Photo by Brad Ardley

Patrick Curley to receive 2020 Christopher J. Reed Award

Story by Eric Parazelli | Monday September 14th, 2020

The Professional Music Publishers’ Association (APEM) will honour Patrick Curley with its eighth annual Christopher J. Reed Award on Sept. 24, 2020, during the Pop Montreal festival.

A songwriter and lawyer, Curley is the founder and President of Third Side Music, a Montréal-based music publishing company with offices in Los Angeles.

Since 2005, Third Side Music has become one of North America’s most active and respected music publishing companies with a catalogue of more than 55,000 works by Canadian and international artists.  The company, which also acts as a North American sub-publisher for a variety of partners, is especially recognized for its activities in the audio-visual music sector, and as a grantor of hundreds of music licences for films, TV series, advertising, videogames, etc.

Curley has been invited to participate in numerous international events such as MIDEM, CMJ, ALAI, Canadian Music Week (CMW), North by Northeast (NXNE), and the Paris Sync Summit, besides being invited to speak as an expert by McGill University, Trebas Institute, the Professional Music Publishers’ Association (APEM), and SOCAN. Originally from Jonquière, Québec, Curley is a committee member of the Mechanical Licensing Collective in the U.S. and, since 2014, a member of the Board of SOCAN, an organization he joined as a music creator in 1990.

Named after one of Canada’s most influential music publishers, who died in 2012, the Christopher J. Reed Award is presented annually to an outstanding music-publishing advocate who has demonstrated a high level of commitment to the profession, as well as to copyright compliance and the rights of creators, and has made an exceptional contribution to the practice and recognition of the music publishing profession.

To attend the ceremony, click on here for live (limited number of seats), or here for online.

Photo by courtesy/courtoisie. Left to right/De gauche à droite : Big Little Lions, Buck Twenty, JoJo Worthington.

Five SOCAN members win Second-Place Prizes in 2020 Unsigned Only song competition

Story by Howard Druckman | Monday September 14th, 2020

SOCAN members Helen Austin and Paul Otten of the duo Big Little Lions; Mike Ure and Aidan Johnson-Bujold of the duo Buck Twenty; and solo artist JoJo Worthington have all won second-place prizes in the genre categories of the 2020 Unsigned Only competition.

Big Little Lions took the honours in the Americana category, for their song “Against the Wall,” and also earned an honourable mention in the Screenshot field, for “Here We Go Again.”  Buck Twenty won in the Country category, for “All I Can Do,”  while JoJo  Worthington reached the penultimate prize in the Screenshot field, for her song “Stabilize,” which also earned an honourable mention in the Adult Contemporary category.

In addition to these genre winners, 13 other SOCAN members, or acts featuring SOCAN members, also earned honorable mentions in their respective categories, including double recognition for solo artist Madison Olds and the duo Scot Free Sessions.  These winners are:

Adult Contemporary (AC)
Madison Olds, “Sorry”

Americana
Scot Free Sessions, “Beckett”

Country
Robyn Ottolini, “Girl Next Door”
Genevieve Fisher, “Someone Else”

Electronic Dance Music (EDM)
Enevold, “Space Machine”

Folk/Singer-Songwriter
Benjamin Dakota Rogers, “Better By Now”
Scot Free Sessions, “Istanbul”

Pop/Top 40
Madison Olds, “3’s a Crowd”
The Free Label, “M.I.A. (Money Isn’t Available)”
Fenmore, “The Alchemist”

Rock
The Royal Foundry, “Okay?”

Screenshot
Liz, “Fences”

Teen
Mikalyn Hay, “It’s Dangerous””

Vocal Performance
Hannah Thomas, “I Will Always Love You” (in the style of Whitney Houston)
Alexz Johnson, “Still Alive”

SOCAN congratulates all of our winning members on these achievements. For a complete list of winners, and to hear the winning songs, click here.

SOCAN, JUNOs partner with CIMA for Episode Seven of “Breaking Down Racial Barriers”

Story by SOCAN | Thursday September 10th, 2020

SOCAN and The JUNO Awards are partnering with the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) for Episode Seven of the online roundtable discussion series “Breaking Down Racial Barriers,” which will examine “Black Representation in the Corporate & Organizational Entertainment Industry: Record Labels, Streaming Companies & Industry Associations.”

The event, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 6:00 p.m., will feature discussion from:

  • Erin Ashley Lowers, Culture & Music Journalist / DSP Content Programmer
  • Joel Naga, Marketing Manager, Warner Music Canada
  • Chris Smith, Manager & Agency Owner, Chris Smith Management / 21 Entertainment
  • Bushra Junaid, Outreach and Development Manager, Ontario Arts Council
  • Kardinal Offishall, Rapper, Executive, Philanthropist
  • Katrina Lopes, Artist Manager, KL Management

It will be hosted, as always by Ian Andre Espinet, of Iconic Arts & Entertainment x Black Star Graphic Design, and David “Click” Cox, Artist Manager & Consultant, CLK Creative Works.

For more info, click here, and to register, click here.

CIMA recognizes this moment in time as a movement, and is seizing the opportunity to have difficult, yet critical conversations in an effort to identify the structures and behaviours that perpetuate anti-Black racism within the music entertainment industry. These Black-led discussions – presented by CIMA with supporting partner ADVANCE, Canada’s new Black music business collective – will provide the larger industry with a forum to listen, and challenge existing ways of thinking, explore unconscious bias, and examine the collective role played in perpetuating anti-Black racism in the music industry. The accumulated knowledge therein will be used to compile a report containing actionable suggestions for change.