Contest Winner

Studio A would like to congratulate Chris Speers as the winner of our recording contest.

Chris wins a of live off-the-floor recording of one song by Studio A Audio Recording and Production. In addition, the live session will be filmed by Interpretive Media and available for band promotional purposes.

Thank you to everyone who entered.

Be sure to follow Studio A and stay current with studio news and future contests :

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Local Live Music April 4 – June 4, 2012

Courtesy of theloop.ca

Featured Listings
4/4/2012 – 4/5/2012 Craig Cardiff – Maxwell’s Music House
4/5/2012 Brett Johnson/ – Starlight
4/5/2012 Kitchen Ceilidh – McDougall Cottage
4/5/2012 Craig Cardiff – Maxwell’s Music House
4/6/2012 Nick & Mitch – Beaver And Bulldog
4/6/2012 Beat Battle – Maxwell’s Music House
4/7/2012 Spinal Cracker – Beaver And Bulldog
4/8/2012 Easter Blues – Little Bean Coffee Bar
4/10/2012 Bahamas – Starlight
4/13/2012 Jason Raso Quartet – Registry Theatre 
4/13/2012 Original Copy – Beaver And Bulldog
4/13/2012 Christian Hansen/ – Maxwell’s Music House
4/14/2012 Ceilidh Concert – Fergus Grand Theatre
4/14/2012 Wake The Giants – Beaver And Bulldog
4/14/2012 Heidi Wall, piano – KWCMS Music Room
4/14/2012 Valdy – Registry Theatre 
4/18/2012 Nightseeker – The Hive
4/18/2012 Penderecki Quartet – KWCMS Music Room
4/20/2012 John Tank Quartet – Registry Theatre 
4/20/2012 Double Booked – Beaver And Bulldog
4/20/2012 John Tank Quartet – Registry Theatre 
4/20/2012 – 4/22/2012 Mozart Festival – Centre In The Square
4/21/2012 Daddy Long Legs – Little Bean Coffee Bar
4/21/2012 Counterwaits – Beaver And Bulldog
4/21/2012 Proyecto Altiplano – Chrysalids Theatre 
4/28/2012 Libby McGrath Band – Beaver And Bulldog
5/3/2012 Stars of NewHamburg Live – The Jazz Room in Huether Hotel 
5/5/2012 Mamas Old Songbook – Benton St. Baptist Church
6/4/2012 Kelly Joe Phelps – Princess Cinema
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TD Kitchener Blues Festival announces 2012 lineup

  • Robert Reid, Record staff
  • Mon Apr 02 2012

WATERLOO REGION — The TD Kitchener Blues Festival will retain its title as the largest, free blues festival in Canada on the strength of its 2012 lineup.

The 12th annual blues bash, held across downtown Kitchener from Aug. 9 to Aug. 12, once again features some of the best in local, national and international blues.

Los Lobos

One of America’s most distinctive roots-rock bands for three decades, Los Lobos has never changed personnel. While best known for its popular 1987 hit La Bamba, that cinematic cover doesn’t convey the East LA band’s eclectic talents spanning rock, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues and traditional Spanish and Mexican music. From their debut recording, their musical authenticity has remained paramount as they have found new ways of refining and redefining their highly original sound.

www.loslobos.org

Colin James

Since leaving the Saskatchewan prairies, Colin James has became one of Canada’s most popular blues artists. Whether solo acoustic, urban electric or big band, blues remains the common theme in James’ music lexicon. Over two decades, James has released 12 albums including his latest, Rooftops and Satellites. His music has been recorded by the likes of Maria Muldaur (a former blues festival headliner) and Lucinda Williams. A superb guitarist, he’s known as a musician’s musician.

www.colinjames.com

Bobby “Blue” Bland

Bobby Bland earned his superstar status without aid of a guitar, harmonica or any other instruments. All Bland possessed was his magnificent voice, a powerful blend of R&B, soul and gospel. A founding member of the Beale Streeters, the legendary Memphis aggregation that included B.B. King, Bland has influenced a legion of up-and-coming Southern blues artists.

www.bobbybluebland.com

Taj Mahal

A beacon of late 20th century blues, Taj Mahal played a significant role in revitalizing and preserving traditional acoustic blues. Not content to remain confined to that realm, Mahal broadened his approach, taking a musicologist’s interest in folk and roots traditions from around the world including reggae, Caribbean folk, jazz, gospel, R&B, zydeco, various West African styles, Latin and Hawaiian. While exploring these different genres, he never strayed far from his own country blues roots.

www.tajblues.com

Robben Ford

Self-taught guitarist Robben Ford has enjoyed a varied career. After accompanying Charlie Musselwhite, he played with Jimmy Witherspoon, the L.A. Express with Tom Scott, George Harrison and Joni Mitchell before becoming a member of the Yellowjackets. Ford toured with Miles Davis on two occasions in the mid-1980s, but really came into his own as a solo artist in the early 1990s when he returned to his roots — the blues.

www.robbenford.com

Ray Manzarek/Roy Rogers Band

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Doors co-founder Ray Manzarek teamed up with slide guitar ace Roy Rogers to form a new, hard-driving, blues-rock ensemble. Separately, Manzarek still performs with Robbie Krieger in an ongoing odyssey of The Doors’ music. Rogers has toured with his band The Delta Rhythm Kings for three decades and has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards as a songwriter, producer and performer.

www.manzarek-rogersband.com

Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels

The voice behind Devil with the Blue Dress and Good Golly Miss Molly, Mitch Ryder holds a respected place in blues-rock history as a high-octane, turbo-charged performer influenced by Little Richard and James Brown and as the predecessor of such Motor City rockers as Iggy Pop, Ted Nugent and Bob Seger.

www.mitchryder.net

Marcia Ball

2012 Grammy finalist Marcia Ball is a blues diva who can raise roofs and tear down walls with her intelligent and deeply emotional brand of southern boogie, roadhouse blues and heartfelt ballads. Over three decades, Ball has earned a loyal following all over the world, a testament to accomplished piano playing and passionate, playful vocals that fuse New Orleans and Gulf Coast R&B with Austin’s poetic songwriting tradition.

www.rosebudus.com/ball

Joe Louis Walker

San Francisco’s Fillmore District is celebrated as the birthplace of psychedelic rock. But it was also a hotbed of modern electric blues, where one of the genre’s top musical trailblazers, Joe Louis Walker, was born and raised. The award-winning guitarist, vocalist and songwriter has been releasing groundbreaking music since the mid-1980s. His fusion of blues, rock, gospel, jazz and country tears down walls between genres should have never existed in the first place.

www.joelouiswalker.com

Harry Manx

Harry Manx spent years fusing Eastern musical traditions with the blues, switching between conventional guitars, harmonica and banjo and Mohan veena, 20-string guitar/sitar hybrid. Over the last decade, Manx has released 11 albums, garnering a bag of awards including seven Maple Blues awards, six Juno nominations and Canadian Folk Award in 2005 for Best Solo Artist.

www.harrymanx.com

Cafe R & B

Hailing from Los Angeles, Cafe R&B features ferocious female vocalist Roach, blazing lead guitarist Byl Carruthers and keyboardist Harry Cohen. They have a large cult following in the U.S. and Europe, which includes Kitchener after making an auspicious debut at the blues festival last year.

www.caferandb.com

Smokin’ Joe Kubek & Bnois King

Smokin’ Joe Kubek met Bnois King at a Dallas jam session. The two guitarists became fast friends and melded their divergent styles — Kubek is a fierce picker and slider and King is a jazz-inflected strummer — into one of the most potent guitar combinations in the America.

www.smokinjoekubek.com

Ray Bonneville

Ray Bonneville is a widely travelled blues troubadour. Born in Canada and raised in the U.S., the International Blues Challenge winner has been everywhere. No place, however, has been more influential than New Orleans which exerts a powerful influence on his blues-soaked roots music.

www.raybonneville.com

Ellis Hooks

Until the arrival of Ellis Hooks on the blues and soul scenes with his signature blend of R&B, blues and Southern gospel, it seemed the great stories defining this music had already been written by the legends, whether Otis Redding, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or Sam Cooke. While reminiscent of these greats, Hooks’ voice remains his own. He might well be the artist who brings these historic traditions back into the musical dialogue of the 21st century.

www.zanerecords.com/artists/ellis

Delta Moon

Perennial blues festival favourites Delta Moon will be playing the Main Stage for the first time this year, on the heels of their seventh release Black Cat. With a live show second-to-none, the dual slide guitars of Delta Moon take listeners deep into the heart of Dixie where sinuous Mississippi blues meets the gritty backwoods twang of Appalachia.

www.deltamoon.com

The Twisters

Acknowledged as Canada’s top jump/swing blues band, The Twisters have added a rootsy blend of reggae, R&B and gospel to a gourmet feast of early Chicago shuffles, Texas grinders, West Coast jump and funky swamp-soaked Louisiana rhythms. The four-piece outfit has released five albums including Come Out Swinging.

www.twisters.ca

Curly Bridges & Julian Fauth

Curley Bridges’ career began in the 1940s with the original Motley Crew. Along with Motley Crew alumnus King Herbert and Frank Pelly, Bridges formed The Rounders, which mainly toured northern Ontario. He played in a succession of bands until 1981 when he concentrated on solo gigs, delighting audiences with a mix of jump, jive and down-and-dirty blues.

Kitchener-Waterloo’s Fauth has become a regular session player for Electro-Fi. However, his own releases show an artist with an almost avant-garde approach to the blues. His highly individualistic style recognizes and appreciates tradition, while using it as a blank canvas on which to paint his own interpretations.

www.electrofi.com

Treasa Levasseur

Toronto’s Treasa Levasseur is no wilting wallflower. Calling her latest recording Broad, she exhibits a fiercely independent and ferocious intelligence that refuses surrender to controversial subject material. Whether examining personal relationships or forces that tear families and society apart, she’s unflinchingly honest and emotionally indomitable.

www.treasalevasseur.com

Too Slim & the Taildraggers

Tim “Too Slim” Langford and the Taildraggers have created an eclectic style of blues-rock that has become a genre all its own. Langford’s evolving musical direction cannot be put in any single box or category. The eclectic nature of the band allows Too Slim and the Taildraggers to appeal to a range of music tastes.

www.tooslim.org

The Pappy Johns Band

The Canadian Aboriginal blues outfit The Pappy Johns Band consists of longtime friends and brothers of the blues who deliver as tight and soulful a sound as any band. The core players include Oren Doxtator, Murray Porter and Don Powless, who have been playing together for three decades.

Other acts appearing at the blues festival include Miss Angel & The Homewreckers, Douglas Watson’s R&B Revue, Ian Taylor Band, James Anthony Band, Chuckee & The Crawdaddies, Lumberjack, Harp Dog Brown and Graham Guest, Carlos Del Junco & The Blues Mongrels, Cheryl Lescom, Colin White, Pat Temple, Paul Oscher, Tom Gray, Shane Murphy, Conor Gains Band, Ken Whiteley’s Gospel Revue, David Rotundo Band, Alan Gerber Band, John Finley & The Sanctified Blues Allstars and The Haret, along with Youth Legacy winner Brendan Stephens.

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Local Live Music March 29 – April 4, 2012

 Courtesy of theloop.ca

Featured Listings
3/29/2012 Lynn Jackson/Rose Morris – Little Bean Coffee Bar
3/29/2012 Stuck on Planet Earth – Maxwell’s Music House
3/30/2012 One Eye Open – Beaver And Bulldog
3/30/2012 Kenny Phelps/Ryan Allen – Little Bean Coffee Bar
3/30/2012 South Rakkas Crew – Starlight
3/31/2012 – 4/1/2012 24 Hour Concert – The Embassy
3/31/2012 Colin Stetson – Perimeter Institute
3/31/2012 Original Copy – Beaver And Bulldog
3/31/2012 Rock The Monster – The Knights of Columbus
3/31/2012 Coney Hatch – Edelweiss Sports Bar & Grill
3/31/2012 – 4/1/2012 Ten Second Epic – Maxwell’s Music House
3/31/2012 Blues Festival Launch – Walper Terrace Hotel
3/31/2012 Robin Aggus – Cafe 13
4/1/2012 Miss Angel &TheHomewreckers – Little Bean Coffee Bar
4/4/2012 – 4/5/2012 Craig Cardiff – Maxwell’s Music House
4/4/2012 Baby Eagle – Starlight
4/5/2012 Brett Johnson/ – Starlight
4/7/2012 Spinal Cracker – Beaver And Bulldog
4/10/2012 Bahamas – Starlight
4/13/2012 Christian Hansen/ – Maxwell’s Music House
4/14/2012 Ceilidh Concert – Fergus Grand Theatre
4/14/2012 Wake The Giants – Beaver And Bulldog
4/18/2012 Nightseeker – The Hive
4/20/2012 John Tank Quartet – Registry Theatre 
4/21/2012 Daddy Long Legs – Little Bean Coffee Bar
5/3/2012 Stars of NewHamburg Live – The Jazz Room in Huether Hotel 
5/5/2012 Mamas Old Songbook – Benton St. Baptist Church
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Live Local Music March 22-April 14, 2012

Courtesy of theloop.ca

Featured Listings
3/22/2012 Rich Aucoin – Starlight
3/22/2012 KeyStrokes &Brush Strokes – Little Bean Coffee Bar
3/23/2012 EPIC! Party – Club Renaissance
3/23/2012 Take Me To the Pilot/ – Maxwell’s Music House
3/23/2012 Meage – Little Bean Coffee Bar
3/23/2012 – 3/24/2012 KW Symphony – Centre In The Square
3/24/2012 Dragonette – Starlight
3/24/2012 A Breath of Celtic Music – St.Jacobs Schoolhouse Theatre
3/24/2012 The Panda Dogs – Beaver And Bulldog
3/24/2012 Hardrock Night – Maxwell’s Music House
3/24/2012 Speakeasies – Little Bean Coffee Bar
3/25/2012 Miss Angel & Homewreckers – Little Bean Coffee Bar
3/26/2012 Michael Lewin: piano – KWCMS Music Room
3/28/2012 Damo Suzuki Network – Starlight
3/29/2012 Stuck on Planet Earth – Maxwell’s Music House
3/30/2012 One Eye Open – Beaver And Bulldog
3/30/2012 South Rakkas Crew – Starlight
3/31/2012 – 4/1/2012 24 Hour Concert – The Embassy
3/31/2012 Colin Stetson – Perimeter Institute
3/31/2012 Original Copy – Beaver And Bulldog
3/31/2012 Rock The Monster – The Knights of Columbus
3/31/2012 Coney Hatch – Edelweiss Sports Bar & Grill
3/31/2012 Blues Festival Launch – Walper Terrace Hotel
3/31/2012 Robin Aggus – Cafe 13
4/4/2012 Baby Eagle – Starlight
4/10/2012 Bahamas – Starlight
4/14/2012 Ceilidh Concert – Fergus Grand Theatre
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Eclectic Revival is Borderline Insane (for St. Patrick’s Day!)


Eclectic Revival, a Celtic band from Brampton, Ontario have decided that playing one show on St. Patrick’s day just wouldn’t be enough to honour the day as well as their own music style… so they’re playing three. Yes, the 5 piece band is going to attempt the near-impossible feat of playing three shows in a single day. This means that when they aren’t on stage preforming their infectious Irish music to pub goers on the only day of the year that it’s acceptable to drink at 11am, they’re packing their instruments and travelling to the next location. Is this even physically possible to do? Will the luck of the Irish guide them to each venue with ease? Or have they actually gone insane trying to play so many shows in a single day? We have yet to see, but we at Studio A highly suggest checking them out at any of the three venues on March 17th.

For full details and venue listings, as well as a sample of their music, check out the official St. Patrick’s day tour press release below. Also, be sure to check out the Eclectic Revival’s Facebook page for future show dates and info!

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“Welcome, everyone, To Eclectic Revival’s St. Patrick’s Day Tour!

We here at Eclectic Revival think it’s silly to be a Celtic/East Coast band and only play one show for all of St. Patty’s day, thinking that’s enough. So, because we’re enthusiastic (Or borderline insane) and don’t know any better, we’ll be playing Three shows across Three different towns!

Here’s the break down of the different bars that we will be playing at:

Slainte – 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Address: 33 Bowen St, Hamilton.

Keltic Rock – 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Address: 180 Sandalwood Parkway East, Brampton

Lionheart – 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM
Address: 3221 Derry Road West, Mississauga

So come on out for the Day of Drink and party with us as we traverse around the GTA!”

*From Eclectic Revival’s Facebook Event Page.

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