Saturday, March 5, 2011

Weird Canada

So I contribute to a blog called Weird Canada - most of you probably are familiar with that site as I check my stats and a lot of my traffic is directed from there. CBC's radio 3 as had a competition this month to find out what is Canada's best music website. Starting from the bottom 100 or so or whatever we have made it to the final stage of the vote - the top 10. 

We feel that if Weird Canada wins this will be a small cultural victory for Canada. We will have toppled many mainstream industry blogs and will have stricken a wake up call to the CBC that underground music is important to Canadians. That Weird Canada is a strong force for new music in Canada. Many artists that have been featured in Weird Canada in the last year haveseen their music travel far and wide. While I know all these band's work so hard promoting their music and honing their craft - no doubt has Weird Canada's effort helped their cause. 

Artists like D'eon, Grimes, and Dirty Beaches - to name a few have all been covered early in their careers on Weird Canada. These artists music has been released on foreign labels and since been covered in major media outlets and blogs like Pitchfork, Vice, MTV, BBC - even D'eon appearing on Thom Yorke's playlist - but have seldom received support or radio play from the CBC. We feel that we cover the best of Canadian music at Weird Canada and we are always trying to expand our scope. Now I live in the United States and I hear my friend's talk about bands like Gobble Gobble, Make Out Video Tape, and Long Long Long - all of which have been covered early in their starts on Weird Canada. I wondered if they would have known about them if their wasn't a Weird Canada.  

Here are some inspiring words from Weird Canada founder Aaron Levin sure to get your DIY blood flowing - and please vote for Weird Canada HERE

-Z

From Weird Canada

CBC Radio 3 is running a pyramidal voting scheme, vetting Weird Canada through a triumvirate of keystrokes, sinusoids, and opinionated minds. A conspiracy of this calibre must be met with deep suspicion and deliberate candor. They pit us against each other – our fellow publishers. They split our fans – those beautiful beings. They place the unbearable suffering of expectation on all who speak their name. Ye wyld typists vie for the last shard of national recognition.

Our radio Narsil has us deep in the trenches, spending weeks at your foot begging for another integer. In the heat of the mud no ideal will last. All succumb to it. Thick. Greasy. Swelling with the rainbows of fallen candidates. In the beginning we shouted “No! This voting scheme shall not stand! Free it all! Let the streets run wild with the multitude of our opinions!” But now, as the blue skies turn black, I face you filled with the adrenaline of conviction. We believe. We want to win. We write these very words to justify our victory grip.

Thanks to your support, the absurd notion that Weird Canada may win has become a reality. We have blown away all the flagpoles and are staring blankly into the void. The Top 10. Why is this important? Why does this matter? Win or not, Weird Canada will remain an exploratory experience for the brazenly adventurous. We will always focus on our northernly kin and enthuse, physically scan, and hyperbolize all the wonderful manifestations of creative potential this country has to offer. Our daily operation will continue, delightedly, into the unheralded cassette oblivion.

However, the Canadian psyche is shifting. Winning this contest may push it further into our camp. The middle ground of indie music is disappearing. The plates are grooving under due pressure from self-recorded geniuses and the industry cannot will not handle it. So we’ve come to you, our people from coast-to-coast, to ask for your vote. A vote along the streams of time. A vote for the only entity proudly bearing the emerging flag of a new northern identity. An identity not born in the offices of minor-majors, but one bursting with the charged, chromatic life festering within tape dubbers, cd burners, pressing plants, and photocopy machines.

We. Are. Northernly.

VOTE WEIRD CANADA

Hearts,

Aaron Levin
Weird Canada
weirdcanada.com

PS – No sign-up. Two Clicks. Vote daily, every 24 hours, until our star shines ever brighter.


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