Quintessential Canadian band April Wine is to be inducted into Canada’s Music Hall of Fame during a televised segment of the Juno Awards in St. John’s, NL on April 18.

The band that has always had Myles Goodwyn as its mainstay has charted an impressive 21 Top 40 hits in Canada since the release of ‘Fast Train’ in 1971 and albums such as Electric Jewels (1973), Stand Back (1975), The Whole World’s Goin’ Crazy (1976), Forever for Now (1977), First Glance (1978), Harder … Faster (1979), The Nature of the Beast (1981), and Power Play (1982) have sold more than 7 million copies in Japan, Europe, the US at at home in Canada. And, over the years, this legacy band has been nominated for 11 Junos but never actually won one.

Better than a Platinum Record!  Manager Bruce Allen, and clients Michael Bublé and Jann Arden will each be carrying the Olympic Torch as it winds its way through the host city of Vancouver.

It’s a once in a lifetime gig as they become 3 of the 12,000 torchbearers who have proudly carried the flame across the country as it makes its way to its final destination – the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver this Friday, February 12.

The Monday Morning Mailbag for February 8th 2010

Usually when I leave the house, it is either work related or going to the Grace Meat Market, Golden Wheat Bakery, or the Metro. We live in a neighbourhood where pretty much everything we need is within a 2 block radius, so we count ourselves lucky with the convenience of our location. I did get out to see Chris Hart at the Horseshoe last week, and Pie gets out to see various members of her family every week, but it’s been a while since the two of us went out together, and longer still since we had an actual date.

The Pie and I rarely get to go out on ‘date nights’ these days, but things have been starting to look up for us and Saturday, we decided to go out and celebrate. We figured we’d have an inexpensive dinner and then see if we couldn’t find some good music and have a beer or two afterward. After all, this is Toronto…how hard could it be to tuck into a reasonably priced meal and find some great music?

As it turns out, not hard at all…

The Weekend Roundup for Friday February 5^th

Random Thoughts, Questions, and Musings of Great Importance:

Would a song sung simultaneously by Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Lady Ga Ga and Bjork cause a rift in the Space Time Continuum?

Yesterday, I left a half-smoked cigarette on the window sill of a Convenience Store. Today, it was still there. Are there no homeless people out of smokes anymore?

Total Album sales declined 2.2% compared to 2008, continuing a trend of declining music sales in Canada. Increased digital growth in 2009 did not offset the decline in physical sales. There were 9 million album sales during the holiday season (11/9 – 12/27), down 3.2% compared to 2008.

Album sales during the holiday season accounted for more than 25% of the total album sales for the year (which is consistent with a year ago).

-  47% of all albums purchased were at a Mass Merchant/Non Traditional outlets compared to 42% in 2008, 37% in 2007 and 34% in 2006. The increase in the Mass Merchant/Non-Traditional strata is coming directly from the year-over-year increase in digital album sales.

David Farrell

Record companies in Canada blew their marketing wads last year preaching to hip, tech-savy, smart-phone slinging males with R&R attitudes, iTune accounts and Limewire collections – and in doing so missed their target audience by a D-cup and a country mile.

How else does one compute the statistical evidence provided by Nielsen data released yesterday for album consumption in Canada?

Record companies large and small blew their budgets and their jockey shorts hustling Guns N’ Roses, Kiss,Metallica and any number of nubile sexy thingies to audiences that mostly yawned in their collective faces. And, by the time the dust settled, it had become all too obvious that voluptuous women and mainstream crooners paid the rent, salaries, and expenses for record company executives and marketing mavens–leaving the hip and undiscovered …well, hip-and still undiscovered.

Year-End music metrics from SoundScan and BDS
Nielsen SoundScan Canada, the entertainment industry’s data information system that tracks unit point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product, and Nielsen BDS, the music industry’s leading music performance monitoring service – which power the Billboard charts – have announced their 2009 Canadian calendar year sales and airplay monitoring data, for the 52-week period January 5, 2009 through January 3, 2010.

The following is a letter printed in today’s  Financial Times of London in response to an article appearing in the button-down pinksheet  (Secret deal aims to scuttle internet pirates) that reports on an ever-growing consortium of public interest groups alarmed over the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

More and more countries are following the example of France, Sweden and South Korea in battling illegal music downloads to help prop up the embattled music industry.

“Many countries are mulling a gradual response but are waiting to see what results are achieved in countries that have taken steps,” said industry consultant Aymeric Pichevin at a conference on piracy held at the annual MIDEM music industry trade fair, which closed Wednesday.

Worldwide music sales have crashed some 30% since 2004 as piracy has risen, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has recently reported.

France for one has adopted a gradual response — bombarding people who are illegally downloading from the Internet with threats, and taking them to court only if they ignore the warnings. That is the spirit of its so-called Hadopi law, adopted end 2009 and expected to be enforced this year.