Photograph by Tim Snow
Maybe I’m getting too old for festival concerts. Between slathering myself with SPF60, eating $5 hot dogs, running spastically between stages, cursing the overlapping schedule, being inundated with corporate sponsorship and drinking watery beer, I was caught between disillusionment and laughter toward the predictable pattern of music fests.
The Osheaga Music and Arts Festival is in its fifth year, and has swelled from 25,000 to over 50,000 attendees. Despite my opening tirade, Osheaga has plenty to offer: a grassy hill with convenient stage view, venues of varying size (from cozy small sets to mega concerts), performances for many tastes (from small Quebecois bands to…Snoop Dogg?), the ability to walk freely with your drinks (goodbye, beer tent!) and free underwear to anyone willing to provide American Apparel with their email address.
When surrounded by so much chaos, I seem to morph into a reactionary skeptic. I should subtitle this post “The Festival Concert in which Sabrina Becomes a Huge Indie Music Cynic.” So, I apologize ahead of time if any readers take my grumbling opinion personally. But here it is, Osheaga 2010.
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With the short list announced coincidentally close to Canada Day, the Polaris Music Prize has been cleverly disguised as an icon of national pride. The saga of Polaris says that not only are we geographically gargantuan as a nation, but musically we’re in fine proportion to our size. It takes time to look at all the details, since we as a nation put out an obscene amount of music, but an award like Polaris gives us great cause to wear out our Canadian vinyl through the summer months. From the Besnard Lakes to Broken Social Scene and from Shad to the Sadies, the short list has once again rolled out a tight batch of competition spanning a wide array of genres. Splicing and comparing the ten albums selected for the short list this year can be a daunting task, so we at Ca Va Cool have decided to divide and conquer, to leave you more time to enjoy and celebrate not only the ten albums on the short list or the forty albums on the long list, but as many Canadian albums from the past year as you possibly can.
Broken Social Scene – All to All
Radio Radio – Tomtom
Shad – Rose Garden
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The 2010 Polaris Music Prize Long List was released a couple weeks ago, and it is a long list. At first, I thought I was reading a list of all the albums released in this country over the last year. Not surprisingly, Swim, the latest release from Caribou, the moniker used by expatriate canuck and 2008 Polaris winner (for his 2007 LP Andorra) Daniel Snaith’s electronic orchestrations, made the list. I don’t expect the jury will award him the honour again, not that it wouldn’t be deserved. With Swim, Snaith has deviated from the course established on The Milk of Human Kindness and taken to its most euphoric on Andorra, veering for a darker, more nuanced sound, that remains fundamentally Caribou at its heart.
Caribou – Bowls
Caribou – Jamelia
In anticipation of catching Caribou live at Sasquatch! Music Festival, we caught up with Snaith on his cellphone before a show in San Diego to talk about being a Canadian making placeless music, why Snaith works alone (except on tour), and the city-cum-genre he looks to most for musical inspiration, Detroit.
Justin: Can you talk a bit how being Canadian has shaped the trajectory of your musical career?
Dan Snaith: Generally, I kind of feel like I’ve made music that is geography-less, that it doesn’t really have a national identity. I’m not particularly interested in making Canadian music. The music that I listen to comes from all over the world and I want the music that I make to sound like it could come from anywhere in the world. On the other hand, I guess the thing that challenged or changed that perspective was the Polaris prize a couple years ago. You know I work in an isolated way, so I always thought of myself doing my thing over in this corner, you know in my own little apartment, my own little world. Being included in the community of Canadian musicians and being able to meet all the other people who were nominated was really nice, really affirming. Pretty much all the musicians I collaborate with are in one way or another Canadian, just because of the kind of personal connections growing up living in Canada.
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Photograph by Jan Kucic-Riker
The Toronto Island Concert had many things working against it. Torontonians were busy constructing fake lakes for the G20 summit, thunderstorms were expected to figuratively and literally rain on our parade, and finally the past two years saw our beloved island at the mercy of public services and scheduling conflicts. But not this year, the show was scheduled, bands announced, and we at Ca Va Cool began planning pancake/beer brunches in anticipation of festival day. We faced hordes of security, eager fans, and sound checks on Queen Street as we thought to ourselves that the crowds must have started heading down to the water early – we soon found that the clamour was instead centered on Miley Cyrus’s recital for the upcoming MMVA’s. So we did what any self-deprecating music-lover would – bought crêpes and stood next to the mass of shrieking tweens to take in the glory that was Ms. Cyrus. Arriving at the waterfront we armed ourselves with SPF 60 sunblock, wristbands, and contempt for those that managed to snag a better spot on the ferry than ourselves.
There we stood in a sea of Converse, Keds, and Wayfarers, each person cooler than the next; we were on our way to hipster heaven. Upon reaching the gates we were greeted by security barking the seemingly endless list of items not permitted – coincidentally they were not wearing Converse, Keds, or Wayfarers and thus labeled pejoratively as “the man”. Determined not to be denied, we downed the contents of our unsealed water bottles, smuggled in chocolate chip granola bars, and argued for blankets as a staple of outdoor festivals rather than fire hazards. We had arrived with good karma; the sun shone brightly, concession stands challenged vast rows of Porta Potties, toddlers sported over-sized ear protection, and concert-goers shared in the joy of brilliant music. We can’t thank Collective Concerts enough for making this event possible, our lovely friends both old and new for stationary head-bobbing along with us, and all the music fans in Toronto for sharing in the sights and sounds of the Toronto Island Concert 2010. – Jan Kucic-Riker
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Photograph by Mat Dunlap
Toronto’s indie charmers The Meligrove Band (Brian O’Reilly, Mike Small, Darcy Rego, and Jason Nunes) are ready to rock again. After a four year hiatus, their new singles-packed album Shimmering Lights is set for release by Nevado in Canada, and Last Gang in the U.S. on September 21.
For the unfamiliar, high School pals Mike, Jason and Darcy have been jamming together for over 10 years, with Brian recently joining from the stylistically similar Halifax music scene. In 2006, their catchy yet artistic “concept” LP Planets Conspire weaved its melodically-linked tunes into campus airwaves and reviewer’s hearts. Since then, the band has released little – but certainly not for the lack of trying. A multitude of obstacles plagued the recording, signing and release of their fourth LP; which makes yesterday’s release of its first single, ‘Halflight’, all the more exciting.
The Meligrove Band – Halflight
After mixing their dd/mm/yyyy cover ‘Super VGF’ (which will be released on their limited Halflight 7″ on August 24), Darcy, Mike and Brian relaxed on the patio with Ca Va Cool and joked about post-education abandonment (the three members dropped out of school twice to pursue the band) and the interesting characteristics of sound-guys (who are apparently “crazy and terrible, or crazy and awesome, but always crazy”), as well as the more serious topics of the upcoming album, tours, and the most delicious food in Toronto.
Sabrina: How long have you had the album recorded?
Mike: It’s been recorded for over a year now, and was mastered last October.
Darcy: A lot of people have been wondering why it was taking us so long, but we’ve been sitting on this finished record for a while. There were a lot of obstacles. For example, the legality slowed things down. We couldn’t sign a new contract because on paper, we were still signed to V2 who released Planets Conspire.
Sabrina: What happened with V2?
Mike: They just ceased to exist. And we owed them some money for CD sales, but they also owed us some money as an advance for the new record.
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