By Stevie Connor. Photo Credit: Anne Connor.
The Sound Cafe celebrates three years of bringing you some of the best music from Canada and around the world that we can find, we launched on June 1st 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. It was supposed to be a 'side project' for me enabling us to feature music that was being sent to our studio from all over the world, some of which we were unable to fit into our online radio station scheduling at Blues & Roots Radio.
The 'side project' soon turned into a monster, and we were receiving even more music from far and wide, it has become a full time commitment, six days a week, and my main focus. With ten regular monthly and weekly contributors, along with fifteen podcast hosts, numerous monthly contributions from record labels and publicists from as far away as Australia, Scandinavia, Europe, the UK, Ireland, the USA and of course from right here in our home-base of Canada. To say I am grateful would be a gross understatement, I cannot thank the many enough for what they have done over the last three years.
A highlight going into our third year was being recognized by the global PR and Media platform, Muck Rack. It was a great honour to be recognized by such a well respected and global organization, being included as the first featured journalist of 2023 on their platform meant a great deal, and it has resulted in the major record labels adding us to their data bases, with regular contact from Universal, Sony, Atlantic Records, and the many great publicists who keep us informed of what's going on around the world. You can read about it HERE.
We have featured close to one hundred and twenty podcast interviews, over two thousand written articles, and more than one hundred transcribed interviews with artists from a diverse range of genres. A huge thank you must go to the artists who give us their time, and to their managers and publicists for scheduling us into their busy lives.
I'd like to give a huge thanks to our regular columnists, Erin McCallum (Behind The Curtain), Douglas McLean (Backstage), Ken Wallis (Blues Source) and our guest columnist for the next couple of months, Australian singer-songwriter, musician and producer Jenny Biddle (Hero In Me - The Stories Behind The Songs), they all contribute some amazingly interesting and diverse content for us. You'll find links to their articles and interviews on our homepage.
Most importantly, I take this opportunity to thank the readers/listeners at The Sound Cafe, we have had warm words of thanks and encouragement from all over the world, it really does humble us to know that we are reaching so many homes across the globe, we appreciate every single one of you for taking the time to visit and find out more about who we feature..
It is a great honour for me to have such a fantastic team, and to be able to share the news of what's happening in the music world. We try and feature as many new releases as we possibly can, making sure to get the news out about up and coming artists as well as the more established ones, we think we get the balance right.
I will continue to concentrate and grow The Sound Cafe platform and will endeavour to bring the best music we can find from around the world to you, it really is jaw dropping the amount of top quality music that has been released over these three years, only last month I discovered a fantastic Estonian band called Trad.Attack! who are ripping it up at home and should be listened to by a wider audience, it's moments like those that keep me interested to find out more and search out albums that I may not have heard about.
10 FUN FACTS:
We have an estimated 396,000 people visit the site per year.
That's approximately 1.2 million visitors in a short three years.
We’ve published over 2000 articles since June 2020, in a varying number of genres, from Roots, Americana, Blues, Folk, Bluegrass, Country, Rock, Celtic, World music, and everything in between.
We have featured over 200 podcast and transcribed interviews with artists in a wide variety of genres.
Our readership is almost equally divided between men and women (We can't track people who identify as neither).
Approximately 60 per cent of our readers are under the age of 45.
Our articles have been read on every continent in approximately 100 countries.
Our biggest readership comes from across Canada, the USA, Europe, Scandinavia and Australia.
We are based in Port Credit, on the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada, which is known as the entertainment district of the city of Mississauga, in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
The Sound Cafe's name derives from a small hamlet called Nine Mile Burn, near Edinburgh in Scotland. Our editor, Stevie Connor, recorded and played in an eclectic band based in the hamlet at The Sound Cafe Recording Studio, owned by groove-meister and band leader, Dave Gray, (It's a nod to Dave and the band members for all the good times and knowledge shared).
It's a privilege and honour to be trusted by so many to help spread the word around the world about their music. We will continue on our journey of discovery, and, we hope you can join us whenever you get a moment to Explore... Engage... Enjoy !
Stevie ....
Stevie Connor FEA Media:
Editor/Founder: The Sound Cafe Founder: Boreal PR Founder: Blues & Roots Radio
Website: www.thesoundcafe.com
Muck Rack: muckrack.com/stevie-connor
Facebook: www.facebook.com/soundcafemagazine
Twitter: twitter.com/BluesRootsRadio
Instagram: www.instagram.com/bluesandrootsradio
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Stevie has been moving in music circles since he could walk and has played all over the world.
He moved to Canada in 2009 and gave up a musical career, he formed a company with his wife and commenced putting on shows in soft seater venues which saw them being nominated for a national cultural award. Ten years ago Blues & Roots Radio was formed, winning four business awards in five years, and he found himself working with amazing artists and contributing to national music awards panels.
He is a selfless supporter of artists in Canada and around the world in various ways, through his radio show, his internet radio station, PR company, website design, and most recently through his online music magazine, The Sound Cafe. He is also writing a book about his journey in music, which he is hoping will be finished by the end of 2023.
