Fly by Melina Soochan & Don Gruv

Don Gruv partners up with established Montreal singer Melina Soochan to deliver a great extended house mix to all the clubbers of Montreal.  Check it out here:

Check out more of Melina Soochan’s here – www.melinas-music.com

Check out more of Don Gruv here – http://www.myspace.com/dongruv

X-Ray Eyes see the right stuff

Melina Soochan’s debut song summersaulted into the public’s eyes recently, and as you have may seen from our last article on the progress of her video we couldn’t wait to check out the final.  Well here it is!

You can check out more of Melina’s work by clicking these links:

http://www.melinas-music.com
http://www.myspace.com/melinasoochan
http://www.sonicbids.com/Melina

Virgin 96, more than just a brand name?

Monday mornings usually bring people back to reality and back to their same routines, so it came to a shock when the morning of Monday, January 12, 2009 Montrealers turned on their radios saved to 95.9FM to hear a new voice in the local radio scene. Virgin Inc. had partnered up with a handful of radio stations in the major Canadian cities to expand their ever growing media empire and local station Mix96 was one of those stations. The only question we asked ourselves was “would this new transition bring new and fresh material to Montreal or would it be nothing more than a brand name change?”

Mix96 was a well established and well respected radio station for many years. The station had its niche; it offered the best 80’s and 90’s music on the island, however (excluding XM radio) the introduction of rival radio station 94.7 Hits FM, Mix 96 had started to see the decline of its younger demographic. The youth flocked to Hits FM because it was more mainstream, younger and it offered a music selection that was more contemporary than classic which is something that the Montreal youth crave. Don’t get me wrong as much fun as it is to listen to “Oops I Did it Again” or “Layla” 6-7 times a day, that type of music gets stale for 16-25 year old’s who didn’t grow up listening to the music. The radio announcers on Hits FM were also believably younger; they weren’t just a handful of middle aged men and women trying to act young by saying slick things they heard on TV.   Mix 96 was stuck in a niche market catering to middle aged people reminiscing of their youth.

Along comes business tycoon Richard Branson, known best for building an empire out of nothing. His name and the Virgin brand brought great weight to the “new” radio station in town. People who have heard about Virgin also knew the kind of amazing reputation the company had for innovation and for youth, for success and for diversification so naturally people were all excited about Virgin’s acquisition of Mix 96. Astral Media’s VP and General Manager Luc Tremblay stated in their press release “This is the 21st century, it should not be more of the same, we want to try new exciting stuff while keeping the best of what made us the most listened to radio station in this city”. When I first learned about the change the week before the new station launched I was excited and saw this move as being a great way to liven up Montreal with new hosts, new content, cutting of the crappy songs that bogged down Mix 96, and expanding on local content. Naturally I didn’t believe that all of this could be done right away so I gave the station a few weeks to show me what it could do. Let’s just say I’m not impressed at all.

The main problems that plagued Mix 96 were back: old music sample, tacky hosts & commercials, stale programming, and a weak sense of community. It seems that Virgin doesn’t want to (or perhaps due to Astral Media’s choke hold on the station) mess too much with the status quo. I personally believe that people deserve better and aren’t stupid, especially not the youth. When discussing this recent change and the things that I saw wrong with the new station with local DJ (and current radio personality) MC Mario, he told me “VIRGIN will destroy…We are going to bring it to another level…Branding is everything”. To me branding is not everything, it is the catalyst in a long chain of events that need to happen to reinvigorate a lackluster radio station. Virgin and Astral executives are not stupid and will change things around if they see ratings are slipping however I believe they’ve missed the ball on launching with a bang because they’ve kept most of the same content as previous, however I believe this was more of Astral Media’s doing than anything else. I listened to many of the new shows such as The Breakfast Show, The Nat Show, The Beat, and The Rush, but for some reason I’m always left scratching my head thinking there’s something missing. Lisa Player and Cat Spencer sound like aging parents trying to talk to their kids about things that were “hip” in their days, Mark Bergman and Chantal Desjardins (although quirky at times) cannot keep my attention for more than 1 or 2 segments, which is more than I can say about the rest of the crew. Compared to other Virgin radio stations such as Virgin France or Virgin Dubai there’s an attention to detail that’s missing with Virgin Montreal.

If I was Richard Branson looking to expand my media empire into Canada and I wanted to build a successful product that would last for decades I would have gathered a think group months in advance with all of my top marketing and radio execs from around the world as well as all of the current marketing and radio execs and layed everything out, positives and negatives. I would have polled the public to see what they thought of Mix 96 and used that as a building block to construct something greater. I would have left one of my guys in charge of the operation to ensure that the local guys and Astral Media’s people stuck to the plan. Buy up old contracts with radio hosts and bring in younger and fresher voices, bring in a new marketing team to revitalize the commercials and music selection, put in place a winning structure by looking at other successful radio stations as models, move in a NEW direction.

The main success story out of all of this is that MC Mario is being finally recognized for his work and being acknowledged as an official radio star on the Virgin 96 website and programming. The only new programs that entertain me are On-air with Ryan Seacrest and Hit 40 UK Countdown due mainly to the fact that the hosts know how to captivate an audience and make things sound interesting (Ryan Seacrest was nurtured by one of the best radio hosts of all time Casey Kasem, no wonder he’s got talent!).  The music sample has moved from more 80’s songs to more late 90’s to early 2000’s and although there are more mainstream songs inserted into the playlist like Ne-Yo, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry I still keep hearing the same old 80’s and 90’s music thrown around such as “Run for it” by Delerium, and “Love Wins Every Time” by Mc Master & James. “Hey Ya” by Outkast, “Gotta Be Somebody” by Nickelback and “Waiting for Tonight” by Jennifer Lopez act as filler to a radio playlist that seems to have lost something in transition.

I don’t know what’s happening in their boardroom, what happened when the station was bought out, or what is happening now in heir private meetings but one thing’s for certain, Virgin and Astral Media are dropping the ball on turning one mediocre radio station into a powerhouse. There should be more to Virgin 96 than just being a marketing gimmick, much more. Good luck Branson, you’re going to need it.

Franz Ferdinand @ La Tulipe

Tickets for Franz Ferdinand’s return to Montréal went on sale this past Friday for $35 but sold out in 15 minutes. Unlike the Spring 2006 show at Montreal’s Cepsum Arena which holds nearly 4000 people, Franz Ferdinand chose the up close and personal venue of La Tulipe (capacity 530).

I was on hand at Franz Ferdinand’s last show including opening acts ‘The Cribs’ and ‘Death Cab For Cutie’. Fantastic show but crappy venue. For those who haven’t been to Cepsum consider yourself lucky. Cepsum (HEC’s Gymnasium) does not have the greatest acoustics and smells a little like a locker room. Fortunately they went from my least liked venue to my favourite. La Tulipe is a small concert hall converted from an old theatre. The sound is great and the stage is pretty much close to everyone. This will be quite the intimate performance.  

Franz Ferdinand was the band which essentially turned me on to indie rock with great guitar riffs and fantastic lead vocals. Their 2004 self titled debut album is still one of my favourites, front to back a great album. If you haven’t heard this album I strongly encourage you to go out and pick up a copy.

I wasn’t able to get tickets from GEG but was able to get them from a scalper for $130 (a pair). If you would like to attend the concert I recommend you check out Kijiji (http://montreal.kijiji.ca) you can probably pick up tickets for about $60 each which is pretty reasonable in my opinion.

Franz Ferdinand
La Tulipe- 4530 avenue Papineau
Wednesday December 3rd, 2008
$35 sold out

Photos from the filming of X-Ray Eyes

This past weekend local Montreal singer Melina Soochan shot the latest music video for her hot single X-Ray Eyes.  Check out some of the pictures from the weekend’s shoot.

X-Ray Eyes is written by Melina Soochan and Dan Hargadon, produced by Override Productions.  The video is directed by Brian Finlay, and the photography is by Norm Edwards.

Click to listen to X-Ray Eyes by Melina Soochan

To listen to her other songs and become a fan check out her links:

http://www.melinas-music.com
http://www.myspace.com/melinasolo
http://www.sonicbids.com/Melina

Mix Review | DJ Stevie V “2GETHER”

For as long as there have been rocking clubs, there’s been DJ Stevie V.  His love for everything in the clubbing scene coupled with his long career as a DJ at Moomba Supperclub, and radio gigs across North America and Europe set him apart from the majority of DJ’s making the club rounds of this past decade.  If you haven’t checked out some of his classic mixes, a strong recommendation has to be made for his I Love the 90’s and Sugar series, as well as his more grass roots Italian mixes Insieme and it’s sequel Ancora Insieme.  Listening to these tapes is a must in order to get a grasp on his latest release 2GETHER featuring Carmen B.

To be fair, we’ve already heard most of these songs before in some way or another.  2GETHER is not meant to showcase the latest and most underground songs on the airwaves, instead it is a compilation cd of the most mainstream and intense club songs of 2008.  The CD includes songs from artists all over the music spectrum: Lil Wayne, T.I., Lil Jon, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, David Guetta, Coldplay, CeCe Peniston and TONS more.

It’s pretty easy to tell an experienced DJ from a newbie, just skip to the transitions from Hip Hop to House and see where the beats don’t line up and where obvious gaf’s are, so that’s exactly what was done as soon as it was downloaded.  To the content of the staff here the songs blended perfectly and really resonated nicely throughout the piece.  No overlapping songs with off beats, the audio levels were in sync throughout the mix, no needless fast forwarding of songs, minimal vinyl scratching effects and only one air raid siren!  Joking aside, to pull off a 79 minute CD without over-using tacky and out-dated effects is an achievement in it’s own but to hear mixes that really make people smile is something to brag about.  We expect nothing less from someone who has been in the industry for over a decade.  The intro to Lollipop by Lil Wayne at 59m 30s is really a treat to the eardrums, the Tootsi Pop commercial insert has a great nostalgic feeling to it that brought smiles to those who’ll hear it.  The little “trumpet” solo at 40m 50s is a nice touch that adds to the smooth transition from Hip Hop to House.

The second real test of a great mixtape: how long can it be listened to before it gets on your nerves?  The CD was popped into my car’s CD player and I rolled with it since the release in early October.  It’s still in the CD player to this day, I only find myself fast forwarding through some of the songs at the beginning because whenever the car starts it keeps going to the beginning of the compilation therefore the end of the mix usually takes a couple minutes of holding the fast forward button to get to.  This is a normal problem for mixtapes in general so no points were deducted, although we do wish there were more effective ways of putting a mixtape together while still keeping the songs separate and having it fit on a CD.

All in all 2GETHER is a great finale to the 2008 summer in Montreal in it’s recapping of the hottest club songs that swept through this city.  Although there were minor issues with the usage of a siren and vinyl scratching noises, DJ Stevie V has proven yet again that he is not just another DJ wannabe by using very innovative ways to transition from different music genres as well as by selecting the right songs to keep the entire mix booming from start to finish by having a little bit of everything for everyone.

Visit DJ Stevie V’s Website – Click Here

DJ Stevie V “2GETHER” – Click Here

We rate this album 4.5/5