weakerthans – Indie Music Filter

Record Of The Week Club

Pretty cool concept for a compilation album. Every Wednesday for 16 weeks, 3 musicians showed up at MCM Studios in Winnipeg ready to collaborate with each other. Their task was to write, record and mix one song. And that song would be made available for download the following morning. Talk about quick turnaround. And in all cases, these artists didn’t even know who else would be arriving to their session.

It’s called the Record Of The Week Club and was thought up by producer/musician/engineer Mike Petkau (of Les Jupes). Created were 16 inspiring works celebrating the depth, diversity and passion of the Winnipeg music community. And similar to shows like CBC’s Fuse, the focus was on inventing non-conventional combinations of artistic styles. A good example of this is the stand out track Keewatin Arctic featuring The Weakerthans John K Samson, Inuit throat singer Nikki Komaksiutiksak and electronic artist Blunderspublik. My favorite is the ending track, Waiting For Debates featuring three solo artists Patrick Keenan, Ian La Rue and Jeff Peters.

Check their website for more details, Mike’s label (Head In The Sand) puts out the compilation June 16th.

Verge Awards: And the winners are???

man, I could use 25 grand……

The First Annual Verge Music Awards featuring Broken Social Scene, The Stills, Sebastien Grainger

That’s tonight and probably the hotest ticket in town here in Toronto.

XM radio’s ‘The Verge’ (channel 52, focusing on new and emerging indie and alternative sounds from Canad) has decided to give away $50,000 to support Canadian music by giving away 25k to the best album and 25k to the best artist. Also, this award (unlike next week’s Polaris prize) is determined by the public in online voting. The long list was created from bands in regular rotation on the station, starting with 150 artists and 73 albums, now we have two shortlists:

Best Artist:

Alexisonfire

Hey Rosetta!

Said The Whale

Stars

The Weakerthans

Best Album:

Red, Yellow, Blue – The Born Ruffians

Bring Me Your Love – City and Colour

Into Your Lungs – Hey Rosetta!

The Con – Tegan and Sara

Welcome To The Night Sky – Wintersleep

Who do you think is going to win?

The Sleepless Nights

The blog turned 2 today! Happy Birthday Indie Music Filter. 2 years and 383 posts, still rolling.

Been spinning The Sleepless Nights a lot lately here in the office. They’re a Halifax band originally formed as a three piece. Now the band has grown to a six-peice, comprised of other east coast bands like The Superfantastics, Share and The Establishment. You might have seen them open for bands like The Hylozoists, Jon Rae & The River or The Meligrove Band.

For fans of artists like Grandaddy and Dinosaur Jr, check them out in your hometown, tour starting tomorrow, from the east to the near middle then back. check the myspace for details.

Here’s Got Caught off Turn Into Vapour, released yesterday. I really hear the Weakerthans in this one.

Wombats

Wombats appear to have little fear of humans. They can be awkwardly tamed in a captive situation, and even coaxed to be patted and held.

The ones found in England have got some kicks. Take a listen to the Wombats.

They sound a little like Supergrass and a little like the Weakerthans. Here’s the video for ‘Lost in the Post’. Insane hook on the chorus and outro. What’s up with all the Santa’s? (I can’t say its the weirdest video I’ve seen all day…

Most of their tracks can be found on either their website or their myspace page. They were even in Toronto back in March for Canadian Music week.