Maya is one of Toronto’s young and upcoming musical talents. Her music is a blend of Jazz/Soul/House and Classical, making for both relaxing tracks and club anthems. Mayism got her career started very early. At 15, she had traveled around the world as both a soloist and chamber player. In recent years, she’s been the lead vocals for a TCR favorite – King Sunshine. Now, she’s launching her solo career and we’re sure she’s going to be huge. Check out the following tracks and judge for yourself!

Let It Go by Mayism

Take My Time by Mayism

To here more, visit www.myspace.com/mayism

NuJazz festival starts tonight! The festival features such heavyweights as The Herbaliser Band and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. On top of that, you’ll be able to check out some great Canadian bands such as Souljazz Orchestra, King Sunshine, Grand Analog, Planet Earth and The National Parcs. We haven’t forgotten about the DJs either. Canadian and local DJs such as The Footprints DJ crew, John Kong, More or Les, Rollin’ Cash, DJ Numeric and more.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13

The Herbalizer Band (UK, Ninja Tune, K7!)

@ Revival Bar (783 College St.)
9 pm doors, $18 advance / $25 door

Buy tickets here

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14

PLANET EARTH with special guest KEVIN BREIT (Toronto)

@ Revival (783 College St.)
9 pm doors, $12 advance / $15 door /

Buy tickets here

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14

THE SOULJAZZ ORCHESTRA (Ottawa, ON)

@ Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave.)
10 pm doors, $10 @ the door /

Buy tickets here

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15

HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE (Chicago)

@ The Opera House (735 Queen St. E.)
9 pm doors $20 advance / $25 door

Buy tickets here

[Editor's Note: We're sorry but we had to take the video down. It is now only available for a limited time at StreetCarnage.com]

Our good friend Pinky who does TV Carnage, directed the new Crystal Castles video for the track “Vanished”. Here is what he had to say about it:

Presenting the debut of the Crystal Castles video for VANISHED directed by PINKY of TV CARNAGE along with the loving involvement of Sir Vernon Chatman. Crystal Castles asked to have a video done without them appearing in it, so we discussed creating something that would involve eerie stupidity that warmed the soul and could possibly be turned into a sitcom or BET comedy special. We arrived at this. A video meticulously rammed together in the last week of May 2008 (including awesome choreography by Megan Kain) and shot at Union Pool in Brooklyn, NY.

The video has won some sort of thing in Berlin and is apparently sluttishly embraced by the Europeans.
God bless their cotton socks.

Special thanks to Ari Fishman of Petite Monster who is the only maniac who can produce this sort of thing at a moments notice.

P.S. I am also taking this opportunity to announce my candidacy for Chris Tartarro’s love. He sat in my crack den of an apartment for 2 days with a laptop atop his lap, helping me edit this thing.

Title: Leif Vollebekk
Location: Black Sheep Inn, Wakefield (Ottawa)
Link out: Click here
Date: 2008-11-27

Leif Vollebekk is from Montreal and his music is an acoustic guitar country meets Arcade Fire that reminds me of a never-ending road trip through rural Quebec. That doesn’t mean anything does it? In any case, his CD release party is going down at the Blacksheep Inn in Wakefield, just outside of Ottawa, on Thursday November 27. The Blacksheep is an awesome venue and he’ll be playing with OK Giraffe and Charlotte Cornfield.

Title: Elorious Cain
Location: Mercury Lounge, Ottawa
Link out: Click here
Date: 2008-11-13

Elorious Cain is the DJ responsible for CKCU’s longest running disco program, The Groove. After almost 30 years on the air, Elorious Cain has become an iconic and highly influential DJ that has eagerly dedicated his energies to mentoring successful DJs like Teknobrat and Alison Wonderland, and inspiring a multitude of other Djs including Trevor Walker, Lance Baptiste, Koda, VH3 and John Deacon to name just a few. He’ll be playing at Mercury Lounge on Thursday, November 13th.

Julie Ann Bertram has posted her first and second albums, Jab and Ecstatic Songs respectively, on her website. She’s a fantastic musician, as I’ve mentioned before, so be sure to check out the albums while you can!

Julie Ann Bertram is right here: http://www.julieannbertram.com/

Destiny then brought Rommel to Canada in 2006. Fate couldn’t have played a better trick. By bringing the young musician to a multicultural environment, life exponentially increased Rommel’s amazing artistic skills. The first musical encounter, with the People Project band,an inter-cultural, multi-lingual international musical collective exploring music from around the world, turned out to become an even greater synergic reunion. Formed by young artists from different parts of the Americas (Canada, Mexico, Brazil), the gathering resulted in an explosion of talents in which each one of the musicians greatly influenced each other. People Project and Rommel’s performances at Café Nostálgica (a cultural hot-spot in Ottawa known for its diversity, its warmth and its ongoing support for the arts) became legendary among the Ottawa’s musical scene. By mesmerizing the audience week after week, the artists succeeded in creating a small legion of fans who religiously attended the group’s performances. Rommel also has participated in People Project on a number of occasions and continues to do so. Among the more prominent performances, he was featured with the group at “FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DE JAZZ DE MONTREAL“, “OTTAWA INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL“, “GLOBAL GROOVES-TORONTO” and “OTTAWA BLUESFEST” among other festivals, where he collaborated on a mix of People Project and Rommel’s original material.

Rommel has just completed his month tour back home and is preparing to start at school in Montreal. He is gracing Ottawa’s Mercury Lounge stage for his return performance!

Friday September 19th 22:00 Mercury Lounge Ottawa

GOTSOUL RECORDS AND THERAPY PRESENT THE FIRST ANNUAL
MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL HOUSE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Leave it JojoFlores and the good people from GotSoul and Therapy to give House lovers the respect of a festival. Closing down the summer could never feel so good. If you don’t believe me check out this House giant all star
THURSDAY AUGUST 28th GOTSOUL SESSIONS at SEGAFREDO
ABICAH SOUL, MIKE FRESCO & LUKE NATIVE

FRIDAY AUGUST 29th SOUL NATION at TIME SUPPERCLUB
KARIZMA, PAT BOOGIE & CHRISTIAN PRONOVOST

FRIDAY AUGUST 29th DANNY BUDDAH MORALES at CHERRY

SATURDAY AUGUST 30th CLASSICS at CHERRY
ANGEL MORAES, JOJOFLORES & SIMON B.

SUNDAY AUGUST 31st THERAPY 9 YR ANNIVERSARY at CHERRY
KENNY BOBIEN, JOE DIPADOVA, MISAYO, JABIG, MIKE FRESCO & TAZZ
Hosted by: Bic, Claudy, Inobe, Stephen Nelson & Metrotalent

One of Ottawa’s longest running DJs, Trevor Walker, made the front page of the Ottawa XPress today and boy, does he deserve it!

He’s been blending beats in Ottawa’s top nightspots since the late ’80s, witnessing the birth of new wave, acid jazz, Hip-Hop, House and Techno from the disc jockey’s pulpit.

His credentials are rock solid; he can hardly remember the details.

“The timeline messes me up, it’s really hard to remember exactly when everything happened,” says the 38-year-old Walker, chuckling. “It’s kind of a blur for me.”

From his involvement in Canada’s premier breakdance crew (Canadian Floor Masters) during the early ’80s to his current residency at Ottawa’s much-vaunted Mercury Lounge, Walker has had a remarkably long tenure at the heart of the local music scene. As a teenage b-boy (known as Tricky T) he wore red and white tights while performing as one of the original Canadian Floor Masters. Founded and mentored by Steve Leafloor (a.k.a. Buddha), the Floor Masters were no flash in the pan: This crew continues to perform throughout North America, while founder Leafloor uses hip-hop as a pivot point for helping youth at risk, especially in Inuit communities across the North.

Even in the early days the Floor Masters were unique. They once opened for James Brown and, on another occasion, were scrutinized by KGB bodyguards during a private performance for Russia’s Kirov Ballet at the National Arts Centre. “The Russian ballet was really crazy. I wasn’t that aware of it but those [KGB] dudes were hanging out all around us. But James Brown was much larger than life,” recalls Walker. “He had a huge head and looked like a lion in a way. A short guy with a really big head.”

After meeting drinking age requirements during the infamous Hull nightclubbing scene of the late ’80s, Walker began to attend venues that were willing to experiment with their playlists. Clubs like Zinc and Chez Henri were touchpoints. “I loved Zinc,” says Walker, “it was the only place to go and hear underground music. It was the first place to play The Smiths, The Cure, new wave, House and Hip-Hop music, for example. It was a pretty groundbreaking club in a lot of ways.

“At the time, there was nowhere to get that kind of music. You could hear it on a CKCU radio show by Elorius Kane, but that was the only place. I began to collect what I could and got a break one night when the DJ was too trashed to play.”

From 1988 onwards, Walker began to quickly build a list of steady gigs. As hip-hop and various forms of electronic music began to develop into the ’90s, Walker found himself at the vanguard of a blossoming movement. “Hip-hop was the same tempo as house or disco at that time,” he adds. “It was fresh, groundbreaking, revolutionary music.”

“The music was always the draw. Kids nowadays don’t know the whole story. If kids understood, for example, how house music and techno is part of hip-hop, there would be so much more cohesion,” he stresses.

A long list of club residencies followed Walker’s first gigs. Names like Off Limits, Channel Zero, The White Room, The Well and Atomic stand out in time, figuring prominently in Walker’s recollection.

“But it was The Well that was the really cool gig for a long time,” Walker indicates. “For me, the spirit of Zinc came back. It started off as live and organic music with funk, Afrobeat and acid jazz – it was crazy. It was probably some of the most brilliant years DJing. We used to get a really diverse crowd, in age and background. That’s what the Mercury has now.”

Walker’s residency at the Mercury Lounge continues to the present day. One of the few clubs left operating in a truly “old-school” manner, Mercury Lounge remains one of Ottawa’s most popular clubs, packing its loft-style space with crowds seeking soulful dance music.

“I think it’s great. If anything, things have gotten better over the years. As the Internet has grown and people have more access to music, people are more knowledgeable and it shows. I think the young generation these days knows more about underground music than ever before.”

As a testament to his continuing popularity, Walker has been booked to play one of Ottawa’s hottest events: Timekode. Set in an Eritrean café on west Somerset and scheduled for the last Friday of each month, Timekode is dedicated to soulful music of every type. Alex Mattar (a.k.a. DJ Zattar) is one of the founders.

“Way before I had the vision for Timekode, I remember going to The Well in ‘96/97,” recalls Mattar. “I just remember entering this place, seeing all this red light and hearing some incredible Brazilian rhythms. Turns out that it was Trevor playing. I was just a teenager but it felt like having my eyes opened to a different world almost. He’s been a big inspiration for Timekode and the mentality of playing records that are not limited to one style.”

“I’ve always been a dancer at heart. I know what makes me dance and that seems to translate to most people,” reveals Walker. “It’s kind of cool because I did the dance research first and then started playing the records. When you look back, it seems like the path was laid out ahead of time, but you don’t notice it until you look back.”

You can check Trevor Walker out at the following venues:

@ Timekode Eri Café (953 Somerset West) July 18

@ Mercury Lounge Ongoing Thursday and Saturday residencies

Canadian Music Mix, Part One!

Happy Canada Day, fellow Canadians! And to the rest of my readers, happy Tuesday!

If you’re Canadian, you already know that we celebrate nearly everything with music! So, here at TransCanada Radio, we want to know — are you celebrating Canada Day in style? Seeing some of the awesome music that this country has to offer? Tell us about your Canada Day musical adventures – we’re dying to hear all about it!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some of Canada’s biggest and best put together into three cool music mix videos! Be sure to check it out!

Canadian Music Mix, Part Two!

Canadian Music Mix, Part Three!

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