#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:

Melleefresh is definitely that - Fresh. She is like a cool breeze on a sultry day or a patch of blue in a dark sky. Her energy is palpable. Talking to Melleefresh is like talking to a 25 year old artist with 30 years of music business experience. And that’s exactly what her career has been, three decades of going through the ups and downs, the highs and lows of the entertainment industry and she continues to thrive without a jaded bone in her body.  Melleefresh has been an avant-garde artist, vocalist, and music producer in the Canadian arts and music scene and has been seducing audiences with husky, dominatrix-style vocals or singing about murder behind a cartoonish Betty Boop-like delivery, there’s always a wink in Melleefresh’s eye.

Canadian singer/songwriter, composer, and producer powerhouse Chris Birkett is back and, this time, he’s not alone: the multi-JUNO Award winner and Platinum-selling producer is out to save the world with his new collective, The Happy Campers — and an arsenal of songs that take the musician in a brand-new direction creatively.

Birkett is one of the great music producers of our era, working with Buffy Sainte-Marie, Mel Brooks, Steve Earle, Bob Geldof, Alison Moyet, Dexys Midnight Runners, Talking Heads, The Pogues, and The Proclaimers — not to mention, just celebrated the 30th anniversary of producing Sinead O’Connor’s seismic release I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got — seamlessly weaves his prowess as a leader in the industry among the variety of projects he designs and oversees — The Happy Campers and “Save Our Beautiful World” among them.

During a production session with Berber musician Madjid Chaoui in Paris, the pair collaborated on a powerful climate awareness track combining Chaoui’s already written melodies with new lyrics written by Birkett. The result was “Save Our Beautiful World”, a tale timelessly told as an urgent reminder to protect Mother Nature.

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.

With the May 21 release date for Art Bergmann's latest album Late Stage Empire Dementia approaching on (weewerk), fans can now pre-order the record on their favourite digital platform.

Art Bergmann - Late Stage Empire Dementia Pre-Save: orcd.co/empiredementia

When you work in the music industry and you are at a party or a gathering with people that don’t work in the industry and you say that you work in the industry there is always someone who will ask, "so do you work with some famous music, or is it artists that we know?"

The question though is what is famous for this person. You don’t know what rock they have lived under or what small town they just escaped from? Or that they have a lot of knowledge? Also, especially when you work in the industry, you might work with artists that are on the way up that you think they should know about but that is never the case.

I have worked with all ranges of artists so you can’t really play that game with me. I can just drop some big names like Kiss or Dolly Parton and that would be the end of the discussion. Everybody knows them you think. Nope, if you are with an older lady in 70's she might never have heard about Kiss, Dolly Parton she had heard of but really doesn't know any songs. That happened last weekend. It also depends on where you are from. Every country has its own superstars that it seems like people just should know who they are.

All-female Blind River, ON-based singer/songwriter trio Women in Song reflect on the hopes and dreams of their parents who have suffered from, and eventually and sadly succumbed to Alzheimer’s Disease in this, their new single,  ”But I Knew Her When”.

The touching and ethereal song is the latest to land from the Ontario-based all-female group’s debut LP, Life of a Woman.

“But I Knew Her When” is a prime example of what to expect from Women in Song…

Watch and listen to“But I Knew Her When” here:

It takes chunks of inspiration from the likes of folk, pop and country music and fuses them all together into something beautiful, and features an astonishing progression of chorus-heavy chords on the acoustic guitar, the soothing melody of an airy violin, and the beautiful, yet haunting vocal harmonies of singers Lois O'Hanley-Jones, Debbie Rivard and Patty Dunlop.

Trust and loyalty is a very important lesson to learn in the music industry. Many don’t really understand this theory. Even the worst of  the mob were less hard in this area.

My guess is that over 70% of all careers are probably gone because of someone breaching these rules.

There is a test of younger children that is very cute, but interestingly you can find these homemade videos on YouTube search after “don’t eat the candy challenge”. In short, what they do is put a four-year-old in front of some candy. They tell the kid to not eat the candy and they will get more candy in return. The scientist though said to the kid that you can have the candy but if you wait until later you will get a whole bag of the same candy. Then they measure how far you are as a child in consequences. Some kids weren’t so far so they eat the candy and were not rewarded, some have matured more and waited and got a bigger reward.

My guess is that the kids that had not matured actually became artists. All of them. I have no proof but I have a  good hunch.

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. 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.

Toronto Tabla Ensemble continue to entice ears and eyes with this, their new video for “Maryem’s Here”.

Fresh from their most recent release, Unexpected Guests, the track and video bring diverse musical traditions together — from Indian classical dance, to Japanese drumming, to Arabic singing, and Western classical instrumentation. The goal is simple: create compelling music and showcase it with visual flair.

Check out “Maryem’s Here” on YouTube here:

Right now is the best place to be in the music industry. At the same time the worst to be in the music industry. No, I am not talking about the COVID, sure it disrupts things and puts people out of business, still, I see that as good cleansing of holy alliances that we really don’t need anymore in the industry.

I am actually talking about the state the media is in right now. To be honest, media is the place where you can get many eyes and ears to listen to your music. Right now everything is so shattered. Social media is mainly just bubbles where very few people see what you are doing or in this case listening.

Doesn't matter if you have a  half-million followers, most people won’t know who you are. Yesterday I read in the normal media (also called old media) about a Swedish influencer that had died. I never have heard about him until I read in normal media, I guess sadly his fame came with his death.

This week we spotlight the Ryerson Food Bank 55 Gould Street.

Food bank runs Mondays and Fridays from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The Ryerson University Students' Union supports the Good Food Centre at 55 Gould Street.

Spinning into the music with the new Lee Aaron album ''Radio On!'' On which the former Metal Queen returns to her head banging roots. It drops worldwide June 18th 2021and is a strong and commercially savvy body of tuneage. As per the title, Radio On! is a collection of 12 new originals written in one weekend.

“I had this crazy idea, that if we locked ourselves in a room for a couple days and the only agenda was to have FUN and tap into the influences that inspired us as teenagers, it would be interesting to see what happened. I think we even surprised ourselves!"

The tight musical bond that has been growing since 2016’s critically acclaimed Fire and Gasoline took a giant leap forward as Lee and her band (drummer John Cody, bassist Dave Reimer, and guitarist Sean Kelly)’s lost weekend of garage-band-style song writing was so successful it resulted in an entire album.

Billboard-featured RnB producer and artist Matell is making a bold statement in this, his new single “Fragile (Help Someone)”.

Heralded for previous releases like “I apologize 2u & u2,” “Quickly,” “Low expectations,” “I said I’m Gonna Go, Oops, Oops Upside Your Head” — and the strong response from the multi-licensed “My conversations with God” — the Colorado-based singer/songwriter aims to leverage “Fragile (Help Someone)” to send a heartfelt, intimate message against the violence that’s become normalized in recent years.

Check out “Fragile (Help Someone)” here:

One can assume the track’s crude, bare-bones approach aims at creating a sobering effect to the harsh reality that has become normality throughout Northern America, and the world. When asked, Matell indicated he was intending this piece as a “we are the world meets 2021.”