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START YOUR WEEK RIGHT WITH THE V.I.A. WEEKLY PLAYLIST WEEK ***100!***: The ABC's of VIAindie

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. With 28,023+ artists , boasting 129,788+ tracks , the CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada.

sceneandheard SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. With 28,023+ artists, boasting 129,788+ tracks, the CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada. With that massive library along with tools for members (free to join!), we’re taking advantage of what they’ve set up by bringing you a fresh batch of music every week featuring local groups who have tracks (entire albums, even!) on the R3 site.

100 Playlists! ONE HUNDRED! That's a lot of music. To celebrate I put together the ABC's of VIAindie...some of our favourite artists that had big 2011's...check it out and listen to the playlist here! (or by clicking below).

(PS Thanks to CBC Radio 3 for letting us hijack your playlist creator for 100 straight weeks...we heart you)

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A is for Ali Milner...What better way to kick off our list than with an artist who gained a national spotlight via Cover Me Canada. She's a winner in our hearts! Oh and speaking of hearts, Ali's video for Get Your Heart On is the most watched one on our TVia page, with 3908 views!

B is for Brasstronaut... did you SEE them stream their show from Europe while on tour? That was pretty awesome. Also they released an EP for FREE that you can download here.

C is for Current Swell... these boys won the big prize, $100,500 in the Peak Performance Project Year Three!

D is for Dan Mangan...Vancouver's golden boy released his 3rd album Oh Fortune, was featured in pretty much every music publication and toured...well, the world, AND Dan helped us kick off our first Vancouver-based Polaris Listening Salon.

E is for The Evaporators... who are part of the Mint Records family, which just celebrated their 20th anniversary this year.

F is for Fields of Green...the latest band to come out of Kelowna, these boys made a splash at the Peak Performance Project and recorded their new album with Garth Richardson this fall, which will be released in 2012. Also, if you haven't seen their vlogs, you need to go watch them now...especially this one.

G is for Gorgeous Hannah Georgas...another artist who recorded a new album this year/to be released in 2012, and she'll be touring the world from the US to Europe and Canada with Kathleen Edwards!

H is for Hey Ocean!...I guess technically we can't call them indie anymore since they signed with Universal Music Canada this year, but they will always belong to Vancouver :) The band also released their latest album IS which you can get as a pay-what-you-can at shows. Awesome.

I is for Immaculate Machine...but this one is sad, they broke up this year! IM was one of the first bands to do a playlist for us (#14) ...but never fear, Kathryn Calder has gone on to record some great music of her own!

J is for Jill Barber...Jill released her 4th album, Mischievous Moon, and wow'd us in 2011 as she busted out the french and performed one of my favourite concerts of the year at the CBC...which you can hear by clicking here.

K is for Knight...Aidan Knight!... one of our favourite Victoria artists, Aidan got to tour with Polaris Prize winning Karkwa this year, made a Giants of The Forest video that is now at 11,000+ views!, and produced an album I cannot WAIT to hear.

L is for Louise Burns...we might have semi-lost her to Toronto this year but we still call her our own and love that she made the 2011 Polaris Prize long list!...that and the fact that she's joined forces with Gold & Youth (hello CBCR3's 10 Acts To Watch Out for In 2012) we can't wait to hear more.

M is for The Matinee...speaking of R3's 10 Acts To Watch Out for In 2012 list! VIAindie met The Matinee via the Peak Performance Project! this year, which ended well for them, as they netted $50,000! They also recorded a song for Vancouver's 125th birthday that won the SOCAN prize at bootcamp (listen here), and played some of the biggest festivals in and around Vancouver. To echo Radio 3, expect great things in 2012 (including a new album!).

N is for Northcote...one of my personal favourite discoveries this year (whom I also added to the list of friends named 'Matt'), Matt Goud released a debut full length album entitled ‘Gather No Dust’ under his project "Northcote"...it's pretty awesome, you should take a listen.

O is for Oh No! Yoko...we love these boys. They played our joint show with Discorder almost a year ago and we saw them quite a few times this year. Releasing their first full length album Pau Pau and receiving a CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for 'Best New Band Name' this year, things can only go up from here!

P is for Portage & Main...debuting their band and album this year, they've already become one of our new favourites. Not only that but they too just recorded a new album and it will be out in 2012 (right guys?).

Q is for Quest Poetics...Vancouver lost a talented musician this year in Randy Ponzio. Many of the artists on this list knew and/or worked with Randy and he had a pretty great year before his untimely passing, including winning The Shore's Song Search of 2011 for his song For The People.

R is for The 3R's of VIAindie: Redbird, Rococode and Redgy Blackout. Three bands we fell in love with this year and expect more great things from in 2012!

S is for Said The Whale...don't even know where to start with STW, maybe the fact that they won a juno? Got "Jacked In The Sac'"? Won best Video in the CBCR3 Bucky Awards? Released an EP in November and recorded a new album (coming out in March)? Had a documentary made about them? Toured pretty much everywhere? Played Live At Squamish under the name Panda Watch? 2011 was a pretty big year for them I guess.

T is for Treelines...VIAindie and Treelines did some pretty sweet stuff in 2011. From the tour blog in March, to the Canadian Cancer Society Benefit where I chopped my hair off in July, we made a great team. Not only that, but the boys were in The Peak's Top 20, and released an EP called Courage, a one-off song "When I Get Grown" that left mom's everywhere weeping and Mattlock gave the best victory speech I've ever seen to the artists ball-hockey team at Bootcamp.

U is for...Unpersons? Seriously, I don't know a U-named band so we're going with The Pack A.D.'s latest album Unpersons. TONS of amazing reviews have been written for this album and we had the pleasure of having it as the 2nd of the Vancouver Polaris Salons. Oh and by the way, did you see the video for BC Is On Fire ft. our very own Bob Kronbauer and family?

V is for Vertesi...as in David Vertesi. Dave and VIA teamed up for some of the best things this year. I mean between the Get Your Heart on songs/Valentines show, Sing It Forward, and all the videos...we're a force to be reckoned with. Oh and Vertesi had a pretty good year too, including being nominated for a WCMA! Vertesi, we love you.

W is for We Are The City...High School, the EP released by We Are The City in 2011 was not just special for its amazing songs, but for the incredible video series that accompanied it, filmed by our friends at Amazing Factory...and guess what, you can see it right here. AND they released a 7" entitled Morning Song/Mourning Song.

X is for... .... ...I've got nothing. Lil' help?

Y is for Yukon Blonde...These boys are touring machines. Seriously, I dont know when we'll even see them again, they're ALWAYS on the road! That said, they also found time to record an EP and an album to come out VERY soon...oh, and there was that time they were mentioned on How I Met Your Mother. I just want to say, that I love their video for Water too.

Z is for The Zolas...played pretty much every local festival there was to play this year, from Live At Squamish to Summer Live, to Khatsalano by staging a show on Zach's front lawn! Not only that they released a split 7" with The Liptonians with the song Cultured Man to tide us over until their next album is out. Plus Zach has done two awesome videos for us, one for Get Your Heart On and the other for Sing It Forward.

41 is for 41st and Home... we couldn't leave them off the list just because they're name started with a number! Releasing their new album Raised By Wolves to stellar reviews (check this one in the Georgia Straight) and played some awesome shows in and around Vancouver, including their CD release (which I got to play saxophone for...thanks guys!), and in the Peak Performance Project's Top 20.

THAT'S IT! Listen to the playlist below: