Jeff from the Acorn talks some smack on the Eve of the Polaris Music Prize announcement
Last month, the 185 members of the Polaris Music Prize jury released their Long List of the top 40 full-length Canadian records released from June 1, 2007 to May 31, 2008. Tomorrow the jury will reveal its 10-album Short List at Toronto’s Drake Hotel.
Nominees include Ottawa’s The Acorn [Myspace / Insound] — who’ve played several overwhelmingly well-received shows in NYC this year. I caught up with my buddy Jeff DeButte, the Acorn’s guitarist and back-up vocalist, to see how he was feeling the day before.
Earlier this week, Dave at Bumpershine surveyed musicians, industry types, and bloggers (including me!) for their own Short List picks, which he compiled into his Prognosticating the Polaris Prize Short List post. What would your ranked picks from the Long List be?
1. Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors (a beautiful and unique album from beginning to end, and exactly the kind of record that the Polaris prize is supposed to be awarded to)
2. Constantines - Kensington Heights
3. Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue
4. Hilotrons - Happymatic
5. Holy Fuck - LP
What were you up to when you found out about the Polaris nomination? What would it mean to you to win?
Well, I woke up and read— on my Facebook wall— someone’s congratulations on being nominated to the Long List. I then spent several minutes trying to find a website where I could confirm that we had, in fact, been nominated but failed. I’m still not sure how he found out!
I’m not really sure what it would mean to win. Obviously awards like this are subjective but it would still be pretty cool to win. Really, though, just being nominated to the Long List is a really nice honour.
What do you like about playing in Brooklyn/NYC?
The crowds are surprisingly warm. Maybe we’re just lucky, but the response we’ve had there has been overwhelmingly positive. I was definitely expecting people to be a lot less excited about some unknown band from Canada. And of course being able to spend time in NYC isn’t too bad, either.
Now that you guys are getting to be so bigtime, what do you think your first outrageous scandal as a band will be??
Definitely some sort of hijinks-related arrest of one or more of us. We narrowly avoided getting thrown in the slammer in Cincinnati for being in a park after 10pm. With that kind of reckless behaviour, it’s really only a matter of time, you know?
What’s the band up to this summer?
We’re playing some festivals up here— Ottawa, Winnipeg, Guelph, Quebec City, and Sackville— and doing a bit of recording for a little something-something we’re planning to put out in the fall on our Canadian tour. It might be a secret, though, so let’s keep it between you and me, internet.
Union Hall performance photos by Jonny Leather.
