In another sign of the ever changing times, DVD and music retailer HMV is entering the digital realm.  Check it out:

Canada’s largest bricks and mortar music retailer, hmv Canada is thrilled to be bringing their extensive knowledge and passion for music into a new and exciting digital realm!  With a continued focus on expanding their business and reinventing their brand, hmv is launching their new Canadian digital store, hmvdigital.ca. 

hmvdigital.ca will launch in ‘beta’ mode on November 4, 2009 when hmv invites its consumers to test the site, and provide hmv with feedback. The site will use an advanced technology platform to allow music lovers to find and enjoy the music they love, in digital form. 

I was excited when I heard there was going to be a new Bob Dylan song on the forthcoming NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack - Vol.2 ,but I was freaking ecstatic when I learned the song is a never-before-released track from the Bringing It All Back Home sessions!!!  These are the same sessions that brought you Dylan classics "Subterreanan Homesick Blues", "Maggies Farm", "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".

To coincide with the album's release date, the November 3rd episode of NCIS will prominently feature the song, titled "California".
In addition to Bob Dylan's "California," the album also features new and previously unreleased tracks from Norah Jones, John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow,  Joss Stone, and others.
You can see the full track listing and sample music clips at http://ncismusic.com.

The Ottawa Theatre Network and GCTC have just submitted an idea to the Aviva Community Fund, a competition that could have a huge positive impact on the Ottawa theatre community. If our idea receives enough votes, we have a chance at sharing in $500,000 to bring the idea to life. We would really appreciate your help in pushing this idea to the finals.

Your vote is a vote for a strong future for Ottawa’s theatre community. This is a vote based competition.  Please vote at http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf1624. You can vote once per day in this round. (We will let you k now if there are other voting opportunities in the next rounds. There are three rounds of voting.)  But you can help spread the word to everyone you know and encourage them to vote too.

Your vote WILL make a difference! The first round ends this Sunday, November 1 – please vote SOON.

Ottawa’s Next Stage:  The Blossoming of Ottawa's Theatre

A recent symposium with members of both Ottawa’s established and emerging theatres established that one of the greatest obstacles to growth of the Ottawa theatre scene is a lack of professional development opportunities in all aspects of theatre. The Ottawa Theatre Network and the Great Canadian Theatre Company are combining forces to fill that need. Through a series of workshops, training programs, and laying the groundwork for a strong resource sharing Network, Ottawa's Next Stage project will fuel the current renaissance of Ottawa’s lively professional theatre scene. A vote for Ottawa’s Next Stage project will further our dream of nurturing new artists and new works in our nation’s capital.

Great Canadian Theatre Company and the Ottawa Theatre Network combine forces to boost the current renaissance of Ottawa’s lively professional theatre scene. We want to take Ottawa to “The Next Stage”. With a comprehensive program that nurtures the development of the Ottawa theatre community.

All you mixtape lovers out there might find this book of interest:

Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves will be in stores next week on Tuesday October 27th! You can pre-order on Amazon now or head to your favorite indie bookstore next week to be the first to grab a copy.

The brand-new anthology compiles sixty hilarious, nostalgic and heartbreaking stories about crushes and mixtapes from amazing writers and musicians: author Rick Moody, The Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson, This American Life's Starlee Kine, The New Yorker's Ben Greenman, Joe Levy, Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd, Mortified's David Nadelberg–  even a new story from the godfather of the genre, Rob Sheffied.

The CBC have revealed the singer-songwriters and shortlist of locations for the Great Canadian song quest.  Check it out:

CBC Radio 2, Canada’s national music network, has revealed a blockbuster list of 65 Canadian singer-songwriters vying for the chance to immortalize Canadians’ favourite places in song in the GREAT CANADIAN SONG QUEST. It’s now up to Canadians to choose the artists and pick the spots to be forever commemorated in Canada’s songbook.

Voters have from until Friday, October 23 at 12 a.m. ET to choose from a shortlist of the most popular places from each province and territory, and the artists they’d like to see create the song for those locations, by visiting www.cbc.ca/radio2. Once voting closes, the final 13 artists have four weeks to compose and record an original song, inspired by the most popularCanadian location from their province or territory.

“We can’t wait to see the final list of locations and artists chosen by Canadians,” said Mark Steinmetz, director of music programming, CBC Radio. “By inspiring these artists with Canada’s special locales, we will create a distinctly Canadian playlist. This initiative is a great way for Canadians to share their collective passion for music and our country.”

The GREAT CANADIAN SONG QUEST’s artist line-up was selected from Radio 2’s playlist, and includes musicians representing Canada’s regions and celebrated sounds. From musical icons to emerging stars, Canadians will choose from a vast range of styles, from urban beat and home-grown folk to rich and nuanced world music. Artist bios and a selection of their work can be found at the Song Quest website through www.cbc.ca/radio2.

The singer-songwriters representing Ontario are:

   * Hawksley Workman
   * Jully Black
   * Justin Rutledge
   * Lynn Miles
   * Shad K

The location short list is a result of the nominations submitted by Canadians over the past two weeks, through the GREAT CANADIAN SONG QUEST website, campaign-style blogs, Tweets and Facebook comments, and photo and video postings.

The short listed locations for Ontario are:

   * Sleeping Giant
   * Grand Bend
   * Picton
   * Toronto
   * Algonquin Park

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster, and one of its largest cultural institutions. With 28 services offered on Radio, Television, the Internet, satellite radio, digital audio, as well as through its record and music distribution service and wireless WAP and SMS messaging services, CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want it.

This morning (Cult)ure was excited to discover that what appeared to be a new and official Gillian Anderson Twitter account had started up.  Then we noticed a second one...

Despite having links to what appears, at first glance, to be Anderson's official website, the accounts are indeed fake, as confirmed by the Official Gillian Anderson Website (GAWS) when contacted by (Cult)ure:

 "Gillian has NEVER had MySpace or Facebook pages and she's also not on Twitter. When Gillian wants to communicate with her fans, she does so exclusively through the news page of her own web site."

Last July (Cult)ure interviewed guitarist Jesse Cook as he was putting the final touches on his new album, The Rumba Foundation.  The album is now released and Cook is hitting the road.  See below for tour details.

Internationally renowned nuevo flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook is thrilled to announce the dates of his 2010 cross-Canada tour.  The announcement comes fresh off today's release of his new album The Rumba Foundation (EMI Music Canada), a journey of musical rediscovery bringing Cook's rumba flamenco sound back to its birthplace in Cuba and adding a fresh twist of regional fusions.  Cook draws heavily from the Colombian Vallenato style on songs including Bogota by Bus and Santa Marta and in his collaborations with Latin Grammy Award-winning group Los Gaiteros.

The Rumba Foundation is just the latest chapter in a celebrated, eclectic, and increasingly international career. Educated in jazz and classical guitar and imbued with gypsy flavour, Cook has released six critically acclaimed studio albums. His first album Tempest entered the American Billboard charts at #14 in 1995, while Free Fall won him the Canadian music industry's Juno Award for Best Instrumental Album in 2001. A particularly outstanding achievement, Acoustic Guitar Magazine named Cook the 2009 Players' Choice Award silver medalist after Spanish virtuoso Paco de Lucía.

The CBC has broken the story that recent messages posted on Twitter under the 'Chef at Home' user name were not posted by Michael Smith, but by an impostor assuming the popular Chef and TV host's identity.

Recent tweets made disparaging remarks about Montreal restaurants, and seemed especially out of character for those familiar with Smith.

(Cult)ure had the pleasure of interviewing Smith last year and he was warm, friendly, open, and every bit the gentleman you see on TV each week.  Check out our interview here, and be sure to spread the world to your friends on Twitter about the identity theft.

This year's Music for Life Fundraiser Concert in Ottawa takes place this evening.  Tickets are available at the door of Tucsons.

Emceed by CTV News anchor Carol Anne Meehan, the show will feature performances by Wicked Grin, The Mud Boys, Alain Tambay, Moondogs, Jesse Racicot, Cr4ve, Push, and Nothing.

All funds raised will go the Queensway Carleton Hospital Foundation to support the "Building on Our Strengths" campaign for the Irving Greenberg Family Cancer Centre.

This looks awesome:

Insensitivity Training gets an Improtéine injection!

Ottawa's English improv juggernaut Insensitivity Training face off with the provincially renowned French improve giant Improtéine during the Team vs Team Challenge at Yuk Yuk's September 27th.

In the basement of the Yuk Yuk's comedy club lies the improv gem of the Ottawa comedy scene. Insensitivity Training has been growing and performing 2 hours of hilarious improv there for the past two and half years, every Sunday night. The most popular of their special events is their "Team vs Team" where they invite another improve troupe for a improvised night of challenge improve to see which one can get the best laughs. The teams go back and forth testing each others wits by imposing ridiculous stipulations on one another while creating scene on the spot using audience suggestions. What issues is pure spontaneous comedy of the highest calibre.

This month, the home team will be facing a formidable opponent; Improtéine, the don of the French Improvisation scene in Ontario. This troupe, that also originated from Ottawa in the French milieus, has 4 years of seniority over Insensitivity Training and an all star cast that include television personalities, Ligue National d'Improvisation players and well establish actors, performers and comedians. They've toured all over Ontario several times and have even been out West to BC and Alberta.