Fig. A: the humble beginnings of the Cups N Cakes Network
The Cups N Cakes Network is a volunteer based, not-for-profit music media site that covers independent Canadian music.
It all began as a bi-weekly internet radio show playing only Canadian independent acts. The program started as a way for hosts Jeff MacCallum and Carey Newton to maintain their friendship while sharing laughs along with their favourite music. In May of 2017, Jeff began elevating Cups N Cakes to new heights by morphing it into a multi-media music source with the launch of this website and re-branding to The Cups N Cakes Network. With the new look came the addition of weekly written reviews, an interview based podcast, the Vinyl Unveil YouTube show and, of course, the original internet radio program. In 2023, MacCallum stepped back from the day to day operations of the network, and handed things over to the first volunteer that Cups N Cakes ever brought on board, Sean Davis Newton.
Cups N Cakes is a necessary experience for music fans still interested in discovering the latest and greatest acts. Near the end of 2018, the rapid growth of the Cups N Cakes Network forced MacCallum to seek help by assembling a team. Although everything began from audio programming, the sites growth in popularity is in large part due to this impressive team that pumps out tons of written content. It is this content for which the network has become most popular. Over 25 volunteers deliver long and short form reviews of Canadian releases, premieres, music news, written interviews (In Conversation), and live show reviews (Live, In Review). The wonderful humans that volunteer their time to the Cups N Cakes Network are the site’s backbone, Cups N Cakes could not exist without them.
Meet the Cups N Cakes Team!
Jeff MacCallum (Founder, Quick Picks, Volunteer co-ordinator)
Jeff MacCallum is our founder. He created Cups N Cakes simply because he had a love of local music. Soon the platform grew beyond the confines of his scene in Edmonton to include all of Canada.
"I did it all very DIY. Everything you see was me learning on the fly. I'm a carpenter not a musician, or a journalist, or a publicist... I'm a carpenter and a weird crazy music fan that thought he could do something fun that might benefit something I care about"
Over the years, MacCallum's commitment to elevating Canadian music earned him a spot as a Polaris Prize Juror, a WCMA Juror, a consultant for music festival curation, and a dear friend to independent music in Canada.
Sean Davis Newton (Editor, Pick of the Week, Quick Picks, Premieres)
Sean Davis Newton took over the Cups N Cakes Network from Jeff MacCallum in January 2023, after coming on board as the network’s first ever volunteer in September 2018. He is also a songwriter and recording engineer, and released his debut album Bird Brain in October 2024. With Jeff back from ‘sabbatical’, he runs the website while he pursues other journalistic endeavours.
Chris Lammiman (Pick of the Week)
… is a lapsed bass player, aspiring naturalist, and cooking enthusiast. He loves music, and tries to attend as many live shows as time and old bones allow. To make money, he works in disaster management, planning for and responding to major emergencies. Chris lives with his partner, one dog, and one cat on Treaty 7 land in what is now known as Calgary.
Louise Jaunet (Reviews): After spending many years studying biopharmaceutical sciences, Louise Jaunet made her way freely into Montreal's underground psychedelic rock scene to seek answers to some questions that modern science tends to ignore. As a self-taught outsider, she draws inspiration from the Dadaist and Surrealist movements to proudly channel her Franco-German cultural heritage. The film Metropolis by Fritz Lang had a profound impact on her psyche during her childhood, to the extent that she now has obsessive thoughts about posthumanism, cyborgs and alchemy. She believes that music is simply the most effective means of communication of our century.
Penelope Stevens (Reviews) is a musician and artist living in smalltown New Brunswick, best known as 1/3 of beloved art-rock group Motherhood, or, more recently, as lead singer of the eponymous Penny & the Pits. When not playing or yapping about music, you can find Penny running with the world's cutest dog (Valentine) or making needlessly pretentious cocktails.
Photo credit Hayley Frail
Julie Maier (Reviews)
Julie Maier is a musician and educator from Saskatoon, where her earliest musical experiences were shaped by school concert band and nicking CDs from her older siblings' bedrooms to learn about what was cool. While her bass collected some dust after high school, she volunteered for many years as a community radio host, and in the service of CanCon quotas she finally started to really pay attention to all of the awesome music coming out of Canada and the Prairies in particular. In the spring of 2015, she joined two of her sisters to form The Garrys, which has given her many opportunities to build back her finger calluses while taking in various music scenes and festivals around Western Canada. At about this same time she also got involved as an organizer and bass instructor for Girls Rock Saskatoon, and credits this as hugely-important in her developing awareness of issues related to access, equity, and diverse representation in music, and her own privilege while moving within these spaces.
Artemis Peaslee (Reviews)
Despite appearances, Artemis is in fact not goth: her favourite genres of music are Indie, Southern Hip Hop, Metalcore, and Jazz. Growing up in a musical family, she was enveloped in her local Edmonton scene essentially at birth, growing up listening to hardcore, punk, folk, indie, rap, emo and more. Currently she plays bass in the All-Trans Metalcore band CHASER, influenced by bands like The Chariot, Seeyouspacecowboy, and early Bring Me the Horizon. At time of writing Artemis considers herself a big fan of the following artists: Boys Night Out, Miles Davis, Project Pat, Car Seat Headrest, Despised Icon, Adrianne Lenker, LCD Soundsystem, Joey Valance & Brae, Hawksley Workman, Wu-Tang Clan, Attack in Black, Sibylle Baier, Jisei, Fiona Apple, The Weakerthans, Placebo, and World of Pleasure
Em Moore (Reviews)
Em has four great loves in this life: music (especially punk rock), reading, writing, and cats. She can be found moshing and playing her music too loud across the vast expanse of the Greater Toronto Area.
Clay Geddert (Reviews)
Your friendly neighbourhood ice cream truck driver by day, ageing skateboarder by night. Clay was born and raised in Lethbridge, AB, but now resides in Calgary with his partner and their dog. You’re more likely to find him plucking a banjo on his porch than serenading on a stage, but he doesn’t let that stop him from critiquing music from his armchair.
Craig Martell (Reviews, Social Media)
Craig Martell is a food writer, music promoter, and curator. He was born in Cape Breton and now lives in Edmonton, Alberta, surrounded by his cute family and friends. His hair went gray when he was 16. His knees started to hurt when he was 25. He started playing DnD when he was 35. He quit smoking when he was 40.
Mikail Kayani (Reviews, Features)
Mikail Kayani is a videographer, musician, and freelance writer based in Edmonton, Alberta. When not writing reviews, he is usually behind the camera shooting for his short films and skate videos, jamming with his band, or watching way too many movies.
Simone Atenea Medina Polo (Review)
is a philosopher, music producer, and freelance writer based in Edmonton, AB (amiskwacîy-wâskahikan). Known either for her academic publications and clandestine essays in philosophy, Marxism, and psychoanalysis or for her hyperpop / experimental pop project pseudo-antigone, Atenea gets herself into situations and predicaments that enter into dialogue with a variety of niche interests in arts, music, and culture. Website: pseudo-antigone.com
JD Ormond (Reviews, Quick Picks)
Winnipeg based writer/musician.
Bands: Ultra Mega; JD and the Sunshine Band; Blond(e) Goth; DHID; Manitobandits.
Enjoys :directionless strolling; ; Miss Vickie’s salt and vinegar chips; Mr Show
Past Volunteers:
Harman Burns (Pick Of The Week)
Born in the Saskatchewan prairies on Treaty 6 land, Harman Burns is a trans sound artist and filmmaker. An aspiring hack and Tums™ enthusiast, she spends her days looking at large bodies of water and thinking about food and envying people with pets. She currently resides on the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
Ava Glendinning (Reviews, Live in Review)
Ava Glendinning is a Winnipeg-based musician and writer. She has contributed to Reductress and The Belladonna Comedy, and published her first novel, Bukowski’s Broken Family Band, with Transistor 66 Record Co. in 2024. She plays frequently with her band, Bicycle Face, and works as the managing editor for CV2 Magazine. Insta/Bsky: @awglen
Nikolas L. Barkman (Reviews) is a writer, musician and visual artist living in Montreal, QC, Canada. Barkman specializes in constructing an off-kilter dream-vision through the many artistic mediums he engages. His most recent works include his upcoming debut art-rock LP; Tales from the Balance Wheel, and 2025’s experimental neo-noire short-story, Season of the Spirit: February [Grey].