The shelves are stocked with songs at Earl's Music Emporium.
They are all handcrafted by local music artisans and they are all available for free on Shaw Channel 10.
Earl Krushelnicki is a longtime Prince George music personality with experience in artist management, concert promotion, tour booking, creative consulting, and other talents on the organizational side of the music industry.
His latest venture, as a professional fan of music and supporter of local artists, is a television show on Shaw called Earl's Music Emporium. Each episode is a spotlight on a different singer-songwriter from our region. So far, the first few episodes have been about Vanessa Wittstruck, Raghu Lokanathan and Theresa Jordan. Jack Van Somer is the latest edition, and in the next weeks' wings are Kym Gouchie, Marcel Gagnon, Selina Bomberger, and several others.
"I notice that local musicians, generally speaking, have a very poor representation on the internet. Making music videos is expensive," Krushelnicki said.
"So this was one way to show local audiences what their local music scene is like, but it also gives these artists something that will represent them online. It creates a presence for them. There are a tonne of these musicians around, so talented and creative, but unless you actively go out to live music shows, you might never know it."
Some of the shows intersperse live interviews with the musicians' songs. The studio can accommodate only solo, duo and sometimes trio configurations and it's preferable the act is acoustic or small-scale electric.
"We have people like Raghu who have a national reputation and people like Selina who have only played at the Limelight Quest competition, and every level in between. I'm looking for talent, just talent," Krushelnicki said. "The key thing is, the performer has to live in Prince George at the time of the taping and the song has to either be written by the same performer, co-written with someone who has given written permission to use the song on the air, or the song can be from the public domain. There are a number of local acts who are terrifically talented by they only play cover songs, and that is not eligible for the show."
The show is as stripped down in its presentation as the music it is capturing. The camera work is stark, the studio is bare, there are no special effects. The music and musician must be strong enough in their presentation to carry the entertainment requirements.
"My ultimate desire is to see local musicians on the national stage, in the national consciousness," he said. "They don't have to be young, emerging talent. The modern music business is tough in a lot of ways, downright impossible in some ways, but one thing technology now allows for is anyone of any age or look or style to present their music to the world. It just has to somehow get seen. I really hope a show like this can help move some of that along."
Each episode runs approximately half an hour. It takes 10-12 weeks from the time a musician is filmed in the Shaw studio until their episode comes to air. Then, it is shown several times per week, giving each act a broad range of time-slots to reach the viewing audience.
"Some shows are better than others, some performances are better than others, some people's tastes are different than yours or mine. It's not for me to judge, in that sense," Krushelnicki said.
Anyone interested in being the subject of an Earl's Music Emporium episode, please contact Krushelnicki by email at [email protected].
