POP Goes the World (Halifax and Montreal)

[indie at indiecan.com]

Just the Facts:
IndieCan is on the ground at Halifax POP Explosion and will have a report
for you soon.
http://www.halifaxpopexplosion.com

IndieCan Radio Episode 152 celebrated POP Montreal with visitors from
Michigan and Toronto piping in on the Montreal music scene as well as
locals talking up the scene.
http://www.indiecan.com/radio.htm#episode152
http://www.indiecan.com/152IndieCanRadio.mp3

Thanks for your feedback about the IndieCan email gremlins.  You've all
been a big help and we should have the problem fixed up in the next few
weeks.

Babbling on...
Here comes another IndieCan Weekend – look, now we're taking credit for
the end of the work week.  Not really, indie life has no end to the work
week.  I head something great about the riggers of the music biz on the
radio Thursday.  I am in Foam Lake Saskatchewan this week and I was
driving my cousin to Saskatoon airport and I heard Q on CBC and Dan Mangan
and Bill Withers were on (separately although, what a duo that would be!).
 There is a new movie about the life of Bill Withers (Use Me Up, Lean on
Me, Aint No Sunshine) coming out soon and he was talking with CBC host
from CBC's Los Angeles studio.

Bill Withers was reflecting on some of the reasons he left the music
business.  He finds there are too many people too high on themselves – or
where back in the 70's and 80's for his liking.  He doesn't value
celebrityism and wasn't impressed at how women or media put more stock in
him as a rising star.  Bill Withers was a mid-thirties car mechanic before
“Ain't No Sunshine” made him a pop icon.  He didn't grow up in celebrity
culture.  He found the industry predatorial and unregulated and he felt
like he was swimming with the sharks.  He called A&R at the time
Antagonistic and Redundant. They loved that he had a different style but
wanted him to conform his songwriting to formulaic style.  He said he left
the business in the mid-80's because “I had other things on the go,” but
he said he also had concern about looking pathetic like an ageing hipster.

That's an interesting question – is music ageist?  Certainly blues music
honours it's senior brothers and sisters but in the pop world is this
still true?  What about all those jokes we share about geriatric rockers
working the Casino Rama circuit?  What do we really mean by that and is it
fair and is it true?

Withers says he still writes songs – George Benson is working one of his
songs to radio but Withers says, “People want to see a young, handsome guy
up there singing.  I never wanted to be the oldest guy in the club, if you
know what I mean.”

Dan Mangan – you were cool as centre ice, man!  Prime time looked good on
you.  Dan, if you didn't hear him (check the CBC Pod cast if you missed it
– or their YouTube page), was talking about his new record, “Nice, Nice,
Very Nice” and how different the media treats him now he won the THE VERGE
XM Music Artist of the Year Award, “They never heard of me a month ago and
now they talk about my second full length recording like they have been
there from the start.”

But like I say, I wish they saved more time for you but you a true
Canadianesque ambassador or music, taking time to say you voted for Joel
Plaskett and taking the $25,000 and taking a band right back on the road. 
So check out http://www.danmanganmsuic.com and see if you have a chance to
see why Dan the Man Mangan is feeling and looking so Fabulous.

Next week on IndieCan Radio we start our two-part-plus Indie Week 2009
coverage.  We have two shows in the can and we still have interviews and
Cds to get through.  If you were there, Episodes 153 and 154 will be
nostalgic and if you missed it, they will make you plan to be in Toronto
next September.

This week, on 152, catch up on Hollerado's next trip to China, hear about
Snailhouse's shortest trip to a gig ever and hear what outsiders say about
the Montreal music scene including Toronto's Hoa Hoa's and Michigan's
Kinetic Stereo Kids.  We enjoy some other Quebec culture with ParlovR,
Meta Gruau, Silly Kissers and some more of the T.Dot faithful, Diamond
Rings, Sports the Band and The Meligrove Band.

More on POP Montreal including pics:
http://www.indiecan.com/evernts.htm

Nothing like hearing it:
http://www.indiecan.com/radio.htm#episode152

Signing off from under the big sky of Saskatchewan,

Joe C
host
IndieCan Radio
www.indiecan.com
info at indiecan.com