All photos by Mini’s Memories. You can contact her at minismemories@hotmail.com
Photo Gallery: Rosanne Cash at St. Catharines FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre
Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 Official Teaser Trailer
Watch the teaser trailer for Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2. The film goes in theatres this Thanksgiving.
How To Be Kraftwerk With ONE Synthesizer
Here’s The Robots by Kraftwerk recreated with just one synth, the Arturia Matrixbrute.
Jim Beam INDIES with Indie88 Featuring Performances by The Rural Alberta Advantage and more
Canadian Music Week announces the 18th Canadian Independent Music Awards – presented by Jim Beam with Indie88 at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in downtown Toronto on May 12. The annual event will feature performances by two time Juno award nominees The Rural Alberta Advantage, Vancouver based indie-folk rock trio Said the Whale, Toronto’s power pop rock band Sam Coffey and the Iron Lungs and the winner of the Jim Beam talent search.
Nominations are now open. Part concert and part awards, the Indies are a celebration of national and international independent musicians making outstanding achievements in this area. Submit your nomination(s!) today for a chance to be recognized among industry peers, media and fans alike. Submissions are being accepted through indies.ca until March 16, 2018. Artists or their representatives (including labels and managers) can submit nominations on their behalf. All submissions completed before March 5th will receive discounted pricing. The eligibility period for all awards categories runs from September 1, 2016 through February 1, 2018. Nominees must have been active during the eligibility period and are based on the performance of the group or artist either on record or in live performances. For complete submission details, eligibility criteria and award categories, see “Criteria” on the Indies website.
Early deadline: March 5, 2018 Final deadline: March 16, 2018. Celebrating the best of independent music – both Canadian and international – the Jim Beam INDIES with Indie88 will prove to be an unforgettable night for fans and industry alike. The Pre-sale starts on March 1 @ 10:00 am here. Use the code INDIE88, and the General On-sale: March 2 @ 10:00 am here.
SiriusXM and the CCMA launch Top of the Country music competition in search of Canada’s next big country star
SiriusXM Canada, the country’s leading audio entertainment company, today announced the launch of SiriusXM’s Top of the Country in partnership with the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA), offering a national platform exclusively for emerging Canadian country artists. The cross-Canada search will give participating acts a chance to play at Canada’s biggest country music festivals, industry mentorship programs, a SOCAN songwriting camp in Nashville, TN and more, plus the grand prize of $25,000 and a SOCAN songwriting camp in Pender Island, BC.
Once participants representing Western, Central and Eastern Canada have been selected, the competition will not only offer emerging artists some of the biggest prizes in the country, but showcase them on a national stage through a public online vote open to all Canadians to choose their favourites.
“Fostering and promoting new Canadian talent has always been incredibly important to SiriusXM and to our partner, the CCMA,” said Jeff Leake, Director of Music Programming. “So as Canada’s premier music provider, we wanted to shine a light on the burgeoning community of up and coming country artists to give them the exposure they deserve and need to help take their music careers to the next level.”
“As a champion of Canadian country music, the CCMA prides itself on finding new ways to elevate the genre and the artists that are navigating their way through it,” said Tracy Martin, Interim President of the CCMA. “We were focused on expanding our Discovery Program and our new artist development efforts, and we have done just that with our partner, SiriusXM. We are very excited to launch Top of the Country.”
SiriusXM invites Canadian country solo artists and groups to register starting at 10 am ET today at siriusxm.ca/topcountry until midnight ET on March 2. Following the registration phase, three artists from each of Western, Central and Eastern Canada will be chosen by a jury of industry experts to record in-studio videos for the Canada-wide online vote, taking place later this Spring.
Once voting is complete, three will emerge as the Top Country Finalists, receiving a stage spot at Big Valley Jamboree (Camrose, AB), Cavendish Beach Music Festival (Cavendish, PEI) or a SiriusXM-sponsored major festival in Ontario. Finalists will also receive a SOCAN songwriting camp in Nashville, TN and an exclusive mentoring session with Canadian artists and industry professionals in Toronto, hosted by SiriusXM and the CCMA.
The grand prize winner of Top of the Country will be chosen during the CCMA’s Country Music Week in Hamilton, ON this September. Finalists will battle it out on stage before a headlining artist at the SiriusXM CCMA Top of the Country Finale, airing live on SiriusXM, with music industry professionals and audience votes deciding the winner of $25,000, plus a SOCAN songwriting camp in Pender Island, BC.
SiriusXM’s Top of the Country in partnership with CCMA is part of SiriusXM’s ongoing tradition of promoting and elevating the best emerging Canadian music. SiriusXM continues to offer a leading platform for Canadian artists through its significant financial contributions and North American-wide reach of over 35 million subscribers.
Ratt and Marvin Gaye Mashup: “I Heard It Round And Round the Grapevine”
A mashup of Ratt’s Round and Round and Marvin Gaye’s I Heard it Through the Grapevine, a combination that only one person in the world thought it could work, and it does better than you think.
The First Trailer for Fahrenheit 451 Starring Michael B. Jordan And Michael Shannon Is Here
Fahrenheit 451 is based on Ray Bradbury’s classic novel. In a future where the media is an opiate, history is rewritten and “firemen” burn books, Jordan plays Guy Montag, a young fireman who struggles with his role as law enforcer and with his “mentor”, played by Shannon. Premieres Spring 2018 on HBO.
In his first-ever online class, Malcolm Gladwell teaches you how to transform big ideas into simple, powerful narratives
In his first-ever online class, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell teaches you how to transform big ideas into simple, powerful narratives.
Known for his nonfiction writing that captivates readers, Malcolm has been a staff writer at the New Yorker for over two decades and has authored five New York Times Best Sellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. Malcolm’s unique style of making unexpected connections across ordinary ideas has compelled millions of readers to devour complex topics like behavioral economics and performance prediction.
In his MasterClass, Malcolm shares the research and writing techniques that have made him a prolific nonfiction writer and master storyteller. You’ll learn his approach to finding ideas in unusual places, structuring compelling narratives, and keeping readers engaged through every detail—including the art of the title and the role of semicolons. He also shares career tips for writers amassed over years in the industry—dealing with bad reviews, differentiating yourself as a writer, and identifying your own strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
“Writing has a higher purpose. It’s part of the way in which we fulfill ourselves as human beings, both in the words that we write and the words that we read,” says Malcolm. “This class is a chance for me to reflect on my career and share the insights I’ve gleaned in a form that my students can use.”
Learn more about Malcolm Gladwell Teaches Writing: https://www.masterclass.com/mg
Used Vinyl Are Still Fetching Big Money From Collectors
Used vinyl is still selling at astronomical prices as well. According to Discogs, here are the top 10 most expensive pieces sold last year.
Read Spotofy’s Daniel Ek’s Personal Letter In The IPO Filing In Full
Spotify’s new filing with the US Security and Exchanges Commission reveals the personal thoughts and musings of its CEO and co-founder, Daniel Ek, about the business he’s built and changed the music industry forever.
You can read his letter in full below:
From the age of four, my life was about music and technology—never one without the other. Over time, I realized that by combining my two passions, I could create a new paradigm, one that helped fans and the creative community—singers, songwriters, bands, everyone in the creative process—chart a new course for an entire industry.
Spotify is the manifestation of those dreams. Music was too important to me to let piracy take down the industry. There had to be a way to give people access to the music they loved while allowing creators to get paid for their work, and to expand their creativity.
So I built a company based on a core set of values: innovation, passion, collaboration, transparency, and fairness. These values drive how we work with the creative community and how we treat our users. They’re why we’re committed to a diverse workforce in an open, trusting company culture.
Today, Spotify is one of the largest drivers of global music revenue. We’ve helped restore a rapidly shrinking industry to growth, and connected over a million artists with hundreds of millions of fans.
People constantly tell me how music has helped them through life’s biggest moments—birth and death, euphoria and heartbreak. At Spotify, we want to enrich, strengthen, and extend those moments and connections. So while some companies rely entirely on data, we take a different approach. We start with human creativity, augment it with our expertise and understanding, and then leverage with the efficiency of algorithms.
“I BUILT A COMPANY BASED ON A CORE SET OF VALUES: INNOVATION, PASSION, COLLABORATION, TRANSPARENCY, AND FAIRNESS.”
Music has just been the beginning. We’re an audio first platform—as a top provider of podcasts, we’re also connecting audiences to the conversations that we think will shape the future.
And we have even bigger aspirations. We envision a cultural platform where professional creators can break free of their medium’s constraints and where everyone can enjoy an immersive artistic experience that enables us to empathize with each other and to feel part of a greater whole. But to realize this vision, professional creators must be able to earn a fair living doing what they love, where monetization is at the core of a creative proposition and not an afterthought. We care deeply about our creators and our users and we believe Spotify is a win-win for both.
That’s our mission—to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.
Everyone who partners with us—employees, users, the creative community, brands, investors—should understand what our mission means to us, how we make decisions, and why.
We know that if we’re going to succeed as a company and as an industry, we have to think, build, plan, and imagine for the long-term.
To build a better world by unlocking human creativity, we are committed to creating a better experience for users—and to enabling more creators to live off their work. We firmly believe that in the long run, these priorities will provide greater returns to all of our stakeholders.
That’s because the future is markedly different from the past.
The old model favored certain gatekeepers. Artists had to be signed to a label. They needed access to a recording studio, and they had to be played on terrestrial radio to achieve success. Today, artists can produce and release their own music. Labels, studios, and radio still matter, but in a cluttered landscape, artists’ biggest challenge is navigating this complexity to get heard. We believe Spotify empowers them to break through.
“AS WE EVOLVE, SPOTIFY WILL MEET CREATORS WHERE THEY ARE AND EMPOWER THEM WITH EVEN MORE TOOLS TO DO WHAT THEY LOVE IN THEIR OWN AUTHENTIC WAY, AND REACH EVEN MORE PEOPLE.”
With access to unprecedented amounts of data and insights, we’re building audiences for every kind of artist at every level of fame and exposing fans to a universe of songs. In this new world, music has no borders. Spotify enables someone in Miami to discover sounds from Madrid. It links immigrants in Boston to songs back home in Bangkok.
We’re working to democratize the industry and connect all of us, across the world, in a shared culture that expands our horizons.
With a catalog that grows by tens of thousands of new creative works every day, Spotify is like a flywheel. Creators and consumers engage and react to each other, building momentum. These reactions generate even more buzz, which we believe, in turn, fuels even more creativity. Now, we are going to take the lessons we’ve learned in music and apply them across culture. In the future, Spotify will strive to more meaningfully connect people to the cultural experiences they care about—or don’t yet know they care about—to fit the mood and moment they’re in.
Today’s creators can collaborate with audiences across time zones. They incorporate video and interactive technology to create new and inspiring art, and more. They release their own work and directly make and reach fans. As we evolve, Spotify will meet creators where they are and empower them with even more tools to do what they love in their own authentic way, and reach even more people. What started out as an application and grew into a platform must now become a global network—one that recognizes and nurtures the interdependent relationships between creators, producers, publishers, labels, fans, and everyone in between.
To get there, we need transparency. We need discovery. We need new tools of creativity.
Artists’ greatest barriers to success are achieving exposure and earning money. That’s why Spotify wants to create a fair and open market, where fans can support the artists they love and creators can understand how they’re paid and earn a living.
Musicians, for example, compete against the entire history of music and a daily flood of new content. The central paradox for fans is that access gives you everything—but everything isn’t enough. Discovery is hard without a compass. Unprecedented choice at an affordable price must come with effective personalization to help audiences navigate a sea of content, and to help artists directly reach a sea of listeners. With the right mix of data insights contextualized by human experts, Spotify reunites fans with old favorites, and lets them discover new ones.
We intend to give the creative community the data, technology, and connections to not only make a living but also accelerate the exposure of their work. We believe that these tools we’re building will go far beyond music, building bonds between creators and consumers across every genre and form.
And when we get there, the possibilities for culture will completely change. Again.
Today, art has an even greater opportunity to be a transformative cultural force. And culture is the force that binds us all—no matter who we are or where we’re from—in a shared human experience. It’s what helps us understand one another across differences. It’s what breaks us out of isolation and brings people together. That’s why, everywhere I go around the world, I see artists finding inspiration across oceans, drawing on sounds born in one part of the world and making them their own—from punk music in Myanmar to rap in Mongolia.
“UNPRECEDENTED CHOICE AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE MUST COME WITH EFFECTIVE PERSONALIZATION TO HELP AUDIENCES NAVIGATE A SEA OF CONTENT, AND TO HELP ARTISTS DIRECTLY REACH A SEA OF LISTENERS.”
This is the future we envision; where artists cross genres and cultural boundaries, creating ideas that propel society forward; where fans can discover something they never would have otherwise; where we’re all part of a global network, building new connections, sharing new ideas, across cultures.
We really do believe that we can improve the world, one song at a time.