Interesting Edmonton fact: local bands are guaranteed a minimum of three and a half stars from the local hacks. F'r instance, a local ska/punk band (who shall remain nameless here) just released their first full-length, which nabbed five stars out of five from one of the local weekly entertainment rags. A perfect score. Now, call be a purist, but I always felt perfect scores were reserved for the kind of albums that push the musical envelope or redefine genres. Classic albums, like "Revolver" or "Exile..." or "OK Computer". Shit like that that people will still be listening to 10, 20 years down the road. And I can't attest to the quality of the release in question, but it doesn't take a genius to see that there's no fucking way this local ska troupe has crafted a Edmonton "London Calling". This has happened before.
The problem is, all the music writers in town are either friends with/fucking the bands they're writing about, or are in bands themselves and don't want to piss anyone off. So the whole "scene" turns into one gigantic circle jerk. I'm sure that's the way it is everywhere, but it's so much more pronounced in a small town like this. Ugh.
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