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| Photograph By Brittknee Withikaye |
So it was about two weeks to the day after we embarked for CMW that we left for the Junos. Upon leaving London it started to snow on that Wednesday, after stopping in Alymer to pick up Drew's clothes for the week. We called into Drew's folks in Streetsville and were advised to stay off the roads, so we ended up staying in Alymer overnight.
We made it onto the road making it to the Juno accreditation office with only minutes to spare. After meeting the wonderful staff and volunteers of the Juno Media office we headed off to our interview with everybody's favorite Acadian rap collective Radio Radio. They have certainly come a long way from the fur wearing silly frat boys that we saw a few years ago during our first trip to Canadian Music Week. During the interview, one of Drew's favorite subject reared it's head again, as talk quickly turned to the MPC and hip hop production once again. Mix that in with some obligatory conversation on the subject of hockey and a memorable Gorilla Video in a hotel overpass led to a very constructive 20 minutes for all of us involved.
Having nothing to do on Thursday night we returned to Streetsville to prepare for Friday. With good night of rest we headed into the events of Friday with a renewed vigor. No.1 on the Friday agenda was the Juno Welcome Reception; The first thing you learn while at the Junos: there is a lot of free booze flowing during the event. Everybody in the room including Drew took advantage. For the record, Drew did bring me what I knew was a Coke-a-Cola that had a little extra something but I let him think that he got me with that one. Upon finishing the party, we found our next interview for our Juno's coverage Canada's reigning queen of rap Eternia.
I have to say Eternia and her manager had the best ensembles for the night and were easy to find for interview as they were both wearing shirts that stated "My favourite rapper wears a skirt." As far as custom merchandise goes, that was probably the most humourous that I've seen in my London Calling travels. Speaking of the Forrest City, Eternia revealed before the interview, that she got her high school diploma from Wheable, so a considerable amount of the pre interview surrounded the awesomeness that is Fast Eddie's.
The Interview itself was conducted in a side lobby area of the Royal York Hotel. It was a fresh look at a female MC's role in modern hip-hop today. Something that will be interesting when it finally makes it to air will be Shad's point of view on the subject of the need for more women in hip-hop.
After leaving the Royal York, we moved onto the Hard Rock Cafe for the Junofest Urban showcase so we can get some Eternia live footage. At this point, Drew and I split up as he had a social engagement that he had to go and attend. I stayed and I wasn't disappointed as Quantesha, Silver (the artist formerly known as Solitaire), and Eternia all took to the stage. If it wasn't enough that Canadian Hip Hop Legends Maestro Fresh Wes & Michee Mee were hosting, at about the half way point of the night Kardinal Offishall arrived and that's when the night started to flip into the crazy territory.
Spending more then half my night in the booth where we stored our equipment, I had the chance to view people coming and going. Including a quite inebriated Michee Mee running to the bathroom on multiple occasions. So when the much bandied about tangent that she laid on the crowd 3/4's of the way through the show was not really a surprise. It got pretty well damn right comedic when she dawned a pink blue jays cap before bringing on Eternia.
The Eternia performance in one outdated 90's phrase was 'Off-tha-Hook'. Starting in the audience, Eternia by the end of the first song (w)rapped the intimate Cypher like audience around her little finger. Some of the performance footage was some of my stronger work. It's easy when half the work is already done by the artist with a Charismatic performance. By the time I left to meet up with Drew, Eternia had destroyed, an almost 2 minute long freestyle.
As I said, the night was crazy, what compounded that problem the place where I had to meet Drew was in the Kennsington Market area. You see in my 31 almost 32 years of life I had only been to Kennsington Market once and that was like 15 years ago for a History field trip. So suffice it to say, I got lost. And by the time I met up with Drew, I was out to lunch.
After some more bickering and running about including a streetcar ride that led us luckily to the right place. We have come to the part of the journey where the awards start getting handed out. Saturday Night's award gala was a great experience. We were holed up in a corner of one of the Salons of the splendiferous and amazingly green Direct Energy. We were one of a few one on one's on this night. In the other corner was E-Talk, then a couple of Internet outlets and us. It was like the distillation of cool. The interviews were numerous and memorable.
Some of Drew's best interviews that night were the aforementioned Shad & Jazz Darling Kelly Lee Evans It was my first time meeting Shad and even I could tell we were a sight for soar eyes. The short visit was a nice trip down memory road. Kelly Lee Evans was an amazing and fun interview, and reminds me to catch her when she comes to London for SunFest.
We we're multi tasking as we shot my "A Few Awkward Minutes with Pat Tiffin" as well. My two favorite interviews had to be with the Aboriginal winner Ceremony and Country winner Johnny Reid. The Ceremony interview involved a couple of funny anecdotes that have to be heard. Johnny Reid has a new fan in me. As he is probably the most realistic musician that I've ever met. It was an entertaing few minutes to say the least.
This all leads us to Sunday, the Juno telecast itself. Britt had joined us during the morning that day after finishing her work week. After rushing to get to the venue again, we got there in time to enjoy a very tasty boxed lunch. At this point one of the funniest thing happened to me. I was hugged and talked to by the very down to earth Liz Trinnear from MuchMusic. Her look that night was sort of Joan Rivers meets N.W.A. era Road Warriors (only minus the facepaint). After enjoying that resbit we moved over to the Interview area.
During the Telecast, we didn't get many interviews for the show. But the two we did get were amazing. After not getting a whiff of one back during the tent party we finally got a long awaited interview with Deadmau5 and we weren't disappointed as a memorable interview that touched upon Dubstep amongst other things occurred. Our second artist of the night was best new artist winner Meghan Smith who coincidentally enough grew up in London. Very rarely does Drew divert into Fashion Talk but with what Meghan was wearing that night it would be remissed if it wasn't covered.
Thus this begins the Q & A period. I'd be remissed if I didn't talk about how radiant Shania Twain looked or the God-awful question that Drew asked Daniel Lanois. But two acts were refreshing to see talk. Canadian Rock Legend Neil Young showed that not only is relevant but he is also with it when questioned about the current state of digital music, The big winners for the night were The Arcade Fire and their Q & A after winning had every journalist on their A-Games. With all the journalists pretty well melted after the 100 watt Arcade Fire onslaught our night was done.
After a couple hours of fraternizing with our new friends in the press area we returned to the Coat Check to get our coats. The only problem: our coats had been moved to Lost & Found. Which led us to miss an after party we'd been invited to and inspired some of my funnier tweets of the week. After taking an expensive cab ride to our accomidations for the night. We reminissed until we all fell asleep.
After picking up our coats, we started our journey home. In a month that could be best described as Journalistic Summer Camp. We had enjoyed hours upon hours of music, interviewed some of the most interesting people, bickered while getting lost and ended up learning what it took to do the show on the road. All in all, the show is in a better place after all that.
Pat Tiffin, BDM Correspondent/Awkward One/New Blogger
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