Upsample with Carson Tworow & Will Chernoff
Jul 31, 2026 · 56 min · 13 segments
Late payments to artists this summer have reopened the East Coast Music Association (ECMA) situation. We go back through this story and its mix of joloew, ticket levy, co-op, Fort Langley, and…
Will ChernoffHost
Carson TworowHost
I guess the difference between this and the side door episode is that I didn't like do any original research about this story because I didn't really need to because it's been told.
It has some 2023 Fort Langley vibes, which is a Rhythm Changes story, not an upsample joint.
But that is a situation where locally here, famously, a festival didn't pay its artists on time.
And it is about the East Coast Music Association, which the same acronym, ECMA, also refers to the East Coast Music Awards, which is an event that it puts on.
For those of us here in BC, this is their direct analog to what we have, which is called Breakout West and the Western Canadian Music Awards.
uh second tier thing that's underneath the junos here in canada but at a regional level this is the east coast music awards
And yeah, I see the first headline on our doc here is, does the Fort Langley, which is a dark way of putting that.
So was there issues with payment from the award ceremony, a festival of some sort? So
in some sense, this is not a new story because most of what we're going to talk about happened in 2024 and 2025.
But there is a new layer to it, which is, at the beginning of this week, there's a Global News article I saw that talked about how people who played this year's edition of the ECMAs, the 2026 ones, which I believe they happen every May, and it rotates through which sub-region or which province of the Atlantic provinces it happens in.
But this edition, there are artists who played at the showcases, just like, again, here we know people, our friends, they play at Breakout West.
There were artists who played the showcases and they have not been paid two months later, which is very much like what happened at Fort Langley.
Some artists who performed as part of the East Coast Music Association's annual awards in Sydney, Nova Scotia this year are speaking out over payment issues.
Global news has heard from artists who say they had to wait more than two months for payment with some receiving less than their agreed amount.
I guess the difference between this and the side door episode is that I didn't like do any original research about this story because I didn't really need to because it's been told.
It has some 2023 Fort Langley vibes, which is a Rhythm Changes story, not an upsample joint.
But that is a situation where locally here, famously, a festival didn't pay its artists on time.
And it is about the East Coast Music Association, which the same acronym, ECMA, also refers to the East Coast Music Awards, which is an event that it puts on.
For those of us here in BC, this is their direct analog to what we have, which is called Breakout West and the Western Canadian Music Awards.
uh second tier thing that's underneath the junos here in canada but at a regional level this is the east coast music awards
And yeah, I see the first headline on our doc here is, does the Fort Langley, which is a dark way of putting that.
So was there issues with payment from the award ceremony, a festival of some sort? So
in some sense, this is not a new story because most of what we're going to talk about happened in 2024 and 2025.
But there is a new layer to it, which is, at the beginning of this week, there's a Global News article I saw that talked about how people who played this year's edition of the ECMAs, the 2026 ones, which I believe they happen every May, and it rotates through which sub-region or which province of the Atlantic provinces it happens in.
But this edition, there are artists who played at the showcases, just like, again, here we know people, our friends, they play at Breakout West.
There were artists who played the showcases and they have not been paid two months later, which is very much like what happened at Fort Langley.
Some artists who performed as part of the East Coast Music Association's annual awards in Sydney, Nova Scotia this year are speaking out over payment issues.
Global news has heard from artists who say they had to wait more than two months for payment with some receiving less than their agreed amount.
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