Music journalist chronciles six-year period when Canadian music caught the world’s attention

Michael Barclay had simply completed writing a couple of renaissance in Canadian music when he seen one other was effervescent as much as the floor.

It was 2001 and the creator and music journalist was dwelling in Guelph, Ont. Have Not Been the Identical: The Canrock Renaissance, 1985 to 1995 had simply been printed. Co-written with I


an A.D. Jack and Jason Schneider, it took a


deep dive into a very fertile interval in Canadian music that produced acts resembling The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo and The Cowboy Junkies.

“As quickly because it got here out, it was like ‘Wait a minute, one thing else is going on proper now,’ ” says Barclay, in an interview with Postmedia from his residence in Toronto. “The New Pornographers had occurred. Peaches had occurred. Godspeed You! Black Emperor was occurring.”

It was all a part of what Barclay argues grew to become one other pivotal time for Canadian music. It’s the idea for his new e book, Hearts On Fireplace: Six Years That Modified Canadian Music, 2000-2005. A journalist with a historical past working for alt-weeklies, Barclay additionally had a weekly CD-review column within the Waterloo-Area Report on the time. So he was definitely higher conscious than most about what was occurring on the nationwide scene. Evening after evening, he was seeing thrilling reside reveals and listening to stellar data. He saved a private “gig diary” simply so he would have an enduring document of his reminiscences.

“This wasn’t my youth,” he says. “I used to be 30 years outdated by this level; on the level the place a few of my associates had been already caught of their highschool music groove. However I used to be like: ‘No, that is probably the most thrilling factor in my lifetime to date (and it’s) occurring proper now.’ ”

Nevertheless it wasn’t till Montreal’s Arcade Fireplace gained the Album of the 12 months Grammy for The Suburbs in 2011 that he started fascinated by a e book.

The 2011 Grammys fall outdoors the six years that the e book chronicles. However Arcade Fireplace grew to become arguably probably the most profitable from these years, a band that moved from an indie-cool membership act to acclaimed stadium rockers with a global profile.

“Arcade Fireplace, each time they might win a Juno or the Polaris or one thing else, would say ‘I need to thank the Hidden Cameras, Royal Metropolis, the Constantines, Wolf Parade, the Unicorns and all of the bands that made us who we’re,” Barclay says. “They had been very acutely aware of being a part of a scene that helped elevate them up and so they had been impressed by all these bands. I like Arcade Fireplace, however I don’t need them to be the one story from this time. I actually needed to ensure that complete second was captured.”

One of many largest takeaways from Hearts On Fireplace is that this explosion of inventive music was not restricted to at least one scene, style, metropolis, and even area. It was a nationwide phenomenon. The e book covers 42 acts from coast to coast. It

might have integrated twenty years of private analysis by the creator, however he didn’t begin in earnest till after the discharge of his 2018 e book The By no means-Ending Current: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip. Many of the 100-plus interviews carried out for the e book came about in 2020 or 2021 on the peak of the pandemic. All however a handful of the 42 acts agreed to take part.

Barclay hopes the e book reminds readers of acts which will have slipped from our public consciousness through the years however had been key to giving Canada a global profile.

“Like Scorching Scorching Warmth,” Barclay says. “I hear folks say ‘Oh I forgot about them,’ or The Be Good Tanyas. Individuals don’t notice how effectively they did in Britain or how uncommon they had been in that style of music. Lots of people outdoors of Alberta nonetheless don’t know sufficient about Corb Lund. I needed to verify all that was a part of the narrative.”

Barclay covers the origin tales and influence of various acts from the interval: Winnipeg’s The Weakerthans, Calgary’s Tegan and Sara, Nova Scotia’s Buck 65, B.C.’s The Unicorns, Toronto’s Damaged Social Scene, hip-hop artist Kardinal Offishall and Montreal’s experimental collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Given the broad scope of the artists and their tales, narrowing in on what set these acts aside just isn’t a easy equation. There have been definitely main modifications occurring throughout the trade. File-sharing was taking off and Canadian bands appeared to be rewriting the principles of the best way to succeed, adopting a DIY strategy to administration and recording that bypassed main labels.

However the conventional measures of success additionally modified. Whereas most of the bands talked about within the e book achieved good gross sales, others had been necessary for laying the groundwork even when they by no means grew to become family names to the general public.

“Godspeed obtained the form of press that I not often noticed different Canadian acts get,” Barclay says. “I imply, that’s the bubble I reside in and that’s the press I are likely to learn: the individuals who love the Velvet Underground greater than the Beatles. I believe they had been fairly influential each of their music, I believe they paved the best way for bands like Sigur Ros and Explosions within the Sky and different folks, but in addition of their strategy to the music enterprise. They got here out of the Steve Albini world of holding the companies at bay and actually specializing in fearless artwork and holding the enterprise of their circle of associates.”

Alongside the best way, Barclay uncovers the stranger-than-fiction backstories of a number of bands. The Unicorns are a first-rate instance. A trio of warring misfits that originated in small-town B.C. earlier than shifting to Montreal, the act appeared to do all the pieces of their energy to sabotage their profession however ended up profitable a cult following, widespread essential acclaim and promoting 100,000 copies of 2003’s Who Will Reduce Our Hair When We’re Gone? Additionally they “paved the direct path for Arcade Fireplace’s success by taking them on tour throughout the States the summer season earlier than Funeral got here out,” Barclay says.

It was a time of sprawling, extremely populated collectives resembling The New Pornographers and Damaged Social Scene, whose very make-up and governance appeared vastly completely different than the norm. Barclay factors out that even within the pared-down world of punk-rock, one in all our most profitable exports from the interval was Toronto’s F–ked Up, which had six members. He says there was this sense internationally that one thing was occurring in Canada that was not occurring anyplace else on the time.

“There actually did appear to be this communal bent to loads of the music, whether or not or not the band was bodily giant or not,” Barclay says. “I actually assume there was an actual earnestness or ardour, therefore the title of the e book. I believe that within the post-irony-laden ’90s and post-9/11 dread, loads of these artists had been imbued with this ardour and this earnestness. And so they killed it reside, that’s the opposite factor. Within the period of all these immediate Web blogger buzz bands, all these acts had been simply so good and compelling reside in ways in which loads of different stuff simply was not. Have a look at (New York’s) The Strokes. There’s a band that enjoyed to fake they didn’t care. Arcade Fireplace f-cking cared. They didn’t need to go away you feeling blase about something. You had been both going to like this band or hate them. I believe that’s one frequent thread that caught the world’s consideration.”

Hearts on Fireplace: Six Years That Modified Canadian Music, 2000-2005 is now accessible.

Copyright Postmedia Community Inc., 2022