Gord Downie passed away last night after a more than year-long battle with brain cancer. He attended high school in nearby Kingston, where he was the lead singer of a punk-rock group called The Slinks. At a certain point they decided to abandon the nearly obsolete punk scene and form a rock band together. In Canada the Hip sold more than 200,000 copies of Fully Completely in five weeks. That perception — Downie the intellectual, the rocker with his nose in a book — may indeed have contributed to the band’s America disfavour.

Source: National Post October 18, 2017 12:51 UTC