Fried: On the Beach

Perhaps Jane Stewart is too common a name for a Canadian musician trying to make it in the realm of art-pop? For whatever reason, this particular Jane took her maternal aunt's married name and began crushing it as Jane Siberry. 

in 2005 the Canadian Council for the Arts bestowed the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award upon her for "outstanding artistry in her mid-career." She responded by questioning if her career should continue: she changed her identity, both on stage and off, to Issa, a feminized version of Isaiah, and then immediately wrote thirty-three songs in thirty-three days with a process she described as slowed-down: choosing a note and then waiting patiently to discover the next one.

In 2010 she became Siberry again. 

Spotify has somewhere over half of her material available, up to 2017, under both (separate) identities. Her first two albums are missing, the second of which contained the song Mimi on the Beach, the first of her songs I ever heard, still my favourite, and number three on my Spotifried playlist:

Fried: Hiroshima

Gary O'Connor was the son of Canadian Jazz musician Billy O'Connor. Following in Pop's musical footsteps he played with bands The Synics, The Spasstiks, Cat, Liverpool, Aerial and Kid Rainbow before going solo under the name Gary O' in 1981. By 1984 he'd managed two albums, a handful of modest hits, and captured a Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist. He wrote songs for 38 Special, Molly Hatchet, Eddie Money and others. Spotify appears not to know he exists.

One of the last songs he ever wrote and performed for himself concerns the slaying of Japanese at Hiroshima. To this day I'm not sure how I feel about his approach to it, but in high school I loved this song for its sound and I still find it captivating. It's with Shades of 45 that my Spotifried playlist was born.

Cats Can Fry

I've started a playlist which will probably not grow very large. Only one in every five hundred mainstream songs I look for on Spotify is not found. That's a 99.8 success rate! As for these rare rejects (just six so far), they are mostly Canadian one-hit-wonders.

In 1971, four dudes at Ella Middle School of North York formed a band called Ethos with three guitars and drums. Only bass guitarist Peter Alexander would survive the two name-changes and cycles of roster changes over the next fifteen years which were highlighted by Canadian talent-search winnings, an EP release, contract with CBS Records and opener tours with the likes of Burton Cummings and Level 42.

In 1986 Alexander, now on keyboards and backing vocals, with his latest mates, struck the big time with hit Flippin' to the A Side on their self-titled album and a Juno Award nomination for Most Promising Group (won by Glass Tiger), and were then promptly snuffed out of existence in the wake of a Sony Music Group Takeover.

I call the playlist: Spotifried. And since you obviously can't find it on Spotify, I'll see that you can find it here. 

Anyone remember Cats Can Fly?