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Welcome to another edition of Unsigned and Wound Up, volume 10 ladies and gents. The top three vote-getters will receive a professional review from a staff writer. The top vote-getter receives an interview feature.

Past episodes

Unsigned and Wound Up 9
Unsigned and Wound Up 8
Unsigned and Wound Up 7
Unsigned and Wound Up 6
Unsigned and Wound Up 5
Unsigned and Wound Up 4
Unsigned and Wound Up 3
Unsigned and Wound Up 2
Unsigned and Wound Up 1

UNSW10

*Voting ends 5/31/13
**DO NOT vote more than once for a band/artist, we are monitoring and will delete your vote.
***If an honorable mention receives a write-in vote below, they will be added the following poll and eligible for all prizing
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Congratulations to the honorable mentions of volume 10 (mp3 links to come)

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How big is  Canadian Music Week, you ask? With more than 1,000 artists playing 60 Toronto-area venues over 6 nights, it is sooo BIG…that I had to create another page just to file all my field reports!
(Previous ones can be accessed here.)

Field Reports

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Listen as Gilles Leblanc enjoys some of his favorite tracks from artists expected to drop a new release in 2013.

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Gilles Leblanc, Mark Ambrose and Brian Rutherford bring you just a few of their favorite Rock songs in 2012.

Podcast Playlist:
IAMDYNAMITE -- Where Will We Go
The Features -- How It Starts
Smoke & Jackal -- You’re Lost
Japandroids -- The House That Heaven Built
Jack White -- Sixteen Saltines
Imagine Dragons -- It’s Time
Band of Skulls -- Close to Nowhere

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UNSW9

Welcome to another edition of Unsigned and Wound Up, volume nine ladies and gents. For an express version of this podcast, check out the compilation…The top three vote-getters will receive a professional review from a staff writer. The top vote-getter receives an interview feature.

Side A

Side B

*Voting ends 12/31/12
**DO NOT vote more than once for a band/artist, we are monitoring and will delete your vote.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

VOTER CONTESTS

12-6-12: The next three M.E. twitter followers users who tweet their favorite USNW9 artist will receive a CD prize pack (ONE CD and a Rhythms Del Mundo T-Shirt) courtesy of Popblerd! Be sure to use #discoveryournextfavorite

CD’s that will be randomly packaged with a Rhythms Del Mundo Shirts T-Shirt..
-Brad Paisley
-Andrew Bird
- Otep
-Cradle of Filth
-Geoff Tate
-Steve Hackett
- Steve Vai

Congrats to our winners

On the Verge:

A column coined by editor Benjy Oliver, this group of artists are truly ‘on the verge’ of busting its way onto our podcast. For all the following artists that were so close to making it on the podcast, we can’t wait to hear your next submission. For some of you…it was simply the wrong song you submitted, keep ‘em coming!

Past episodes

Unsigned and Wound Up 8
Unsigned and Wound Up 7
Unsigned and Wound Up 6:
Unsigned and Wound Up 5:
Unsigned and Wound Up 4:
Unsigned and Wound Up 3:
Unsigned and Wound Up 2:
Unsigned and Wound Up 1:

Click on the Spotify logo to stream ALL of our Unsigned and Wound Up alumni

Production and Thanks:

• As ALWAYS, a huge thanks to Sonic Bids for the space and my fellow staff members for the help.
• On volume five, we compiled some elementary videos, as you can see, we did the same for 9 at our our indies youtube channel. See our live concert footage at our main youtube channel. Like us on facebook & follow us on twitter, it’s fresh there all the time.

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Ladies and gentlemen, The Rolling Stones are about to play their first “50 & Counting…” anniversary show at London’s O2 Arena. There probably aren’t too many people from Canada who made the trip across the pond (and if any of you did, shame on you for not bringing me), so here’s hoping @RollingStones provides some Twitter play-by-play action as things unfold on Sunday, November 25th. I’m probably most curious though to see just how many songs from GRRR! make the setlist such as “Doom and Gloom”, which has surprisingly become one of my favourites of the year. Not to sound cliché, but what’s your take on The Stones’ latest compilation? Is it already part of your collection, or are you waiting to surprise someone with it over the holidays? With your Music Emissions Minute, this has been the ROCKthusiast Gilles LeBlanc.

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Instead of a podcast this Tuesday, we decided to publish a themecast. It’s real simple, decipher what commonality all of these songs share. Whether it be the artist name, song title or album title, they all share one common theme. No song titles will be given, that would just be too easy.

Your prize

-$10 Amazon cash*

-CD copy of Sister Sin’s new album, Now & Forever

-CD copy of Jason Aldean’s new album Night Train

-CD copy of Alanis Morissette’s new album Havoc and Bright Lights

*All apologies, but you will not be eligible to win the Amazon cash if you live outside of the United States

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Earlier this year when researching bands for SXSW, we first discovered the Los Angeles surfer punks FIDLAR. It’s been an amazing whirlwind of a successful year for them. Showing up everywhere from Spin to MTV, it’s much different then how they originally  began. When they started in 2009, seeing FIDLAR meant showing up to a house party and eventually having this exchange with one of them. Zac Carper, The bands guitarist and singer (well, one of ‘em) would hand you a red cup , throw an arm around your neck and probably end up blurting out how fucked up he was. Their set list would read more like a grocery list of party supplies than a list of songs: “Cocaine. Cheap Beer. Chinese weed. Four Loko.”

After a few years of being a band Zac still plugs in his pedals attached to a skate deck (“Pedal board”, get it?) and says “Hi We’re FIDLAR: F-I-D-L-A-R. It means ‘Fuck It Dog, Life’s a Risk”. Seeing a FIDLAR set consists of drinking and dancing with people that are twice as drunk as you are while the band rips through songs about what they know best: The girl doesn’t call, my ex is a whore, I lost my phone, my car is a piece of shit, my friends are pieces of shit, I do too many drugs, I’m really awkward, I love Del Taco.

FIDLAR is Zac Carper, Elvis Kuehn, Brandon Schwartzel, and Max Kuehn. Elvis and Zac met at Kingsize Soundlabs in LA and recorded a ton of demos with the band before playing a live show. Their first show was on a FMLY bike ride at a skatepark in Culver City. Three years later the band has played with the Black Lips, OFF!, Japanther, Delta Spirit, Jeff The Brotherhood, and toured with The Hives. They’ve released two EP’s and just got back from touring Europe. We caught up with them back stage at Fun Fun Fun Fest. Listen to our interview with the guys, they were cool enough to smoke a joint with us in the Spin tent. You can find their latest tour dates, and see their latest music video here.  They have also just released another EP to hold us over until January. This one is called SHIT WE RECORDED IN OUR BEDROOM. 

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The election for the President of the USA is underway. Here’s a musical look at it through the eyes of an Englishman.
1. The Chaw – “Campaigning Man”
2. Barrett Strong – “Money (That’s What I Want)”
3. Magazine – “Motorcade”
4. The Psychedelic Furs – “President Gas”
5. The Electric Prunes – “Hey, Mr. President”
6. The Cure – “Killing an Arab”
7. Billy Bragg – “Help Save the Youth of America”
8. The Housemartins – “Get up off of Our Knees”
9. The The – “Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)”
10. Brendan Perry – “The Bogus Man”

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It’s amazing what passes for music news these days. During their September 29th set in New York’s Central Park, Dave Grohl announced that this would be the last Foo Fighters show for awhile. Rock fans worldwide freaked out to the point that Grohl had to take to the FOOs’ Facebook page to explain himself. If anyone deserves a break to rest on their laurels, it’s him, but I doubt that’s what he does. He likes to keep busy with other projects, the latest being this Sound City Studios documentary I can’t wait to see. And if you recall, it was three and a half years between the last two Foo Fighters albums. Don’t worry, we’ll see that bearded grin of his sooner rather than later. With your Music Emissions Minute, this has been the ROCKthusiast Gilles LeBlanc.