August 2011

Music Books Plus Launches New Website

Submitted by cashbox on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 13:36

Music Books is pleased to announce the launch of its new website at www.musicbooksplus.com

Music Books Plus is an international distributor of books, DVDs and software on music, pro audio, lighting, video, broadcast, multimedia and business shipping to over 80 countries and is an established mail-order service operated by Norris-Whitney Communications, and has been providing information services to the music industry for over 28 years.

The catalogue has expanded over the past few years and now features thousands of books, videos, DVDs, CD-ROMs and software on the areas of: music business, songwriting, instrument instruction, audio & video production, recording, broadcast, lighting, voice, The Internet, multimedia, The Charts, biographies and much more. Music Books Plus has customers in over 86 countries worldwide and exhibits at major trade and consumer shows in the United States and Canada.

The new website includes over 13,000 titles including an extensive variety of new products. It features improved navigation, expanded search capabilities, improved checkout, faster access speed and a fresh, updated design. It has also been optimized for mobile browsers.

Music Books Plus is also the publisher of Canadian Musician, Canadian Music Trade, Professional Sound, Professsional Lighting & Production and Music Directory Canada.

Visit the Music Books Plus website at www.musicbooksplus.com

Colm Wilkinson –The Singing, Acting face of Fiction

Submitted by cashbox on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 13:38

Story: Lenny Stoute

Some men achieve greatness, some have it thrust upon them and some slip into it for two shows every night, matinee on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Some might argue Colm Wilkinson has had the cake and eaten it all three ways. For one thing, he entered show business through the world of music. Growing up as Dublin lad in the rockin’ Seventies, Colm played in a number of bands, most notably The Action. While the groups as such did not amount to much, the macho, sex-appealing front man began attracting attention outside the confines of Dublin pub rock.

In 1972 Wilkinson went to an audition on a dare and landed the plum role of Judas Iscariot in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Chris Superstar. The part put a fictional spin on a real historical person, becoming the template for the kind of role that would catapult Colm Wilkinson to international fame.

Thrust into the role, Wilkinson came up with an interpretation so strong he wuld henceforth ‘own’ the character. He reprised the part in the London production and took it on the road for the British national tour. The next ficto-historical part for Colm was that of Cuban proto-revolutionary Che Guevara in the 1976 musical production of Evita. This time around, he was on-board to sing Che’s part in the concept album which came out of the show.

Music Matters for August 5th 2011: Summer in the City

Submitted by cashbox on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 02:24

“Satan called, he wants his weather back.” I must have seen that status on Facebook a dozen times in the last two weeks. No surprise there, Satan DID call and he DOES want his weather back, but give me a minute, I’ve got to go out to the driveway and flip my eggs….

It is hot enough in Toronto to actually fry eggs on the pavement. I know this because I broke one open on the driveway last week and it fried right up. One piece of advice for anyone wanting to try this though: Sweep the loose gravel off of your cooking surface…and don’t cook in the oil spot, it’s gross and totally ruins the flavour. Whenever it gets this hot, the Loving Spoonful’s “Summer in the City” squirms its way into my head and sits tight until the weather breaks or a song of equal insistence pushes it out of my craw and back out into the ether, where it will remain until the next time the thermometer reaches the mid nineties or so. This summer it still sits, a constant reminder that for those of us who dislike temperatures above 75 or so, summer isn’t everybody’s favourite season.

HOT SUMMER NIGHTS ( AND HOT SUMMER DAYS ) IN BURL’S CREEK PARK !

Submitted by cashbox on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 02:13

Don’t Miss It !!!!!

By Don Graham

Usually the end of August brings mixed feelings, especially in Canada. Labour Day is a week away, summer is winding down and it won’t be long until parkas, toques, scarves and boots are reappearing to face the winter. This year, 2011, however, the end of August has a bright light shining on it and an event that will make this time of year something we will look forward to for years to come! The 1st Annual CMT Music Festival begins on August 26th and runs through Sunday, August 28th.

Finally a large scale country music festival within easy driving distance of the Greater Toronto Area, just up the 400 Highway, minutes from Barrie, Ontario, in Burl’s Creek Park in Oro Station. And what a festival it will be. The artist-line up reads like a who’s who and a who’s hot in country music today. The two headlining acts, Rascal Flatts and Lady Antebellum are currently riding a wave of success around the globe. The so called supporting acts , Ronnie Dunn, Blake Shelton, Sara Evans , Corb Lund ad George Canyon are headliners in their own right!

The Friday show starts with the Corb Lund and Blake Shelton opening for the evening headliner, Lady Antebellum.

Corb Lund is a great Canadian act who’s latest effort ‘Losin’ Lately Gambler’ marks his American debut, produced by Nashville’s Harry Stinson of Marty Stuarts Fabulous Superlatives is the lanky Albertan’s 6th album but his first New West release.

The Music Industry loses a Canadian icon - Steve Propas 1948-2011

Submitted by cashbox on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 02:12

By Sandy Graham

It is said that the music industry in Canada has become a huge market, mixed with the ‘old school’ that started it all and many, many more professionals who have come on the scene to turn it into a growing, vibrant market of music people. It does show how small the business still is when we lose ‘one of our own’ - and Steve Propas was one of those people.

When word got out yesterday that Propas had passed away suddenly on August 2, 2011, blackberries, emails, facebooks and twitters got the word out to his ‘music family’ to tell each other the sad news that we have lost a one-of-a-kind music man.

I last saw Steve doing what he does best – wheeling and dealing. He was actively holding court at the Canada Stand in Cannes, France at the yearly MIDEM. He looked healthy, happy and very, very busy, which is what he loved to do – make deals.

We all have known Steve in this business through different incarnations of his career – as a band manager, the trailblazer duo of Dixon and Propas, which led to birth of Solid Gold Records, which boasted the best of the best, The Good Brothers, The Mightly Pope, Toronto were just a few of the acts they had at that time. It was the 70’s in Toronto and Neill and Steve were ‘it’ when it came to bookings.