By David Farrell
As we nuzzle closer to the June 6 show date for the virtual Juno Awards, the Brit Awards are back after a pandemic delay this Tuesday with The Weeknd and Coldplay among the performers on the show that can be streamed live on YouTube at 3 p.m. ET.
– Justin Bieber has announced rescheduled and new dates for the Justice World Tour, now downscaled from stadiums to 52 arena shows. The AEG Presents tour now opens Feb. 18 in San Diego. Canadian dates include Toronto's Scotiabank Arena-March 25, Ottawa's Canadian Tire Centre-28, Montreal's Bell Centre-29, and a return to Scotiabank Arena for 2 shows on June 7/8.
– Michael Cohl, with European live entertainment and ticketing company CTS Eventim, is behind the Oct/Nov/Dec GenesisLast Domino? Tour that includes 3 Canadian shows, at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Nov. 25 and 2 nights at Montreal’s Bell Centre, Nov. 22-23.
Cohl has also teamed up with L.A. event promoter Diego Gonzalez to bring The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains to North America. The hi-tech presentation, mixing 350 items from the Brit band’s five-decade career, will be staged at the Vogue Multicultural Museum on Hollywood Boulevard, Aug 3 to Nov. 30. More than 400K people attended the debut at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 2017. With 15 30-minute bookings daily, and individual tickets selling at US$46, the exhibition promises to be a goldmine.– Brian Hetherman has announced a North American digital distribution deal for his Curve Music and Sonic Envy imprints with Warner Music Canada and a separate Canada-wide deal for physical exclusively through Steve Kane's Canadian division.
Curve Music was born out of Hetherman’s Cerberus Artist Management in 2002.
WMC will distribute upcoming releases from Men Without Hats, Pretty Archie, and The Foreign Films; re-issues from Scott B Sympathy; a new album from the newly reformed band Mobile; as well as the catalogue of titles released in the last 19 years by Hetherman’s twin labels. Physical sales outside Canada continue to be handled by Amplified Distribution and the IDLA continues digital distribution outside North America.
– Kudos to the Sakamoto Agency and its clients for initiating a program that to date has raised the spirits in 100 care homes with 30 pre-recorded concerts. Sakamoto’s Joelle May says these “Concert Connections bring together and entertain those who are currently unable to enjoy family visits or larger gatherings within their community (and an opportunity for) artists to play for an audience and give back to their communities.”
– Over 60 acts have been announced to appear at the June 10-12 Flourish Festival in Fredericton. While most artists are local to the Atlantic region, there will be digital performances from performers from outside the Maritimes.
– Need a snapshot of Canada’s music scene. Market:ally has a free, concise market report available as PDF.
– Apex Group has been appointed by Toronto-based investment firm Barometer Capital Management to provide administration services to its Global Music Royalty Fund. In Feb., Barometer partnered with the newly minted Kilometre Music Group with a targeted size of $200M to be invested in music copyrights.
– Thirteen one-of-a-kind Brompton folding bikes will be auctioned off May 28 and June 21 through Greenhouse Auctions. Proceeds are going to Crew Nation, a global relief fund from Live Nation to help support furloughed touring crews. Pop acts that include Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Dinosaur Jr, , Underworld, Enrique Iglesias, Rise Against and Neko Case are credited with the pushbike’s unique designs.
– Toronto-based -pop singer-songwriter Nicole Olivia Balsom, aka Olive B has released Conversations, her first single since her sophomore album With or Without You in 2019.
– Jeff Parry Productions’ Annerin Exhibits arm is hoping to roll out Beyond Van Gogh, a 3D exhibition featuring more than 300 of Van Gogh works. pronto. He’s riding a trend of event promoters mounting elaborate shows that take past masters that also include Matisse and Rembrandt out of museums and public galleries on the road. All these and others are free of known restrictions under copyright law, His production company is also pencilling in US venue shows for a fleet of productions he owns. Included are Juke Box Hero, and We Will Rock You. There's also an autobiography about his life as a concert promoter that's past a finished draft.
– After five decades with her sister Ann, Nancy Wilson has placed her own foot forward with the release of a debut solo album, entitled You and Me, that came out Friday. Best known as the Heart sisters, the Seattle group had its initial success with the Dreamboat Annie album, recorded in and released by long defunct Vancouver indie label Mushroom Records in the mid '70s where the band was then based. Below, the lead single from Nancy's new album.
– Canadian record producer Joel Zimmerman, known professionally as deadmau5, has partnered with Sony Music Production arm Extreme Music and UTA to launch beathau5, an electronic music licensing label to help artists secure placements for their music in film, TV, advertising, and digital media. Beathau5 has five albums of previously unreleased music from five different Mau5trap artists scheduled for release. The company says that each of the releases will be followed by NFTs created in collaboration with “a world-renowned visual artist to be announced shortly.”
– Hayley Lennox’s Eclipse Music Management is touting Ottawa singer-songwriter Vi who first made a splash with her Blackwater EP in 2018. She’s back with Dreams, a song and video that spins camping into a lulling travelogue of synthwaves.
–Warner Music Group has entered into a partnership with Genies, one of the world’s largest avatar technology companies, to develop virtual characters for the label’s artists as well as digital clothing and accessories in the form of NFTs.
– Stock market trading platform Stake has analysed data on the world’s hottest music artists to calculate which are the biggest and most successful in 2021. The results place Drake, Taylor Swift, JustinBieber, Ariana Grande, and Eminem in the top 5. The Weeknd places 9th on the top 20 index.
– Toronto-based composer/producer/songwriter Marco DiFelice has earned an enviable track record in film and TV, and briefly made a splash as singer in the ‘90s indie group Supergarage. He’s just released an EP using the moniker Parks N’ Rec. No big news in this other than how the songs welled up from a trip to Central America that started late last year.
“I didn't know if I was running from something or to something,” he tells the column. “The pandemic was taking a backseat to my personal life and its problems. I had no intention of writing an album, in fact, I hadn't released an album in 14 years.”
The first single, A Little Cruel has just had its release, written on a communal farm in the jungle area of Manzanillo-Gandoca in lower Costa Rica. The guitar and vocal tracks were recorded locally with files sent to his producer in Toronto to add instruments. “I was like a kid waiting on all these birthday presents coming in as I listened back!”
Taken from The Sounds of Parks N’ Rec, the song video for A Little Cruel.
– PhilSpector’s notorious castle-like estate (above) where he shot actress Lana Clarkson to death in 2003 has sold for US$3.3M. The music producer died in prison serving a 19-years-to-life sentence for second-degree murder, on Jan. 16, 2021. Known as Pyrenees Castle, it had been listed earlier for just under $5M, according to one report.
Bill and Melinda Gates’ 66,000-square-foot Seattle pile is on the block for an estimated $130M. It comes with 242K acres of farmland.
