Record Of The Week Club Coming Out Party

WINNIPEG — Mike Petkau had his hands full in 2008.

In addition to a myriad of other projects, the Winnipeg producer/engineer/musician-for-hire was overseeing a creative musical experiment called Record Of The Week Club.

Every Wednesday for 16 weeks, three local musicians would show up at MCM studios, and over the course of one evening, write, arrange and record a track, which would then be mixed, mastered and made available at recordoftheweekclub.com by early Thursday morning.

The tight deadline was pressure enough, but there was another catch. The three participating players (usually of very different musical backgrounds) never knew their co-creators in advance.

It was an exciting, but risky, proposition — and Record Of The Week Club could very well have bombed. But, much to the surprise of Petkau, it was a huge success.

"I think the quality of the music turned out better than I could have imagined," he says. "I figured half would be duds and half would be alright — I wasn't expecting to have 16 that I loved."

While all 16 of the tracks — which feature members of The Weakerthans, The Waking Eyes, Novillero, Nathan, Tele, Anthem Red, Chic Gamine, Moses Mayes, Burnthe8track, Twilight Hotel, Mahogany Frog and many more — have been available for download since the project's completion last fall, Petkau felt the songs deserved a more traditional release. The Record Of The Week Club creations will now be available on a physical compilation disc, which comes out today.

"I went the download route initially because fewer people were buying CDs and I could publicize the download thing as a neat part of the project," Petkau explains. "It did alright, but not as well as I'd hoped. I think it's worth more than 700 downloads. And so far, [having it on CD] is working out really well. I just shipped copies to Illinois and Montreal. And I think we're No. 2 in Guelph."

Still, one download in particular snagged ROTWC some serious attention. "Keewatin Arctic," which features Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson, Inuit throat singer Nikki Komaksiutiksak and electronic artist Blunderspublik, quickly became the Club's most popular song.

"As soon as The Weakerthans posted a blog about it, within the second day, I'd exceeded my website allotment," Petkau says. "All of a sudden punknews.org and other sites were linking to the blog. People were downloading it in Germany."

A year later, and the momentum surrounding ROTWC hasn't slowed. Petkau has started up a new label, Head In The Sand Records, and the ROTWC compilation will act as its flagship release. The disc is being distributed nationwide through Sonic Unyon, which means hard copies can be ordered at your local music store. For those with more new-school listening habits, the disc is available at both iTunes and at recordoftheweekclub.com.

"I feel really satisfied and proud that [the project] worked and people liked it and the music's great," Petkau says. "And I'm amazed that it's getting this second push. It's great."

The official Record Of The Week Club CD release bash will be held on Thursday at the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg. It will feature performances by DJ Co-Op, Sky Onosson, Bucky Driedger, Matt Schellenberg, Jaxon Haldane, DJ Grant Paley, Chris (Mama) Bauer, Lloyd Peterson, Ian La Rue, Nikki Komaksiutiksak, Julia Ryckman, Mike Petkau and more.