Toronto Experimental Artists

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Popularity: 44%

TEA Volume 14 & 15 artist James Ashberry has been singing since the 2nd grade and playing guitar since the age of 10. He has involved himself in dramatic theatre, and it’s safe to say that between choir performances and school plays, the stage became comfortable for him at an early age. After experimenting in several high school bands, come graduation he had made up his mind to get serious. Already writing songs of his own, James had also begun to amass a plethora of cover material and he decided that he had the ammo to hit the circuit. There’s nothing like the trenches of the club scene to help you hone your skills and within a year or two, The Ashberry Jam was becoming quite a hot item. The years between 1990 & 2000 found James touring the GTA and southern Ontario circuit steadily. He has opened shows for the likes of Kim Mitchell and April Wine, performed in legendary clubs such as The Opera House, The Elmocombo, Lees Palace and The Horseshoe Tavern to name just a few. In 1994 James won the Best New Band title at the Rock n Roll Canada pageant. The band took the free studio time they won from this competition and recorded their first EP. With well over 4000 gigs under his belt and 3 independent CD’s to his credit, James has an incredible cover repertoire and prides himself on being able to cater to any room.

James’ own songs have been described as an intimate and thought provoking, eclectic mix of melodies and harmonies, spanning topics ranging from the state of environment, the pursuit of enlightenment and the complexities of love. A naturally gifted multi-instrumentalist with a unique intensity, James Ashberry gives 110% of himself to every note, of every song he plays. You can purchase James' music at Indiepool and keep up to date with his live shows on his website page. James has a hard rocking instrumental track on TEA Volume 15 that showcases his high level of musicianship and songwriting talents.

Listen to James Ashberry

Popularity: 1%

The lyric from the title track of Power Boxx's debut CD, TOUCH THE SKY, can be applied to the Toronto rock band's work ethic and goals. As the band  puts it, the song is about "trying to reach one's potential by striving for the dream that's been living inside you. That's what we want to do."

Alex, Guy and Renato have all known each other for many years. "I would say that's why the band is so stable, as far as our chemistry as musicians and friends goes," says Alex. In fact, Guy and Alex played in a cover band that never made it out of the garage. With Renato, the three put together Power Boxx in 1996. "We rehearsed and had fun for a few years. We then started to write songs and to develop the band to see how far we could get," says Alex. "Certain song ideas go back a few years; however, they did not really blossom until the current line-up worked on them."

The self-released TOUCH THE SKY currently is available for sale on the the band's web site www.powerboxx.com, as well as at local record retailers, and of course, at the band's live shows. This CD was mastered by the well known George Graves and sonically sounds incredible. Various tracks off the CD have received airplay on 49 campus radio stations across Canada. Commercial radio is the next target, as well as stepping up Power Boxx's live shows.

Power Boxx have been on TEA Volumes 4, 5 & 8. They performed a tight and powered set  at the TEA Summer Showcase at the Rivoli on Saturday July 18, 2009.

Listen to Power Boxx

Popularity: 10%

We hope you like the new TEA Website and the many possibilities blogging will have for TEA Artists to post current artist information. The website is designed to feature TEA artists  from Volume 1 up to the current release. The TEA Staff will be busy creating features of many TEA artists in the months and years to come. You can help us by sending us a current bio and assortment of pictures (live, studio, current album etc). We will change up the featured artists on the homepage to enable artists to get what we call the spotlight position. Whenever we post or change the homepage artist, we will send out a tweet on Twitter. If you are not following us on Twitter please feel free to follow. You can also get the RSS feeds and subscribe for email feed on the homepage, which will send out feeds to you via email when the homepage feature is changed. Please feel free to post comments and updates on your feature area or comment on another artist or area of the site which has comments available. Just click on the header and the comments field will pop up. Feel free to leave a comment on the new website or any ideas on how we can improve this site for the benefit of all TEA Artists. Just click on the header above.

Popularity: 42%

Two intrepid songwriters, Bill Oliver and Mark Branscombe, living in East Vancouver got together after a lengthy absence to rekindle the creative stew and come up with some new songs. The spark appeared and this offering is what manifested after several months of stray thoughts in morning traffic, re-writes, divine inspirational moments and the circulation of cool new creative juices. Their intent and vision was to create songs that meandered through genres and sounds of pop music that had inspired and excited them to begin playing music as kids. A chance meeting with producer P.D Wohl and a few happy experiments proved to be fateful in allowing their muse to be channeled into their collection of songs .

The Ormidales have released two CD’s, The self titled "The Ormidales" and their new release "These Little Dreams". They have both been well received and receive airplay throughout Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and Asia. They were recently featured on the popular radio shows George Noory’s Coast To Coast and Erskine Overnight which resulted in airplay in every state and across Canada. Their music will appear in an upcoming reality series distributed by Extreme Entertainment, produced by Greg Donis (Ann Murray Story and Bryan Adams Juno Tribute).They are presently nominated for song of the year with Radio Six International with their infectious “What Am I Supposed To Do” The Ormidales offer a unique sound that results from their love for multi genre music and the refusal to be boxed into one style .

Listen to The Ormidales

Popularity: 1%