Feist featured on Verizon Wireless commercial

It's rare for me to hear Canadian music on American television, especially when it's recent independent Canadian music, but hopefully we start see a trend south of the border.

Calgary rocker Feist is starting to become huge not just in Canada, but also in the United States. Her song My Moon, My Man was used for a recent Verizon Wireless commercial. This is something I would have expected by Rogers Wireless.. but have the song ruined by some college students going on a road trip tell their life story in 30 seconds.

You can check it out on Youtube. Also check out the song Valentine by The World Provider, which features Feist.

The Beer Pick of the Week: July 15, 2007

It's that time again folks! Time for the Beer Pick of the Week!

The Beer Pick of the Week is Winnipeg's Wall of Sound, Novillero.

Novillero is already one of Winnipeg's biggest success stories for the music scene, but still are one of the most underrated groups in Canada.

Novillero started out in 1999 as a group formed by other various Winnipeg groups, including Duotang. The band released two albums since 1999, both feature a soul-rock based influence. Their biggest hit was the Hypothesist, and boy was it a toe-tapping rocker with a great deal of piano.

Novillero hasn't released a new album for a few years and is not predicted to release another album until early 2008, but to appease to the fans who want something different, the and released demos of a few songs on their MySpace page. The group also tours from time to time as the Novillero Soul Revue, which covers famous soul hits by musicians such as James Brown and Tina Turner, which proved to be a huge hit when I saw them in concert, although the band members themselves only sung a few songs, leaving three female vocalists on vocals for the majority of the tracks. While I would be hoping to hear lead singer Rod Slaughter on vocals, it is a definite change of pace, plus the band is able to bring a Novillero style sound into all their songs.

Novillero is also one of the greatest bands to talk to after a concert, I've had the pleasure of speaking to various bandmates of the band a few times, and it's always been a great time. I believe this band will some day be pretty successful in the United States, until then, they will always receive lots of attention in their home town of Winnipeg.

While the band had some misfortunes in the past, such as having all their instruments stolen while on tour, the band doesn't let the fans down and continued to play for the fans.

There are some Novillero based concerts available for your listening pleasure available at CBC Radio 3 and Bande a part.

Links
Official Website
New Music Canada profile
Myspace page
Wikipedia page