Results tagged “polarisprize”

"I probably don't even need this microphone, to be honest!" Frontman Odario Williams and the rest of his genre-bending hip-hop group Grand Analog launched the Toronto Public Library's current Make Some Noise series straight from the kids' section of the College/Shaw branch last night, and the alternative venue proved a somehow very fitting setting for an affair that's typically relegated to dark clubs at late hours that no adorable two-year-old would ever be able to attend.

"Did they say Joel Plaskett?" Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham giggled, half-delirious with genuine shock and excitement minutes after he and the rest of the band (drummer Jonah Falco, guitarist Mike Haliechuk, bassist Sandy Miranda, guitarist Josh Zucker, and guitarist Ben Cook) accepted the 2009 Polaris Music Prize for their acclaimed, soaring hardcore epic, The Chemistry of Common Life. The press conference immediately following last night's performance gala and award presentation was full of journalists, but it was oddly silent, maybe because, for the infinite snide opining on the awards' predictability and who really deserved it, no one actually thought Fucked Up would win. Maybe we truly were, as Abraham mocked, all still in shock.

For the unacquainted, the Polaris Music Prize was established in 2006 to recognize and celebrate Canadian musical talent. With money! Each year, the winning artist is awarded twenty thousand dollars, likely doubling their income for the year and making their mom super proud. Every single Canadian album released in the Polaris Year (June 1 to May 31) is eligible, and a jury of assorted impartial cool folks and journalists (this author included!) from across the country vote to form a Long List of nominated albums. From here, that same jury votes to create a Short List, and then there's a big party in Toronto (tonight!) where an eleven-member Grand Jury that changes yearly picks a final winner while everyone else gets blasted and eats free cheese in another room.

Damian Abraham sings in your mom's favourite Toronto-based hardcore band, Fucked Up. Both highly dysfunctional and internationally acclaimed (not many bands can have a feature review in The New York Times that doesn't mention their band name once), Fucked Up gained word-of-mouth notoriety through their batshit insane live shows, their prolific output of limited-run 7" records (many of which now sell on eBay for hundreds of dollars), and bizarro collaborations. Their Polaris nomination for The Chemistry of Common Life—a record that has seen almost universal critical acclaim—comes at the end of a year that saw the band open for the Stooges at Massey Hall, get banned from MTV, play a twelve-hour set in NYC (with bonkers guests including Moby on a cover of "Blitzkrieg Bop"), and saw Damian become both a dad and a Fox News correspondent. When he's not crushing pint glasses into his head (or being a super sweet dude that your mom would actually love), Damian is telling Torontoist about the strangeness of being nominated for a major music prize in a country that has always kinda sorta ignored them.

COMEDY: The Toronto Improv Festival is back in its ninth year to take over the Comedy Bar for a week-long celebration of improvisational theatre, comedy, and music with thirty-five acts over fourteen shows. The festival kicks off tonight with three local outfits: the double X-chromosome crew WDWMKR (pronounced "widowmaker"), Standards and Practices, and The Carnegie Hall Show, followed by live band karaoke. Check out the full schedule of events for the week, which includes the revival of a festival favourite on Wednesday night with the '80s-themed Improv Prom, brimming with taffeta and booze. Comedy Bar (945 Bloor Street West), 8 p.m., $10 per show or $49 for a festival pass.

The jury for the Polaris Prize—the twenty thousand dollar prize for the best Canadian album, chosen solely on the incredibly subjective measure that is "artistic merit"—has whittled down their forty-album long list to ten finalists, to be picked and announced on September 21. The finalists: Elliott BROOD, Mountain Meadows; Fucked Up, The Chemistry Of Common Life; Great Lake Swimmers, Lost Channels; Hey Rosetta!, Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood); K'NAAN, Troubadour; Malajube, Labyrinthes; Metric, Fantasies; Joel Plaskett, Three; Chad VanGaalen, Soft Airplane; and Patrick Watson, Wooden Arms.

This year's Polaris Prize—the twenty thousand dollar prize for the Canadian album released between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009 with the most "artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation"—has announced its forty-album long list, to be narrowed down to a short list on July 7, and one winner announced at a gala on September 21. (Last year's award went to Caribou; 2007's went to Patrick Watson; 2006's, the prize's inaugural year, went to Final Fantasy.) The albums by Toronto (or Toronto-area) bands in the running? Bruce Peninsula's A Mountain Is A Mouth; D-Sisive's Let The Children Die; Elliott Brood's Mountain Meadows; Fucked Up's The Chemistry Of Common Life; Great Lake Swimmers' Lost Channels; K-OS's YES!; K'NAAN's Troubadour; Metric's Fantasies; One Hundred Dollars' Forest Of Tears; Charles Spearin's The Happiness Project; and Timber Timbre's Timber Timbre. If you count Hamiltonians as Torontonians, and why not, you can add The Arkells' Jackson Square and Junior Boys' Begone Dull Care to the mix.

Oh, how we wanted Holy Fuck to win the 2008 Polaris Prize.

We're at the Phoenix right now for the invite-only Polaris Prize gala, surrounded by people far more respectable than us, and it's just been announced—by last year's Polaris winner Patrick Watson (via pretaped video; he made one for each nominee)—that the grand jury has anointed Carbou's Andorra this year's winner. And no-one here is more surprised than Dan Snaith of Caribou! More coverage soon.

Though he wasn't exactly born and raised in West Philly (try Kenya and London, Ontario respectively), Toronto-based and Polaris-nominated emcee Shad has dropped this unstoppable shot-by-shot send-up of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air title sequence as the video for his latest single, "The Old Prince Still Lives At Home." With London valiantly subbing in for Bel-Air and just the right amount of neon, all he's really missing is a hi-top fade.

           

The shortlist for this year's Polaris Prize was announced at the Drake Hotel this morning. The $20,000 prize, established by Steve Jordan and now in its third year, "annually honours, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected critics and experts." Last year, it went to Patrick Watson for his band's Close to Paradise; they used it to pay off a $16,000 bill from Budget for crashing a rent-a-car. The year before that, it went to Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy); he used it to pay off his boyfriend's student loans.

When the Polaris Prize gala went down last year, the music-loving public was mostly kept out: only musicians, music industry folk, and media were invited. Those who missed the gala missed not only the awarding of the $20,000 prize to Patrick Watson (who needed the cash because of a $16,000 bill his band just got for crashing a rental car), but also a great show, with six of the nominated acts––Watson, The Besnard Lakes, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Miracle Fortress, Julie Doiron, and Chad VanGaalen––playing short sets of songs from their nominated albums.

Steve Jordan, founder of the Polaris Prize, discreetly passes a bottle of Smirnoff to an ecstatic post-victory Patrick Watson. Just before he opened his two-song performance at the Phoenix on Monday tonight as part of the 2007 Polaris Prize gala, Patrick Watson welcomed the crowd of musicians, industry folk, and media to "the battle of the bands." Two-odd hours later, and after quick sets from The Besnard Lakes, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Julie Doiron, Miracle...

This Monday, September 24, the winner of the second-annual Polaris Prize will be announced at a gala event at the Phoenix. There will be stars, musical performances, free food and drink, and, unfortunately, you are probably not invited. Given to the best Canadian album of the past year, and awarded solely on artistic merit, the $20,000 prize is getting handed to someone (probably Feist) at a media and invite-only event. (Torontoist was graciously invited, but we're not sure if we'll be there to cover it yet.) This year's shortlist––which we spent a midsummer day covering––is heavy on the rock and light on everything else, with The Arcade Fire, The Besnard Lakes, The Dears, Julie Doiron, Feist, Junior Boys, Miracle Fortress, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Chad VanGaalen, and Patrick Watson all getting nods.

Photo of Julie Doiron courtesy of Jagjaguwar.

Photo of Cadence Weapon by David Topping.

Photo of Owen Pallett by chichibebelolo on Flickr. Photo of Steve Kado by Shakeer on Flickr.

Hot off their recent Polaris Prize nomination, Malajube used the momentum to pack Lee's Palace on Saturday night with rabid (mostly French) fans and those curious to see what all the fuss is about. They certainly didn't disappoint, and even with much of the crowd not understanding the lyrics, the catchy hooks managed to get many people dancing (gasp!) and yelling all sorts of things at the band in franglais.

Earlier this week in the concert listings, we briefly told you of the upcoming free shows that the Toronto Public Library were holding. Now that the full details have been released, here's the low-down.

More evidence that we're the centre of the universe (kidding), the nominees for the inaugural Polaris Prize is out and four five out of the ten nominees are bonafide Toronto artists. Broken Social Scene, The Deadly Snakes, Final Fantasy, Sarah Harmer and K'Naan make up the Toronto contingent. If we add Metric (which live in a whole bunch of places) and Sarah Harmer (who lives near Kingston) then over half the list calls Toronto home. Good job scene.