If you haven't seen the, now viral, video of a wedding party dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown's "Forever" you should check it out. But the real news is how the record company handled the unauthorized use of the song.

Instead of suing or removing the video, they added a link so people who view the video can then download the song. Stroke of genius really. The company made buckets of money (that they wouldn't have otherwise) on the song and the makers of the video get to keep sharing it with the world. Sounds like a win-win to me.

While there are still questions and concerns about how music and videos are traded over the internet, this seems like a possible solution (not that it would work in all cases) where everyone can be happy and the record … Read More

Ok, so I was talking to Maurice Ginzer (former owner of Kaos and now organizer of Calgary Bluesfest as well as president of the Blues Music Association -- this guy knows his blues) and he said that the show not to miss at this years bluesfest is Joe Bonamassa. That said there are a bunch of great artists like Colin James, Watermelon Slim, Booker T as well as local mainstays like Tim Williams and Johnny V. 

Ginzer says that this guy is a giant up and coming name, Eric Clapton sat in with him at a recent show in the UK and is getting critical acclaim around the world. According to Ginzer, this will be the show that everyone will be saying they were at in a few years (whether or not they were actually there!)

Anyway, check him out and decide for … Read More

Aldermen Brian Pincott and Joe Ceci are putting a motion before council on Monday, directing administration to outline a strategy to make city data more available and easily accessible to citizens.

DJ Kelly broke the story on his blog today. You can find it, including the full text of the motion here. Currently, there are already a number of reports, as well as council agendas and minutes available on the city website, but, according to Pincott, this would also make available raw data.

"We've crunched the numbers for our purposes," he says. "Now we can open it up to let people do what they want with it." He adds that the idea was first brought to him by Kelly, and others active in the online community after they saw it being done in other … Read More

Do you remember the big hullaballoo a few months ago when the government of Alberta used a picture of an English beach in a marketing campaign? Well, in true "aren't we all human" fashion it feels good to know we aren't the only ones who screw up our PR.

Recently a candidate for governor in Colorado accidentally used a photo of the Canadian Rockies in an ad about Colorado. The picture was displayed with "What do you want for the future of Colorado?" Apparently the answer is, "To be like Canada." Well, there are worse things to aspire to. See the original image.

One question remains though. Does anyone really care if this guy's designer chose the wrong stock photograph?

Now that I have had a chance to sit back and reflect on my festival experience I thought I'd share my thoughts on the groups that I saw and my picks for the best shows of the festival, acts that you SHOULD NOT miss if they ever come through Calgary.

However, seeing as there were well over a gizillion shows I'm sure I missed a fair number of killer shows so please, feel free to share your "best of the fest" with me.

Tuesday

Medeski, Martin and Wood took the stage at the Jack Singer and played a marathon show. They are one of my favourite bands to see live, a strange but entirely awesome combination of funk, avant-garde jam band. John Medeski is a certified monster on the keys with some serious Cecil Taylor influences.

Wednesday

Fairly mellow … Read More