My newest music obsession is an extremely cool Canadian band called Captain Tractor. I first heard them on an episode and then soundtrack of due South (also wonderfully Canadian). Then, on a whim, I looked them up on Napster and found several dozen songs by them, this surprised me so I downloaded mp3s, got hooked, found their website, www.captaintractor.com, and will be ordering CDs in a week when my paycheck gets to me. Has anyone else heard/heard of this goofy, fun, talented band?30 responses total.
I remember encountering one or two of their videos on Canadian television while staying in Quebec a couple of years ago.. Something about pirates, I believe..
Yeah! The pirates from Saskatchewan. I love that song.
"The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" was originally written and sung by another Canadian band, the Arrogant Worms. Captain Tractor picked the song up from them. I have the CT album with that song but for the life of me I cannot remember what it's called or where I filed it.
Wow, other peopel have heard of them :) East of Edson has The Last Saskatchewan Pirate :) one of my favorite songs of theirs and in general. The Arrogant Worms, hmm? I'll look into them. geez, i like a lot of Canadian bands... Crash Test Dummies, anyone? (their early stuff...)
... and "The Last Saskatechewan Pirate" is one of the few songs you'll
find about agricultural economics. :)
I guess I got started on bands from Canada when Alan, a friend from Toronto,
brought me a tape by maritimes band Figgy Duff around 1982.
I tend to mostly listen to the folky stuff, which I divide into the
Maritimes traditionalists and the Western Canadian revivalists.
Hematite just found someplace online to download some Figgy Duff samples;
she didn't like them, alas.
Speaking of agriculture, I am being summoned to work in the garden,
so I will just have to dump out some names of bands I've had some
interest in over the years:
Maritimes: Figgy Duff, Rawlins Cross, Ashley MacIsaac, Barra MacNeils,
Rankin Family, Natalie MacMaster, Cuilinn.
Western Canada: Mad Pudding, the Paperboys
Quebec: La Bottine Souriante, La Galvaude
Sylvia Tyson's women's band Quartette would fit in there somewhere, I guess.
i know that Figgy Duff had a song on the first due South soundtrack, which is an excellent place to look for songs by Canadian bands. I am fairly certain that every band on the 2 CDs was Canadian. "my love is a pastry, covered in gunk..."
I kinda like Frozen Puck to the Head.
One of the interesting things about my travels through eastern Canada a couple of years ago was that traditional local music was very high profile in the more distant parts of the maritimes (specifically on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and in all of Newfoundland.. I didn't travel through mainland Labrador, though in Newfoundland I was picking up a station that was broadcast out of Happy Valley.) To illustrate what I mean: when I was in Newfoundland the band Great Big Sea had apparently recently released something and I don't remember hearing much on the radio that week besides Great Big Sea, CBC news, and the obligatory buoy reports. I imagine this has a lot to do with government-funded radio stations in a market which wouldn't otherwise be able to support much commercial radio, but after passing through the Bryan Adams & Celine Dion zones in the more densely populated regions of Ontario and Quebec, I was more than ready for some local flavor, or any flavor at all for that matter.. It was more than just a radio thing, though.. Driving around Cape Breton island, I saw signs for fiddle schools and announcement boards telling of upcoming caelidhs (sp?) And in the ferry lounge on the way back from Port aux Basques, the small combo playing the ferry lounge had a pretty large crowd squeezed into the lounge who were really enjoying their traditional maritime numbers.. Anyone care to venture an informed opinion on the following question? Does the Canadian folk scene owe most of its existence to government subsidy, or do you think it would exist even without official support?
I think most folk scenes, everywhere, would exist regardless of government support, but of course, the more funding something has, the more it thrives. Taking the (somewhat analogous) example of art museums around the Detroit area, the museums suffered for over a decade when(Michigan) Gov. Engler did massive arts cuts, but the D.I.A. has since rebuilt itself from other sources of funding.
It's probably not fair to blame the D.I.A.'s dark years on Engler. It was suffering substantially well before he was governor.
Um, Engler cut the funds. Within months, DIA cut the hours in HALF. If they were on a downslide already, I won't argue, but it is the case that Engler gave them a healthy shove down into the pit.
I really don't know how much of the Canadian folk scene owes its existence to subsidy. Certainly a lot of it does: Canada subsidizes and protects cultural ventures pretty heavily, in part because they try to keep alive a national identity rather than get swept up completely in the American cultural machine. I do remember that the La Galvaude CD which mcnally brought back from Quebec for me bore a label indicating that its production was supported by some agency of the provincial government. And then there is the nationally-funded CBC Radio and TV operations, and the CanCon (Canadian Content) broadcast rules which require that a certain minimum percentage of the material broadcast on commercial stations be of Canadian origin. Canadian CDs which qualify under the CanCon rules bear a code MAPL, which I think stands for Music, Artist, Producer, Label, four categories which can qualify as Canadian... I'm meandering. In the Maritimes, some of what's happening is that the people there are trying to build up the folk music as part of a tourist industry in a fairly concerted effort to find an economic replacement for fisheries. Great Big Sea would be an example of success for cultural policies, I think.
Heh.. I never realized before that the CanCon categories spell "MAPL"e Anyone have a handle on how popular the CanCon rules are within Canada itself? Do they get tired of listening to Gordon Lightfoot and watching DeGrassi Junior High and long for such American cultural treasures as Backstreet Boyz and "Caroline in the City" <shudder>? ;-) (And would anyone dispute that a beer commercial has done as much to raise Canadian awareness of, and pride in, their cultural differences, as years and years of CBC Rankin Family television specials?)
The CanCon law seems not to be terribly unpopular within Canada, at least among those I've talked to. Most of the Canadian music that gets played on the radio up there is <gasp> pretty popular. Which makes sense. What People Like has a lot to do with What Gets Airplay. You hear a lot of U2 on the radio in Canada, but nobody's complaining, because there seem to be a whole lot more U2 fans in Canada than there are in the U.S. I haven't heard any Canadians complaining that they don't hear enough Matchbox 20, the same way I haven't heard any Americans complaining that they don't hear enough I Mother Earth. (If anything, I'd say Canadian radio listeners are better off, because most of them have at least heard of Matchbox 20, and few of us have heard of I Mother Earth. Maybe that's why people don't mind CanCon: it doesn't limit what they hear, it means they hear more varied things. Come to think of it, most of my conversations about music with Canadians have been "holy shit, you don't listen to ______ in the States? They rock!")
Wouldn't they be better off, still, if they had *never* heard Matchbox 20?
The Arrogant Worms version of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" sounds almost exactly the same as the Captain Tractor version. That is weird!
damn you people, now i have 10 CDS on my "To Buy" List... the Arrogant Worms are funny shtuff. "Canada is Really Big" is a great song.
Hi everyone! Does anyone here like Natalie Imbruglia?
no.
re 14: hear hear. Ive started listening to Candian radio at work because there is just a different set of songs that get play... Ive discovered Matthew Goode Band, I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace, Travis, J. Englishman and a few others just by listening to a Canadian rock station... I dunno if its just cause I havent heard them beat into the ground, but they all beat the hell out of Match Box 20 and all the ilk.
what's th' *dial*, kateriffic?
I bet it's a webcast, just because kewy has really been into web radio.
re 21: It's CFNY www.edge102.com In Canadian music - check out Matthew Good Band at the Sarnia Bayfest July 15. Should be a good show. Sarnia is about an hour's drive from A2, and tickets are 8$CN (!) Using the last exchange rate I was aware of, that's about 5$ folks.
Coming up at the Ark in Ann Arbor: Canadian folk-pop bands The Paperboys and Great Big Sea. I don't remember the dates, check http://www.a2ark.org
A word to the wise: Great Big Sea have been attracting larger local crowds on their last few swings through the area, as well as a substantial cross-border draw from Windsor and environs.. Probably best to get tickets early if you want to go to that show.
I agree, Great Big Sea are almost certain to sell out the entire capacity of the Ark.
Great Big Sea is going to be at the Michigan, I think. Which I for one will think is a Good Thing, since the last time they were at the Ark, there was a lot of ill will.
Really? Why?
(I'd guess that people travelled over from Canada for the show, or from other distant locations, and these people complained when they could not be admitted.)
Okay, you have to realize that I was working as a volunteer that night, and that I was selling memberships to those people who wanted to drink alcoholic beverages. First off, the Canadian fans didn't quite get the idea of a private club and having to be a member to drink alcohol (and these Canadians were into their alcohol!) and then the bar closed earlier than they expected. Due to state law, the ARk has to close the bar a half hour before the end of hte show, and GBS had chosen to play one long set, no intermission. I have *never* heard such swearing and abuse at the Ark, towards the volunteers. It permanently lost the ARk three volunteers I know of, simply because they felt that being subjected to this kind of abuse was not worth the misery.
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