Day 1…

So we arrive at the Royal York Hotel which is a very old traditional hotel in downtown Toronto and its been totally taken over by the music business. I always feel sorry for people who are checking in for a nice quite exclusive weekend away from it all to be confonted by what has to be theirs and probably my worst nightmare, a hotel full of bands.

We register to collect our passes and one of the first things that catches my eye is a new “energy” yep just what we need but this has a twist it has Jimi Hendrix on the can! This is a sponsor of the entire event, a nasty product full of shitty chemicals commercialising on of rocks icons and somebody that was so against product and commercialism. Absolutely despicable, one of the guys at the check in desk justified it by syaing that the manufacturer was going to put some of the profit ( I doubt anyone will buy this ) towards a pension fund for musicians hahahahh and they believe that ?

First thing on the schedule is Erin being interviewed by a puppet, actually its just an old muppet… The guy has a youtube channel and gets about 30 views per show … So we are really ratcheting up the promo campaign here. Then we kind of wander around a small trade area and I resist the urge to bait the people selling Blackberries, especially on the day that Apple makes the iPhone work for industry. I also resist to urge to bait the people selling Zunes, yes the devils own mp3 player. Its not worth it is it? We go and talk to the people at Sonicbids, you know those guys who make money out of desperate bands applying to the 10 million festivals they will never be accpeted onto but we did get a handy pen and pad…

So we manage to miss the first two panels we half wanted to see, a companion decided she need a drink…. But I dont think we missed anything. We decide on going early to see a third panel which was on the future of radio. Yes i know what you are thinking, Radio doesnt have a future but we went and we dozed off while a panel of “good radio” voices defended their positions and talked about how to make money out of things that should be free. There was one particularly obnoxious Australian guy who reminded me of the stance of Rupert Murdoch but without the forward thinking. I even said something but they ignored it … I suggested that radio was going in the same direction as the labels , down that well beaten pathe the dinosaurs have left. When artists have direct contact with internet music streaming and stations and labels are out of the picture it will be a better place for us, not them …..

Ok that was that and we returned home to regroup and prepare for a nights ” entertainment” hahahha