Author: Jamie Bonk

I'm a guitarist/composer/producer and I have released seven LP's, two EP's, and eight singles of my own recordings. Just about every day you can find me in my studio writing, recording and practicing.

Bach – Prelude No.1

Not sure why, but I felt like recording some Bach on the mandolin today. Here’s my version of Bach’s Prelude No.1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier.

Victory against Grooveshark shows music industry has upper hand on sharing sites

Good article on the shift in the digital music world. I’ve had my own music on Grooveshark and haven’t seen a penny from it.

Jeff John Roberts's avatarGigaom

The music industry has been waging a bitter campaign against song-sharing sites for years and now, for better or worse, the industry is clearly winning. The latest evidence of this came Monday when a New York court ruled that the executives behind Grooveshark, a user-driven streaming site, had violated copyright and destroyed evidence.

In a 57-page ruling (see below), U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa found that Grooveshark’s founders had ordered employees to upload thousands of unlicensed songs in order to burnish the site’s popularity. He also concluded that the executives, over the course of litigation with the music industry, had deleted records of the uploads and some of Grooveshark’s source code in an apparent effort to cover up their activities.

The tone of the ruling is harsh and concludes with a so-called judgment as a matter of law in favor of nine record labels, including [company]UMG[/company] and [company]Sony[/company]. For practical purposes, it will likely lead to [company]Grooveshark[/company] being shuttered…

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SpringFall – “Silver Lining”

Here’s the second track from SpringFall, my writing project with Ron Scott. The tune is called Silver Lining and it features Ron on vocals, Sonya Mitlewski on keys and me on programming and production. Hope you like the song!!

SpringFall

My good friend Ron Scott and I wrote a bunch of tunes under the project name SpringFall. I know Ron (ever the perfectionist!) would have liked to have fixed up a few vocal things on this demo for one of our tunes, Two For One, but I think he sounds like a million bucks! Ron also did the artwork for this track… Sonya played the keys and I did the guitars and production stuff. This track is a demo, but I think you can get the vibe we were going for and I/we hope you like the music!

SpringFall – “Two For One” on Vimeo.

Handmade Guitar Showcase

Had an amazing time at the Handmade Guitar Showcase today!

Got to play an outstanding cross-over mandolin by Mario Beauregard (my friend Dave Barrett also got a chance to play the mando) and two brilliant guitars by Sheldon Schwartz. The instruments were fantastic, but equally as good was getting to spend some time the builders. Really smart, nice guys!

Probably the nicest thing though was getting to meet up with Peter Janson again and to meet Steve Davidson for the first time. Peter and Steve are on tour in the US right now and they had a day off, so they drove up from Rochester to the guitar show here in Toronto. Lots of fun listening to them play and to do some jamming with them! They’re playing in Pittsburg tomorrow night, so if you like first rate acoustic guitar music, please go and check them out!

Good To Be

"Good To Be" by Jamie BonkI’m happy to announce the release of my new single and video, Good To Be! The track features Henrik Bridger (bass), Dave Patel (drums) and Sonya Mitlewski (keyboards) and I can’t thank them enough for their great playing. There really is nothing like good players to help lift up a track.

The working title for Good To Be was A Touch Of Zaw (short for A Touch Of Zawinul). When I starting writing the track, I was trying to get a touch of the upbeat, percolating vibe that Zawinul sometimes had with Weather Report and the Zawinul Syndicate. While Good To Be really isn’t a tribute track (there certainly is a bit (or a lot!) of a Daft Punk/Nile Rodgers feel in there), I hope the tune shows my respect for the music of Joe Zawinul and puts a smile on your face!

The groovy, fast moving video for Good To Be was created by my brother, Randy and his son Khalin. I think they did an amazing job tying together video shots, photos and cinemagraphs (moving photos) into one quick paced, fun video.

Good To Be is a digital-only release and is available now at most online retailers, including iTunes.