Award Winner Hits The Airwaves at SC

by Malcolm Petch

All too often when someone is referred to as an “award-winning artist”, the award turns out to be a relatively unknown presentation from a relatively unknown organization or group. That may seem harsh, but take it from me: I’m an award-winning artist.

Greg Sczebel, on the other hand, is a genuine award-winning artist. He’s taken home nine Covenant Awards (Canadian Gospel Music Association) plus been nominated three additional times. He’s been a finalist, a semi-finalist, and a third-place winner in the well-known International Songwriting Competition (ISC). He’s been a finalist and a two-time Grand Prize winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, another big one. He’s won four Shai awards (formerly the Vibe awards). He won a Western Canadian Music Award for his album Here To Stay. And, at the pinnacle for Canadian musical artists, he has won two Junos, one in 2005 for his first album (Here To Stay), and the second this year for his newest album (Love and the Lack Thereof).

But it doesn’t stop there: Greg Sczebel, live and in person, has played at Streaming Café! He and we liked it so much that we had him come back. And that was so good that we invited him to do a Christmas special. That, too, was out of the park, so we prevailed upon him again to make his way to our log-pile wooden wall – and he’s going to do it!

Saturday December 17 at 7p.m. and again at 9:30p.m., Greg Sczebel and friends will be honouring us with Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time, an evening of festivemusic and entertainment.

Rumour has it that Greg will have to interrupt a tour with Paul Brandt in order to show up at the café. And if you’ve watched Canadian television at all over the holidays (or probably American TV, too), you’ll know that Paul Brandt has a well-received Christmas tour that he takes on the road each year. So for us to be able to pry Greg away from a gig like that shows how much he likes showing up at SC!

"Perfect" #4 on iTunes

Little side story: when Kelowna was host city for the Western Canadian Music awards in 2010, Greg Sczebel and band were booked to play at one of the local venues (but not at SC). As we were setting up in the café for the musical guests who were to be featured on our stage, Greg and his band trooped into SC to order sandwiches on their way over to the venue at which they were playing. Hats off to the Streaming Café baristas! They make a mean enough sandwich that even artists booked to play elsewhere will take a detour just to nab some good food – I’d say that speaks for itself.

Back to Sczebel and Christmas 2011: Greg released the first single from his new Christmas album at the start of November. Within hours of its release it had climbed to #41 on the iTunes Holiday music chart. And within days it had climbed to #4 – right behind a couple of Bieber songs and right AHEAD of another Bieber song. Here's the video for "Perfect".

And Greg played that song at his Christmas concert with us way back in 2010 – if you were with us in person or online you would have seen/heard this song far before anyone else in the country… makes you think that it’s worth coming out to the gig, doesn’t it?! Here's the video from that performance...

The Christmas event last year was such a success that we’ve decided to do two seatings, one at 7p.m (our normal start time) and a second at 9:30 p.m. Only the first show will be streamed online, so if you can’t make it in person be sure to catch the early show on the website!

Adding to the festivities, for the first time in history we are going to be simul-casting the show on radio station Q103.1, ‘live on the air’ at the same time we’re live on the web (and again, it will only be the first showing, the one at 7 p.m., that will go out over the radio waves).

I would suspect – and of course, I could be wrong – that this is the first time anywhere in the world and at any time in history that a live performance will go out simultaneously on computers via the Internet, on Blackberry devices, on iPhones, and on FM Radio. Just think, even if you’re driving in your car and cannot even safely look at your iPhone (and please don’t if you’re driving!!!), you can still catch the show in real-time on Q103.1

How cool is that?

So, now you’re faced with a choice: should you listen on the radio, on your phone, on your computer, or in-person?

No matter what you decide, December 17^th promises to be a wonderful celebration of Christmas merrymaking and jollification with genuine award-winning artist Greg Sczebel. Come join us at the café at either 7 p.m. or 9:30 p.m.: tickets are on sale now, $20 advance and $25 at the door (sorry, TICKETS ARE SOLD OUT!). Or catch the show online or on-air at 7 p.m.

We will all be Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time.

Merry Christmas