Postdata Tours Canada with Brian Borcherdt and Julie Fader

Postdata is a project of Paul Murphy, singer and co-songwriter for Wintersleep) and I don't think that I have to tell readers of this site who Brian Borcherdt or Julie Fader are. (Just in case I'm wrong - grab a free album from Brian here and then go read about Julie.)

The math is pretty easy - that's a whole lot of talent for one evening. Go to these:

March 7- Halifax, NS @ The Sonic Temple

March 8 - Halifax, NS @ The Sonic Temple

March 12 - Toronto, ON @ The Music Gallery

March 13 - Toronto, ON @ CMW Showcase  

March 16 - Ottawa, ON @ The Blacksheep

March 18 - Calgary, AB @ The Republik

March 19 - Edmonton, AB @ Brixx

March 20 - Vancouver, BC @ The Media Club

Seriously..go to all of them, it'll be worth it.

Postdata - Tobias Gray (feat. Christoph Schmidt on cello)

Check out more Postdata and download a few free songs (right hand column) at postdata.com.

Toronto: Julie Fader with Daniel Romano (Attack in Black) and Andrew Sisk (Share) at the El Mocombo Tomorrow night

Attn: Toronto - I deliberately didn't do year end lists this year. If I had though Julie Fader would have featured prominently, at the very least in the Best New Artist category. In addition to her work with Chad Van Gaalen, the Great Lake Swimmers, Blue Rodeo, Sarah Harmer and other's Julie put out an amazing solo debut ( Outside, In ). Tomorrow night she is playing a special show at the El Macambo (464 Spadina Ave. in Toronto).

Opening up the evening will be Andrew Sisk (a.k.a. Share) - out of the prolific Halifax scene. Share (Myspace) is another artist who first came to my attention in 2009, although if I was from Halifax I'd know he wasn't really new.

Share - Maybe Always Live with Jenn Grant



Next up will be Daniel Romano of Attack in Black and the recent collaboration with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire titled simply Daniel, Fred & Julie. Daniel will be playing a special set with a band made up of "his Dad, his Aunt, and his special friend Misha".

Attack in Black - 'Young Leaves'



Then, of course there is Julie Fader who CBC Radio 3 called the "Polaris Secret Weapon" because of all of the polaris acts she's backed up in the studio or on the road. Backing Julie up will be Jason Baird, Christine Bougie, Pete Hall, Randy Lee and Graham Walsh.

The Facebook Event is Here

(evil) senoB dna nikS - redaF eiluJ

How To Make A Living Making Music

I don't know much about how to make a living as a musician. The thing is that I don't really think that there is a way to make a living as musician - by which I mean that there is no magic formula. There isn't a formula or a one size fits all solution, there never really has been. The turmoil in the music industry over the last 15 years started because there used to be a one size fits all formula to make money as a big record label, but even among performers who used to create music for big record labels - some are very well off and some are not.

Before the holidays I created a section of NxEW.ca called Music 2.0 which features an ever updating series of articles from a variety of people on the new music industry and ideas on how you might be able to survive in it. But again, what works for one person may not necessarily work for you.

With all of that said today Julie Fader tweeted an article called "How to Make a Living Making Music" by a Texas performer named Danny Barnes who is apparently connected to Dave Matthews in some way. I don't know anything about Barnes but apparently he is making a living making music (otherwise how could he write the article?). I do know a bit about Julie Fader. I don't know anything about her finances but I know she's given 'er. In addition to an amazing debut solo album Julie plays with the Great Lake Swimmers, Chad Van Gaalen, Sarah Harmer, Feist, Blue Rodeo and a bunch of other folks - so if Julie says that the article is good you might want to have a look at it.

Barnes lays out at least 29 different points and concludes with (basically what I said):

[these are all just ideas, and you may have your own way. good. also these are different components and you have to make a sort of stew of them. maybe you have a little more of one, use a little less of the other or whatever it takes to make it come out right. i've made all these mistakes myself in the trial and error process, which is a fine way of doing things except for the error part.]

Read the whole thing, if that's your kind of thing at http://www.dannybarnes.com/blog/how-make-living-playing-music.

Check Out Wintersleep's Paul Murphy Solo at Postdata

In addition to her amazing debut solo album, Outside In Julie Fader, makes lovely noises with the Great Lake Swimmers, Sarah Harmer, and Chad Van Gaalen (amoung others) so when she recommends something, the odds are good it's worth your time. This morning via Twitter, Julie suggested checking out Postdata which happens to be the solo project of Wintersleep's Paul Murphy and now I'm passing it along to you ... so completely worth your time. According to Herohill Murphy recorded the material with his brother, in their parents home in Yarmouth, NS as a gift to their mom. It goes something like this: