Let’s talk about 1969 – 50 years ago - for a moment – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records, First Concorde test flight is conducted In France, Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut, Pontiac Firebird Trans Am the epitome of the American muscle car is introduced, Woodstock attracts more than 500,00 and a singer-songwriter named Andy Kim co-writes The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar,” a song that debuts on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1969, a full 2 months after released as radio doesn’t want to play a cartoon band.

In September, it hits #1 on the way to becoming Billboard’s Record of the Year and the biggest-selling single of the year. Wilson Pickett, Tom Jones, Ike & Tina Turner, Bob Marley, The Germs, Mary Lou Lord, and even Homer Simpson goes on to cover the song.

Quebecoids Scattered Clouds gets all official languages with us on this most recent release.“Lapolitique, concours pseudo-érotique, “is the new single off fresh album, the scarily titled Take AwayYour Summer out on Boiled Records. Inspired by the dichotomous terrain of their hometown of Hull, Québec, the experimental outfit of Philippe Charbonneau and Jamie Kronick’s second album is a futuristic broken romance set amidst a burning dystopian landscape. Shot and edited by Patrick Lozinsky during amateur wrestling event Lutte 07 in Gatineau, the restrained, hypno-funk plod of “La politique” is belied by the reckless battle at play in the bright lights of the ring.

“‘La politique, concours pseudo-érotique’ is about the current political climate, how there’s a growing sense of powerlessness in democracy and how world politics seem to play out like a theatre show,” says the band. “The video is a metaphorical exploration of amateur wrestling entertainment and how it is analogous to the satirical and barbaric presentation of the modern day political stage.”

Never fails, in June you get all the artists asking you how to get a festival gig this Summer. It seems they only think when things appear in front of their eyes. You know the festival is probably almost booked when they start to get ads in your Facebook feed.

A lot of the failure by the artists is that they more or less do things on the spot, there is no planning for the future. This summer’s gig was probably booked between October to April or sometimes the lineup is almost ready by January. Right now, you can't really do anything. Sure, there might be a gig coming up because an artist is cancelling but there is really no point of sending stuff to festivals who are already in turmoil to get their things going next week.

I just saw my own festival last week when we stopped the intake. The last 48 hours got more applications than the whole of March and April. In reality, we already booked most of the acts earlier this Spring, so you got a very slim chance to get on if you sent in the last 48 hours. Now a week later, I get emails from people missing the deadline and still want in.

If you scratch the surface of most heavy rock bands, you’ll probably find that they aren’t just as anti-establishment as some of the tales suggest. Certainly, the big ‘hairspray rock’ bands of the 1980s were perhaps overselling their credentials as “the most dangerous band(s) in the world”. Yes drug-taking was copious, but so too were the appearances at corporate events, inproduct commercials and Christmas ballads.

 "Ain't singin' for Pepsi/ Ain't singin' for Coke/ I don't sing for nobody/ Makes me look like a joke."So Neil Young warned us, but everyone from Led Zeppelin to Iggy Pop has taken the marketing dollar at some point. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but the sight of Iggy Pop selling car insurance is still something that feels a bit strange.

They may not be legendary but sure ain’t another like them on the scene. Durable and outrageous rock army White Cowbell Oklahoma mark their 20th year with the video 'Harder Come, Harder Fall' from the album "Seven Seas of Sleaze", which was released April 3, 2018. The trippy, high contrast video comes packed with groove and hints of whiskey-fueled southern rock n' roll that has just enough grease to slide into the ears and hearts of fans around the world. Which is kinda strange, given their appeal has mostly been seen as regional.

"Seven Seas of Sleaze" was released on the band’s Slick Monkey label and has garnered attention from listeners far and wide and has shot the band to a position where they will be playing throughout Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands in the early summer of 2019. Fans of Deep Purple, ZZ Top, and Frank Zappa will find White Cowbell Oklahoma winning a place in their hearts with heart-warming raunch and crunchy, rough-edged rock.

I did two festivals on the same weekend. First Focus Wales where The Magnettes was playing. Then New Skool Rules where Adée and Tale the Rapper where playing. So, during six hectic days I did two panels, two speed meetings sessions, over 30 booked meetings sessions. Traveled  to two countries and two cities. Saw over 50 showcases and meet people. Yes, it is a hectic time right now. And it di not stop there. Many more festivals came in May and they all collided. Youbloom in Dublin, Midem in Cannes and Medimex in Bari and of course Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan at the end of June.

Some people ask why I'm doing so many festivals. I guess we can reveal now why. Three years ago I decided to build a network all over the world so I have the contacts myself to evaluate different offers and situations. In the end, I want to have such a vast network that I can break an artist on a global scale. I guess right now I'm pretty close. They have been joking around me in meetings I always answer, well I know someone that can provide that if they asked a specific knowledge or service in a certain area.

Strong vocal melodies, hard hitting sound, and honest-to-the-bone songs about strength and survival…this is Neverfriend.

Fraser first founded the band back in 2006 with his wife Gina. They hit Ottawa’s Big Money Shot contest that same year (under another band name) and received airplay for their flagship song “Naughty in the Dark”. Learning from the experience, they adjusted their band strategy, added seasoned musicians Dan and Arek who share the same drive and passion for their craft, refocused their song writing direction to discuss heart-felt topics like addiction, strength gained through pain, courage to love, and survival, with even more gut-wrenching honesty, and adopted a harder, heavier sound with alternative rock, metal, and punk influences.

When you think of small towns in the USA, Hedgesville, West Virginia is just that vision. A small town where everybody knows everybody and most have lived there all their lives.

Nathan Bartgis is one of those folks. “Just about everybody knows everybody and most people who live here have lived here their whole life as well. I was fortunate enough to have grown up on my Grandparent's farm. It was a place where my brother and I and my next door neighbors, who you might as well call my brothers, would fish, ride bikes, build forts, play in the creek at the edge of the farm, and maybe even get into a little trouble from time to time,” Bartgis reflects.

Ed Sheeran has done it again with his collaboration projects- the one that had hearts beating faster when he teamed up with Andrea Bocelli for Perfect Symphony which to date boasts over 193,328,751 views on YouTube.

Ed Sheeran - Perfect Symphony (with Andrea Bocelli)
https://youtu.be/eiDiKwbGfIY

First out of the gate is ‘I Don’t Care’ with Canada’s own Justin Bieber. Bieber has attracted much press in his career, starting out as a cute teen idol, spiraling down with bad behavior and now performing with a current legend like Ed Sheeran will more than likely give the Bieb the credibility he deserves as a singer and performer.

A cute and silly video, Sheeran and Bieber actually pull it off in campy costumes and silly montages. Already hitting the charts in the Top Ten worldwide, once again Sheeran’s team have picked a great start to No. 6 Collaborations.

Watch it here:

Mix - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber - I Don't Care [Official Video]
https://youtu.be/y83x7MgzWOA

I often hear from artists that I work with these two questions. #1: Is this good for us, I mean the best we can put our money into? #2 How big are the chances we get something out of it?

It doesn’t matter what the topic is. The only time they gladly spend money is when they buy new instruments or record, sometimes even videos since it’s fun and centers around them. When it comes to PR, traveling, meetings and other activities that cost money, these questions arise. I’m fascinated that it’s only in the creative business I experience this. It is the same in the movie industry, but I never really got that in the normal startup race that is out there.

This one’s from a local guitar god who’s breathed life into more than one misbegotten song. Stony Plain Records is proud to announce the release of acclaimed guitarist and performer Kevin Breit's "Stella Bella Strada" his second solo album for the label, out on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and all digital retailers May 31.

Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Kevin himself and out on Canada’s leading folk/roots label, Stony Plain Records, whose founder Holger Petersen sez,"Kevin Breit is one of the most creative and imaginative musician I've ever worked with. What he brings is far beyond incredible guitar playing. He is master arranger, composer and soulful visionary whose tones and phrasing color his music with sophisticated timeless concepts and good humor.To my ears Kevin's music includes blues based slide guitar playing with a heavy dose of Frank Zappa's compositional influence. But Kevin is his own man - there's no one like him!"

The Canadian Association for the Advancement of Music and the Arts (CAAMA) welcomes a full slate of international business opportunities at Canadian Music Week, which runs May 9 to 11, 32019 at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel (123 Queen Street West.)

Canadian Music Week’s International Marketplace (IMP) is hosting back-to-back meeting sessions during this year’s Canadian Music Week.

Pre-arranged meetings curated by the IMP include Meetings with South Africa, in celebration of CMW’s first-ever Spotlight on South Africa.

Activities include a comprehensive panel from the South African music market and sector specialists on Friday, May 10 form 10:35 AM to 11:35 AM (Lower Concourse, Osgoode Ballroom West) followed by a session of business-to-business (B2B) meetings from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM at the International Marketplace, Lower Concourse, Hall E). Join us for a taste of South Africa at the Spotlight on South Africa VIP reception at the International Marketplace on Friday from 5:30 to 7:00 PM.

We’re gonna start off with a mega album from an outsize perso. Been nearly five years since the last Flying Lotus album-the Grammy-nominated cadaver tetris of You're Dead! During that time out, the multi-disciplinary Los Angeles artist has remained in constant orbit, collaborating with Kendrick Lamar on the classic To Pimp a Butterfly, directing and writing the Sundance-premiered comic horror hallucination Kuso, and producing much of Thundercat's Drunk. He's also nurtured his Brainfeeder imprint into the most consistently innovative record label of the decade.

Now to Flamagra, a work which sweeps up every quantum advance and creative leap of the last dozen years of Lotus' career and takes them even further; the Warp release encompasses hip-hop, funk, soul, jazz, global dance music, tribal poly-rhythms, IDM, the L.A. Beat scene. But as per usual with FL, it soars above a specific vortex whose coordinates can't be accurately charted. He wouldn’t want it any other way, so I’m gonna call it an afro-futurist astral symphony of deep soul, cosmic dust, and an originality that will make Kayne weep.

We received a message last week from an artist that we have with our distribution. “We are going to release some new songs and we want to clean up a bit on our Spotify list, can you take down some songs down before Wednesday?” (we received this request on Tuesday)

Please note that this is not a professional artist and doesn’t have many streams.

With this behaviour they will never get anywhere, at least I hope they don’t. One of the critics in the early days of digitalization was just that song you might like will disappear from your collection. And by doing this you fulfill that fear. Before this was much more of a problem since you were giving it out in physical form and harder to erase. Today people seem to think that releasing a song is like making a Facebook post.

Another cliché you get from artists all the time is “this is the best song I have ever written”. The new stuff is always the best. If it was up to the artist, they would in many cases just take everything down so you could only listen to their newest creation “that is the best”.

Music is one of the greatest achievements of humanity when it comes to creativity, with it having an impact on emotions and feelings potentially more than anything else around. While we all listen to our favourite tracks as we go about our normal daily routines, music has managed to have a huge influence in all aspects of our lives. Similarly, the gaming industry has become a global phenonema, with most of us having heard about and played games on platforms like Playstation, Nintendo and mobile apps. So, it is probably no surprise that both go hand in hand and having the right music for any game is now a vital factor in its success.

A game without any sort of sound would be deemed as boring and cast aside by most, with some of the most popular and best loved games of all time being supported by brilliant soundtracks and the use of memorable sound effects. However, with each game differing in type and genre, it’s important to select the right music for that one individual game, otherwise it may be hindered as a result.