Jazz Cartier at Yonge-Dundas Square for NXNE 2018

The 2018 edition of NXNE say the long-running festival bring its programming back to Toronto’s downtown core after a few years at the more isolated Port Lands site. Canadian Musician’s Samantha Everts-Matusoff and Mark Matusoff were on the ground for the event and Mark snapped some killer shots from the stage at Yonge-Dundas Square. Check ’em out!

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There is little under a month left for artists to apply to showcase at Indie Week Canada 2018. This year’s Indie Week festival and conference will be taking place around downtown Toronto from Nov. 6-11. The deadline to apply to play is July 16, 2018 and for information is available at canada.indieweek.com/apply.

Indie Week is open to all genres except comedy and cover acts. Bands/artists must not be signed directly to a major label, but bands signed to an indie label with major distribution are still allowed to apply.

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Apple has finally entered the smart speaker market in Canada, releasing today its long-awaited HomePod, which its going up against the Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Sonos One. And while, somewhat uncharacteristically, Apple is playing catch-up to the other companies in terms of entering the market, Apple is clearly putting music fans at the centre of its market strategy. And when you look at the data, it’s easy to see why. Smart speakers are not only the hottest consumer electronics items of the past two years, but are already radically changing music consumption trends.

Because of how quickly they’ve been adopted, it’s worth remembering how new smart speakers are in the Canadian market. The Google Home, for instance, was only launched in this country in July 2017, but already nearly 10 per cent of Canadian homes have a smart speaker, according to data from Edison Research and Triton. And people aren’t just using these AI assistants to find out the weather forecast or ask how many milliliters are in a cup. Smart speakers are quickly becoming people’s primary way of listening to music around the home.

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Canadian Musician‘s Samantha Everts-Matusoff & Mark Matusoff were out for Field Trip 2018 at Toronto’s Garrison Common from June 2-3, 2018. The weekend featured sets from the likes of Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, and Japandroids, and we’ve got plenty of Mark’s (awesome) shots from Day 2 right here.

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Canadian Musician‘s Samantha Everts-Matusoff & Mark Matusoff were out for Field Trip 2018 at Toronto’s Garrison Common from June 2-3, 2018. The weekend featured sets from the likes of Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, and Alvvays, and we’ve got Sam’s thoughts and Mark’s shots from the first day of the event right here.

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The Folk Alliance International conference is returning to Canada for the first time in five years, taking place in Montreal from Feb. 13-17, 2019, and artist showcase applications are now open.

Founded in 1989, FAI is the largest organization and conference for the folk music industry. In 2018, 2,850 delegates (agents, managers, labels, journalists, festivals, venues, artists) from 35 countries attended. The conference program features professional development workshops, industry panels, master classes, business networking sessions, and keynote presentations.The economic impact for the conference host city has been assessed (by VisitKC) at $5 million (USD). Previous Canadian editions have included Calgary (1992), Vancouver (2001), Montréal (2005), and Toronto (1997, 2013).

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Sloan at Yonge-Dundas Square

Canadian Music Week 2018 was a total whirlwind, so kudos to Samantha Everts-Matusoff and Mark Matusoff for covering so much ground and kicking so much ass. Here are some highlights from Saturday, May 12th and Sunday, May 13th.

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Starcrawler at the Bovine Sex Club

The Canadian Musician crew covered a lot of ground Canadian Music Week 2018, with contributors Samantha Everts-Matusoff and Mark Matusoff covering panels and networking events by day and showcases across the city by night. Here are some pics from Thursday, May 10th and Friday, May 11th, 2018.

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Nova Scotia Music Week is heading back to Truro from Nov. 1-4 for the 2018 edition of the event. The festival features over 100 Nova Scotian artists across multiple stages throughout Truro.

Artist showcasing submissions to play NSMW 2018 are now open. Artists interested in performing during the festival can click here to review the showcase manual for eligibility requirements, and here to apply to showcase. Showcasing submissions will close Tuesday, June 12, at 5 p.m.

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Stage psychologist, performance coach & Canadian Musician contributor Luther Mallory on one of the most important & valuable aspects of Canadian Music Week: hanging in the hotel lobby.

I saw cool shows at CMW and I went to some good panels with some smart speakers. CMW is a well organized, world-class music conference. There’s nothing terribly exciting to report.

So I get thinking about my topic for this blog and I consider covering how many bad-ass rap artists are coming out of Nova Scotia like Quake Matthews, Kayo, Corey Writes, Mitchell Bailey, etc. – some of whom played Saturday night at the Rivoli.

As an artist, though, and now an “industry person,” I’m more interested in what I spent the week noticing in the hotel lobby at the Sheraton Centre, where everyone is hanging out in between panels and performances. It’s more interesting than any of the shows or panels. It’s a better blog topic, too, and a better read for artists.

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