Skip to main content

Breaking New Sound

Over the past few months I’ve been eating up CBC Radio 3’s podcasts. I’ve written before about how I’ve come up lacking in the area of what-the-frig’s-going-on-with-music-these-days. Well, thanks to Radio 3, I’m feeling somewhat in the know—at least in regards to independent Canadian music.

With 69 (hee hee) podcasts in the can, I’ve listened to a lot Canadian music lately, and I’ve come away feeling proud in a way that I haven’t felt about any kind of Canadian culture in a long time. I mean goddamn we’re good. I don’t know; I’m articulating this poorly. I can tell you why I love a book or a movie, but I haven’t found a way to do the same when it comes to music.

Some of my favourite tracks right now:

"Jaws of Life” – Wintersleep
"Better Sorry Than Safe" - Two Hours Traffic
“Do the Right Thing” – The Dudes
“Our Love Will Make the World Go Round” – The Meligrove Band
“If Rap Gets Jealous” – K’Naan

Or you can just save yourself from carpal tunnel and go straight to my playlist. If you’re a Radio 3 officienado, you won’t discover anything new there. But if you’re a neophyte, I think you might dig it.

Comments

Rebecca said…
Very cool. Love the New Pornographers. I'm waaaaay behind on the podcasts - I think I'm on episode 20, and I should listen to them as I unpack in order to catch up.
Anonymous said…
I have to profess no knowledge of music at all.

Except for what I hear Alan Cross say.
Jay said…
I'm off to buy the songs, so now you're on the hook. They'd better be good.
Dave said…
Rebecca - Between this and Canada Reads, you are the CanCon Queen.

Jorge - Alan Cross rules. They've just started broadcasting History of New Music all the way up in Ottawa. The times: they are a'changin'.

Jay - Listen first, buy later. It's kind of like Measure Twice, Cut Once (but not really).

Katie - Their media playing device is embedded in their homepage. The player is on the right, and there's a little arrow button which will pop it out so you can listen to the tunes but then keep surfing elsewhere. Also, their home page has a blog featuring news about current Canadian music events, and just this week the band (or guy) named Final Fantasy won the Polaris Music Prize (Canada's version of the Mercury Prize) Award for his album "He Poos Clouds." (Wouldn't have been my pick, but whatevs.)
Anonymous said…
hey, speaking of halton-con, Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy) is from MILTON!
word.

Popular posts from this blog

Discuss Amongst Yourselves - January 30th, 2006

In case you don’t read my comments (and if not, you’re nuts cause that’s where all the good stuff is), Courtney has just declared herself movie illiterate. So, if you had to recommend five essential movies that everyone should see, what would they be? Let me stress: only five. For those of you with break-the-rules tendencies (like--I dunno--just picking a name out of the air... Jorge ?), your comment gets chucked out. Give’r.

A complex phrase, in which the various parts are enchained

“Barry,” my cousin Mike said, “I think it’s time.” It was clear that my brother didn’t feel the same way, but he only shrugged, which Mike took as agreement. “Dave,” he said, giving the words as much gravity as he could muster, “Go get the dictionary.” I was nine years old, and a tag-along. I’d walked in on my brother telling a story about how—during school that morning—a girl he knew got her period in the middle of French class. And I laughed like the dickens. And then they called me on it. After I’d lugged the dictionary down from the spare room, Mike told me to look up the word period and read out the definition. “The end of a cycle, a series of events, or a single action?” “Keep going,” he said. “The full pause with which a sentence closes?” “Not that.” “An interval of geologic—“ “Gimme that!” He yanked the book towards him, read down the page, and pointed me towards the definition he’d found. Menstruation: the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from pu...