

Being an entrepreneur is maybe a harder thing during the pandemic, you really want to get things done, and done now. Of course, the restrictions have been bad, but as an entrepreneur you just get around it and make it work anyway. During the pandemic, I have worked hard with the whole team to make Cashbox radio sound better. Still, the station became a priority focus and since it was online it was a perfect project that has developed and grown.  I also the European Consultant for an online music offering with a special one hour presentation called “Heal the Earth” in celebration of Earth Day 2021. Check out the Heal the Earth video here: