SWOLLEN MEMBERS - 'Fuel Injected'

Origin: Vancouver, BC
Category: STUFFED CRUST PIZZA
Cherchez La Moose: Moose Tracks is having an early Christmas this year. What can we expect in our stockings from BC duo Swollen Members? Lots and lots of cheese, wrapped with a nice bow. These guys have released some great tracks, so I'm not trying to hate. Fuel Injected was a big hit; pretty much everyone in my high school, including myself, liked it. How were we all so blinded by its cheesiness? For starters, Mad Child's lyrics totally suck in this song. I love his cocky tough-guy I'm-so-good pose/head bop at 1:05 after his wack verse. Prevail isn't at his best either. I cringe when he raps "triple ghetto gold, rocked and rolled" at 1:53. Who wrote these lyrics, Vanilla Ice? The fur coats in the video are ridiculous. That girl at 1:58 is ridiculous. Great chorus, though.

RUSTY

Origin: Toronto, ON
Category: LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
Cherchez La Moose: Rusty's debut LP Fluke was one of the first albums that I ever bought. My favourite song on the album was California, so I was thrilled to find a video of the band performing it live...at Snow Job! I miss you, old MuchMusic. This song's lyrics are insane - it starts out sounding all romantic, until midway through verse one when Ken MacNeil sings "she moved down to LA, she met some dude ok....he sawed her head off with a knife." Wait, what?! Holy. How did I not realize that those were the lyrics when I was a kid? MacNeil's vocals were always the best thing about this band, and he sounds awesome in this video. I tried finding the official video for Misogyny, but it is nowhere to be found. 

CHANTAL KREVIAZUK - 'Surrounded'

Origin: Winnipeg, MB
Category: NORTHERN ELIXIR
Cherchez La Moose: Chantal Kreviazuk had already released God Made Me, Wayne, and Believer from her 1996 debut Under These Rocks and Stones before finally releasing Surrounded. I was expecting it to suffer from fourth-single-itis (i.e. decent, somewhat catchy song not strong enough to be a real single, but the album has been doing well and the label wants to milk it), but Surrounded was the best of the bunch. I love songs that don't show their brightest colors straight out of the gate. I get all excited every time Kreviazuk surprises us with that second chorus at 2:12. This song is about a former lover who took his own life. The lyrics and melody are exceptional, and I think it's the best song that she has written to date.

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD - 'Love?'

Origin: New Westminster, BC
Category: NORTHERN ELIXIR
Cherchez La Moose: Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, spawn of Satan, and former Sears catalog model (jokes!!) Devin Townsend is a force to be reckoned with. Amazing talent. Amazing hair. Love? is one of the best metal songs to ever come out of Canada. It is so heavy, and so damn good, that it could even get the almighty Chuck Norris' panties in a knot. That's right .....I JUST WENT THERE.

THE TEA PARTY - 'Release'

Origin: Windsor, ON
Category: NORTHERN ELIXIR
Cherchez La Moose: I recently re-watched the video for Temptation, the Tea Party's big single off of 1997's Transmission. It has held up well, and I'm still in love with the creepy snake monster in the sewer/dungeon. It still can't compete, however, with the beautiful, haunting Release. This song moves me - it always has. The lighting and cinematography in this video are unbelievable. The Tea Party has always been a little pretentious, but it works here. Release, which frontman Jeff Martin has stated is about women's rights, became a staple for their live shows, and it took my breath away when I saw them at EdgeFest in 1998.

TWO HOURS TRAFFIC

Origin: Charlottetown, PE
Category: EMERGING ANTLERS
Cherchez La Moose: Two Hours Traffic may appear to be a new up-and-coming band, but they've been playing music together for many years. These former University of Charlottetown students have gone on to release three LPs and receive a Polaris nomination for their 2008 album Little Jabs. These guys remind me of a few other young bands, most notably Tokyo Police Club and Yukon Blonde. All three bands understand pop songwriting through and through, and have yet to release any bad material. If you like Nighthawks, check out the videos for the equally great Stuck For The Summer and Noisemaker on YouTube.

ABANDON ALL SHIPS

Origin: Toronto, ON
Category: VOLCANO TOSS
Cherchez La Moose: Abandon All Ships found success after being featured on an episode of MuchMusic's disBAND earlier this year. The judges heaped copious amounts of praise upon them for fusing emo, techno, and metal. Sounds like a shit pizza if you ask me. Way to take every annoying played-out trend in contemporary pop music and spew it back out at us. I'd probably be less of a jerk if they seemed like cool guys. During their disBAND episode, the lead screamer had a diva hissy fit in front of established Canadian director Davin Black because the band wanted to incorporate lasers into their undeservingly-good-quality music video, but Black couldn't work it into the lighting. I figure the band was so upset about it that they decided to sabotage the video altogether by doing the lamest dance move imaginable at 0:22 and 0:30. Thanks for the laughs, guys.

V.I.P - 'Michael'

Origin: Barrie, ON
Category: VOLCANO TOSS
Cherchez La Moose: There was a lot of subpar pop music coming out of Canada during the late 90's/early 00's. Nothing compares, however, to VIP. That's right - Prozzak? Better than VIP. B4-4? Still better than VIP. The Moffatts? You're also forgiven. VIP might actually be the worst Canadian band of all time. They can barely sing on key, none of them are attractive, their dance moves are as simple and generic as they come, and they clearly have horrible taste, seeing as how they didn't outright reject recording Michael. My jaw almost hit the floor when I rediscovered this flaming turd a few months ago. I could bury it further, but there's no need - this song and its accompanying video are so bad that they practically make fun of themselves.

BLOOD DIAMONDS

Origin: Vancouver, BC
Category: EMERGING ANTLERS
Cherchez La Moose: I know next to nothing about Blood Diamonds. His MySpace page is only three months old, and it contains very little background information. When Heart started to make its rounds on American hipster blogs last month, I decided to have a listen. I liked the song immediately, but it took me another few listens to realize just how fantastic it is. It sounds exotic, slightly early-90's (yet completely current), and it has major potential in becoming a big-city club anthem. It's my favourite piece of music to come out of Vancouver since I moved here. Hopefully Blood Diamonds is just warming up. 

OLD MAN LUEDECKE

Origin: Chester, NS
Category: EMERGING ANTLERS
Cherchez La Moose: Old Man Luedecke is a star. It might not come through in this music video for I Quit My Job, but if you ever get the chance to see him live, you'll see something special in him. He is an excellent storyteller, and he never misses a note on the banjo. He rightfully earned a Juno award in 2009 for his album Proof of Love, and his rising profile and steadily expanding fanbase will hopefully propel him to even more success in the near future. If you're looking for something genuine and unpretentious, give Old Man Luedecke a spin.

READY OR NOT

Origin: Mississauga, ON
Cherchez La Moose: I am probably going to get some raised eyebrows and "please tell me you're kidding" comments for this one, but I really like Ready or Not. I liked what I saw of it as a kid, but never followed it too closely. In 3rd year University, I had a TV in my room and would watch reruns of it on YTV at 11pm every night. I started watching it just for laughs; puberty drama, cheesy dream sequences, and an early 90's vibe were hard to resist. Oddly enough, I noticed after a while that I wasn't laughing at it anymore - I was laughing with it. Ready or Not is a genuinely funny show, and every character is relatable and three-dimensional. It's one of the most realistic shows I've ever seen. It also deserves kudos for having balls - The Disney Channel actually banned some of the episodes, one in particular involving Amanda fantasizing about her English teacher. Canada rules.

SKYE SWEETNAM - 'Number One'

Origin: Bolton, ON
Category: STUFFED CRUST PIZZA
Cherchez La Moose: Not much to say about this one, except for that it's hella cheezay. Skye, Avril, and Fefe were a trifecta of Ontarionian brat terrors back in the early mid-2000's. This video for Number One doesn't quite match the dorkiness of Fefe's epic Bye Bye Boyfriend video, but we still get a cartwheel, a butterfly guitar, the number 1 written on Skye's hand, a heinous $2 cheetah skirt, and a backing band attempting - and failing - to add punk cred. Skye seems like she's having lots of fun in this video though, and I like that. The song is kind of catchy, and I like the harmony in the chorus.

TRANSISTOR SOUND AND LIGHTING CO. - 'Always Mayonnaise'

Origin: Winnipeg, MB
Category: LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
Cherchez La Moose: Craving something so obscure that even the band probably doesn't remember making it? Here it is. Transistor Sound & Lighting Co. made one album; it came out in the 90's, and it was pure indie rock perfection. Then they disappeared. Always Mayonnaise was the album's single, and as you can hear, it was pretty rough around the edges. Lo-fi, fuzzed out guitars - it also doesn't help that the song only plays in one of my headphones. You know what, though? It don't mean a THANG,  especially when a song rips this gloriously. 

ALEXISONFIRE - 'Pulmonary Archery'

Origin: St. Catharines, ON
Category: NORTHERN ELIXIR
Cherchez La Moose: I think it's safe to say that Alexisonfire had some of the best Canadian videos of the 2000's. Oddly enough, their least inventive might actually be my favourite. As a single, Pulmonary Archery is furious, haunting, alternative, and exciting. The video doesn't bother with flashy editing, which is one of the director's wisest decisions; the quick fades between scenes add to the moodiness. The concept of a band playing music in a big house in the evening seems kind of boring, but the hallway shots, dim lighting, and closing scene with the dark blue sky add a lot of drama. The video is a great intro for a great band. What's up with MuchMusic though, misspelling their band name and calling the song Pulmonary Academy?!