artist The Craft Economy

Toronto’s The Craft Economy—whose members originally hail from Guelph, Montreal, Vancouver and PEI—has a sound inspired by ‘70s punk rock and ‘80s new wave, and is guided by a love of fun, well-crafted and danceable pop songs. In two years they’ve been together, The Craft Economy’s super energetic live show—which constantly wins them new fans every time they play—has got them on stage everywhere from the Sirius Satellite Radio Stage at POP Montreal and North By Northeast to Toronto's The Horseshoe, Rancho Relaxo, The Drake and The Sound Academy. Their latest EP, Is On Your Side—released to great reviews on Dec. 9th, 2008—is getting tons of airplay across the country, including airplay on CBC Radio 3 (and its Sirius Satellite Radio channel 86) and at campus radio stations from Victoria, BC to Sackville, NB). So much, in fact that it’s currently charting on the Canadian Campus Charts (#3 on Chartattack on Jan. 10, 2009) and most recently on CBC Radio 3's prestigious R3 30 in #4 (as of March 20th, 2009) with the de facto single, the poppy synth-fueled, “Big Purse, Lil Dawg.” The band’s first release, the 6-song “All On C” EP also received airplay on college radio stations and podcasts across the country. One hundred per cent DIY, right down to the hand-made lino-printed covers, and quickly sold out of its limited edition run of 200. The album was released under a Creative Commons Noncommercial-Share Alike license, which allows the band to retain the rights to its music, while allowing fans to freely download, share and remix its songs for non-commericial purposes online. This creative approach to music distribution garnered the attention of Boingboing.net and the rest of the blogosphere, as well as traditional print, (The National Post, Globe and Mail). The result? 9,620 song downloads from thecrafteconomy.com in the first month of "All On C"'s release (1600 copies of the EP). To date, fans have downloaded over 26,000 songs (4300 copies of the EP) and the number's growing daily. The most popular song, “The Crash, The Wagons, The Dying Horses” has over 8,000 downloads alone. The Craft Economy’s second EP, "Is On Your Side" was released December 9, 2008. All songs are available on CBC Radio 3.