K-OS Hiccups At SOCAN Awards

11/18/08 3:42pm

by Steve McLean (CHARTattack)

Nickelback won the International Achievement Award for the second straight year at Monday night's SOCAN Awards ceremony, which honoured the accomplishments of Canadian songwriters and composers.

Nickelback's prize goes to artists who bring international recognition to Canada through their music and, while it may not be music that some of us would like to be associated with, their songs and concerts certainly have attracted a lot of attention.

While the Vancouver band weren't on hand to collect their award, National Achievement Award winner Ron Hynes was. The veteran Newfoundland singer/songwriter performed and made a gracious acceptance speech, as did the wives of the late Special Achievement Award winner, Oscar Peterson, and Lifetime Achievement Award winner Ray Griff.

Nashville-based Griff, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in April and wasn't able to attend, submitted an audio thank-you for the recognition. Griff has written 48 top 100 singles and more than 700 of his songs have been recorded by the likes of Jim Reeves, Jerry Lee Lewis, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

Awards were also handed out to the top-performing songs in various genres, based on the number of times they were played on Canadian radio stations in 2007.

Michael Buble's "Everything," Chantal Kreviazuk's "Wonderful," Daniel Powter's "Love You Lately," David Usher's "The Music," Nelly Furtado's "All Good Things Come To An End" and "Say It Right," and Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend," "Keep Holding On" and "When You're Gone" were the pop winners.

Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer" won the rock award, while K-OS' "Sunday Morning" took the urban music prize.

Twenty-five songs were given SOCAN classic status for achieving 100,000 spins on Canadian radio stations. They are:

Tal Bachman — "She's So High"
Leonard Cohen — "Ain't No Cure For Love"
Amanda Marshall — "First We Take Manhattan" (written by Leonard Cohen)
Amanda Marshall — "Believe In You"
Amanda Marshall — "Love Lift Me"
Amanda Marshall — "Everybody's Got A Story"
Amanda Marshall — "Sitting On Top Of The World"
Leonard Cohen — "Suzanne"
Men Without Hats — "Pop Goes The World"
Men Without Hats — "Safety Dance"
98 Degrees — "I Do (Cherish You)" (written by Dan Hill and Keith Stegall)
Dan Hill — "Carmelia"
Dan Hill — "Never Thought"
K.D. Lang — "Constant Craving"
Frozen Ghost — "Dream Come True"
Sheriff — "When I'm With You"
Barenaked Ladies — "Jane"
Barenaked Ladies — "It's All Been Done"
Barenaked Ladies — "Pinch Me"
Barenaked Ladies — "If I Had A Million Dollars"
Barenaked Ladies — "Falling For The First Time"
Barenaked Ladies — "One Week"
Crash Test Dummies — "Superman's Song"
Bachman Turner Overdrive — "Blue Collar"
Bachman Turner Overdrive — "Roll On Down The Highway"

All of the SOCAN Award winners can be found here.

The gala, held at The Carlu in Toronto, was hosted by film and television composer Rob Carli (who used to be in The Rhinos with Danny Michel), country singer/songwriter George Canyon and hip-hop artist Abdominal, who came on stage with a rap that included "I'm pullin' three digits almost every statement." He then pulled out his most recent SOCAN royalty statement, which included $1.38 from Estonia, and spun a humorous James Bond-like tale of how he imagined SOCAN tracked said money down.

SOCAN (or the Society Of Composers, Authors And Music Publishers Of Canada) collects licence fees from those who broadcast or play music in public, and pays royalty fees to its songwriter, composer and music publisher members and affiliated performing rights organizations worldwide.

Abdominal, who advocated bicycling in his award-winning "Pedal Pusher" single, again brought attention to physical fitness by doing jumping jacks while the "Safety Dance" video played behind him after he called Men Without Hats' Ivan Doroschuk to the stage to accept his SOCAN Classic Award.

Canyon, who looked every part the cowboy despite being from Nova Scotia (although he now lives in Alberta), said his first SOCAN cheque was for $7.34. He never cashed it.

K-OS (who was sitting on the stairs beside our table at the back of the room and gave me an "It's cool" nod and hand signal after he hiccuped) acknowledged Gordon Lightfoot's 70th birthday in his acceptance speech. He also said that managers Chris Smith and Terry McBride had tried to get their hands on his SOCAN cheques, but he wouldn't let them because they couldn't write a song.

The Weakerthans opened the show by performing "Civil Twilight" and "Night Windows," which won SOCAN's ECHO Songwriting Prize last month.

The Weakerthans' singer/guitarist John K. Samson, Chantal Kreviazuk, Tom Cochrane, Ron Hynes and Tal Bachman staged a media conference before the show, where it was revealed that Kreviazuk will have a new album out through MapleMusic in the spring.

She also talked about using a breast pump to make feeding her baby easier while on tour, used the term "mind-blowing shizzle" in describing material she's heard from unknown artists, and dropped this bomb: "Even when times are tough, people still need to get their hair coloured."

You can see photos from the media conference here and a video interview with Samson here.