New (free) Zunior Sampler

The new Zunior sampler features a track from the new Burning Hell album I was telling you about. It also has some Ketch Harbour Wolves, Jenn Grant, Emma-Lee, Laura Borealis, Al Tuck, Benn Ross, and more all for the low price of nothing at all.

Grab It Here

Will Currie and the Giant Beaver

Will Currie and the Country French stopped along the roadside in Alberta to file a video diary about the World's Largest Beaver and celebrate Amada's 24th birthday. If you're looking for some listening, grab a copy of CBC Radio 3 sessions podcast with Will Currie and the Country French (one of my all time favorites.) You can also grab a few free MP3's from the band here.

Happy Birthday Amanda and enjoy the big beaver everyone!

If You Download the Terrorists Win

Jennifer Van Evra at Radio 3 has a talent for finding laughably ridiculous studies that people actually paid for and devoted part of their professional lives to. Last week it was the one about sexy music leading to promiscuity, this week she's found a study from the Motion Picture Association and the RAND corporation that links illegal downloading to terrorism.

It turns out that Jennifer found this one the Wired Blog which contains this excerpt from the study:

"Moreover, three of the documented cases provide clear evidence that terrorist groups have used the proceeds of film piracy to finance their activities. While caution must be exercised in drawing broad conclusions from limited evidence, further investigation is a timely imperative. These cases, combined with established evidence for the broader category of counterfeiting-terrorism connections, are highly suggestive that intellectual-property theft - a low-risk, high-profit enterprise - is attractive not only to organized crime, but also to terrorists, particularly opportunistic members of local terrorist cells."

Now heaps of scorn are certainly due the RAND corporation (which stands for Research ANd Development by the way - they do alot of work for the US Military). It's not bad enough that they'll draw sweeping conclusions based on scant evidence if the cheque is big enough but that their primary recommendation is that more research be done smacks of unadulterated greed. RAND should certainly be considered less than credible going forward.

Beyond that the MPAA obviously learned absolutely nothing from what happened to the recording industry (RIAA) over the last two decades. They spent most of their money on frivolous lawsuits which they rarely collected even when they won and accelerated their own downfall. The MPAA has taken it a step further, apparently they want to get Homeland Security to get involved. (Images of Jack Bauer crashing into the bedroom of some 16 year old who is trying to download Twilight and hauling him off to Guantanamo Bay.)

Rather than respecting their audience and trying to find ways to make this new distribution method work to their advantage they are gearing up for war against the people on whose support their livelihood depends. I feel safe in saying that the big studios are totally undeserving of your respect or sympathy - do as you please and ignore them until they go away.

Blocks Recording Singles Club

Via CBC Radio 3: Toronto's artist owned music collective Blocks Recording Club home of Final Fantasy, Bob Wiseman, Fucked Up, Kids on TV, the Phonemes, and others has launched the "Blocks Singles Club". Everyone who joins the Blocks Recording Club's new Facebook Group will get two free singles a month from Blocks artists for free. So keep up with Blocks and get free music all for belonging to just One More Facebook Group. Um ... go join!

Rock Plaza Central Live On Archive.org

Archive.org is obviously one of the best things online. In addition to offering (for free) over 1.2 million text files, over 158 thousand 'moving images' (mostly film), and over 300 thousand audio files they have their own version of 'Concerts on Demand'. The archive currently includes over 58 thousand performances. All of them are embeddable and downloadable (usually MP3 and lossless Flac). The particular recording below is Toronto's own Rock Plaza Central at the Camper Van Beethoven silver anniversary show in Chicago. You can also just download the whole thing here.

Lots of Free Music From Zunior

Have you ever visited publicbroadcasting.ca and seen the little red and white box on the left? It's on the main page and most of the feed page. Zunior updates it periodically (once a month ish?...) anyway what it tells you is that Zunior has a free sampler and it's usually a pretty amazing collection. The current freebee contains

A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
I Could Love You More - In-Flight Safety
Confidences Shattered - Camphor
Three Hard Knocks - The United Steel Workers of Montreal
You Don't Miss Me - Ruby Jean & The Thoughtful Bees
She's Out of Sight - Flecton Big Sky
King of the Gangsters - Geoff Berner
The Island of Seven Cities - The Hylozoists
The Garbage Man Song - The Great Outdoors
Maria - Jon-Rae Fletcher

You do have to sign up for a Zunior account to get it, but so what? They sell full digital albums (complete with the album art) for $7.99, and almost all of the money goes to the people who make the music but even if you never buy a single thing your Zunior membership will get you 150-200 (ish) free songs a year, just to make sure you've heard the stuff. I'll try, going forward, to flag it when they post a new one.

Grab the current one at http://www.zunior.com/product_info.php?products_id=2318

Woodhands - Electric Avenue! Get it Free

The Woodhands are releasing the 'Dancer' EP on March 3rd. Dancer will be a "collection of remixes, restylings and reworkings of the killer track 'Dancer' from their album 'Heart Attack'" You can go hear bits of what might be on that right now at myspace.com/woodhands but before you do that: You can go right now and download the track you've been waiting for all your life (though you didn't know it). The Woodhands cover of Eddie Grant's 'Electric Avenue' - it's available at http://www.paperbagrecords.com/mp3s/Woodhands-ElectricAve.mp3.

The original goes something like this

Free Downloads and New Website from Hot Panda

Edmonton's Hot Panda has been compared to everyone from the Talking Heads, to Daniel Johnson, Roxy Music and the Flaming Lips. In truth most writers simply get confused trying to describe the sound. This is probably because the band "...have yet to sit down and have the discussion that goes: "So, what should we sound like?"." Fortunately you don't have to read a bunch of reviews to find out what they sound like.

I'm very happy to announce that Hot Panda has added two songs to the podsafe download section of this site that means that you can download them, listen to them, share them with friends, podcast them and decide for yourself what bands to compare them to, or not.

I'm also happy to announce, on a closely related note, that Hot Panda's new website at HotPanda.ca is now up and running. Their new album, 'Volcano...Bloody Volcano' will officially be released on tomorrow (Feb. 10) and has won wide critical acclaim from MusicOHM, Herohill, Bumpershine, Altsounds and many others.

If you're in or around Edmonton, Alberta on Vanlentines day make sure you catch the 'Volcano...Bloody Volcano' CD Release party with guests the Whitsundays and Rah Rah! The Facebook Event Page is Here!

Announcing the Green Go Remix Project!

Green Go have been making great sounds emanate from Guelph for a few years now and while they may not be on the tip of everyone's tongue yet they have certainly gotten noticed by people like indiemusicfilter, I (Heart) Music, Bridging the Atlantic and the the Toronto Star. Whether you know Green Go or not (you will, just wait) you definitely know their friends.

Today sees the release of the Green Go Remix Project - with remixes by Green Go of Born Ruffians, the D'Urbervilles, Rural Alberta Advantage, Gentleman Reg, and Women. Visit themeaningofgreen.ca/remix.html to grab you're free copies. It is also all up in the Podsafe Downloads on this site, which means - feel free to downloads, save, listen, share, podcast and enjoy!

For those of you looking for things to do (like discover a new band that you're going to love, dance your ass off and have something interesting to talk about on monday morning) you can check out Green Go tomorrow night (Feb 7.) at Sneaky Dees for the Whale Tooth EP Release Party at Sneaky Dee's in Toronto. If you're not fortunate enough to live in Toronto you can also catch them at the Gordon Best Theatre w/ The Magic & the D'Urbervilles on Feb. 27 or in Peterborough on Feb. 28 at the Starlight with Bocce, the D'Urbervilles & DJ Global Warming!

green go - brains for breakfast- batman redub 2006

Peripheral Visionaries: Young Galaxy's Blog and Mixtapes

Montreal's Young Galaxy has a blog up called Peripheral Visionaries (I'll get it in the aggregators soon).

Along with the new blog Stephen Ramsay (vocals and guitar for YG) is posting a monthly mixtape. It is not, like Herohill all Canadian indie stuff, but if you are interested in what Stephen R. likes and is listening to you might want to check it out. This months mix includes:

1. Primal Scream - Velocity Girl
2. The Wild Swans - Flowers Of England
3. Baxter Dury - Cocaine Man
4. Doug Randle - Coloured Plastics
5. Altered Images - I Could Be Happy
6. Visage - Fade To Grey (12" version)
7. Siouxsie and The Banshees - Painted Bird
8. The Sound - Counting The Days
9. House Of Love - Christine
10. David Holmes - I Heard Wonders
11. Orbital - Belfast
12. Equip - XXXO (Manchester, England 1983)
13. D. Lissvik - Track 6
14. Dubstar - St. Swithin's Day
15. Pale Saints - You Tear The World In Two
16. Ultra Vivid Scene - Mercy Seat

The first one (posted last month) features:

1. Captain intro
2. Robert Wyatt - At Last I Am Free
3. Freur - Doot Doot
4. Ben Watt - Lucky One
5. Force Of Nature - Static
6. The Associates - White Car In Germany
7. The Chills - Pink Frost
8. The Durutti Column - Sketch For Summer
9. Rubies - Room Without A Key (Studio Version)
10. The Cocteau Twins - Ella Megablast Burls Forever
11. OMD - Of All The Things We've Made
12. Colin Blunstone - Smokey Day
13. John Cale - Ship Of Fools
14. Moby Grape - I Am Not Willing
15. The Cryin' Shames - Please Stay
16. Martina Topley Bird - Lying
17. Vincent Gemignani - Ophis Le Serpentaire
18. Skip Spence - All Come To Meet Her
19. Susanna And The Magical Orchestra - Believer
20. The White Birch - Your Spain
21. Baikonour - Hoku To Shin Ken

Herohill Mixtapes Sask!

Herohill's Great Canadian Mixtape Project has reached Sask. The latest completely free mixtape contains 20 songs from Ultimate Power Duo, We Were Lovers, Volcanoless in Canada, Foam Lake, Library Voices, Maybe Smith, Rah Rah and more ... So Far Herohill's project has covered Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Alberta. For a run down of where to get em, visit this post or Herohill.com.

PEI is next on the Herohill list!

Library Voices at CIUT Song 4 - "Step Off The Map and Float"

More on Herohill's Great Canadian Mixtape Project

Last week I posted on Herohill's Great Canadian Mixtape Project apparently I'm way way behind on it. In addition to Manitoba there are mixtapes up for Nova Scotia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta and Quebec links are below and the rest of the mixtapes are on the way.

The Big Doe-nair Rehab (N.S.)

Give Us Our Nickel Back (Ont.)

Ultra-Magnetic...hill (N.B.)

Hoodoo You Think You Are? (AB.)

GOULET! (Que.)

Stay Gold Manitoba, Stay Gold (Man.)

New Downloads: Woodhands, Peter Project, Prairie Cat & More

Added to the podsafe downloads: Paperjack, Peter Project, Prairie Cat, Proffessor Undressor, Recoilers, Rhume, Woodhands. That brings the total number of artists available for downloading and podcasting to 80. Hopefully I'll have more for you soon!

Herohill's Great Canadian Mixtape Project

Just in case you don't read Herohill there's a Great Canadian MixTape project underway with a Manitoba 'CD' ok it's not really a CD, it's a bunch of MP3s and album art if you want it. You can download a zip file of the whole thing with songs from from the Western States, Paper Moon, Boats!!, Grand Analog, the Weakerthans, a Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bee's Remix from Oldfolks Home and way more, or you can just

You can find out all about it at http://www.herohill.com/2009/01/great-canadian-mixtape-project-manitoba.htm and check back often or just subscribe to the feed. Saskatchewan is apparently up next!

New Downloads: Hilotrons, Jim Bryson, Henri Faberge, More

New additions to the podsafe downloads section of publicbroadcasting.ca - From Ottawa's Kelp Records the Hilotrons, singer, songwriter and sometimes Weakerthan Jim Bryson, the Flaps, Flecton Big Sky, and Greenfield Main. Also from Toronto's Fuzzy Logic records, one of the most fun bands of all time (and including Laura Barrett, Maylee Todd, and members of Woodhands, the Bicycles and more Henri Faberge and the Adorables.

More coming soon...

Two Free EPs from the Acorn

Via Will McGuirk: Critically acclaimed Ottawa band the Acorn has two free EPs for you. The first Ear Worms contains "Ear Worms: 12 - 30 sec. songs written and recorded on xmas eve." the second is Little Elms - "a short 4 song EP inspired by end-of-summer sun-stroke". Both are available at the band's web site theacorn.ca.

There are also a few older songs you can get in the podsafe download section of this site.

Bicycles, Chris Page and Camp Radio added to podsafe downloads

Still going in alphabetical order, today's additions to the podsafe downloads are Toronto's Bicycles and Ottawa's Chris Page as a solo artist as well as with his band Camp Radio.

Still to come over the next little while The Michael Parks, the Flaps, Flecton Bigsky, Greenfield Main, Henri Faberge and the Adorables, Hoffenheimer, Hilotrons, Jim Bryson, more stuff from the Midways, Paperjack, Peter Project, Prairie Cat, Proffessor Undressor, Recollers, Rhume, South of 78 and Woodhands.

the Acorn, Andrew Vincent, Andy Swan added to Downloads

I mentioned last week that I've gotten permission to add a bunch of artists from Ottawa's Kelp Records and Toronto's Fuzzy Logic Recordings to the podsafe downloads on this site. In total this will mean 23 new artists will be added to the list.

In case you don't know podsafe means that you can use them in podcasts or, if you don't have a podcast, download them, listen to them, share them with your friends. No one is going to get upset, or sue you. Because there are so many I'm adding just a few at a time and I'll update all the menus when it's all done. For today though the Acorn, Andrew Vincent & the Pirates and Andy Swan have been added. (I'm going in alphabetical order).

Free Holiday EP From Fuzzy Logic

Your friends at Fuzzy Logic Recordings have prepared a special X-mas gift for you. A digital EP with special wintery holiday like tunes from Gravity Wave, Prairie Cat, Steve McKay the Bicycles and the Poos and it's all for free at http://www.fuzzylogicrecordings.com/mp3s/Fuzzy_Holidays.zip. You may love it, you may not love it as much but .. um it's free so...go..get.

Also, over the next little while I'll be adding some Fuzzy Logic stuff to the Podsafe Downloads section of the site from Peter Project, Prairie Cat, Bicycles, Woodhands, Henri Faberge and the Adorables and more from the Midways stay tuned...

A Free Holiday EP from Said the Whale

For the second year running Said the Whale is offering a free Holiday EP. This years 'West Coast Christmas EP' can be downloaded at http://www.pop-machine.ca/stw-xmas08.htm and if you missed it you can still grab last year's at http://www.pop-machine.ca/stw-xmas07.htm. Santa may like rich kids better but Said the Whale loves you all.