Rocket Talk: When's the TTC Going to Roll Out More Fare Collection Methods?
Newsstand: November 9, 2009
Zack Taylor in Disney Mama Drama
Santa's Weston Workshop
The Daily Photoist: November 9, 2009
Oh, how we wanted Holy Fuck to win the 2008 Polaris Prize.
For a competition whose winner seems to be chosen on the basis of context as much as content—a year later, can anyone really argue that Patrick Watson's album had more "artistic merit" than Feist's?—it would have been perfect: here, after all, on the brink of a federal election, is a band recently and uncomfortably cited by the Conservative government as one good reason to cut arts funding, a band whose name is so unspeakable in the mainstream media that even CBC Radio's liveblog from last night calls them only "Holy F**k" or the significantly more racy "Holy F*ck." And, as NOW's Josh Errett put it yesterday, "where better to announce Holy Fuck as the winner than at an arts gala—the same type of gala the Conservatives are attacking in the media?"
It certainly seemed it was heading that way at last night's exclusive (but not so exclusive that we couldn't get in) gala at the Phoenix: it took all of two minutes for host Grant Lawrence to hurl a quick insult at Stephen Harper, joke that the PM would be furious if he could see how lavish the festivities were, then insist that the cost of the gala was "very cheap." Presenters treated the word "fuck" in "Holy Fuck" as though it was a one-word catharsis inducer; it was uttered at least a few dozen times throughout the night, each time more emphatic than the last—though we're not sure if any of those uses ever made it on the air on Sirius Radio or CBC Radio 3, where it was being broadcast, the audience was regularly reminded, live.
The night lurched through two-song sets by Basia Bulat, Two Hours Traffic, Kathleen Edwards, Black Mountain, Plants and Animals, Shad, and Holy Fuck; one-song pretaped exclusive performances from the bands that couldn't do it live (Stars, the Weakerthans, and...Caribou); and more than enough technical difficulties, like when the Weakerthans' video refused to play for a good few minutes, or when something that sounded a lot like a waterfall overtook Kathleen Edward's set and she blamed it on the tech's "shitty backline." It didn't help much that everyone in the room was made hyperaware of the fact of the concert's broadcast: as a result, every minor issue seemed worse, more hectic, more awkward, and far more important.
In spite of the problems, though, the sets were mostly extraordinarily good, and the night was full of nice touches: each band, for instance, had a poster made for them by an artist from their home town (Basia Bulat's was done by our own Roxanne Ignatius; Shad's by our pal Jeremy Wilson from Popfuel). Plus, George Stroumboulopoulos was there, which made Black Mountain's table pretty excited.
By the time that the eleven-person grand jury was out and Patrick Watson appeared via pretaped video to announce the winner and take one more shot at his pals in Besnard Lakes, who he said "sucked" in last year's acceptance speech and who he jokingly announced as the winner of this year's prize, the crowd—part media, part industry, part artists—seemed to be angling for Shad or Holy Fuck. But when Watson actually announced the winner as Caribou's Andorra, no-one was more surprised than Dan Snaith himself; he told the crowd in his shocked acceptance speech that "if I seem completely overwhelmed it's because I am."
To be honest, we're still wondering why he won. Maybe artistic merit or something?
Photos courtesy of CBC Radio 3/Trevor Weeks
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Was there any reason offered for Caribou performing on video?
And what made it a gala was that there was an open bar (and presumably free food), correct?
Wondering why he won? Seriously? So you didn't get your political punt to Harper. Big *Fucking* deal.
Don't slag Dan - who incidentally called Toronto home for a period of time, not to mention has members in his band from Toronto - for it. Andorra is a brilliant album that completely embodies the spirit of the Polaris.
Jeeze, it's smart-ass blogs like this that remind me why I barely pay attention to the Torontoist these days.
Best headline ever
wasn't that Caribou record, like, really good. just, like, a really good record. that if i was a judge i'd listen to and be all, "woah this record is really good". is your last line a joke. i'm confused. what the wtf?
@musicstar: Um...I was joking? Did you read the sentence after the one you got pissy about?
Yeah, I can see how this might have been an attempt at a joke. In the context of the entire blog, however, it doesn't read that way. fco (above) would tend to agree.
How about a blog post that doesn't bring politics into the awarding of the Polaris but one that comments to the achievement of Caribou? Really this would be what was more appropriate for both the band and the Polaris.
I remember when I first learned to say "Fuck" too ... aaah to be a child again!
Torontoist didn't make it political, Harper did. Boo, down with Canadian pop culture!
(Some CBC Radio 3 hosts call them "Holy Fack", but they don't censor "fuck" when it appears in lyrics. I really don't understand the double standard on that.)
That giant cheque isn't signed. It's all a sham.
I'm not sure what this post it about.
Are you trying for a reasoned rapprochement with Canadians of all political affiliations, recognizing that the arts matter to all of us, even if our tastes differ and we probably have different priorities, depending where we live and how much we make and how we make our livings and such?
If so good work. We really need that.
Well i wish i was there -- if anything just to understand your angle. I agree awards should go preferably to the band who actually bothered to show up at the show. I might have even given the award to Holy Fuck because their album is nothing short of stellar.
What i don't understand is this hostility towards Caribou. Maybe this is a joke? Caribou, and before that Manitoba, has been pumping out amazing music since '99 with little appreciation. I have 3 of their CDs. I recall attending a FREE caribou concert on the harbour front centre 3 years ago, i think i was the only one to bother to attend. It was me in the front row with 6 other attendees who were there only just because they walked by. Caribou freakin deserves it because if anything they've not received much local attention/respect but consistently receive critical acclaim in the US. They deserve it even more if this is hostility that the band, support Canadian music please. I feel ashamed actually and really sympathetic for the band members of this is what they receive the following day.
I find this post is really not conducive to your community focused blog.
It's against my better judgment to do this, but at the risk of offending another Caribou fan on this, the most holiest of days, I'll explain my article.
I open by saying that Holy Fuck should have won the Polaris prize if it was a prize "chosen on the basis of context as much as content." (Content is the music itself; context is everything that surrounds it.) I say this because I think last year's prize winner, Patrick Watson, was chosen on the basis of context as much as or more than content.
I then list the reasons why context would have demanded Holy Fuck's win, and why it would have been so interesting if the award had gone to them: great unpublishable name (when CBC linked to this very article, they had to call it "Holy F*cking F*ck, That F*ck From Caribou Won the F*cking Polaris Prize"), great piss-off to the federal government, great setting (a gala!), great timing (an election!). Given that context, I say, a win for Holy Fuck would "have been perfect."
I then describe the gala itself, paying attention to more instances falling into the aforementioned categories that would have made Holy Fuck's win so appropriate. At no point in the article have I yet discussed the artistic merit of any one band or album up for the prize, even though that is supposed to be the criteria for selected the winner. (Frankly, I haven't decided yet which album I like best, though of late I've favoured Shad's and Holy Fuck's; the audience last night, by measure of their applause, seemed to agree.)
I'm consciously avoiding the topic of artistic merit because of my previous claim about context winning over content last year, and how that's what everyone's expecting again this year, and also because the coverage of the controversy around Holy Fuck—everything but their music—is totally interesting. I doing this totally conscious of the fact that Holy Fuck's frontman told Eye (in an article I linked to at the beginning of my article) that "the attention has gotten a little bit discouraging....We’ll come back to our family and friends and, even after getting endorsed in the media in other countries by Lou Reed or Michael Stipe, all the people at home seem to be focused on is why they didn’t mention our full name during the announcement for the Polaris Music Prize, or whether or not somebody printed it in a newspaper." The switching of attention from content to context is exactly what the band themselves doesn't want. For them, it's all about the music, the same as Polaris' mandate.
I conclude by saying I was surprised to find that Caribou had won, and still am. I say this because I was expecting another year, like last year, where context won out over content. As I mention in my first paragraph, Patrick Watson's album wasn't better than Feist's, but it seems to have won anyway for a whole host of reasons other than the actual quality of the music itself. Different context (I think last year it was concerns outside the music more like "well, she doesn't need the money") but context nonetheless.
I then quickly, and totally tongue-in-cheekily, guess that "maybe artistic merit or something?" was the reason for Caribou winning. And that's the crux of my article: Caribou won because he may well have released the best, most "artistic merit"-y album of the past year. (Again, I haven't decided this for myself yet, but I certainly think his album is among the best.)
So, basically: content, not context, decided the winner this year. Grand Jury member Frank Yang's description of the night pretty much backs this up: he says that "there was more than enough to talk about in just about the music without getting off-topic." (By off-topic, he means stuff like "Give the finger to the Conservatives! Punish the successful label! They don't need the money! It's time for a woman! A rapper! A westerner! Blah blah blah.") And frankly, I'm pretty happy about that.
Congratulations to Caribou, and sorry to anyone who thought I was slagging him. I figured calling my article "Holy Fucking Fuck, That Fuck From Caribou Won The Fucking Polaris Prize" might have offered some forewarning that a half-decent ability to distinguish sincerity from jokiness would be required to keep reading. I'm sorry some of you fucks didn't get it.