moragmacpherson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moragmacpherson) wrote2010-05-01 05:48 pm
moragmacpherson) wrote2010-05-01 05:48 pm
Oh, Canada!
So I've been rummaging around in my music collection lately (feeling just a little guilty about hitting 100 plays on the Broken Bells album when several of my favorite artists didn't have a single play count due to new laptop) and clicked on Hot Hot Heat's Make Up the Break Down, which I hadn't listened to in ages. Reminded of how much I liked them, I went to Wikipedia to find out if they'd been up to anything in the last few years, and I discovered that the artists in question were, in fact, Canadian. Walking among us. Undetected.
Cue the creation of a new playlist with all of my old favorites: Our Lady Peace, The Weakerthans, Finger Eleven, The Tragically Hip, a few Joni Mitchell and Neil Young songs that don't drive me nuts - hey, I didn't know I had a copy of "The Safety Dance," and why yes, I do want to dance - Bif Naked, now that takes me back, damn, don't have any of my Moxy Fruvous on this computer, I'll have to pick up some when I go home next.
I grew up two hours from the Canadian border and only moved to three hours from the Mexican border a few years ago. It was a bit of a shock to realize exactly how much I missed Canuckistan, with its sane drinking age, self-deprecating humor, and then-lax border crossing regulations. I spent many a summer on Lake Ontario drinking Molson longnecks and listening to Kingston radio stations with the CanCon requirements in effect. Not to mention that the DJs back home were listening to the Canadian broadcasts too, so there was plenty of imports on the local radio too, and the Canadian bands were happy to make regular trips down the QEW onto the NYS Thruway. Over the course of middle school and high school I saw Our Lady Peace perform eight times, more than any American artist other than Maynard James Keenan (between Tool and A Perfect Circle shows, I saw him ten times. I was a little in love with his voice).
While I was rhapsodizing about the joys of listening to "Starseed" for the first time in four years (and ohmigod, Rain's shirt in the video: it was 1992 and the man was dressed for a Wham! video) with one of my more musically aware friends down here, however, I got a completely blank look. "Our Lady Peace? Never heard of 'em." Asked around and sure enough, no one who'd grown up south of the Mason-Dixon had any idea what I was talking about. What the hell? Only Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain, and God help us all, Celine Dion had any name recognition at all down here (and you noticed they weren't on the playlist above? Good.) Apparently only really crappy Canadian rock can penetrate this far south. Though, to be fair, I did only see the Weakerthans live once they came to SxSW.
Anyways, just wanted to express my deep and abiding love for our giant frozen neighbor to the north. That's all.
Cue the creation of a new playlist with all of my old favorites: Our Lady Peace, The Weakerthans, Finger Eleven, The Tragically Hip, a few Joni Mitchell and Neil Young songs that don't drive me nuts - hey, I didn't know I had a copy of "The Safety Dance," and why yes, I do want to dance - Bif Naked, now that takes me back, damn, don't have any of my Moxy Fruvous on this computer, I'll have to pick up some when I go home next.
I grew up two hours from the Canadian border and only moved to three hours from the Mexican border a few years ago. It was a bit of a shock to realize exactly how much I missed Canuckistan, with its sane drinking age, self-deprecating humor, and then-lax border crossing regulations. I spent many a summer on Lake Ontario drinking Molson longnecks and listening to Kingston radio stations with the CanCon requirements in effect. Not to mention that the DJs back home were listening to the Canadian broadcasts too, so there was plenty of imports on the local radio too, and the Canadian bands were happy to make regular trips down the QEW onto the NYS Thruway. Over the course of middle school and high school I saw Our Lady Peace perform eight times, more than any American artist other than Maynard James Keenan (between Tool and A Perfect Circle shows, I saw him ten times. I was a little in love with his voice).
While I was rhapsodizing about the joys of listening to "Starseed" for the first time in four years (and ohmigod, Rain's shirt in the video: it was 1992 and the man was dressed for a Wham! video) with one of my more musically aware friends down here, however, I got a completely blank look. "Our Lady Peace? Never heard of 'em." Asked around and sure enough, no one who'd grown up south of the Mason-Dixon had any idea what I was talking about. What the hell? Only Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain, and God help us all, Celine Dion had any name recognition at all down here (and you noticed they weren't on the playlist above? Good.) Apparently only really crappy Canadian rock can penetrate this far south. Though, to be fair, I did only see the Weakerthans live once they came to SxSW.
Anyways, just wanted to express my deep and abiding love for our giant frozen neighbor to the north. That's all.
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Huh. I hadn't thought of it that way before...
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