Lake Ontario Waterkeeper's New Canadian Music Fundraiser

Exclaim! reports on its website a great new initiative from environmental group Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. Those familiar with the group will know that, in 2007, it engaged some Canadian music royalty to donate tunes to a fundraising CD entitled At the Barricades: Volume 1. Produced by veteran Canadian singer/songwriter/producer Chris Brown, the disc included tracks from Bruce Cockburn, Broken Social Scene, Kate Fenner, Sarah Harmer, Stars and many more (including Pete Seeger). You can still get that CD here.

But the latest Waterkeeper fundraiser is awesome for Canadian music lovers: a year long online music project entitled the Swim Drink Fish Music Club. Starting in April, members of the club can get exclusive and rare tracks from participating artists, information on the Waterkeeper's attempts to promote swimmable, drinkable and fishable water, and news updates. No doubt Waterkeeper will call on past contributors for this innovative charitable musical endeavour. But it is also looking for new material from other artists. According to their website:

"Every month we feature a new artist, with a large image and audio story on the Club’s main page. New content is added weekly, and a notice is sent to all Club members to let them know you’ve joined the fight for clean water. Your track page includes photo, streaming audio, an audio story about your song, download options, and links to similar content.

When your song is released, you’ll get a chance to promote your music to our club members, a chance to do some media publicity with our marketing team. Because the online distribution process is more organic than a traditional CD, we can coordinate the timing so it works best for you! We’ll also encourage our members to visit your website, buy tickets to your shows, or order full albums if they like your stuff."

If you're interested, send an email to [email protected] and let them know what you’re thinking. You can also call Waterkeeper at (416) 861-1237.