I ♥ Canadians

1. Hawksley Workman – (The Happiest Day I Know Is A) Tokyo Bicycle (*)
2. Paper Beat Sissors – Flicker
3. My Lovely Son – New Chance
4. Gigi – The Old Graveyard (Feat. Karl Blau)
5. Coeur De Pirate – Comme Des Enfants (*)
6. Lee Harvey Osmond – Cuckoo’s Nest
7. Cam Penner – All Of Yesterday (*)
8. Chris Page – Two Twenty Twos
9. Milks & Rectangles – Don’t Fall Into The Wrong Hands
10. We Are Wolves – Paloma (*)
11. The Shiny Diamonds – Portrait Of The Artists [Formerly Known As Prince] As A Young Man
12. Ghostkeeper – By Morning
13. Plastic Chair Explosion – Shoplifter
14. David Myles – Gone For Long
15. Apollo Ghosts – Snow On Mount Benson
16. Young Doctors In Love – Eloise And Her Sister Marta
17. No Kids – The Jazz Singer (*)
18. La Patere Rose – La Marelle (*)
19. Shout Out Out Out Out – Guilt Trips Sink Ships (*)

This week on the Sessions podcast we have a hand-picked selection of some of the outstanding performances recorded live in Brush Square at the Canadian Blast BBQ at SxSW.

• Radio Radio
• Justin Rutledge and the Beauties
• Hollerado
• You Say Party! We Say Die!
• Born Ruffians, Plants and Animals

Amanda Ash over at The Indie Files got a chance to attend The Cultch’s IGNITE! Mentorship Program.  After she spoke on a panel about media relations in the arts, she met the future of Canadian music:

These kids, ranging from spoken word gurus to songwriting superstars to drama queens to dancing kings, are quite talented. I later got the chance to sit in a group with just the songwriters and talk to them in-depth about the music industry, music journalism and music in general. It is moments like these that make me frustrated to hear about funding cuts to the arts. There are some truly talented and devoted teens who are eager to make music a career, but the reality is that’s going to be more and more difficult in coming years.

The above photo is what the future of Canadian music looks like. Doesn’t it look spectacular? I think so!

I know, I’m a bit late with this, but holy fuck!  Holy Fuck has a new album, Latin,  coming out May 11, 2010.  From Spinner:

The band revealed the details of the album on […] occasionally lewd site Chatroulette.com and gave anxious fans a chance to hear first single ‘Latin America.’ Founding member Graham Walsh is very pleased with the record, but he told Spinner that, after spending the last year putting it together — he engineered it himself — he’s not stopping to rest now that it’s finished.

Patrick Watson and his band The Wooden Arms return to their home base of Montreal to play a sold-out performance at Le Metropolis. Be sure to listen for “Underneath the Morning Sheets”, which he plays for the first time live!

A great essay by the 2010 Polaris Music Prize winners, Fucked Up, is posted on their blog, which goes deep into the music industry economic system, particularly that of the annual SxSW festival.

This is important for a lot of reasons, all of which have to do with you as an economic actor. Something that should be forefront in the minds of every band and every record label is how this is the most visual example of music money leaching away from the people most connected to music. You may have heard that the music industry is sort of falling apart. It isn’t really a matter of there being less money in the pool - just that the money people have to spend on entertainment (which will always be somewhat of a constant) is just being diverted away from where it historically has gone (record labels and managers). The music industry is by definition an operation invented to divert money spent on music away from actual musicians - the problems that the music industry is currently facing have specifically to do with the fact that the money that would usually flow directly to the bigger economic actors is now going somewhere else.

Just kind of ran into this website randomly through Google Alert.  Very expansive and up-to-date information on anything blues-related in Canada.

Arcade Fire will headline the first night of the two-day 2010 Osheaga Music And Arts Festival, scheduled for July 31 and August 1 at Parc-Jean Drapeau in Montreal.

Arcade Fire, who are currently working on a new album, will be joined by second night headliners Weezer, plus Pavement, Metric, The National, Deadmau5, The Cat Empire, Keane, The Black Keys, Stars, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Jimmy Cliff, Ariane Moffatt, The Gaslight Anthem, Charlie Winston, Beach House, Jamie Lidell, Robyn, Sarah Harmer, Frank Turner, Blitzen Trapper, Avi Buffalo, Bahamas, Amanda Mabro and Ian Kelly. Organizers are promising there will be more names added to the festival.

Who wants to go?!

How many shows can you play in five days before you collapse from exhaustion? DD/MM/YYYY will attempt to find out when they play 20 (yes, that number is correct) shows during the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas next week.

Vivian Girls and The Mae-Shi have performed 18 shows at South By Southwest in previous years, but DD/MM/YYYY intend to make those two acts…