About This Blog

Welcome to the new home of my music reviews, known between 1996 and 2006 as Sound Bytes. The sound Bytes music review site has been suspended but will remain online as an archive available to anyone who may wish to read the older reviews. There are more than 250 reviews available to read at Sound Bytes. All future reviews will appear on the Roots Music Canada website on an irregular basis.

I suspended Sound Bytes because my process, what I was attempting to do and how I was attempting to do it, had become too wearing on my time and energy. Because of this, and so that I may give some exposure to as many independent artists as possible, I will be working to new rules in the hope of simplifying the process. I want to make this new site more user-friendly for everyone concerned: the artists, the readers, and me.

Here’s a few guidelines. If you want to send a CD, just send it. While I do appreciate the thought, you don’t have to ask permission. Do not send a CDR or any CD with a paper label. You don’t have to send your fancy, and expensive, press kit. I’m reviewing the music, not the image. I will no longer be notifying artists when a review is posted. I think it’s a good idea but it just took up too much of my time. Just check the site once in a while to see if a review is posted. To be fair to those who had sent material to Sound Bytes but never been reviewed, I’ll continue to listen to the backlog. I’ll also listen to new material submitted. Selection will not be sequential but random. Eventually, I hope that everything submitted will be reviewed.

As always, the scope of this reviews site is quite broad, encompassing folk music, roots music, and roots-related music. This includes any and all music which at some level derives from our musical roots, especially blues, jazz, rock and roll, spoken word, and some classical or popular music genres.

If you want to submit your new CD release for review, here’s the address:

Music Reviews
Roots Music Canada
Unit # 6
710 Division Street
Kingston, Ontario
K7K 6T9
Canada

If mailing from outside Canada, please mark the value on the customs form as ncv (no commercial value) or assign a very low value and list the CD as a sample. If you fail to do these things and the CD arrives with duty owing, I will return it. I cannot afford to pay duty for a project which already leaves me out of pocket.