Songwriter John K. Samson hears another Echo

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John K. Samson is up for another Echo.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/09/2012 (5072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

John K. Samson is up for another Echo.

Samson’s song When I Write My Master’s Thesis from his debut solo album, Provincial, is nominated for the 2012 Echo Songwriting Prize from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). He and his band, the Weakerthans, won the $5,000 prize in 2008 for their song Night Windows.

The award aims to honour the best song written by a Canadian independent artist in the past 12 months. This year, Samson is up against A Soft Place to Land by Kathleen Edwards; Unkind by Sloan; Post-War Blues by Dan Mangan and The House That Heaven Built by Japandroids.

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John K. Samson: Manitoba musings
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES John K. Samson: Manitoba musings

The five songs are nominated by Canadian music journalists with the winner determined by members of the public, who can vote once a day at prixecho.ca until Oct. 10. The winner will be announced Oct. 19.

Local political-punk group Propagandhi — who Samson played bass for in the 1990s — won the inaugural Echo in 2006 for their song, A Speculative Fiction.

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