Saskatoon-based rock trio, W3APONS has been very busy since their debut single, ''Off the Top of My Heart'', produced by The Trew’s John-Angus MacDonald.
The band’s debut single “Off the Top of My Heart” reached #11 on the Canadian Active Rock Charts completely independently in 2019 and has received over 700,000 plays on Spotify. In 2020, the band’s single “Bye Baby Gone” went Top 10 on the Canadian Active Rock Charts, peaking at #8.
Drummer/vocalist Tallus Scott, bassist/vocalist Myk Ulan-Hohol, and guitarist/ vocalist Jordan Welbourne are the elements in the perfect storm that is W3APONS - Energetic, Hard-hitting, and unmistakably Rock & Roll.
W3APONS has shared the stage with The Trews, Monster Truck, The Lazys, and The Wild! The band was also hand-picked by Theory of a Deadman (AKA THEORY) joining them for all 21 Canadian dates of their Say Nothing World Tour in January/February 2020.
''Saskatoon rock'n roll independent trio W3APONS serve up a certified hard-hitting, killer rock jam that delivers the real deal with the heavy guitar riffs bringing that classic rock music with a modern sound that will put this band to the top of the charts'', says Kim Cyr Editor in Chief NOW and THEN Magazine. The trio has really found their sweet spot that will be filling the festivals with fans singing every word. You can hear just how hard this band has been working to develop their craft and harmonies. I love every bit of their new music. I was a big fan before and it is really cool to see just how far they have come in such a short period of time. This is just the start of what will surely be fan favorites with their full body of work yet to come. The band co-wrote this 'Broken Promises' with JUNO Award winnerClayton Bellamy from The Road Hammers and John-Angus and Colin MacDonald from The Trews. W3APONS will be working with John-Angus MacDonald to produce more songs and maybe a full album''. For a ton of laughs and stories about Jordan, Tallus, and Myk, listen to the full interview HERE.
W3APONS ''Off the Top of My Heart'' Official Video
Rocker Eddie Van Halen died Tuesday morning at the age of 65 from throat cancer.
Wolfgang Van Halen, 29, posted a message to his Twitter page announcing his father’s death.
The legendary rock star and guitarist had been suffering from cancer for more than a decade.
Van Halen is considered to be one of the greatest guitar players of all time, and one of the kings of the rock genre. The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
He is survived by his wife, Janie Liszewski, 50, and his son Wolf, 29, from his previous marriage to Valerie Bertinelli, 60.
Hollywood took to social media to mourn Van Halen’s death. From the likes of Sammy Hagar to Gene Simmons to Jimmy Kimmel, stars are paying tribute to the late musician:
His son also confirmed his death and the cause on Twitter.
"I can't believe I'm having to write this but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning," Wolfgang Van Halen said in the tweet.
With his distinct solos, Eddie Van Halen fuelled the ultimate California party band and helped knock disco off the charts starting in the late 1970s with his band's self-titled debut album and then with the blockbuster record 1984, which contains the classics Jump, Panama and Hot for Teacher.
Van Halen is among the top 20 best-selling artists of all time and the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
Rolling Stone magazine put Eddie Van Halen at No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.
Eddie Van Halen was something of a musical contradiction. He was an autodidact who could play almost any instrument, but he couldn't read music. He was a classically trained pianist who also created some of the most distinctive guitar riffs in rock history. He was a Dutch immigrant who was considered one of the greatest American guitarists of his generation.
The members of Van Halen — the two Van Halen brothers, Eddie and Alex; vocalist David Lee Roth; and bassist Michael Anthony — formed in 1974 in Pasadena, Calif.
They were members of rival high school bands and then attended Pasadena City College together. They combined to form the band Mammoth, but then changed to Van Halen after discovering there was another band called Mammoth.
Their 1978 release Van Halen opened with a blistering Runnin' With the Devil and then Eddie Van Halen showed off his astonishing skills in the next song, Eruption, a furious one-and-a-half minute guitar solo that swoops and soars like a deranged bird. The album also contained a cover of the Kinks' You Really Got Me and Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.
Mike McCready of Pearl Jam told Rolling Stone magazine that listening to Van Halen's Eruption was like hearing Mozart for the first time. "He gets sounds that aren't necessarily guitar sounds — a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks."
Van Halen released albums on a yearly timetable — Van Halen II (1979), Women and Children First (1980), Fair Warning (1981) and Diver Down (1982) — until the monumental 1984, which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album charts (only behind Michael Jackson's Thriller).
Rolling Stone ranked 1984 No. 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.
"Eddie put the smile back in rock guitar, at a time when it was all getting a bit brooding. He also scared the hell out of a million guitarists around the world, because he was so damn good. And original," Joe Satriani, a fellow virtuoso, told Billboard in 2015.
Van Halen also played guitar on one of the biggest singles of the 1980s: Jackson's Beat It. His solo lasted all of 20 seconds and took only a half an hour to record. He did it for free, as a favour to producer Quincy Jones, while the rest of his Van Halen bandmates were out of town.
Van Halen received no compensation or credit for the work, even though he rearranged the section he played on.
"It was 20 minutes of my life. I didn't want anything for doing that," he told Billboard in 2015. "I literally thought to myself, 'Who is possibly going to know if I play on this kid's record?"'
Rolling Stone ranked Beat It No. 344 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Jackson's melding of hard rock and R&B preceded the meeting of Run-DMC and Aerosmith by four years.
But strains between Roth and the band erupted after their 1984 world tour and Roth left.
The group then recruited Sammy Hagar as lead singer — some critics called the new formulation "Van Hagar" — and the band went on to score its first No. 1 album with 5150, More studio albums followed, including OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and Balance. Hit singles included Why Can't This Be Love and When It's Love.
Hagar was ousted in 1996 and former Extreme singer Gary Cherone stepped in for the album Van Halen III, a stumble that led to his quick departure. Roth would eventually return in 2007 and team up with the Van Halen brothers, with Wolfgang Van Halen on bass, for a tour and the albums A Different Kind of Truth in 2012 and Tokyo Dome Live in Concert in 2015.
Van Halen's music has appeared in films as varied as Superbad, Minions and Sing as well as TV shows like Glee and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Video games such as Gran Turismo 4 and Guitar Hero have used his riffs. Their song Jamie's Cryin was sampled by rapper Tone Loc in his hit Wild Thing.
Eddie Van Halen was born in Amsterdam and his family immigrated to California in 1962 when he was seven. His father was a big band clarinetist who rarely found work after coming to the U.S., and their mother was a maid who had dreams of her sons being classical pianists. The Van Halens shared a house with three other families. Eddie and Alex had only each other, a tight relationship that flowed through their music.
"We showed up here with the equivalent of $50 and a piano," Eddie Van Halen told The Associated Press in 2015. "We came halfway around the world without money, without a set job, no place to live and couldn't even speak the language."
He said his earliest memories of music were banging pots and pans together, marching to John Philip Sousa marches. At one point, Eddie got a drum set, which his older brother coveted.
"I never wanted to play guitar," he confessed at a talk at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2015. But his brother was good at the drums, so Eddie gave into his brother's wishes: "I said, 'Go ahead, take my drums. I'll play your damn guitar."'
He was a relentless experimenter who would solder different parts from different guitar-makers, including Gibson and Fender. He created his own graphic design for his guitars by adding tape to the instruments and then spray-painting them. He said his influences were Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
Van Halen, sober since 2008, lost one-third of his tongue to a cancer that eventually drifted into his esophagus. In 1999, he had a hip replacement. He was married twice, to actress Valerie Bertinelli from 1981 to 2007 and then stuntwoman-turned-publicist Janie Liszewski, whom he wed in 2009.
25 SEPTEMBER 2020 (TORONTO, ON) - Following an impressive two-song performance at last month’s MTV Video Music Awards where he took home Best Alternative Video for "bloody valentine," and newly nominated for a Billboard Music Award, Cleveland powerhouse, Machine Gun Kelly, aims to keep his winning streak intact with the release of his fifth studio album Tickets to My Downfall. Executive produced by rock luminary Travis Barker, MGK recruits a bevy of stars such as Halsey, Trippie Redd, blackbear, and more to fulfill his latest journey. A deluxe addition of the album sold exclusively at Target will include four bonus tracks "misery business," "roll the windows up," "in these walls (my house)," featuring PVRS, and "love on the brain."
Tickets To My Downfall (SOLD OUT Deluxe) [Explicit]Machine Gun Kelly
MGK’s forthcoming effort is already churning out Billboard hits, including "bloody valentine" and "my ex's best friend," which currently sit in the Top 10 on the Hot Rock & Alternative charts. In August, the latter helped MGK achieve his first No. 1 on the Rock Streaming Songs chart. On Monday, "I Think I'm Okay" off last year’s Hotel Diablo earned a nomination for a Billboard Music Award for Top Rock Song. Earlier this week, the artist appeared on Howard Stern and will be on The Kelly Clarkson Show this Thursday and Friday performing two songs.
Machine Gun Kelly will perform his first US concert of 2020 on Thursday, October 1, playing Tickets to My Downfall in its entirety from the legendary Roxy stage with special guest Travis Barker. On Thursday, October 8 he will perform Hotel Diablo. Both shows will livestream for fans who pre-purchase tickets with shows beginning at 9:00pm est/6:00pm pst. A once in a lifetime experience, the shows will not be available to stream after the event. Aiming to bring live events back to 2020, NoCap and Machine Gun Kelly are excited to partner to bring these concerts to fans. Backed by his full band, the event is putting musicians back on stage and concert venues back in business.
Tickets will be available starting at 12am est on Friday, September 25th at MGK.NOCAPSHOWS.COM. Fans will also have the option to add exclusive MGK x Roxy Event Merchandise to their purchase package.
Tickets to My Downfall - Tracklist:
tickets to my downfall
kiss kiss
drunk face
bloody valentine
forget me too ft. halsey
all I know ft. trippie redd
lonely
WWIII
kevin and barracuda (interlude)
concert for aliens
my ex’s best friend ft. blackbear
jawbreaker
nothing inside ft. iann dior
banyan tree (interlude)
play this when i’m gone
Machine Gun Kelly Official Video ''Bloody Valentine''
Machine Gun Kelly - concert for aliens
Machine Gun Kelly ft. blackbear - my ex's best friend (Official Music Video)
GORD DOWNIE ANNOUNCES NEW DOUBLE ALBUM 'AWAY IS MINE'
OUT OCTOBER 16
RELEASES TWO NEW SONGS
FINAL SOLO RECORDING IS PRESENTED IN ELECTRIC AND ACOUSTIC VERSIONS
LISTEN TO “HOTEL WORTH” & “USELESS NIGHTS”
Away Is Mine is Gord Downie’s final solo recording.
Steered to life by “my oldest Toronto friend,” guitarist and co-writer Josh Finlayson, Downie recorded the ten songs of Away Is Mine in July 2017 at The Tragically Hip’s studio in Bath, Ontario, mere months before he died on October 17th that year. A characteristically questing and idiosyncratic work that holds fast to its author’s unwavering artistic spirit, Away Is Mine is a contemplation on Gord’s life, written with his deft hand and forever inscrutable sense of humour even as he locked eyes with the Great Inevitability.
“This won’t be his last release, but these are the final ten songs Gord sang before he passed away. The last time he ever sang into a mic,” Finlayson and brother Patrick Downie wrote in a joint statement. “That’s pretty special to us.”
Presented as a double album with electric and acoustic versions of all ten songs, the 20-track collection highlights Gord’s poetic mastery at its most bare and personal, with vibrant yet haunting production that casts each song in different otherworldly light. Away Is Mine will be released October 16, 2020 in 2LP, 2CD, and digital formats via Arts & Crafts.
The first two songs of Away Is Mine, released with today’s album announcement, reflect the spectral setting and unguarded lyrical force at play. Gord’s album-opening words on “Hotel Worth” reverberate over a cloudy ambient shuffle, his at first disembodied voice floating on a resonant sonic plane while slyly asking “Yer walking me to the door / of what was it again ... ?” Then, on “Useless Nights,” a lattice of starry synthesizers and electric twang plods in a carefree almost joyous swagger toward the definite abyss, while Gord pleads “Please be good to me / Yea, save me from the useless nights” in his most gentle, fatherly tone.
“There really wasn’t a plan to make a record,’ says Finlayson. “The whole thing was that I knew this was a great way to spend time with Gord, listening to music, talking about music, talking about things that we’d always talked about. And this just evolved pretty organically.”
Sessions began on July 17, 2017 with producer/mixer and Bathouse in-house engineer Nyles Spencer at the helm. The album came together in a flare of creative energy, recording in a burst of live takes over the next four days. Acoustic sketches in “open C” (a remnant tuning from Secret Path songs) that Gord and Josh had knocked together over Garageband that spring became adorned, often in real time, with thoughtful embellishments and lavish space that Spencer – who had proven himself something of a sonic savant on The Tragically Hip’s Man Machine Poem (2016) and Gord’s preceding solo records Secret Path (2016) and Introduce Yerself (2017) – describes as “from another world, from the future, from a place we don’t know.”
Rounding out the so-called Family Band, another cherished friend and decades-long collaborator Travis Good of The Sadies rode out to Bath to sprinkle in fiddle, mandolin, and guitars, while longtime Bathouse overseer Dave “Billy Ray” Koster and Lou Downie (Gord’s son) contributed live drum parts further spliced by Spencer into the mix. Through judicious use of drum loops, synths, vocal effects and “general madness,” as Finlayson puts it, Spencer transformed Away Is Mine into the supernatural end product at hand.
“They are the same record,” avows Spencer, referring to the loosely labeled ‘electric’ and ‘acoustic’ discs. “Just different mixes.” Finlayson asked for the stripped-back versions after the fact “purely for selfish reasons,” as personal mementos, but their standalone value has since grown clear to all who have heard them. They could be mistaken for two entirely different recordings, and yet they are actually the same – the same lightning, just in different bottles.
Whereas Introduce Yerself – Gord’s 23 songs of personal love letters to family, friends, and the Bruins – was his farewell album, arriving just ten days after his passing, the posthumous Away Is Mine is Gord’s existential reckoning with life. Away Is Mine is a document of an artist disappearing into his art, essentially becoming his art through that process. Here, laid bare, is the process.
“River Don’t Care” ambles along the water’s edge following a deceptively breezy groove through which to confront or accept that the river of time “don’t care” what any of us “write for it” or “cast into it.” “About Blank” morphs from a plaintive bluegrass picker into a bizarrely upbeat electro-hoedown lifted by the auspicious refrain of “Come be surrounded / By those who love you the most” before it dives into the ether. “I Am Lost” could find dub-like buoyancy in naked acoustic blues pondering “the waste, the glory, and the vast debris.” “Untitled,” the last chapter, spins the emotional heft of the final dissolve, claiming “night is good, think of it like that” with a ghostly but dazzling exhale.
“I found him to be pretty quiet. And now, looking back, it was kind of the ‘last gasp’ almost because when Gord got this one done, Gord went irretrievably downhill,” recalls brother Patrick. “Almost to the day we got back to Toronto, there’s no way he would have been able to do it. Things just went really far south.”
Despite the grim undercurrent or the “elephant in the room” during the album’s recording, joy is the guiding light of what Gord, together with loved ones, created over four summer days by Lake Ontario: joy in friendships, joy in family, joy in collaboration, joy in writing, joy in music and joy in mystery. Everyone involved in the making of Away Is Mine refers to it as “a gift,” the magic of which has carried through the completion of the album over this summer 2020, including the creation of the original artwork by Clare Downie and Willo Downie, Gord’s daughters.
Like all of the music and the poetry and the memories and the mad genius Gord gave us during his 53 years on our planet, Away Is Mine is immortal. And yet it took a fearless reckoning with his own mortality to get us here.
“We feel so blessed for this opportunity. Simply described as gratitude. Grateful for another gift from Gord. A gift that has been our beautiful companion and an unintended source of solace in the face of life without him,” Josh and Patrick share. “May it lift you up and carry you onwards and upwards always and forever. Away Is Mine. Away Is Yers.”
GORD DOWNIE AWAY IS MINE TRACKLISTING
Disc One:
1. Hotel Worth
2. Useless Nights
3. I Am Lost
4. About Blank
5. River Don’t Care
6. The Least Impossible
7. Traffic Is Magic
8. Away Is Mine
9. No Solace
10. Untitled
Disc Two:
11. Hotel Worth (Acoustic)
12. Useless Nights (Acoustic)
13. I Am Lost (Acoustic)
14. About Blank (Acoustic)
15. River Don’t Care (Acoustic)
16. The Least Impossible (Acoustic)
17. Traffic Is Magic (Acoustic)
18. Away Is Mine (Acoustic)
19. No Solace (Acoustic)
20. Untitled (Acoustic)
Gord Downie Hotel Worth Official Video
Gord Downie 'Useless Nights' Official Video
Follow All News and Pre-Order Gord Downie's, HERE
In everything he did, John Lennon spoke his truth and questioned the truth. An incomparable and uncompromising artist who strove for honesty and directness in his music, he laid bare his heart, mind and soul in his songs, seeing them as snapshots of his current emotions, thoughts and world view. Believing the one quality demanded of himself as an artist was to be completely honest, he did not disguise what he had to say or conform his messages to be more in line with what he felt others thought they should be. Love, heartbreak, peace, politics, truth, lies, the media, racism, feminism, religion, mental well-being, marriage, fatherhood – he sang about it all, and one just needs to listen to the songs of John Lennon to know how he felt, what he cherished, what he believed in, and what he stood for.
On October 9th, 2020, Lennon’s 80th birthday, in celebration of his remarkable life, a collection of some of the most vital and best loved songs from his solo career will be released via Capitol/UMe as a suite of beautifully presented collections, titled GIMME SOME TRUTH. THE ULTIMATE MIXES. Executive Produced by Yoko Ono Lennon and Produced by Sean Ono Lennon, these thirty-six songs, handpicked by Yoko and Sean, have all been completely remixed from scratch, radically upgrading their sonic quality and presenting them as a never-before-heard Ultimate Listening Experience.
Mixed and engineered by multi GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer Paul Hicks, who also helmed the mixes for 2018’s universally acclaimed Imagine – The Ultimate Collection series, with assistance by engineer Sam Gannon who also worked on that release, the songs were completely remixed from scratch, using brand new transfers of the original multi-tracks, cleaned up to the highest possible sonic quality. After weeks of painstaking preparation, the final mixes and effects were completed using only vintage analog equipment and effects at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, and then mastered in analog at Abbey Road Studios by Alex Wharton in order to ensure the most beautiful and authentic sound quality possible.
As the music landscape continues to evolve in 2020, Arkells took a pause from working on their upcoming studio album and went back to their roots, reinterpreting past material and rediscovering the singer-songwriter spirit that has long informed their trademark sing-a-longs. “Quitting You,” the only new song on the album, was inspired by the togetherness of this special project and is about finding comfort in the people closest to you. Campfire Chords marks the band’s first full-length presentation of this side of their music.
“We’ve never had time to make an ‘acoustic record’ because we were too busy playing shows and focusing on new music,” says Arkells’ frontman Max Kerman. “But we also knew that they felt really good to play in a stripped back way. All of our big rocknroll songs start with an acoustic or piano, so heading back to that place isn’t too much of a stretch. We wanted a healthy mix of our bigger songs and deep cuts. Songs that would be fun to listen to around the campfire, or in your back yard, or at a park. In 2020 we’ve mostly been playing for each other, but Campfire Chords is an opportunity to stay connected with our fans until we can see them in real-life again soon.”
Elvis Presley lives on in the hearts of adoring fans who made sure to pay their respects on his 43rd death anniversary ... even if it meant wearing masks and having to spread out.
A candlelight vigil was held for The King Saturday night at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee -- which hundreds of people flocked to come sundown just to get a glimpse of the man's gravesite and leave behind flowers, notes, and photos of their idol. It was one of the last events for Elvis Week around there -- but this year, precautions were in place.
The estate made sure the proper precautions were put in place to make sure the event was safe including only allowing 720 people access to the grounds. The groups, which had to be six people or less, were not allowed in unless they had face masks and organizers spread out the entrance times So it was less packed.
Police officers were also on hand to make sure people without tickets couldn’t get in.
This year was particularly important to Elvis fans as it marks the first time he has been gone longer than he was alive. Elvis was 42 when he died of a heart attack.
Elvis Week has been taking place all week and ended Sunday night (the day he died) with a virtual gospel and drive-in movie in the parking lot of Graceland.
Elvis All-Star Tribute (NBC) Shawn Mendes, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, John Legend & More!
The North Sound is cold like a Saskatchewan winter, humid like a summer day in the streets of Montreal and is unpredictable like the weather on a singular day in Calgary.
The North Sound is ever-changing with lyrics spanning across haunting metaphors and a sound balanced between today's modern production and the era of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris blazing the highways.
Formed in 2014 by Forrest Eaglespeaker supported by his partner Nevada Freistadt, The North Sound was created as a way to share stories in keeping true to Forrest’s Blackfoot identity and traditions from Treaty 7 Territory.
The North Sound has had three singles reach number one on the Indigenous Music Countdown as well as Saskatchewan's MBC Radio, and has received three nominations from the SCMA; two for Roots Artist of the Year and one for Emerging Artist of the Year. Sharing the stage with the likes of Blue Rodeo, Kathleen Edwards, Eagle and Hawk, Derek Miller, Susan Aglukark, Celeigh Cardinal, Logan Staats, and many more, The North Sound has performed at multiple venues and festivals across Canada and the United States.
Multi-platinum, chart-topping rock band, Nickelback will celebrate the 15th anniversary of its quintessential RIAA Diamond-certified #1 album, All The Right Reasons with a newly remastered and expanded version. This release will kick off with a rare and remastered acoustic version of their #1 hit single “Photograph".
All The Right Reasons: 15th Anniversary Expanded Edition will be available as a two-CD set on October 2 via Universal Music Canada and will also be available digitally on all streaming platforms. The collection features a newly remastered version of the original 2005 album, a selection of B-sides and a 2006 live concert recording.
Nickelback’s third consecutive #1 album, All the Right Reasons topped the charts in Canada, the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand. To date, it has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide and has been certified diamond by the RIAA and 9x Platinum in Canada. The record produced seven singles, including five Top 20 hits: “Photograph,” “Savin’ Me,” “Far Away,” “Rockstar” and “If Everyone Cared.”
“We are so proud of the fact that this album connected with people the way it has,” says guitarist Ryan Peake. “As an artist, you can only ever hope for something like that to happen.”
The album was remastered for this new anniversary edition, along with a selection of B-sides that includes a cover of Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and acoustic versions of the chart-topping singles “Photograph,” “Too Bad” and “Someday.” The collection also features a live recording of Nickelback’s August 8, 2006 performance in Sturgis, ND during the annual Sturgis Bike Rally. The 12-song performance was originally released on DVD as Live at Sturgis 2006.
Nickelback recently entered a the ultimate status that very few Canadian acts have ever known. In March, the Hanna, Alta., rock group's 2005 album, All the Right Reasons, received diamond status in the United States, which means it surpassed 10 million units in sales — a feat only Céline Dion, Shania Twain and Alanis Morrisette have also achieved from this country.
Photo Credit Copyrights Affects Media Kim Cyr 
