According to an article in the Welland Tribune, an endowment scholarship will be established at Niagara College in the name of Geddy Lee, lead vocalist and bass player for the iconic Canadian prog rockers Rush.

“Grapes for Humanity Canada has committed $26,500, which will be matched by the Ontario government’s trust for student support program.

The income will help create an annual scholarship for a second-year wine and viticulture technician student who intends to pursue a career in winemaking after graduation.

Lee has been a board member of Grapes for Humanity Canada, which is contributing to Niagara College’s Building Futures campaign.”

Read the entire article here: www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3382415

With the changes in the music industry, live performance is now by far the most important part of any musician’s career. Live gigs fuel CD sales, downloads, merch sales and in most cases, are the major part of a musician’s income. And yet most artists spend little time working on their live performances.

Canadian Musician magazine is bringing Tom Jackson to Toronto for an exclusive one-day seminar.

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Canadian Musician’s Katlyn Fledderus recently caught up with quick-rising Toronto metal/hardcore outfit Structures prior to a thunderous performance at L3 Nightclub in St. Catharines. Thanks to Matt with NiagaraMusicScene.  http://www.myspace.com/wearestructures, http://niagaramusicscene.com/

http://youtu.be/jd-H83PYq5w

We’ve got a feature dropping in Canadian Musician‘s Nov./Dec. 2011 issue called “MusiQ – Is Quebec’s Invisible Fence Falling?” It was a fun one to write, but also quite challenging. The piece essentially discusses how, thanks to a number of contributing factors, it seems Francophone music and artists have been able to find some success in English Canada of late, while some English bands have been able to do the same in traditionally tough Francophone markets.

For the piece, we spoke with artists like Karkwa’s Louis-Jean Cormier (pictured), Galaxie’s Olivier Langevin, Alex from These Kids Wear Crowns, and Quebec upstart Bobby Bazini, as well as industry folks like Dominique Goulet of Quebec’s City’s Festival d’ete and Adam Lewis of The Planetary Group.

It only covers a small sampling of the many artists, professionals, and components that contribute to or benefit from this trend, but hopefully it’s at least a fraction as insightful of a read as it was to research.

Our friends over at Red Tentacle – A Music Solutions Company recently posted the latest entry of their Music Solutions Blog, called “Volume Settings.” As you probably guessed, the post encourages artists to pay close attention to their stage volume to ensure the proper balance is struck between “engaging” loud and “annoying” loud. Understandably, this applies most directly to rock/punk/metal acts, but pretty much anyone that’s combining amplified instruments with a full drum kit should take note. The bottom line is: you want to be loud enough to command attention but not loud enough as to turn anybody off. Invite the venue’s sound engineer to offer his/her input (making friends with sound guys/gals is ALWAYS a good idea), as they’ll without question pay closer attention to your mix if you heed their advice and make it known that you give a shit about what you sound like. I’ll quote Red Tentacle’s Hassan King loosely by closing with: Why spend all that time rehearsing if you’re going to sound like garbage anyway?