CLIPS AND COMMENTARY FROM CANADA'S BEST KNOWN UNDISCOVERED OLD WHITE BLUESMAN

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Notes from Music Week

Music Week was really only a couple of days for me and maybe that was one day too many but I always get somethin out of it - even obvious stuff bears repeating:

“Better to have no website than a dormant website” was a good tip. “Be the kind of person that others want to see succeed”  - Now there’s a good one. I think that came from networking guru Dan Kimpel. He was hilarious and knew all about networking and he practiced his craft in Hollywood. He went to events with a co-conspirator and they each took part of the room and whoever they met, they said “Have you met my friend Dan? Well, I’ll introduce you later...”  His partner knew that if he didn’t introduce her within the first 15 seconds that it was because he didn’t know the person’s name.  So she would introduce herself and the name would be revealed.  He though that admitting you had forgotten someone’s name was a horrible faux-pas and should be avoided at all costs. Here’s another rule of his: Never poke in on a conversation between two people. However, if there’s 3 or more, jump right in.

CMW got it right when they had a website that was able to display a last-minute late-night set by one of the “buzz bands”, Woodhands. Anyway I made a point of catching them and they were quite phenomenal. On the down side, CMW burried what to a large community would have been one of the most popular shows, turntablists Rob Swift and Mistah Sinista). According to my son the DJ, these guys are considered the top players in the land and have been for ten years. Not only were they under-promoted b ut their listing in the official printed programme guide was wrong. Seeing them close up doing their turntablist tricks was jaw-dropping.

Discovered a great new venue, The Wrongbar on Queen W near the Caddilac Lounge. Great production, nice layout. Mostly DJ’s but a nice big stage to accommodate a band. They’ve got everyhthing! I think I’ve heard “more monitor”  a million times but this was the first  time I heard a musician saying “more smoke”...and then there was some! I’m sure it was organic smoke,