Congrats are in order for Herohill’s Bryan Acker. Acker was asked to be on the Polaris Prize grand jury, so you should start sending him cookies and elaborate love poems now to get in his good graces. Just kidding, I’m sure he won’t take a bribe. “Bribes? Of course. I’ll even take brides from bands that weren’t nominated,” says Acker. “I prefer large sacks of money with a huge $ written on the outside, large jugs on moonshine with XXX written on the outside, but would settle for t-shirts and large thick slabs of vinyl.” The self-deprecating Acker blogs like crazy and is currently writing a series of Polaris nominee reviews on Herohill, giving you an inside look at the thought processes of a Polaris Prize jury member. “Obviously, I’m super stoked as it kind of validates music blogs as critical source for the Canadian scene,” says Acker. “Or more accurately, it validates us wasting hours writing reviews that people don’t read.” Not true, I read one just today.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.
