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Happy 2010

Hello Blog. Welcome to a new year, a new decade.
I could say that I resolve to spend more time writing for you,
but why start breaking resolutions already. It's going to be a big year here (i.e. finishing the dissertation, moving on to other things and maybe places, growing, etc.) so I have plenty on my plate without feeling guilty about looking after you.

I'm actually still sifting through all the best-of-the-year lists that came out during the holidays. As much as I find it hard to a) remember every significant thing that happened over the course of a year and b) summarize those events cohesively and cogently, I still enjoy reading other people's re-caps and doing a bit of reminiscing in the process. (Though I should mention my supervisor's no-nonsense round up, which both explains the futility of rounding up and nails a few key categories for such an excercise).

This year, of course, there were twice as many lists to read since everyone felt compelled to provide best-of-the-decade wrap-ups as well. I'm still working on my favourite albums of the year and the last ten (and enjoying every minute of going back to music that's buried on my shelves or obscured in nested folders on my hard drive. I'll post 'em when I get a chance.

Until then, let's start the year off by looking forward. The National Post has an Arts & Culture blog called The Ampersand. They ran a series called "Canadian Futures" where they asked a random smattering of "Canadian mcritics, bloggers and mega-fans" to answer this:

"If you were buying stocks in music, which up and coming Canadian musical act would you invest in?"

Midnight Poutine was asked for an opinion so I chimed in. Of course, if the current state of my finances are any indication, no one should be taking buying advice from me. Still, the whole piece is worth a read since it highlights some well-known and lesser-known emerging Canadian indie acts.

Enjoy:

Cdn Futures - Part 1
Cdn Futures - Part 2
Cdn Futures - Part 3

Hottest Bands in Canada 2009

This year marks the 5th edition for i(heart)music’s “Hottest Bands in Canada” poll. Happily, I was asked to chime in again. It’s a pretty straightforward process…dozens of the country’s top music writers, journalists and bloggers are invited to submit a ranked top 10 list of the hottest Canadian acts (bands or solo artists) in 2009, with both “hottest” and “Canadian” up to the individual writers’ discretion.

If you’ve been following my Polaris posts, you’ll recognize some of the names on this list. But the good thing about the Hottest Bands poll is that you can take chances on a few up and coming acts. I highly recommend you check out the full list…as in the past few years, it is a solid list of Canadian indie-rock (with a touch of hip hop, francophonie and Leonard Cohen). I also want to stress that just because Reverie Sound Revue didn’t make the official poll, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check their new album out. It is gorgeous.

Kudos to i(heart)music for his diligent work on this poll and on his almost daily reviews of great Canadian music.

10. Metric
After Live it Out, I thought Metric was just going to keep making albums that reminded me of how great they could have been. Fantasies gets me back to what I loved about their earlier tunes and gives me hope that they’ve still got a lot more solid songs left in them. The band has attitude, grit, and an album full of catchy hooks.

9. Andrew Vincent
I know Dan Mangan just won the Verge award for best artist, and that he should probably get the nod for hottest singer songwriter in Canada right now (and Nice Nice Very Nice is solid). But Andrew Vincent’s Rotten Pear is a witty and wry collection of sonic stories and musical memories that shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s understated and self-depricating. Sure, it doesn’t scream out “Hottest In Canada”, but that’s the point. How very Canadian.

8. Think About Life
Think About Life, Clues, and Parlovr are duelling it out for the title of Montreal indie act that’s on the cusp of breaking big. They all had great albums this year, but the one I keep going back to is Think About Life’s Family. You can’t have this album on and not smile/move your hips. If you can, then you are officially and old crusty bastard.

7. La Patère Rose
Coeur de Pirate was leading my list of top franco acts all year, and then, out of nowhere, La Patère Rose snuck up and unseated her. This album is a wild blend of genres and styles, but overall it’s wonderfully happy, dancey and fun.

6. Braids
As far as I know, this band is from Calgary but going to school here in Montreal. They mix indie and noise and experimental stuff in an impressively accessible way. One of their songs showed up in my inbox earlier this year, thanks to a friend, and my email program was literally happier for the next 4 months.

5. Belle Orchestre
As Seen Through Windows is a monumental instrumental journey. This band understands exactly how powerful dynamics are in making layered, thoughtful music.

4. Ohbijou
While we’re talking about beauty, I’d be remiss not to include Oh Bijou’s second full length album Beacons. Ohbijou has the market cornered on melancholy, orchestral epic, ballads. They do what they do well and they just keep getting better.

3. Reverie Sound Revue
The sheer fact that RSR released an album means that I had to include it on my list. The fact that it is full of wonderful sounds and songs is icing on the cake. I was bowled over by the band’s EP in 2003. The long long long awaited follow up reminds me exactly why. It’s delicate and catchy and gorgeously put together. Although they aren’t really a “band” (no tours, not even any “real” shows), they are still the hottest.

2. Timber Timbre
I’m so excited for winter because this album is going to be my soundtrack for the cold frozen months when the days are mostly dark and spooky. This unsettling, crooning self-titled album is easily one of my favourite discoveries of the year.

1. Bruce Peninsula.
I’ve made no secret of my unnatural love for this band this year. A Mountain is a Mouth is a religious experience. I’m a convert.

Hit Machines

Two articles worth reading together:

Rob Walker on Pandora in the New York Times and an older piece from Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. Both are about tech companies working to “predict” artistic tastes based on the formal characteristics of the art in question. The first is about music, the second is about film; but both deal with the problem of trying to use objective measures to make sense of subjective judgements.

Pandora has come a long way since its inception and I genuinely enjoy it as a way of finding out about new music (though I’ve used it less since there was a crackdown on Canadian user a little while back). Still, the connections it makes between songs and artists is at least worth using as part of a wider strategy of finding out about new music. The film story line prediction service Gladwell talks about seems a little less scientific. I’m not sure why music strikes me as easier to codify than film, but I guess where ever there’s money to be made from making the subjective more objective, then companies like Pandora or Epagogix will be trying to figure out the formula.

As Walker points out though, and as anyone who’s read Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love knows, trying to get rid of the cultural and social baggage that comes with art is ultimately a futile process. Pandora’s model rests on the belief that people’s music tastes should be based on purely musical attributes. Forget what your friends like, what the latest mp3 blogs recommend, or what Pitchfork said. Pandora thinks this shouldn’t matter when making musical decisions. But we’re social creatures at heart and we express our sociality through art. Stripping music, or film, or books of all the cultural infrastructure that gets built up around them might lead us to interesting musical discoveries, but there’s no art to it. It’s pure science.

Scene Building

As part of all the post-pop Montreal reviews this week, the following link made it's way into my inbox. It's a story that rounds up the top 5 "emerging" acts in Montreal right now. I don't really have much to say about the content of the list. The artists are all talented and worth a listen, though just like the rest of the Pop Montreal schedule, it's a pretty fractional and partial list of the various kinds of music the city has to offer. The fact that the list is there at all is what I found more interesting. If you've ever read my thoughts on the branding of the Montreal scene, you'll know that Spin played an influential role in shaping the discourse around music in Montreal a few years ago, back when the Arcade Fire were taking off. 5 years later, it's a much more fractured media and musical landscape and it seems to me that while the idea of a scene is still very powerful, how it plays out in reality is becoming ever more diffuse.

Maybe I had scenes on the mind last night when I attended the premiere of a friend's new documentary film: Taqwacore: The Birth of Islam Punk. The movie "follows the progression of the Muslim Punk scene: from its imaginary inception in a novel written by a white-convert named Michael Muhammad Knight to a full-blown, real-life scene of Muslim punk bands and their fans." My friend spent spent three years documenting taqwacore (Taqwa = "god consciousness" + Core) bands and concerts across the U.S. and Pakistan, catching glimpses as he went of the many and complicated faces of contemporary Islam. Oh, he also was there when a line up of taqwacore acts shocked the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America in Chicago with a frenetic concert that ended with hundreds of conservative Muslims fleeing the building and the cops showing up to shut the event down (easily one of the film's best scenes).

Throughout the film, I kept thinking about what it meant for the idea of "scenes" in cultural and communication studies, since here was a scene that was imagined before it was real. It's almost as if the scene needed a blueprint before it could exist. Michael Knight, the author who penned the original Taqwacores manifesto/fiction, is an active participant throughout the film, and it's clear he's had a role in actively building and maintaining this scene/community. The film (and its director) are now also playing their part in solidifying the idea of taqwacore. In a certain sense, the film itself is both a product of and a contribution to the ongoing evolution of the taqwacore scene.

All this is to say the movie is as much about music and Islam as it is about the way ideas migrate from place to place and person to person. Taqwacore and the cultural footsteps it leaves behind mean something different for each of the people who follow it.

Speaking Out On Copyright

I just finished my submission to the copyright consultations the government is currently holding. If you haven't had your say yet, there's still two days left. Check out Michael Geist's Speak Out on Copyright site (loaded with background info and and resources) then fire off an an email or a form letter .

For the record, here's my submission.
Pardon the length (and a bit of histrionics), apparently I had a lot to say:

***
Dear Ministers Clement and Moore.
Dear Internet.

Thank you for taking the time and (considerable) effort it took to open consultations on this matter to the public. It's good to see the government embracing new means for communicating with the public and seeking input from its citizens. Sadly, the last time copyright revisions were addressed (Bill C-61), the process was neither open, nor accessible, nor transparent to the general public. Subsequently, the resulting draft legislation was out of touch with the realities of of how most Canadians use and encounter copyright in their daily lives. I hope that the effort that you made in these consultations is not just an end but a means to seek wider public feedback on a consistent and regular basis *throughout* the entirety of process of the crafting of this new legislation. You've started a valuable discussion. Don't cut the conversation short.

*How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you?*
How doesn't copyright law affect me, all of us, is perhaps a more apt question. Take a look at just a fraction of the things with which I am involved: I am a PhD student at one of Canada's universities. I am a researcher who needs frequent and regular access to information, materials I hope will always be *accessible*. I am a teacher in Communication and Media Studies who just taught his first class and hopes to teach many more. My classes rely heavily on media and technology, examples from everyday life, which often include copyright materials that I need to share with students in order to illustrate course concepts. I am a writer who publishes research and understands that both creators and the audience have rights. I am a member of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (and I stand by their statement, for the most part). I am a blogger who works collaboratively with over 20 other writers to create a website devoted to highlighting local culture/arts/events in my city. I am a podcaster, a musician, a producer of multimedia content, designations that thanks to new technologies and cultural practices, apply to more and more Canadians every day. I am a creator and consumer, a teacher and a learner, a producer and a user. A citizen.

*Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?*
Balance. It's an interesting word isn't it. I've heard it from parties on all sides of the copyright debate. I've heard the members of the recording and movie industry associations speak of balance as they ask for greater powers to sue consumers they believe are infringing their copyrighted materials just as I've heard pirates call for balance as they pilfer works with the intention of re-selling them for a profit. After all, who's going to stand up against balance? What we need is true balance. A balance that is built on the *respect and understanding* that comes from realizing *copyright affects us all*. This is a big, messy boat we are in, with lots of competing interests. Let's not put all the weight on one side and sink this ship.

*What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada, foster competition and investment in Canada and best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?*
I am not a lawyer, nor can I claim to know the intricacies of copyright law. I do know there are certain principles that must guide any attempt to reform copyright, especially considering the fast-paced changes that are taking place in the fields touched by copyright legislation.

- Canada needs legislation that is technologically neutral, that is to say a law that allows for technological innovation and non-infringing uses of technology to flourish. Specifying certain technologies or business models will result in an act that is outdated before it even comes into effect.

- Canada needs to expand and clarify fair dealing. The fair dealing clause is just as important to the researcher making photocopies in the library as it is to the father who uses his favourite song as the soundtrack for a home video he's making for his son's birthday. Both use copyrighted materials to create something new, something beautiful, something special. Ideas don't exist in a vacuum. They need to interact with other ideas to flourish. More practically, the fair dealing clause needs to address the myriad of ways consumers now deal with their digital goods (i.e. technologies that allow users to shift the time, devices, and formats in which they consumer media), other outstanding areas like parody, satire, non-commercial use, and multiple back up copies of data and media content.

- Canada needs to reject the creation of digital enclosures (specifically through technological protection measures). The transition to digital formats of goods and services brings with it new codes and conventions for the use of those goods. Legislation must, where possible, not support or enhance punitive digital rights management and technological protection measures. If the U.S. experiences with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are any indication, this is NOT a path down which Canada wants to tread. Legislation that allows companies to punish consumers for their fair use of media, or makers of technology that promote non-infringing uses (such as circumvention technologies) is simply a further limit to creativity and innovation.

- Canada needs to stop worrying about pressure form various U.S. lobby groups that want to label us as a piracy haven. Seriously, this is a waste of time, and the laws that have come out of such lobbying efforts (see the anti-camcording law enacted last year) are nothing more than political pacifiers. We have the opportunity to do something unique and different with the revisions to our copyright act, to be leaders not followers. Let's not squander it by walking in footsteps that lead nowhere (DMCA).

- Canada needs to protect the rights of its creators (though not indefinitely, and not to the extent that society is worse off for it). We need a vibrant information commons for innovative ideas to surface. Copyrights that last for decades after the death of the creator rob the public of a chance to comment and build upon the work of the past. Culture builds on itself. Don't take away the hammer and nails. Allow creators the chance to profit from their work, then let culture profit from making that work accessible. The new copyright act should also recognize the legitimacy of other forms of alternative licensing (such as Creative Commons license).

- Finally, in determining the penalties for copyright violations, make sure these are aimed at reducing large-scale commercial piracy. Suing individual consumers for millions of dollars for downloading dozens of songs (see the case of Jammie Thomas or Joel Tenenbaum) - or enacting legislation that allows for such disproportionate penalties to be enforced - is an insult to our legal system. I am not suggesting we condone clearly infringing behaviours (nor am I suggesting that I am convinced that file sharing is an infringing behaviour). But let's match the punishment with the actual damages done.

I initially thought a fun way compile this submission would have been to cut and paste and mash up quotes from the numerous public submissions on your own copyright consultation site. I had hoped that it might somehow show you the value, creativity, and art that can arise from flexible fair dealing, balanced copyright, and unique uses of new technology. But ultimately, it's up to you to do the remixing. Submissions close in a few days and there are undoubtedly countless hours of text, video and audio for you to sift through. Thousands of people have taken up your call to speak out. They have contributed their voices to the project.

Put on your headphones. Find the right mix.

Jeremy Morris.

There Can Be Only One

At 10pm last night, I was at my desk with sweat rolling off my brow (and arms and hands). It could have been because it was plus 30 here and muggy. I thought the thunder and lightning earlier in the evening would break the humidity, but they were too brief to provide real relief. Even the storm seemed scared away by the heat.

On the other hand, the perspiration could also have been because I had two hours left to submit my final Polaris prize ballot. At Midnight last night (Jun. 25), Polaris headquarters began compiling the votes one more time. The only difference this time is that the ballots could only include artists from the long list. The 10 artists that get the most votes are officially on the short list, which will be announced on July 7th.

After my fifth place pick from the first ballot didn't make it (Years - S/T), I re-evaluated who should get the last spot. Rather than just slide in my number 6 choice, I re-listened to all 40 discs as much as I could in the last 3 weeks.

And I'm glad I did. Some albums I had dismissed grew on me, others reminded me why I hadn't included them on my first ballot.

La Patère Rose was probably the biggest gainer, moving up several spots on my list with a genre-bending collection of tunes that might just rival Think About Life's Family for the album of the summer.

I also got re-acquainted with Tim Hecker's gorgeous soundscape, An Imaginary Country. It's an album unlike any other on the long list, a wash of synthesized feedback that's incredibly serene, once you let it soak in. But underneath the noise, the melodies in songs like "Borderlands" or "Currents of Electrostasy" are as pretty as anything you'd find on more traditional albums (i.e. ones with lyrics, voices, choruses etc.)

As time was running out though, three albums were fighting it out in my itunes. Rae Spoon's Superioryouareinferior
a tough and gritty set of songs that puts an alternative spin on growing up in the prairies, D-Sisive's moody hip hop smackdown Let The Children Die (if you didn't get enough ruminations on death from Chad Van Gaalen, this is the album for you), and Belle Orchestre's As Seen Through Windows.

When the clock struck, Belle Orchestre got the final nod. The album stomps in like an elephant with the lumbering "Stripes" (which is followed by the aptly named "Elephants"), and the range of moods it creates over the following fifty some minutes is remarkable. At times triumphant, at times haunting, Belle Orchestre even manages to pull off both at once (listen to creepy strings and happy horns intermingle at 4:18 of Elephants). Regardless of what mood they're playing with, they live up to their name.

So there you have it. My first Polaris adventure comes to a close. Now I can stop worrying about ranking and just get back to enjoying the music.

Coda: The storms continued throughout the night. It seemed fitting considering the sad news earlier in the evening that Michael Jackson, the king of pop and sheer weirdness, had passed. As one of my fellow midnight poutiners joked: "This is God crying for MJ".