Sandy Miranda
Musician
Born and raised in Toronto.
Above all, [punk is] about thinking for yourself, about questioning what you see in society… and just being critical and making good decisions. Some of that attitude I can see in my mother, because she is a though woman, she doesn’t take any crap from anybody. It’s kind of like punk rock – Sandy Miranda.
Sandy Miranda is the bass player of the celebrated punk band Fucked Up, winner of the Polaris Prize in 2009. The daughter of immigrants from Pico and Viana do Castelo, Miranda grew up in a “quintessentially” Portuguese working class family in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. She identifies with the hard work ethic of her parents, especially her mother.
Biography
Sandy Miranda was born in 1980. Her mother immigrated from Pico, Azores, in 1969 with her first husband and their son. She later met Miranda’s father, a construction worker who had immigrated from Viana do Castelo. For thirty-five years, Miranda’s mother worked as a seamstress and cleaned houses.
Miranda and her two siblings grew up on Palmerston Avenue, Toronto, close to the heart of the Little Portugal neighbourhood. Her first language at home was Portuguese, which she spoke until she went to elementary school. Like many Portuguese-Canadian children, Miranda frequented the community clubs and church with her family on the weekends.
In high school, a couple of her friends started a band and asked her to be the bass player. Miranda rented a bass and learned to play it by listening to one of her favourite songs by the punk band Rancid. At age sixteen, she started working as a coordinator for Radio Show Street Reporter 89.5 FM, where she worked until 2000. Between 1998 and 2003, she worked as a clerk, merchandiser, and quality control supervisor for HMV Retail. During that time, she interned with Fat Wreck Chords and was an assistant to the head publicist. Between 2000 and 2012, she worked as a programmer for “Freaks, Nerds, and Romantics” 88.1 FM; a broadcast media coordinator for Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting; a program scheduler with Canwest; and an audiovisual producer for The Wedge, during which she travelled to Australia and France.
In early 2001, at age 21, Miranda became one of the founders of the band Fucked Up. Since then, she has toured the world and performed on every continent. To date, the band has released five studio albums, several EPs, numerous singles, and companion releases. They have also featured in two movies and filmed fourteen music videos. In 2009, the band won the Polaris Music Prize for their second studio album, The Chemistry of Common Life. They were nominated again in 2012.
Hora dos Portugueses
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