I ♥ Canadians

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

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.

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…

CBC Radio 3’s most talented producer, Chris Kelly, has put together an amazing playlist of 100 bands you have to see while at SXSW next week!  I know what I’m listening to all day tomorrow!