What is the foundation of a great TV show? A great TV cast. Shawn Doyle, who has appeared in “Big Love” and “Lost,” along with Patrick Gallagher, who has appeared in “Glee” and “True Blood” star in the new Showcase series “Endgame.” The show follows a Russian World Champion chess champion (played by Doyle) who is traumatized by his finacee’s murder, and left a prisoner to his Vancouver hotel room. To pay his hotel bill, he helps the police solve crimes.
Will it be a hit? We will see.. Check it out on Monday’s at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase.
There are a ton of amazing Canadian bands, however not many make a living creating music. So it’s pretty exciting when a band from Burlington, Ontario makes it big in Canada, and then explodes in the United States, and then starts making the big money. It’s even more amazing when they become the theme song for WWE. We spoke to the guys from Finger Eleven about their new release “Life Turns Electric” and their struggle to the top.
Canadian audiences missed out on a piece of Michael Jackson history by not being able to see the documentary “Gone Too Soon.” Now the owners of the film are going after the distributor who did not live up to his contractual obligation.
TMZ reports Objective Films, LLC has filed a lawsuit against a company headed by Pierre Turgeon. In the lawsuit Objective claims they sold the French and Canadian distribution rights to Pierre’s company in exchange for $100k back in 2009.
Objective claims they received $50,000 but Pierre reneged on the other half. Objective was able to get the flick distributed in France … Canada wasn’t so lucky. Objective further claims Turgeon never really wanted to do legitimate business with Objective, however he just wanted the MJ affiliation to inflate his stock price.
Turgeon tells a different story to TMZ — saying, “The movie was bad … so we applied the clause (in our contract) that enabled us to not pick up the rights to the movie.”
He adds, “We paid in advance in good faith $50,000 for the project … We plan to get back our $50,000.”
As per usual, Jordan did his due diligence before interview Chromeo. When doing so, he learned that Chromeo defies a genre. These guys are just so over the map, you really can’t compare them to anybody. Anyways, David and Patrick from Chromeo sat down to explain their “secret sauce” to making music.
K-os has already proven himself as one of the most original hip hop artists, but we ere even more impressed by his ideas about music and knowledge of music history. Especially when he dropped the bomb that Justin Bieber is Black! See for yourself!
Almost every major broadcaster in the U.S. has it’s own reality dance show. ABC airs “Dancing with the Stars,” MTV has “America’s Best Dance Crew,” FOX shows “So You Think You Can Dance” and Paula Abdul is the star of an upcoming CBS reality dance show.
But it’s not just a mere coincidence. The reason is simple: audiences are craving them. “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” is proof of this north of the boarder. Premiering in 2008, the Canadian reality show became an instant hit. The following year it ended season two with 11 per cent more viewers and an average audience of 1.43 million viewers.
“So You Think You Can Dance Canada has discovered some amazing talent over the past two seasons,” said CTV’s Susanne Boyce. “Show alumni are performing with Janet Jackson, Katy Perry, Alicia Keys, Ke$ha, and Adam Lambert, among others, making a statement about Canadian dance around the world.”
The third season kicked off Sunday at 9 p.m. EST. Performer and choreographer Blake McGrath — who’s a judge on the show — thinks this will be their biggest season yet. “I think it’s gonna be a stronger season for sure all around, from the choreography to the contestants,” he shared. “I’m really excited for it.”
For dancers hoping to make it onto the show, McGrath says the first step is training. Having confidence is a close second.
The reality show kicks off with Toronto auditions. Fans can catch weekly highlights and behind the scenes footage on demand at CTV.ca.
Keep track of the season three audition episodes with the list below:
· Sunday, August 15 at 9 p.m. ET (two hour premiere) – Toronto Auditions
· Monday, August 16 at 9 p.m. ET (two hours) – Calgary and Halifax Auditions
· Tuesday, August 17 at 8 p.m. ET (one hour) – Vancouver Auditions
· Wednesday, August 18 at 9 p.m. ET (two hours) – Montreal Auditions
· Thursday, August 19 at 9 p.m. ET (two hours) – Finals Week
· Sunday, August 22 at 9 p.m. ET (one hour) – Top 20 Reveal
Ivana Santilli is a music industry veteran who has seen and done it all. A member of the hugely successful R&B/pop group Bass is Base in the 90′s, Ivana now has focused her energy on her growing solo career. Now signed to CP Records, Ivana has just released a new album called “Santilli.” Ivana caught up with us to talk about the ever changing music business, along with all the female artist rivalry going on!
Don’t say you’ve seen an electro-group perform live, until you’ve seen DUBBS.
It’s only fair really.
Instead of going up on stage like most groups only to then just press a play button on a laptop, DUBBS re-creates every aspect of the beat-pumping tune with a variety of equipment- giving the audience the most real-live dynamic electro-concert experience possible.
The three-man Canadian team consists of brothers Alex (Vocals) and Chris (Drums) Van Den Hoeff, and Ottawa producer Martin Sinotte, who hope to make a name for themselves with their revolutionary club-bopping tracks and unique live sound-experience.
“Most DJ’s just turn knobs to play a hit song. That’s it,” says Sinotte. “But then you have us who play the song with a live beat pad, live keyboard, live everything. You have Alex singing, Chris on drums. It gets wild.”
Adds Alex, “It’s a poppy-techno sound with a twist. We call it a new age of electro-house.”
The average Canadian wears one coat at a time in winter. Granted it’s probably the warmest coat ever known to mankind, but it’s still just one.
But to get Cameron Potts, one-fifth of the Sydney, Australia’s band Dead Letter Chorus, through the season, he needed three.
“It’s been a shock for sure,” Potts told andPOP of the Canadian cold. “I’m a bit of a wimp … I think I brought three jackets and at one stage I was wearing all three.”
Dead Letter Chorus, made up of Potts and four others, is on a cross-Canada tour in support of their debut album, The August Magnificent. It was the band’s first time seeing snow fall from the sky.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” he said. “We were just sitting having breakfast, and all of a sudden it started snowing!”
It looks like being a good dancer runs in the family.
According to geneology researchers at Ancestry.ca, Ellen DeGeneres and Madonna are 11th cousins through a Canadian link.
“It’s rare to discover that two icons are related, but when they are similar in their successes and even their interests, it makes the discovery even more fascinating,” said Lesley Anderson, a genealogist at Ancestry.ca.
andPOP is now on TV and so is Pure Pwnage (do we see a trend here?) What started as a nerdy hobby has turned into a TV series. The television series cleverly takes viewers into the world of gaming by integrating elements of gamer speech, gamer technology and gamer social scene. Week after week viewers can live vicariously through ultimate gamer, Jeremy, as his obsessive gaming hilariously interferes with his relationships with family, friends and co-workers.
Jenn spoke to the creators of Pure Pwnage. You can also check out the show 10 p.m. EST on Showcase on Friday’s.
Fred Ewanuick is just happy to have his own TV.
The Canadian actor, best known for his role as Hank Yarbo in Corner Gas, has been spending the past few weeks in his own private, fully-equipped chalet in Whistler.
“I’m like in heaven. I don’t have cable at home.”
Ewanuick, 42, scored his Rocky Mountain pad when he was selected by the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) to host the Olympic Victory Ceremonies in Whistler: a set of live performances each evening starring some of the world’s top acts.
“It’s such a blast. I think they said that the capacity is 8000, and we’ve been at capacity every night.”
Ewanuick has introduced artists such as Feist, The All-American Rejects, K’naan, Estelle, Usher, and The Fray. However, Ewanuick argues that some of the best music comes from the Olympic fans.
What is andPOP’s TV show going to look like? This! Check out andPOP Presents Something New every Tuesday @ 9pm on AUX TV starting March 2nd!
Elly Jackson of La Roux sits way in the back of her tour bus. Quiet. Secluded. Curled up. On first glance, seemingly trying to shut out the blistering cold Toronto November day outside, and maybe even the world along with it.
But can you blame her?
As one of the United Kingdom’s most popular new artists in 2009, Jackson finds it hard to trust people these days. Her tendency to be honest and opinionated have often been taken advantage of by media haters. But the singer can’t help it, she’s always been an individual with real thoughts and feelings- a leader rather than a follower. Even back in Elementary school, the 21-year-old London-born says she was a tomboy, and always had a bit of an assertive and free-spirited tendency.
But that ability to not succumb to peer-pressure is one of the main reasons for the raving success of her debut self-titled album last June, her flooding international fan-base, and why she will keep pushing strong past the negative hurdles in her career.
“You really have to be careful in this industry,” Jackson tells andPOP in her tour bus. “Obviously it’s impossible for us to like everything. So when you can get asked your thoughts about something, and say we don’t like or agree with something, it’s like a total shock to the world.”
The Wooden Sky are one of Toronto’s most exciting acts. I caught up with the band while they were touring in support of their latest release, entitled “If I Don’t Come Home, You’ll Know I’m Gone.” I highly recommend you watch the stunning ‘Documentary In Pieces’ videos, which follow the band on their tour through Canada, performing in intimate and unconventional places. Check out the videos at http://www.vimeo.com/channels/thewoodensky
If you mixed “The Hills” with TSN, you’d get “Over the Bolts,” MTV Canada’s brand new reality show that documents the country’s national snowboard team as they vie for 18 Olympic spots.
The show premieres this Sunday at 10 p.m. on MTV, but we got to see the first two episodes before its debut. And let’s just say you can already set the Tivo because “Over the Bolts” is as addictive as they come!
Michael Lambert, one of the country’s top snowboarders who stars in the show, admits there’s just something about reality TV that gets you hooked. “One of my friends was on the show ‘The City,’ Duncan Davies, so I enjoyed watching it and watching him interact with his girlfriend and stuff like that,” shares the athlete. “I think the dangerous thing about any of those TV shows is you can say ‘even though I may not watch them, every one of them is addictive.’ I could just watch two episodes and I could be hooked on any of them,” he laughs.
Are you excited for EA Sports NHL 10? If you’re Canadian, probably. The #1 selling console game in Canada has it’s launch parties in Toronto and Vancouver Monday, September 14. The Toronto party will be at the Yonge and Dundas Future Shop with Wendel Clark and Ian White (of Maple Leafs fame) from 9pm to 11:45pm, and in Vancouver’s Granville and Robson Future Shop with Trevor Linden of the Canucks. The Future Shop locations will be open until 1am, so check it out if you’re not too busy… and on a Monday night, what’s your excuse?
Cheers!
We have some exciting news. In our continual conquest to be a next generation multi platform media company, we are pleased to announce andPOP will be on the radio starting Friday September 18th @ 5pm on XM Canada’s Laugh Attack Channel (channel 153). The show will feature the uniqueness of the website but on the radio (yes an amazing concept). So you can listen to some interviews, here us banter about the entertainment biz, and also be introduced to some unique characters like Euclid Laframboise. Euclid will be on the show while he also makes a living building coffins out of Thule racks. Watch the vid and you will understand.
With her first full length Spanish album Mi Plan debuting September 15, Grammy Award winning Canadian-Portuguese singer Nelly Furtado has already made it into the history books.
Manos Al Aire, the album’s first single, has pegged the no. one spot on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, which makes her the first North American artist to reach that feat with a song that was originally written in Spanish- and not a translated version of an English song.
The single is also a massive success internationally, grabbing the no. one spot in Italy, Colombia, Chile and Central America, while settling in the top five spots in Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Germany.
Known for her broad spectrum of musical interests, Furtado invited internationals artists Alejandro Fernandez, Josh Groban, Juan Luis Guerra, Julieta Venegas, La Mala Rodriguez, Buika and Alex Cuba to give the record a unique touch.
Furtado will also begin a promo tour for the album on September 13, which will take her to the top Latin and American TV shows across the U.S., as well as a visit to European countries such as Germany, France, Spain and England.
The artist has sold over 18 million albums in her career, with close to ten million in sales from her previous album Loose- which was the no. one global album in 2007.
Fully animated video for Amos The Transparent’s newest single Lemons (aka Big Fish Little Pond) by uber cool animation studio Digital Henchman. Vote for them in the XM Verge Music Awards! http://www.thevergeonline.com/vma/
