Two of Canada’s favourite pastimes – hockey and music – come together for an all-out clash of the titans during Juno Cup, a celebrity hockey game in support of MusiCounts, Canada’s national music education charity associated with CARAS. The game sees former NHL Greats competing with Canadian artists and celebrities for bragging rights on the ice.

This year’s team of NHLers includes Juno Cup veterans Brad Dalgarno, Mark Napier, Mike Pelyk, Paul Coffey and Troy Crowder who bring their experience to the ice. They’re joined this year by local St. John’s hockey heroes Andrew McKim and Greg Smyth. More players will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Rockers, led by Team Captain Jim Cuddy, are not the least bit intimidated by their NHL counterparts, and have gained strength in numbers by recruiting a total of 24 players to-date including:

TSN’s Off the Record host, Michael Landsberg, will be announcing the live play-by-play commentary during the game’s exciting two periods as well as the skills competition.

Tickets to Juno Cup go on sale Saturday, March 27 at 12:00 pm (NDT) and can be purchased at the Mile One Centre Box Office; by phoning (709) 576-7657, (toll free) at 1-800-361-4595 or online at www.admission.com.

David Farrell

The CRTC’s long anticipated ruling to end the imbroglio between conventional (read rabbit ears) television broadcasters and their rich uptown cousins in the cable industry has ended where it started, with the CTVs of this world having to duke it out with the cablecasters to get some respect and cash in the form of the so called ‘fee-for-carriage’ payment.

The CRTC’s hands–off regulatory ruling is tactically a smart move, removing them from the outcry that will invariably erupt when cable subscription fees are increased to offset payments made to Canwest and CTV for carrying their programmes. should be paid for their programmes that are bundled and sold to cable subscribers. It is also also politically astute since the federal Tories are not keen to be seen as being party to what will invariably be described as a tax that is arbitrarily tacked on to voters cable bills.

The CRTC said Monday it was throwing its support behind a “market-based” U.S.-like regime that allows conventional broadcasters to negotiate compensation for their signals and programs picked up for distribution by cable carriers.

Before this is to happen however, the regulator said it would seek approval from the Federal Court of Appeal to implement such a regime. There were conflicting legal opinions during hearings held last year over whether the CRTC had jurisdiction in this area, due to issues related to copyright.

The Cultural Human Resources Council has asked The Conference Board of Canada to examine the cultural sector workforce in Canada and requires your participation in filling out a survey.  In a release the cultural body says it wants to “learn about your opinions on the opportunities, challenges, trends and issues that you face; as well as your suggestions for enhancing the quality and sustainability of Canada’s cultural sector”and asks those involved in arts and culture to complete a 25 minute questionnaire.

The Cultural Human Resources Council works for and with all the cultural industries and arts disciplines in the cultural sector including: Live Performing Arts; Writing and Publishing; Visual Arts and Crafts; Film and Television Production; Broadcasting; Digital Media; Music and Sound Recording; and Heritage.

As the dust settles on the Austin landscape comes news that US and Canadian independent artists are now able to take advantage of Ditto Music’s vast digital distribution network and career programs, and keep 100% of royalties and creative control. Ditto  launched the new program at SXSW by giving away 1000 free iTunes releases to US artists.

The UK aggregator Ditto Music made the offer to all US and Canadian indie artists performing at SXSW, a sweet deal that includes the opportunity to distribute their music over iTunes, free barcodes, ISRC codes, a fixed release date and 24-hour advanced sales analytics.

Two years back Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson popularized the long-tail theory that online retailers would affect a broader spectrum of sales given they could afford to offer a wider selection of titles using virtual inventories and on-demand fulfillment. In fact, a growing body of evidence points in the opposite direction, and a new study adds further credence showing that online consumers are crowding an ever smaller universe of repertoire than before online commerce became popular.

New research conducted by Will Page, the chief economist at PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection group in Britain that represents artists and music publishers, shows the gap between the hits and the niche is wider on online music sites than at traditional retailers.

[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] Me, the Mob, and the Music is a riveting portrayal of how singer Tommy James ’s hit-filled career on Roulette Records with the Shondells became linked with one of New York City’s most notorious organized crime families.

The autobiography, just out on Simon _ Schuster, is a more blood-and-guts version of a book that Mr. James began writing a decade ago, originally intended to focus on how he recorded such hits as “I Think We’re Alone Now” and “Crimson and Clover.”

“It was going to be about the hits and the studio experiences,” he said. “We got about halfway done and realized so much of this is incomplete because we gotta tell the whole Roulette story. We put the book on a shelf for a few years, and then when Vinnie ‘The Chin’ Gigante passed way in December of ‘05 in prison, I thought we could probably go ahead and name names and talk about what happened. I had been carrying this around with me for a long time. I was really nervous about talking about it.”

The Monday Morning Mailbag for March 22^nd 2010

Spring has sprung and it’s a good thing. The flowers will begin to bloom, the patios will slowly start to open up for business, and I will be outside a lot more now that freezing at the streetcar stop has become a lesser threat to my health. Pie has informed me that I should start wearing colors other than black and something besides the 3 warm long sleeve sweaters I’ve been wearing for the last 4 months. I’ll think about it.

She dragged me to the Dundas Square AMC to see her current favourite film on Saturday night and I’m glad she did. Crazy Heart is a fine little film, and Jeff ‘The Dude’ Bridges deserved his Oscar win. Not for a moment is he anyone except down and out singer Bad Blake up on that screen. The whole cast was inspired, and the story, for a change, was one that played out without killing anyone off or manipulating your emotions. The music was pretty damn good too and Colin Farrell surprised me as much as Bridges did in the singing department. Both were excellent. We finished off the evening at The Emmet Ray, a place we grow more attached to every time we go. Definitely looking forward to lots of summer nights there.

And now…the mail.

Jon Caramanica writes in today’s NYT about Justin Bieber’s new album that’s due out on Tuesday: “Mr. Bieber’s debut EP, “My World,” released in November, was the gateway purchase: a handful of songs, each more sugary and improbably sticky than the next. What initially appeared to be a trifle of a release quickly swelled to a force: a string of hit singles, mall frenzy, filling a teen-dream vacuum.

“The crucial Bieber innovation is to feed the fire before it has the chance to wane, when demand still far outstrips supply.

“Given that, “My World 2.0,” his debut full-length album, is far sharper than it needs to be, an amiable collection of age-appropriate panting with intermittent bursts of misplaced precociousness…”

The Financial Times of London today reports that EMI Music is trying to mortgage its North American distribution business as the record label scrambles to find ways to stave off a cash crisis.

In one of the more creative and novel approaches to keeping the dogs at bay, Guy Hands’ Terra Firma private equity firm is offering rival labels a five year distribution contract on the EMI catalogue which includes titles by The Beach Boys,  The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Frank Sinatra . However, a person close to Citigroup said the £3.2bn of its loans to the group were secured in part on the US assets and as such the bank would have to approve any proposed distribution deal.