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Folk Music Ontario Conference
The Folk Music Ontario Conference ((Formerly the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals!)) is an annual event that draws just under a thousand artists, presenters, and other music industry people to hang out together, jamming, learning, and talking music for four days every October. It’s always a highlight of the year, a chance for bookers, promoters, writers, and DJs to hear some of the best emerging touring acts in one place over one weekend in one hotel. This year, the conference takes place in Mississauga, Ontario. Secret Frequency founder and writer Candace Shaw will be in all of her usual haunts at the conference – wherever there’s good music or good…
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Ideas: A small-town musical roadshow
Ideas is a series talking about the communities, people, and ideas surrounding the music and culture industries. I love Ontario’s small towns; I grew up in one, a tiny village called Keene that, even today, is home to only about 500 people. I’ve got no illusions about small-town life – it can be stifling and tortuous, especially for a young woman with unusual tastes who doesn’t fit in. But there’s lots to be said for their sometimes-fading charms; heritage downtowns, odd little shops, idiosyncratic bits of architecture. They’re monuments to a time when our country was more sparsely populated but prosperous, when travel was slower, and when even a small…
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Artist Spotlight: Raging Asian Women
This weekend I headed down to Yonge-Dundas Square to catch a little of the Small World Music Festival. They had a terrific lineup, and one of my favourite live acts was playing – Raging Asian Women. Taiko drumming is a traditional Japanese form of performance where musicality and showmanship are both important, and RAW have it down. The first time I saw them was years ago, at a conference, and I’d had no idea what to expect. I’d seen and loved Taiko performances before, but nothing prepared me for the power of RAW. By the end of their performance, I had tears streaming down my face – not from sadness, but…
