I ♥ Canadians
Very sad and lame, though I’m still kind of curious how relavant Pandora will remain in the age of services like Ping, Rdio, and Spotify:
“Online streaming music services such as Pandora are abandoning plans to launch in Canada, claiming licensing fees are too high: ‘These rates … are astronomical,’ Tim Westergren, founder of California-based Pandora, wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.
Troy Reimink of the The Grand Rapids Press does a great breakdown of what happens when ignorance gets in the way of good music.
According to a statement from the college: “(A)fter weeks of discussion and consideration, the irony of the band’s name was impossible to explain to many. The band’s name, to some, is mistakenly associated with pornography. Consequently, Calvin, to some, was mistakenly associated with pornography. Neither the college nor the band endorses pornography.”
Yet again, I love Canadians. The Winnipeg folk-punk band, The Weakerthans, will hold a special fundraising show for the Regina band, Library Voices, who lost their equipment and some personal possessions when a water line burst in their practice space.
More updates coming soon!
I don’t think anyone actually follows this blog, but just in case, I wanted to let you know that I haven’t abandoned this blog. Things got very busy, and I got a bit behind, but I hope to have some spare time again soon.
By the time the telecast started, many of my favourite albums of 2009 had already won Junos: Bell Orchestre for instrumental album of the year (As Seen Through Windows), Charles Spearin for contemporary jazz album of the year (The Happiness Project), Billy Talent for rock album of the year (III), and K’naan for artist of the year. After decades of grumbling about the Junos, this was the first year I was predisposed to genuinely enjoy them.
And yet they disappointed again—not because they were awful, but because they weren’t. Normally they are a combination of the painful and the ever-so-slightly profound, thanks to the cheap commercialization and the glimpses of comparatively obscure artists getting a shot in prime time. If we’re lucky, someone makes a decent speech. The 2010 Junos, by comparison, were like lithium: no highs, no lows, just even keel.
The saddest thing I’ve heard all week. Vancouver Sun did a touching piece on the late Devon Clifford. He will be missed greatly.
Amazing singer/songwriter, Hannah Georgas, talks to earbuds and ticket stubs:
“Chit Chat” is about the kind of people that you meet all the time— you’re talking to them and they don’t even really care what you have to say. They just want to get all this verbal negative crap out and it’s really draining. That was the experience I had, and I just came home and unloaded it through song. I find that I do that a lot if I am affected by something. It’s my way of getting my shit out.
It’s time to stop calling Dine Alone an indie label.
They’ve got Arkells, City And Colour, Moneen, Alexisonfire and Hot Hot Heat among their ranks, and now they’ve added Tokyo Police Club.
The Newmarket, Ont. indie rock quartet will release their Champsophomore album on June 8 through their Mean Beard label, which will be distributed through Dine Alone.
Singer/bassist Dave Monks has described Champ as an album full of “fuzzy bigs, canadian spelling, hockey sound effects, me singing the lowest note in my range, [and] one (1) saxophone note.” It also sounds like a “disney” record, according to Monks.
