I have come across this idea a few times lately from various blogs and articles: that as an artist, you must have the mindset that you are your own label, publisher, PR agent, and everything else. Being an artist today is like to starting a company, and you must build it up from the ground up.

This stands in stark contrast to the dream that the music industry has been peddling for decades, particularly during the 80s and 90s, which was that you could only "make it" if you signed with a big record label. According to that narrative, your job was just to get to the moment when you sign the papers, and then you could sit back and enjoy the ride.
However, that was never entirely true, and now it's even further from the truth. I've noticed that many young, intelligent people are abandoning major labels because they are frustrated that they can't get the needle to move in any direction for an artist. I see the same frustration in many people who work for new tech companies that try to fit every artist into their own box, believing that every artist is equal and should follow the same path to success.

Canadian Pro Audio manufacturer, Yorkville Sound, and iconic amplifier brand, Traynor Amps, are celebrating 60 years in 2023. This milestone marks significant achievements in manufacturing, sound technology, and tells the unlikely story of how a mild-mannered jazz trumpeter and a rock & roll bass player ignited a major cultural shift in Canadian music.

Six decades ago, Long & McQuade founder, Jack Long & then staff repair person, Pete Traynor took a walk outside of the very first Long & McQuade location on Toronto’s Yonge Street, seeking inspiration for their new venture.  With the Yorkville street sign in their line of sight, Yorkville Sound was born.

The first Yorkville Sound product was also a first for the globe. In the early sixties, lead vocalists showed up to gigs with a microphone and a hope that there was something to plug in to. At the request of a local band, Pete Traynor built two road-worthy column PA speakers to solve this problem once and for all. The resulting Yorkville YSC speakers comprised the first known portable column PA system, soon to be commonplace on stages around the world.

The career-spanning overview Tommy James with the Shondells and a solo artist, this is a ‘must have’ for any music fan.

This is the ONLY collection to include the A-sides of EVERY single he released between 1966 and 2006 – 47 in all – each one in its original version and format, whether mono or stereo.

Many of these tracks have never been released on CD and are available ONLY on this comprehensive compilation. Plus a long lost BONUS track he recorded in 1962 as Tom & the Tornadoes, “Long Ponytail”.

Had a great lecture with a researcher and expert on the music industry the other day. He had deep-dived into the AI that now is coming through at an enormous speed. And yes, it’s pretty clear where we are heading and what part of thhe business that will take the blow.

My guess here is that the recorded music will take a heavy blow. Making music has never been easier. Today I needed a new jingle for my Tiktok channel. With ease, I have five different AI systems that can make a jingle from scratch, copyright free, without any cost. It took me approximately around five minutes to get it and implement it in my next Tiktok video.

This song in the eighties cost me dearly. First, I would have needed musicians to make the song, then go into an expensive studio to record it. Just that alone we are talking over $1000.00. On top of that it wouldn’t be my song since another person wrote it, so I would need to get the rights. Then also mixing and mastering on top of that. And aren't even addressing the fact that it would talk probably two months to just create it.

Ann Wilson, known the world over as a founder and the lead singer-songwriter of the barrier-breaking band Heart, is here to stay.

Widely praised among the greatest singers in the history of rock, Ann’s extraordinarily powerful voice has been sending chills down her audience’s collective spine for over five decades, earning record sales of more than 35 million, an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.

“Barracuda,” “Crazy On You,” and “Magic Man” are among the many songs she’s written that now reside in the pantheon of rock’s greatest hits. “Greed” from 2022’s Fierce Bliss plays seamlessly alongside the classics in her current live set.

It never ceases to amaze me how people think. When I plan my festivals, we research other music dates globally and check what we are up against even if it is on the other side of the world if it’s big enough. At the same time,  we check what happens in closer proximity or any other events that might attract people to get hotel rooms or not attend our event for some other reason. It’s part of being professional and thorough in our position.

Organize a local showcase for local bands and put it on the same day as when the biggest showcase in the world is happening just a couple of hours from your city. Top of that, the week before your event the biggest city in the area holds one of the biggest showcases in the country. I don’t know if you are bold or just plain stupid? Then to add to the stupidity you hold the event online? There is no way you can get a professional to be on since they are already busy. Maybe some local music industry people, but what is the point that two locals should meet online? Then you overcharge for your service and think that the industry delegates should participate for free?

SPIKE is once again getting ready to welcome delegates and performing artists to the ancient city of Plovdiv (EU Capital of Culture 2019) between 25-27 May, 2023. With an expanded program featuring delegates from over 15 countries and over 30 performances from artists coming from as far Canada and Japan, SPIKE is an international music industry hub where talent and ambition will have a chance to acquire new skills, opportunities, and partners.

“We have seen a 100% increase in delegate registration and more than threefold increase in artist applications,” reports founder Boyan Robert Pinter. “We take this is a sign from the music and professional community that have managed to provide the educational and networking opportunities that we set out to do.” 

Guests Who doesn’t love taking a trip down memory lane and reminiscing? If you think back to your youth, there were probably many iconic figures who made a huge impact on you, and wouldn’t it be cool to learn more about what made them tick?

If so, you’re in for a real treat as the 30-year veteran of radio, Jeff Sammut brings you his newly created podcast called, “Remembering with Jeff Sammut”. He unlocks all the behind-the-scenes stories of your favourite cultural figures with his first episode launching on Thursday, April 13th!

Remembering kicks off this Thursday with Toronto-born host, Jeff Sammut remembering the late, great singer/songwriter and legendary Canadian Rock icon – Gord Downie, the Tragically Hip frontman. This episode will give the listeners an in-depth account of his life and an inside perspective from Gord’s wife, Kaya Usher, who shares many amazing, heartfelt stories.

I just got a request from a music company to find new artists for them to develop. This is a really good opportunity for an artist. The style was not a big issue, they want music that works in most places, so not too nice genres like extreme metal, underground hip hop, or experimental music.

Since they want to invest for an extended period of time, they see that the artist is not over twenty-five years old. Not a must, but I can understand their wishes here. In fact, today age doesn’t really matter in the music industry since you can break through in the strangest ways and age doesn’t matter in those cases. Here they want to work with the artist in a certain way and need time that an older artist really might have available.

They had a special request that the artist should be able to write good songs themselves. Of course, they could buy them from writing camps, but they felt that they want a uniqueness for the artists so they would love to have an artist that could write their own material. But not a total must.

“Time takes its toll,” sings the 77-year-old Bruce Cockburn on the opening song, “On A Roll,” his 38th album, O Sun O Moon, out on May 12 via True North Records.  “But in my soul / I’m on a roll.”

Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality, and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock, and world-beat styles while earning high praise as a prolific, inspired songwriter and accomplished guitarist. He remains deeply respected for his activism and humanist song lyrics that thread throughout his career. On all his albums Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith of human experience in song.

Bruce Cockburn has won 13 JUNO Awards, an induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada, among many other accolades. He has 22 gold and platinum records including a six-times platinum record for his Christmas album. Cockburn continues to tour internationally.

He’s on a roll.

When I studied to be a sound engineer inside the console was a small plaque with the message “You can’t make gold out of cowshit”. You could only see this if you were working to clean the channels, so it was a message between professionals and people that were on their way.

Of course, the meaning of the message is that how good a production you ever do on a song doesn’t matter if the song from the beginning is bad. The sound itself doesn’t make a great song. You can save the singer that is not too good with auto-tune but if the lyric is cheesy and bad it doesn’t matter.

A week ago, we just saw that Live Nation in Sweden just put down one of their flagships “Summerburst”. It’s very interesting since just a couple of days before that they actually released a new headliner. The reason for Live Nation was that they were to focus on other festivals so they choose to put “Summerburst” down.

You can easily read here that the ticket sales couldn’t have been any good. They tried with a last name and when that didn’t make the needle move they just put it down. Fair to say “Summerburst” was an EDM festival that went really well when it started in 2011 and at its top peeking was 2015 with 50 000 visitors. I guess for me 2015 was the year when EDM died. When Avicii left the whole scene was more or less over. Like Punk is not dead but it should be, this is the same story with EDM, it just kept on as well but should have been put to rest.

This year they cut out having the festival in two cities and just focused on one, and even that didn’t work out. I really would love to see those numbers, which would be shining proof of how 'out' EDM is right now.

Several people in my social media circle from the music industry reacted to a report that was released by Luminate and reported by Music Business World Wide. The numbers from Luminate, a company that monitors several streaming sites were that of the 158 million songs they were monitoring 24% had no streams whatsoever during the year 2022. 24% is close to 38 million songs that were never been heard during 2022.

That is like every person in Canada has released a song and no one heard it. At the same time just look at the number they monitor, a staggering 158 million songs. Are they any good?

This is my problem today with all art. We have all channels to reach out to people. There will be great art that will be discovered. At the same time, how much great art is just buried in the brown wave of art that really has no meaning at all?

Sometimes revolutions begin quietly.

In 1988, Cowboy Junkies proved that there was an audience waiting for something quiet, beautiful and reflective. The Trinity Session was like a whisper that cut through the noise -- and it was compelling. It stood out in the midst of the flash and bombast that came to define the late 80's. The now classic recording combined folk, blues and rock in a way that had never been heard before and went on to sell more than a million copies.

Cowboy Junkies will release Such Ferocious Beauty on June 2, 2023 via Latent Recordings. This is the band’s first release of new material in five years and follows their heralded 2022 collection of covers, Songs of the Recollection.  Such Ferocious Beauty is vintage Cowboy Junkies and another dimension from the lo-fi Canadian band comprised of siblings Margo, Michael and Peter Timmins and lifelong friend Alan Anton. Such Ferocious Beauty is a rumination on aging, losing parents, facing mortality and creating space for one’s life in the midst of the ruin that comes from merely living.

Global Ambassadors of Musical Diversity, SULTANS OF STRING, will shine a light on the Plight of Refugees with its Cannes World Film Festival Winning Documentary, Sultans of String: The Refuge Project - Visual Album, at the 18^th Annual CANADIAN FOLK MUSIC AWARDS on Sat April 1, 2023 @ 3pm).

Leading with four nominations for their “Sanctuary” album (Contemporary, Global Roots, Pushing the Boundaries, and Producer of the Year), this Billboard charting band’s film features music and interviews from “Sanctuary” as well as sister album “Refuge”, both served up under lockdown.

This 1.5 hour screening will be followed by a fun Q&A with bandleader and Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal recipient Chris McKhool and co-producer John “Beetle” Bailey, hosted by Michael Tymchuk.

Sultans of String: The Refuge Project - Visual Album OFFICIAL TRAILER

I was just looking at the new trend in Sweden “EPA-dunk” which you can say is like you mix punk music with bad disco stuff from the 90s. More or less find yourself a pretty bad loop and just go for it. Fill it up with a lot of lyrics about drugs, parties, and sex and you have done your first EPA dunk song. It’s really nothing new it was the same when I was young, bad homemade stuff that we shared on cassette tapes back then like Eddie Meduza or Nerf Herder. And the same topics as well, nothing really new under the sun and to be upset about..

The phenomenon though has another side that is interesting. The leading artist in this genre has been doing it since 2017, but the first hit came in 2022 that really spread like a wildfire on TiktTok. The interesting part is that he releases a song every week or even two and has been doing so for the past years.