The Beaches Jazz Festival Celebrates 30 Years!

Fri Jul 20, 2018

The Beaches International Jazz Festival is a 10-day music festival held each year in the lakeside Beaches community of Toronto in the month of July. Originally started in 1988, it is now one of Canada's largest free music festivals with nearly 800,000 attendees, throughout its 10-day span. The Festival takes place across a number of venues; stage concerts are held in several different parks within the area and also along a two-kilometre stretch of the Beach main street - Queen Street East.

Every year, the Festival brings in internationally acclaimed performers while also showcasing local talent, including “new generation” jazz musicians. The Festival now hires around 1000 artists per annum, including 50 bands for its “StreetFest” event along Queen Street East.

BTW Rayland Baxter, Moby, Annie Bonsignore, Rae Spoon, Stephanie Ratcliff, Sirens Of Shanti

Fri Jul 20 2018
Rayland Baxter

Alt-country/Americana artist Rayland Baxter has offered a new song from the Butch Walker-produced project, Wide Awake.. "79 Shiny Revolvers" was the first song Rayland wrote during his three-month-long isolation quest at Franklin, Kentucky's secluded Thunder Sound Studios. He composed fifty songs there, ten of which eventually became Wide Awake.

"79 Shiny Revolvers" is, in Rayland's own estimation, one of the most important songs he's ever written. Its lyrics burst with irony and cutting humour to interrogate our nation's fixation on guns: "You really wanna save the world, man / well, I wanna save it too / we can blow em away / the American way."

Amos Lee Unveils Hang On Hang On

Fri Jul 20 2018
Amos Lee Unveils Hang On Hang On

This was the hardest song for me to sing on the album,” says Amos Lee of Hang On, Hang On – the cathartic and soulful ballad at the center of his upcoming My New Moon (August 31 / Dualtone Records). While the record is largely focused on Amos finding strength in the courage of others – from relationships he built through Musicians on Call and the Wounded Warrior Project to inspiration he took from the Parkland survivors - Hang On, Hang On sees Amos use these experiences to work through profound loss in his own life. Written after Amos lost his grandmother, the song is set around the last night he spent with her: “I would’ve stayed forever,” he sings, “but it didn’t work out that way.”

Listen to Hang On, Hang On, here.

Ori Dagan The Music Plays On

Fri Jul 13, 2018

Ori Dagan has much to be proud of in his ever-changing musical journey in this crazy business we call music.“A Tribute to Nat King Cole” (Dagan's 3rd recording and the first visual album in jazz history) recently debuted at #1 on the iTunes Canada Jazz Chart, and its corresponding 12 music videos have screened at over 35 Music and Film Festivals worldwide, garnering over 300,000 views on YouTube, Winner of the Best Album, Silver Medal – Global Music Award, Nominated for Best Jazz Vocals- Toronto Independent Music Awards along with a list a mile long of reviews.

Dagan also teaches what he preaches by giving scat lessons and workshops to learn the “Shoe-bee-do’s” and “Shoe-bee-don’ts,” to anyone who wants to learn either professionally or just for the love of the musical era and greats who paved the way for so many in the jazz world.

BTW Barney Bentall, Kill No Albatross, Elizabeth Shepherd, Dizzy Mystics, minihorse, Ellevator, Allen Stone, Go North Music Festival

Fri Jul 13 2018
Barney Bentall Photo Credit Mark Maryanovich

True that storytelling through song has never been a weak point for JUNO Award-winning Barney Bentall. He continues to prove this with a rare excursion into single land on “Don’t Wait For Me Marie” and its cinematic, century-swapping video, available on YouTube now!

Between frames of fire and wild horses comes the tale of languished lust and Western greed, woven in a way only Bentall can deliver.

The song, of note, is one of many on The Drifter & The Preacher that Bentall says “ultimately wrote itself.

“There are times I look back and think, ‘well, that’s not where I thought this one was going to go,’” says Bentall. “With ‘Don’t Wait For Me Marie’ I thought, ‘I’m going to write a song about a guy leaving the Fraser Valley near Vancouver in the 1800s to look for gold in the Cariboo.’ I wanted it to be an uptempo bluegrass song because we were starting The High Bar Gang… I was very immersed in that style of music.

Singer Trudy Lynn Declares Blues Keep Knockin’

Fri Jul 13 2018
Singer Trudy Lynn Declares Blues Keep Knockin’

Six-time Blues Music Award nominee Trudy Lynn will release her new CD, Blues Keep Knockin’ from Connor Ray Music on July 27. Backing Trudy’s vocals on the new disc are musicians Steve Krase – harmonica; David Carter – guitar; Terry Dry – bass; Matt Johnson – drums; Jim Brady – trumpet; and Dan Carpenter – sax; with special guests Bob Lanza and Carolyn Wonderland on guitar.

Trudy was recently honored with three nominations for the Living Blues Magazine Awards, with voting currently underway at the magazine’s website: www.livingblues.com.

“I want to thank all my blues fans new and old, or should I say ‘mature,’ for being with me through my journey with the blues, both near and far,” Trudy says in the album liner notes. “My name is Trudy Lynn and I sing the blues for you, some old some new and some borrowed too. I love singing the blues! The blues knocks on my door, on my window and my heart. I must sing and I sing only what I feel and I sing to make you feel exactly what I feel!”

BTW The Shuffle Demons, Bernice, Emilie Mover, Danny Michel, Joey Landreth, Lauria, Goldilox

Fri Jul 06 2018
The Shuffle Demons

What do you get when you cross 3 amazing saxophonists dressed in wacky clothes, a crazy dancing drummer and a killer upright bass player and have them sing songs about Buses, Roaches and Hockey that spend 1/2 their time playing in the audience? The Shuffle Demons, that’s what!!!

The Shuffle Demons are a high-energy Canadian band that blends virtuosic jazz and funk playing with eye-catching costumes and over the top stage antics to produce a kinetic show. A hit at festivals all over the world, the Shuffle Demons are a crowd-pleasing, full-on musical group that backs up wild stage antics with phenomenal playing by some of Canada’s most talented musicians. Therefore, in the teeth of the summer's heat, the contrarian Demons are checking into Hugh's Room Live to go mano a mano with the club's AC system Fri. Jul. 6, showtime 8.30 pm.

Tribe Royal The Road to Muscle Shoals

Fri Jul 06, 2018
Producer Norbert Putnam
Producer Norbert Putnam

In November of 2017, I had the good fortune to record in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with the uber-talented and esteemed producer Norbert Putnam. Norbert gained his accolades for his productions, Jimmy Buffett, Dan Fogleberg and Joan Baez to name a few as well as voluminous sessions as a bass player and owning and operating one of the first independent recording studios in Nashville, Tennessee, Quadrefonic Sound Studio. We recorded at The Nutthouse Recording Studio and the experience was amazing.

BTW- Wax Mannequin, Dan Mangan, The Hearts, John Orpheus, Lucy Rose, Church of Trees, Cordovas, Julian Taylor Band

Fri Jun 29 2018
Wax Mannequin

The oft enigmatic Wax Mannequin (aka Hamilton, Ontario's Christopher Adeney) dropped his seventh album, Have A New Name, on June 22 through Coax Records/Outside Music The album was launched with Wax Mannequin's June 23 show at This Ain't Hollywood in Hamilton, followed by a full Canadian tour that kicks off July 14 at The Rivoli in Toronto.

As Wax Mannequin, Adeney has established himself as a profound lyricist and songsmith, as well as a self-effacing showman. His music also reveals him to be a student of the human psyche, constantly finding fresh and interesting ways to frame the people we are and the things we encounter. All of that is gloriously displayed on Have A New Name, the result of Adeney reuniting with producer Edwin Burnett, with whom he made some of the first Wax Mannequin recordings in the early 2000s.

BTW Cari Burdett, Jim James, King Princess, Heavyweights Brass Band, Amanda Rheaume, Mimi O’Bonsawin, Folly & The Hunter

Fri Jun 22 2018
Cari Burdett

World music fusion artist Cari Burdett is bringing her exotic fusion of jazz, art song, folk and opera eastward this June, including dates at the Winnipeg Jazz Festival, Toronto's Burdock Music Hall, and Montreal's Upstairs Jazz B. She'll be accompanied by members of her 4Tet who are also featured in the new video for "De Cara a la Pared," written and originally performed by the late great Lhasa de Sela. The video premiered exclusively at Roots Music Canada.

Audra Santa The Power And The Pain

Fri Jun 08, 2018

From Thunder Bay to Melbourne, Toronto to Cannes, Audra Santa's a happening thing. Started happening in Australia, where she spent ten happy years exploring the Aussie badlands and goodlands, playing in various musical projects, including progressive rock band, The Wandering, and Indie-folk duo, Amon and Audra. Her powerful, expressive vocals and talent for instaconnections with people were simply too evident for Audra not to go solo. Recording commenced at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne over Easter 2016 with high enthusiasm on all sides. For Audra though, it was a being put in a blender kind of thing, high on getting her songs down, low down inside with the certain knowledge that the marriage she had cherished with all her being, had put aside her music for at one point, was going off the cliff.

BTW- Good Lovelies, Margaret Glaspy, JP Maurice, Dálava/Lenka Lichtenberg, Natalie Prass, Rufus John

Fri May 11 2018
Good Lovelies

Juno Award-winning and definitely on a Spring roll, Good Lovelies' are on a tour which began with a buzzworthy show at Massey Hall on Friday, May 11th as special guests of headliner Royal Wood and carries on into June. The set showcases current album, Shapeshifters.

"We are so excited to announce our upcoming Canadian tour," shares the band. "This spring we will bring our new album, Shapeshifters, from Ontario to British Columbia. This tour is the culmination of years of writing and recording our latest album, and we hope you will join us as we, and our friends Mark Mariash (drums) and Steve Zsirai (Bass), bring these new songs to life."

How Does Music Influence Gameplay?

Mon Mar 26 2018
How Does Music Influence Gameplay?

When it comes to video games in their various forms, we often discuss how they look in terms of the graphics and animations; or we talk about the gameplay. One thing that often gets overlooked is the music that is contained within the game, and just how important it is in helping to create an enjoyable and immersive gaming experience. So just how does music influence gameplay and how important is it for players?

The first thing to consider is the game itself and it's setting. It’s hugely important for the player to be immersed completely in the game, and music helps to do this by creating the atmosphere. Taking a first-person shooter game as an example, there’s no way a player would feel in the slightest involved; if the background music was the type you would find in a Super Mario game.

BTW Tara Beier, Rich Aucoin, Lucy Rose, Major Love, Ought, Liza Anne, Nagata Shachu/ Ken Yoshioka/ Julian Fauth

Fri Mar 16 2018
Tara Beier

L.A.-based, Vancouver-born singer-songwriter Tara Beier has released a new single, "Forgiveness," on her own Red Raven Records, a song with a message she hopes will take hold within our current political and social climate. Musically, "Forgiveness" builds on the power pop sound that defined Beier's acclaimed 2017 EP California 1970, which Popmatters described as, "one-of-a-kind Canadian indie rock," and Spill Magazine said, "firmly establishes a powerful new voice." As with California 1970, Beier produced "Forgiveness" at L.A.'s The Village Studios utilizing some of the city's top-notch musicians, including drummer Tripp Beam (Moby) who, Beier explains, played a crucial role in the song's creation. " Tripp joined me last summer when I played Riverfest [in Elora ON] and during that time, he introduced me to a book called The Missing Link by Sydney Banks.

Pennywise Release Never Gonna Die

Fri Mar 16 2018
Pennywise Release Never Gonna Die

On April 20, Pennywise will release their new album Never Gonna Die. The legendary punk band’s twelfth full-length, Never Gonna Die is the first full album of new songs with singer Jim Lindberg, guitarist Fletcher Dragge, drummer Byron McMackin, and bassist Randy Bradbury in over a decade.

Today, Pennywise have shared Never Gonna Die’s title track: a thrashing and furious look into “the seemingly immortal practice of handing down our ancient biases, prejudice, and religious dogma from each generation to the next,” according to Lindberg.

“The goal of the song is to try and get young people to finally say enough, and that the system isn’t working,” Lindberg adds. “It’s going to take a massive evolutionary shift in consciousness to change it, starting with the youth, because unless we do, we’ll just have more of the same carnage we’ve seen happening all over the world reincarnated with every new generation.”

Eric Andersen Silent Angel: Fire and Ashes of Heinrich Böll

Fri Mar 09, 2018

Years from now when the generation studies music history, the folk music revival of the 1960’s to be specific, Eric Andersen will be a large part of that study. But for now, Eric is going back in history for his projects for Meyer Records. His output on the Meyer label has included a tribute to the existential Camus and the rock star Lord Byron mingling with the Universe. And now his focus is Heinrich Böll; a Nobel Prize-winning writer, an anti-fascist, and soldier in the German army who deserted the army and eventually was captured by Americans where he was sent to a Prisoner of War camp.

Silent Angel: Fire and Ashes shines a light on the life and adventures of Heinrich Böll; who dedicated his life to chronicling his experiences of wartime and post-war Germany. And from these writings, Eric was able to knit together songs that tell those tales but also manage to warn of the ever-present danger of history repeating itself with the current political landscape.

BTW Johnson Crook, Caveboy, Margaret Glaspy, David Kitt, Avery Raquel, Moby, Peter Asher & Jeremy Clyde

Fri Mar 09 2018
Johnson Crook Photo Credit Francesa Ludikar

Kinda rootsy, kinda folk-rocky, Toronto-based band Johnson Crook have released their latest single "Mr. Nobody" to coincide with tour dates in Ontario this March. The song, from Johnson Crook's 2017 full-length debut The Album, released by Coalition Music, features guest vocals from Canadian music legend Tom Cochrane, The quartet—Noel Johnson (rhythm guitars/vocals), brothers Nathan (lead guitar/mandolin/vocals) and Trevor Crook (drums/vocals) and Jared Craig (bass/vocals), have forged their sound out of a love of pure, honest music stemming from their small-town backgrounds. Drawing inspiration from groups like the Eagles and the Avett Brothers, each member of Johnson Crook contributes equally, injecting their unique personalities into an overall sound built on four voices.

The Irish That Brought Us The Music

Fri Mar 02, 2018

When you ask someone what they think of you mention Irish music, most will say things like Molly Malone or Black Velvet Band or some other traditional Irish folk song. But although England and Liverpool, in particular, are front and center on the British Invasion front, there was a lot going on in Ireland as well.

In Ireland in the 1960’s there were what were called Showbands, groups of performers who played at dancehalls and clubs putting on a show and playing repertoires that included all the American and British hits of the day. Pretty much if you wanted to be a professional musician in Ireland Show bands was the chosen route. Irishman like Van Morrison, Henry McCullough and Rory Gallagher worked in Irish Showbands who would later become rock stars. Van Morrison achieved international success in the 1960s with the group, Them and the hit “Gloria” before launching a huge solo career.

BTW- Hearing Trees, Devin Cuddy Band, Richard Shindell, Five Alarm Funk, Iskwé, Len Mizzoni

Fri Mar 02 2018
Hearing Trees Photo Credit Greg Gallinger

Could the third one be the charm? Winnipeg indie rockers Hearing Trees are following up their previous 2 EP releases with a 3rd release and debut full-length album Quiet Dreams on March 2nd. The lyric video for the first single 'Telling Peter' premiering on Exclaim.ca and in support of the new album, Hearing Trees will be embarking on a lengthy Cross-Canada Tour starting March 2nd in Regina.

Hearing Trees existed before frontman Graham Hnatiuk had ever picked up a guitar or penned a single lyric. Even as just an apparition in his mind’s eye, Hnatiuk’s musical vision essentially saved his sanity, maybe even his life. And now, with the release of their debut LP, Quiet Dreams, the creative seeds sown years ago have come to full fruition.