Toronto's own Dinosaur Bones are set to rock CMW with their brand of spastic alt.-pop. Currently celebrating their two-year anniversary as a band, they recently dropped "Royalty"/"Ice Hotels" 7" and are ready to make a splash at this year's festival. Vocalist and guitarist Ben Fox took some time out to answer a few questions for CM - both quirky and helpful to their fellow up-and-comers...

So this will be our last installment from the ECMAs in Sydney. Saturday night was a total blast. It was nice catching up with old friends and making some new ones.

Last night's awards show found Joel Plaskett proving "good things come in threes" by taking home 6 ECMAs for his triple disc. Every one is more than deserved. Almost as exciting is the fact that In-Flight Safety, Catherine MacLellan, and The Motorleague took home two awards each. Finally, we all owe a huge CONGRATULATIONS to former CM Showcase writer, Doug Gallant, who took home media person of the year.

It was a great weekend all around - a perfect balance between getting a lot of work done and having a lot of fun. Thanks to Gina at the Premiere Executive Suites, all of the volunteers throughout the weekend, and especially the ECMA staff, who worked extremely hard to bring the industry together. See you all in Charlottetown for 2011.

Yesterday's DIY panel was terrific. The goal was to come up with 10 things that indie bands need to be doing NOW. I think we had more than that, and we didn't even get to all of the questions our lovely moderator had prepared. What an opportunity it was for attendees.

One thing I will note is that there's a handful of east coast artists that I strongly believe have what it takes to break nationally, and out of the, say, 5-6 that I'm behind, 4 of them were in the audience for the panel. Very interesting that they're taking time out of their day to learn and try and improve their careers.

Showcases were a blast. Can't believe I didn't get to catch Joel, Slowcoaster, or Paper Lions, though. My loss...

Plenty to do and see last night. Met with some very talented players who will be gracing the various columns in CM over the next few issues. Also got to see The Motorleague rock an overly-enthusiastic crowd, as well as The Sidewalks and Carleton Stone at the Rock Stage.

Today is conference day - lots of great ideas will be shared, as the ECMA has done a terrific job of bringing some of the strongest minds in the Canadian and International music scenes together. Bob Harris' keynote today was terrific.

                                               I'll certainly post after the DIY Town Hall panel. It's supposed to be very informal and communal, which I'm really looking forward to. Then, tonight will be full of more music and hand-shaking. Updates soon...

Beautiful, albeit long, drive to Sydney today. Met up with my crew from the Music PEI awards - Kimberly and Kevin Sinclair from SpinCount, Will from UMAC, Nikkie, and Lou from ReverbNation. Fun, smart, and interesting bunch.

Going to see some showcases tonight and meeting up with old friends. PEI's The Sidewalks, NB's The Motorleague, and hopefully Tim Chaisson. We'll see how far we get. Expect live photos from now on - I just haven't been anywhere yet, and nobody wants to see pictures of my hotel room or unshaven face. For now, here's The Motorleague by CM contributor Tony Dawe.

DIY panel tomorrow - it'll be yours truly alongside my buddy Kreeft from Underground Operations Booking Agency, as well as some great folks from MapleMusic, Music NB, and more. See you there??

I received an interesting story pitch this week about a duo from Winnipeg called Keith and Renee (that's them in the photo). I had the pleasure of checking out their latest release, Detours, and must say it's a charming little mix of songs worthy of some attention in its own right.

That said, a more appealing element to Keith and Renee is the fact that the pair recently embarked on a partnership with Free the Children, which brought them to Kenya to work with the program, following which they did a school tour discussing their experiences. Not only were they privy to a once-in-a-lifetime humbling experience, but the two also found an interesting way to bring their music to more people. Pretty clever if you ask me.

As we've continually stressed in CM, there are plenty of benefits that come with donating time towards meaningful and deserving causes. Not only are you working for the greater good, but you're making your story more attractive to the music industry and listeners alike. Just make sure you're in it for the right reasons, and the results should be fruitful.

Oh yeah, check out some tunes from Keith and Renee here: www.keithandrenee.com.

So the Olympics are over - two weeks of great music, great games, and what seems to have been great times. There were a few tragedies, injuries, upsets, and what have you, but the spirit of the games seemed generally positive throughout. Congrats to all Canadian athletes who took part, especially those who helped amass the record-breaking 14 gold medals.

Much to my surprise, I caught myself watching figure skating at the end of last week. I couldn't help but feel that all of the music accompanying these skaters seemed a bit "safe." I think the sport is waiting for some Lady Gaga-looking werido that skates to "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead or something. Of course, even if he/she sucked, they could still make the annoying commentators discuss how "edgy" they are, or how they're a "breath of fresh air" for the sport.

Attention Canadian figure skaters: this idea is yours for the taking.

Kudos to the Canadian government for giving Vancouver 2010 attendees a TRUE taste of some of the finest music this country has to offer. Whoever's in charge of shelling out for the talent deserves the gold.

Musicians from EVERY province have been flown out to BC and put up for a few nights to entertain visitors, and we're talking everyone from monsters like Nelly Furtado, Hedley, and Alexisonfire to some of my new east-coast homies like In-Flight Safety, Two Hours Traffic, and my UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOUR, Mike Dixon. Way to go, Canadian Olympic honchos. You get the Andrew King SEAL OF APPROVAL.

Bravo! is quickly turning into my favourite basic cable channel. I mean, it's loaded with great music-based content, shows Law & Order every day during my lunch break, and its Sunday Night Cinema choices are always pretty solid. Oh yeah, Elvis Costello's Spectacle, anyone?

Anyhow, on Saturday night (THIS Saturday, folks), they're showing a biography on Canada's mastermind pianist, Glenn Gould. I highly recommend checking this out if you're around. I certainly hope to catch a re-airing at some point during the week. Check out the programming schedule at www.bravo.ca.

Here's the final video from the third artist featured in our upcoming look at upcoming Canadian emcees. No, these three aren't the only guys doing it in Canada, but they are three of the more exciting musicians that we haven't featured in the past. D-Sisive's "Nobody With A Notepad" took the 2009 SOCAN Echo Songwriting Prize - proof that we're finally starting to embrace the talent of some of our rappers. Oh yeah - who are your favourites?

Here's an overly-patriotic for the east coast's very own Classified. Gotta love the "Part Of Our Heritage" moments. Yeah, some of the references are a bit cheesy, but like he says - we don't take ourselves too seriously unless we have to! Look out for Class alongside Shad and tomorrow's MC in the March/April 2010 issue...

We've got a cool feature with three of Canada's most exciting emcees coming up. While there are certainly others in the same league, like Cadence Weapon (check him in our July/August 2009 issue), K'naan (a bit too busy lately), and Buck 65, we did catch up with D-Sisive, Classified, and Shad.

I love all three of these guys, though Shad's The Old Prince is likely my favourite rap album of all time. Here's a little taste of Shad, shot live on our friend Jian Ghomeshi's show, Q. Finesse and flow at its finest...