Polaris People For The Week Of July 26: Feist Flood Relief And Drake Basement Tapes
We are officially less than two months away from the Polaris Gala and, by extension, naming the winner of the 2013 Polaris Music Prize.
Just think. In 59 days one of these people will for a few moments become the number one trending topic in Canada.
In an exciting first-time development, regular folks will now be able to attend the Polaris Gala for the first time. Information on how to buy tickets can be found here.
What those folks will witness is the official enshrinement of the 10 Short List nominees into a special club. These people, our favourite people, will henceforth be alpha members of the Polaris People club.
Let’s see what some Polaris People have been up to recently.
Starting things off, reigning Polaris champ Leslie Feist is doing a solid for Alberta Flood relief, playing a show in Banff, Alberta on August 7. There’s currently a bidding war on eBay to score super-VIP tickets to the show.
Fucked Up, the Polaris champs from 2009, are currently in the recording studio. There have been some complications.
Spent the whole day doing the vocals for one song… Fuck you and your complex beats @jonahjonahfalco!!!!!!!’
— Damian Abraham (@leftfordamian) July 24, 2013
In other past-champ news, the Arcade Fire have been busy supporting Pussy Riot, making Peter Gabriel covers and, to the best of our understanding, the new album won’t be a rock opera. Oh, and Paste tried ranking the band’s 10 best songs.
Elsewhere in album news, past Short and Long Lister Basia Bulat has a new record called Tall Tall Shadow coming out on October 1 through Secret City.
Arcade Fire associate and 2013 Short Lister Colin Stetson is the subject of an extensive profile over at Music Works. There are a lot of words, so summarizing it in a pithy way is a bit of an injustice. Go read it here.
Fellow class of 2013 members Tegan And Sara, meanwhile, are all about Medieval Times.
When in Toronto…Medieval Times is the place to go! #crowns http://t.co/E6PdCDxm73
— Tegan and Sara (@teganandsara) July 25, 2013
When Drake says he started at the bottom he means it quite literally. In this case, the “bottom” being his mom’s basement. Check out this unearthed footage at Shalom Life.
Meanwhile, Broken Social Scene, the most un-broken-up broken-up band this side of Lowest Of The Low, have released a new song with the help of That ’70s guy Danny Masterson.
Our special friends and broadcast partners at AUX TV went all advanced sabermetrics on the 2013 Short List recently. If you want graphs about release dates, geographic representation or band membership we suggest going here.
Finally, Polaris supremo Steve Jordan has a guest column over at Q Magazine right now. You should go read it.
