Photo by Marie-Claude Hamel
They are the first francophone band to have won the Polaris Music Prize, an annual nod given to a band solely on artistic merit, no sales figures required (unlike that other big award). Montreal’s Karkwa took home the 2010 award, in a surprise win announced last fall (they beat out Caribou!). The band is actually 12 years old and has four albums to its credit, but was mostly unknown in English Canada until the Polaris win.
Now, the band is embarking on a string of dates at major gigs including tonight’s double-header: the televised Genie Awards at the National Arts Centre AND a concert with Plants and Animals.
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Michael Caffrey and Kerry Campbell have melded their avant-vogue ideas, AV know-how, and a need to party into an eco-innovative idea for the dance floor. The couple — he’s a DJ; she’s a VJ; both are electronic musicians in their own right — have been tweaking their GhettoBlast Sound System for the past eight years. It’s a mobile heap of wires, old solar boards, and recycled stereo parts packed into ancient Samsonites. After a solar charge of 40 to 70 hours, the system can generate 10 hours of smog-free sound. Compare that with most outdoor systems, which run on generators that burn hundreds of dollars’ worth of gas.
