Posted in Artists/Bands, Shows on 03.08.07 19:48
The Coast - Halifax’s Weekly is previewing a clip of POP In Sessions [myspace], an extremely promising “in-studio musical showcase” that is sure to be a boon to the local music scene. Reminiscent of BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, the pilot features Brent Randall and his Pinecones [myspace] and was expertly captured in front of an intimate crowd at Common Ground Studios in Halifax.
Posted in Artists/Bands, Business on 03.08.07 19:03
The Independent Music Awards (”The Indies”) were unveiled today in Toronto as Canadian Music Week (CMW) kicked off. Representing the East Coast, Fredericton’s soprano Measha Brueggergosman [myspace] earned the Favourite Classical Artist Group of the Year award while Antigonish boys The Trews [myspace] took home (which is now located in Niagara Falls) the Favourite Rock Artist/Group of the Year title. Tomorrow, people will fain interest in the unveiling of the Industry Awards as the actual music industry continues to crumble around them. Here are some potential “winners” from around these parts:
Comment Homework: Explain how Halifax can be both a Major and Secondary market.
Divorce, and Just Friends, are probably my two favorite local independent labels. While musically they are nothing alike, both have amazing line-ups of bands, have folks behind them that are passionate about the music they support and work hard to do so and should both gain some level of notoriety and hopefully a deserving fan base for all the above in time [it’s already happening for both to some degree]. Divorce gets the Label Life treatment in this month’s issue of Exclaim [Malajube cover] where they interview Divorce’s founder Darcy Spidle. While in the reviews, Husband and Knife’s Welcome Back to the Nothingness of Your Life gets Exclaim’s Mark of Excellence [for works of superior quality]:
Posted in Business on 03.08.07 14:44
While the record industry goes tits up, other music related businesses appear to continue doing well as evident by the recent purchase of the East Coast’s largest music gear retailor [agmonst other businesses]. Last week it was announced that Ontario based Long and MacQuade would be purchasing all the Musicstop locations. The sale will be finalized in May, and Russ Brannon will serve as an adviser for the next year. He also says that if the BLIP store does go ahead, it will likewise be a Long & McQuade. Not sure how this will play out to the benefit or otherwise of local musicians. Time will tell.
The Coast ran a brief summary of locals releasing albums this month in the current issue. It’s a pretty diverse, and talent wise impressive, list. A nice mix of new bands [GGMU and Superfantsastics] with long awaited releases from scene vets Great Plains [Sean MacGillvery] and Jonny Stevens. Joyless streets are just awesome [I have never heard of MacCrimmons Revenge before that I’m aware right now]. Not happening this month but:
While over on his blog, Waye Mason from the Halifax Pop Explosion is happily amazed at the number of local bands hitting the road in the next while [plenty of them this month alone]:
And that’s not even all of them, definitely missing are the Just Barelys and Tanya Davis, both in Ontario this month as are BA Jonhson Here’s a listing of all the above mentioned bands as links to their myspace pages for a listen and to see where exactly they’ll be appearing in coming weeks and months:
Posted in Advice, Artists/Bands, Business, Digital, Interviews, Labels, MP3s, Marketing, free music on 03.06.07 07:52
Productivity pr0n guru Merlin Mann (43 Folders), chats up San Francisco indie rocker John Vanderslice. This “hyper-capitalist” talks shit about the majors, praises mp3 blogs, is focused on being a career musician and has said farewell to print advertising, Rolling Stone reviews and CMJ monthly kickbacks. You can download his 2000 release Mass Suicide Occult Figurines here and also see what else he has been up to with Barsuk records here.
Finally suckered someone else into joining in my ranting about music here. I think this is great! His first post An Anti Matter is about Joel Plaskett’s new CD. Which illustrates a great benefit of having someone else around, the chance to be reminded of things I never got to posting, like this session from Plaskett’s Radio 3’s See Vous Play concert last October, that Matthew put up a week ago or so over on i (heart) music. Thanks Iain - glad to have you involved
So Their Majesties are kicking off their Drake residency right now. I haven’t been mentioning them and our working relationship as much as I thought so I’ll try and use their current tour as the catalysis to dig a little deeper into the going ons of a band-manager relationship. Try and sucker Johanna into posting on here too in relation to managing them as well. So far it’s been all good, few bumps, learning better ways to do things but all in all, good. Probably better than good actually. Besides kicking off the residency the guys also were invited to the Gibson showroom this afternoon to pick out some gear to use while in Toronto. Which was awfully nice of the folks at Gibson to offer. Be nicer if they supported managers out there that play guitar [or whatever bass, apparently they have a drumline as well - Slingerland] too. Actually Mike Bigelow has a pretty sweet SG bass he got via Gibson too right now. Fuckers - and I don’t mean Gibson. Perhaps lucky should have started that last sentence. Tour Dates!!!!!!
Last week Puretracks became the largest online retailer to offer DRM free music [eMusic, which also offers DRM free music is considered a subscription based service and not a retailer]. The initial announcement [CBC, Official Press Release] was followed by much confusion on Boing Boing and over at CBC. Eventually it all got sorted out though > Growing pains overshadow Puretracks MP3 service [CBC - it’s actually a pretty good summary of the issues and what’s in store for the service for those interested]. |
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