. : : May 25th, 2013 : : .
OK, I need to buy myself a bit more time.
Luckily, I have another short (1 track, 1 interview) 8.5-year old Sloan recording from the inaugural CBC Music Festival at Echo Beach in Toronto. This is a quick audio clip and recording of the band’s opening song (and massive nation-wide hit) Money City Maniacs.
Sloan was super huge in the late-90s in Canada, but I resented the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission)’s mandate that 30% of all music played on radio and television be Canadian content and took my contention out on the bands benefiting from the bylaw. Now that I’m older, I do get it — but the loophole still all-too-often employed by the media conglomerates is to play the same half-dozen or so songs and cycle them every couple of hours to fill the quota. The quality of the music was secondary, and felt perpendicular to the music of the international bands that book-ended these tracks. Maybe it has something to do with Canadian Identity or whatnot, but it felt weird, dated, and forced to my ears. In retrospect, it ultimately just wasn’t what I was into at the time, and I let my politics colour my opinion.
I’ve grown to appreciate the band’s catalogue and although I’d never call myself a fanatic, I enjoy a good number of their tunes. The fact that they’re still out there givin’er three decades later says a lot about the quality of the musicians and their importance to the landscape of Canadian music.
So, while twenty-five years ago, I would’ve changed the station if this song came on, here I am promoting it to an international audience.
I guess that’s personal growth?
Check it out.
[info.txt // FLAC Fingerprint]
