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For the next few weeks we have moved Adrienne's blog to this page, so that we can bring to you our recent  interview with her as she discusses her Christmas CD Winter.

For LA based pop singer / songwriter Adrienne Pierce, there seemed like no better place to record her Christmas EP Winter, than in Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada, where she grew up playing in the snow with her brother and sister.  She returned to Canada last summer to work on another project, when, “One day I had an idea for a Christmas song, and I just started writing it and the next thing that we (she and fellow musician Ari Shine) knew we were recording that song. Then I wrote another song and we ended up making the EP.”
 

Winter, is a fun CD that treats Pierce’s fans to some upbeat tunes such as, “All That We Want,” and the fourth track, “Making Angels,” which get you shuffling your feet and swaying to the music. It is however the tune, “Raise Our Voices Up,” which provides a true reflection of Pierce’s soul. To those who know Adrienne Pierce she views life through a lens of almost childlike innocence. That is not to say that she is naďve, because she is far from it, but it is to say that she takes delight in the little things which life has to offer, and she believes that collectively, we as a people, just ought to try harder to get along.

To listen to Adrienne's music click here

 

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 Album: ICP046, Live At The Bimhuis /  Artist: Instant Composers Pool Orchestra /  9 tracks / Free Jazz

 Review by Chad Langford

Forty-one years after the release of ICP001, the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, the brainchild of Dutch free improv masters Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink, is still going strong.  Founded in 1967, this band of merry improvisers has evolved through many incarnations, and through it all, they have always managed to keep their eyes on the prize.  They do so through the use of improvised and pre-composed ideas and forms to uncover the never-before-heard moments of musical excitement, in concert and on record.  The release earlier this autumn of ICP046, Live At The Bimhuis, is the latest chapter in their unfolding story, and it is an exciting and occasionally confounding one.
 

CD Review

 

 

 

 

 

Serena Ryder

 

 

From the first time that I dialed into Diane Wayne’s myspace site and began to spin her song, “Dusk,” I was mesmerized by her clear, unblemished vocals. My first email to her opened with, ‘Wow what a voice!’ 

 

 

From Sugar Cane to Velvet Sky--Autumn

From the first time you hear the voice behind the song, “Rain Down,” you are captured by the beauty, the evocative phrasing and you are sure you have heard this voice somewhere before, because Autumn sounds like a seasoned country music singer, but in fact, she is closer to the beginning of her career than she is to the middle. The Tulsa Oklahoma native who has called Austin, Texas home since the year 2000, just released her second album, Velvet Sky, a booklet of thirteen beautiful word pictures, enhanced by her emotive vocals and some superb musicians. The CD also bears the sensitive fingerprints of producer Walt Wilkins.

Talking about, “Rain Down,” Autumn says, “I wrote it after my mom had a heart attack, and I was completely desperate (you can hear the emotion in her voice). It is a prayer and when I wrote it, the song was really slow and it was really sad. It was one of the songs which I didn’t think that we could fit on the record. I said to Walt, ‘This is too personal and I am not sure if I am ready for this, because this is a hard one.’ He said, ‘No you have to do it.’ I love, “Rain Down,” and I am glad that I was encouraged to do it. Walt made it a little bit more up-tempo, but we still got the message across.

Alexis Kellum-Creer

Although, most in the acting profession will tell you that you can never be busy enough, the past two years, certainly brought with them a lot of diversity for actress Alexis Kellum-Creer. Last year she graced the stage in productions such as Vancouver’s The Circle playing opposite actor Noel Johansen, in her leading roles as Elizabeth Champion-Cheney, she appeared in the sci-fi adventure series Stargate Atlantis as Flora a humanoid living in the Pegasus Galaxy, she went on a date with another woman in an episode of the dramatic television series L Word, and she enforced the law as a police officer in the made for television movie Perfect Child.

We caught up with Alexis Kellum-Creer during the final week of The Circle’s run in Vancouver, and she talked about her role in the play, how she approaches her profession and more specifically how she prepares for her roles.

 Album: On A Clear Night  /  Artist: Missy Higgins / 11 tracks

 Reviewed by Melissa Vaughan

Australian native Missy Higgins’ current release, On A Clear Night, is comprised of beautiful songs with good lyrics, and the singer / songwriter does a great job of using her vocals to evoke a strong emotional response from the listener. Her writing would seem to indicate that many of these songs are extremely personal. The album opens with the strong and defiant, “Where I Stood,” a song in which the piano and strings are more prominent, and accentuated by the more subtle undercurrent of percussion, the later of which contributes the overall feel of the song.

Midway through the album, we have a gorgeous little number called, “Sugarcane,” a song on which Higgins’

Nine Critical Things You Should Know About Publicity Before You Make Your First Move

By Ariel Hyatt

1. The Definition of Publicity - First, we are going to start out with the very basics--some definitions of what publicity is exactly. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Publicity - "An act or device designed to attract public interest; specifically: information with news value issued as a means of gaining public attention or support. Also: The dissemination of information or promotional material."

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Publicity is EXACTLY these things.

A music publicist is hired as a member of your team to represent you to the media.

Little Joy Creates a Big Buzz

Little Joy / December 11th, 2008 / The Plaza Club / Vancouver, Canada

Little Joy’s music is comfortably couched in a late fifties sound when the term pop had not yet been invented, folk was not considered bluegrass, but rather issue oriented, and the Beatles were just about to turn the world on its ear with the Isley Brother’s, “Twist And Shout,” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”  Three gifted musicians Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes, Rodrigo Amarante from the Brazilian band Los Hermanos and Los Angeles native Binki Shapiro whose honeyed vocals seduce the listener, not with sex, but with evocative phrasing, put on a dazzling show at Vancouver’s The Plaza Club on December 11^th. Backed by a solid band of musicians, the trio performed short snappy tunes, with underlying old skool Rock ‘n’ Roll rhythms, and which often ended as suddenly as they began, leaving their fans thirsting for more.

While the core of Little Joy’s music is comprised of original tunes penned by one, two or all three of Little Joy’s members, the song that sent an electric current through the club’s patrons was Shapiro’s cover of  Helen Shapiro’s (no relation) 1961 # 1 hit tune, “Walking Back To Happiness.” The men provided fun backing vocals with something to the effect of, “whoo, pa, oh yeah, yeah,” a song that reminds us that it sure is a lot more fun to be with the one we love than it is to be lonely.

 Coming Soon

Paula Nelson

8mm

Roger Kellaway

Wendy Starland

Gig of the Month

Carlene Carter

CD of the Week

Staci Frenes

 

 

Van Morrison Goes Venezuelan--An Interview With Arturo O'Farrill

In explaining how the spectrum of colors and the emotional array that infuses his Latin Jazz music, pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill says, “I am a real product of the environment that I grew up in. I grew up in New York City, surrounded by Puerto Rican musicians and salsa, I am from an Afro-Cuban background (his father), and at the same time, I identified very strongly with my Mexican roots (he was born in Mexico City). I was aware of the music of Mexico and the folklore thing that happened there. I also grew up in New York City during an age that I think had some of the greatest years of pop and rock, and I was a founding member of one of the first rap groups. I have a really huge, or some would say scattered personality. Here is the thing, I don’t see Latin music as separate from Jazz. The genres that we speak about are not so much a subset of jazz, as they are a different interpretation of the same values that jazz expresses. When we talk about Latin music, salsa, Cuban music, pop, jazz, blues and gospel, those are all music that are very much a part of the culture that I grew up in. I don’t know how to separate them.

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