The event aims to bring people together as a community in a friendly welcoming environment that embraces music, art, creates space for discovery, and embraces the roots of the city. The gates opened quite early but it was a big weekend for Toronto with multiple events happening throughout so people were strolling in slowly, but those who came, showed up.

Montréal’s Busty and the Bass took the stage in the early evening for their fun blend of electro-soul and occasionally hip hop. Alistair Blu was leading the stage with the vocals, occasionally stepping away to make room for guest vocalist Mel Pacifico or to play keys. The band recently released a new EP, KARNEVAL, so naturally, we got to hear a wide range of tracks from that. Overlapping on the opposite stage was Kurt Vile and The Violators with Kurt Samuel Vile at the forefront, hiding under a mane of hair, softly speaking/singing into the mic, sharing his latest release (watch my moves) with the excited fans.

The evening continued with indie pop quartet Valley who immediately flooded the stage with their contagious energy. After Kara James jumped on drums Rob Laska stepped up to the center to perform “Oh shit…are we in love?” eventually jumping into the pit to dance with the singing crowd. The band played through a handful of tracks from Last Birthday (The After Party) with Kara occasionally coming out to sing. As Valley’s performance was coming to an end the crowd promptly moved to the main stage for Vancouver’s Peach Pit. The lemons were now mush spread around the park giving off a subtle citrus scent.

Peach Pit seemed to be the most anticipated set so far with people crowding in tighter and the photo pit packing in one by one with excited photographers. Neil Smith (vocals, guitar) seemed very calm and collected, even while whipping his hair dancing around the stage, and jamming with the band. Their chill shade of indie and surf rock is well known with this audience many of whom were gleefully singing along. The band has released an album this year, From 2 to 3, but what got everyone going was of course “Alrighty Aphrodite”.

The energy was rising and the sun was heading for the hills but the overall vibe across Garrison Commons was still very, very chill. The Halluci Nation, formerly known as A Tribe Called Red, began their set on the opposite stage playing to a smaller crowd. Tim “2oolman” Hill and Ehren “Bear Witness” Thomas are an electronic duo who produce a blend of hip hop, reggae, and dubstep-influenced tracks with a high emphasis on the music of First Nations Peoples. Their music deals with a lot of heavy issues Indigenous communities are continually faced with and in an interview with CBC 2oolman admitted We are the Halluci Nation (2016) was a “pretty mentally and spiritually draining album to make because it really dealt with a lot of hard things”. The latest record, One More Saturday Night, was released under the new name The Halluci Nation (inspired by John Trudell’s poem by the same name), it was the stuff of superheroes and outlaws. This record is a recharge in a new direction but by no means does this direction deviate from their roots and beliefs.

Set at the back of the stage behind a large video screen you could hardly see the duo but that was just the start of this mind-blowing set. For a good part of the show, the screen was showing mixed cuts from popular films – cuts showcasing Hollywood’s perceptions of the ‘Indian’ – the perceptions we are still working to dismantle. A few warm-up songs in 2oolman and Bear Witness were joined on stage by two dancers carrying the flag with the band’s logo: “The great seal of The Halluci Nation / 500 years and still drumming” lines of text wrapped around the turtle with eagle’s wings.

The dancers quickly became a prominent component of The Halluci Nation’s set performing traditional dances, breakdancing, hyping up the crowd, and waving Kookum scarves (spelling varies; there is a long history between Indigenous Peoples and early Ukrainian settlers). Midway through the show, the duo invited out a couple more surprise guests: Haviah Mighty and Odario to perform “Ba Na Na”. Naturally, the crowd went wild. Seeing all this talent on one stage was heartwarming and electrifying for everyone involved, “this is the first time we’ve all been on one stage together” pointed out Odario in disbelief.

By all accounts, The Halluci Nation played a headliner set and no energy could’ve matched theirs after, so for many of us, this was the high point and the end of the great return of the Field Trip music festival. Until next year.

The post Field Trip ’22 rocked, but The Halluci Nation stole the show appeared first on Quip Magazine.

It used to be so simple. From the 1960s to the early ‘90s, the consensus among those concerned with the artistic merit was, if a band or songwriter ad-licenced their song they were a sell out, worthy of all the scorn The Village Voice could muster. In the 2000s, that train of thought is all but extinct.

Licencing music has become an accepted practice, with even The Village Voice asking in 2010, “Is It Possible to Sell Out?” After all, when beacons of artistic integrity, from Bob Dylan to Kurt Vile, are ad-licencing their songs, it does appear that the concept of “selling out” is a cultural relic, a symbol of a past generations’ ill-advised attempts at rebelling – like the trendy Chairman Mao pin.

A similar argument was made by author Hua Hsu on Grantland.com in his article “M.I.A. and Impossibility of Selling Out.”

However, isn’t selling out always possible as long as artists have moral and ethical beliefs? Selling out shouldn’t be a black and white, yes/no, issue but in the new age of music and advertising, selling out is harder to identify than it used to be.

In 1971, the average American was exposed to a little more than 550 advertisements per day, according to author David Shenk. The best estimates indicate that the average American is currently exposed to anywhere from 1,500 to over 3,000 ads daily. In 1971, college radio and alternative rock stations in urban centres were the primary source of new music for anyone in the counter culture.

In the last two years, well established and long running alternative rock stations have changed formats – to talk, gospel, or top-40 – in Orlando, New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and a number of college radio stations have also been sold off.

With this new reality, no one can blame artists for ad-licencing their music. It’s become an accepted fact that advertisements provide much needed money and exposure for indie bands who would otherwise have very little of either.

You can credit/blame Moby for discovering the formula. His 1999 album “Play” was the most licenced album of all time, with all 18 tracks being used in a TV show, movie, or commercial, and in some instances all three. As his manager Eric Härler explained, they simply needed exposure because radio stations refused to play Moby’s music.

Getting exposure through ads worked better than anyone could’ve imagined, as “Play” became the best-selling techno album of all time and transformed Moby from cult DJ to global star. At the time Moby took a lot of flak of from fans and the music press for being a sell out. One fan even went so far as to sell Moby’s soul on eBay (Moby’s “soul” was an empty jar but you get his point).

It’s an argument that seems antiquated 13 years later, when we barely notice Civic using a Vampire Weekend song to sell cars. Derek Miller, song writer and one half of the indie duo  Sleigh Bells, summed up it best while discussing his

own band’s decision to licence the song “Rhythm Riot” for use in Honda’s commercial for a hybrid SUV. “The ‘sell out’ discussion never even happened, we happily license our music for movies and advertisements on a case-by-case basis,” Miller told the Boston edition of Metro newspaper. “It’s almost pretentious to avoid the opportunity, especially in this climate.”

It’s the “case-by-case basis” part of Miller’s statement that best explains the modern dilemma over selling out. What if, for example, Moby, a committed vegan and vocal supporter of PETA, had licenced his music to KFC (I’d suggest using “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad” to sell the Double Down)? Would that be selling out? The simple answer is yes.

That’s why when The Village Voices’ Zach Baron writes, “selling out has long since stopped existing as a meaningful concept,” he’s only partially right. He is right that selling out isn’t an all-encompassing fear for indie bands the way it used to be. But selling out is still possible and is still meaningful.

If a fervent anti-war band like Rage Against the Machine ad-licenced a song to war profiteer Halliburton, that would undoubtedly compromise their integrity. However, the same couldn’t be said for flag-waving, pro-war, country singer Toby Keith.

In essence, the debate over selling out should be less intellectually lazy than has often been the case. In the 2000s, saying “yes” to every company that comes knocking makes no more sense than saying “no” did in the 1990s.

Just because a bands’ views over right and wrong have changed – from the ‘60s-style “all capitalism is bad” to a more 2000s viewpoint of “I love me some Heinz ketchup but Hummer is a gas-sucking parasite” – doesn’t mean ethics don’t exist. And as long as they do exist, it is still possible to sell out.

Photo of Moby by Katy Baugh

The post The changing nature of selling out appeared first on Quip Magazine.