Seattle’s very talented musician / performer Reggie Watts shares an impromptu and humorous take on Canada at the 2012 Rifflandia Music Festival in Victoria, B.C ..read more

I’ve long admired Joni Mitchell and previously mentioned her collaboration with fellow Canadians, Neil Young and The Band.   A number of her songs serve as place markers for my memories in that special way that songs do when they touch deeply.   So I read with interest the finely crafted essay in this week’s The New Yorker (Dec. 17, 2012, pages 30-35) by Zadie Smith about Smith’s eventual appreciation of Mitchell’s beguiling singing.  The following observation by Smith stood out for me for its thoughtful insight into th ..read more

Driving back from the airport in the early morning a few months ago, I turned on the radio and happened upon the mesmerizing “Put There By The Land” by the Great Lake Swimmers.   That led to exploring this Toronto-based group further.  Nice variety of styles, including some with catchy hooks, such as “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “Pulling on a Line”.   This group deserves more attention.  More about them on their website here ..read more

Lately I’ve been wearing out both “Above the Ground” and “Hello” by Mark Berube & The Patriotic Few.  The clip of the first song, which is available on YouTube, is a shortened version that provides a good feel for the whole of this very mellow piece and its terrific lyrics.  Guest singer Emily Loizeau joins the band on that piece as well.  “Hello” is hypnotic.  Both are on the band’s June in Siberia album, released earlier this year ..read more

Robbie Robertson’s recent receipt of an Order of Canada award reminded me that I had not posted anything about music lately and that I’d been looking for an opportunity to comment on both Neil Young and The Band.  One of those cultural semi-secrets about which many of us in the States are unaware is how much of what we consider to be American entertainment derives from Canadian performers.  Sticking just with music, notable Canadian performers with numerous fans in the States include not only Neil Young ..read more

Last night the 41st annual JUNO Awards — Canada’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards — were announced at an awards gala and presentation ceremony in Toronto.  Winners included The Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs for Album of the Year, The Arcade Fire for Group of the Year, Neil Young for Artist of the Year, and Meaghan Smith for New Artist of the Year. The official JUNO Awards site (http://junoawards.ca/) has details on winners, sound clips from nominees, photos of event and much more ..read more

  “City With No Children” from The Suburbs No big surprise to fans of Quebec-based Arcade Fire that this past weekend their superb album The Suburbs received the Grammy Award for 2010’s best album.   (See 8/15/10 O’Canada Blog posting here.)  What is particularly interesting to me are many of the comments I’ve seen posted on various blogs and popular music-related sites where so many people have expressed bewilderment about who is this group called Arcade Fire and how could they possibly have won this award.  Never a better moment for the good old ..read more

A little more than a month ago, I got a trial subscription to Sirius satellite radio for my car but until the past two weeks I had not paid much attention to it.   Then I downloaded a channel guide and skimmed through the varied options and was intrigued that in addition to channels devoted to music and musicians I like, there are several channels devoted to Canadian music, news and sports.  It seems fitting that my attention would be drawn to these channels given that the first occasion I had to listen to satellite radio was in a rental ..read more

I’ve been listening to the soothing indie folk melodies of Toronto-based singer/songwriter Matthew Barber for the past year now and I think he’s a musical artist who’s likely to garner much-deserved greater attention in the near future.  The video below is for “Easily Bruised,” which is from his 2008/09 Ghost Notes album.  I couldn’t locate a high quality video for another standout song of his, “True Believer,” from the 2010 album of the same name, but you can listen to that on Barber’s MySpace page (link below) — and get a ..read more

During a visit to a local hardware store earlier this week, the announcer on the radio playing on the store’s sound system commented that when she was a teen learning to drive in south Florida she always resented French Canadians because the cars with Quebec license plates always seemed to occupy all the available public parking.  That observation alone made me chuckle and got my attention.   She continued by noting that she has since changed her views and now she loves French Canadians, and one of the reasons is because of the Montreal-based band ..read more