NxEW is YOUR Canadian Music Site

When I say that it's YOUR music site, I don't mean it the way people do when they use it in commercials (your local hardware store, or your consumer electronics store). I mean that it's peer driven music news. It was set up to fill in any and all gaps in musical coverage - to cover things that others did, but also to cover things that others don't.

I periodically write things like this for people who haven't read our About page, our Join Us page, our for organizations page, and our podcast guidelines etc., - most of you don't. I've seen the numbers.

After conversations with people from everywhere I noticed that pretty much everyone was dissatisfied with music coverage - not that the reporting was bad but: people on the west coast felt that the east got too much attention, people in Ontario and Quebec felt that the US got too much attention, people in the Maritimes and the Prairies felt that everyone but them got too much attention. So I started a site where everyone could write about anything they wanted, whether that was stuff that was already being covered or not. I even tossed out the conflict of interest rules. If you want to talk about your own band, your friends bands, what's going on at your venue, coming up on your university radio station etc., go ahead (read the Join Us page I mentioned for details.)

We currently have 180+ contributors now from all over Canada and beyond all writing about Canadian music from their own perspective but even that is not nearly enough. We have 180 people but no budget and no 'staff'. We have 180 people with jobs, and school, and bands, friends, other projects, etc., so we're not covering as much as we could/should/would like to. We get all of your lovely emails, suggestions, press releases but there just aren't enough people/hours to handle them all.

It's our website and it can be yours too - whatever time you may have to contribute (be it once a day or once a month) join us and add your .02 !

NxEW.ca Needs some Feedback, Especially from Musicians

I have an idea for NxEW.ca's year end awards but I need some feedback and if you're a musician yourself I'll need your help to make this work.

At NxEW.ca we've had our Shadow Polaris poll and voting is still open for a bit on our Canadian Album Hall of Fame but we haven't been able to figure out how to mark the best of 2009. The discussion has started a few times but it has never gotten very far. We don't want to replicate the Radio 3 Bucky Awards or I (Heart) Music's Top 10 list.

Today I came up with an idea, and I think it's a good one but it will require the participation of a bunch of Canadian musicians. It goes something like this:

Canadian musicians would vote for the best of 2009 on a weighted ballot. A weighted ballot means that each voter would give us their top 5 in each category but the #1 vote would be worth 5 points and the #5 would be worth 1 point.

The categories (roughly) would be something like this (1-7 are for Canadian artists):

1) Best Artist (all around - including recorded, live, etc)
2) Best Album
3) Best Song
4) Best Newcomer (first full length album in 2009)
5) Best Live Act
6) Best Video 
7) Best Live Venue
8) Best International Artist (Not Canadian - just for fun)

So those are the basics, now I need to know what's wrong with the idea, what needs to be different and most especially whether musicians would be willing to vote. Please weigh in in the comments section, contact me through Facebook or email northbyeastwest@gmail.com.

Musicians are Welcome (encouraged even) to Contribute to NxEW.ca

I've said this before and it is clearly laid out here but people seem surprised to hear it anyway. We welcome and encourage musicians to write for NxEW. Whatever music journalists may think no one knows more about Canadian music than the people who make it. Most people who write about music (myself included) haven't formally studied music. Many of them (myself included) can't actually play an instrument and some of them (myself excluded and I'm not naming names) have strange ideas about the lives of musicians (such as assuming that if you're headlining a Canadian tour it means that you're financially successful and have left your day job far behind.). So, once more in the chance that a few people see this who missed it before - from our open invitation:

I AM IN A BAND / A PROMOTER / A PRODUCER ETC., CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Yes! Conflict of interest rules were primarily created because of business and politics. We're not electing world leaders, we're not helping people make important financial decisions so we don't care about conflict of interest.


NxEW.ca exists because of the love of Canadian music. If you're a Canadian musician, or are otherwise involved in the 'music business' you likely have good information to share. Please do so.

read the full thing at nxew.ca/join.html

Don't get me wrong, we don't want daily updates on your band's every move, nor do we want you to review your own album but if you want to tell us about tour dates, the realities of the business, life on the road, your friends projects, etc., please come aboard and do so!

Help Build the Ultimate Canadian Music Links Section

I still have a list of bands to add to the bands links but if you have suggestions for that feel free to pass them along. I will obviously keep adding to it over time. Soon though I'll begin work on building similar pages for venues, concert series, festivals, campus and community radio, blogs and publications, and anything else I can think of.

The idea here is not simply to help people find cool stuff (the basic idea behind having any links section at all.) The idea is to help people plug in: Let's say you move to a new town, or suddenly discover a deep love for Canadian music - once this links section is done you will be able to completely plug in via whatever method works for you. I'm not only including one link, I'm including (as in the bands section) links to the home page or blog / the myspace / facebook page or group / twitter / etc.,

So people will be able to in a few minutes, plug into their local venues and concert series, connect with local blogs, with bands they like, with local radio etc., by whatever method works best for them. (ie follow them all on Twitter, add them all on Facebook etc.).

If you have good links for anythink I've mentioned above feel free to pass them along by leaving them in the comments below, or by emailing northbyeastwest@gmail.com.

NxEW International (or why haven't you joined us yet)?

Yesterday NxEW added our first writer in England. Now, in addition to 160 ish contributors from all over Canada (40+ cities and towns) we have people in Northern Michigan, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Rio (you can see a full list here). We're still an all Canadian web site - these people are watching for Canadian bands on tour so they can report back to us.

Canadians are obviously still welcome to join up, we have plenty of room but we would love to have people in other international cities, big and small, who would like to do show reviews, maybe snap some pics, even do interviews and report back.

The rules are really simple, we've tossed most of them. We don't care about conflict of interest (we have many musicians on board), we don't really have assignments, and usually no deadlines (except on a few special time sensitive projects), we have no minimum number of posts, or maximums either. You can post daily, or annually. If you're interested read this page for an outline of what we're about and, if it all works for you, send a short bio to northbyeastwest@gmail.com.

You can also join us as a Special Contributor - if you have a Canadian website dedicated to music, run a venue, book shows, work in campus or community radio and would like to do an occasional post on upcoming stuff we'll put you down as a special contributor for ________________ - there are currently people in this category from Indie Buzz Werks, SuperNova.com and the Hamilton Infringement Festival.

Feel free to fire any questions you have to the email address above or leave them in the comments section.

NxEW Podcast Returns Next Week: And Revised Guidelines

The NxEW Mixtape Podcast is coming back next week. I haven't done one in a bit while I attended to some other things. I'm also revising things a bit to try to streamline the process so it doesn't require as much time.

When I say this is the revised podcasting policy it's actually replacing a general lack of policy. We always got permission for things but that was part of the problem.

There were times when I spend weeks trying to get permission for a song only to finally here - "sure, please do. Thanks!" - It would be one thing if I ever got a 'No!' but the closest to that we ever got was "can you play this song instead?" and that has been very rare (once so far).

So, going forward this is how I'll work things:

If we already have an arrangement, don't worry. We'll stick to the original arrangement.

If we don't already have an arrangement I'll assume that songs posted for free download, or posted for download on legitimate music blogs (not the ones that offer up entire albums without permission) such as herohill, I (Heart) Music, Chromewaves, Narratives etc., are ok to play. I'll also assume that songs posted in free samplers - like those on the Line of Best Fit or Zunior.com are good to play.

If you're an artist or you represent some and the above isn't ok with you and you want a different arrangement, please get in touch at northbyeastwest@gmail.com

If you're a Canadian artist, or represent some and want to get in on the podcast feel free to get in touch at northbyeastwest@gmail.com. The easiest way to get them to us is to send a download link, but if that doesn't work we'll figure something out. You should also know that just because you send in something doesn't mean that it will be on the podcast. There are currently 19,467 Canadian artists listed on CBC Radio 3's new music Canada site. Those artists have uploaded 86,201 tracks - that is not all of the artists in Canada (there are some not on Radio 3) and it is far from being all of the songs available. Our podcast runs an hour per week. Other than a brief intro there is no talking so there's room for more music but there are still limits to what we can fit.

A New Section of NxEW for Musicians (& Their Associates)

I've added a new section to the site, and it's the only section that isn't all about Canadian music. It's called Music 2.0 and it's an aggregated feed of sites about the business of music - promotions, marketing, web tools and other things for people trying to do it themselves or for people who are trying to make the most of the opportunities available on behalf of someone else.

Included at this point are Artist House Music, Musician Wages, New Music Strategies, New Rock Star Philosophy and DIY Musician.

In short - if you just want to hear about new albums, tours, watch videos etc., this probably isn't of much interest to you - if you're a musician, manager, publicist, promoter or otherwise are very interested in the business side of music you might want to check it out.

It's been added to the feeds, the most recent few stories will show up at the bottom of our home page and a longer list of recent articles can be found at nxew.ca/music2.

You can also Subscribe in a feed reader or by email and get it delivered to you.

I'm going to be adding worthwhile feeds to this as I find them but feel free to make recommendations.

Help Spread the Love for NxEW.ca

In our, just over, seven months of existence delivering Canadian music goodness to (as of right now) 82,686 unique visitors without spending anything at all on advertising / marketing or promotion.

We decided early on to focus exclusively on Canadian music because, with the exception of the understaffed CBC Radio 3 - no one else was. We probably could have generated more traffic by making it international and doing stories about U2, Radiohead and Weezer or even Kanye West, Coldplay and Beyonce but we decided to focus on home grown stuff - not out of prejudice but because no one else was and because it is the music closest to us (emotionally and geographically).

Hopefully, eventually, a budget will come and we'll be able to do even more fun things but at the moment we don't know how we want to monetize the site. We've run a few ads but they generally generated so little that we decided that the space was better used promoting the artists we support.

So, for the time being our growth is up to you. I've tried to make contact via the various social media platforms with people who I thought might support what we're trying to do but I'll never possibly find them all. So we need your help. Please spread the word to other people who might also love NxEW and Canadian Music (even people not in Canada). There are a number of different ways you can do it.

You can add us on various platforms if you haven't already and urge others to do the same. Find us on

Twitter
Be Our Friend on Facebook (first 5,000 customers only) and/or become a fan.
If you want to kick it old school you can Add us on Myspace.
We also have accounts on YouTube, Digg and StumbleUpon.

Beyond that we have feeds set up so that you can get everything from the site, or just from certain areas. Visit nxew.ca/feeds/ for those.

We also have a whole bunch of stuff you can add to your blog/myspace/whatever... at nxew.ca/promote.

Finally, if you're feeling a little extra ambitious you can make some flyers for us and put them up where ever you are - at work/school/local pub/coffee house etc., There is an easy 4 up flyer here (pdf) but feel free to make your own. If you do send it to us, we'll show it off on the site and offer it up to others who might not have the art skills.

NxEW Loves You, thanks for reading - even if that's all you do.

NxEW Reloaded: What Has Changed And Why

In case you haven't noticed yet we've done a bit of renovating at NxEW.ca. It's not as clean and streamlined as it was but NxEW is a content heavy web site and the goal was to make it easier to find the things you are looking for and to keep up with the things you are interested in.

Previously the front page simply listed the most recent posts, and it still does. The problem was that those posts would frequently disappear within a week so if you hadn't checked in awhile you missed stuff. So we've added some sections like reviews, interviews, and tour dates - these will show reviews and interviews we've done and reviews and interviews we've talked about that you might want to check out.

We've also added a section called Elsewhere that lists recent articles from some of our favorite Canadian music blogs. Although only a few from each category are shown on the front page each has it's own page that goes back quite awhile and there are now a number of different feeds you can subscribe to so you can get the stuff you want the way you want it.

We've also added a Spotlight Artist feature. Every week a different artist will be featured in the hope of shining a light on someone we like and think you should be aware of.

We have not built in an archive section, because we can't build one that works very well with the way our site is set up. NxEW is run through Blogger and Blogger limits us to just 100 contributors per blog - so we have multiple blogs that are all collected together into our feed. So an archive would only show the articles from that particular blog and not all of them - what we do have though is a site specific google search (see the right hand column) so if you just type in what you are looking for it will give you any and all mentions of that topic on the site.

Another thing we have not done is build regional feeds - doing that would go against the very idea that NxEW was founded on: The goal is to have contributors from all over and for everyone to be aware of what is going on everywhere - so our contributors from Saskatchewan (or Manitoba, or Nova Scotia etc) can share the things they are excited about with the country. Regional feeds would allow people in Toronto, or Montreal, etc., to go back to naval gazing, reading only the stuff that is about them in particular. So we could build regional feeds, but we won't.

So again, quickly, what we currently have:

About: The obligitory about us page

Join Us: Where we try to talk you into becoming a contributor to the blog

Who We Are: Brief bios of our many, many contributors.

Links: Other stuff on the internet that you should check out

Mixtape Podcast: NxEW's own podcast where we STFU and play music

Promote NXEW: Where we encourage you to help promote the site

Awards - a small section for now but this is where we'll list all of our awards like the Shadow Polaris and the Album Hall of Fame

Reviews: The latest reviews by us and others that we like

InterviewsThe latest interviews by us and others that we like

Vinyl: The latest info on what is being released on vinyl

Video - the latest video, live and otherwise.

Tour Dates - see who is on tour and where they are going.

Free Stuff - The latest free stuff, samplers, MP3s, albums and free shows

Podcasts - we talk about podcasts alot - not just our own, but many that are done by others. This will keep you up to date - there are also lists available of the CBC Radio 3 Sessions, Radio 3 TV, CBC Radio's Bandwidth, Soundcheck from the National Post and Colin Medley and, of course, our own Mixtape Podcast.

Elsewhere - The latest stuff from our favorite Canadian music blogs (other than our own.)

I Heart Radio - with details on how to get over a hundred channels of free, independent and mostly commercial free radio on your computers media player.

And a long list of Feeds that we offer - which allows you to subscribe to absolutely everything and/or subsets on information.

We'll keep doing our best to keep making it all bigger and better for you.

Cheers!

What Are Your Favorite Canadian Music Blogs?

We've been discussing some changes to NxEW.ca and shortly I'll begin implementing those changes. I won't give you all the details right now but one of the new sections of the site will be a collection of the latest posts from other Canadian music blogs. So, this isn't going to be a contest or a poll, no voting or short lists but I thought I'd throw the question out there and ask - "Other than NxEW.ca what are the Canadian music blogs that you like and would like to see included in that new section?"

Please get your suggestions in in whatever way works best for you - Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, nothbyeastwest@gmail.com or just leave a comment below.

The Onion Helps to Remind Us What We Shouldn't Be

A great article in the Onion pointed out by CBC Radio 3 boss Steve Pratt entitled "Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8". Obviously, this is satire - that's what the onion does. I won't comment on it's fairness or lack there of in taking jabs at Pitchfork but I liked the article not only because it was funny but because it nicely encapsulates the kinds of things I try to avoid with NxEW. Jut to give you a quick taste of the Onion piece:

"Schreiber's semi-favorable review, which begins in earnest after a six-paragraph preamble comprising a long list of baroquely rendered, seemingly unrelated anecdotes peppered with obscure references, summarizes music as a "solid but uninspired effort."

"Coming in at an exhausting 7,000 years long, music is weighed down by a few too many mid- tempo tunes, most notably 'Liebesträume No. 3 in A flat' by Franz Liszt and 'Closing Time' by '90s alt-rock group Semisonic," Schreiber wrote. "In the end, though music can be brilliant at times, the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement.""

When starting NxEW I was very aware of the criticisms leveled at a certain faction of the 'music intelligencia'. There is a certain modern school of music fans/critics that says that anything you've ever heard of sucks, that looks for things to criticize, and where 'derivative of' is a huge slam. The people that use 1,000 words to describe a 3 minute song and that likes music that 'you're probably never heard of because it's pretty obscure' (but that won't tell you what it is or encourage you to listen to it because if you like it it means that they can't anymore. This attitude is, to put it bluntly, b.s. posing that isn't good for music and really isn't meant to be.

By contrast I, and so far to my experience the other NxEW writers - want you to like the music we do. If it's 'pretty obscure' we want it to be less obscure. We want people out buying albums and going to shows. We don't look down on people because of what they like (even if we don't agree). We're here to tell you about music we like and we hope that, at least sometimes, you like it too. There are obviously alot of words that go into the site but we don't try to confuse you or write an essay about the song when we could just play the song and let you decide for yourself.

This is the ideal anyway and if you ever catch us deviating from it: If we start coming off like pretentious, self important, superior assholes please call us on it. Creating music is difficult and complex - listening to music should be simple and fun.

p.s. everything isn't derivative of pavement, but everything is derivative of something or several things. People who create music are influenced by what they hear and enjoy and elements of what they enjoy will make it's way into their music. Anything else would be unnatural.

NxEW Interview on CKCU

This morning I was interviewed on CKCU (Ottawa) by David Yazbeck (who also happens to write for the site) about NxEW.ca, what it's all about, where it comes from and all those good things. If you missed it, and you're interested I've got it right here.

Download It or Press Play

North by East West on CKCU Tomorrow Morning

Tomorrow morning on the Thursday Morning Special Blend on CKCU, Justin Beach will be talking about this blog and choosing a tune or two to play. Tune in to CKCU online at www.ckcufm.com or in Ottawa at 93.1 FM after 9:00 to hear the conversation between Justin and me about why NxEW was started, why it's so important, and what you can do to get involved.

And for Joel Plaskett fans, tune in to the same show during the first hour, around 8:35 or so, and you can hear the first instalment of my interview with Joel last August at the Ottawa Folk Festival. Great timing, too, since Joel's latest record "Three" has just been nominated for the Canadian Folk Music Awards in the categories of Contemporary Album of the Year and Solo Artist of the Year.

Help Us Fix NxEW.ca

It's not broken, as far as I know (though opinions to the contrary are welcome) however there has been some discussion about creating a few separate sections on the site for things like reviews, event notices and tour dates, interviews, featured artists, podcasts (already exists) and a special section for vinyl news and reviews. Doing all of this, or even a large part of it, will require something of a redesign so....

What would you like to see NxEW do, or do differently, or not do at all? What should and shouldn't be fixed? What should be added or taken away? What am I not asking that you have a good answer to?

Beyond that, I'd like to mention yet again that we are wide open to new contributors. I've said from the beginning that if we're not covering the music you like or not covering it well enough it's not our fault it's yours. We have an open door policy and a set of rules that wouldn't exist at all if they were any more lax - to summarize the basic editorial policy is anarchy (just keep it Canadian and don't get us sued) - there are no deadlines, no assignments, no style guide, no real editorial policy, no minimums or maximums, and no conflict of interest rules. You write what you want about anything you want when you have time.

We are also not in competition with anyone if you like Canadian music we're willing to work with you - if you'd like to be a 'correspondent' and tell our readers about upcoming events, special things going on etc., at your campus, community or public radio station, for your particular show, for your online or other publication, venue, label, etc.. etc., just drop an email to northbyeastwest@gmail.com.

You can drink our kool aid, we make good kool aid! NxEW loves you. Please join us and/or tell us how to do better. Feel free to comment on this post, drop us an email, talk to us on Facebook or on Twitter @NxEW - if we do a revamp it will be awhile before we do another so tell us what we need to know.

Coming Soon on NxEW

A couple of things coming up on NxEW.ca that readers should be aware of. Tomorrow our Shadow Polaris poll will be over and the winner will be announced. Shortly after that we'll launch something a little different. It will be a new poll, and it will be based on artistic merit. You will be nominating and then voting on the best Canadian albums of all time. So sort of like Polaris but here's the catch. Nominated albums have to be at least 5 years old so for this first, introductory run only albums that came out in 2004 or before will be eligible. That means that the 'flavor of the month' won't take this one. Having an album that is popular at the moment won't get you anywhere. It has to be an album that, at least 5 years later, people are still saying 'yeah, that was a great album. I still listen to it.' - which is a little harder to measure up to. It also means that the albums nominated will be up against everything produced from the dawn of recorded music to 2004. Nominations will be open soon (not yet, wait for it, think about it.)

The other thing that is coming up is city guides - Our contributors, with the help of you all, are going to come up to guides to the cities that they live in. These will include things like - hot local bands, great local venues, places to eat and stay while you're in the city, sites and shops you might want to take in, web sites that give good info on what's going on locally etc., etc., Each will also include (if all goes right, a free sampler (mp3s) from local bands you should check out. So - yet another thing for you to ponder - the call for info on this will go out soon as well. We also have a good partner for this (I think) that will help provide national and even international exposure for these city guides.

Stay tuned. Our second six months are going to be pretty f'in cool.

NxEW.ca Turns None and a Half

I have long thought that Canadian music was under-appreciated in Canada. Whatever the wonderful readers of this blog may think 80-90% of Canada has never heard of any of Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire, the New Pornographers, Joel Plaskett or the Weakerthans (much less anyone else). Feist is doing a little better but only after a few Grammy nominations. Meanwhile the world is increasingly recognizing Canada as a unending garden of musical talent. Canada currently sells one album abroad for every one we import and in terms of overall dollars our music business come second only to the United States in the English speaking world. Record labels from the U.S. and the U.K. are signing Canadian acts right and left and Gene Simmons (of KISS) is currently trying to start a new record label comprised entirely of Canadian artists.

I made various efforts to make this point but, while things have certainly improved, I still didn't feel that it was good enough. With the wealth of musical talent in this country it should be all over the airwaves, Canadian radio stations should be struggling to find space for international artists and even Canadian television should be showing regular concerts, videos and interviews. A night should never go by that there aren't Canadian musical guests on shows like the Hour.

Even the Canadian Music media isn't quite good enough. Much of it is still obsessed with artists from outside of Canada and most of it is concentrated in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver - all great cities to be sure, but far from being the whole story.

A little over 6 months ago, during the Canadian Music Fest, I decided it was time to stop trying to convince the existing media and do something. I remember Canadian Music Fest / Canadian Music Week in particular because it was this year that I finally figured out that Canadian Music Week actually makes Toronto less Canadian than it usually is when it comes to music.

So, I asked myself what I could do instead of criticizing the media and the answer was NxEW.ca - which is exactly six months old today. The idea is simple - to create a group blog that is open to Canadian music lovers from everywhere. If people from all over the country will share their thoughts on bands they like, music they like, shows they've seen etc., and enough people do it we will have a good overview of the Canadian music scene - all of it. As opposed to being concentrated in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver NxEW.ca currently has 135 contributors in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Winnipeg, Sackville, St. John's, Guelph, London, Windsor, Peterborough, Banff, Lethbridge, Charlottetown, Regina, Saskatoon and a few dozen other Canadian cities plus people in New York, Boston and Los Angeles watching for Canadian bands on tour.

We have, in our first six months, served up nearly 1,200 blog posts on hundreds of Canadian artists and albums and have had 63,000 unique visitors to the site. We have 2,032 people following us on Twitter (that's just 22 people shy of CBC Sports) and 1,573 friends (not fans) on Facebook and almost 500 people subscribe to the site via RSS or Email. All of this has been accomplished without spending any money. To date we've paid for web hosting and domain registration and that's it - we've spend no money on promotions or advertising.

There are bigger and better things in the works for the next six months. Please help us grow by telling a few friends and if you love music join us!

A Few More..ok alot more Thoughts on Polaris and Canadian Music

There are Three things which have popped up which have me thinking and so, if you'll forgive me, I'm going to blather a little bit. The first is a post on Zolius about the group think that develops in any community. The second was a post in Eye Weekly in which Metric is forced to be defensive about their Polaris nomination within minutes of receiving it. The third is our own Shadow Polaris voting and the lack of diversity I mentioned there. (Though I am deeply impressed by the taste of the voters.)

Indie music fans have always pretended that what they wanted was something real, but many of them do not seem to think that musicians who want to make a living are real so I'm going to attempt, at once, to defend and explain NxEW.ca and to try to set some parameters on real.

First, for NxEW's part - we are a volunteer run organization. All of our contributors write out of a passion for the music they love. There is an interesting dynamic that takes place in music where anything that does not include you is somehow illegitimate. I recently had a conversation with someone that went something like this:

me: downloading is not the enemy, it is a good way to promote your music.

him: but it steals from artists.

me: not necessarily, you're assuming that everyone who downloads would have bought it

him: I don't care, if people want my music they need to pay for it.

me: but there are so many artists giving their music away that even if you stop people all you will succeed in doing is making people never listen to your music in the first palce.

him: I know alot of artists are giving their music away. That doesn't matter, ;you're assuming that all music is created equal.

me: there are two things all artists can agree on: 1) Not all music is created equal and 2) their own is exceptional. (I should add that this is someone I'd never heard of prior to this conversation.)

him: ...

The fuel that runs NxEW is passion, if there is a certain amount of groupthink, a certain lack of diversity it is because (something like) 110 people are deeply passionate about that particular type of music. It does not mean that your music is bad, but you are failing to evoke passion. NxEW has an open door policy for contributors (though we only cover Canada so that we can do a good job of covering Canada) but we never ask anyone to cover anything that doesn't interest them. At the same time we are overwhelmingly positive. While "it is better to promote what you do like than tear down what you don't" isn't editorial policy here it is more or less something people adhere to.

There was a great deal of talk in the comments on the Zolius post about what is overlooked by polaris, about all the other genres of music outside popular indie rock that weren't included but if Canada's music bloggers and journalists aren't excited by what's going on in those genres, if they're not actively listening to it and talking about it why would they nominate it for awards? It doesn't mean that that music is bad, but it is failing to inspire people to talk about it. The Canadian indie/rock/pop that dominates the Polaris prize and even our own shadow Polaris vote is actually very exciting and diverse. A person who doesn't regularly listen may not see it, just like a person who doesn't regularly listen to classical may not know the difference between Mozart and Beethoven but the current Canadian indie/pop/rock music scene is influenced by everything that came before it. If you listen to the whole broad spectrum you will hear the influence of classic rock, new wave, punk, disco, funk, reggae, hip hop, world music, classical, jazz, soul, orchestral, folk, country, roots and on and on. Unlike many of the popular musicians who came before them many of todays popular musicians have both been playing since a very early age and have some amount of higher education in music, including classical training. Those who dismiss it as 'all the same' have a very incomplete musical education or simply aren't listening carefully enough.

On we must go though to the second half. The indie and real part. I will be the first to acknowledge that many of today's popular musical entertainers are not real - much of what is played on commercial radio is little better than karaoke  People of questionable talent singing over the music of others - people who have little or no musical talent sining vocals they didn't write over music they didn't write or perform which is then so over produced that many of the worlds dumber people cannot tell the difference. The thing to remember, for artists and fans, is that most of these performers will have brutally short careers. The people who listen to, like and buy such music are not really music fans. They are gullible and uneducated and listen to music because it is popular and because they believe that liking it will improve their own popularity and improve their odds of getting laid. Most of these people will stop purchasing music altogether by the age of 25-30 and many of them will download it all anyway because they do not care about music and they do not care about musicians.

I have said before, and will doubtless say again because I repeat myself: what I would like to see is a world where musicians (and other talented artists) are treated like the highly skilled professionals they are and paid accordingly. That means no (or very few) mega stars riding in limos, buying yachts and trashing four star hotel rooms but talented musicians on the whole being able to pay the rent (or motgage) and earning a living comparable to other skilled professionals: doctor, lawyer, stock broker, musician (or other artist).

To achieve this though people must change their perceptions and expectations of musicians. They are, we have to remind ourselves, people. People with a skill and a job to do, but ultimately people. They have good days and bad days, they have various personalities, they have a limited number of hours in the day, they have various interests and obligations, they have friends and families and they want to earn a living (preferably using the skills that they have learned over many years of study and that they have a passion for employing.)

The first thing we have to get over is archetypes. If you are unfamiliar with the work of Joseph Campbell in this area then your education is not complete - it is vitally important to your understanding of politics, religion, popular culture, the arts and much more - back to school with you. The key point here though is that we have certain expectations of 'rock stars': The 'rebel without a cause', the 'diva', the 'introverted poet' and so on. This is not 'real' it actually takes away from our appreciation of music in that we're focused on appearances and it forces costumes and false personalities on musicians who are none of those things.

Second we must get over, or at least redefine, 'sell out'. The only question we should ask ourselves is "is the music still good? Do I still like it?" A bizarre mentality has emerged where it's ok for Feist to work in the mailroom for apple computers to finance her new album but it's not ok for her to let them use her song in a commercial to finance a new album. It's ok for the purchaser of the album to work for Pepsi, but Emily Haines cannot have any contact with Pepsi less she be a sellout.

Musicians, like anyone else, need to pay the bills. If they are going to keep making music it has to, at some point, be a profitable exercise and just because you and your friends know who they are and really liked their last album does not mean that their mattress is stuffed with hundred dollar bills. The vast and overwhelming majority of musicians, especially 'indie' musicians are barely making ends meet. Some are not. If you want them to be 'real' you have to afford them the 'real' ability to pay the rent.

Now when it comes to concerts it's a bit different. For me personally I like going to small clubs, slapping down $5-10 at the door, grabbing a pint of good beer and talking to friends. Going to a stadium with 25,000 people, paying more than I can afford to sit a quarter mile from the stage and paying $10 for a plastic cup filled with piss water beer is not a pleasant experience for me. I don't care how good the band is. But that's just me. If Metric or Feist or anyone else can convince thousands of people to do it more power to them. I won't be there, but I'll buy your CD and still love you in my heart of hearts.

One final note, in the age of social media everyone expects direct interaction with their favorite musicians (or whatever). The thing is that it all goes back to them being people. When they have a few hundred fans they can probably interact with you directly. When they have a thousand or two they might be able to, but a little more slowly but when they have tens of thousands of fans they realistically can't. It doesn't mean that they've gotten big headed, or that they are too important for you. It goes back to being real and human. Imagine if, on top of everything else going on, your job and friends and family - you got 500 emails or other messages a day from fans, all of whom expected a personal response. You too would fail the test and people would say you'd gotten too 'big headed' and forgotten where you came from.

I guess the long and short of it is that, in my opinion, everyone needs to step back a bit and realistically examine things from the viewpoint of others before trying to claim victim status, either as an artist, or as a fan. We definitely need to support our artists more, we need to find ways for them to earn a living. On the whole though there has never been a better time for Canadian music as an artist or as a fan - we all just need to put away the daggers and enjoy it a little more. Things are pretty good, if you don't obsess over the little things that you wish were better.

NxEW.ca at Three Months

Yesterday (Saturday, June 20, 2009) NxEW.ca turned 3 months old. Of course yesterday was also the biggest day of the North by North East music festival (because I'm in Toronto) that means I am playing catch up. Starting a few weeks before the festival began I was deluged with email and requests pertaining to the festival. I still have alot of email to wade through and several hours of video to check.

One thing the festival reinforced for me though was the need for NxEW.ca. First there was just the abundant amount of great Canadian music. So much that I couldn't possibly make it to everything that I wanted to. Second there was a conversation with a friend from out of town. She told me that she found it frustrating that her local music rags spent most of their time covering Toronto and Montreal bands. I told her that the Toronto music rags seemed to devote most of their time to bands from the states. I don't hold anything against these magazines or websites, they are business and have to do what they have to do to make money, it is clear though that no one involved in the Canadian music community (on any level) feels that Canadian music (from anywhere) gets enough attention. The folks at CBC Radio 3 obviously do a spectacular job, but because of budget constraints they are limited to a few dozen people located largely in a few cities - so they can't do it all alone.

At the moment NxEW has over 100 writers, covering 31 Canadian cities and people in New York, Los Angeles and Northern Michican watching for Canadian bands on tour. (There are also a few more potential contributors I need to get back to who were caught in the music fest delay I mentioned.) Our contributors include fans, journalists, journalism students, musicians, photographers, radio hosts, bloggers, podcasters, promoters, managers, people who work for labels. Some people do reviews and interviews, some write up news stories and tour dates, some relate personal experiences and some simply link back to important posts on their own sites (outside of NxEW.ca). All of them though do this out of the love of music. This isn't anyone's 'job.'

In our three months of harnessing the love of music and the power of the collective we have had over 27,000 'unique visitors' and according to Alexa.com we've outpaced many older and more established music sites. In terms of social media there are nearly 500 people in our Facebook group, more than 700 buddies on Myspace and nearly 1,700 on Twitter - not a bad start for a new site with no budget and only word of mouth advertising!

In future I'll save the birthday posts for big ones and keep the progress reports 'in house' but if there is any part of Canadian music that you think needs to be covered better, any city that is being ignored, or if you just want to throw your .02 in with everyone else join us and be a part of a community that is about Canadian music for and by people who love music.

Anyone Want to Help Create a 911 Service for Musicians?

One of the goals of NxEW has been to have people everywhere, in every town, ideally at every show, all over the country and beyond. This can be useful beyond just covering music, when bands are on the road they are frequently not in brand new well maintained vehicles. There are sometimes going to places where they don't know a soul, or at least going through places where they don't know a soul and don't know the area.

So, although I haven't worked out all of the details yet, this post is the official announcement of a new program. It will basically serve as roadside assistance / 9-1-1 for bands and touring musicians. The idea is to put together a directory (though not one that is publicly viewable) of music fans, musicians, music industry types all over the country and (by working with other music blogs/sites) around the world. Access to the directory will be limited to a handful of people and it will ONLY be used when a situation arises. (It will not be used as a mailing list to plug shows, tours, albums or bands.)

So, for example, if a band

- Has their van break down in Medicine Hat
- Is trying to find a place to do a show in Des Moines
- Needs to find a place to crash in Birmingham
- Get lost on the way to a show in Regina
- Need a safe place to park a van in New York
- Needs someone to put up a few posters for a show in Chapel Hill
- Needs to know where to get a new set of Bass strings in Sudbury

We have people, on the ground and ready to lend a hand - they can send an email, or a text message, or make a phone call to one of the directory operators and be put in touch with locals who are sympathetic and ready to help.

If you'd like to be 'in' the directory fire some contact info to northbyeastwest@gmail.com and I'll keep your info on file until we're ready to go, what I'm really looking for right now though are people who want to help refine the idea and figure out how to make it work properly - inside and outside of Canada.

Podcast Formats Fixed

When we first started the Mixtape Podcast we got all high tech and put it out in M4A format (AAC/MP4) which let us put cover art and links as well as embed the tracklist within the file. The problem is that we started hearing from more and more people who couldn't listen at work, or who couldn't play the files on their non-apple MP4 players. We didn't want to deprive people of their ability to waste company time listening to Canadian indie bands so..... it's fixed. The podcast is now available in either M4A or standard MP3 format. It's also now being stored on archive.org for server space/bandwidth issues.

Have at them: click here for a full list of the podcast episodes to date.

Some Thoughts on NxEW.ca at 10 Weeks

It's been ten weeks since NxEW started. As I remember I decided it would be a good idea on a Monday and launched it that Friday. Now (as of this moment) we have 92 contributors, in 29 cities, in 10 provinces and the Yukon and we are very near 500 posts.

It was created because of a huge gap in the coverage of Canadian music. Yes, big important things happen in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax but important things happen all over the country so we want to have people all over the country. This isn't really the fault of existing publications - it's generally very expensive to have people everywhere. Our people write out of enthusiasm, not go get rich. It's kind of a national music zine.

There was also a gap in that many Canadian music publications acknowledge what goes on in Canada but are really obsessed with what goes out outside of Canada. For those of you not paying attention I'll let you in on a few secrets.

Broken Social Scene is better than Radiohead

the Weakerthans are better than U2

Holy Fuck is better than Nine Inch Nails

Cadence Weapon is better than Kanye West

Fifty Cent isn't a third as good as Buck 65

(I could do about a hundred such comparisons)

The best era ever in Canadian music is right now - it started about ten years ago and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon.

Nickleback and Celine Dion would not make a list of the top 100 Canadian artists, nor the top 200 or the top 300.

The only reason anyone thinks otherwise is the size of marketing budgets.

If your music (or arts) publication does not reflect these realities, your people are just punching a clock, not paying attention and unlike the having people everywhere part, it is your fault.

Fortunately we live in an age when starting a publication to address gaps in the media isn't (as NxEW has demonstrated) difficult or expensive.

When we started out we had only one basic rule "don't do anything that will get us sued." Since then the following "guidlines" have emerged, though we still have few hard and fast rules.

- Anarchy is still the editorial policy: No assignments, no deadlines, no editors. Everyone writes what they want about what they want when they have time.

- We're not in it for the money. We hope that someday there will be enough for a small staff to organize and coordinate but to date we have no money and any early money will be dumped back in to promotion.

- When in doubt do what is right for music (for the artists and the fans.)

- We don't 'compete' with others. There are other music sites but we don't try to 'beat' them. We'll frequently link to other sites if they have good stuff. As long as we're rowing in the same direction then we're on the same team.

- We've tossed out the rules on 'conflict of interest' because we're not electing political leaders, or selling stock, or really selling anything, so who cares?

- People are encouraged to write about what they like, rather than what they don't. There is alot of good music out there, so why devote any part of your life to music you don't like?

- People generally only cover things they wanted to do anyway - no one is sent to shows that they didn't want to go to, no one is asked to review albums if it isn't something they were interested in before hand, which makes it all way more honest. (We're not sending paid journalists who are really into jazz to cover punk shows, we're not forcing people to go cover shows that they had no interest in to begin with.)

So far this approach has been tremendously successful. I won't give out numbers yet - until we have an accurate three month average to work from but according to Alexa.com we've already soared past all but the largest Canadian music sites (at least in terms of our popularity within Canada.)

We hope to continue to grow and expand in the months and years to come. To continue to do this though we still need the support of the Canadian music community. We need fans, musicians, promoters and others to write about the music they love. Even if there are people already writing in your city, come on board. We hope, eventually, to have someone at nearly every show, in nearly every city. To do that is going to take alot of people. We also need musicians and publicists to donate stuff to the podcast and to stay in touch so that we know what you're up to and can set up interviews, reviews, etc.,

NxEW is a site for Canadian music lovers and Canadian music creators and Canada will get out of it what people are willing to put in, so please - whoever and wherever you are: pitch in where you can.

A Shout Out from Description Too!

Valerie does descriptive video for a living, that is she describes what is going on on the screen for film and television for the benefit of people who are visually impaired. She also does a podcast called Description which she's been doing since 2005ish? in which she takes the listener on an audio tour of interesting places and events (usually in and around Toronto). Description, Episode 67 also includes a shout out for NxEW. Thanks Valerie!!

NxEW.ca Is the Website of the Week at DyscultureD

Anthony Marco over at the Dyscultured pop culture podcast has made NxEW.ca his website of the week. Go have a listen to Episode 31 where, in addition to waxing poetic about us, they talk about piracy (the online variety), Olympic Blogging in Vancouver, Apple, Google, film, television, the Flock web browswer and play some new music from the Most Serene Republic.

Help Promote NxEW.ca

NxEW.ca started from nothing but an idea, and (so far at least) is still running on that idea and the work of our volunteers. We have no budget for marketing or promotions. So if you like the blog and the idea behind it please help spread the word. We have some ready to print fliers as well as a collection of graphics and widgets that you can use to help us get the word out about the site and draw more contributors, artists and readers into the fold. I'll add the page to the menu bar above in the near future, but for now just visit http://www.nxew.ca/promote or click on the image below.

NxEW on Wordle

A pretty accurate representation of what this site is all about, I would say.