Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

I was proud to present The Sadies at the 2010 Polaris Music Prize gala on September 21 at Toronto's historic Masonic Temple, where the group was short-listed for its stellar album Darker Circles. Here is my introduction to the band: The Sadies. Guitar-slinging brothers Dallas and Travis Good, bassist Sean Dean and drummer Mike Belitsky. Artists—from Gord Downie and Neko Case to John Doe and Neil Young—are unanimous in their praise of these guys. Critics, however, can’t seem to agree on how to describe the band. Are they alt-country mavericks or garage-rock revisionists? Space-rock cowboys or spaghetti-western revivalists? Fact is, The Sadies defy categorization. They draw from a gr...

Classically trained operatic tenor and pianist Jeremy Dutcher recently won the Polaris Music Prize (Canada’s equivalent of the Mercury Prize) for Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, an album of songs sung in his native Wolastoq dialect. Wolastoq is a dying language, spoken by only one hundred people within his First Nation community, but Dutcher was inspired by a “song carrier” to seek out his people’s ancient songs and breathe new life into them. The result is a post-classical recording of stunning beauty. “I was sitting around elder Maggie Paul’s kitchen table, having this discussion about the musical life of our community,” recalls Dutcher, a member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick wh...

The 2009 Polaris Music Prize finalists include some outstanding new talent.This year’s Short List nominees are: Elliott Brood – Mountain Meadows (Toronto, ON)Fucked Up – The Chemistry Of Common Life (Toronto, ON)Great Lake Swimmers – Lost Channels (Toronto, ON)Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) (St. John’s, NF)K’naan – Troubadour (Toronto, ON)Malajube – Labyrinthes (Montréal, QC)Metric – Fantasies (Toronto, ON)Joel Plaskett – Three (Halifax, NS)Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane (Calgary, AB)Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms (Montréal, QC) I’m proud to be a Grand Jury member this year, along with these colleagues: Bryan Acker (Herohill)Stuart Derdeyn (...

Polaris Music Prize 2010Here are my Short List choices for this year's prize, in alphabetical order:* Bahamas - Pink Strat (Toronto)  website Bahamas * Amelia Curran - Hunter Hunter (Halifax) website Amelia Curran * Radio Radio - Belmundo Regal (Montreal) website Radio Radio* The Sadies - Darker Circles (Toronto) website The Sadies* Yukon Blonde - Yukon Blonde (Vancouver) website Yukon BlondeAll of these candidates are excellent albums--check them out. The Short List finalists will be announced July 6 and this year's winner will be proclaimed at the Polaris gala on September 20. Look for a new Polaris Music Prize Player on this site soon.    

I had the honor of introducing Feist at the Polaris Music Prize gala on Sept. 24 at Toronto's historic Masonic Temple. She won the prize, after performing "Caught a Long Wind" and "The Bad in Each Other." I was pleased, as Metals is an extraordinary album and had been my number one pick all along. Here's what I said in my introduction: After the runaway success of The Reminder, Feist needed a clean slate. She found it in Big Sur, a place of stunning vistas and quiet reflection. Working there with longtime partners Mocky and Chilly Gonzales, she discovered a new range of expression and forged an album of rare depth and beauty. Feist found inspiration in the elements and cast them into alloys ...