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Nikki Yanofsky named National Celebrity Ambassador for Kids Help Phone

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Kids Help Phone, a leading Canadian charity dedicated to the emotional health and well-being of young people, announced singer and song-writer as its National Celebrity Ambassador today.

Kids Help Phone is a charity that provides counselling and referrals in both official languages as the only national helpline for young people. Since 1989, Kids Help Phone has offered kids and teens hope and support through its confidential and anonymous service. As an organization that speaks with young people every day, Kids Help Phone works to share their perspectives and improve their emotional health and well-being. Kids Help Phone raises the majority of its revenue from individuals, foundations, corporations, and community fundraising.

Yanofsky, a multi-platinum, Universal Music Canada recording artist is an accomplished philanthropist, having helped raise over $10 million for local, national and international charities. She received the Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy award from the Quebec Chapter of The Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2008 for her efforts.

“As an artist, Ms. Yanofsky represents integrity and realness — writing and performing inspiring and positive songs that appeal to a broad audience, and setting an example for young people through her remarkable achievements, both on and off the stage,” saidSharon Wood, President & CEO, Kids Help Phone.  “Throughout her career, Ms. Yanofsky has been a passionate advocate for children and youth, and has bravely spoken about her own experiences of being bullied. As a result, she has sent a strong message to young people, letting them know they are not alone and that their voices matter.”

In her role as National Celebrity Ambassador (a volunteer role), Nikki will lend her voice to a number of Kids Help Phone campaigns and initiatives throughout the year, including National Bullying Awareness Week which began yesterday.

“I am beyond happy to announce that I am the new National ambassador for Kids Help Phone. I want to make sure that every single kid and teen in a difficult situation knows that they have someone to talk to and someone who cares wherever and most importantly, whenever,” said Yanofsky.

From her auspicious start as the youngest headliner in the history of the Montreal International Jazz Festival at 12, Yanofsky has covered plenty of territory over the last eight years. She has topped both jazz and pop charts, performed with orchestras and big bands, and sold out festivals and major theatres around the world; in 2010, she sang to 3.2 billion people – half the world’s population – at the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games. She has worked with luminaries such as Herbie Hancock, Phil Ramone, Will.i.am, Wyclef Jean, and Stevie Wonder.

In 2014, Nikki had her highest album debut with her sophomore release Little Secret, entering the Canadian Album Chart at #4, #4 inFrance Digital Sales and #1 on the Jazz chart in both countries. Executive produced by legend Quincy Jones, Little Secret was Juno nominated for Pop Album of the Year and received Gold certification in Canada.

Nikki is currently working on her new album with new music to be released in 2016.

Tom Petty Radio Is Coming To SiriusXM Canada

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SiriusXM Canada, the country’s leading audio entertainment company, today announced that Grammy Award -winning singer-songwriter, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Heartbreakers ringleader, Traveling Wilbury and rock legend Tom Petty will launch his own SiriusXM channel on Friday, November 20. Tom Petty Radio will be available on SiriusXM channel 31 and through the SiriusXM App on smartphones and other connected devices.

Tom Petty Radio, the new, exclusive channel, will be curated by Petty himself, and will feature music from his legendary career. Included on Tom Petty Radio will be music from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Petty’s solo career, the Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. The channel will also feature unreleased studio and live recordings, exclusive to SiriusXM, unique cover versions of Petty’s songs and rare live performances from Petty’s personal vaults, including the worldwide radio debut of Petty and The Heartbreakers’ August 30, 2014 concert at Fenway Park in Boston.

Tom Petty Radio channel will also regularly feature archival and new episodes of Petty’s critically-acclaimed weekly SiriusXM show,Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure, now in its ninth season. The show features Petty pulling together sets of rare, vintage, and classic tracks from his private vaults, and sharing his passionate and informed commentary on the best in rock, rhythm and blues.

The new channel will include the exclusive world premiere of new music recorded by Petty, as well as interview segments with Petty conducted by acclaimed journalist and SiriusXM host, David Fricke. Tom Petty Radio will also include special guest DJ sessions hosted by members of Petty’s band The Heartbreakers — Steve Ferrone and Benmont Tench — as well as Lucinda Williams, Jackson Browne, Dhani Harrison, The Byrds’ founding member Roger McGuinn and others.

Petty will be the first DJ on the channel — the two-hour special will air on Friday, November 20 at 6:00 pm ET, when the channel launches, and will feature Petty playing music from his entire career along with his commentary about the songs.

“We are so honoured and grateful to SiriusXM for giving our fans access to all of our music, from our biggest hits to very obscure tracks only available through this channel,” said Petty. “I intend to be very hands on and supply brand new exclusive tracks as well as rarities from our vaults. Our biggest hope is for a channel that is always entertaining in the way only radio can be.”

Tom Petty Radio will debut on Friday, November 20 at 6:00 pm ET on SiriusXM channel 31 and through the SiriusXM App on smartphones and other connected devices, as well as at https://player.siriusxm.ca.

Shows featured on Petty’s channel will also be available via SiriusXM On Demand for subscribers listening online and via smartphones and other connected devices.

WWF-Canada and Love Nature Announce New Content Partnership to Raise Awareness on Canada’s Water Health

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WWF-Canada and Love Nature, a Blue Ant Media brand, are pleased to announce a new content partnership that will see the two organizations joining forces to advocate for water conservation awareness and to promote the importance of freshwater in Canada. The two partners will launch a joint digital content hub on WWF.ca, drawing attention to the nation’s ongoing water conservation issues and offering stories that detail each one of the country’s 25 watersheds with stunning photography. WWF-Canada will also act as title sponsor of Love Nature’ s programming block, WWF Water Wednesdays with David Miller. Miller will host the programming block every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET/PT as of this Wednesday.

“WWF-Canada and Love Nature have a shared interest in connecting Canadians with the beauty and wonder of nature, while also shining a light on the environmental issues in our constantly changing world,” said Laura Pearce, VP, Marketing and Digital, Blue Ant Media. “We are thrilled to work with WWF-Canada to help raise awareness about water health and to engage with our audiences on how we can find solutions together.”

WWF Water Wednesdayswith David Miller will provide viewers with an educational background on what watersheds are, their importance in maintaining ecosystem health and biodiversity and how they ultimately support water conservation. Wildlife and nature fans will enjoy programming that allows them to explore water and aquatic life around the world and learn how it relates to Canada’swater issues.

Canada is home to one-fifth of the world’s freshwater supply and we have a responsibility to steward this valuable resource,” saidDavid Miller, President and CEO, WWF-Canada. “We hope that WWF Water Wednesdays on Love Nature, will inspire people to learn how our lakes, rivers and oceans are an important part of our ecosystem that need to be protected from the threats like pollution, habitat loss and fragmentation.”

Wildlife and nature fans are invited to join Canada’s watershed conversation via LoveNature.com and WWF.ca and via social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Across these platforms, nature lovers will find beautiful images direct from all of Love Nature’s programming, short form video, relevant and news-breaking media coverage about the natural world and information about Canada’s watersheds from both Love Nature and WWF-Canada.

For more information on WWF Canada’s Watershed Reports, please visit: watershedreports.wwf.ca.

The Ultimate Beatles Item Is Going Up For Auction: White Album No. 0000001

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The Beatles’ self-titled album from 1968, is famous for its sleeve designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton, in collaboration with Paul McCartney. Hamilton’s design was in stark contrast to Peter Blake’s vivid cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band’s name was discreetly embossed slightly below the middle of the album’s right side, and the cover also featured a unique stamped serial number, “to create”, in Hamilton’s words, “the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies”. In 2008, an original pressing of the album with serial number 0000005 sold for £19,201 on eBay.

Get ready for what could be the ultimate item from this era.

A UK first pressing mono copy of the double LP, The Beatles aka The White Album with first press green apple labels, each disc with a “Factory Sample, Not for Sale” sticker, housed in a top-loading, fully laminated thick card stock “Garrod & Lofthouse” cover listing stereo and mono catalog numbers on the spine, numbered: No.0000001 is going up for bids at Julien’s. It has been widely known among collectors that the four members of the Beatles kept numbers 1 through 4, but it was not commonly known that Starr was given the No.0000001 album. Starr has stated that he kept this album in a bank vault in London for over 35 years and McCartney says it originally belonged to John Lennon because, apparently, he shouted the loudest. Up to this time the lowest numbered UK first mono pressing album to come to market is No.0000005, which sold in 2008 for just under $30,000. This No.0000001 UK first mono pressing owned by a member of the Beatles is the lowest and most desirable copy that will ever become available.

As the record manufacturing plant certainly had every machine available simultaneously pressing copies of this album it is impossible to say with certainty which records were truly the very first off the press, but these discs were certainly among the very first. The album covers however were numbered in sequence, insuring that this No.0000001 sleeve is the very first finished cover. The top load sleeve is in near mint minus condition and would be near mint if not for the bumped upper right front gatefold corner, but it is overall very clean and fresh with very minor abrasions.
Both discs were pressed from the very first Masters as indicated by the -1 matrix numbers on all four sides. The records are contained in their original black inner sleeves and feature “Factory Sample Not For Sale” labels on the whole apple side of disc 1 and on the cut apple side of disc 2. All labels feature the “Sold in UK.” text but omit the “An EMI Recording” text found on later editions. Together with the four original UK portrait photos and UK lyric poster, both in mint condition.

Starting bid is $20,000, and the final sale estimate is set at $60,000. You can start the bidding here.

Jack White and Third Man Records to open first new Detroit record pressing plant in 50 years

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As you know might have heard earlier this summer, Third Man Records is opening up a satellite store in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, or as Pitchfork calls it “where music history was made.” Well, it turns out that was only the first of the label’s plans for the building at 441 West Canfield Street, which they purchased last year with Detroit manufacturing company Shinola. Third Man will be opening a vinyl record pressing plant, and in it we will run brand new record presses. There’s a bottlenecking in the record pressing industry right now – so much glorious demand, so few presses. They want to help ease the flow, and they want to bring more “real-life manufacturing jobs back to Detroit.”

Jack White and company have purchased eight presses from German startup Newbilt, and  expect to happen mid-2016.

Here’s what Pitchfork wrote about the pressing plant after speaking with Ben Blackwell about their plans.

“While the pressing plant won’t be operational when Third Man opens on Black Friday, they eventually plan to house at least eight working presses. A window in the shop will let customers see the manufacturing floor as part of Third Man’s ongoing initiative to educate the public about vinyl culture and show that, as Blackwell puts it, ‘all this stuff is alive and well.’

While the manufacturing arm definitely means that Third Man will have quick access to pressings of their own output, Blackwell says the decision to open the plant is a selfless act. He argues that more overall record-pressing capacity eases the pressure on plants like United Record Pressing in Nashville, which continues to press Third Man releases, and Archer—both of which are backed up and reportedly turning away customers. Also, while no plans are currently in place, Third Man hope to press more than just their own records on-site. Potentially, the plant could offer a new option for young artists and DIY labels. ‘Part of the concern in this world is that vinyl can very easily turn into an exclusionary thing,’ Blackwell says. ‘But this is going to make it easier for a little punk band to make 300 copies of a 7-inch’.”

There you go. Yet another reason why Jack White is brilliant.

 

That Moment Sam Hunt Left Football For Nashville

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Sam Hunt began college at Middle Tennessee State University, where the football coach had him returning punts instead of playing quarterback, then transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he had a promising junior year (58 percent completion percentage) followed by a disappointing senior year (10 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and only two wins in 12 games). In May 2008, while his pals were graduating, Hunt tried out for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent. The Chiefs saw him play and didn’t invite him to training camp. Back home, Hunt shocked his relatives by announcing that he was moving to Nashville to be a country songwriter. No one in the family even knew he had been writing songs since he was 18.

“Maybe I was insecure, because being a football player was my identity. I didn’t see myself that way,” says Hunt. “But it took a long time before I decided to test out a song I’d written for my roommates, who were some of my closest buddies. I felt trapped inside a stereotype and was a little afraid to step out of it.”

Two months after his NFL tryout, Hunt stuffed a couple of mattresses into his mom’s minivan, raided the freezer for provisions and moved to Nashville with his hometown pal John Worthington, who’s now his road manager. Worthington was Misfit No. 1. “We were scraping the bottom of the barrel for years, just trying to get by,” says Hunt.

Via Billboard

Man invents anonymous messaging service handwriting your message on a potato. He makes $10k a month.

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His girlfriend called it “the stupidest idea” she’d ever heard of, but this young Texas entrepreneur is now making good money mailing people potatoes enscribed with special messages.

Guess what’s killing the live music scene in Australia. Tinder.

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Cherry Bar owner James Young has sparked a debate about the impact of dating app Tinder on the live music scene with a Facebook post recounting a recent conversation with another promoter in Melbourne.

The pair were chatting about how difficult 2015 has been for the business with Young suggesting that the current downturn could be attributed in part to the “diabolical Australian Dollar” and the closure of the Palace. Young says that those factors have led to fewer international tours and smaller crowds at Cherry especially during the week. But his un-named counterpart proposed a different theory laying the blame – at least in part – on Tinder.

“Tinder has destroyed the live music and pub scene,” the anonymous promoter told Young. “It’s bleak out there for club owners. These are dark and challenging times. We need to get young people off their phones and back into our bars to actually socialise or we’re all going to go out of business.” According to the anonymous promoter, the pattern follows the example of Grinder’s impact on the gay scene with the app replacing clubs as a place to pick up. “Now we are seeing the same thing with Tinder … [it’s] killing off clubs and pubs all over Melbourne and Australia. And when they take their dates out for the first time, they try to impress them with some chic dining experience, rather than a rowdy live music experience. I’m telling you, Tinder has a lot to answer for.”

Via Faster Louder

Steven Van Zandt On Why Eric Clapton Is The Most Important Guitarist Ever

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“Eric Clapton is the most important and influential guitar player that has ever lived, is still living or ever will live. Do yourself a favor, and don’t debate me on this. Before Clapton, rock guitar was the Chuck Berry method, modernized by Keith Richards, and the rockabilly sound — Scotty Moore, Carl Perkins, Cliff Gallup — popularized by George Harrison. Clapton absorbed that, then introduced the essence of black electric blues: the power and vocabulary of Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and the three Kings — B.B., Albert and Freddie — to create an attack that defined the fundamentals of rock & roll lead guitar. Maybe most important of all, he turned the amp up — to 11. That alone blew everybody’s mind in the mid-Sixties. In the studio, he moved the mic across the room from the amp, which added ambience; everybody else was still close-miking. Then he cranked the fucking thing. Sustain happened; feedback happened. The guitar player suddenly became the most important guy in the band.”

– Steven Van Zandt in Rolling Stone Magazine

Adele’s Mind-Blowing Isolated Vocals From Saturday Night Live Performance

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Do you want to know why Adele’s “Hello” is a critical and commercial success, topping the charts in 28 countries including the United Kingdom and the United States, where “Hello” became the first single ever to sell one million downloads in a release week? Or why it has since compiled over 100 million views on YouTube within 5 days? Or perhaps the reason it is the second-fastest video to hit 100 million YouTube views ever and the fastest to reach 100 million on Vevo previously held by “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus back in 2013? Or the compelling answer as to why the song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart, with a combined first week sales of 330,000 copies? Or the reason the song sold 1,112,000 digital downloads and 61.2 million streams in its first week, resulting in “Hello” debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100?

This. Just this.