CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award Nominations Open

The voting opened today in the CBC Radio 3 Bucky Awards - go to the Radio 3 website and nominate your favorites in the categories mentioned below before Oct. 30 (that's Friday).

Sexiest Musician: - Last year this went to Laura Barrett - so far this year a bunch of pretty people have been mentioned - Becky Ninkovic, Kathryn Calder, Jill Barber, Basia Bulat, Rebekah Higgs, Felicity Harmer ... even new NxEW contributor Mike Douguay is in the running.

In most categories vote for who you like, there are alot of really talented people in the mix and the award will go to someone who is really good at what they do regardless. But, since sexiest musician really has nothing to do with music, I'm going to campaign a bit in this one. Last year Laura Barrett (who is awesome) won - a woman who doesn't do makeup and wears glasses. So this year I'm actively pushing for a bald man with a beard and a beer belly - Vote Damian Abraham (pictured below) for sexiest musician and give him a second chance to kiss Grant Lawrence.



Best Song: Amoung the very many nominees for this always contentious category are

Elliott Brood - Write it all down for you
Julie Fader - Goodbye Before Hello
Dan Mangan - Robots
Joel Plaskett - Through & Through & Through
Mother Mother - Hayloft
Rah Rah - Duet For Emmylou And The Grievous Angel
Ohbijou - Black Ice
... there are alot

Most Canadian Song:Nominees so far include Said the Whale - Holly Ontario, Portico - Laura Secord, Andrew Vincent - Canadian Dream, Amelia Curran - Bye Bye Montreal, Elliott Brood - Oh, Alberta, Rah Rah - Duet for Emmylou and the Grevious Angel (there are more).

Best Live Act: Shout Out Out Out Out, Spiral Beach, Jenn Grant, Said the Whale, Clues, Joel Plaskett, Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees, the Burning Hell, Library Voices and many others have been mentioned so far.

Best New Artist: Zeus, the Wilderness of Manitoba, the Mountains and the Trees, Adaline, Pick a Piper, Hannah Georgas, the Rural Alberta Advantage, Analog Bell Service, the Racoons, Wooen Sky, NxEW's own Roziland McPhail and others are being discussed.

Best Vocals: Dan Mangan, Casey Mecija, Jenn Grant, Julie Faer, Amber Webber, Emily Haines, Neil Haverty, Rebekah Higgs and lots more so far.

Best Lyric: Lyrics by Dan Mangan, Metric, Amy Millan, Joel Plaskett, the Great Lake Swimmers, the Mountains and the Trees, Chad Van Gaalen, Meatdraw, the Burning Hell and a whole bunch more in the mix.

Best Reason to Learn French: Coeur de Pirate, Les Dales Hawerchuk and Malajube have all been nominated but based on the sentiment I think Coeur de Pirate walks away with this one (she's been nominated about 20 times.)

Best Band Name: Nominations so far for, amoung others, Gregory Pepper and His Problems, Rural Alberta Advantage, Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, Fucked Up, Topless Gay Love Tekno Pary!, Japandroids and You Say Party! We Say Die!

Lifetime Achivement Award: Nominees so far include Joel Plaskett, Brendan Canning, Dave Bidini, Veda Hille, the Constantines, Rick White, Julie Doiron and others.

Pick of the Week #39: Chad VanGaalen and A Polaris Apology (sort of)

Some of you, and one Polaris juror, responded and articulated how wrong I was about the Polaris Jury’s decision to award the big prize to Toronto hardcore outfit Fucked Up. To paraphrase the earlier post, I said that the jury picked Fucked Up to maintain its relevance as an artistic prize because it was the most different album, and that I didn’t really understand how the jury came to the decision that The Chemistry of Common Life deserved the $20,000 prize.

On the first count, I was definitely off base. I wasn’t in the jury room and I shouldn’t have made that leap assuming that I knew what was going on in the collective heads of the jurors. As with any group decision (see, for example the election of Stephane Dion as leader of the Liberals, or Joe Clark for the Conservatives in the 80s) the end choice of a group may be everyone's second choice. Of course, maybe it wasn't, and I guess the overriding point is that I don't know, and I shouldn't've assumed. So, there, I digress.

On the second count, that Fucked Up didn't deserve the Polaris, I still feel pretty strongly about that. I don’t get hardcore music, I’ve never got into that scene, so when my friend Cam suggested that it was a really progressive, genre bending album, my response was, huh? I just hear shouting… Oh, the shouting! I mean, it’s different than virtually every other Polaris nominee ever – as far as I’m concerned – and I’m all for encouraging different types of music, but it's still gotta be "the best". On the other hand, I suppose I should be giving props to the jury for picking something different. It’s not like they picked Metric or Great Lake Swimmers, who put out great albums, but were doing more or less what they’ve been doing for the last 4-5 years.

And I suppose you could say the same thing about Chad VanGaalen, who would’ve been my choice. He’s been doing strange, creepy, electro-influenced folk songs since Infiniheart came out in 2004?, but Soft Airplane was just so, so, good and nearly everyone agreed when the year came to an end last year. He won Matthew[I(heart)music]’s hottest Canadian Bands ’08, what more do you want from the guy? An album full of B-Sides that could've been a Polaris winner? Yeah, well, he's got that too.

After spending some time with the B-Sides, which are, in my estimation, a lot stranger, more electronic and a lot more "artistic"... I'm wondering whether excluding them from the album, which was lauded by many for being more accessible (less weird), might have hurt CVG. In any event, I'll get over it (actually, I probably won't), but at least I'll have something to complain about for a while...

Oh yeah, the whole EP is available for free at Soft Airplane.com.

Pick of the Week #35: Diamond Rings
Pick of the Week #36: The Wilderness of Manitoba
Pick of the Week #37: Asher Roth
Pick of the Week #38: Julie Doiron

City Sonic: Damian Abraham (Fucked Up) at Rotate This

City Sonic continues to bring you stories from Toronto Musicians talking about their favorite place. This time it's Damian Abraham of the Polaris Prize winning Fucked Up at Rotate This on Queen Street. For the full post visit City Sonic

Bandwidth with Fucked Up and Howie Beck

Someone out there is still recording Bandwidth so that people outside of Ontario, people in Toronto and people who couldn't listen at 5 pm Eastern on Saturday can hear it. On this particular episode of Bandwidth host Amanda Putz brings you an interview with Polaris Winner's Fucked Up, some live tunes from Howie Beck, A new song from Oh Susanna from Steve Dawson's tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks, music from Miles Jones, Snailhouse and info on upcoming shows around Ontario that you'll want to know about if you're the kind of person who likes music. She also gives a nice shout out to NxEW.ca! We heart you back Amanda!

You can Download It Here or Press Play

Radio 3's Polaris Gala Musical Performances Podcast

If you missed last night's Polaris Music Prize gala or if there are moments you'd like to relive CBC Radio 3 has a special edition podcast up with all of the performances from all 10 short list nominees.

I'll skip the controversy over the winner, hardcore doesn't speak to me on any level so I can't really judge. All I can say is congratulations to Fucked Up and to all of the short (and long) listers.

Download it or press play



There is also a bit of video beginning to show up:

Metric "Help I'm Alive" at the Polaris Music Prize Gala (Audience view)



Polaris Prize Winning 'Fucked Up' on Q TV

Western Canadian Music Award winners....oh yeah, and that Polaris Prize thing too....

Monday, September 21, 2009
WINNERS: Western Canadian Music Awards and the Polaris Prize
Sunday and Monday nights were jam-packed with performances and awards being handed out with both the Western Canadian Music Awards and the Polaris Prize taking place. First was the WCMA’s, happening in Brandon, Manitoba this year. It may have had something to do with the location of this year’s festival, but Manitoba artists walked away with a number of awards; including Independent Album of the Year (a personal favourite of mine, The Waking Eyes with their album Holding On To Whatever It Is beat out popular Albertans Shout Out Out Out Out) and Songwriter of the Year; with Romi Mayes and her album Achin’ In Yer Bones beating out Calgary’s Chad VanGaalen and his stellar Soft Airplanes record.

Mayes also took home Roots Solo Recording of the Year, while Roots Duo/Group Recording of the Year went to The Deep Dark Woods for Winter Hours, who you can catch here in Lethbridge at the Geomatic Attic on Sunday, October 4th with Little Miss Higgins (two great Saskatchewan bands for one price!). Manitoban artists also won Aboriginal Recording of the Year (Eagle & Hawk – Sirensong), Blues Recording of the Year (Big Dave McLean ‐ Got 'Em from the Bottom), and Country recording of the Year (Doc Walker ‐ Beautiful Life).

Albertans weren’t left empty handed though, with Classical Recording of the Year going to Windrose Trio for Path of Contact, featuring the U of A’s Jeff Campbell, and Jazz recording of the Year awarded to Jerrold Dubyk for The Maverick. Urban Recording of the Year also went to Edmonton’s Krystle Dos Santos for her self-titled effort. Unfortunately, the awards of Pop Recording and Rock Recording of the Year awards went to the undeserving, generic sounding Marianas Trench and Theory of a Deadman, respectively, when there were many better bands to pick from in those categories.

The big money was handed out on Monday night though, with the prestigious Polaris Music Prize being awarded in Toronto. The Polaris Prize is selected solely on artistic merit without any regard for sales history, genre or label affiliation and is decided by a jury of music journalists, bloggers, broadcasters and other Canuck-savvy music types. Any album that is at least eight songs or thirty minutes long is eligible for the prize as long as it was released within the past year. The jury made a bold statement this year by selecting the most controversial band of the ten-band short list, awarding the $20,000 prize to Fucked Up, a hardcore punk rock band from Toronto. Definitely deserving of the award, their album The Chemistry of Common Life was much talked about and is certainly worth your time to give it a listen if you haven’t heard it already. Other nominees on the short list this year included Metric, K’Naan and Chad VanGaalen among others, and all ten nominees performed during the gala on Monday night. If you want to see the show for yourself, Much Music is running an edited version of the awards this Saturday night at 9pm EST and again at midnight. A great way to watch some new Canadian bands you might not have known already and catch an awesome performance by the winners.

All 10 Nominees to Perform at Polaris Gala

Via CBC Radio 3 comes word that for the first time in the history of the Polaris Music Prize history all 10 nominees will be on hand to play at the Plaris Gala on Sept. 21. That means (in case you didn't know or have forgotten):

Elliott BROOD
Fucked Up
Great Lake Swimmers
Hey Rosetta!
K’NAAN
Malajube
Metric
Joel Plaskett
Chad VanGaalen
Patrick Watson

Last year's winner Caribou will also be on hand and Radio 3 has promised a "podcast version of all 10 performances".

The Grand Jury that will choose this year's winner from the list above consists of Bryan Acker (Herohill), Stuart Derdeyn (the Province), Mary Dickie (Elle), Brad Frenette (National Post), Nicholas Jennings (freelance), Robert Mersereau (CBC TV), Brendan Murphy (Hour), Mia Parang (Musique Plus), Ben Rayner (Toronto Star), Brad Wheeler (the Globe and Mail) and Lisa Wilton (Calgary Sun).  

Thoughts on the 2009 Polaris Short List

Art is art, it is neither science nor is it sports. It is entirely subjective, it can't be quantified or measured. The Juno Awards generally measure by record sales, though that is a measure of money, not art. Think of it like a Rorschach test (the one with the ink blots.)



What something looks like to me and what it looks like to you may be entirely different but that doesn't make either of us wrong (though it does mean that you're crazy). The Polaris Jury is made up of 'music journalists' - people from the national press, bloggers, radio hosts and others. They each get five votes for the long list, and five votes for the short list and then it goes to a 'Grand Jury' who spill chicken entrails on the floor and look for an answer in them.

You and I may not be happy with some of the results. I talked to a few Jurors today who weren't happy with the results. But it's hard to say it isn't 'fair.' Finding a 'fair' way to do it is nearly impossible when the subject is subjective.

It is true though that if you ask different people you get different answers. If you and I lay in a field and try to figure out what clouds look like we'll have different answers. Tomorrow we'll trim the long long long list that NxEW readers created down to 20 (I'll publish the top 40 just for point of comparison) and some people won't be happy with it but the answer will be different than Polaris' answer.

I do not know who all voted, but I have some idea who NxEW's readers are. They are, in some cases, music journalists. They are, in some cases, music bloggers. They are, in some cases, radio hosts. They are even, in some cases, polaris jurors. However they are also musicians, and promoters, sound technicians, and uber music fans - the people who go to shows on a regular basis, the people who buy CDs and t-shirts by the truckload. They are, in short all people who really love Canadian music (including people who aren't Canadian). So the votes of these others will change the dynamic, change the perspective and change the answer to the question. Granted we're small. We don't have 20 thousand dollars to give out but we will still acknowledge some great Canadian albums including albums completely overlooked by Polaris (I can guarantee at this point that some of our top 20 are not even on the Polaris long list.)

This does not mean though that Polaris is wrong. I sincerely congratulate everyone who made the list. That I would not have voted for some of them does not, in the least, diminish their achievement. They have all, whether you are a fan or not, worked very hard for many, many years and have achieved great things. They should all revel in it and everyone should show some respect to them - even if they have favorites not on this particular list.


the 2009 Polaris Short List

Elliott Brood - Mountain Meadows



Fucked Up - Chemistry of Common Life



Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels



Hey Rosetta! - Into Your Lungs (and around your heart and on through your blood)



K'Naan - Troubadour



Malajube - Labyrinthes



Metric - Fantasies



Joel Plaskett - Three



Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane



Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

MW Music Review on Pamela Brennan.

London Free Press on the new Rock Plaza Central.

Herohill interviews K-OS

Chartattack reports Fucked Up's Pink Eyes Joins Fox News

iheartthemusic.com chats w/ Hey Ocean!

Natalia Yanchak checks in from the Dears tour where people are getting tired (but they're back in Canada now.)

the Times Columnist is also taking a look at the Dears and old songs new.

Canadians at Pitchfork Music Festival

Uber-trendy online indie music site, Pitchfork, is certainly among the oldest and most elite arbitrers of indie music taste. Love 'em or hate 'em (for you Patrick Watson fans out there, the Pitchfork rating of his latest was very poor - but Sixeyes' blogger Alan Williamson made a great rebuttal in a tweet: "the diff between pitchforks review of Patrick Watson's new record and my review is the diff between not understanding and understanding").


In any case, Pitchfork also runs an amazing music festival in Chicago, which takes place this year from July 17 - 19. And although they are not hugely represented, a few Canadian bands will be performing. The Festival just announced its latest Canadian addition - inaugural Polaris Prize winner Final Fantasy (Toronto singer-songwriter and violinist Owen Pallett). Rounding out the bill from the north will be Plants and Animals (Polaris and Juno nominee), Fucked Up, Japandroids, and Women (see my earlier post on American appreciation of Women here, and see some photos below from a recent show at the Flemish Eye Ball).

With a line-up that includes indie rock royalty such as Built to Spill, Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, the National, the Walkmen, the Thermals, the Flaming Lips, the Jesus Lizard, and many more, this promises to provide excellent exposure for these fantastic Canadian Bands. Good luck!

Mos Def Namedrops Fucked Up in the New York Times, Sort Of

Does anyone else suspect that Fucked Up have just become the Shins of 2009? As in, yeah, they're good, and they have some really big fans, but having hit the zeitgeist (Garden State for the Shins, CNN for Fucked Up), they're just being name-dropped by people to show they have cred? I can't count the number of big-name publications these guys are getting mentioned in, the latest being the New York Times.

Well, sort of. In yesterday's paper, American rapper Mos Def (who recently appeared on Troubadour by  K'Naan, by the way, who is another Canadian musician-turned-CNN fave-- what's with that?) was talking about his favourite bands of the moment, but for his last selection all that's there is a series of asterisks. But then he names the album, "The Chemistry of Common Life", and we all know who he's talking about. Here's what he has to say:


"You know how you hear something and you just relate? They rock. I like the title of their album too: “The Chemistry of Common Life” (Matador). I think I found out about them on the Net, I saw their name [unprintable in this newspaper], I said, “I’m game, I want to see what they’re about.” It’s raw, but it’s elegant. It’s intelligent, hardcore rock. It’s like Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Fugazi. A lot of people will call it punk, but it’s rock. It’s got good melodies. I listen to them on the road a lot. A lazy Sunday is a good time to listen to them. I would chill out to this music, read a book like “Animal Farm” and listen to this" 

You can read the full article here.