photo from Polaris awards ceremony

Caribou Donates Polaris Prize Money to Charities
11/20/2008 By Brock Thiessen
Exclaim.ca

If there was any doubt Dan Snaith was an all-around nice guy, the man better known as Caribou is giving his $20,000 Polaris Prize money to charity. Via Caribou’s website, Snaith recently announced that two Canadian charities — Ecojustice and the Stephen Lewis Foundation — will receive the bulk of the cash prize, while the remaining money will be used to finance Caribou’s next album, which he’s in the early stages of recording, he revealed.

When discussing his choices of charities, Snaith had this to say about donating to Ecojustice: “I have always thought of Canada as an environmentally progressive place… however, recently the Canadian government has acted as a global obstacle to climate action. In a study this year Canada ranked 29th out of 30 industrialized nations for tackling climate change.”

On the Stephen Lewis Foundation, he said: “They fund community-based projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, which address the fact that the AIDS epidemic affects not only those infected but their care networks and communities as a whole, emphasizing women, orphans and grandmothers.”

According to CBC Radio 3 (which alerted us to this story), previous Polaris Prize winner Patrick Watson allegedly spent the $20,000 on a hot tub and a crashed rental van, while Final Fantasy invested his money back into Blocks Recording Club and helped his boyfriend pay off some student loans. (We’ll leave it up to you to decide which winner has spent his money most wisely.)

As previously reported, Caribou took home this year’s Polaris Prize for his 2007 album, Andorra.

photo by Dave Evans

Check out more great photos and a show review at My Old Kentucky Blog

so today (may 4th) would’ve been my last day with caribou but unfortunately Brad Weber is still out of commission. fortunately for me i will going to europe with caribou to finish off their may dates. i couldn’t be more excited as i have never played shows outside of north america.

my old band was supposed to do a european tour but we broke up prior to starting the tour. it was a bummer but i am now making up for that by playing probably some of the biggest shows that i will ever play in my life (ATP festival).

the u.s. dates have been absolutely incredible. i think about how incredibly blessed i have been to be a part of this band for this short period of time. it has really helped me re-gain my confidence. after i had to cancel my own tour i was struggling to find out how the hell i would re-coup my losses and start over. being out with caribou has definitely put things into perspective and the advice that i have received from the guys is irreplaceable. i still think of what i would be doing had i not received that phone call or, rather, if my van did not break down and i got an email while on the road.

it might be a little harder for me to update this blog while in europe but i will do my best.

Recent Playlist:
Archie Shepp: Pichin’ Can
Cave: Hunt Like Devil/ new songs from upcoming 7″
Tambourine Ensemble
Love: Da Capo
Human Arts Ensemble: Under The Sun
D’Angelo: Voodoo
Erykah Badu: Mamma’s Gun
Common: Electric Circus
Amnesty: Free-Your-Mind: The 700 West Sessions

Ahmed
replacement drummer

We’ve completed all of our Canadian dates. It’s funny… I didn’t really think that Caribou shows in Canada would be as crazy as they are. I have never been playing in a band that sold out a string of shows let alone one. To say the least, Canada treated Caribou very very well. I met a lot of people and we had some of our best shows to date. The ferry ride from Vancouver to Victoria was absolutely beautiful. We spotted a couple of leopard seals. The endless scenery of pine trees stacking on top of each other, packed together so tightly on small islands was so gnarly.

We were in Seattle last night. A lot of my time was spent looking outside at Mt. Rainier. If you are not familiar with that mountain I have attached this blog post with a picture of Mt. Rainier. It is single handedly the most ominous looking land mass in the west coast. I mean, look at it! You cannot take your eyes off of it at all (read previous post about my obsession with large things). I am totally going to kick this mountains ass one day and climb it. Sure, it’s an active volcano and if it blows up it will completely wipe me and the entire city of Seattle out but at least I’ll get to say that I kicked Mt. Rainier’s ass.

The Seattle show was great as was the KEXP radio session that we did. Right now we’re in Portland. We’re playing at a place called the Doug Fir. It’s a log cabin…. .No seriously….

Pretty excited for the upcoming dates. I have yet to go swimming on this tour and We’ll be in California starting tomorrow. I have a rule that I must at least swim in one ocean while on tour. We missed our chance in Florida because I was fine tuning all the drum patterns I had learned the previous days. We did, in fact, get a chance to visit the city of Gibsonton while in Florida. Gibsonton is the town were all the carnies and circus freaks would live during the off season. Several of them have retired and live there to this day. Apparently the post office in Gibsonton has a midget desk and the city has an ordinance allowing residents to keep elephants and circus stuff on their front lawns.

That said, I was totally expecting to get into town and see Lobster Boy, The Alligator Man and Percilla the Monkey Girl hanging out drinking mimosas on some front porch. I didn’t see such a thing at all. Granted it was a Sunday but still… That’s when I would be drinking mimosas on some front porch…. wouldn’t you?
Post office was closed, the tallest man in the world’s restaurant “Giant’s Camp” was out of business and the closest thing to elephants that we saw were a couple of elephant ear candy trailers so it was some what of a let down. But it’s ok. We ran into a park called “Nature Park” located right next to a giant smoke belching silo. That was kind of funny.

Things have been amazing. The guys are treating me as one of their own. I’m very blessed to be in this position. More to come…

Ahmed
“the replacement drummer”