The annual Dream Serenade benefit concert will return later this month for its seventh consecutive year, supporting and celebrating the community of children in Toronto with developmental and/or physical disabilities and their families and caregivers, with proceeds directed to its new COVID Family Relief Bursary.
This year, on Saturday, November 28, at 8 pm EST, Dream Serenade will look a bit different than in years past. The virtual live edition, hosted from its creators’ home, plans to retain the spirit that makes these evenings such a heartwarming and celebratory event year after year. A limited number of tickets are available to go live online via ZOOM with Dream Serenade to watch the show together in real-time.
In addition to the virtual show, Dream Serenade will be hosting a fundraising Market and online Merchandise Shop. The sale will include special packages donated by community vendors and previous event merchandise, and new special edition items. Links to these fundraising efforts and online donations can be viewed and purchased now. . All proceeds are directed back to the community, directly supporting children and families in the Greater Toronto Area.
Earlier this year, Dream Serenade created the COVID Family Relief Bursary to meet the community’s urgent needs during this challenging time. The new Bursary received over 450 applications in its first week and provided support to 144 families at 55 schools across the Greater Toronto Area. Proceeds from this year’s fundraising efforts will go towards continuing this COVID Family Relief Bursary program.
The Annual Dream Serenade Benefit Concert was created in 2014 by Toronto parents Christie Greyerbiehl and musician/songwriter Hayden Desser to thank and raise funds for their daughter’s school, Beverley Street School. The popular annual event hosted at Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall has expanded to support other like-minded schools and care-centres in the GTA and raise funds that directly assist Toronto area families with a large summer camp bursary fund.
Dream Serenade has become one of Toronto’s most highly anticipated annual events, combining a celebration of a hard-working community while raising money and awareness for schools and services for children with exceptionalities and their caregivers. Past performers who have come together to celebrate this community and perform unique sets include Feist, Gord Downie, Tanya Tagaq, Broken Social Scene, Barenaked Ladies, Shad, Tom Cochrane, Billy Talent, Sarah Harmer, Bahamas, The Persuasions, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Sloan, City & Colour, Jim Cuddy, Sam Roberts, members of The National, and so many more.
The JUNO Awards are looking for 350 judges; 10 judges for each of the 35 of the craft and technical award categories. To qualify as a judge you must be a Canadian actively working in the Canadian music industry.
The ten selected judges for each category are balanced evenly across age, province, gender, ethnicity, language, and occupation.
The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF) is pleased to announce the song induction for the mega-hit (Let’s Give Them) Something to Talk About, written by Canadian singer-songwriter and composer Shirley Eikhard. The song was made famous by multi Grammy-winning icon Bonnie Raitt who released the recording in 1991’s “Luck of the Draw” album, propelling both Raitt and Eikhard to new heights of success.
“Shirley Eikhard is a Canadian treasure and multifaceted artist who has gifted us with her voice, her music, and her talents as a songwriter and composer,” said Vanessa Thomas, CSHF Executive Director. “A mainstay on radio nearly thirty years later, Bonnie’s recording of Something to Talk About is unparalleled and timeless; and takes its well-deserved place in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.”
Shirley Eikhard, originally from Sackville, New Brunswick, earned JUNO Awards in 1973 and 1974 for Best Country Female Artist, and has had numerous country and pop hits, including You’re My Weakness and Smilin’ Wine. Her songs have been recorded by Cher, Anne Murray, Chet Atkins, Ginette Reno, Alannah Myles, and Rita Coolidge.
Eikhard wrote the blues-rock hit Something to Talk About in Nashville in the 1980s, and had offered the song to Anne Murray among other artists, all of whom expressed interest but ultimately did not record it. She had put the song on the back burner; and one day, received a surprise phone message from the American blues singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, replaying a recording of Something to Talk About that Raitt had just finished after discovering the song on a demo tape that Eikhard had sent her years earlier.
“I got home and there was this thing on my machine. There was Bonnie…I was numb,” recalled Eikhard. It may have taken seven years in the making for Eikhard to find the right artist to sing her song; but when Bonnie Raitt left that fateful voicemail, the rest is music history.
Raitt’s recording of Eikhard’s composition proved a spectacular success. The single, off Raitt’s “Luck of the Draw” album, peaked on Billboard’s Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts at No. 5 in October 1991, and at No. 8 on Cashbox. It placed even higher in Canada, at No. 3 on the RPM Top 100 chart and No. 4 on Adult Contemporary, and made the Top 20 on RPM’s 1991 year-end chart.
Something to Talk About netted Raitt the industry’s coveted Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and drove the “Luck of the Draw” album to win the Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, boosted by multi-platinum sales in North America. At home in Canada, Something to Talk About also earned Eikhard a JUNO nomination for Songwriter of the Year, and later SOCAN Classics and BMI Awards for its status as a radio favourite.
The song has been performed by Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, David Clayton-Thomas, and Jennifer Love Hewitt; and Raitt’s edition was the cover soundtrack to the Hollywood film of the same title, starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid. Eikhard also sang her own version that was used as the theme song for CBS’s Women of the House.
Following the televised virtual presentation of Eikhard’s song induction on October 6, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame will add the song to its permanent and interactive exhibition at the National Music Centre in Calgary, that features a celebrated catalogue of inducted songs that fans can listen to, as well as displays, exclusive artifacts, and one-of-a-kind memorabilia celebrating Canada’s greatest songs and songwriters.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused increased mental health hardship for many employed in the Canadian music industry including artists, crew, behind the scenes support teams and more. Countless individuals in the music community were the first to lose their livelihood, and the entertainment industry will be one of the last to recover.
During a crisis, mental illness doesn’t simply go away and for many, the increased stressors only make it worse. In 2020, Unison has seen a 29% increase in demand for counselling services, and a 61% increase in urgent mental health crisis intervention cases.
At Unison Benevolent Fund, they are committed to providing assistance to music industry professionals and their families – not just during the holidays, but throughout the year. They have more people seeking assistance with their mental health programs than ever before, but their resources are limited. They are dependent on the generosity of donors to continue to provide much-needed services to Canadian music makers who are need of assistance. For many, Unison has been their only source of emergency assistance. It is imperative that they continue this fund to provide this bridge of relief for as many music professionals as we can.
During this time of reflection, personally, I’m asking you today to make a tax-deductible donation to support the work of Unison. No donation is too small; any amount will be greatly appreciated. Donating is easy. You can contribute to Unison Benevolent Fund’s registered GoFundMe, online.
Unison Benevolent Fund is a non-profit, registered charity that provides counselling and emergency relief services to the Canadian music community. We are here to help professional music makers in times of hardship, illness or economic difficulties. Unison Benevolent Fund is an assistance program – created and administered for the music community, by the music community – designed to provide discreet relief to music industry professionals in times of crisis through financial assistance and counselling and health solutions.
SOCAN has announced the departure of Chief Membership & Business Development Officer Michael McCarty, effective Nov. 30, 2020. After that, he’ll provide consulting services for the organization until April 2021, assisting with the transition to the Membership department’s future leadership and structure.
“We thank Michael McCarty for his leadership, creativity, and commitment to our members over the past seven years,” said Jennifer Brown, Interim CEO of SOCAN. “During this time, he has transformed our Membership services and strategy, built one of the strongest member bases in our industry, and helped to change our company culture to being even more optimistic and leading-edge, serving music creators and publishers in Canada and around the world.”
McCarty has a 40 -year career in the music industry. Before becoming SOCAN’s Chief Membership & Business Development Officer in 2013, he was president of EMI Music Publishing Canada for 17 years and contributed many years of service as a member of the SOCAN Board of Directors.
“One of the great joys of my job has been to work with a strong team of people dedicated to a single cause – serving our members,” McCarty said. “I will always be proud of our accomplishments and the journey we took together, improving the recruitment and retention of members and impacting the culture and business of SOCAN. I want to thank everyone at SOCAN for their support, advice and help in achieving our mandate.”
In 2019, Michael McCarty was inducted into the Canadian Music & Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame.
Five of Newfoundland’s most cherished artists braced for the challenge of creating music together during this year’s worldwide health crisis. The result: a six-song EP due out November 13 titled SONGS FROM HOME, – a collection of music from Alan Doyle, The Once, The Ennis Sisters, Fortunate Ones and Rachel Cousins.
The first single, “It’s OK,” features all five artists reimagining a song from Doyle’s EP Rough Side Out, released earlier this year. “It’s OK” perfectly captures the spirit of the time we are living in and the essence of this project, and will be out October 30.
For the first time in many years, Doyle found himself at home, with no live shows on his calendar for the foreseeable future. This was an opportunity he did not want to waste and reached out some of his fellow Newfoundland artists to see if they wanted to record together. They all worked from their own homes, only seeing each other in person during the socially-distant recording session for “It’s OK.”
“It’s really all about making and keeping connections at a time when it was so difficult to be connected,” said Doyle. “It was such a feeling of closeness to be working on something together even though together was what we certainly could not be when this whole thing started.”
Celebrating the release of Songs From Home, Doyle will livestream two of his four upcoming sold out performances from The Public House at YellowBelly Brewery in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m. ET / 8:30 p.m. AT. Accompanied nightly by guitarist Cory Tetford and fiddler Kendel Carson, the livestreams will also feature special guest appearances by Fortunate Ones and Rachel Cousins on Nov. 13 and The Once and The Ennis Sisters on Nov. 14.
The most legendary and iconic bass player on the planet, Leland Sklar, has launched his highly anticipated and long awaited coffee table masterpiece “Everybody Loves Me.” The book is filled with unique and unexpected photos of over 6,000 celebrities and everyday people giving Sklar the proverbial middle finger.
The California based rocker and most respected bassist in the industry has played and toured with artists including James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Brown, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, Toto, Bee Gees, Laura Branigan, Glen Campbell, Ray Charles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Diamond, and countless others. All told he has contributed to over 26,000 albums and has done many soundtracks for films and television shows. Many of those superstars appear in the book as well as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Nicholson, Bonnie Raitt, Bernie Williams (NY Yankees), Katey Sagal, and about 6,000 others.
“Everybody Loves Me” had created a buzz long before the book even came out. Random people and fans were known to walk up to Sklar giving him the bird before ever saying hello. According to Sklar, noticing the expressions on people’s faces as they held up their middle finger was of artistic interest to him while shooting the photographs.
The book sells for $60.00 however you can obtain a signed copy for $80.00. You can order this colorful Conversation piece directly from his website at https://www.lelandsklarsbeard.com
2020 marks 50 years since Paul McCartney released his self-titled first solo album. Featuring Paul playing every instrument and writing and recording every song, McCartney’s effortless charms have only grown in stature and influence over time. The chart-topping album would signify not only a creative rebirth for Paul, but also as a template for generations of indie and lo-fi musicians seeking to emulate its warm homespun vibe and timeless tunes including Maybe I’m Amazed, Every Night and The Lovely Linda.
The 1970s saw Paul forming his second band Wings and dominating the charts, stages and airwaves of the world, with multiple #1 singles, sold-out world tours, multi-million-selling albums including Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, Wings at the Speed of Sound, London Town and more. In 1980,10 years from the release of McCartney, Paul wrapped up the decade of Wings with the surprise release of his second solo album, the electronic-tinged McCartney II. Once again featuring Paul entirely on his own, McCartney II would come to be regarded as a leftfield classic, with classic cuts such as Coming Up, Temporary Secretary and Waterfalls.
The 1980s saw Paul start again, this time kicking off an unprecedented solo run. The following four decades would see Paul’s iconic and legendary status grow exponentially, with solo masterpieces including Tug of War, Flowers in the Dirt, Pipes of Peace, Flaming Pie, Memory Almost Full and New, and massive live shows the world over — actually setting the World Record for the largest attendance at a concert. In 2018, 54 years since The Beatles first hit #1 on the Billboard Album Charts – Paul’s Egypt Station would be yet another historic #1 McCartney album.
Hard as it is to believe, it’s only been two years since Egypt Station went #1–and it was only last year that Paul’s Freshen Up tour played its last show before Covid hit pause on live music, a legendary blowout at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Paul hadn’t planned to release an album in 2020, but in the isolation of “Rockdown,” he soon found himself fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating even more new ones. Before long an eclectic collection of spontaneous songs would become McCartney III: a stripped back, self-produced and, quite literally, solo work marking the opening of a new decade, in the tradition of 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II. Recorded earlier this year in Sussex, McCartney III is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, overdubbing his bass playing, drumming, etc. atop that foundation. The process first sparked when Paul returned to an unreleased track from the early 90s, When Winter Comes (co-produced by George Martin). Paul crafted a new passage for the song, giving rise to album opener Long Tailed Winter Bird—while When Winter Comes, featuring its new 2020 intro Winter Bird, became the new album’s grand finale.
Speaking about III, Paul said: “I was living lockdown life on my farm with my family and I would go to my studio every day. I had to do a little bit of work on some film music and that turned into the opening track and then when it was done I thought what will I do next? I had some stuff I’d worked on over the years but sometimes time would run out and it would be left half-finished so I started thinking about what I had. Each day I’d start recording with the instrument I wrote the song on and then gradually layer it all up, it was a lot of fun. It was about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job. So, I just did stuff I fancied doing. I had no idea this would end up as an album.”
Long Tailed Winter Bird and Winter Bird/When Winter Comes bookend McCartney III’s vast and intimate range of modes and moods, from soul searching to wistful, from playful to raucous and all points between — captured with some of the same gear from Paul’s Rude Studio used as far back as 1971 Wings sessions. And Paul’s array of vintage instruments he played on the new album have an even more storied history, including Bill Black of Elvis Presley’s original trio’s double bass alongside Paul’s own iconic Hofner violin bass, and a mellotron from Abbey Road Studios used on Beatles recordings, to name but a few.
In keeping with McCartney & McCartney II’s photography by Linda McCartney, the principal photos for III were shot by Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney—with additional photography by Paul’s nephew Sonny McCartney as well as photos Paul took on his phone (it’s a family affair). The cover art and typography is by celebrated American artist Ed Ruscha.
McCartney and McCartney II each saw Paul open up a new decade with reinvention, both personal and musical. Just as McCartney’s 1970 release marked Paul’s return to basics in the wake of the biggest band break-up in musical history, and the 1980 avant-garde masterpiece McCartney II rose from the ashes of Wings, McCartney III finds Paul back on his own, turning unexpected circumstances into a personal snapshot of a timeless artist at a unique point in history.
McCartney III will be released December 11 on Capitol Records across digital platforms, on CD, and on LP manufactured by Third Man Pressing. Vinyl configurations will range from standard 180g to a Third Man Edition of 3,000 hand-numbered red vinyl copies, a ‘333’ Edition sold only via Third Man Records online store and limited to 333 copies on yellow-with-black-dots vinyl created using 33 recycled vinyl copies of McCartney and McCartney II, a U.S. indie retail exclusive pressing of 4,000 hand-numbered white vinyl LPs, and more.
Four-time GRAMMY-winning singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash has released “Crawl Into The Promised Land,” a scathing yet hopeful new single that transforms all the emotions of this unprecedented year into a powerful ode to the resilience of the human spirit. Read Cash’s essay on “Crawl Into The Promised Land” below.
The song was co-written by Cash and John Leventhal who produced the track and performed all instruments, along with backing vocals by Sarah Jarosz and Jakob Leventhal. “Crawl Into The Promised Land” is available to stream or download today and is accompanied by the release of a powerful video by Phyllis Housen and Eric Baker.
Proceeds from the single will be donated to the Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement, an educational online memorial to commemorate the victims of lynchings in the State of Arkansas in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative and Coming To The Table.
Cash says, “The pandemic and the protests were a perfect storm of isolation, inspiration, outrage, longing, fear, and hope. Living in New York City was a pressure cooker, particularly in April and May, when the deaths were spiking and the city sealed itself off, and utterly changed. But strangely, there was also a sense of transformation just around the curve, a sense of unity and community, and the potential for transcendence. I kept thinking of the model in physics, where things have to fall apart in order to re-assemble themselves in a more refined, evolved state.
“My tour was cancelled, and I was off the road, sequestered in my own home, with time, a stack of writing journals, and a recording studio in the basement. There was nothing to do to accommodate the emotional squeeze, and the rumblings of panic, and no way to articulate the division, and the suffering born of racism and the suffering born of Covid, with reason or logic. The only thing to do was write songs.
“We have been at the mercy of grifters with cruel intentions. People who operate out of greed and the most base ambitions. People who value power over human lives, and, shockingly, do not suffer the consequences of wielding that power. At the same moment, we are confronting the systemic racism in America, in a more conscious way, and we have to decide what we will do with the overdue epiphany. The veil is lifting. Hopefully, we are taking the first steps toward reparation and reconciliation. It requires facing some very dark parts of our shared history and our individual pockets of bias and privilege.
“I’m angry and bewildered that our leaders consider me and many others ‘the enemy’.
“I am a patriot. Every generation of my family has served this country, back to the 18th Century. Both sides of my family fought in the Revolutionary War in order to ‘form a more perfect union.’ I want to form a more perfect union than they wanted. One that acknowledges that Black and indigenous people were fighting in the War of Independence on the American side, and that they deserve full enfranchisement that they also earned three centuries back and have yet to be fully given. We’ve been here for centuries, and we’re here to stay. The corrupt motives of those elected to serve us have opened a chasm between North and South, red and blue, American and American. The trashing of norms, the abdication of dignity, values, and true leadership, torments me. I want to see the American dream become the American reality. If it wasn’t possible, it wouldn’t live so vividly in our imagination and our longing.
“John Leventhal more than met the impulse that led to my lyrics, and created the music that conveyed all the urgency, and faith, outrage and power. It happened quickly. It had been percolating for awhile.
“I want to run away from the moment, to look back at this time from decades in the future, and understand it, and see that we rose to our best selves, so I wrote the lines:
‘Fifty years away from here
Sixty, if I run’.
“I need more space and time to understand what happened, what we are still going through. Why we elected such an unfit person to guide us, why we kill Black people with impunity, why our leaders dismantle and mock every institution we have painstakingly created to hold us safe, why some deaths matter and others don’t. I won’t be here ‘fifty years away from here’, but someone I gave birth to, or someone they gave birth to, will live in those times and understand, and maybe pass the knowledge on to me, even in another world or another life. The magnitude of the moment requires time and an ocean of reflection.
“The song required a visual corollary. I wanted to connect the past and the present: the Voting Rights Act, and the Women’s March of 2017, the Civil Rights movement and the Black Lives Matter protestors, Harriet Tubman and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the workers in the cotton fields and the lives of those of us who live in privilege because of them, and the necessary gratitude for the humanity we share. There are photos of my mother, of my husband, of my spiritual and cultural ancestors, of my country at war, and my kinfolk in unity. Phyllis Housen and Eric Baker brought their refined visual sensitivity to weave the words, the backbeat, and the pictures.
“The song leads into the election. ‘Deliver me from tweets and lies’, begs to be delivered from hatred in the ranks, from division and violence, from conspiracy and delusion, and from those who blow wind into the embers of hatred. We can get back to our dream of America, where the ‘enemy’ is an individual burden, inside each of us, aching for a truce.
“‘Only in our dreams we had/faith in bigger lives and plans’. Now it is time to give breath to those dreams and ‘put away those broken vows’. We’re exhausted. We’re disoriented. But I know we have the strength and will to deliver ourselves, to crawl into the promised land.”
To commemorate its 20th anniversary, Conspiracy of One, the sixth album by punk rock trailblazers the Offspring, will once again be available on vinyl — the first time since its release in 2000. On December 11, Round Hill Records/UMe will release a deluxe version of Conspiracy of One pressed to yellow and red splatter vinyl, which includes spot gloss on the cover and a custom turntable slipmat featuring the Offspring’s flaming skull silhouette logo. A non-deluxe, limited-edition canary yellow vinyl variant will be available on uDiscover & The Sound of Vinyl. A standard black vinyl version will be released in early 2021.
All editions will feature the bonus track “Huck It.” The anthemic, sub-three-minute blast was featured on their 2000 VHS/DVD Huck It and used to soundtrack various skateboard stunts, including longtime Offspring drummer Ron Welty doing a successful board-to-board leap over two of his bandmates. “Huck It” will be released as a stand-alone digital single on November 13. In addition, the official videos for Conspiracy‘s first two singles – “Original Prankster” and “Want You Bad” – will be available on the Offspring’s Official YouTube channel in newly remastered HD.
Conspiracy of One, the first Offspring album of the 21st Century, was the fourth album from the game-changing punk group to be certified Platinum, a feat completed only a month after its release on November 14, 2000. The album is best known for its lead single, “Original Prankster,” a song that broke the Billboard Top 100 and hit Number 2 on the U.S. Alternative Airplay charts. The song and its mischievous video by director Dave Meyers included a funky sample from War’s “Low Rider” and a cameo from hip-hop legend Redman. The album’s follow-up single, “Want You Bad,” could be heard in the film American Pie 2 and the video game Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller.
About the release, Dexter Holland said, “When we put Conspiracy of One out in 2000, Bill Clinton was still President, and September 11 hadn’t happened yet. However, it was obvious that tensions were rising in the Middle East, and we could all sense that acts of terrorism were on the rise, both domestically and internationally. In the U.S., we had all experienced the tragedy of the Oklahoma City bombing and had only recently apprehended the Unabomber, while internationally, there were instances of terrorism such as the sarin nerve gas attack in Japan, suicide bombing attacks in Chechnya, and the bombing of the USS Cole. It occurred to us that this was going to be a new way of waging war going forward. While in the past, nations were generally attacked by other nations – army vs. army – we realized that the world was changing and that future attacks against our country were just as likely to occur by an individual or a small group…a “Conspiracy of One.” Of course, we had no idea what was in store for us on September 11, 2001, or how our title portended things to come.”
“Conspiracy of One seemed to come together pretty quickly, compared to some of other records,” said Noodles. “It was our first time recording with Brendan O’Brien, and we learned a lot from him about how to get the sounds we were looking for. We still play ‘Prankster’ & ‘Want You Bad’ from this record, almost every show, and we’d like to add more to the set. ‘Come Out Swinging’ & ‘Million Miles Away’ always stoke the fans, and ‘Special Delivery’ was such a dynamic & fun part of our set when we played it back then. I still love all these songs.”
For Conspiracy of One, the Offspring used their flaming skull logo on an album cover for the first time — the now-iconic Alan Forbes illustration has since appeared on no small number of T-shirts, stickers, tattoos, and, recently, a custom tank in the multiplayer online game World of Tanks. The Offspring’s first collaboration with producer Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine), Conspiracy of One captures both the Offspring’s trademark locomotive pop-punk (“Come Out Swinging”, the 99-second “All Along”) and their genre-crossing experiments (the bridge of mid-tempo “Special Delivery” borrows the ooga-chaka from Blue Swede’s 1974 version of “Hooked on a Feeling”).
“Alan Forbes is a fantastic graphic artist who did the artwork on Conspiracy of One and “Huck It,” Dexter shared. “We had been fans of his work for years and were thrilled to have him help us with our album package. Part of our conversations with Alan were about how it would be cool to have an official Offspring band logo. We worked together and came up with the ‘flaming skull.’ It’s been our logo ever since!”
With more than 40 million albums sold worldwide, The Offspring are one of punk rock’s most significant ambassadors. Since 1985, their lineup has featured vocalist Dexter Holland and guitarist Noodles, with the entirety of the 1990s, spent with the Conspiracy of Onerhythm section of bassist Greg K and drummer Ron Welty. Featuring “Come Out And Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)” and “Self Esteem,” their 1994 breakthrough Smash remains the largest selling album ever released on an independent label, certified six times Platinum. The group currently has festival dates scheduled across Europe for the summer of 2021.
