This week in RCS Music News Weekly: Affordable online music classes at Skillshare, Charlotte de Witte joins Sensorium Galaxy, Canada announced Truth and Reconciliation Day, Smash Mouth promotes global unity, and the Rolling Stones announce their No Filter tour. But first…
More Live Concerts Coming in August to Royal City Studios
On August 21st, Guelph indie pop band LUVR performs live with WAIVERS (also from Guelph), whose appearance at RCS marks the band’s first live show since COVID shut down live music. Tickets for this licensed event will be limited. Ordering info will be posted soon on Royal City Studios’ socials. Subscribe to Royal City Studios’ newsletter and/or follow RCS on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter so you don’t miss tickets when they go on sale.
Blues guitarist Ian Andrews is also planning a CD release concert at Royal City Studios on August 14th. Known for his energetic and captivating performances, the Guelph-born guitarist won Blues Recording of the Year at the 2016 Hamilton Music Awards, Andrews has shared the stage with Jack DeKeyzer Band, Jerry Doucette, Wild T & The Spirit, Brant Parker Blues Band, and many others. Subscribe to Royal City Studios’ newsletter and/or follow RCS on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to stay in the loop as more info becomes available.
Got a show or release you want to promote? DM Royal City Studios us on social, email info@royalcitystudios.ca, or drop your info at the front desk when you arrive. The RCS rehearsal studios and recording studio are open.
>> Book online
Find Affordable Online Music Courses at Skillshare
Looking for affordable online learning courses about music? Check out Skillshare, the online learning community with thousands of classes for creatives, including:
- Music Theory Fundamentals
- Drumming (Beginners to Advanced)
- Learn Guitar: The Complete Beginner’s Guide
- Songwriting Basics
- How to Set Up a Home Music Studio
Looking for something else? A basic search of “music” on Skillshare resulted in 3,571 courses from an overall library of 35,000+ courses, which includes Photoshop courses in album cover creation, poster creation, and tons of other courses to fuel-inject any band’s promo game.
You can take classes on the go with the Skillshare app (available at the App Store and Google Play) or run them on your laptop. And since courses are recorded, you can stop and start them according to your schedule.
Along with a catalogue of free courses, Skillshare offers a basic free membership for 14 days. After that, a Premium membership currently runs $19 per month. There are volume discounts for teams that sign up together, plus discounts for members of creative spaces like Squarespace and Adobe. And in alignment with their mission to make learning accessible, Skillshare offers students two free months with a valid .edu email address.
>> Visit Skillshare for more info
Sensorium Welcomes Charlotte de Witte to PRISM World
ICYMI: Last week, Sensorium Galaxy added award-winning DJ and producer Charlotte de Witte as the latest addition to the Sensorium Galaxy metaverse, where the Belgium-born artist is scheduled to headline a series of exclusive performances in PRISM.
If you haven’t heard of Sensorium: Described by Sensorium as a “futuristic concert venue located in the centre of the world” (an odd statement, considering Sensorium has offices across the globe), PRISM bills itself as a virtual world where artists can perform in an environment that’s “constantly changing based on the beats and tones of the music being heard.” Describing the VR technology behind it all as “supernatural,” Sensorium (founded in 2018 by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov) will be accessible via VR headsets, mobile devices, and PCs under a free-to-play model, which allows users to join activities without mandatory payments.
Other artists who’ve joined PRISM world include David Guetta, Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, Black Coffee, and Eric Prydz.
In total, Sensorium’s world offerings presently include Sensorium Starship, PRISM World, and Motion World—VR realms that (according to Prokhorov on the Sensorium website) will collectively lead to “human social evolution”—a concept that undoubtedly occurred to Mark Zuckerberg when he launched Facebook. Yet according to an April 2019 study by ResearchGate, Facebook has led to “negative impact of wellbeing.” So, the true impact of Sensorium on human social evolution (and indeed all VR-based venues that will undoubtedly spring up) remains to be seen.
New Statutory Holiday – Truth and Reconciliation Day
If you missed the announcement: The Canadian government recently announced a new statutory holiday—Truth and Reconciliation Day. Created to commemorate the tragic legacy of residential schools in Canada, the national holiday received royal assent on June 3rd, 2021, and September 30th, 2021, will be the first Truth and Reconciliation Day (to be recognized annually).
Parliament fast-tracked the holiday after the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children in unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault informed the Senate that the objective of Truth and Reconciliation Day is to create a chance for Canadians to learn about and reflect on a dark chapter in Canada’s history, and to commemorate the survivors, their families, and their communities.
How is this music news?
According to Harvard Health, music affords healing. Truth and Reconciliation Day was also created for healing. So, to RCS Music News Weekly, music and Truth and Reconciliation Day exist in the same beautiful space of medicine and change.
Smash Mouth to Promote Global Unity at the Brazilian Festival
This week, the Brazilian Festival announced that Smash Mouth will perform on September 18th at the 10th annual outdoor concert, which focuses this year on the promotion of unity. Joining this year’s scheduled festival lineup (which includes Paula Lima, Adelmo Case, and Isra), Smash Mouth will perform “Camelot,” as well as other fan favorites like “I’m a Believer,” “Walkin’ on the Sun,” and “Can’t Get Enough of You, Baby.”
The two-day festival happens Sept. 18th-19th on the beach just south of Fort Lauderdale Beach at 1005 Seabreeze Blvd. If that’s a road trip you’re planning to make (barring travel restrictions), tickets can be purchased for $10 at brazilianfestival.org.
On Musical Nostalgia (An Op-Ed Piece)
If you’re not familiar with the dialogue, it basically goes like this:
- “That music is not as good as this music, and here’s why.”
- “I disagree. This music is better that that music, and here’s why.”
Still found on social, such exchanges of course rarely (if ever) lead to agreement, which is to say, they foster division, all based on individual, subjective opinions of music rooted in nostalgia.
As a small contribution to the unity we all seek, RCS Music News Weekly offers the following op-ed piece about nostalgia:
“If you’re not currently nostalgic about certain songs or albums, you one day will be. This is to say, where some people won’t appreciate some song or album you love (or will not have heard your favorite music), you may feel compelled to convince them why certain music is important and/or awesome, and this isn’t inherently a bad thing. Innumerable new songs and albums get produced every day, meaning some music can easily be overlooked and forgotten, and keeping music alive (whether as a musician or listener) is integral to cultural richness. Yet the single most significant element of musical nostalgia is not its defense (which creates division and does not respect the valid personal opinions of others) but the value of personal remembrance.
Here’s what that means.
If all of life is ultimately a quest to return home, then music affords us the chance, however briefly, to peer through that window behind which we once lay at rest and know that place is there. Nostalgia in that place was not known to us as our younger selves. Yet we listened in unconscious knowing that the songs we listened to were forming a soundtrack of reassurance. Though we stood with trepidation before a road that would one day sweep us away from home unwillingly and beset us with longing, we also sensed that the music would remind us of its promise. Like a friend who swore to remain with us when all others had left, music tell us that home is never far away because you carry it with you.
So, embrace musical nostalgia for your own sake when or if it comes, because it’s simply a note we wrote to ourselves that we’re never far from home, and in unsettling times where things are always changing, that’s always a reassuring and steadying message to hear.”
Quick Notes
- The Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour starts Sept. 26th in St. Louis.
- The critically acclaimed documentary Soul! Will premiere on HBO Max on August 1st.
- Canada Post just released a commemorative stamp of Stan Rogers, one of Canada’s most beloved and influential artists. Stamps and collectibles are available at Canada Post online and postal outlets across the country.
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