In The Mood For Some Indie ?
I have just been sent the Unsigned Only Music Competition 2015 winner listings and quite a few independent Canadian artists and bands have won first place, second place and honourable mention this year :
- Patrick Lehman – “Games” – First Place / Adult Contemporary
- Brock Zeman – “Pulling Your Sword Out Of The Devil’s Back” – Second Place / Americana
- Liz Labele – “Bomb’s Away” – Second Place / Top 40 Pop
- Willa – “Swan” – First Place / Rock
- Jules Collarile – “City Lights” – Second Place / Teen
You can listen to samples of the winning compositions and access the honourable mention listings by clicking here. And BTW, they are accepting submissions for 2016.
Automatic Guitar Tuner
Thought i’d bump this neat gadget that i’ve been encountering of Facebook over the past few days.
The Roadie Automatic Guitar Tuner
The hand held device has 8 pre-set alternative tunings for guitars, customizable tuning settings and can also be used on banjos and ukuleles with standard guitar pegs. And yes, the app for the Roadie Automatic Guitar Tuner
Shomi – First Impressions
Now that Shomi has been made available to all Canadians I thought perhaps i’d give you my first impressions on this service.
I started using Shomi a few months back when I switched from Bell to Rogers and I currently get it for free with my cable package. But I don’t think if i’d pay $8.99 per month for the service.
Although I can access the service conveniently via by set top box and view content without it counting towards my download/upload limit, I still have issues with the service in regards to content.
Like the Canadian version of Netflix, Shomi has a limited catalogue of television series and film. And I happen to already own the vast majority of my favourite films on the service.
On the other hand Hollywood Suite is being offered to me at $5.95 per month and features quite a lot of films, including some on demand. And Crave TV has a significant amount of television series i’d be interested in at $4 per month, but the later would count towards my download/upload limit.
If Crave TV was offered via Roger’s set top box i’d go for it, in a heartbeat. But Crave TV is operated by Bell Media, Roger’s competition. And they’re only going to start offering the service to the rest of Canada on January 1st, 2016.
I’m hoping Shomi will expand their selection considerably to compete but I seriously doubt it will happen for some time because of licensing.
Netflix Canada have been plagued by licensing issues that have kept them from offering as many titles as their American counterparts and i’m guessing that both Shomi and Crave TV will be subjected to the same limitations.
I’m definitely going to keep checking Shomi for new content. But I suspect Crave TV will win me over by February because it has South Park, Little Britain, Monty Python and several music documentary series like Classic Albums and the INXS television mini-series.
Keep the CBC Alive
Canadian Musician Magazine has started a petition to “Save Canadian Music: Keep The CBC Alive“. Click here for details.
Major Memorabilia Sale
American collectibles retailer Entertainment Earth is offloading quite a lot of music, film and television memorabilia, some up to 95% off. Click on the banner for details.