It was a crazy week! Moncton did an amazing job of hosting the ECMAs, what a fun time. It was so nice to meet folks from the community of Riverview on the first night of the weeks events at the Riverview Arts Centre, and film this video with Heavy Weather (check it out!):

http://heavyweather.ca/video-40229632.html

From there on, the week was a whirlwind! It was amazing to meet people from all over;  the UK, Milwaukee, and North Carolina! It was also great to play with my friend Carleton Stone in the beautiful Capitol Theatre, and see David Myles and Rose Cousins to name just two of the group making up the songwriters circle there.  In direct contrast to the Capitol and songwriters circles, I had a blast playing at Moncton’s Plan B with my band. I don’t think I’ve ever produced that much sweat in 25 minuets!

As great as it was for me to play that weekend, it was also really fun to see other folks perform. Artists I really enjoyed: Ben Caplin and the Casual Smokers, Classified and David Myles (that’s right, together!),

The Trews, The Heartbroken, Repartee, and Andy Brown. That’s only a tiny portion of all the amazing music I saw last week. Wow. My head is still racing. Can’t wait for next year!! Halifax will have to work hard to outdo Moncton 2012!

Photo: David Myles and Classified, a pair of amazing musicians at the ECMA Gala

Back from a really fun week in Toronto at CMW. I loved having the band (Barb Cameron, Peter Bull and Jared Farney) with me this time. I hope we’ll be back again soon.

So great to meet Stuart Cameron who helped us polish. So nice to see Damhnait Doyle (Stuart’s ‘The Heartbroken’ bandmate) and Michael Perlmutter out at the Rivoli, and of course all my new friends, you know who you are!
Now it’s back to less than 100 days of high school, can’t wait! Hopefully we get a couple more warm days before it’s over.

Right. Off to catch up with the homework I missed. See you soon!

PS Check out these songs from my set at the Rivoli on Saturday night. The band sounded great, a huge thanks to Wayne O’Connor for sound and prep!!
Enjoy

Molly

Molly Thomason – Beauty Queen by JonesandCo

Have had an amazing time in NYC, (back to NS tomorrow!) but really looking forward to being in TO for CMW next week.
Please, check out my gigs page, and come out.

Friday at 2.30 PM (Sneaky Dee’s) and Sat at 9PM (The Rivoli) will be with my band, but Friday late it’ll be close and personal in the Library Bar at the Royal York – solo acoustic.

Really hope to see some of you there!

The new single (Beauty Queen) is spinning at stations across Canada now, so go on! Request it and have a little look at Shehab Illyas’
video take on it. (below!)

See you all soon!

Molly

Seventeen-year-old Antigonish musical sensation Molly Thomason has been nominated for Youth in Motion’s Top 20 Under 20 list (www.top20under20.ca).

Youth in Motion is a national charitable organization that designs and implements motivational career programs for youth. For information, visit www.youth-in-motion.ca.

Thomason, who will graduate this year from Dr. John Hugh Gillis High School, won young performer of the year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in December for her debut CD Beauty Queen.

She is up for pop recording of the year and rising star at the 2012 ECMAs to be held in Moncton in April.

She has released a video for the album’s title track, Beauty Queen, which was conceived, shot and directed by Halifax filmmaker Shehab Illyas in the St. Francis Xavier University Auditorium and features Tia Andriani.

March already, a great month because it’s spring break month! Really looking forward to going to NYC for a week, having just had a taste of another great US city when I went to Boston to audition for Berklee. It’s an AMAZING school and a great city! Now I just have to wait and see with my fingers crossed……aargh.
But there’s a lot of stuff to look forward to this month to keep my mind off results!

Just heard that my next single, the title track off my latest album, Beauty Queen, is a semi finalist in the 2011 International Songwriting Competition, thanks guys! I’ll be releasing that single within days, and a new video by Shehab Illyas, at the same time. Hope you like it!
From March 21st I’ll be at CMW looking forward to playing several times, so check out my gig page and please come say hi! Really looking forward to being in Toronto for a while and getting together with John Angus MacDonald from the Trews again (who are FINALISTS in the ISC, by the way, for their amazing song Hope and Ruin. My mom’s favourite song!) and planning the next few songs on our project. Three done, and I love the work that JA, Cone, Nick, and Michael Jack have done on them. Hope it won’t be too long before those “Songs For The After Pageant Party” are out!
Tomorrow night you can catch me in Fall River, NS with Ashley Condon and Erin Costello at Point Rock House concerts! Starts at 8pm, come check it out!

http://www.thetrewsmusic.com/

http://www.ashleycondon.com/

http://www.erincostelo.com/

http://www.berklee.edu/

Wow, February already, and it could be spring! Knock on wood, I really hope it stays this way.
Well, I’m excited to say that I’m kicking off the month with some exciting news: Beauty Queen has been nominated for Pop Album of the Year at the ECMAs, and I am honored to be one of the nominees for Rising Star! Hope I’ll see some of you in Moncton, it’s looking like a really fun week. Check my concerts page for dates, times and locations and come rock out with me and my band!
Speaking of rocking out, I’m in the process of going through final mixes of a couple tunes John-Angus (MacDonald – the TREWS!) and I have been working on. Really excited to have Michael Jack working on mixing the final versions; they’re sounding WICKED. Can’t wait to have them ready and out to all of you! The After Pageant Party is going to be crazy! I hope it’ll be nearly as crazy awesome as the Trews show at the Rebecca Cohen on the 26th. I was so glad to see them play live, Matt Mays even made a surprise guest appearance! Those boys certainly do know how to rock, check it out: (photo)
Anyway, thanks for checking back on the website! I’m hitting up NYC and Toronto (CMW’s) in March, so there will definitely be some interesting updates from those trips!
Cheers!

Molly

Molly Thomason received two ECMA award nominations, Pop Recording of the Year and Rising Star Recording of the Year, for her album Beauty Queen.

Just back from a whirlwind visit to Toronto for the Canadian Folk Music Awards. So much fun, and so many wonderful surprises. The biggest was being given the Young Performer of the Year at the CFMA. Congratulations to all my fellow nominees – it was so fun to find out about you all, and so exciting to see another Nova Scotia artist, Dave Gunning take two awards from the CFMA’s. Yay Dave! Thanks to all the folks who took the time to listen to Beauty Queen, and who gave me and all the great people who made it happen, their stamp of approval.
I’ll be back and forth to Toronto in December to visit again, as I’m starting work on the project with John Angus MacDonald (still calling it Songs for the After Pageant Party at the moment!) and can’t wait to get back in studio with John-Angus, Nick and Cone starting December 17th – just about a year to the day I started working on Beauty Queen!

Performance-wise, this week I’m excited to be getting together with my friend Carleton Stone for a show on the 10th – a sort of house concert that we’re calling Songversation – in the Green Room at the Bauer Theatre in Antigonish. This is an all ages show starting at 7.30 so tell your friends, and come enjoy a few tunes with us.

Then on December 16th I’m very proud to be joining Jenn Grant, Carmen Townsend, Christine Campbell, Ria Mae and Mo Kenney to support young Emma MacRae, who is being treated for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. Please get your tickets for this event taking place at Montes Showbar and Grill on Waverly Road in Dartmouth – tickets at all TicketPro locations!

We’re on the countdown to Christmas now, so I guess my mom will have to turn the furnace on. As a little salute to everyone whose mom has NOT turned the furnace on yet, I’m going to offer a free download of a song from my first album….Angel and Me. Just right click and you’ll get the download option! So please! Fill yer boots! And enjoy the snow – I mean, it’s coming so….get out and play in it!
09 Angel And Me

Hey y’all!
Here we are on a rainy day, but this month has felt almost like summer in NS!
November has been fun-filled so far. Music Nova Scotia Week was last weekend, and it was a blast! Had such a fun time rocking my Rodd Grand showcase with the boys, Jared Farney on drums and Peter Bull on bass, talk about adrenaline rush!
Now I’m gearing up for the next big November event: a songwriter’s circle with Joel Plaskett, Ian Sherwood, and Mo Kenney. This is a fundraiser for Invisible Children, an organization that helps child soldiers of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, defect and be rehabilitated into society. It’s an amazing cause, and I’m really excited to be part of organizing it with my friends Heather, Rachelle, and Reily. If you’re in Antigonish (or a drive away) on November 26th, please come support this important event and hear some great tunes. It starts at 8pm in the McKay Room on STFX Campus, $15 for students/unwaged, and $25 for adults. I really hope you can make it out!

Looking ahead to December, I’m very excited for the Canadian Folk Music Awards weekend. I’m nominated for Young Performer of the Year, alongside some really talented people, you can check out all then nominees here: http://folkawards.ca/awards-night/nominees/
It will be nice to get back to Toronto, I’ll be there a lot next month. Getting very excited to hit up the studio with John Angus MacDonald again just before Christmas, maybe Cone will stop by for a visit? You never know!
I hope all of you out in cyber-land are well. See you on the 26th!
Molly