“The Indie Rock Swindle” by Alexandra Molotkow | The Walrus

The Indie Rock Swindle

The Polaris Prize rewards Canada’s not-so-independent indie musicians

By Alexandra Molotkow

· Illustration by Jennifer Spinner

Music · From the October 2010 magazine

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“EMI was great when I left in 2002,” says Remedios. “They said, ‘It sucks that you’re leaving. How can we be involved?’ So they gave us free office space for two years, and they gave me distribution deals without hearing the music.” Major labels are squeezing what profits they can from their proteges’ success; the indie label, curatorial and trim, supplies the talent the majors can no longer afford to recruit. Remedios, who wears his hair shaggy but speaks with the placating calm of a psychiatrist, is preternaturally savvy. By his account, EMI had been grooming him to run the place before he left to put out Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It in People, which took off thanks partly to his move to capitalize on communal principles. Over the next seven years, Arts & Crafts became the most successful company to emerge from the independent renaissance — one of the biggest indie labels in North America, in fact. Although, with its major label support and millions of dollars in accumulated assistance from granting bodies, to call it an independent is quite a stretch.

Many of the indie labels that have cropped up since the early aughts — Paper Bag, Six Shooter, and Black Box Music, to name a few — also distribute their music through majors and benefit from a grant system. Without this support, “a lot of them would fail,” according to Heather Ostertag, former CEO of the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings, one of a handful of granting bodies (Radio Starmaker, Canadian Heritage’s Music Entrepreneur Component) that subsidize the Canadian music industry. Established with money from public and private sources, and best known for its part in helping Vancouver’s Nettwerk Records break Sarah McLachlan, FACTOR awards up to $50,000 per sound recording and $100,000 per promotional project, according to applicants’ sales records. “The majority of the independent industry is not functioning outside of some [kind of] financial support,” she says, the problem being that the Canadian market is too small to sustain an industry that deals in the weird and compelling. As the history of CanCon shows, it’s barely big enough to support a homegrown Top 40.

FACTOR’s headquarters, located on a quiet industrial strip in northeastern Toronto, is bedecked with reminders of what Canadian music was not so long ago: gold records by Gowan, Serial Joe, and the Matthew Good Band. Just down the hall, Jordan chats with well-wishers on his award’s Twitter account and corresponds with funders. Polaris, of course, is a hybrid of big and small: to get it off the ground, Jordan got in touch with old contacts, soliciting powerful names for his board of directors, including Steve Kane, CEO of Warner Music Canada, which released compilation CDs featuring the first two years’ shortlisted acts. It’s sustained by ample funds from FACTOR and Sirius Satellite Radio, and it receives support, moral and otherwise, from agents and retailers, who saw to it that the winner was announced just before the Christmas shopping season. It’s been a boon to both the bands and their impresarios, who just fifteen years ago might have been considered the enemy.

Ten bands played during the Polaris awards gala at Toronto’s Masonic Temple last September, a long haul for those of us bored stiff in the rafters. The majority were nice enough but hardly exciting — Canadian, in the pejorative sense. They seemed out of place under the glow of extravagant stage lights, while, in between acts CBC’s Grant Lawrence and MuchMusic’s Sarah Taylor ran through their stilted repartee. The fanfare felt a bit like community theatre: the audience appreciated the effort, but no one could suspend their disbelief. Until the winner was announced.

As the anomalously energetic Fucked Up took to the stage and accepted their oversized cheque, the crowd rose in a standing ovation. Singer Damian Abraham (a.k.a. Pink Eyes), a big guy whose bald head bears a scar where he has repeatedly cut it open onstage with a razor, had stripped to his underwear during the band’s set. Now fully clothed, he shouted out the Toronto friends who’d helped them get there, while the rest of us fingered our cellphones, rushing to tell our friends that, if they could believe it, Fucked Up had just won the Polaris Prize.

If the jury pool had chosen the winner, it wouldn’t have been Fucked Up. The snarling rock band, whose singer’s stage name is a reference to a certain type of adult film, wasn’t the link common to the 182 music professionals, from small-town beat reporters to hip hop bloggers, who vote on the short list. It was the aesthetes on the grand jury who made the call. And without the vigilance of this qualified few — who ideally consume every Canadian record, not just the ones that appear on their desks — “the lowest common denominator [could] dominate,” says Keast, a grand jury alum from the Polaris’s inaugural year, “that is, whoever has the money to send out promos to every radio station and local weekly in the country.” The money he’s referring to generally comes from the multinationals that handle distribution, or the granting bodies mandated to produce Canadian superstars. It goes to the projects most likely to find an audience — which, if you’ve been paying attention, aren’t always the best. Polaris, noble as its mission is, can’t help but be infected by market forces.

Fucked Up’s record is hardly a Canadian bestseller: it’s sold about 7,000 copies nationwide. Like Pallett’s and Caribou’s, its audience is international: fans in London, New York, LA, and elsewhere have purchased roughly five times that number, so the band doesn’t have to worry about making the CBC 2 playlists. In a cab en route to the after party, one juror offered this précis: “I think Polaris needs Fucked Up more than Fucked Up needs Polaris.”

Nine months later, in warmer weather, the jury reconvenes for the announcement of 2010’s long list. While they cash in their drink tickets at the Drake Hotel’s Sky Yard, a rooftop patio in downtown Toronto frequented by suburbanites with caked nostrils, Jordan and the announcers — Abraham, rapper D-Sisive, Grant Lawrence, Jill Barber, and the band Elliott Brood — read their scripts and gossip in a back room, trading road stories. Elliott Brood’s Stephen Pitkin remembers the time he and Edwin, a singer emblematic of Canadian music’s mid-’90s nadir, used neighbouring urinals. Pitkin had said hello; Edwin had, perhaps rightly, ignored him. “Doesn’t he work at a bar these days?” says Abraham, cheekily. “He’ll definitely say hi to you now.” A potshot at Edwin’s new band invites another; Grant Lawrence, re-entering the room, hears the name. “Isn’t Edwin a bartender now?” he muses as he leans over to sample the catering. The room erupts in laughter.

There’s been some turnover in the bar scene — virtue rewarded, to the former starving artists who are now, against all odds, decently fed. Of course, Canadian music isn’t quite as exciting as it was when no one thought anyone would hear it. But just as the chic Queen Street condos visible from the Drake terrace were once low-rent, cockroach-infested studio spaces, art and money are ever in dialogue. Polaris wouldn’t exist without corporate partnership, but it remains one of the few institutions that substantially rewards Canadian music based on the sound — in theory and, as long as its grand jury is choosing acts like Fucked Up, often in practice. And the winning bands, for all their cosmopolitanism, benefit from the Canadian attention. Watching Abraham discuss his record collection with Lawrence — a former punk rocker himself, now clad in dress pants and tie — I remember that, hours before he won the prize, Abraham had told me he’d never felt accepted as a Canadian musician. Later, when I asked what the award had done for his band, he laughed. “That’s the thousand-dollar question,” he said, “because one of the things is we received a FACTOR grant.”

Alexandra Molotkow is an editor at The Walrus and was formerly an assistant editor at Exclaim! magazine.

Jennifer Spinner will present an installation at the 2011 Come Up to My Room design event at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel.

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15 comment(s)

nathaniel g mooreSeptember 13, 2010 13:51 EST

Well the article didn't really get into what I wanted to read about, I was hoping to comment "Finally someone in this country addresses the outdated term "indie" as its applied to the music industry." I guess we'll leave that up to the experts to handle. Still a great piece, basically discussing how small a market the canadian music industry is, and the clash between media, the public, the prize, and the musicians. still unclear as to why the word indie is in the title like three times but the idea is never truly properly explained or developed in this piece.

How many times do we have to read about canadian bands doing better in other countries? That's like writing, well the US won more medals than we did again at the Olympics. We're a smaller country, so obviously we're going to sell less.

N

nathaniel g mooreSeptember 13, 2010 13:52 EST

though i have to say the beginning does disect the concept of indie music quite well, i guess i just got lost in the description of the polaris award show with sarah from much music, etc. it sounded like a terrible money meets art sleeper hold moment in time.

i change my mind, i actually like this piece. i just wish someone would destroy the word indie forever from the media landscape.

but you do a good job of describing how indie is not a suitable term anymore for a lot of these so called independent labels.

this is what happens when i don't drink coffeee in the morning.

peace

ngm

AnonymousSeptember 13, 2010 14:11 EST

For every one valid and worthwhile statement that she presents, there are two errors in either judgement or fact. I have to say I think her pretensions got the best of her in this article. It’s sad because half the article belongs in The Walrus, and the other belongs in a zine. She nitpicks aesthetics, which undercut her article; makes you question her bias. Biting journalism should be tempered, which is why I don't understand the passive aggresive references to clothes and hair.

For every good point she makes (and there are many) I think the article comes off as a well-researched statement to align herself with a kind of credibility that floats beyond any minimal prestige or degradation that she endows in this article.

AndrewSeptember 13, 2010 14:11 EST

Wait, what's the indie rock swindle..?

AnonymousSeptember 13, 2010 15:26 EST

the prize claims to be about all genres. but it can't ever be. how did you miss this point?
its a collusion of industry and grants and the boring cbc.
dozens of canadians rule the electronic and avant garde international scenes, but you'd never know it at the polaris.

AnonymousSeptember 14, 2010 00:36 EST

You wouldn't happen to be white, middle-class, and from Toronto, would you?

AdamSeptember 14, 2010 13:21 EST

I know Polaris jurors who I wouldn't trust to give me an off-hand recommendation. As music editor of a mid-sized alt weekly, I was offered a jury spot a few years ago, and turned it down because I didn't feel I'd heard a wide enough cross section of Canadian music that year. I think the problem with the prize is that the jury pool is too narrow —or maybe, too broad. You can be a well-known music writer in Canada simply by starting a blog and/or being reliable with deadlines and working hard. Doesn't mean you're qualified to judge the best albums of the year.

There are some seasoned critics on the list who've been around the block a few times, but there are also a lot of 20-25 year-old bloggers and freelancers whose musical memory doesn't extend before 2006 or so, and who basically pick a lot of inoffensive, artful but not tremendously exciting indie-folkie singer/songwriter material. Which is fine, but the list is top-heavy with that stuff. It's all rock/pop, and more than that it's mostly the same strain of rock/pop.

Interesting that a grand jury picked Fucked Up. A lot of people I know were dismayed when that band won (I was thrilled!). There were some great records competing with Chemistry of Common Life, but they were mostly good, solid entries in the catalogs of good, solid artists. Fucked Up recorded a triumph, on the other hand, and deserved the recognition.

AnonymousSeptember 15, 2010 11:51 EST

Fearless. Witty. Thoughtful. Canadian. Sounds like Edwin.

Ray MitchellSeptember 15, 2010 14:52 EST

I find it ironic that, of all of the art forms, perhaps only music penalizes you financially as you become more successful. You have considerable production costs, you have to in essence maintain two homes, (one often being a van that flits you across the country), and unless you become that 1% you will never be as financially secure as if you had just stayed home and worked fulltime at McDonalds. Frankly, the love must be strong.

AnonymousSeptember 15, 2010 17:46 EST

Isn't the headline disingenuous? What does it really have to do with the article itself? And more so, did Jordan / Polaris actually state that its objective is to herald "indie" music? That isn't clearly stated in the article. I thought Polaris simply wanted to honour the "best" releases in Canada, and if that results in a list of 10 titles from the majors, so be it, and if it results in a list of 10 titles from independent labels, so be it. And the result, which is to be expected, is a mix of the two — so you get a list that features Warner's Tegan and Sara and Merge Records' Caribou. And for most of the artists, well it's arguable where you'd want to pigeonhole them — Shad gets Universal's support, BSS gets EMI's support, etc. — which indicates that perhaps the best thing is to simply not try to pigeonhole them by claiming they all claim to be "indie". And it's a shame to think that someone was bored stiff last year by 10 of Canada's most interesting musical acts.
Best that Alexandra not bother attending this year; there are many other people who'd be thrilled to have the opportunity to take her seat.

Serpico WigandSeptember 17, 2010 00:19 EST

The only thing that the Polaris achieves is to provide employment for Jordan and his office, with a large chunk of it paid for by Factor, and other publically and privately funded grant entities.

It is nepotism of the highest order, and reeks of the same self-serving old-boys-club style of backslapping that makes the Junos a national embarrassment.

The music media are complicit in this massive fraud. These people should be ashamed of themselves.

We have amazingly great music in this country, all over the place, in styles and genres that you can't imagine, but these organizations make sure you will never hear any of it. Their focus is pathetically narrow, exclusive and self-serving.

This article would have served better to address and discuss the massive amount of abuse and fraud that occurs within these funding entities, and further, how the very organizations discussed in this article manipulate those entities to secure and enhance their bottom lines.

AnonymousSeptember 17, 2010 12:17 EST

Hahaha,

"music ... in styles and genres that you can't imagine." What a statement. Awards for music are a popular medium by their very nature! Awards ceremonies are antithetical to ideals of experimental music, no matter what principles the Polaris does or does not stand for. "Indie" is a marketing term now, which is why the writer couldn't pull together a tangible statement in the first place. If you want to celebrate avant-garde music, there are these new things called blogs. They even have year-end lists, which fill that blank space that you're blindly whining over.

I'm not even standing up for the Polaris, it just seems that people like you love to play the martyr. It's subversive to rave about the evils of Canadian music! Who cares about context! That's become just as tacky as *Canadiana.
As for you, Serpico Wigand, go record in your bedroom or something.

*BSS, Dan Mangan, The Sadies.

AnonymousSeptember 17, 2010 12:17 EST

kayceeOctober 03, 2010 19:20 EST

The term indie is just used to sell records these days, there is no true meaning. Obviously the majority of the finalists are not "independent" and use major label support.

Its sort of like starting a magazine, calling it a "non profit organization" with "charity status" but injecting it with an initial $2,000,000 start up fund, but still asking folks to donate to it, making charity videos with margaret atwood.....

we all think its a "non profit/indie" magazine, but its all using daddy's big wallet support.

AnonymousOctober 05, 2010 16:33 EST

I declare cultural jihad on awards industries and the laughable corruptions they foster

The Indie Rock Swindle

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