Feist: gigs a bit like harvest festival

Oh, we loved harvest festivals - carrying a tin of food to school to be placed, solemnly, in front of the stage, a couple of verses of We Plough The Fields And Scatter before the whole lot gets swept up into a box and distributed to the needy. Of course, our Grandma got given a box of groceries once - from another school - and was absolutely livid. At the suggestion she might have been financially struggling, but also at the brands that had been chosen for her.

Anyway, Feist is reviving the harvest festival model for her forthcoming Canadian tour, but the recipients of the gifts will be better chosen than my grandma. And there won't be We Plough The Fields And Scatter, either. Instead, attendees are being invited to bring donations for the Canadian Association of Food Banks; one lucky donor will get a bunch of special stuff in return but everyone gets to help a little. It might not be as flashy as Bono hanging out with Presidents, but it's nice to feel there's something we all can do.

And while we're slapping YouTube videos onto the page

You may have already seen this, but it's so cute who wouldn't mind seeing it again? Feist pops up on Sesame Street:

Islands on the stream

Streaming off a server in a bid to tempt you into purchasing a 7" version: The Constantines and Feist doing Islands In The Stream.

To be fair, it doesn't quite work - the song is desperate to break out from the slower pacing, which makes it a bit like watching a greyhound on a leash and Leslie sounds a little bit too peaky set against the Constantine's mumbling delivery. But, hey, it's certainly no Ebony and Ivory.

Oh, yes, the Junos...

We knew we'd forget the second half of the Junos. This is the revised list of winners, including part two of the prizegiving:

ABORIGINAL RECORDING OF THE YEAR - Derek Miller THE DIRTY LOOKS
ADULT ALTERNATIVE ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Blue Rodeo SMALL MIRACLES
ALBUM OF THE YEA) - Feist THE REMINDER
ALTERNATIVE ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Arcade Fire NEON BIBLE
ARTIST OF THE YEAR - Feist
BLUES ALBUM OF THE YEAR - FATHEAD BUILDING FULL OF BLUES
CLASSICAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR: VOCAL OR CHORAL PERFORMANCE - Measha Brueggergosman
COUNTRY RECORDING OF THE YEAR - Paul Brandt RISK
FRANCOPHONE ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Daniel Bélanger L'ÉCHEC DU MATÉRIEL
GROUP OF THE YEAR - Blue Rodeo
ROCK ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Finger Eleven THEM VS. YOU VS. ME
SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR - Feist
JUNO FAN CHOICE AWARD - Michael Bublé
POP ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Feist THE REMINDER

Happy adverts experience

The crossovers of advertising and music usually generate misery and painful stories, so it's nice to hear Feist with nothing but good things to say about her iPod ad experience:

“I was a little naïve as to the impact it would have because I really didn’t have any idea it would be like that. But it did me nothing but favours because I’ve continued doing what I do, but with so many new open ears from so many more people than there were before.”

“Once it came out and the response happened that’s when a little bit of apprehension kicked in.

"I thought, in a way it’s my worst nightmare to have people at the concert twiddling their thumbs waiting for the one song they recognise. But any of those fears were quickly assuaged when I realised that would only happen if I stopped dead in my tracks and didn’t do another thing in my life.”

Microsoft insiders are reading this as a coded willingness to consider taking part in a Zune campaign.

Feist tops Shortlist

In what we're contractually obliged to describe as 'the American version of the Mercury Prize', Feist's The Reminder has scooped the Shortlist Award for 2007. But amongst the people doing the choosing was Gary Lightbody, so we're not sure it's quite as flattering as it's meant to seem.

Fesitier still

There's already a slate of Feist dates for July; now, the tour's being expanded with extra gigs planned for September:

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms – July 17
Manchester Academy 3 – 19
Birmingham Glee Club – 22
London Scala – 24
Nottingham Social – September 23
Shepherd's Bush Empire - 24
Dublin Tripod - 25
Glasgow Oran Mor – 26
Bristol Trinity Centre - 28

Something to listen to (and watch): Feist

It seems to be almost weekly: some Feist fun on the internet. Today, she's pitched up for a Candaian AOL session.

Something to listen to: Feist

The excellent Feist fansite All Things Feist has captured and batched into mp3s a concert broadcast by Austria's FM4 earlier this month.

Feistfull of dollars

Among the nastier neologisms spewed out by the internet has been webisodes - why? Why? Even wepisode would have been slightly less grating. So it's strange to discover that part of the marketing push for Fesist's The Reminder is using the word as part of its campaign. Still, it's Feist, so the webisodes manage to rise above their name.

More Feist: She was a guest on Martin Freeman's BBC Radio London show yesterday [real link; expires after a week; yes, it does say Danny Baker, Martin's guest-hosting and surprisingly good at it, actually, she turns up about an hour in].