Slagging Off (or Honest Reviews?) was an anonymous music blog up until about 24 hours ago. The Tumblr account is dedicated to posting – you guessed it – ‘honest reviews’ (and sometimes outright bashery) of Canadian bands with an astringent focus on CMW. However, due to amounting backlash, the minds behind the blog have come out from the shadows.
Paul Lawton was the first to come out, followed by fellow blogger Chris Laramee. Both men posted apologetic (sort of) notes in the wake of a full day of backlash, saying ‘Due to the fact that there are some sleuthy ppl out there, I have to come out because there are so many angry people’, and ‘Anyone offended by anything I wrote can feel free to slag me or my bands off as well if you desire’.
Calling Canadian Music Week a ‘shit-fest‘ and ‘where music comes last’, Slogging Off has made an effort to dissect the problematic reality of a festival like CMW in a recent post. Calling out festival sponsors, bars and ‘P.R. Hacks’ as the real winners of CMW, the blog claims that there isn’t an honest selection process for the lineup and that the festival organizers do not even listen to the bands on the list. There have been mixed reviews to their perspectives on the festival, but the negative taste it might leave in your mouth isn’t all unfounded – they do have some legitimate squabbles.
Paul and Chris have also called out Exclaim, Canada’s national free music magazine, as being racist and unilingual.
“Even if we take one awful band off the road this summer, this project was a success,” Slogging Off say in their sort of mission statement, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, right?
At the very least, the entire project is quite amusing – have a look for yourself.