Of course this week’s mix had to be one for my country’s national holiday coming up this Tuesday. I seem to reflect most on Canada and being Canadian when I am away from home or have recently returned. Five years ago, when I went backpacking across Europe, as North American youth tend to do as some bourgeois rite of passage, the Canadian flag sewn to my backpack produced a rather awkward moment. While the very same embroidered patch had garnered both me and my travelling companion much gleeful recognition from fellow travelling Canadians and general camaraderie from European strangers, it also prompted an American girl to ask us why we wore it. We had been hanging out with her for a couple of days rather pleasurably in the Italian villages of Cinqueterre, and the question seemed to come out of nowhere, but was nonetheless very serious. Both my friend and I just stood there, completely unsure of how to proceed. We knew we didn’t want to say outright that we didn’t want to be mistaken for Americans even though we knew that was the truth and that that was what the girl was driving at. I don’t quite recall how we wriggled out of it, but considering we’re Canadians, we somehow managed to defuse the situation diplomatically like the peacemakers we are.
My memories of Canadian music while growing up consisted primarily of Bryan Adams and that crop of ’90’s “alternative” bands like Our Lady Peace, Moist, The Tea Party, Econoline Crush and I Mother Earth – to be honest, I was more impressed with early Bryan Adams than I was by the latter. Also, from my high school years, I remember the pre-Gorillaz animated band Prozzäk (which despite their beating Damon Albarn to the punch, should best be forgotten, umlaut and all), the bubbly pop of Sky (as short-lived as Prozzäk), the one-hit wonder band Pluto (blink and you would have missed them), and the pop-punk of Treble Charger (who will likely forever be known as the band who discovered and promoted Sum 41 only to disappear completely under their protégé’s shadow). All in all Canadian music was rather bleak to me when I was younger. In addition to this rather sad array, we had and still have our drivel just as much as any other country, including the aforementioned Sum 41, Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Three Days Grace, Loverboy, Shania Twain, and the national disaster that is Celine Dion, but as this mix reveals, we also have a lot of music to be proud of. I may have come late to an appreciation of Canadian music, but better late than more clichéd phrases.
No Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, or KD Lang on this mix – they are legends to some but not to me…at least not at this juncture of my life. There may very well be a large contingent from Montreal – it wasn’t deliberate in the sense that I favour Quebec over other provinces for music, it just so happens that this one city has made much of my favourite music of late, and often within an incestuous group of musicians weaving in and out of each others’ work. I also have artists from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and of course from my home province of Manitoba. They range from electro acts to political punk acts to quirky indie to dreamy pop. For an honest, yet quirky, look at what truly makes Canadians Canadian, read Douglas Coupland’s books Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada 2 and watch his documentary of the same name. Of course Coupland was technically born in Germany, but he’s definitely Canadian to us. I’ll call this mix Canadian Content. I don’t think we have any reason to worry about CRTC regulations. Then again, we probably wouldn’t worry anyway.
I Was a Pre-Teen McCarthyist – Propagandhi
Blood On Our Hands – Death From Above 1979
Black Flag (Juan Maclean Remix)- Duchess Says
In the End It’s Your Friends – Shout Out Out Out Out
You’re a Hologram – Hexes & Ohs
Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles) – Arcade Fire
Falling Through Your Clothes – The New Pornographers
Lola Stars and Stripes – The Stills
Fine Young Cannibals – Wolf Parade
Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961) – The Weakerthans
Still Life – The Russian Futurists
You and I Are a Gang of Losers – The Dears