Polaris People For The Week Of October 26: Modern Beaver Exists & Cadence Weapon Speaks, Arcade Fire Work
Weird Al Yankovic turned 53 years old this week, which seems like a pretty good excuse to sermonize a bit about how incredible novelty songs can be.
As someone who loved Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-A-Ling” from about the age of 5, but who didn’t understand it until 10 years later, I can attest that a good novelty song can delight in many different ways.
Also, it takes a certain amount of resolve to go “Y’know what? I’m not going to write a stupid love song. Instead, I’m gonna write a song about my wiener. Entirely in cheeky euphemism.” That, is commitment.
So here’s to all the acts that have dared to be different — be they comedic like MacLean & MacLean or Bob & Doug McKenzie, oddly genuine like Canned Hamm or The Evaporators, or parody like Chris Murphy.
Let’s move on to some folks who are decidedly not novel, the Polaris People.
Here’s what some of them were up to this week:
Twice Short-Listed singer Kathleen Edwards is basically trolling us all now with the announcement of a new girl group side-project, Modern Beaver. A number of Polaris People like Jenn Grant and Hannah Georgas will apparently be involved.
CKCU person of interest and Polaris juror Ryan Bresee recently spoke to Jeremy Gara of 2011 Polaris champs Arcade Fire to find out what’s going on in their world. Apparently they’re working on a new album and the roof of their church/studio caved in. No word on if it was because it was on fire. Listen to the interview here.
Keeping with former Polaris champs, Fucked Up have announced the program for their first Long Winter show/event/somethingorother happening in Toronto. There may or may not be some sort of Damian Abraham lookalike contest. And speaking of Pink Eyes, he now has his own throbblehead.
In other past champ check-ins, 2007 victor Patrick Watson recently contributed music to the first episode in the new season of AMC’s zombie nightmare The Waking Dead. You can watch the actual episode here.
Past Short & Long Lister The Weeknd continues to gear up for release of his Trilogy thing. He recently debuted a new song called “Enemy.” We won’t spoil it, but any Smiths fan will instantly recognize the chorus. Also, in a kinda cute turn, the folks at Creative Loafing Charlotte sent a bunch of interview requests to his site. And… nothing.
Former 2010 Short Listers Tegan and Sara have claimed they don’t fight with each other like they used to years ago, but there’s still a sweatpants divide going on between the two. Meanwhile, the Dose folks have the early line on their new “pop” album. Oh, and, like, Taylor Swift is totally into T&S.
You can’t stop the interview machine Cadence Weapon. If it feels like the twice-Short Listed rapper has been everywhere lately, it’s because he has.
Here’s a random sample of recent press:
* At Digital Journal they take things back to NYC.
* Pink Mafia uncovers that he wants to work with Neil Young.
* BlogTO clarifies whether he loves jukeboxes or not.
* Beat Route teaches that making beats can be complicated.
* North Shore News gets into CFL and possessive pronouns.
* Oh, and here’s a video interview with Vibe.
Folks are still trying to figure out what the deal is with 2012 Short Listers YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN. Are they a band? A theater project? A cult? Perhaps this story of when Alaska B and Ruby Kato Attwood first met will help.
Twice Short-Listed raconteur Joel Plaskett explained why he played a show in Lindsay, Ontario, then he listed off the things he likes in Kingston, Ontario, and then he dropped a Husker Du reference.
And to close off, let’s randomly cherry-pick a tweet from first-year champ Owen Pallett because his twitter account is a reliable good time:
“Have you heard “Cowgirl in the Sand”, the album? It’s “Cowgirl in the Sand” repeated 20 times in a row. Good album!”
And… scene.
