Via Stereogum
A couple of days ago Frog Eyes frontman/Swan Lake member Carey Mercer sent us a link to an article in the Edmonton Journal that discussed a clause in the contracts signed by performers at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics that barred them from speaking negatively about the Games or the Olympic organizing committee. Since this gag order impacts a number of musicians, and Carey is a Vancouver-based musician who didn’t sign the dialogue-crushing contract, we asked him to write a guest blog about the situation.
“The artist shall at all times refrain from making any negative or derogatory remarks respecting VANOC (the organizing committee), the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic movement generally, Bell and/or other sponsors associated with VANOC.”
VANOC is the Vancouver Olympic Committee. No one, including our courts, can figure out if it is a public or private entity. It seems to be public when it needs tax dollars (6 billion), but private whenever it is challenged: challenged by the usual alliance of Beat-niks; Peace-niks; Alternative Media Types; First Nations (particularly pissed on by the Olympic Experience), and any other social group that questions the use of 6 billion tax dollars to build Bob-Sledding tracks, etc., instead of focusing these resources on more pressing social issues. For example: Vancouver has the most condensed area of homelessness and addiction in Canada (hear: any Vancouver musician’s ubiquitous and repetitive references to Hastings Street/”The Lower East Side”).
But this is a music blog, right? So why am I blathering on about bob-sledding and homeless dudes, and not telling you about Vampire Weekend’s apartment?
Continue reading Guest Blog By Carey Mercer: How The Vancouver Olympics Is Fucking Over Your Favourite Artists, And Why You Should Care…
Subscribe to Feed
Related posts:
