Home Blog Page 1593

Charmaine Kicks Off Sisterhood Sessions On Instagram Live

Eric Alper
-
0

Charmaine invites you to a week-long Instagram Live event that will see her discuss her latest single “FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS,” joined by an all-star cast of fabulous women.

Charmaine’s new release encompasses “the importance of having friends you can count on for anything.” In light of her sisterhood anthem, Charmaine welcomes Sports-Illustrated model Brielle Anyea, Zola actress and LGBTQ+ activist Ts Madison, rising Indonesian hip-hop artist Ramengvrl, Toronto based designer Cee and Charmaine’s day-ones Kayla and Chanl Marshl to open up on self-love, female empowerment and lots of inspiring advice to make your evening.

“Ultimately, my goal with this release is to depict how beautiful it is when you surround yourself with others that bring good vibes and support each other wholeheartedly,” Charmaine adds.

SISTERHOOD SESSIONS SCHEDULE

Monday, February 14th @ 10:30PM EST with Ramengvrl
Tuesday, February 15th @ 5:00PM EST with Brielle Anyea
Wednesday, February 16th @5:00PM EST Kayla & Chanl Marshl
Thursday, February 17th @ 5:00PM EST Cee
Friday, February 18th @ 5:00PM EST Ts Madison

Born in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare, Charmaine relocated to the United States at the age of five, bouncing around the Midwest with her family at first before eventually settling in Nashville for a large chunk of her childhood. Living in the states was an eye-opening experience but by the time high school rolled around, Charmaine was already on the way to her next culture shock, this time heading north of the border to Toronto. Throughout her family’s frequent moves and financial struggles, Charmaine had always turned to music as a source of comfort and stability, something she could rely on for emotional support no matter how difficult things got. Collaborating with acclaimed producers/engineers Michael Lantz and David Ariza, Charmaine began work on debut EP Hood Avant Garde in late 2019, pushing her sound in an adventurous new direction that mixed the ’90s hip-hop she grew up listening to with the southern rap she fell in love with while living in Tennessee. The resulting tracks were playful, experimenting with unexpected cadences and cheeky sound effects, and the lyrics brimmed with poise and bravado. “I’d been a singer for most of my life, but the more I rapped, the more I felt like myself,” Charmaine explains. “It was almost like therapy, because it taught me to embrace all these parts of my personality that, as a woman, and particularly as a black woman, society had told me I needed to hide.” Charmaine may have started with nothing but it’s clear that she’s coming for everything.

Sonic Reducers: Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige & Kendrick Lamar at The 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show

Eric Alper
-
0
Sonic Reducers: Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige & Kendrick Lamar at The 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show

Sonic Reducers. 1 topic. 2 music nerds. 5 minutes.

We rewind Sunday’s Super Bowl Halftime hip-hop extravaganza, recall some of our favourite halftime shows over the decades, and name some artists we’d like to see on stage next year. Hut!

Chart Topping Crooner MICAH BARNES Gets 2022 Started on a Swinging Note with “Welcome To The Club”

Eric Alper
-
0
Chart Topping Crooner MICAH BARNES Gets 2022 Started on a Swinging Note with “Welcome To The Club”

Soft, low candle glow. The tinkle of ice tossed in a highball glass. An empty, beckoning stage. Hushed, excited anticipation of who will stand next to the baby grand to serenade all the lovers and lonely hearts in the room. As 2022 begins under another lockdown, allow acclaimed, JUNO nominated jazz vocalist Micah Barnes to set the scene for a swingin’ Saturday night with “Welcome to the Club.”

If all that sounds like a great escape from our long running pandemic reality, it’s exactly what Barnes wants to provide with the latest single from his iTunes Canada #1 Jazz album Vegas Breeze.

“Since its release, the Vegas Breeze album has become a listener favourite on Jazz stations around the world,” says the Canadian vocal jazz virtuoso. “We thought we would be touring Europe with this album at this time. Since the whole world is grounded (again) for the moment, I felt releasing a new track and video would be the best way to bring more music to our fans around the world!”

The intriguingly shape shifting lead track on Vegas Breeze, “Welcome to the Club” is more than an enticing invitation, it’s an inspired mash-up of two different, little-known songs with the same title. Nat King Cole recorded and released his “Welcome to the Club” in 1959 and Mel Tormé wrote, recorded, and released his in 1961. Discovering and combining the two songs exemplifies the approach Barnes took to create his latest and third full length solo project.

“Our focus on Vegas Breeze was to find unusual songs from the showroom era and choose material from beyond the regular Rat Pack repertoire,” he explains. “That led to a really fun period of research, discovery and exploration for me and the band.”

“You know when you are kids, and you spend time together in each other’s houses a whole bunch? In fact, it was while playing records in the basement of a friend’s house I came across a Nat King Cole song that seared itself into my memory,” recalls Barns. “The melody was bluesy and swaggering. The lyrics are smart and sexy. The arrangement played by Count Basie’s band – so fun and swinging!”

Through more searching, the Tormé song of the same name also revealed itself and Barnes and his band – pianist and arranger Michael Shand, bassist Russ Boswell and drummer Al Cross, experimented with arranging the two tunes together.

“It felt like the most natural thing in the world,” notes Barnes. “The joining of a traditional barstool ballad with a swinging Vegas showstopper seemed to cover all the Vegas traditions at once. But what was incredible is that both lyrics give advice to a fellow “swinger” after being screwed over by a cheating lover. Perfect for our Vegas Breeze album.”

Do I hear you saying you got hurt?
Did you say that she’s a flim-flam flirt?
Are you sayin’ that some double dealin’ doll went and did you dirt?
Well bud, welcome, welcome, welcome to the club.

Following up three consecutive #1 singles on the iTunes Canadian Jazz charts, “Welcome to the Club” conjures up images of a swanky Vegas showroom in the ‘50s or ‘60s with a velvet-voiced vocalist holding court on the stage. Back then, if you couldn’t get to Vegas for the full, live experience, you could often see the singing stars of the era on your TV.

“When I was a kid, the legendary Vegas performers such as Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee and Steve & Eddie were still performing on the TV variety shows,” says Barnes. “Although I was actually never in the audience during the 50’s/60’s heyday of the showrooms I certainly fell in love with the style and the power of those musical personalities.”

For the “Welcome to the Club” video, Barnes wanted to recreate the 1960s TV variety show experience but, how to pull that off? After Barnes was forced to shelve a national tour in 2020, he and his band pivoted to perform a 14-date virtual tour “from the living room”. One of the virtual venues, London Ontario’s historic Aeolian Hall, became a favourite and Barnes and his band were invited back to play a livestream there in the summer of 2021.

“Thanks to the excellent team at The Aeolian, we felt the footage was strong enough to offer to the public as a video,” says Barnes. “Working with my director Carlos Coronado we went about recreating an old fashioned 60’s TV look for the final product!”

Born in Vienna and raised in Canada, Micah Barnes cut his teeth in the cabarets and jazz clubs of the city while still a teenager, before touring the world as a member of the A Cappella vocal group The Nylons. A JUNO Award-nominee, the years since have seen Barnes developing as an International SOLO artist with top-charting hits including the Billboard #1 “Welcome To My Head,” & #1 Jazz Albums New York Stories & Vegas Breeze. Micah is also an internationally respected Vocal, Performance & Career Strategy Coach.

Roots-Folk Duo Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen Release “Make Me Come Alive”

Eric Alper
-
0
Roots-Folk Duo Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen Release “Make Me Come Alive”

With love being a fire capable of breathing life into even the coldest and most dismal of circumstances, Canadian-American roots-folk duo Dan Frechette and Laurel Thomsen channel its vitality in their new single, “Make Me Come Alive.”

Serving as preview to this January 2022’s forthcoming new album, After the Fire, “Make Me Come Alive” begins abruptly with a storm — a gorgeous, noisy crashing together of violin and guitar — before organizing into an easy, rockin’ groove. Pinawa, Manitoba-born Dan sings the lead, and we learn about this exciting woman who’s caught his fancy, while Monterey, California-born Laurel punctuates the song with shimmering vocal harmonies and deft, elegant violin.

I’ve got my hands on my destiny
She’s the one who heats my every chill
I’ve got a feeling deep inside me
She’s always bound to be my thrill

Though some of the songs on After the Fire were written as far back as 1993, it was a 2020 storm — and then a fire — that sparked the making of the long-time collaborator’s new album…

Dan and Laurel had been creating music in Dan’s Bonny Doon-based home studio under California’s Covid-19 stay-at-home order; they were wrapping up the recording process when a heat wave, followed by an unusual lightning storm, caused a rapid forest fire.

“Dan’s little studio burned the morning after he’d rescued the rough tracks, studio equipment, and a range of instruments we play, yet rarely have the space to bring with us on the road,” Laurel shares. “When trauma is over, how does one restore faith and pick up the pieces?”

Having had to evacuate to a friend’s home with nothing they could do, but wait for news, they ultimately decided to continue recording and added new material inspired by their current situation. They decided to highlight the rescued instruments they don’t often use on After the Fire, in addition to their usual violin and acoustic six-string guitar. Each of the 10 original songs deals with a facet of the journey from setback to reclaimed hope: “Make Me Come Alive” tells the story of finding faith in the possibility of love, while the comfort of home is explored in “Beale Street.” “Together Again” and “Money Shouldn’t Talk That Strong” emphasize the importance of community, while the need for personal strength and fortitude are explored in “If A Wave” and “Hey, It’ll Be OK.”

Meeting in 2012 via a chance YouTube sighting and fueled by a once-in-a-lifetime musical chemistry and friendship, Dan Frechette and Laurel Thomsen are “prodigious players with songwriting that sets them apart.” With soaring violin, diverse guitar styles, compelling storytelling, a dash of harmonica and humor, and unique vocal rapport they deliver a dynamic, engaging, polished performance. Dan and Laurel’s third album, Between the Rain, was Top 10 on Canada’s campus radio Roots charts for 2016. They have toured North America extensively. Besides the US and Canada, they’ve toured a number of European countries, including Ireland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, and Germany.

Patrick Stewart’s Soliloquy on B From Sesame Street

Eric Alper
-
0
Patrick Stewart’s Soliloquy on B From Sesame Street

Patrick Stewart gives a Shakespearean soliloquy on the letter “B”.

Michael Stipe on a New Velvet Underground Tribute Album and Other Projects, And Yes, R.E.M.

Eric Alper
-
0
Michael Stipe on a New Velvet Underground Tribute Album and Other Projects, And Yes, R.E.M.

Michael Stipe’s cover of “Sunday Morning” opens the new album, I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute To The Velvet Underground & Nico, out September 24. The record also features Iggy Pop, Sharon Van Etten, Matt Berninger, St Vincent, and more. Stipe joins us to discuss the album and the legacy of the band, as well as his other current projects, including a recently published book of photography and the upcoming 25th anniversary reissue of REM’s album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

Contemporary Jazz Artist Fiona Ross Spotlights Self-Worth in Brave and Beautiful “Good Enough”

Eric Alper
-
0
Contemporary Jazz Artist Fiona Ross Spotlights Self-Worth in Brave and Beautiful “Good Enough”

“Will I ever be good enough?; Will I ever be wise enough…for anyone?” Multi-award-winning contemporary jazz artist Fiona Ross launches her heartfelt new single with these two intensely personal questions, bravely throwing the doors open to examine self-doubt with “Good Enough” from her recently released album, Red Flags and High Heels.

“We all have moments of doubt and wonder if we are good enough — whether this is as a musician, an artist, a parent or just a human being,” Ross offers. “It’s what it says on the tin, really: a song about being good enough or, more precisely, not being good enough.

“This song is just me and how I feel.”

With her bright, soulful vocals posing these pointed questions over a fluid piano line, guitar flourishes and tasteful, spare rhythms, Ross lays her innermost misgivings beautifully bare in “Good Enough,” and makes them all the more relatable in doing so.

“There’s a line in the song ‘people say the nicest things’, and this is so very true for me,” Ross notes of the line ‘People say the nicest things; I want to feel them, too, but I’ve never felt worthy of even a fraction of the things people say.’ “People are so very kind about me and my work, but I always find it very overwhelming because I just don’t see it. I have very high and unachievable expectations of myself and what I can do, and I know I can always do better and be better.”

Ross acknowledges that drive for constant growth and improvement and the questioning that fuels it occurs universally within her vocation. “I believe this is the life of an artist in many ways,” she says.

While “Good Enough” snapshots those moments of insecurity, the International Singer Songwriter Association’s 2020 International Female Songwriter of the Year believes that an artist’s natural self-doubt must be balanced with some self-confidence to achieve success.

“We all have worries and concerns and wonder if we are enough in so many ways and the sensible part of me says, ‘yes, we must believe we are enough, we have to believe we are if we want to achieve anything and to achieve change’.”

Following fast in the wake of her scathing kiss-off song, “You are Like Poison”, “Good Enough” is the second single from Ross’ fifth album Red Flags and High Heels, released last October to wide praise. Among many accolades, Jazz Journal called it “a probing album that oozes passion, punch and panache.” The album’s 10 studio tracks and 4 live recordings span the full breadth of life’s emotional spectrum and feature Ross’s stellar and highly accomplished 8-piece band.

That drive for growth and achievement that Ross says is so much a part of an artist’s life helps fuel her pursuits behind the scenes as a music journalist. She also founded the groundbreaking organization, Women in Jazz Media, which develops and supports initiatives for mentoring and promoting women in jazz music around the world.

To that end, Ross has asked women who have inspired her to write her album sleeve notes.

“My last album featured sleeve notes with the legend that is Maxine Gordon – she is a role model and a mentor to me,” Ross shares. “When I was thinking about this album, I thought it would be incredible to have strong, fierce, and inspirational women who have inspired me, write the sleeve notes for each of my albums from now onwards, with Maxine leading the way. Céline Peterson instantly came to mind, and I am absolutely thrilled that she agreed.”

Peterson, an artist representative, jazz festival producer and the daughter of the late Canadian jazz legend Oscar Peterson, writes, “Being able to connect with a singer and songwriter who can find the strength to share such deeply personal words with us in such a way that makes us feel safe, is rare. Red Flags and High Heels is a time capsule in musical creation.”

Ross is also the former Head of the British Academy of New Music where she trained chart-topping hit makers Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora, Jess Glynne and others. With “Good Enough”, Ross shows that even a mentor with high-level experience and stature is never completely free of self-doubt and that the best way to reveal those very personal feelings in song is honestly and unadorned.

“I always just write what comes in my head. Everything starts with me at my piano, so this is a pretty naked track from all angles.”

“Good Enough” and Red Flags and High Heels are available now.

Condor Matador Celebrates a Happy Return from Feeling Blah with “The ’90s Song”

Eric Alper
-
0
Condor Matador Celebrates a Happy Return from Feeling Blah with “The ’90s Song”

Sometimes the only way to feel happy again is to just fake it ‘till you make it. Montreal-based pop artist Condor Matador, a.k.a Jeremie Legault, addresses that very process in his violin-studded, disco-infused earworm of a new single “The ’90s Song” — available now.

Legault had been in a funk; it was the pandemic, which is funk-inducing for all of us, and he was also working a job he didn’t like and was just feeling blah. Working on Condor Matador was one of the few things that brought him joy and kept him sane during that time; he wrote “The ‘90s Song” when he began making steps toward feeling better and taking hold of his own destiny. The opening lyrics – “As I walked along/Hummed a ’90s song/It was Cher/Do you believe in life after love” – inspired him to apply the disco treatment to the song, because who’s more disco than the diva Cher?

“’The ’90s Song’ is a love letter to disco, written with a punk-rock sneer,” Legault says, adding that the chorus is inspired by “SOS” by ABBA. However, because “The ’90s Song” prominently features symphonic violin accents –- that violin is actually the first thing we hear as the opener – it’s impossible to not immediately think of The Verve’s 1997 hit “Bitter Sweet Symphony” as the song’s touchpoint, while the slightly sneering vocals absolutely evoke the pop punk – Green Day, Blink-182, The Offspring – of the ’90s.

Though the song features acoustic guitar elements provided by Legault, he commissioned Marky Beats (Marc Dupre, Domeno, Jonathan Roy) to produce a disco and funk style beat to go with the music. Legault was also able to involve Andrew Wan, two-time JUNO award-winning violinist and concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, in the making of the song. Meeting Wan was kismet, he shares. “My sister-in-law, photographer Erika Rosenbaum, had just taken some headshots for Andrew, and he happened to be visiting my brother’s farm on a day when I was helping him with a few things. We connected, and he said that he’d be interested in collaborating on a song.”

Wan went to Legault’s condo and they spent a fruitful evening recording his violin parts. “He was such a good sport and a wonderful collaborator,” Legault says.

The 90’s Song” will be included on the upcoming Condor Matador Album, Dirty Thirty — slated for release in June 2022. “I’m turning thirty this year, and I’m putting together a collection of songs that I feel encapsulate how I am living through this time,” he reveals. “There will be happy songs, and there will be sad songs. I might even do a ballad.

“I’m really challenging myself on this release.”

Legault will continue to work with Marky Beats, and he also plans to involve the producer Frame. The album will include a collaboration with singer-songwriter Yzabo, and will feature rock, pop and electro influences.

Formed in 2018, Condor Matador has been described as the rock n’ roll love child of Ed Sheeran, Blink -182, and just a little bit of Phil Collins. The brainchild of frontman Jeremie Legault, the project seamlessly mixes pop production techniques, fluid rock ‘n’ roll sensibilities, and impeccable songwriting. The result is a unique and uplifting experience that will leave you with a song in your heart that you just can’t shake.

His single “The ’90s Song” is available now.

Jon Bon Jovi’s Isolated Vocals For “Livin’ On A Prayer”

Eric Alper
-
0
Jon Bon Jovi’s Isolated Vocals For “Livin’ On A Prayer”

Jon Bon Jovi did not like the original recording of this song, which can be found as a hidden track on 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong, so he and the band re-recorded it for Slippery When Wet, on the way to spending 4 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987.

Watch A Really Young Coldplay Perform “Yellow” In 2000

Eric Alper
-
0
Watch A Really Young Coldplay Perform “Yellow” In 2000

At one of its first performances outside of England, Coldplay plays an intimate, understated set — approximately one month before the release of its smash “Parachutes” debut album in June 2000. It’s a rare, valuable look at the band moments before it became a global phenomenon.

Watch the entire concert here.

1...1,5921,5931,594...3,049Page 1,593 of 3,049

Follow us on Instagram @thatericalper

That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

Popular posts

Popular category

© Copyright - That Eric Alper