Patrick Polaris

Monday night's Polaris party saw Patrick Watson walking away with the big prize of 20 grand and, of course, a boatload of publicity. Good to see the judges picking one of the artists who will receive the greatest benefit from the prize, a tactic which apparently baffled the Pitchfork writers. That news item ultimately serves to prove the whole point of the prize... exporting Canadian artists and giving them wider exposure. Rolling Stone was also surprised, once again proving they just aren't as cutting edge as they once (never?) were.
Let's face it, if Arcade Fire or Feist did win the award, these outlets would be going on and on about the "obvious" choice, and would temper that by mentioning all the hype that these publications themselves had so very little to do with in the first place.

If you haven't done so already, sign up for the CBC Radio 3 podcast. Right away. The current episode is a Polaris Prize gala edition.

A lot in Common

Lily Allen features on the alleged third single for Common's new album, Finding Forever. This track and most of the album is produced by Kanye West, and I can't help but wonder why he doesn't save more of these killer tracks for his solo material (strong as it is).
An appearance on Joss Stone's album, including an up-and-coming British songstress on an album and single poised to be huge... you'd almost think Common is trying to crack the UK market.

The song is much, much better than the video, but... the video is free, and right in front of your face. And also, you can play spot the reference. Keep an eye out for the "Astronaut lady"... "Hey, I've got an idea, how about everytime he says something, we'll give the audience a literal interpretation.".... "Brilliant, just brilliant. Go with it."



On the subject of Mr. West, Graduation is his first album not to feature Common, funny enough. "Curtis v. Kanye, 2007" didn't hurt either performer's sales... their symbiotic press machines combining for (according to Wikipedia) over 2 million units sold. Graduation also features the usual eclectic and hilarious samples, including Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne", Can's "Sing Swan Song", and Jackson's "P.Y.T." The Can sample is the most clever of the bunch, and if you squint your ears, it sounds like Damo is actually singing Kanye's lyrics. It's also probably the first time Can has been sampled in a pop hip-hop song.

Satisfied.

Devo on SNL... 1978.

Cage match

Via YouTube: David Tudor performs John Cage's 4'33".



I've never seen this piece performed live... the score is a nice touch.

Missing lyrics

A couple of songs that I've been trying to figure out the names for...

"These are the times
these are the days
When everyone goes
And everything stays..."

- or some such variant... my memory isn't totally clear on this.

The other one:

"The way you move
it doesn't matter
It doesn't matter how you cut your hair
It's what's inside that counts"

Extensive and repeated web searches have turned up absolutely nothing... my guess at this point is that they're jingles for beer ads from the mid 1990s that have bubbled up into my conscious mind.

Monday's big announcement

The prestigious Polaris Prize is being announced Monday. The Toronto library has 49 (!) copies of the Chad VanGaalen album, and 0 (!) holds! I expect the holds would jump after Monday, especially if he wins. I certainly don't envy the jury, as they've got a tough job ahead of them. My vote would be for Joel Plaskett, but this is a Canadian prize, so it could go to an artist who hasn't had tons of praise heaped on them (even if it is deserved).

Last year's winner, Final Fantasy, was a bit of a surprise to me, I thought it was the weakest of the bunch. I do agree with giving the lesser-known, and perhaps under-appreciated artists the prize. I don't see Miracle Fortress scoring an iPod commercial; and $20,000, though it looks sweet to anyone, would certainly look sweeter to one of the nominees without massive distribution deals.

The Nominees:

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse
The Dears - Gang of Losers
Julie Doiron - Woke Myself Up
Feist - The Reminder
Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
Miracle Fortress - Roses
Joel Plaskett - Ashtray Rock
Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection
Patrick Watson - Close to Paradise

LCD Nixed

The other night I was checking the musical guest on Leno, and to my surprise, the Info box said 'LCD Soundsystem'. I was very excited. So excited, in fact, that I actually watched seconds of Ali Larter and Dane Cook flinging feces at each other as Jay joined in. Then came the welcome break of the commercial... after minutes of channel flipping, the moment had come. This was going to be so cool! Would James Murphy be as drunk as he usually is at the shows? Would the band be 'rocking' it up this evening? Would Win Butler make a surprise appearance? The answers, of course, were moot, because when the commercial ended, Leno introduced not the dance/post-punk combo, but Chris Cornell.

There he was, and I thank Thor that he didn't play Billie Jean (see previous posts). With my last ounce of strength, I shut the TV off as watched Mr. Cornell settle his hand in pocket and begin to croon away. How disappointing.

Joel Plaskett Video

New video from Joel Plaskett (the Emergency seem to be missing) directed by Canadian music video director RT! I can't recall many other rock videos from by RT... as a matter of fact I can't seem to find a list of his credits, which makes it tough to verify this.

Other RT!-directed Videos:

Talib Kweli - Never Been In Love
Tone Mason feat. Brassmunk - The Throwback

Prince to sue YouTube

From Wired.

Video Vulgaris

The Queens of the Stone Age, currently in the midst of a tour and PR blitz in support of their stellar new album Era Vulgaris, appeared recently on the Henry Rollins show.



The band rolls into Toronto in October, playing the former O'Keefe Centre (3200 capacity)... an odd choice of venue, though it could be that they've outgrown the Kool Haus (2400 capacity) and not quite able to fill the ACC (about 20,000).

Priceless

Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8 [The Onion]

Young covers

There's an excellent feature article this week over at Stylus magazine, a thorough look at just about every Neil Young cover there is. What really caught my attention was the fact that Nicolette Larson's minor hit 'Lotta Love', is indeed, a Young cover. It turns out she was his backup singer. You learn something new every day.

CBC cops NPR

The CBC, following in the footsteps of its American counterpart in the states, has started using corporate sponsorship to support its podcasts. This is unfortunate, because it destroys one of the great aspects of the traditional terrestrial radio stations.

Return to Y2K

Sunday was an interesting night. Britney Spears crashed and burned at the MTV Video Awards, while the Smashing Pumpkins did much of the same at the second and final night at Toronto's Virgin Festival. Corgan and his new lineup played to a typically jaded and unresponsive Toronto audience, save of course when it came to the big hits, which were granted the requisite polite applause. The Pumpkins have a history of reworking their repertoire, and a non-electronic version of '1979' continues the trend. 'Zero' came off as a bit sloppy, though it may have been a 're-imagining' or sorts... a shadow of the former song for a shadow of the former band. The band's usually eclectic additions of covers and teases to their set is also noticeably absent in the band's current incarnation. And despite good intentions, associating 'O Canada' with their new, lackluster track 'United States' is not the way to win over the audience. That was a bit of a joke before about the Pumpkins crashing and burning... as disappointing as it is for Corgan to bring the band back and tarnish what was left of the band's legacy, it's still endlessly watchable and listenable in comparison to the embarrassing sight of the pop industry attempting to revive the career of a chewed up and all-too toasted pop tart.

Links:
Smashing Pumpkins - Virgin Festival setlist, September 9, 2007 [spfc.org]

Picard sings

Yep, it's true. This should be interesting.

National Post

American indie rock band The National released its fourth album this year. Before listening to Boxer, I had only heard their previous album, 2005's Alligator. Every cut is solid, and the new recording easily entices and earns multiple listens. The drums are noticeably louder and punchier, giving the piano and guitar parts more space for melody and texture. You know a rock band is serious about the piano when the piano player doesn't sing. Although, judging from their band configuration for their recent performance on Letterman, one extra slice out of the pie doesn't make a huge difference. Subtlety is the key word with this band, and that performance pretty much caught it... not bad for a TV performance, actually. Stand out tracks include 'Slow Show, 'Fake Empire', and the single Mistaken for Strangers, which sounds like a pseudo-goth/pop track from 1982 that time forgot, then found, then re-wrote, re-arranged and re-forgot. (read: compliment)
Oh, and Sufjan plays on a couple tracks.