Juno nominations all over the map

Juno nominations all over the map Country singer Jason McCoy was in the spotlight on Saturday, July 30, 2011 during the Little Lake MusicFest at Del Crary Park. City police estimate more than 8,000 people attended the concert. With the success of The Road Hammers, McCoy won a Juno Award for Country Recording of the Year and countless awards from the Canadian Country Music Association. 'I devoted all my efforts to The Road Hammers and put my solo career on hold' said McCoy. 'It's time to bring it back around now' and for the follow up album to his Greatest Hits release. Between touring, songwriting, television shows, family, recording, and the overall business of music, McCoy seems to have it all. He's in the studio now working on songs for the new solo album. Plans to release the long awaited project are in the works for 2010. CLIFFORD SKARSTEDT/PETERBOROUGH EXAMINER/QMI AGENCY The 2012 Juno Music Awards nominations were announced in Toronto Tuesday. As usual, it was an annoying, long winded affair, with CARAS the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences reps reading through a list of 200 plus nominees vying for 41 awards. This being Canada, it customary for readers and music watchers to break down the list of nominees by region as if it was the national budget. Regional nationalism seems as important to the judging as the quality of the recording. It a cheap source of regional pride, and gives readers a feel good storyline bigger than what band to cheer for in our version of the Grammys. Dan Mangan (Vancouver), Drake (Toronto), Feist (Calgary/Toronto), Hedley (Abbotsford), Nickelback (Hanna) and City and Colour (Toronto) garnered four nominations each. It not a great year for the hometown team, but at least the albums nominated are worthy contenders. Nominees from Ottawa include Rise Ashen for Aboriginal Album, Craig Cardiff and David Francey for Roots, http://www.hanirestauranttehran.co.uk Monkeyjunk for Blues Album of the Year and F the Facts for Metal Album. As glad as I was to see Deep Dark Woods The Place I Left Behind and Hey Rosetta! Seeds on the Juno list, I was even more surprised to see who didn make it. Elliott Brood Days IntoYears, Stephen Fearing Andy White Fearing White, Olenka http://www.livingtorrents.org The Autumn Lovers And Now We Sing and Ann Vriend Love and Other Messes didn make the cut. I know this is a very subjective process, but the Canadian music business can be so big that albums as good as these go missing. Of course, the Junos were aware of them. They smart people who know their music inside and out. The only reason I can come up with for such glaring omissions is that the Juno committee already had too many GTA nominees. The Junos show could be better if it stuck to music and worried less about national unity. Focus on the best music, and cut the number of awards 41 is way too many for a music industry as small as Canada Seriously, what the difference between Alternative Album of the Year and Adult Alternative Album of the Year? While we at it, by now you heard that great Canadian actor (who hasn lived in Canada in 50 years) William Shatner will host the Junos. As much as I like Shatner, I think most of the cute factor gone out of the 82 year old hipster.