At Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 14:48:58 Jocelyn wrote:

>~~~~i am and have continued to be SO confused by this.
>  isn't the united states FRIENDLY with canada?  since
>when do we have to be afraid about musicians crossing
>borders? i thought all you needed was an ID or
>something. really. i don't get this.  why canada?  i'm
>not thinking canadians really want to stay here....so
>they can *not* get health insurance?

We're at a loss to explain it either. It's become MORE difficult the farther 
away from 9/11 we get.

We sent a contingent down to IPO L.A. in August 2001 without incident; New 
York in December of 2001 without incident; IPO Chicago in April 2002 without 
incident....and then in December 2002 it started. Half my backing band was 
sent away at the Kingston/New York crossing on our way to IPO New York that 
year. The guys had to stash their gear in a nearby town and cross undercover 
as TOURISTS! We got word from our boys just before crossing with the second 
half of the acts. When we got to the border I had to tell them I was taking 
my friends SHOPPING! This went over fine until they opened the van up and 
discovered my bass guitar. Thinking on my toes I told the guards that I was 
planning on selling the bass to a member of Shiner22 (who were on the bill 
with us in New York).

That was good enough for them.

Another act of mine, The Killer Dwarfs, tried crossing in the Fall and were 
admitted only after paying $1000 each per MAN for an 11 date mini-tour.

In all honesty, this most likely has nothing to do with musicians and 
everything to do with politics. Since discovering Al Qaeda operatives were 
once trained in Montreal, and since our government refused to support the 
war in Iraq, and since we refuse to budge on the lumber trade issues (and 
fishing quotas, and oil claims), and we would not cop to the Madcow fiasco 
it has been open season for Canadians. The SARS epidemic kinda sealed it 
last May. Not that ANY of this has to do with music, but stressed out 
security at the borders is making ANY issues with Canadian citizens a 
priority.

I'm sure there are some acts getting through down there just fine (our own 
Dave Rave has all his walking papers and has been able to travel freely for 
the better part of a year), but I'm not willing to put an entire roster of 
acts on the line to try and get to the next IPO (which is Chicago). David 
Bash and I have discussed this and it's a shame. I think we have a lot to 
offer the power pop community and this non-specified embargo hurts economies 
on both sides of the border.

And because of this, I am not willing to invest in bringing IPO to Toronto 
(and believe me, the clubs I've spoken to here are all for it!!)...the 
potential for it to be wiped out by non-availability of talent due to border 
issues is too high :-(

Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye Records of Canada, Inc.

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca