Five-time JUNO Award-winning and Gold- and Platinum-selling Canadian ‘First Lady of the Classical Guitar’ Liona Boyd presents her newly minted version of the instrumental hit “Popcorn” in new single, “Popcorn (Remix)” .

Check out “Popcorn (Remix)” on YouTube here:

A vibrant arrangement for classical guitar, complete with a retro disco feel, “Popcorn (Remix)” is certain to get audiences up, and out of their seats dancing.

“This version of ‘Popcorn’ has been several years in the making,” Boyd reveals of the newly reimagined tune. “I’m so happy to finally be sharing both this instrumental song and video!”

Filmed in Toronto, as well as Palm Beach, Florida, the playful and colourful video radiates Boyd’s love of life — all while continuing to highlight her tenured career enthralling millions with her signature romantic spin on classical, folk, and world music.

The changes to the music industry are not just the COVID situation. You must consider also climate change as a part of the new industry. Tonight another city in Sweden was flooded and all roads were cut off, the fifth just the past month. And these floodings are nothing  compared to the flooding in Europe or in Chine earlier in the summer. At the same time, there are big fires in Greece and Turkey. Canada and USA had their fires earlier that were also devasting. All these factors will affect the music industry.

This week we spotlight ICNA Relief Food Bank 6120 Montevideo Rd. Unit #4
Mississauga, Tel: 905-858-1067
Email: mississaugafb@icnareliefcanada.ca Because of COVID, please contact prior to going.

Support your local food bank. The need is real.

A joyous and blissed-out dance cut, ‘Cold Heart’ sees the pair come together on record for the first time. The seed of the collaboration was planted after Dua invited Elton for an Instagram live, discussing his experiences with Studio 54 ahead of her remix album ‘Club Future Nostalgia.’

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 Wed to Sun.

Recognizing the cultural division in not just his home country, but all over the world, Americana-centric musician Jordan Page has released his latest track, “Hour of Change”.

Crafted for ‘all people of all nations,’ the soulful, electric-acoustic ballad is very much on-brand for the Northport, Washington-based artist. An advocate for equal human rights and general liberty — in not just a musical sense, but in morality too — the inspiring single not only offers a gorgeous variety of chord progressions and soothing vocal melody sure to make arm hairs stand on end, but reflects on current times, celebrating unity in an era plagued by fear and division, too.

This concept is echoed in the song’s touching music video which accompanies it; there, the viewer is met with a montage of shocking news broadcasts, struggling people in poverty, protesters, and frontline healthcare workers who all come together as one, in unity, against corruption and darkness which has shrouded the world for the last few years.

With close to 280,000 views on YouTube check out “Hour of Change” here:

I was talking to a friend who is an amateur artist. He has some success in his genre but it’s a hobby for him. During the past weeks, I had this conversation with several artists so I thought of writing a piece around it to explain how the digital distribution is divided and how it works.

My friend had uploaded on a kind of famous site to be shade. This site is very common but for us the professional industry it has a long time being really shady. First of all, you can upload your songs through an app for no cost but most of the cost is hidden so, in reality, it’s not free. My friend knew that but actually bought an upgrade some he became a pro member to get better service to be able to talk to support and get things out in 48 hours.

When two multi-Platinum and Gold-selling Canadian artists pass time together the best way they know how, the result is certain to turn ears. And such is the case for award-winning musicians Barney Bentall and Geoffrey Kelly and their newly announced album, RanchWriters — available this Fall via True North Records.

RanchWriters will be released September 17,  2021 but can be pre-ordered:
truenorthrecords.com/ranchwriters/

Beloved around the world for his JUNO Award-winning band, the Legendary Hearts, Barney Bentall went on to release multiple acclaimed albums as a solo artist; most recently, he’s also a part of bluegrass-folk band, The High Bar Gang. And as one of the primary songwriters in Spirit of the West, Geoffrey Kelly is one of the nation’s most lauded Celtic musicians and folk-rockers who has also performed with the Irish Rovers and as one of the Paperboys.

I am always amazed at how stupid you can ever be in this business. Just got a message on social media about our festival from a random dude with Hello, and then a link to a page. You can see the page is booking agency. Just by curiosity, I went out there to look. The page holds around a hundred lookalike artists.

First of all, a festival normally is not looking for a look-a-like artist or impersonator. They probably have access to the real deal if the artist is still alive. This is more for cheap weddings, birthday parties  and boat cruises, still usually the standards of these bands are better than this. Obviously, nothing appealing for the festival. I just sent the dude back a link to the application site, the worst thing would be that he applied with a hundred utterly bad look-a-like acts.

Then I directly get a message back, what fee can we get? I just wanted to write back, for real if you pay me 1000 euros, I will consider having mercy on one of your acts. I didn’t of course;  I used the standard answer, I didn’t reply at all.

This week we salute the folks behind Beeton Cupboard Foodbank at St. Michaels All Angels Church.611 St. Clair Ave. West. (416) 653-3593. Our outreach program remains a high priority at this time. The Beeton Cupboard Food Bank is an essential service and will continue serving our community on Wednesdays. Steps have been taken to adjust service delivery in line with up-to-date Public Health advice.  Open 11:30am - 12:30pm on Wednesdays

Coming off the success of his second #1 at Canadian country radio, Jade Eagleson has teamed up with celebrated Canadian icon Dean Brody to bring fans what is sure to be the good-time anthem of the year, “More Drinkin’ than Fishin’.” Celebrating the small-town roots that make them two of country music’s favourite voices, the pair feels completely at home in the familiar twang of this fun, light-hearted track about a couple of good ol’ country boys just enjoying some time on the lake.

To be an artist is like running a business. Any business; it’s not anything special just because it’s about music though many want you to believe that. As an artist you will face the same obstacles as any entrepreneur that starts a restaurant or landscaping you name it, you are all in the same boat.

With that in mind, I just can’t understand why people try to make it so magical. If you start a restaurant where the food is mediocre, but you are in a place where a lot of people pass by. Yes, you will make the restaurant  go round. It won’t be famous; people won’t talk about it, but it fulfills its purpose. I guess this will be like a the troubadour in the music industry. Yes, you play at different places, but you play old hits in the corner. Nothing wrong with it but people won’t talk about it in that kind of sense. You get your money but there are thousands of these people playing what people want to hear as entertainment.

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, whether it’s changing their community dining programs to take away meals or offering prepared hampers instead of food bank access.

Currently I am receiving all these emails from artists that have sent in applications to play at my festival, Future Echoes. Of course with the COVID situation and the fact that we closed the application on the last day of June, we are in the middle of the process of compiling the last artists for the festivals. As predictable as the sun always coming up in morning,  you get the letters from artists that want to know if they were accepted or not. Actually, these letters started to come even two months before we had even closed the application process.

Most actually do make a crucial mistake though. I understand that they want to have an answer if they are playing or not but there are ways to do that. Most write a nice mail saying that they want to know because they need to plan their trip. You might think this is a good reason to send an email and kind of professional to care about their gigs and applications.

Meta: Music can be one of the most important parts of film and game development, setting the scene and prepping the viewer perfectly. Find out more about how those behind it do so here.

Why Music is a Crucial Part of Film and Game Development

Whether you are sitting down to watch your favourite movies or trying out a game of some sort, there is no denying that music will form an important part of your experience. It is a crucial part of film and game development, and some of our favourite pieces of media would be very different without the right pieces of music.

 (Image Source: Twitter)

Setting the Tone

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 band’s first archival release “Textos Raros – Vol 1 – 2001-2011”, White Cowbell Oklahoma presents over 40 minutes of eleven rare and never-released digital tracks due out on August 6th via the band's very own Slick Monkey Records.

People are going crazy to try to save their digital enterprises right now. Sorry to have to break the news to you but digital is not working in the music industry. The digital summits and showcases we had online were just to keep up with something at a time when live events were not allowed.

So far, it’s been a very few that I thought were good, and you saw that it was getting harder and harder to get people to log in to different online communities to be on there. The tragic part is that the only one I have heard taking on the positive about these digital events is the organizers. Mainly because there is a lot of funding to get if you are digital edition, second, it’s much easier for you  as you can gather a lot of people from around the world with just emailing and social media.

Problem with this is that, yes. you get funding, but you can’t get paid for doing it. The conferences I went to that cost money were very seldom occupied, most people in there were the people that got free tickets because they were speakers or friends with the organizer. Many of the events were free or you could decide the prize yourself.

When it comes to taking control of a room, Canadian folk-rock veteran Glen Foster is a master. And now, he’s got a brand-new live album to show just that; Feelin’ Alive.

Check out the YouTube single “Three Man Band here:

In late February, about a month before the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world, Glen Foster and friends — known professionally as the Glen Foster Group — presented a full-throttle live concert to an intimate crowd of just over 150 people at the Christ Community Church in his homeland of Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, in the West coast of Canada. Now, as Canadians are quickly becoming fully vaccinated, Foster has released this epic, 80-minute concert as his first-ever live album. It features 14 live cuts spanning his entire back-catalogue, and two bonus tracks recorded from the studio floor — “Friends Like That” and “Three Man Band.”

Right now, when I do my send-outs, I get an auto-reply from people that say they are on vacation. Especially in Sweden where it seems like we are shutting down the whole country during July. Yes, having five weeks vacation in a row in the summer is a must if you live in Sweden. Not for me though, I work in the music industry.

Innovative and prolific composer Huguette Lavigne is throwing back and taking you along for a jazzed-up, improvisational ride to “Piano Retro”.

Check out “Piano Retro” on YouTube here:

The Ottawa-based pianist calls this new release from her latest album Five O’Clock Somewhere “old-school piano jazz… An easy going, smooth flowing, just plain cool jazzy piece and good for the soul.”

She then sets the throwback scene featuring an old-time jazz club player that she imagines performing the song. “Some guy sits down in a smoky room at a large black grand and plays around with jazzy swirls, runs and melodic twists,” Lavigne describes. “He doesn’t take it too seriously, and it all ends with his notes slipping down a long glissando and the bubbles on his brain disappear.”

Canada’s rockin’ Rabbi, author, musician, and founder of Kiddush Club Gary Zweig has just the soundtrack for getting families active this summer: the release of his new song, “Exercise”.

Check out “Exercise” on YouTube here:

Channelling everyone from the world’s greatest athletes to the beginner at-home fitness enthusiast, Zweig says he set out to create an exciting song to exercise alongside with.

“It’s fun, it’s funky, and it’s got a bit of rock and roll,” the Toronto-based multi-talented singer/songwriter enthuses. “I’m young at heart, so I wrote this song for kids of all ages — from 1 to 101 years old!”

Heard on Kiddush Club’s third album release, Toys, the nine-track LP joins Kiddush Club’s other releases — their eponymous LP, Kiddush Club, and The Wine Album.