Polaris Long List Revealed!

Hey everyone. The Polaris Music Prize announced the 2010 nominees yesterday. A lot of repeats from previous years, Shad and Basia will get to go head to head again! You'll also recognize a lot of bands who've come through London in the last year or so. It looks like a pretty good list to me, lots of variety and it's nice to see some familiar faces. A lot of my fav albums are on here, with the shocking exception of No Ghosts by the Acorn and New Inheritors by Wintersleep. I guess they only just came out, but still...

Anyway, without further ado, here's the list!

Apollo Ghosts - Mount Benson (Vancouver)

Bahamas - Pink Strat (Toronto)

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night (Montréal)

Blue Rodeo - The Things We Left Behind (Toronto)

Brasstronaut - Mt. Chimaera (Vancouver)

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record (Toronto)

Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own (London)

By Divine Right - Mutant Message (Toronto)

Caribou – Swim (Dundas)

Jason Collett - Rat A Tat Tat (Toronto)

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (II) (Toronto)

Amelia Curran - Hunter Hunter (Halifax)

Fred Fortin - Plastrer La Lune (Montréal)

Frog Eyes - Paul's Tomb: A Triumph (Victoria)

Hannah Georgas - This Is Good (Vancouver)

Ghostkeeper - Ghostkeeper (Calgary)

Holy Fuck - Latin (Toronto)

Karkwa - Les Chemins De Verre (Montréal)

LeE HARVeY OsMOND - A Quiet Evil (Hamilton)

Greg MacPherson - Mr. Invitation (Winnipeg)

Dan Mangan - Nice, Nice, Very Nice (Vancouver)

Misteur Valaire - Golden Bombay (Montréal)

The New Pornographers - Together (Vancouver)

Owen Pallett - Heartland (Toronto)

Plants And Animals - La La Land (Montréal)

Radio Radio - Belmundo Regal (Montréal)

Justin Rutledge - The Early Widows (Toronto)

The Sadies - Darker Circles (Toronto)

Shad - TSOL (London)

Elizabeth Shepherd - Heavy Falls The Night (Toronto)

The Slew - 100% (Montréal)

Meaghan Smith - The Cricket's Orchestra (London)

South Rakkas Crew - The Stimulus Package (Toronto)

Tegan And Sara - Sainthood (Vancouver)

The Wooden Sky - If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone (Toronto)

Hawksley Workman - Meat (Huntsville)

You Say Party! We Say Die! - XXXX (Vancouver)

Young Galaxy - Invisible Republic (Montréal)

Yukon Blonde - Yukon Blonde (Vancouver)

Zeus - Say Us (Toronto)

Eventfully: This week and next!

You may or may not have noticed a serious absence on my part. Between organizing Oh! Fest and the Olenka and the Autumn Lovers tour (and then actually going ON the tour for a month) my life was just a bit too busy. But here I am now, ready to start updating this again. There's a lot going on this week!

Thursday, June 3:
Say Domino w/ the Dead Letters + Bryan Pole
@ The Black Shire Pub, 9pm
19+ ,$5
Facebook Event

Friday, June 4:
Slow Six, A Priori + Wild Domestic
@ The Practice Loft (366 Richmond St, above Exhale Lounge) 8:30pm
All Ages, $7
Facebook Event

Saturday, June 5:
Open House Arts Collective Presents: Handsome Dan and his Gallimaufry, Shawn Clarke (CD release) + the State Bird of Idaho.NOTE: Handsome Dan will be headlining.
@ Chaucer's Pub (upstairs) 9pm
All Ages, $7
Facebook Event
Thursday, June 10:
LOLA Presents: Grouper, Julia Kent, M. Mucci and Les Beyond
@ Museum London, 8pm
All Ages, $12/$15
Facebook Event


Friday, June 11:
Open House Arts Collective Presents: Olenka and the Autumn Lovers, Rah Rah and the Racoon Wedding
@ the Practice Loft (366 Richmond St)
All Ages, $7 at the door
Facebook Event

June 12: London Underground -dance night, indie/brit
@ The Morrissey House. 10pm
Free, 19+
Facebook Event

June 11-13: Lady Fest. Held mostly at EVAC I believe. Here's the Facebook Event.



Well there's some good stuff for you to go to over the next couple weeks. Hope you can make it out to a few of these... they all look like rad shows.

Oh! Fest 2010 Lineup Announced. April 22-24

Hey all, as many of you know I'm involved in the Open House Arts Collective and I happen to be Artistic Director of our annual music festival, Oh! Fest. Check out the lineup!

Eventfully: This Week

I have sorely neglected my eventfullies this last little while, but here's some cool stuff going on this week!

Tuesday, March 23:

Headsup y'all, it's friends and family event at American Apparel. 25% off. Get your hip on.

Wednesday, March 24:

EVAC is hosting a Bike Kitchen.
Fix up your bike, borrow tools, exchange know-how etc.
4pm-7pm, FREE!
Facebook Event

Thursday, March 25:

Schomberg Fair @ Moon Over Marin
rock/traditionals/rockabilly (sort of?)
$7, doors at 9pm. Facebook Event

Friday, March 26:

Oh! Presents Bruce Peninsula at the Wave (On campus)
indie/alt-rock/gospel/folk
10pm, FREE, 19+
Facebook Event

Secret Admirer closing at Forest City Gallery (I've got a piece in the show!)
FCG fundraiser show of local artists' work
8pm, FREE, all ages

Ekstasis at The Arts Project
Local artist Angie Quick, show opening (cheese and wine?)
6pm-8pm, free, all ages

Saturday, March 27:

DJ Champion at Call the Office
When I saw him(them?) it was pretty amazing, huge dance party, 4 guitarists on stage
9:30pm, $10, all ages
Facebook Event

Eventfully: Call the Office, Week of Glory

Did you notice the crazy week coming up at ye olde Call the Office? This is a week of epic proportions. I'm going to try and go to Thursday and Friday.. we'll see how I'm doing after 10 hours of recording each day with Olenka and the Autumn Lovers.

Tuesday, March 9

Electric 6 and Sweet Thing (remember Morgan Waters from CBC's The X? yeah, he's the bass player in Sweet Thing, and he's a total babe... in a childhood crush kind of way. Oh, and the lead singer of Sweet Thing is Freddie Mercury reincarnate)

$10 adv/$12 at the door.

Thursday, March 11

Yukon Blonde, Brasstronaut + TBA (both awesome bands!)

$5

Friday, March 12

Jason Collett, Zeus and Bahamas (Juno nominee!)

$15 adv/$18 at the door

Saturday, March 13

Hot Hot Heat w/ Phantogram and the Ghostkeeper

$15 adv/$18 at the door

I would say, if you're looking for the best and most interesting show, I'd go to thursday night and see Yukon Blonde and Brasstronaut. They're both great.. and really, everyone's seen Jason Collett stumble drunkenly around on CTO's stage before, Electric 6 kind of freaks me (and you) out and since when was Hot Hot Heat relevant again? Bandages, bandages, bandage-e-esssss... reminds me of being 16 and going to call the office... er... wait..

Photos: Woodhands/Diamond Rings/A Horse and His Boy

I don't review my own shows.. cause that's kind of lame, but here are some photos from Open House Arts Collective Presents Woodhands, Diamond Rings and A Horse and His Boy on March 5th. It was a packed show and I must say, as a promoter I was pretty stoked on the turnout. Loads of different crowds were out to see the stacked bill and the bands had a great time too.

Photos by Thom Pilgrim.

More photos coming soon.

Juno Awards: National Embarassment?

Another year has come and gone and it's Juno time once again. It's time for a new round of ridicule.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday a) complaining about the nominees this year via facebook status and b) researching the history of the Junos.

First off, did you know the Junos were started by RMP Magazine? RMP was a magazine that featured Canadian song and album charts. So off to a good start.. already judging music by it's commercial value rather than artistic merit. Granted, they had readers send in ballots as well. After a few years the magazine, rather than merely publish the results decided to start an awards show, dubbed the Gold Leaf Awards, the first official ceremony being held in 1970. There was no ceremony in 1988. If you're quick with your math, you'll realize that next year (2011) will be the 40th Juno (aka Gold Leaf) Awards. This year the awards are being held in St. John's, Newfoundland.

I've resigned myself to the fact that the Junos are.. what they are. It's just hard to get my hopes each year thinking "maybe the Junos will be good this year." This year was especially hard with all the amazing Canadian albums released this year. I don't mind Michael Buble, infact I've found myself humming along to the occasional Buble tune... but he doesn't exactly make me feel proud to be Canadian. A few acts close to my heart managed to snag a couple nominations including Bahamas, Cuff the Duke, Amy Millan, Joel Plaskett, Julie Doiron, Great Lake Swimmers, Howie Beck and Patrick Watson among others (uh.. a very FEW others).

On a selfish note, I'd be pretty stoked if Bahamas won in the "Traditional and Roots" catgegory (what?) because at least then I could say a Juno winner remembers my name. I might add, Bahamas opened for Olenka and the Autumn Lovers in Toronto back in Winter '09.

The most distressing part of the awards is that the album/artist of the year is ACTUALLY determined by sales. I guess this will all change as they realize we're living in a world of variables and not one of universal likes and dislikes.

Check out all the nominees after the jump.

Let me know what YOU think of the awards and this year's nominees in the comments section.