It’s sunny. I’m sitting in a cafe on Queen West, up at the bar with my laptop and they are playing my JAM. The beautiful, encouraging jingle of David Byrne’s sighs are blessing me with radiant waves of inspiration. Gosh, what a flowery sentence (nothing but flowers! TALKING HEADS REFERENCE WHAT!). I’ve just had coffee with Nate, who, if you have an excellent memory, you’ll know was the musician whose apartment I went to see when I first moved to Canada, and he directed me towards the company I am now working with, Audio Blood. I owe Nate a lot! We talked about his band’s album that they just finished recording over in Vancouver, and he imparted some wise advice for a fresh, young, naive turtle such as myself, who has been frantically trying to gauge life in the music industry ever since I moved here.
Things I have learned, which I shall share with you now:
- If you want artists to play with you, you must decide whether you want to hire them as musicians or you want to form a band (the difference being, hiring artists gives you complete creative control and royalties, whereas being part of a band means that they get some creative licence to write parts and a bigger investment in the music, which actually, when starting out, might make things a lot cheaper for you).
- Things cost MONEY. Lots of money. Take the money you make from your music and put it straight back into it.
- Record your songs, all your songs as demos on your computer. Make arrangements. These are helpful.
- Have a website. Connect it to your Facebook page, your Twitter, your Soundcloud, your Bandcamp etc. Make all of these platforms uniform in design and style, so people will recognise your image.
- Network with the industry types in your city. Starting to think about producers or labels that you’d like to work with? Find out their details, find out who your contact is. Look up their Facebook pages and check out which events they’re going to. Head to these events and “bump” into them. Talk to them about THEM, not YOU. Do not mention your music. You want to make a good impression! Your music and what you need may come up in conversation on the second or third occasion you meet them, and by then, they may be happy to help you or point you in the right direction!
- Make music friends, see if you can set up a gig with them or play support for them. They will bring their friends, you will bring yours = more people seeing your music.
I’m sure there was a bunch of other useful stuff, but that’s what I can squeeze out of my brain right now. I’m so glad that I live in a city and I work for a company that gives me opportunities to do what I really want to do with my life. Everyone here is wonderful and lovely. Of course, I didn’t get any of this, this beautiful job, this beautiful flat, these beautiful friends just by waking up one morning. But often, it feels like it.
And you may find yourself, in another part of the world…
And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?
And you may say to yourself, ‘My God, what have I done!?’
(lyrics by Talking Heads, completely butchered and repurposed for my situation by Yours Truly)
Life seems to be “just happening” to me; time is passing so, so quickly. I’ve got one more month of my internship before I have to decide whether I want to stay on or change direction. Spring seems to be finally showing its face here, as well. No leaves on the trees yet (but, gosh, when I see those damn leaves, believe you me, I WILL LET YOU KNOW). Canadian Music Week is less than two weeks away, and I will be working my little intern bahoogie (Scottish term for bottom (ooh!), for those of you reading abroad) off — this is something I am particularly excited about, because it puts me in close proximity to the likes of Amanda Palmer and Quincy Jones, as I’m working the Music Summit during the festival. Quincy Jones!!!!! Quincy Jones, guys!!!!
I passed last weekend, Easter weekend, with some of my adopted Canadian friends and family. Athena and I went out on Thursday and Friday night, to a multitude of places: afternoon drinks in her condo, flat parties in the gay district, seeing bands in the centre of town, clubs where guys wear snapbacks and go “ey! ey! ey! ey!” and pretend they’re all Gs (which I used to think stood for Gentleman, but apparently means Gangster… which, thinking about it, makes a lot more sense, to be honest). On Sunday I dressed in white and lilac, walking down Queen Street with a bouquet of pastel roses to meet Robert and his colleague, who were picking me up to take me to Barrie for Easter lunch.
Driving up to Barrie was strange — I had seen this road so many times before, on all those bus journeys through wind and snow in the heart of Canadian winter. But now, the sun was high, the sky was blue and clear, and the ground was clear of snow. “What is this strange land?” I jokingly exclaimed as we drove up the highway. It was totally alien. The farmlands were preparing for the new season. The soil in the fields of Holland Landing had been tilled, ready for sowing (Holland Landing, by the way, is a really flat stretch of land north of Toronto. The soil in these fields is really fertile, and, contrary to what I thought, is used to plant useful things like vegetables and crops. Not tulips, which is what I pictured when I first heard the name).
Arriving at the Peacock family residence, I was greeted by Robert’s parents and was reunited with my bestie, Storm, their dog. “Do you think she remembers me?” I asked, as they opened the back door to let her in. Her waggling, wiggling tail and attempt to lick my nose clean off of my face were proof enough that she did, and had missed me just as much as I had her. Audrey had been preparing food all morning, and we invited the neighbours to come round and eat lunch with us. There was ham. There was salmon. There was potatoes and asparagus and peas and salad. And then, there was pie.
Monday rolled around and the fact that CMW (Canadian Music Week) was just 2 weeks away was very much present at work. My days were busy — filled with databases and writing copy — so by the time Wednesday evening rolled around, I was excited to dash to the Art Gallery, to see an exhibition with Mr. Swipey.
The Francis Bacon and Henry Moore exhibit was wonderful, high-brow, artistic gruesomeness about war and the human condition. Swipey and I took time to look at the paintings and sculptures, argued about the contexts in which the artist would want his audience to regard his work (and I did a terrible job of articulating myself, getting confused as usual). My favourite were Bacon’s studies of popes, who were all encased in glass boxes, screaming. After the exhibit, patrons were invited to create their own artworks inspired by what they had seen in the gallery. I went for a digital rendition of the human body within and as part of perspective and architecture (with a dash of screaming pope for good measure... essentially it was all abstract shapes with a leg thrown in the middle), while Mr. Swipey decided to use traditional media (paper and a blunt colouring pencil) to convey what looked like a frog/bed, with some scribbles for “emotion” and some poppies for “war”, and a sort-of vagina at the bottom because, well, art.
We heard a “ping!” that indicated that the gallery was now closing, so Mr. Swipey led me on a quickie tour of the gallery, sweeping through photography, contemporary Canadian art and other exhibitions. I would point to things and say, “Like that - don’t like that - really like that - that’s hilarious, look at his face! - don’t like that at all” as a running commentary. We agreed that I had to come back at some point and really take it all in — there was so much to see.
This weekend, I don’t know what’s gonna be up. I’ve got things, really important things, to do. I gotta start looking for a new place to live, I move out in a little over a month! I’ve gotta bash out a couple of articles for the magazine I write for, UNROOTED, and, as always, I’ve gotta practice, practice, practice my songs and music. A music career is a slow, long slog, from what I’ve seen and what Nate’s told me today. But that’s why I’m here, doing what I’m doing.
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