U2 planted the seeds for The Joshua Tree during an existential journey through America. As Irishmen in the 1970s, the band grew up with the belief that America was a place of freedom and prosperity, a symbol of hope and a refuge for all people. However, global politics of the 1980s undermined that impression and fostered hypocritical policies that manipulated Americans and devastated people around the world.
Originally conceived as “The Two Americas,” The Joshua Tree was U2’s critique of America. Rather than living up to the ideal that the country was “an idea that belongs to people who need it most,” the band found that America sacrificed equality and justice for populism and fascism. This book explores the political, social, and cultural themes rooted in The Joshua Tree when it was originally released in 1987 and how those themes resonated as a response to the election of Donald Trump when U2 toured for the album’s 30th anniversary.
The author juxtaposes the band’s existential journey through America with his own journey connecting with his Irish roots by becoming a citizen in the age of Trump and places U2’s and The Joshua Tree’s relevance in context with the current political climate.
There’s no stopping the blues – not even a second year of a global pandemic. In a year like no other, 2021 has proven that Canadian blues artists are tenacious, forward-thinking, and incredibly creative in the face of adversity. Despite ongoing challenges and changes, Toronto Blues Society continues to support and promote Canadian Blues artists by announcing the nominees for the upcoming 25th annual Maple Blues Awards. The winners will be announced on January 31, 2022 at the LIVE Maple Blues Award Show to be held at Koerner Hall in Toronto.
Eric Alper Public Relations’ musicians and clients receive a whopping 25 nominations!
Leading the way with multiple nominations is Steve Marriner, who has received seven nominations including Entertainer of the Year, Electric Act of the Year (with MonkeyJunk), Acoustic Act of the Year (with David Gogo), Male Vocalist of the Year, Recording/Producer of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, and Harmonica Player of the Year. Another nominee in multiple categories is Sue Foley, who has been nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Electric Act of the Year, Recording/Producer of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, and Guitarist of the Year.
25th Annual Maple Blues Awards Nominees
Entertainer of the Year
David Gogo
Steve Marriner
Sue Foley
Electric Act of the Year
Colin James
MonkeyJunk
Sue Foley
Acoustic Act of the Year
David Gogo & Steve Marriner
Male Vocalist of the Year
Chuck Jackson
Colin James
Matt Andersen
Steve Marriner
Female Vocalist of the Year
Crystal Shawanda
Recording/Producer of the Year
Steve Marriner – Hope Dies Last / Stony Plain (Steve Marriner)
Sue Foley – Pinky’s Blues / Stony Plain (Mike Flanigin)
Songwriter of the Year
Steve Marinner
Sue Foley
Blues with a Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award)
Dalannah Gail Bowen
Guitarist of the Year
David Gogo
Sue Foley
Tony D
Harmonica Player of the Year
Steve Marriner
Piano/Keyboard of the Year
David Vest
Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne
Drummer of the Year
Tom Bona
Matt Sobb
Nominees for the Maple Blues Awards are selected by a distinguished panel of some 53 blues experts. Co-Chaired by a steering committee consisting of Cindy McLeod, Yanick Theriault, Terry Parsons, and Brant Zwicker, the panel includes radio hosts, journalists, and festival organizers regionally distributed across Canada. Members of the Nominating Panel are not eligible for any of the awards.
Winners in instrumental categories — guitar, harmonica, piano/keyboards, horn, drum, and bass — will be determined by the Nominating Panel. Winners in all other categories will be selected by blues fans across the country.
The Maple Blues Awards is Canada’s national blues awards program. Its goal is to promote blues music across Canada and to recognize outstanding achievements in the field. The nominees are selected by a distinguished panel of blues DJ’s and journalists from across Canada. Members of the Nominating Canada. Members of the Nominating Panel are not eligible for any of the awards. The winners are selected by the votes of blues fans from across Canada.
Blues fans can cast their votes online at www.mapleblues.ca. Public Voting opens November 3, 2021 at 12:01 am Eastern Time and closes December 1, 2021, 11:59 pm Eastern.
The Maple Blues Award winners will be announced on January 31, 2022 at the LIVE Maple Blues Award Show to be held at Koerner Hall in Toronto. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.rcmusic.com/events-and-performances .
This voting site has been designed and programmed by KMP Designs Inc., a Toronto software consulting company specializing in custom software development for the desktop PC, wireless handheld, and the Web
Paul McCartney & Third Man have released McCartney/333, a mini-documentary detailing the vinyl pressing process for McCartney 333, the limited-edition version of McCartney’s acclaimed 2020 solo album McCartney III. The documentary specifically illuminates the process by which vinyl copies of 70’s McCartney and 80’s McCartney II were broken down and reformed into 333 limited-edition copies of McCartney III at Third Man Pressing. Several Third Man Records employees, including co-founder Ben Swank, are interviewed for the film alongside esteemed Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield, all spliced in alongside footage of McCartney creating the album in his studio.
Join The Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson on an intimate journey through his legendary career as he reminisces with Rolling Stone editor and longtime friend, Jason Fine. Featuring a new song written and performed by Wilson and interviews with Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Jonas, Linda Perry, Jim James, Gustavo Dudamel and Al Jardine. Special fan screenings November 17th, in theaters and on demand November 19th.
Sonic Reducers. 1 topic. 2 music nerds. 5 minutes.
We talk about all the musicians who have been diagnosed with COVID recently, try to predict how the ongoing pandemic will affect the future of touring, and how Led Zeppelin pioneered the bubble concept.
I wanna rock right now, and you do, too. “There are many critics and listeners who claim that Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock’s ‘It Takes Two’ is the greatest hip-hop single ever cut,” noted Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide. “It’s hard to disagree with them.”
Singer/Songwriter Mike Vitale is here to usher you “Home” with the release of his new single, and album — ϕ — both available now.
When it comes to the album, you don’t have to try and say ϕ, you just need to listen to it. In case you’re wondering, though, it means “Phi” — and it’s a beautiful lullaby that leaves you lingering on each hook.
It’s an LP the roots indie musician from LA has been in the process of creating for nearly a decade; a labour of love that began four years ago in Long Beach, Vitale fuses heart and love and musings on a 12-track full-length that finds him yodeling, to enchanting us with wanderlust — inviting us to spin starry circles in lovers lengths.
“The album is called PHI as this is the Greek letter representing the Golden Ratio,” Vitale explains. “It is an irrational number that goes on forever, just like Pi.
“But Pi deals with the circumference of circles,” he continues, “whereas Phi deals with spirals, and can be found in much of life we see around us. The way leaves organize the spread of their leaves for maximum sunlight to accomplish photosynthesis, for example, or the layout of a pinecone or a pineapple, which are also spirals, if you look closely. The Fibonacci sequence is directly related to Phi, as well as platonic solids.
“It is a mystery, written in math, and I adore concepts such as this.”
ϕ follows Mike Vitale’s first full-length acoustic, Idiosyncrasies, which dropped in 2007, and his six-track self-titled album — the latter featuring a full band in 2012 and Vitale taking the show on the road along the West Coast, playing wineries, venues, bars, and colleges. Vitale says the album began from a love story and grew into a collection of chapters of life teachings. While he pursued an Americana vibe on the album, truth be told, he fell in love with simply songwriting and putting out an album that didn’t specify a certain genre.
Self-produced, Vitale’s fingers touched every inch of the songs that wrapped ϕ into the collective it became. “I’ve been teaching myself how to produce music for the past 10 or 12 years,” he explains. “I studied music theory and composition in college, so I am an astute student of music and instrumentation.
“I also have many talented friends who played on this album,” he continues. “And, as a friend of mine said, ‘your songs are only as good as the people playing on them,’ which I believe to be true; I feel that a good producer tries to utilize their strengths in order to highlight the song. The song is king.”
One such example is “Home.” An alternative roots ditty with a subsequent music video that hears Vitale promising, offering, and providing, the song finds our protagonist prepared to be there for ‘her.’
“Somewhat embarrassingly, or probably more accurately, just in time, I wrote the chorus of this song well over ten years ago,” Vitale explains. “However, that is where the song stopped.
“For the life of me, I had nothing more to provide to the contents of its possession,” he continues. “It had no walls, or interior in which to stretch one’s legs, or to relax comfortably on the couch and admire its inner being. It had no kitchen to create soul food. It had no bedroom to make love, and to rest a weary head — let alone two — and so it sat in my creative nexus, forgotten and alone, looking for a mate… No verses. No Pre-chorus. No body. No arms or hands to softly caress the listener. No legs to dance on.”
Even after changing his surroundings, moving from Fullerton, to Anaheim, to Long Beach, he reveals. “Nothing,” he says. “Finally, I moved to Los Angeles, and met a girl who became its muse. She provided inspiration that manifested several verses, and the verses reverberated — not off walls, or roof, or floor, but off of a person.
“People; they are home — more so than any bed in a room, in a floor plan, in a wooden house, on a block, in a neighborhood, in a town or city — could ever be.”
The subsequent music video for “Home” was directed and edited by Vitale, as well; he taught himself how to video edit by watching instructional Youtube videos during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It became an exercise in seeing if I could tell a story with a small amount of footage,” he says. “I had approximately 1.5 minutes worth. Could I make a four-minute music video out of such little footage? I tried my best.”
Beyond the welcome mat of “Home,” each song on ϕ has its own specific story — bookended by these two in particular: “Kathy’s Song,” a love letter to a friend’s mother who lost her battle to ALS, and “Younger Days,” what Vitale refers to as ‘a love letter’ to his life.
“It’s to my friends I have made throughout the years that lead parallel lives to my own,” he shares. “We grow together — yet, sometimes we also grow apart — and our perpendicular intersections of life experience are special. However, nothing is more sacred than the present moment. Now is when we choose to be the best version of ourselves.”
From there, “Time Machine” triumphantly proclaims that we are travelers through time and space, fragile in our bodies, and strong in our ability to move freely within our own memories and to create and abstract our own future, while trakcs “Empty Circle,” “No Vacancy,” and “Gone” all ruminate on the loss of love and confidence at the hands of an aborted relationship.
Also featured is “Running Away From Home,” an anecdote of a second grade Vitale, running away from home to become a Werewolf like his hero, Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. The song was originally released in 2015, exclusively on Bandcamp, with proceeds donated to Michael J. Fox Parkinson’s Research Foundation as a one-year-long campaign to raise money for Parkinson’s Research.
Despite the setback in sheer length of time the album took from start to completion, what Vitale provides is an entire book-ended storyboard of life experiences, mashed over beautiful melodies and cozy harmonies. From adorable yodels, to asking life’s most perilous questions and seeking answers, Mike Vitale invites us to push play on an album that lands like a gentle hug to each of us, simply chronicling the simplicity of life.
With 34 previous releases, 13 JUNO wins, two Hall of Fame inductions, countless honorary Doctorates, Officer of The Order of Canada — and new inductee into Canada’s Walk of Fame this year — all spanning a 50+ year career — it’s no small task to encapsulate Bruce Cockburn’s inimitable imprint when it comes to Canadian music and culture. But his newly announced double-album release, Bruce Cockburn Greatest Hits (1970 – 2020), is a good place to start.
Curated by Bruce Cockburn and set for release December 3rd, 2021 via True North Records, this definitive collection meticulously corrals the acclaimed singer/songwriter’s most favoured tracks — from songs that shot to the top of the charts upon release, to long-lauded fan-favourites requested on tour, time and time again.
Expect to settle in for a chronological journey from the legendary artist’s earliest offerings, to today; curated by Cockburn himself, the hand-picked selection of 30 songs revisit works from 1970 to 2020, and are accompanied by exclusive notes from the artist.
“In 1969, when I was feeling the need to record an album of the songs I’d been writing, I had no concept of what that might lead to,” Cockburn shares. “Not unusual for a young person, I guess…
“In some organic way, it felt like it was ‘time.’ The future wasn’t really an issue. It still isn’t. For each of us, there’s a future or there isn’t.
“But looking back over the arc of fifty years of recording, performing, and travel — not to mention, relationships and personal challenges — I can only shake my head and mutter a word of thanks for all of it. Even if I’d been a planner by nature, I doubt I could have predicted how things have gone.
“And they’re still going!”
The release lands ahead of Cockburn’s “2nd Attempt” North American tour for his 50th Anniversary Concert, previously stymied by Covid restrictions.
Bruce Cockburn’s Greatest Hits (1970 – 2020) is available December 3rd, 2021 via True North Records.
Track Listing:
Disc 1
1. Going To The Country (3:16) originally released on Bruce Cockburn, 1970
2. Musical Friends (2:57) originally released on Bruce Cockburn, 1970
3. One Day I Walk (3:08) originally released on High Winds White Sky, 1971
4. Mama Just Wants To Barrelhouse All Night Long (6:26) originally released on Waiting For a Miracle, 1987*
5. All The Diamonds in the World (2:41) originally released on Sand, Salt and Time, 1974
6. Silver Wheels (4:42) originally released on In The Falling Dark, 1976
7. Wondering Where The Lions Are (3:44) originally released on Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws, 1979
8. Tokyo (3:29) originally released on Humans, 1980
9. Rumours of Glory (5:03) originally released on Humans, 1980
10. The Coldest Night Of The Year (4:26) originally released on Mummy Dust, 1981
11. Wanna Go Walking (2:54) originally released on Inner City Front, 1981
12. The Trouble With Normal (3:37) originally released on The Trouble With Normal, 1983
13. Lovers In A Dangerous Time (4:06) originally released on Stealing Fire, 1984
14. If I Had A Rocket Launcher (4:59) originally released on Stealing Fire, 1984
15. Call It Democracy (3:52) originally released on World of Wonders, 1986
16. People See Through You (3:46) originally released on World of Wonders, 1986
Disc 2
1. Waiting For A Miracle (4:50) originally released on Waiting For A Miracle, 1987
2. Stolen Land (5:22) originally released on Waiting For A Miracle, 1987
3. If A Tree Falls (5:42) originally released on Big Circumstance, 1988
4. A Dream Like Mine (4:55) originally released on Nothing But A Burning Light, 1991
5. Listen For A Laugh (4:06) originally released on Dart To The Heart, 1994
6. Night Train (6:14) originally released on The Charity of Night, 1997
7. Pacing The Cage (4:38) originally released on The Charity of Night, 1997
8. Last Night Of The World (4:52) originally released on Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu, 1999
9. Anything Anytime Anywhere (3:35) originally released on Anything Anytime Anywhere, 2002
10. Open (4:03) originally released on You’ve Never Seen Everything, 2003
11. Put it In Your Heart (5:23) originally released on You’ve Never Seen Everything, 2003
12. Different When It Comes To You (2:57) originally released on Life Short Call Now, 2006
13. Call Me Rose (3:16) originally released on Small Source of Comfort, 2011
14. States I’m In (5:41) originally released on Bone on Bone, 2017
* Mama Just Wants To Barrelhouse All Night Long (6:26) was originally released in 1973 on Night Vision but this version is from Waiting for A Miracle, 1987.
Bruce Cockburn 2021/22 Tour Dates:
December 7, 2021 Center for the Arts Grass Valley CA USA
December 8, 2021 Rio Theater Santa Cruz CA USA
December 9, 2021 Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse Berkeley CA USA
December 10, 2021 Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse Berkeley CA USA
December 12, 2021 Soreng Theater Eugene OR USA
December 13, 2021 Tower Theater Bend OR USA
December 14, 2021 Rogue Theater Grants Pass OR USA
December 16, 2021 Aladdin Theater Portland OR USA
December 17, 2021 Aladdin Theater Portland OR USA
December 18, 2021 Bing Crosby Theater Spokane WA USA
December 19, 2021 Neptune Theater Seattle WA USA
February 24, 2022 Higher Ground Burlington VT USA
February 25, 2022 The Egg Albany NY USA
February 26, 2022 Academy Theatre Northampton MA USA
February 27, 2022 The Wilbur Boston MA USA
March 1, 2022 Opera House Waterville ME USA
March 2, 2022 Centre for the Arts Fall River MA USA
March 4, 2022 Ridgefield Playhouse Ridgefield CT USA
March 5, 2022 Newton Theater Newton NJ USA
March 6, 2022 Peter Jay Sharp Theater New York NY USA
March 8, 2022 The Ark Ann Arbour MI USA
March 10, 2022 Old Town School Of Folk Chicago IL USA
March 11, 2022 Old Town School Of Folk Chicago IL USA
March 12, 2022 Barrymore Theater Madison WI USA
March 13, 2022 Englert Theater Iowa City IA USA
April 19, 2022 Showplace Theatre Peterborough ON Canada
April 21, 2022 Centre In The Square Kitchener ON Canada
April 22, 2022 Massey Hall Toronto ON Canada
April 23, 2022 National Arts Centre Ottawa ON Canada
