Polaris People For The Week Of June 7: Tegan And Sara's Clinton Connection And Woodpigeon Tear-Gassed
By this time next week the 2013 Polaris Music Prize Long List will officially have been revealed in Montreal.
You’ll have to excuse us if we’re a little bit excited about it. By most measurable standards — namely the complaining our jurors have been doing — it has been an incredibly difficult year to judge because of all the great albums up for consideration.
Let us now take a look at what some people who’ve already been judged worthy, the Polaris People, have been up to recently.
Right off the top, while here in Canada we’ve been well distracted by crack-smoking mayors and expense-scamming senators, over in Turkey there’s been real uprising. 2009 Long Lister Woodpigeon has been in the thick of it. A small sample of his tweets…
Hanging out on Cihangur street corner, passing around wine, singing and dancing. #occupygezi #direngeziparki
— Woodpigeon (@woodpigeontweet) June 1, 2013
The videos out of Ä°zmir are just as frightening as those out of Istanbul. Groups of 20 police taking on a single woman.WTF? #taksimgeziparki
— Woodpigeon (@woodpigeontweet) June 3, 2013
Tear gas is an awful thing. Unbelievable we allow its use at all. It still packs quite a punch even when used a mile away. #taksimgeziparki
— Woodpigeon (@woodpigeontweet) June 3, 2013
Istanbul may be the most amazing city I’ve ever been to, which makes all of this brutality even more unbearable. #taksimgeziparki
— Woodpigeon (@woodpigeontweet) June 4, 2013
One thing we’ve learned here: exposure to tear gas makes me snore like a motherfucker. #taksimgeziparki
— Woodpigeon (@woodpigeontweet) June 5, 2013
In less heavy, more celebratory matters, this weekend marks the official return of Broken Social Scene at the Field Trip Festival to help celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Arts & Crafts record label. This is kinda a big deal, what with the band performing breakout album You Forgot It In People in its entirety and Kevin Drew’s enticing dangle that Field Trip may spawn new projects. Then there’s this BSS performance on Fallon earlier this week.
On a very related note, this week’s cover story in The Grid by Polaris juror Michael Barclay is a rather thorough look at the evolution of Toronto’s indie scene and features a number of our People like Metric, Owen Pallett, Drake and The Weeknd.
Elsewhere, former 2010 Short Listers Radio Radio have announced the plans for a new monthly subscription service. For $10/year Radio Radio’s fans will get access to exclusive songs each month.
Jeremy Greenspan of past Short and Long Listers Junior Boys has a new solo EP out with Borys called God Told Me To. It’s officially getting released on Caribou‘s Jiaolong label.
There’s a connection between Tegan And Sara, Bill Clinton and Grey’s Anatomy. Life is strange and wonderful.
Polaris Bounty: Our eternal gratitude if someone can conjure a good wizard-themed joke about New Pornographers‘ A.C. Newman prepping the score for the new Daniel Radcliffe film The F Word. Tweet to @PolarisPrize.
While all this was going on, Win Butler of past champs Arcade Fire was learning how to dance in Montreal with Jennifer Lawrence. If we’re reading these signs correctly this means Chris Tucker will be a guest star on the next AF album.
Win Butler and Jennifer Lawrence! is.gd/MY4a68 #JLaw!
— Arcade Fire tube (@ArcadeFiretube) June 5, 2013
Meanwhile, Polaris jurors have been making things happen as well. This weekend A Tribe Called Red supporter Ryan B. Patrick will be one of the anchors at IT STARTS WITH THE DJ: The Ultimate Music Industry Conference in Toronto. More information can be found here. On top of that, current Globe And Mail writer Carl Wilson has been made the new music critic at Slate. Good job, people.
Finally, a heartfelt R.I.P. to Chris Levoir, frontman for The Mark Inside and influential sound engineer at numerous Toronto venues, who passed away at age 31.
