Thursday, December 29, 2005

Little Canadian Content on Soulseek

Now what does this mean, folks -- are bands like Rough Trade and the Payolas still alive on the radio in Canada ONLY BECAUSE OF CANADIAN CONTENT LAWS? I've been looking for Rough Trade's "All Touch" on Soulseek for an 80's New Year's Mix disc I'm making for a friend's party for about three days; I also wanted to find "Never Said I Loved You," by the Payolas with Carol Pope. I've heard both these songs on the radio in recent weeks, and I basically only ever hear the radio in waiting rooms or in friend's cars. I'm shocked at how hard these songs are to find, though; they seem almost completely forgotten. The only Payolas' tune that turns up regularly is "Eyes of a Stranger" -- occasionally I've bumped into "You're the Only Love" or "Christmas is Coming," the latter being a seasonal accident, but otherwise it seems like no one is trading this stuff on the 'net at all, not even Canadians! I finally did locate the latter tune, but I've yet to find "All Touch." Worse, there isn't a Payolas CD to be found anywhere in Vancouver -- Hammer on a Drum has never been reissued, in fact; the only thing available is an embarrassingly-titled compilation, Between a Rock and a Hyde Place, but even that appears unfindable, from Zulu to HMV (with a stroll through the Granville used shops to boot). I can understand why Doug and the Slugs recorded output is all out of print, much as I miss Doug (and sincerely love Cognac and Bologna; by the way, none of them on Soulseek, either); and as amazing as it was, it's not at all surprising that Slow's Against the Glass has yet to be reissued; but the Payolas, condemned to obscurity? When meatheads like Bryan Adams and Celine Dion are world-famous... there's something very wrong with thus picture. It's the downside of CanCon laws, I guess -- they give people who listen to the radio an exaggerated sense of the survival of music that is almost completely extinct, allowing us to take it for granted...

...anyhow, that's kind of a trivial post, but it's been on my mind...

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