Winnipeg singer songwriter Romi Mayes
has just recorded a live album at West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg. She had a few guests for some tracks - Ken McMahon, Jaxon Haldane, and Damon Mitchell. They flew in Scott Franchuk from Alberta for recording production. Here is Romi performing live while touring.
Check out the latest YouTube clip from Téa Petrovic as she covers a song by the immortal Sam Cooke. This was recorded while Téa was performing an artists showcase in Seattle, Washington. Tea says "This is one of those songs that I seriously wish I wrote. Simple, beautiful, and powerful. Love you Sam Cooke! Hope you enjoy my version..." Téa is from Vancouver BC and has been a finalist in the Peak Performance Project among other honours.
As her CBC Radio 3 profile says Nat Jay took her first steps in her parents’ music school and continues to land on her feet in the world of music today. Her songs have been placed on networks around the world, including ABC, MTV, Nickelodeon, CBC, CTV, Global TV, and the Lifetime Movie Network. Last year, when "Love When I Can" appeared in the final moments of MTV’s hit show, The City, she received an overwhelming response from new fans around the world, gaining over 40,000 plays on Myspace in the weeks following.
After studying music at the University of British Columbia, Nat Jay released her debut EP, Lights Across the Sky, to a sold out room at Vancouver’s Media Club. She has since been compared with powerful performers like Joni Mitchell, Patsy Cline, Alanis Morissette, and the Dixie Chicks. Nat Jay's compelling and highly accomplished vocal delivery will certainly turn heads in a noisy club, but it is her emotive songwriting ability that will steal the hearts of each and every audience member.
On January 4, 2011, Metric released an iTunes Session EP exclusively on iTunes, consisting of 8 live tracks, including "Hustle Rose", "Empty" and a cover of the Buffalo Springfield song "Expecting to Fly" and a 30 minute interview. Metric are insanely creative and for more information on their musical journey you can check out wikipedia where the following details were found.
"During the 2010 Winter Olympics, Metric, along with several other Canadian music acts, came together in Vancouver to re-record K'Naan's song "Wavin' Flag" to benefit Haiti in a movement called Young Artists for Haiti.
On February 28, 2010, Metric released the track "Black Sheep" through their Facebook page. The song is on the soundtrack for the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. In the movie this song is sung by Brie Larson who played Envy Adams in the film. Interestingly, Scott Pilgrim author Bryan Lee O'Malley said he was inspired by concert photos of Emily Haines while originally drawing Envy's singing poses. The band toured in western USA, before playing shows in the Canadian Maritimes and Eastern Ontario for most of March 2010. Metric also toured with Sarah McLachlan for part of her 2010 Lilith Fair.
Metric won multiple awards at the 2010 Juno Awards, winning Group of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year.
On May 12, 2010, it was revealed that Metric will have a song, "Eclipse (All Yours)" on the Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack. The album was released on June 8, 2010. The song was written with composer Howard Shore. The deluxe version of the album also has an acoustic version of the song.
During October and November 2010, Metric opened for Muse for seven shows of The Resistance Tour. They were part of the lineup for Voodoo Experience 2010 which took place over Halloween weekend in New Orleans, LA. Metric performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on July 21, 2010.
Metric announced that they will be returning to the studio in late 2010 to write and record for their fifth studio album."
Here is the video of Black Sheep, released a year ago, on Feb 28th 2010.
I can't wait to hear their new songs.
Jill Scott is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter, poet, and actress. In 2007, Scott made her cinematic debut in the films Hounddog (as Big Mama Thornton) and in Tyler Perry's feature film, Why Did I Get Married? That year, her third studio album, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3, was released on September 25, 2007. She has won three Grammy Awards. She also appeared in the lead role of the BBC/HBO series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
I first heard of her when researching Adele and discovered she lists Jill Scott as one of her influences.
New Lucinda Williams Single Out Now and New Album Coming March 1st!
Lucinda Williams new single, "Buttercup" is currently available to purchase at iTunes and Amazon. Her album (see official press release below), BLESSED hits stores on March 1st, but Pre-Order it today on CD, Deluxe CD or CD/LP Combo from Amazon...
RPW Records artist and host and curator of the Visible Verse Festival, Heather Haley will present a program of videopoems selected from 10 years of archives, including one or two works of her own.
Heather will be performing on Monday, Feb 28th at Word Storm reading series @ Acme Food Co.
14 Commercial Street
Nanaimo, BC
For more information on the Word Storm contact:
David Fraser
ascentaspirations@shaw.ca
Aural Heather's CD Princess Nut is available on iTunes.
Here is the video for How To Remain.
Glasser is the recording and stage name of the American singer-songwriter Cameron Mesirow.
Her LastFM page says
" Her experimental music blends densely layered electronic sounds with various acoustic instruments and her angelic voice. She is often compared with artists like Fever Ray, Björk, Bat for Lashes and Florence + the Machine. The name “Glasser” was inspired by “a midnight vision of a figure hovering over water”.
Canadian singer/songwriter Jill Barber recorded her brand new album in August and September of 2010 with Les Cooper joining her in co-writing and producing the album. MISCHIEVOUS MOON is to be released April 5th, 2011.
Jill won the Female Artist Recording of the Year award for her debut album Oh Heart at the 2005 Music Nova Scotia Awards. In 2007 Barber earned her fourth win as Best Local Solo Artist (Female) in The Coast’s annual "Best of Music Reader’s Poll", and her first win as Best Canadian Solo Artist (Female).
From February to March 2007 she toured eastern Canada with Dan Hill as part of Stuart McLean's CBC Radio show The Vinyl Cafe. She returned to the Vinyl Cafe Tour in 2009 performing across Canada with Matt Anderson.
In 2008 Jill Barber released Chances, an album with full orchestral arrangements which was partially co-written with her producer, Les Cooper, while also collaborating on several songs with Canadian music legend Ron Sexsmith. This album led to a new level in touring reaching audiences across the globe while earning two Juno Award nominations including New Artist of the Year.
Adele has a new CD out and is currently touring. She is appearing in Vancouver BC at the Commodore
on May 11th and the show sold out in minutes. Fans here are hoping a second show will be added.
Keri Latimer is a Winnipeg singer songwriter who is playing some songs at the times changed High and Lonesome Club tonight, in a songwriter circle, 10pm. Taken from her myspace page,
"Juno Award winning songwriter Keri Latimer’s career began in the visual arts. While deeply immersed in an intensive graphic design program, she began to play guitar as a distraction. Very quickly her studies became sabotaged by musical urges, and it became obvious what her truest form of expression was. Starting from square one, she tapped into several years of adolescent piano lessons, a love for subversive and painfully genuine songs, and began to find her voice. Several awards later, including a Western Canadian Songwriting Award over fellow nominee Bryan Adams, she is firmly rooted in the Canadian music scene. Since 1999, Keri has been fronting the band “Nathan” which is currently signed to Nettwerk Records worldwide. Acoustic Guitar Magazine tried to account for their music as “infectious alt-country noir, fractured folk-swing and surreal songwriting.”
Brandi Carlile is a Seattle singer/songwriter whom I discovered on reverbnation. She writes amazing songs and I just love her voice and style.
She has a new CD our and is touring right now.
Taken from her website:
"Brandi Carlile's third album, Give Up The Ghost, unveils her talents in their truest form. After two albums and non-stop touring, she has let her guard down and offers her most candid recording to date. If the phrase "give up the ghost" most often refers to death or dying, it can also be used to describe the passing of stages in life, of transformation."
Pre-sale tickets to Brandi's show supporting Ray LaMontange in Chicago on June 7th are available now!
Here is tour info for Brandi Carlile this year so far.
February 13, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 14, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 15, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 16, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 17, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 18, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 19, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
February 20, 2011 Miami, FL 2011 Cayamo Cruise SOLD OUT
June 7, 2011 Chicago, IL Millennium Park
August 7, 2011 Edmonton, Alberta The Edmonton Folk Festival
This is one of her older songs but the first one of hers I ever heard. I hope you enjoy it.
At 17 I moved to England from Canada, and we settled in Penistone, Yorkshire, as my Mother was from Barnsley and it was her homesickness that prompted our move to England. I went off to college in Scarborough and fell in love with traditional folk music, and thus began my own singing career.
Later, I hear of Kate Rusby, an English folk singer and songwriter, and was so thrilled to hear she was from Penistone, South Yorkshire. Personal connections are always a great thing in the music world.
Sometimes known as The Barnsley Nightingale, Kate has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is regarded as one of the most famous English folk singers of contemporary times. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene." In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Feb 7th she was on the BBC 2 Radio Folk Awards. Here is a song from the show, My Dreams Have Withered and Died.
I got to see Buffy Sainte-Marie at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver, and what an amazing show that was. My first memory of her is from my childhood, when my Dad woke me up and made me come into the living room to see her performing on the Ed Sullivan show, she was playing her bow harp and singing Cripple Creek. That is quite a memory, very vivid.
So here is one of my favourite songs of Buffy's
Meaghan Smith is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist. Here is what they have to say on the JUNO site.
"Talking about her independently-recorded debut album, The Cricket’s Orchestra , Smith says: “Les (Cooper) and I put our heads together and decided to create my musical world by using a string quartet, an eight-piece horn section, guitars, keys, upright bass, a clarinet, some flutes, and even an Omnichord. We used Mellotron samples in place of a modern band because we loved the quirky, vintage vibe they brought to the songs, and topped it all off with some turntable scratches. The result is an ideal blend of old and new.” The Cricket’s Orchestra, was picked up by Sire Records/Warner Music Canada and released in early 2010. Smith also received a great deal of exposure by contributing a cover of alternative rock group Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man” to the soundtrack of 2009′s (500) Days of Summer, featuring Smith playing an Omnichord."
I first saw Hannah Georgas at the Biltmore in Vancouver. The venue was packed with appreciative fans. She has been nominated for a JUNO this year, another nominee for the New Artist of the Year.
The following is taken from the JUNO site.
"Hannah Georgas released her debut full-length album, This Is Good, in her native Canada this past April on Hidden Pony Records creating an instant splash, landing the May cover of Canada’s only national music monthly, Exclaim! The album, produced by Howard Redekopp (Tegan and Sara/New Pornographers) and Ryan Guldemond (Mother Mother), features infectious mix of pop-rock gems and folky tenderness that brings to mind elements of Feist and Basia Bulat. Georgas was named by CBC Radio 3 as Best New Artist in 2009, and her album was highly-buzzed about even before its release. It garnered glowing reviews in The Globe & Mail and The National Post along with almost every daily and weekly paper across Canada, and was named to the long-list for the Polaris Music Prize. Georgas performed in September at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, at the Osheaga Music Festival in Montréal and took part in The Malahat Revue, cycling and performing across British Columbia with Jeremy Fisher, Aidan Knight and Said The Whale.
The Best of Ladytron: (2000-2010) will be released on March 29th in the US through Nettwerk Records (March 28th in UK). Here is some information taken from their website
.
"In 2001, the first fruits of what would become the new electronic-rock movement began to fall. LADYTRON's debut, 604, was an integral part of that first strike. A pristine, analog adventure of sound and substance, the album would go on to influence the genre itself, while the group quietly made a global impact both visually and stylistically.
Hits like "Playgirl" and "Seventeen" (from their 2002 follow-up, Light & Magic) quietly rebelled against the bratty, disingenuous motifs of the time, instead invoking the sonic storytelling of groups like Air, Stereolab, and My Bloody Valentine. Ladytron's counterbalance of emotional vulnerability and psychological ingenuity personified by the opposing vocals of Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo created their own world that had yet to be fully explored.
Their live performances immediately set them apart: "We wanted to play all those exotic instruments live," says Mira of the mountain of antique synths the group brandished on stage. Daniel Hunt adds, "Not many people ever performed that way, besides Emerson, Lake and Palmer or something. It felt like hanging around at Bell Labs in 1970."
A year's worth of touring and experimentation led to the creation of Witching Hour, Ladytron's most sonically complex production to date. It retained the unmistakable, mechanized warmth of their Korg MS20s, but Reuben Wu's dynamic programming coupled with Hunt's shoegazey guitar layers in tracks like the intoxicating single "Destroy Everything You Touch," "International Dateline" and "High Rise" flexed a more indie rock tenacity. While the album showed distinct creative growth, their resilience outside the studio provided a different kind of maturity; the group took to the road on the strength of their massive cult following, booking sold-out tours across North America and Europe, and playing for capacity crowds in China and Latin America. Ladytron toured exhaustively over the next two years, performing for over 4,000 people in Bogota, Columbia where their show was eventually shut down by local military.
Their most recent album, 2008's Velocifero continued this trend. "At no point have we ever responded to anything that's been going on outside," says Mira. "There are always going to be people who want you to remain in the same place forever, but that's not the way you make music, or anything else. It's obvious that you have to be allowed the benefit of the doubt to do whatever you want, because ultimately when you started out, there was no one there to tell you what to do. You just did it." Audiences will have ample opportunity to take in Ladytron's synthesis, and see for themselves how the group has redefined the genre they helped establish."
Basia Bulat is one of the nominees for a JUNO this year. In the category of New Artist of the Year, (Sponsored by FACTOR and Radio Starmaker Fund), she is up against other Canadian artists, including Hannah Georgas and Meaghan Smith.
I had the privilege to see Basia perform at the Vancouver Folk Festival a couple of years ago and her set was electric. So I am very happy to hear she is getting this recognition from the Canadian music business.
Taken from the JUNO site,
"In 2006, Basia went to live in Montréal and through friends she met Howard Bilerman, an engineer and co-owner of the famed Hotel 2 Tango studio. Initially the recordings were meant only as an “audible memory” of the time Basia spent with friends in London and Montréal. But Bilerman, smitten with Basia’s songs, began to write to friends at labels, friends with music-blogs, anyone who might pay attention. It’s this spark that sets Basia Bulat apart from the raft of typical singer-songwriters, and also what attracted the interest of Geoff Travis and Britain’s legendary Rough Trade label – who released Oh My Darling in Europe and Japan in the Spring of 2007. The album was released in North America shortly thereafter, and has since gone on to worldwide acclaim. It garnered a Polaris Prize nomination in 2008, and rave reviews from everyone from NPR and Q. Her new offering, Heart Of My Own, was born after over a year of touring that took Bulat across Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S. several times over."
Sarah Harmer is a Canadian treasure with fans around the world.
Visit her facebook page for lots of great information on this single minded musician.
Taken from her facebook artists page.
"In the dog-eat-dog world of the music business, Canadian Sarah Harmer has made a habit of taking her time and doing things her own, unhurried way. While many artists would have quickly followed up on the success of 2000's You Were Here, Harmer patiently waited four years. "Ever since I was a little kid," she told Nicholas Jennings in Maclean's, "I thought I should have lived in the 1800s when things were simpler." Harmer's deliberate, careful approach, along with her warm vocal style, has been an essential ingredient in the crafting of three distinct albums between 1999 and 2004. "Harmer has an incredibly versatile voice," wrote Naomi de Bruyn in Green Man Review; "not only is it sensuous, but so emotion-laden that she can reach deeply within and turn you inside out when combined with her heart-felt lyrics."
