#69: Dave Jaffer, Freelance writer
FEBRUARY 22 2012 • By Polaris Music Prize
Dave Jaffer
Freelance writer
Hometown: Toronto
Polaris Jury Member since: 2007

Please share the Top 5 Canadian albums you put on your ballot.

The Liptonians Let's All March Back Into The Sea
Young Galaxy Shapeshifting
Grimes Halfaxa
Selina Martin Disaster Fantasies
Arcade Fire The Suburbs

Tell us about your top-ranked choice. Why #1?

I won't lie – my placement of Let's All March Back Into The Sea was strategic. I put the Liptonians' record at the top of my ballot to try to push them onto the Short List because I knew that Arcade Fire didn't need my support to end up there. Still, that shouldn't take anything away from the Liptonians' effort, which I truly loved and was tremendously moved by.

I spun it for the first time when I was living in Windsor temporarily while pursuing a second degree. At the time, my life had hit the skids. It was a country song. My girlfriend and I had recently broken up, and Hour Magazine, which I'd worked for since 2005 and was slavishly loyal to, was in the process of being destroyed from within, a process that was going to leave me and a lot of my friends and mentors jobless (it's since relaunched as something else). As such, I was writing my review knowing it was going to be one of the last things I ever wrote forHour, which was bittersweet.

And yet while I was listening to the record, all I could think of was how amazing, passionate and diverse it was. When the stomp of "Growing Old in the City" kicked in, I knew I loved it. I referred to that song as "baroque punk" in my review, but the images it conjures for me are more, like, barroom-y – thick with cigar smoke, metal steins and serious men. It's a brawler of a song, full of spirit and long on heart. The rest of the record painted similar and dissimilar images for me; songs like "Hey! Hey! Help is on its Way Now!" and "Ghosts in my Garden" resonated with strength and joy. In a way that's difficult to describe fully, they were exactly what I needed to hear at that time.

I was very glad to throw my support behind that record. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

What record that's perhaps local or under the radar did you suggest to the jury and would like to plug here to the whole world?

From last year's records in the running? Probably At Last by Eternia & MoSS. I loved that thing something hard. Eternia is an incredible and incredibly brave MC. Not unlike Dessa Darling from Doomtree, she's at the forefront of this crop of very talented women in hip-hop. I'm also still in love with the Rural Alberta Advantage's Departing, which is startlingly beautiful.

As of this moment? I'm very, very deeply connected to John K. Samson's solo debut, Provincial.

What was the first Canadian record you ever bought with your own money?

I'm pretty sure it was The Lowest of the Low's Shakespeare My Butt. That record and its follow-up, Hallucigenia, were huge parts of my teenage years.

What Canadian artist would you like to see get his/her face on the Canadian money?

I want to say John K. Samson, because he's this country's poet laureate.

But because I'm a red-blooded adult male, I might have to go with the Rural Alberta Advantage's Amy Cole because apart from being a great musician, she's stop-you-in-your-tracks pretty. Plus, whatever bill ended up with her face on it could immediately be referred to as "Coles," as in: "Hey, you got two Coles for a twenty?" Think about it – that could totally catch on.

Imagine the tables are turned and you are the nominee: What would you do with the $30,000 prize money?

My brain would want to do all the boring stuff, like pay off debts and put a downpayment on blah blah blah. My heart would tell me to do stupid and awesome things, like hire the Weakerthans to play at my birthday party. My heart would win.