Canadian Music Week: three days of bickering and snow

Canadian Music Week: three days of bickering and snow

11 March, 2008 | 10.14AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: Mr Tunes

What a year for Canadian Music Week here in Toronto. It must have been one of the worst endings for the conference, after the city was blanketed with a ton of snow on Friday night.

This made for a brutal Saturday as it was a complete disaster for people trying to get around the city to attend various seminars and showcase concerts, and not to mention people trying to leave the city as well.

But all things considering I think there were some good discussions and presentations that took place at the Royal York Hotel this past weekend in early March.

I’m usually one of those people who attends these discussion panels with a cynical attitude going in, since they’re always a reminder to me of how often closed this country’s attention on music is being what i’d describe as primarily a rock and pop scene.

Sure, there’s Mutek in Montreal for a more lively festival and conference, and a more recent Red Bull Music Academy thing going on, but on the whole you will never hear any mention or see any sightings of house or techno music any where near this conference here in Toronto. And it annoys me every year.

But regardless of what kind of music is being featured and discussed, I think there will always be common threads between rock music and what goes on in the electronic scene, so I always find it important to stay up to date on developments on the industry up here.

Also of annoyance is the Canadian music industry’s constant bickering about digital downloading sucking the life out of this part of the economy.

You could tell that by after three days of panel discussions the audience was quite tired of the issue, especially since there weren’t any really good options presented.

Some people discussed how we should charge the ISPs a blanket fee for all the illegal downloading going on, and distribute that to the music industry(similar to the levees imposed on blank media), while other people discussed how subscription services are the wave of the future if not already, they just need to be adopted on a wider scale.

This continuing discussion over the weekend was particularly ironic since the event was sponsored by Canada’s largest ISP, Rogers.

No matter how you slice it, I will always be convinced that the problem at hand is the fact that so much great music out there is hidden from the public in nooks and crannies, while the major labels continue to shove crap down everyone’s throats.

I think it’s time the industry diversifies in what it presents to the public as product, and stop thinking they can make a living on selling shit.

Moby said it best here: he thinks that in regards to the electronic music scene and concurrent developments in home recording, that everyone should sort of “edit” themselves down a bit more and be more selective of what they release.

There’s simply too much out there for us to listen to and it’s leading to a sort of “option-paralysis” as he describes it.

I unfortunately missed the KRS-One and RZA panels since I was busy attending some ones focussed on music for film, but my friend told me the KRS-One keynote was great as he’s a true motivator.

To be honest I was never a fan of seeing Moby interviews on TV before, but there’s something about seeing him speak in person that gives you a good feeling about the guy and his sincerity to the industry.

It’s also interesting to note that when he released ‘Play’ and soon after started licensing the songs to many film and TV placements, people sort of accused him of selling out.

But years later, it’s quite apparent that he was on the right path as many indie artists and majors alike are desperate to have their work featured in multimedia settings.

And that trend is evidenced by the fact that the number of discussion panels devoted to placing your music in film and gaming has basically doubled in the past few years here at CMW.

Another good panelist was Tom Silverman of Tommy Boy Records.

I liked him cause he made a good point about how with all the social networking sites and home producers why there haven’t been any seriously talented new acts rising to the top every month, but more importantly why when some of them do surface there are no units being sold.

Unfortunately he started to annoy the audience when he started grilling a fellow panelist about how many units his company sold this year, reminding us of the problem that many of the industry veterans are still overly concerned with units sold and will always cling to the old way business used to be done.

Sure, it’s nice to raise a few eyebrows, but it’s also nice to have a bit of tact when speaking in front of a youthful audience.

All in all it was a good weekend here, however it was a sad reminder of how much of a snoozer things can be up here in Canada.

Regardless of how these events play out it’s always nice to meet a few new people and pick up some fresh insights into the business every year, no matter how slow of a pace this industry can move at times. 

I’m surely looking forward to going to WMC in a short while, for at least there’s a dedication to progressive music(and much better weather).

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