The relationship between gaming and music has been underway more than a decade now. It’s only going to increase in scope and numbers so here’s some input from the gaming community as to how and why that is.

We love to celebrate our favourite musical acts in weird and wonderful ways. Here are some of the legends we have chosen to immortalise in video game form.

We don’t often think about the overlap between music and games. However, since music is a major inspiration for many people in a variety of industries, it is unsurprising to find that some have chosen to immortalise their musical heroes in video game form. Let’s take a closer look at three legends of the music industry who are the subject of their own video games.

Why Make These Games?

The relationship between gaming and music has been underway more than a decade now. It’s only going to increase in scope and numbers so here’s some input from the gaming community as to how and why that is.

Music is a vital part of any game, there is no denying it. Here’s why music and gaming always go well together here.

We don’t go through life with music blasting at our every move, so why do we expect the same for gaming? There are so many games out there that are applauded for their soundtracks, and classic ditties and themes that we associate instantly with their games. It is clear that music is something that goes hand in hand with gaming, and always will.

Games Across All Genres

Less than a month after the release of his highly-anticipated sophomore EP, A Stranger Everywhere, French/Australian Montreal-based singer Joji Redback has released a brand-new music video for the project’s latest single, “Sa Mère”.

Check out “Sa Mère” on YouTube here:

Though he’s been releasing music since 2017, Joji began to blow up late last year after releasing the lead single off 2021’s A Stranger Everywhere, “Puerto.” The infectious tune was added to Spotify’s coveted Discover Weekly playlists and quickly racked up over 160,000+ Spotify streams alone, contributing to his 250,000+ total across all platforms.

The 24-year-old musician began making music at the mere age of six, but it wasn’t until his late adolescence that he began playing the drums and recording his vocals. Once he turned 19, music became Joji’s life.

I just read about a new company again that has what they think a brilliant idea that has you in music in the new blockchain technology. This is actually the fourth this week I read about. I just see a big hype right now that will rip off artists and make the music industry look like a shitty amateur camp.

This week we spotlight Churches on the Hill Food Bank 230 St Clair Ave W, Toronto.
416-967-3842  
christchurchdeerpark.org
Tuesdays & Thursdays open at 10:30 a.m.

Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Denizens of the history-strewn streets of Halifax, The Bloody Hell has a new full-length in the works to follow their award-nominated 2018 self-titled debut album (Loud Recording of the Year” - Nova Scotia Music Awards 2018), and as they currently work on the sophomore release, they’re sharing a new music video for the single "When You're Gone".

The band has teamed up once again with stop motion animator Diane Lindo who did their 2019 video "Out of Our Minds”, nominated for an Independent Music Video of The Year Award by Dropoutentertainment.ca.

I recently saw an interview with the Swedish megastar Zara Larsson. It was some famous magazine that was getting the grand tour of her apartment. Then she was in various Swedish media coverage saying that she had been smoking a lot of weed lately but has now stopped doing that.  Strange thing is I first noticed that we haven’t heard from Zara for long while. I looked in both interviews but none said anything about new music.

Then just days later I saw an ad for her new album “Postergirl”. Of course Zara Larsson has great, smart teams working around her to get her exposure. The two interview looks like they are just taken out of the blue, that she just one day felt like showing off her apartment for a magazine or doing a “dark” confession. The truth is that in today’s media world the fact that you release new music is not good enough news.

When you’ve been making music for as long as folk music icon Judy Collins, songs become more than just familiar melodies, they’re treasured memories connecting you to people and places of your past. For her newest collection of recent recordings, White Bird - Anthology Of Favorites, Collins has hand-selected a number of songs that remain dear to her heart so much so that she can still remember exactly where she was the first time she heard them. Take for instance, this story Collins shares about one of her best-known, most beloved songs, “It was 1967 when I received a phone call at three in the morning from Al Cooper, the founder of Blood Sweat & Tears. He said he followed this girl home from a bar where she had told him she was a songwriter. She played him some of her songs and after she played him one particular song, he picked up the phone and called me. He put the girl on the phone and Joni Mitchell sang me her great song ‘Both Sides Now.’”

This week we highlight ICNA Relief Food Bank 6120 Montevideo Rd. Unit #4
Mississauga, Tel: 905-858-1067
Email: mississaugafb@icnareliefcanada.ca Because of CoVid, please contact before going.

Support your local food bank. The need is real.

Spring has sprung

And this new death is still among Us. 

Please, mask up, keep your distance. The light is in sight but we’re still in the tunnel.

Stepping in with a soulful talent comes with a side of brash, Toronto musician Taylor Abrahamse has just released new single, “I Don't Care Anymore", a sunny ballad with a Seventies lyrical sweet spot between James Taylor and Randy Newman, on a bed of beautiful melodic instrumentation. "I Don't Care Anymore" dropped Monday, March 22nd.

Check the heart tugging falsetto of ‘I Don’t Care Anymore’ live

Hell no. This Toronto foursome reaches way, way back to the Golden Era of rockabilly bad-asses like The Big Bopper, Link Wray, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins and Sonny Burgess as inspiration for their surly and unruly brand of rockabilly.

Here’s how they see it. “Shook Boys are a wild rockabilly band. They don’t play music to fall in love to, they play nasty stuff that boils primitive urges to the surface - like when you’re feeling right but doin’ wrong.”

“ Distilled from the Toronto’s rockin’ scene and forming in the summer of 2019 they got Murry up front; making people scream before he opens his mouth, Paddy on drums just banging and yellin’, Steve beating out notes on the double bass, and Big Mark with the amplified guitar - not thinking,  just keepin’ the chords live. Always impeccably dressed, when the band hits the floor during their electrifying live shows, vintage clothing enthusiasts get squirrely at the sight of filthy stage grime being ground into gabardine… and they don’t treat their instruments any better.”

Check out Shook Boys Live here:

Okay in Sweden the booking scene is kind of strange. It’s not working as the rest of the world since the agencies are often the promoters and also the bookers. Still, I can easily see what happens here might eventually happen to the rest of the world.

Of course, the COVID situation has left most of these companies in a tailspin. We don’t know how many they really laid off. And like the rest of the world,  some have jumped off and started new secret companies not yet to be seen in the light. What has been very evident is that the artist has been changing companies like crazy. The agencies have been more or less competing to get newsletters out with their latest signings. Still, it’s the same old artist-changing agency that probably won’t survive anyway when the whole system and network changes in a couple of months.

This week we salute ICNA Relief Food Bank 6120 Montevideo Rd. Unit #4
Mississauga, Tel: 905-858-1067
Email: mississaugafb@icnareliefcanada.ca
Because of COVID, please contact before going.

Support your local food bank. The need is real.

Stepping in with action from Alabama Shakes drivin’ wheel Brittany Howard. The high flying singer/guitarist shares a cover of Jackie Wilson’s "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" available on Amazon Music as part of the service’s programming for Women’s History Month.

Listen to Brittany Howard’s "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher"
amzn.to/BrittanyHoward

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.