Mr. Tunes

Unfamiliar Social Scenes

This month, Greg Ipp from Unfamiliar Records went up against the Canadian grant system, by posting a critical rant against the process of how grants are awarded in Canada. He mainly took aim at groups such as Metric, noting the amount of money that an established band is able to garner, even though they are, established.

A lot of people have been taking note, and as such, Ipp has been under fire and branded as a disgruntled guy who is jealous of people who are getting the good dough from the government. I personally have to respect anyone who is willing to put themselves on the line like this, especially since it could potentially hurt any future chances of receiving funding. And by doing so, he is starting a great dialogue and outpouring of information on the matter. Some people also say he is wallowing in the newfound attention that this is bringing his label, but all the power to him!

Today, the manager from Broken Social Scene posted a retort on the blog where the original rant appeared. Mathieu Drouin writes, "...I have no intention of engaging with you in any kind of ongoing pissing match, considering I am sitting here on the tarmac waiting for my plane to take off and have nothing better to do for the next 45 minutes of this delightful delay, I decided I might as well take this opportunity to draft one comprehensive reply to your letter in an effort to dissect and refute those of your assertions which I take issue with".

Ok, this is good already. The guy is happy to let us know how important he is, being on the tarmac and all, so you better take heed! The best part of the whole thing is that he writes that he is going to take 45 minutes to write this rant, and then as you can see when you visit the article, that the rant is so long that I cannot possibly even read it in 45 minutes. It is going to take me about a week off and on to get through his post.

As you scan through it, because I will assume that you too do not have the time to read it, you will notice that he does make an effort to highlight the good points about our funding system in Canada. He also tries to impart some good advice to people searching for grants. I think this sort of dialogue is a great thing, but I think that he could've been a bit more eloquent in handling the matter. Going on at such lengths reveals a bit of weakness and insecurity over the issue.

I am sitting here trying to make sense of the argument, and all I can say is that this is now getting a little pathetic. Here in Canada we should be grateful that there is funding of this sort in the first place. Sure, it's often going towards music that I don't listen to, but then again, I don't know how many electronic music producers can make a compelling argument to receive the funding, since the music that we make is often not marketable as say Metric's is. This is the paragraph which I was alluding to in the title of my post, btw.

I think it's great if the funding goes into the hands of responsible people, but c'mon guys, this isn't the image we should be projecting to the greater audience outside of our nation. I firmly believe that if our music is good, it will travel far and wide, especially with the tools given to us by the Interweb, and most importantly, the tools to make a killer tune without even having to take off your pyjamas(ok TMI!). 

The comment #17 by Erin K is particularly good. She reminds everyone that the funding system in general is at risk from the Conservative government who has already been slashing other programs apart. With a brink of collapse on the horizon, I think having a dialogue on this is a very good thing, but let's not get too comfortable here. It could be removed very shortly.

Anyone who participates on musician forums often sees someone come in and write "why don't we stop bickering and start making music?". It's a lame thing to write because the forums are there for people to discuss things, so always some idiot has to show up and try to look cool at everyone else's expense. But honestly, for the first time in a while, reading Drouin's post gave me that feeling that I should be more busy finishing my new EP than reading about hand-me-downs.

When I am ready, I will apply for funding, but up until now I have been busy putting my music to work by creating a label which allows me to distribute music elsewhere online, and trying to spread the gospel as best as I can. I hope the funding doesn't get slashed, but in the meantime let's keep ourselves composed and not let this get too far out of hand. I spend a lot of time working on the code behind the mr. tunes website, blogging, twittering, and everything else, but at the core of everything I do, I firmly believe that the music comes first. It sounds cheesy as shit, I know!

Comments are currently ixnay'd while I work on the site.