Entertainment, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco If you are one of the many millions of people who regret the fact they can no longer see legends like Bowie, Petty, Prince or Cohen perform their music, then take note of these contemplative words spoken by revered Canadian classical guitarist,...
Entertainment, Press/Collaterals
BY DAVID DeROCCO It’s not just blowing smoke to say Australia born/Alberta raised Canadian country music star Gord Bamford is a great songwriter. His 24 Canadian Country Music Association awards, his multiple Juno nominations, his two Nashville Country Music...
Entertainment
By David DeRocco Do you remember where you were when you first heard “That Song.” Not just any song, “That Song” – the one that after 20 years of airplay has now become “that song” for millions of broken-hearted lovers whose memories get triggered every time they...
Entertainment
By David DeRocco When you hail from Niagara, you know that September is time for the harvest. So it makes sense that a country star like Tim Hicks would pick September to harvest the crop of songs he’d been tending too during five months of intensive writing and...
Entertainment
By David DeRocco As an insightful young songwriter, Moe Berg managed – in one perfectly crafted song – to capture the inherent frustrations and stark realities involved in accepting the responsibilities of adulthood. Now, as he sits halfway through his life as a...
Featured Articles
By David DeRocco The late 80s and early 90s were a breeding ground for big, mega-selling, larger than life female recording artists who ruled the charts in multiple genres. Madonna, Janet, Whitney, Celine, Mariah, Britney, Alanis and Shania are all names quickly...
Business Features, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco There are musical performances accompanied by a backdrop of projected images; there are film screenings that conversely feature soundtracks of recorded music. Then there is A NEW PLACE TO DWELL, a multi-media mash up being orchestrated by Canadian...
Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals
BY David DeRocco Greg Fraser and Stevie Skreebs aren’t as young as they were when their band, Brighton Rock, was ruling the Canadian metal charts during their ‘80s heyday. But they’re still wild and free, a mutual state of mind that comes with being at peace with...
Entertainment, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco Ian Thornely’s got a new solo album, a packed tour schedule, a sore throat and something he hasn’t had in a long time: performance jitters. Chatting with GoBe Weekly the day after the tour’s first show in Montreal, one where monitor issues required...
Featured Articles
By David DeRocco A staged terrorist attack on the United States blamed on Muslim extremists kills the President and wipes out most of Congress. In the resulting chaos, a totalitarian Christian theocracy rises to overthrow the U.S. government, suspending the...
Entertainment, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco There’s a rarified air that exists when you’re sitting on top of the mountain, viewing the world from a position of fame and fortune. As the lyricist, musical arranger, vocalist and de facto leader of Texas blues-rock superstars ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons...
Business Features, Press/Collaterals
CLIENT: Canadian Wildlife Federation WRITTEN BY: David DeRocco PSA: GREAT CANADIAN...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco Passionate fans of jazz music will tell you listening to jazz music is good for the soul. As it turns out, it’s also good for your brain. A study conducted at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine determined that the brains of jazz...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio
By David DeRocco No one paid a cover charge to get in. But there, in a dimly lit nightclub, in front of a weathered velvet stage curtain and an even more-weathered crowd of Sunday afternoon lunch special types, stood an artist clearly paying her dues. Standing tall...
Business Features, Featured Articles, Portfolio
If you need any more proof of the concept of evolution, look no further than at these two seemingly disparate examples: the mobile food truck, and the Niagara winery. As two species often pegged for extinction in the 20th century, both the food truck and the Niagara...
Business Features, Featured Articles
There was a time when wanting to have fun in Ridgeway, Ontario, meant getting in your car and leaving town. These days, however, there’s a “sanctuary” drawing people back to Ridgeway that could make this tiny hamlet one of the most happening live event hubs in...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals, SEO Writing
By David DeRocco When a country girl named Ginger St. James aims to serve you up a heapin’ helpin’ of “Diesel and Peas,” – well mister, you just better accept her invite and her hospitality. ‘Cause if you don’t – well sir, you’re a’gonna miss yourself some mighty fine...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals, SEO Writing
By David DeRocco The members of Hollerado are on the verge – of releasing a new album, of embarking on a summer tour, of finally achieving the level of success that’s so-far evaded them, and maybe, on the verge of a massive breakdown from exhaustion. Who really knows...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco Wild things are meant to stay wild, free to roam and wander until Father Time and Mother Earth conspire to turn them to dust. For a rock band that has made “Born to be Wild” their anthem for more than four decades, Steppenwolf is far from ready to be...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco Progressive music, by definition, should always be moving forward, mutating, morphing and transforming into new and exciting hybrids. Take PROTEST THE HERO for example, five friends from Whitby who have evolved into Canada’s pre-eminent progressive...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco Rik Emmett’s current bio says he’s “digging in deep at his revamped Rec Room Studio,” experimenting with digital technology and recording music he’s planning on releasing in “a steady stream of new songs” without worrying about the content forming a...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals, Write Knight Blog
By David DeRocco There’s probably dozens of surreal moments that occur over a lifetime when you’re a kid from small-town Saskatchewan who winds up becoming an international comedy, television and movie star. For Tisdale-born Brent Butt, one of the strangest such...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Press/Collaterals
By DAVID DeROCCO In the art community, there is never a valid reason to recreate a masterpiece; originals have no equal, and interpretations are at best mere forgeries that can never measure up to the artist’s initial creative vision. Bottom line – no one wants to see...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, Press/Collaterals
By David DeRocco “The long road’s behind us” declares Alan Doyle on SO LET’S GO, the eponymous lead-off track on the new solo album from the longtime voice of Great Big Sea. And yet, with everything going on in Alan’s life – a new album, a new memoir and a new solo...
Business Features, SEO Writing
It’s a strange phenomenon exclusive to human relationships that two people who had trouble agreeing on things while married suddenly think they will agree on things as they head for divorce. After all, there’s a reason why civil wars are often the bloodiest battles:...
Entertainment, Write Knight Blog
I turn 53 today, and what have I learned having reached this lofty age? For starters, I recognize that 53 is just a number. People over 30 say that. People over 40 understand it. We people over 50 know that age isn’t defined by a number, it’s reflected in our...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio, SEO Writing
By: David DeRocco Any writer will tell you how cathartic the process of expressing thoughts on paper can be. When a writer is also a musician, there’s always the potential to combine such emotional purging with the recording of some very powerful and...
Business Features, SEO Writing
Contrary to popular belief, an NHL tough guy is capable of serving up more than just knuckle sandwiches. Case in point: Wendel Clark, a respected tough guy who specializes in tenderness when serving up AAA quality entrees at one of Burlington’s most popular downtown...
Entertainment, Featured Articles, Portfolio
By David DeRocco Call it the circle of life, rock n roll version. August 16, 1977, on the day Elvis Presley lay dying in his bathroom, the American music label Rounder Records — known at the time for distributing obscure American roots...
Write Knight Blog
The biggest hockey shaft found at the Sochi Games isn’t the one carried by Slovakia captain Zdeno Chara. It’s the shaft perpetrated on nationalist hockey fans on both sides of the Atlantic who believe a gold medal confirms international hockey supremacy....
