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Long-time Toronto music journalist Steve McLean has published his first music book titled "Hot Canadian Bands," via Trickle Rock Books, a newly created division of Edmonton's Folklore Publishing, distributed by its Lone Pine Publishing arm.
The 160-page book features an introduction and separate chapters profiling Alexisonfire, Arcade Fire, Billy Talent, Broken Social Scene, Default, Hot Hot Heat, Matt Mays & El Torpedo, Metric, The New Pornographers, Nickelback, OLP, Simple Plan, Sum 41, The Tragically Hip and The Trews. Simple Plan is on the front cover.
"The publisher was looking at getting into a new area, as they've never dealt with rock music before, so they asked me to come up with a cross-section of Canadian bands that could be profiled," says the Kitchener, ON-born McLean, who is currently the news editor at national music magazine Chart and its website.
"My initial list was made up of 30 groups, which I eventually cut down to 15. I considered a number of elements in the whittling process, including sales, radio and video play, live appeal, critical acclaim, geographical and label diversity, future potential, album currency, and my own personal taste. I also wanted to cover a broad spectrum of rock styles."
The initial print run is 10,000 copies and it is already in top book chains and independent stores across Canada. It will also be available in Loblaws, gift shops, big box retailers and other non-traditional outlets. Lone Pine also plans to get the book into Borders and Barnes & Noble chains in the U.S. S.L.P. is $9.95 in Canada and $8.95 in the U.S.
"The sales and marketing push won't start until later in the summer to coincide with kids returning to school," says McLean. "The book will be distributed to school libraries and the publisher is working on a program similar to what Scholastic does where students can order and purchase books in the classroom."
McLean was contacted by Folklore publisher Faye Boer about the project back in the fall and simply needed to know if she meant hot Canadian bands of all time or right now, based on sales and radio play or if he could include some "cool" bands.
"She said, 'I'm not much of an expert, you apparently are, so I'll leave it up to your judgement,'" recounts McLean, who has been a music journalist since 1992, but also writes about sports, travel and news of all kinds.
Mainly going through record label publicists to secure new interviews for the book, he wasn't successful with all the bands, namely Nickelback, Our Lady Peace, The Tragically Hip, Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. "Some said, 'We have no interest; some said, 'We don't have time,'" says McLean.
Those chapters, instead, had to be written using background research, artist bios, and recycled quotes from past interviews he did with those bands as well as from other sources. The other 10 artists did phone interviews with McLean and Mays was the only in-person.
Interesting the other bands would not participate in a project written by a well-established and respected journalist, who used to edit Canada's music business trade magazines, The Record and Canadian Music Network. There is nothing malicious or gossipy about "Hot Canadian Bands."
In fact, even McLean admits that an avid music fan or someone in the music business would not glean much new knowledge from the book.
"It's just overviews of each group's career," he says. "It's for the average music fan, skewing younger, high school probably. Hopefully, fans of particular bands will find out a few new things about their favourites and a lot of new things about acts that they're not as familiar with or are just discovering."
Each chapter has a discography, filmography, notes on sources, and section called Band Trivia. The book is filled with black and white photos.
"I realize that the problem with a book like this is that people's tastes can be so fickle, which means that a band that's hot one year might be forgotten the next," McLean acknowledges. "I also know that arguments can be made for some groups that were left out, and a lot of acts that I love didn't make the cut. But I'm satisfied with the mix and feels that it represents a good range of Canadian bands that have a lot to offer the world."