Locals up for ECMA's

First provincial, and now the Atlantic Provinces. Two Queens Co. music businesses are up again for awards, this time at the East Coast Music Awards.

Tim Feswick of Feswick Productions is up for Studio Engineer of the Year, while Kimberly Sinclair of Spincount got the nod for Independent Company of the year.

Feswick’s recording studio is based out of Broad River, and has worked with talent such as Faded Blue, Sons of Maxwell and the Crash Test Dummies. “It’s quite an honour (to be nominated), because I’m up against studio engineers from all the Atlantic Provinces. The competition is extremely stiff,” he says.

Feswick says some of the nominees have been engineers for long time, and is nice to be included in the same category as them. “The nomination is almost more important than winning, because the nomination is what brings you the attention.”

To be nominated, Feswick made up compilation CD of his work over the past year that was eligible. However he feels the strongest work was on Christine Crawford’s “Peace Talks,” released earlier this year. Feswick says he’s very proud of the CD sonically, and has high praises Crawford’s quality of songwriting.

There’s no time to slow down this year for Feswick either. Recently he laid some of the tracks for Dave Carroll’s “United Breaks Guitar 3”, and later this month will attend a tribute to Crawford, who hasn’t been well, in Halifax.

Kimberly Sinclair of Spincount in Milton is equally thrilled to be nominated for the award. “This was an unexpected honour especially considering we've been in business for less than two years. We are very proud of this nomination; it validates a lot of hard work and is very gratifying. “This experience has taught me that in order to succeed you have to believe in what you’re doing and truly enjoy it for its own sake -- professional and monetary recognition flow from that.”

Sinclair says from the beginning they wanted to provide the best possible music promotions services to Canadian artists so they could get their music out to larger audiences. “We truly partner with the artists we work with, and so the line between "art" and "business" blurs. The artists we work with become more than just clients -- we share their goals, when they do well, we do well.”

In the past year, Spincount helped getthree East Coast Artists, Andrew Hunter & The Gatherers, Alert the Medic, and Dwight Deon, onto national charts. “This level of national attention raises the profile of the artists, our company, and most importantly, it exposes the rest of Canada to the rich quality and diversity of East Coast music.”

Both nominees plan on attending the event, which takes place in Sydney Nova Scotia March 4-7.

nmoase@theadvance.ca