I don’t have a take but I found a Melbourne blog (the best kind) that does have a take. I’ve linked to him at my place.

Frank Yankovich and His Yanks? Thought they were in the Smithsonian!

good night everyone.

Thought you’d be amused to know the phrase was also used in a (modified) form in the great old polka classic, “Who Stole the Kishka?” I quote the version recorded by the Pennsylvania polka kings, Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks…

“Round and firm and fully-packed,
It was standing on the rack.
Someone stole the kishka
When I turned by back!”

Love them accordions….

Hm… dunno. Does a bear wear a funny hat?

But you’re a pretty serious music writer, yes, FX? What’s your take on our intrepid young Canadian friends? Like the little voice keeps saying on the De La Soul record,

“Whatdoesitallmean?”

Does the pope shit in the woods?

And speaking of BSS collective constituents, Emily Haines and Metric shouldn’t go without a mention.

Shannon, they’re even more awesome live. And as I said in the post, Feist is brilliant. I’ll also have to check out New Pornographers as I leeeeerve Neko Case!

As Canadian singers Tegan and Sara point out - unfortunately the link to the interview where Sara made that argument isn’t live anymore.

BSS and the New Pornographers are similar in that they’re both Canadian collectives and both sublime.

The ‘other’ projects of both bands are all essential listening. BSS includes members of Feist (Astrud Gilberto meets Mary Margaret O’Hara meets trip hop), Metric (The Strokes with double the IQ + synths), Stars (perfect synth pop - check their 2003 album ‘Heart’ - all love songs - I can’t stop listening to it) and others…

New Pornographers includes AC Newman, Neko Case (one of the best alt country singers around) and members of Destroyer and Zumpano. Also worth mentioning is that one of their members, Blaine Thurier is a filmmaker, and his videos for the New Pornographers (especially for the songs ‘All for Swinging You Around’ and ‘The Laws Have Changed’) are some of the best music videos I’ve seen in recent years.

I mention it by way of contrast, because North American (or at least, north of the Rio Grande) art-pop (well, let’s just go on and say ostensibly ‘white’ non-hip-hop) music exists on a kind of ROYGBIV bandwidth: the farther north you go, the less directly felt is the gravitational pull of hip-hop, blues, and ‘pure’ American C & W — though they’re never entirely absent. Point is that they increasingly get absorbed in the far North scene by artistic CHOICE, not by sheer cultural momentum.

Seems to me (from my very limited sampling of the Canadian scene) that the Canooks are starting to use that freedom as a base, and are moving into a more pure musical eclecticism: a kind of zero-gravity that has a lot to do with a) the radical fungibility of cultural products in the post-digital age, and b) also with a specifically Canadian kind of (ahem, here’s that word) ‘multiculturalism’ that is not nearly as tied-down by racial guilt and second-guessing as it is down in the States (hence my use of the term ‘zero gravity’).

I don’t know whether that’s good or bad; and I also can’t figure the impact of ‘indigenous’ Canadian musical influences (whatever those may be; though they’re probably just a different strain of Anglo-Celtic-French, like in the US, but absent its weirder racial mixtures and pathologies). But I think there’s something happening in Canadian music (or rather, in its *context*) that reflects the larger goings-on in Canada’s social matrix. Can’t tell for sure, though. Because I live right in the place that spews pop culture the loudest, I can’t accurately hear how this stuff plays in other parts of the world. For instance, what does it sound like in Australia?

(btw, Rob & Mark, thanks for the thumbs up!)

As for Canadian bands I was listening to an old favourite this morning. The Pursuit of Happiness. It dates from the late 80s but Love Junk is still one of my favourite albums. Some of the best songs about unrequited love and lust ever. And it sure does rock in the grand tradition.