This week we spotlight:
Thornhill Food Bank 1 Leaside Park Dr Unit 5B, Toronto, East York Office phone  647-428-9755
Email thorncliffefb@icnareliefcanada.ca

COVID19 -- Food bank open by appointment only, call and leave message at any time but please do not call Mon or Thurs * counselling service by phone -- call for appointment or visit website to register

Stepping in with this pumped up Motown flavoured number that doesn’t need to wave its politics in your face, but such is the nature of the times that being about the music just isn’t enough anymore.

This week we spotlight Second Harvest Central Food Bank
1450 Lodestar Road Unit 18 Toronto.
Tel: 416-408-2594 email@secondharvest.ca

Member agencies have been coping with the new realities of providing emergency food relief during COVID, whether it’s changing their community dining programs to take away meals or offering prepared hampers instead of food bank access. 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. The need is dire.

One of the bands I work with once said, “Better to do something than do nothing at all”. Another quote is the circus owner Phineas T. Barnum that said, “There's no such thing as bad publicity”. Of course, in the worst situations, there is bad publicity and doing things totally wrong. In most cases, it’s not. And I feel many withhold themselves just by being afraid making a mistake.

Doing nothing is really safe, I can admit that. Progression wise though it’s pure stupidity. Without taking chances you are not going further. My biggest successes have been through mistakes. Also, a lot of knowledge comes from making mistakes. There is a difference between making mistakes and making mistakes.

I sent out a newsletter today. It was very fast because I had just two hours between two different quite important panels and today was the last day we could get the letter out before we got new numbers to send to in our mailing system. Of course, I had to put things together in no time. No chance to double-check. Not even the links and spelling were just through the spelling program.

Multi-GRAMMY and JUNO Award-winning artist Chin Injeti releases a rallying cry of self-love and reliance in this, his new single “For The Love Of Life”.

Check out the YouTube video of “For The Love Of Life” here:

And it wasn’t completed without some of Injeti’s tenured collaborative magic; he called upon fellow Vancouverite Teon Gibbs to feature on the track.

With a burgeoning catalog at 255,000+ streams across Spotify alone, “For The Love Of Life” is Injeti’s first of the year, and follows 2020 offerings of “Let Go,” “Serious,” and “Falling” — the latter of which featured Esthero on accompanying vox and Delhi 2 Dublin’s Tarun Nayer on tabla.

I just saw a local government that is supporting local artists doing another meet-up. This time it was that their local artists should learn social media. It’s nice for the artist that they get a chance to learn something around the business. Still, it won’t help their career. Social media today is so advanced that the normal artist really can’t be their own social media manager. This course will just get them some small tip-offs and people think that they can do it on their own.

Instead, if they were serious about it, they should hire a social media manager. The artist will have enough problems to keep up with all that content that should be produced then be able to follow up on the information they got from that government sponsor meeting. In the end, the information they get is old by the time that meeting is over. To handle social media today you need to follow the trends and be active all the time to find out about the new functions and what is working. That is a professional's job. Either the artist must choose from being an artist or a social media manager. There is a reason even small businesses hire a social media manager.

Brooklyn, NY’s Kate Koenig is a very hungry experimental-folk caterpillar that eats Fleet Foxes’ progressivism and Kate Bush’s iconoclasticism and Jeff Buckley’s zeal and Leonard Cohen’s disenchantment, and is still eating while you read this line. She’s an experimental folk singer/songwriter who is bringing new spirit to a tiring season with her sophomore album Etemenanki.

The new album features 40 minutes of contemplative, cinematic, and inventive compositions, some of which are influenced by Middle Eastern tonalities.

Etemenanki is a concept album that is written from a place of great emotional and spiritual introspection, but at the same time, doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s an aural folktale: Each song is told from the perspective of a mythological creature of Koenig’s own invention that goes by the tongue-in-cheek name of Bʌfdɔg (pronounced “Buff Dog”). The creature has existed at every time there has been and ever shall be, and as every person who has been and ever shall be. Some songs are sung by Bʌfdɔg themselves, while others are sung from the perspective of individuals whom Bʌfdɔg has embodied.

Six-time JUNO Award nominated jazz vocalist and pianist Carol Welsman is serving up “A Taste Of Paradise” with this, her newly reimagined single with Randy Bachman.

“I had the good fortune of meeting Randy recently,” Welsman shares, “and, when I heard him sing ‘A Taste of Paradise,’ I immediately included it in my repertoire.”

Check out “A Taste Of Paradise” on YouTube here:

As founder of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and with multi-Platinum, chart-topping, and multi-award winning status in the sphere, Bachman is ultimately known for his rock-influenced songs — but notes early-life inspiration from guitarist Lenny Breau; it was Breau who introduced him to Bossa nova, and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

This week we salute the venerable Yonge Street Mission. 381 Yonge St, Toronto 416-977-7259. Open Mon-Fri. 9-5.

The Mission usually feeds 6-800 people a week with its grocery services. Because of COVID-19, chief executive Angie Peters said demand has skyrocketed and the food bank is now stretching to feed nearly twice as many.

Stepping in with a cross-pollinated mashup for the ages. JUNO nominated jazz vocalist and pianist Carol Welsman is serving up “A Taste Of Paradise” her newly reimagined single with Randy Bachman — available now!

“I had the good fortune of meeting Randy recently,” Welsman shares, “and, when I heard him sing ‘A Taste of Paradise,’ I immediately included it in my repertoire.”

As founder of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and with multi-Platinum, chart-topping, and multi-award winning status in the sphere, Bachman is ultimately known for his rock-influenced songs — but notes early-life inspiration from guitarist Lenny Breau who introduced him to Bossa nova, and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Let me guess if you are an artist, you don’t have a homepage. Or your homepage is not updated! How can I tell? In the past few days, I have been adding independent artists to both my festival Future Echoes and our radio station Cashbox Radio. And I’m usually surprised when an artist really has a homepage. If it’s updated with the latest, I’m really impressed. Most do not this and it had made my work so hard.

You don’t need a homepage some artist tell you. We have our social media, that is where the fans are hanging out.

There is a problem with this. You actually own a website and you decide how it should be presented and also have the opportunity to collect the fans there. The ugly truth with social media is that you don’t own your followers, they are actually owned by Facebook, Tiktok, and other multi-national companies. They just let you have access to your own fans for a little bit. In reality, they actually let you pay to reach your own followers by paid messages. Think about it, a post in these networks only reaches around 10% of your fanbase, if you pay you can reach more.

This week we salute ACSA Food Bank, 1911 Kennedy Rd, Toronto, serving the Malvern area. Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Stepping in with Strippers Union,  fronted by the harmonic duo of Rob Baker (The Tragically Hip) and Craig Northey (Odds), who have released Disc 1 of their new double LP, The Undertaking. Disc 2 of the album will arrive March 12. The album is also available on limited edition vinyl today which includes both discs.

In 2006, Strippers Union released their debut LP, Strippers Union Local 518, and then followed it up with The Deuce a short five years later. Now, nearly a decade later the band is ready to share their third LP, The Undertaking, a double LP recorded at The Bathouse Studio with drummer Pat Steward and bassist Doug Elliott.

I guess many of us that work in the music industry are failed musician. My first band was not even a band. We were incredibly young and started a band even though we could not play any instruments. Instead, we played air instruments to our favorite songs. Cute yes, but there is one thing here. The first thing we did before we even rehearsed with our air instruments, was to take a band picture. To be honest to get the right location and background and pose took so long that we missed our first rehearsal and we had to get home before curfew. And the second rehearsal we looked at the pictures and the girl that sang was not pleased because the guys in the band looked better than her. In the third rehearsal, we went to take new pictures.

I have just gone through 100 applications for my new festival, Future Echoes. I started to see a trend. Many of the pictures were blurry or out of focus. Another thing was that the artist was not in the whole picture. It was like a gallery of modern art. A place where you really don’t know what the art is, or if you are staring at the radiator and no art at all.

This week we spotlight Second Harvest Central Food Bank 1450 Lodestar Road Unit 18 Toronto
Tel: 416-408-2594
email@secondharvest.ca

Member agencies have been coping with the new realities of providing emergency food relief during COVID, whether it’s changing their community dining programs to take away meals or offering prepared hampers instead of food bank access. 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. The need is dire.

Stepping in with a comeback single from a band that thankfully keeps coming back. Recorded remotely in lockdown by band members in their homes in Toronto and Montreal, and assembled and mixed by Moist guitarist and producer, Mark Makoway, “Tarantino” is Moist’s first new release since their 2014 album, Glory Under Dangerous Skies.

An Evening with Pomeranz & Brickman will be the virtual musical experience of the season.

2 hitmakers - 2 pianos - 1 goal….to give the world a musical hug at a time when we all need it most.

This will be an intimate evening of warmth and wit with each performing their hits, separately and together. A once-in-a-lifetime event.  Part of the set list includes songs like “Tryin’ To Get The Feeling Again”, “The Gift”, “Born for You”, “Valentine”, “Got to Believe in Magic”, “Simple Things” and “On This Day” with many more favourites for fans and music lovers.

The show will be broadcast 3 times on February 20^th, 2021 via a private online link to accommodate fans all over the world in different time zones. The Gents will also host a Meet and Greet Zoom Room for fans who have purchased an additional VIP ticket.

Times / Dates / Tickets
bit.ly/pomeranzandbrickman
SE ASIA
Saturday, February 20
9 PM PHST

EUROPE
Saturday, February 20
7 PM GMT

This week we spotlight Haven on the Queensway 1533 The Queensway Toronto, Ontario

Hours of Operation: Phone: 416-640-2005 Email: info@havenontheq.com.  Open by appointment and pick up only due to COVID-19.

Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Stepping in with new material from the irrepressible Begonia. In late February of 2020, Begonia (Alexa Dirks) hosted five spectacular sold out shows in her hometown of Winnipeg, which capped off the Fear Live Tour supporting Begonia’s acclaimed new record, Fear (out via Rex Baby Records). Those concerts are now available as the Fear Tour Live Album.

I read another column from “mainstream media” as a pillage Trump voter would call it. They just saw a chance right now to get rid of one of their biggest competitors. Social media has taken over what people read. They don’t read normal newspapers instead they scroll through social media posts and there the algorithms feed them whatever makes them tick. If you are totally hooked on cat pictures you will get cat pictures. You will probably almost never discover something new you like instead you will fall into the rabbit hole of cat pictures.

Multi-award-winning Toronto-based vocal group, Countermeasure, has just released the video for Hold On - the first single off their concept album, Guest Sessions. Countermeasure's musical director, Aaron Jensen, composed Hold On, inspired by a conversation with bandmate, and vocal soloist Qwyn Alexis. The song reflects the experiences of motherhood: the fear and helplessness of setting your children out into the world, and the hope that by instilling them with love, decency, and pride, they'll be equipped to face whatever life has in store. The track features award-winning Toronto-based vibraphonist, Michael Davidson.

For the past weeks I have been on several seminars involving artists and their creativity. It seems like many feel that they are not productive and have writer's block. As well, a lot of anxiety is discussed during  these seminars.

That is ok, but I’m a bit tired watching the whole industry treating the artists as a creative genius and the sole person treated as a creative genius. To be kind of frank, the artist's creativity is often very unlimited and free, it’s should not stop there. It seems like we never talk about those people that have to be creative afterward. These people have to be triple creative with the material they get in. I’m talking about the team around artists like PR agents, managers, producers and consultants.

Hunger never takes a holiday. Highlighting Thistletown Community Services Unit (22) Food Bank 248 Jamestown Crescent. Hours may have changed due to COVID. Please call (416) 745-2822.

Support your local food bank. The need is dire.

Opening with the dawning of a big talent, TiKA, who at the beginning of the album making process, was without home or hope, has become a burgeoning icon in Canada with her presence on TV, as a spokesmodel for Sephora, and as a go-to music composer. Her debut album Anywhere But Here will be released February 26th. The third single from the record and the accompanying compelling video, is for the Prince classic "I Would Die 4U”. The video was directed by NASKADEMINI, who has been at the helm for all of the visuals from Anywhere But Here. Once a champion and promoter of local talent such as Daniel Caesar, Jessie Reyez, Clairmont the Second and more, the time has arrived for TiKA to take centre stage. TiKA, in her own words, on the song, and the video:

Ottawa synthpop band Church of Trees has hooked up with legendary Rough Trade vocalist, Carole Pope, on a new single WORLD’S A BITCH. The single captures the global angst over the COVID pandemic and the desperate need for vaccine distribution.

The JUNO award-winning Pope, who pushed the boundaries of sexuality and sexual politics both in Rough Trade songs and on stage, says “I think the song encapsulates how we’re all feeling about being locked down… and you can dance to it!”

WORLD’S A BITCH is the lead track off Church of Tree’s forthcoming EP PAUSE, which drops in late February.

Church of Trees founder Bernard Frazer brims with excitement describing his experience with the rock icon. “She was delightful! They say to never meet your heroes because they’ll disappoint, but Carole was extraordinary, and in such fine form!”

“The papers said Ed always played from the heart
He got an agent and a roadie named Bart
They made a record and it went in the charts
The sky was the limit”

Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open” catches the dream very well and it is one of my favorite songs. It’s about and artist rise and fall and the lines above here is the essential dream of the music industry.

Someone said that the music industry is selling a dream; we make smoke and mirrors to keep that dream still true. The question now is when will this dream change? The dream will always be there, that a lot of people will enjoy my art. But the rules have changed.

In the dark middle-ages when we didn’t have cell phones or internet, yes I’m talking the 80’s and early 90’s.  Recording a record was expensive. To get a good sound you needed to be in a professional studio with the right equipment. The record label put up money for artwork, a producer, pressing, and recording. An album was an achievement.