I think those first few years I must have been a bit weird; assigned a drug with a name that implied it would work (Effexor – now with even more effex!), I found I’d traded one kind of miserable for another, though it was a more bearable misery.  I wished for a switch to flip, a miracle, a fixer.  I wished (oh, I still do) that they could find my depression and cut it out where it lies. We tried different drugs, different doses, and eventually I found that what really helped was Omega 3-6-9 capsules and exercise, and everything improved dramatically after that.

But lingering at the back of my mind is the fear that I’ll slip, or that the Omega’s effects will wear off and I’ll be back where I started or worse.  I’ve read the literature; Clinical Depression is theorized to essentially scar your brain, making it easy to fall back into the chasm you’ve hauled yourself out of.  I don’t mind being sad sometimes, but that unvarying sameness of depression isn’t sadness.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s not the same as being sad.  I look back at it with a horror that motivates me now to ensure I never go back there.

So I turned to a section of the bookstore heretofore ignored; the self-help section.  Ugh, I know.  I’ve read books on clearing your clutter with Feng Shui and the science of happiness; I’ve done The Artist’s Way thrice (differently useful each time).  I’ve read acres of text on a variety of  subjects, from recovering from mental blocks to overcoming addictions.  Because, much as Depression is a medical condition, it’s also a habit, an addiction, a way of living.  The familiar, comforting awfulness of depression is a security blanket – a certainty – where the world of overall happiness and possibility is a terrifying no-man’s land.  It’s the Devil I know; it’s the lover I can’t quite get over.

Reading Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook, I see that the techniques employed to overcome drug and sex addictions are the same techniques, differently framed, that I find in The Artist’s Way, which makes perfect sense. I also see that once he cleared up his issues and began seriously working on them and his addictions, his focus was freed up to work on success, and he achieved that in a relatively short time. Not that he hadn’t been having successes before that; you generally don’t get handed tv shows. But he’d always kinda been a fringe fuckup until he got himself in hand.

Positive thinking comes off as hocus-pocus and silliness, as does a lot of this self-help stuff, I know. But I think it’s often in the wording, and in the way the basic concepts are described. And also in the scorn of people whose half-attempts lead inevitably to failure; you can’t discount the contentedly miserable, and how much they try to ensure that other miserable people stay cosily with them.

Breaking addictions and habits, overcoming fears and blocks, often has to do with figuring out (without all the noise and obligations and sense of unworthiness and whatever other garbage you’ve got screaming around in your brain) what it is you want, and making plans to move forward in that direction.  And then going there.  And that’s positive thinking in a nutshell.  It’s not magic, it’s not some massive Secret.  It’s just that if you intend to do something, you’re much more likely to do it than if you put off thinking about the future and never really take steps to do anything in particular.  I can wish to win the lottery all day, but if I don’t go buy a ticket, I certainly won’t win.

I’ve dug up the foundations and poked around a fair amount, and now I know what the structure of my life rests on, where I can build safely and what needs to be stripped back down and rebuilt from scratch. So onwards to the ongoing, serious, simple work.

I’ve been playing Wii a fair amount over the past month; the games are interesting and fun and fairly encouraging, and the language of the movement is a challenge without being impossible. But the main focus of the games almost across the board is balance and posture, which I find interesting. It was also one of the first things we learned at theatre school; one of the few useful things I came away with. For years, I’d destroyed shoes and screwed up my joints because I walked on the outside of my feet, and our Movement teacher corrected me, and I practiced the hell out of that. Everyday, walking to and from school, I’d be working to correct my posture, walk on the three balance points of my feet. I think that’s why people get an impression of confidence from me; I still walk with good posture and control. But it took months, and a hundred thousand tiny shifts every day, until walking that way became habit.

My mind is the same as my posture; I tend to mentally walk the wrong way, see things in the worst light, avoiding making plans if the future seems too scary or uncertain or full of possibilities to contemplate. When I allow my mind to unbalance itself like that, focus too much on fear, it becomes unstable, bowed over, and next thing you know I’m crowd-sourcing bad advice and making panicky decisions and accepting overwhelming volunteer commitments. I fall off the path I ought to be walking, meander and flail all over the goddamn place, end up with very little progress once I finally find my way again. For all my hard work, I’m never much closer to my ultimate goals. But that’s starting to change. I’ve become much better at catching myself lately, and correcting my mental posture. Catching those dark, negative thoughts and renegotiating them; remapping the future with every tiny shift in thinking.

But again, it takes a hundred thousand tiny shifts every day, and constant vigilance, and sometimes when I’m tired or something bad happens I relapse and have to start all over again. But even though it often feels like I’m landing back at the beginning, in reality, I’m creating muscle memory; I’m learning how to stay focused, balanced, happy. It gets easier every day, and every failure is steps closer to success than the last failure.

I doubt I’ll ever get to a point where I don’t have to make corrections. But that’s expected; I’m human, and perfection is unattainable. Success is in the attempt, not the conclusion.

In the Christian church, suicide is generally considered a sin, but I think that the act itself is not the thing that is the sin. The real sin is despair; loss of hope, the end of attempting to succeed. I’m sure a Christian would say, the lack of faith in god, which is despair, but as a semi-pretty-much-non-believer, I’m going to say it’s the lack of faith that things can change and that you have the power to change them.

If you look around right now, we are living in an age where change is happening at great speed. I won’t say unprecedented speed; no student of history can say that word without irony, and I’m not sure I believe that there’s been a time when change wasn’t a constant. But we are living in an age of change, and we are very aware of it, and it is unstable and a little terrifying, if you’re inclined to look on it that way. And sometimes I do, and wonder what’s the point in say, going back to school, if nothing I learn will be relevant by the time I get out?

But the shift I make, when I starting talking to myself like that, is to see this as an exhilarating opportunity. I have maybe a good 40 years left in my life to play a part in the massive and wild changes that are happening around the world; changes in technology, in society, a brave new world. The longer I wait to jump in, the less time I have. If I was 80 today, it would still be the right time. If I was 10, it would be the right time. The right time is whatever time it is.

Things will happen, good and bad. Planes will fall from the sky, romances will flare and die, joints will ache and the weather will turn. That stuff’s all going to happen whether I’m happy or sad, passionately involved or fearfully crouching on the sidelines or wearily turning away from it all. The only things I have control over are my thoughts and actions, and they are mine, and I have faith I can change them; I know I can. I’ve done it a hundred thousand times.

I am continuing, as I had planned, as Artistic Director, and stepping down as Executive Director.  Partially for continuity, and to be there in a mentoring role to whomever becomes ED, and partially because I really love being involved with the festival, and the things I’ve always dreamed of doing will be possible if I’m freed up in other areas.  Also because I’ve already started booking acts for next year.

Raging Asian Women were the runaway success; they’re  incredible, and wonderful, gracious people who completely get the festival and the spirit of the event and enhanced it by their presence.  Unity were also amazing; I wish the weather had been better before their set, as more people ought to have heard them, but the first song in particular was freakin’ crazy-good. David Newland soldiered on throughout the entire weekend, inspiring and enlightening wherever he went.  David Simard is always a treat to be around, and his music is gorgeous.  Sheesham and Lotus were fabulous evening hosts, and put on a terrific set (as attested by their CD sales, which were through the roof).   Elliott Brood were brilliant, and the perfect end to the evening, and the super-sweetest guys on earth to work with.

But I’ve been telling people that music is a part of the festival, not the point of the festival, and trying to impress on anyone I talk to about it that the whole point is to work with decent people and create a community spirit that everyone can carry away with them into their real lives.  There are too many good bands out there; I don’t ever need to book assholes, people who are going to be dicks to my sound techs, my volunteers, my hosts, my audience or me.  This is a community festival, not a music festival; this is not one of those horrible, insane events where 20-somethings are herded like cattle into enclosed spaces, charged exorbitant rates for water and food, and sponsors decide and brand every aspect.  This is the sort of festival where you can spread out a blanket on the hill, alone, with friends, or with your family, listen to music you don’t hear every day, soak up some sun and see people in your community out doing the same thing.   The music is what brings people to the park, but what sets our festival apart from anything else in the County is the sense of the broader community.

And when I say ‘community festival,’ I don’t mean that I only book bands who are from the community (which is not the festival’s mandate, and if I did book only local bands I’d lose 1/3 of our funding), but bands that serve the event in some way – by exposing our community to new sounds and ideas, by celebrating diversity, by cracking open doors to musical styles and genres that you don’t otherwise hear, by presenting music you’d never listen to on your own in a setting without risk or judgment.  My goal is to bring together people from all over our community in an inclusive space where no-one feels like they don’t belong, where everyone is welcome; free, accessible, comfortable, easy-going, and lovely.  I want everyone to see something of themselves reflected on the stage, and everyone to see something completely outside of their experience.

This is the first year where I feel that we’ve really made significant moves towards that vision; I’ve always been proud of the work we’ve done, but this year it seems like we’ve finally found the right format for the festival that will make it possible to achieve that dream.  We’ve got a long way to go, and a million tiny kinks to work out, but I am so proud of the grace and patience and quiet strength of our volunteers, especially our Board of Directors, of the talent, ability and friendliness of the musicians that joined us this year, and the open minds and hearts of the people who joined us in the audience.

Our community: much bigger and more interesting than a scene or a genre.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

The Juno Awards 2009

Though the Wiki page doesn’t discuss it, there’s been a fair amount of controversy over the Junos as long as I’ve been aware of them – what Canadian music junkie doesn’t know the story of Stompin’ Tom returning his 6 Junos in a garbage bag in protest at how little airplay Canadian musicians get in Canada?  And this year, the word in the music press and the general muttering online has been that this year’s nominees are embarrassing (and here’s what Matthew Good thinks).  Well, Canadians love to argue, and maybe we grouchily love the Junos for that reason – they provide a lot of fodder.

I was pretty stoked when I got a letter in October asking me to be a juror for the category ‘Roots and Traditional Album of the Year – Group.’  Ever since, at 15, I first really became aware of the great Canadian music that wasn’t getting played on the radio, I’ve wanted opportunities to bring all that great stuff to the ears of people all over the world.  Through my work at the MoHo and the Ptbo Folk Festival, I’ve had plenty of chances to present (and pay, which is always a treat) great artists, but an opportunity to judge the Junos means participating in the national conversation on a different level.

Stompin' Tom made a stand for Canadian music

While I agree that maybe Nickelback don’t deserve their 5 nominations and my dislike of Celine Dion is almost legendary, if you dig beyond those initial categories you’ll find some really great music, most of which you probably haven’t heard before unless you’re already dialed in (in which case you’ve been hearing about these musicians for a few years).  I wouldn’t say 2008 has been an amazing year in this regard, but even in a slowdown you find some crazy gems that get you all excited and remind you why you’re in this long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.

The way the Juno process ran for me this year was like this:  After sending in my acceptance and agreement to keep my trap shut about judging until the process was done, I got a letter with my username and password for the Digital Media Distribution Service.  I log in, and find my category waiting for me.  35 albums or so, in full with band bios and photos.  I load up the albums to listen while I’m doing housework or making dinner, and pick my top ten for submission.  About a month after those get sent to CARAS, they figure out who the official nominees are, and send them back to me (and the other judges, I presume) for the final round of voting.  I rank the five nominees, and send that off to CARAS, job done.

I know 35 albums sounds like a lot, but consider that for the festival I’ll listen to approximately 800 artist submissions this year (though rarely more than one track of each, and it’s a nice break to get to deeply listen to a whole album).  It was pleasant to run into old favourites as well as artists I’d never heard of before who blew me away. My ten initial picks are below; I would’ve had a much easier time if I’d gotten to pick a top 15, because I know there are at least five more albums that I considered to be really, really good.  I guess you’ve got to cut it off somewhere, eh?

Twilight Hotel

The final 5 was a crazy-difficult decision; out of 5, 4 ended up being real favourites of mine.  I listened to the albums non-stop for a couple of days before ranking, and a couple of weeks of wembling over that ranking before  taking a deep breath and hitting ’send.’  It’s a hard thing to weigh which is the best of any given group of really talented musicians, and added to that is the pressure of knowing what a boost a Juno award can be to record sales and a career.  And the Canadian music industry is a small one, so you know a lot about the people in it, whether you know them or not.  You have to strip away all that, and your personal knowledge of the bands, and your friendships, and just knuckle down to decide which album is the best.

If you’re curious, here’s my top ten, in alphabetical order:

Another Noon – John and Roy

NQ Arbuckle

Courting Stories: True Love and Treachery -  Skye Consort and Miranda Mulholland
Highway Prayer – Twilight Hotel
Hold On – The Sojourners
La Traverse Miraculeuse – Les Charbonniers de L’Enfers
Mountain Meadows – Elliott Brood
Ride – Hungry Hill
Sweet As the Grain – The John Henrys
Tradarnac – SWING
XOK – NQ Arbuckle

And the five official nominees are:

Congratulations to Chic Gamine, Winners of the 2009 Juno

Chic Gamine – Chic Gamine
Mountain Meadows – Elliott Brood
XOK – NQ Arbuckle
Highway Prayer – Twilight Hotel
Fast-Paced World – The Duhks

And no, I’m not going to say who my final votes were for, so don’t bother asking.  There’s no one on the two lists above who isn’t awesome, and who doesn’t deserve a listen (go buy their albums!  Go to their shows!).  Anyone who knows these artists knows that this is a high-quality group, and I can assure you that there were a lot of other fabulous artists that didn’t make it onto my short list.   Like everyone else, I’ll be watching with interest to see who gets the award this year.

I have no idea if I’m particularly like, or particularly different from other Artistic Directors and bookers.  I know I have really strong opinions about what I like and what I don’t, which I think is pretty common.  You’ve got be certain about something if you’re going to take the kind of pressure and scrutiny that you get when you’re choosing the acts – it’s one of those things that everyone thinks they can do, and could do better than you if given the opportunity.  Some of them may be right, but most people have no idea what kind of stuff you have governing your decision (which includes your market, the obligations to funders, and what you’re trying to shape as the overall character of an event as well as who’s good and what you like). And even fewer people have any idea what it’s like dealing with the sheer volume of submissions.

553 submissions this year through Sonicbids alone!

The PFF is a small, free Ontario folk festival.  We have a large audience – about 8000 people over the course of the weekend – but because we’re free, and rely entirely on funding and volunteers, we have a small budget (probably one of the smallest budgets for an Ontario festival, though it’s improved significantly in the last couple of years).  I have about 20-30 slots available for performers, and this year it looks like I’ve gotten about 800 submissions from across Canada and around the world, not counting the less official channels of friends sending me links to their favourite bands, agents sending me email about their recent avails, and stuff I’ve seen and heard around.  That’s fewer than last year, because I cut out one of the normal channels by which I was getting CDs – it seemed like the OCFF drop-boxes were mostly getting me the same artists every year.  I’ve also been a hardass about the deadline this year; no late submissions, even if you are local.

The three official channels to submit to the PFF are through the OCFF’s ‘Flash Your Folk’ program, Sonicbids’ EPKs, and good old snail mail.  I’m trying to listen to everything pretty much in the same timeframe, to try and judge them reasonably against one another.

Last year I found this process arduous and frustrating; I wrote many, many humourous rants about things that musicians do that drive me crazy.  I don’t know if I’ve just gotten more zen about it this year, or if the submissions are better (not one serious Jewel-wannabe yet!), but the process isn’t so bad this time ’round. It’s less amusing for my friends, however.

Usually I listen to about 30-120 seconds of any given track; I try to listen to a couple of tracks, but I often know right away if it’s going in the ‘No’ pile.  The other pile isn’t a ‘Yes’ – it’s a ‘Maybe,’ dependent on whomever else I’m considering, unless the artist in question blows my mind.  Only a few artists have ever really excited me – Old Man Luedecke springs to mind as the one who really caught my attention instantly, and who I ran around forcing people to listen to until I’d converted a bunch of people into his fans.  But typically, I’m pretty ambivalent about recorded music as compared to live music, and at best I will kind-of like your tracks and think it might mean you sound good live.

An afternoon of listening.

While I’m listening to tracks, I’m most likely to look at where you’re from (some of my funding is dependent on hiring Canadian artists from outside Ontario) and your photos (better than a bio to give me an idea of what I’m getting onstage).  I read snippets of your bio, but honestly, my head starts to swim after the 400th ’started playing piano at age 4′ or ‘met in university,’ and then I have to take a break to write mean and humourous things about musicians’ bios.

I have a personal weakness for banjo and fiddles, hip-hop and pop, and Bhangra which makes me a bit weird in a music community that’s absolutely dominated by guitars.  I like booking people who haven’t played Peterborough much, or who don’t have a very wide audience yet, but are brilliant.  I shy away from a lot of the festival-staple acts, and while sometimes that’s perceived as a snub, it’s not really meant as one.

I’m sick to death of the 14-member bands out there, in part because I feel like it’s a losing proposition – I know how much touring costs, and how much you’re typically getting paid, and it’s too depressing.  The other side of that coin is that with so many people, usually there are at least a handful who are filler, and the whole band rarely rehearses together, so the final sound is bloated and unreliable (you can argue, but the live performance is always going to tell the truth).

I don’t like really middle-of-the-road sounds, so if your music is too easily categorizable and sounds too much like things a lot of other people are doing, I’m unlikely to book it.  If the tracks are obviously over-produced – you brought in an orchestra and a bunch of session musicians, and it all sounds very obviously nothing like you’re going to sound on the road, I’m unlikely to book you.  If you’re trying really hard to sound like your favourite musician (seriously, stop trying to sound like Tom Waits), I won’t book you.

The PFF 2008 bulletin board with the complete lineup.

I’m looking for sweetness, and brave differences, and real skill, and the ability to stop a person in their tracks at a festival, and make them sit down and listen.  Or get up and dance and listen.  To transform a casual listener into part of a community, into an engaged participant.  Lots of really, really good bands can’t do that, no matter how many fans they have or how much money’s behind them.

There’s no equation; when you have 800 artists and bands competing for 20 or so slots, it’s instinct and love and long years doing this exact thing, over and over, that determine whom I’m going to book.  And a lineup I work hard to craft for PFF would never work for another festival – different character, different venue, different audience.  I can’t even begin to fathom how some festivals book by committee; how you can imagine you’ll get any sort of coherent artistic direction from a group of people is beyond me.  I spend enough time arguing with myself, shuffling my lineup on the big bulletin board, and agonizing; and that’s what I’m going to be immersed in for the next month or so.

The SVFF Board of Directors listen as Artistic Director Aengus Finnan speaks.

This has been a big transition year for SVFF; the landmark of the 5th festival, combined with founder and sometime Executive Director Aengus Finnan resigning from the ED position (he’s still Artistic Director, and quite involved with the festival, but no longer a paid employee) and a lot of turnover as people who’ve worked themselves like crazy take a step back.   I think it’s a really healthy time for a change; those who helped make the festival what it is get to sit down and enjoy what they’ve created, take a breather, and bask in the glow of having helped to create an event that unites the community and has garnered acclaim internationally.

Focused on a high-quality experience for everyone, SVFF really sets the gold standard for festivals around the world, and it feels like a big family for me, especially after 5 years of volunteering, one of which I’ve also served on the Board.  I can only imagine what it’s like for those who’ve been instrumental to the creation and implementation of SVFF to now step back; to watch this thing they’ve nurtured continue to walk on without their direct guidance.  A very emotional time, but we’ll continue to look to them for support and advice – I don’t think you ever really leave the festival; once you’re in, you’re kin.

After the AGM, there was a terrific pot luck over at the Lawless Gallery in Grafton – one of the best thing about Shelter Valley is the food.  It’s been lauded for the quality of volunteer and performer food over the festival weekend, but I have to also praise the many fine cooks from all areas of the festival who dish up some incredible food at every opportunity.  I could grow fat on this Board!  My contribution to the feast was chocolate cup cakes with pink buttercream icing – I love to bake!  I almost made some purple ones for the manly men, but other than one ukelele-playing grumbler who had to be convinced, they were happily gobbled up.  I ate the last one for breakfast this morning.

How you can tell that you've been infested with musicians.

The Good Lovelies played a special Valentine’s concert, but it was standing-room only so I decided to sit back at the gallery (they’re playing Peterborough in a short while, so I’ll get to see them soon – check out their brand-new album, which is terrific!) and have a good chat over some of my special tea.  And once the concert was done, a few of us stuck around for a little more special tea and jamming and talking into the wee hours, which is just about my favourite thing to do.

Today was a lazy, sunny Sunday, and I got a really slow start, but I feel really good.  I may be a single girl, but I got to spend Valentine’s Day with a whole bunch of people I love, doing what I love, and I can’t think of too many VDs that’ve been better.

I wouldn’t call the workshop well-attended – 4 people – but one of them drove all the way from Perth, about two hours away.  Talking to some of the musicians afterward, I had some pretty good feedback.  One of the guys said that there’s no one offering anything like this, anywhere, and no Artistic Directors making themselves available.  He compared it to workshops on resumes, which are everywhere.

I know, as ADs, many of us want to be as anonymous and back-of-the-crowd as possible, for a number of reasons that I totally understand. But I think that it’s helpful to everyone if musicians have better promo – they’ll do fewer things that annoy us, they’ll make our job easier, and they’ll save their hard-earned money and be less bitter about the business.

There’s no secrets in what I said last night, though there were a lot of strong opinions that I have to offer.  If I can manage even the slightest de-mystification to the ridiculous tangle that is the music business, I’m happy to do it.

If you’d like to take a look at the handout I offered, I’ve got it on the site – Band Promo Packages.
It’s a rough outline of the information I offered last night; judging by the amount of note-taking going on, most of the workshop attendees found a lot more than just what I’ve got written here.  But it’s a good start, especially if you’re new to the business, and I hope it helps!

In this snowy pre-holiday season, I’m wrapping up a promo video for ROAM, and shaping up to get to work on some larger projects int he new year which I’m pretty excited about.  More information later!

We screened the videos as part of an employer appreciation evening; you can see a photo from the projection booth to your right.  Sometimes, you wish an audience would just squish together a little more to make the shot better, y’know?  The evening went off well, though we had some technological glitches that I regret.  I just always want it to be perfect.  In any event, I’m very proud of the video I produced!

Over the weekend, I had two great shoots – Thursday November 6 was Rose Cousins and The Good Lovelies at the Gordon Best Theatre, one of the best venues in Canada, and Friday November 7 was Lisa Patterson’s CD release party at Toronto’s Heliconian Club, another gorgeous venue.  Both shows had packed houses, but listening audiences, so the footage is great.

It’s always a pleasure to shoot live music – it has its challenges, for certain, but it’s also very rewarding.  I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t just sit and enjoy music anymore – I’d rather be shooting.

As always, Jordon Mack did a terrific job of the sound, and a nice intimate audience listened with rapt attention.  I think each of these artists has a terrific future ahead of them!

Rob’s a lot of fun to work with – he’s always got a smile on his face, and he’s always ready to perform.  It’s amazing the way that fans react to him, almost as though he were the real Elvis.  They’re thrilled when he gives them a teddy bear   or a lei – always with a kiss on the cheek.  I don’t’ often see a crowd that engaged with a  performer, but I guess most people feel that Elvis is/was a pretty important figure musically, as well as in their lives.