Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
Why is it Canada's population is most concentrated near the U.S. border? Why do these Canadian bands come to the U.S. to make it?
I get the CBC here in Michigan, and they recently had a show on about the history of rock music in Canada. A lot of it has to do with something called CanCon, or the Canadian Content law. In the sixties and early seventies, Canadian bands had a really hard time cracking even their domestic markets, mainly due to the negative mindset Canadians had in their own identity around that time. This also partially explains why so much of the Canadian population is so close to the border. Canada was simply a consumer market for much of the 20th century. Nearly all of your goods, appliances and furniture came from the States. Any real manufacturing in Canada was nearly always to support the American market (Ford built the famous 351 Windsor in, well, Windsor, Ontario, and the Chevy Lumina, for its entire run, was made in Oshawa, Ontario), with Canada being the afterthought. American bands were the norm on Canadian stations solely for being American. This explains why the population is so concentrated near the border--the farther north you are, the pricier things are to ship. Also, its a little more temperate in southern Canada than it is in the north. Around the early-to-mid seventies, two things happened to help the Canadian music scene. First, was CanCon--this forced radio stations to broadcast a certain percentage of Canadian-based music. CanCon was later branched out to television, which gave the world these gems.....
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0d_KEiIHiU[/youtube]
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bougw9J7Wmg[/youtube]
In addition, the drinking age in Canada was bumped down from 21 to 19, allowing a younger crowd to patron live music bars. This is when bands such as Rush, April Wine and Max Webster developed a following, were signed to record deals, and the American parent companies of the record labels in Canada put then on playbills to support bigger acts. This still wasn't a cakewalk, and this is exactly the reason why so many of these bands were so good--just because it be came easier didn't mean it was easy. As the rock bands from Canada were more recognized, you saw the next generation (Colin James, The Tragically Hip, Jeff Healey) have an easier go at it due to the fact that there was more self-awareness of their own domestic product. To this day, its been successful enough where you have groups like Nickelback that were immidiately overplayed in both the Canadian and American markets.
And Yes, Neil Young is from Winnipeg.