From The Land Of The Raptors #7

I apologise. I’ve been a little out of contact lately. My life has been a bit hectic to say the least, and I’ve barely had a minute to call and abuse my estranged daughter let alone sit down and squeeze out an email.

The hecticness (what’s the noun formation from hectic anyway… hecticity?) has been due to three major factors: (this is where you scroll down, see that this is a long post, sigh, and wonder if you can be bothered reading all this right now)

1. Touring. I’ve been playing guitar for a couple quasi-popular Canadian artists. Most recently I just got back from the Northern Provinces where I was supporting a Native Canadian vocalist. We played a number of venues including a beautiful grand old theatre that seated thousands in plush velvet, as well as a string of regional First Nation Cultural Centres.

While I was in Winnipeg I spent some time with a family who had possibly the most amazing dog I’ve ever encountered. She went by the name Thunder and she was a Husky / Wolf cross. Whoa, she was massive. If she would’ve let me put a saddle on her I could have probably gone for a ride. Nah I don’t need no stinkin sled. I’m not usually a dog person, but Thunder was more like a werewolf, and I spent all my time off from playing engaging in mind games and cuddling with her. She was incredibly intelligent and gentle. Clearly her jaws were capable of snapping my forearm in half, but mostly she just wanted to hold hands. Even just the weight and size of her paw was impressive… and she would offer it up while she slept. So adorable and so frightening all at once.

2. I had to move apartments. Unfortunately the landlord of my condo decided he wanted to sell the place. I didn’t get that much notice and it didn’t help that I wasn’t going to be in Ontario when I had to get my stuff outta there. So I had to put my things in storage before I left, and when I got back I had the strange situation of having nowhere to live. It was a sort of spaghettification of my self-image, where on one hand I’d just been feeling like a touring rockstar, and on the other I felt like a homeless and toothless hobo (but with more teeth). So I actually had a month there where I kinda drifted around, spending the first half of the day looking for a new place, and the second half romancing friends and strangers so that I could crash on their couch. The two halves were divided by a soup line.

Funny thing though… I went into my old apartment building to pick up my mail and the concierge told me that one of the tenants had to move out and needed someone to pick up the end of their lease. So as it turns out, after a month of brushing my teeth in the mall and progressively getting more desperate as each house I checked out was worse than the one before, I’ve ended up four floors down and across the hall.

Now that I think about it, you probably didn’t need to know any of that. Waste of two paragraphs really. Sorry.

3. Jam-packed gigging schedule. Haven’t been involved in a lot of recorded music over the last few months, and on top of that the Toronto Film industry has just fallen flat on it’s face since a union petitioned industry-wide strike and a long cold winter. So I’ve had to hustle and get a bunch of gigs to pay the bills. It’s been hard work, but it’s also been a lot of fun. In addition to my weekly Fri and Sat night rotations at various city venues, I’ve got a regular Thursday night where I alternate between a brand new bar called Pero Lounge and one of Toronto’s oldest live-music spots, The Cameron House. So I lug my gear around town a fair bit, but when I get there it’s really rewarding being able to play with some of these guys. I am truly spoilt and privileged to be able to gig with musicians of this caliber.

Oh hey, here’s something funny. A couple of the more pop/shlocky songs I wrote last year have found their way back to Australia. With the help of Chris Pettifer, Grundy’s picked them up for the Neighbours soundtrack. Mmmm, royalties. But how do you like that – gotta travel to the other side of the globe just to get some goddam work in Oz. Sheesh.

Back in February I was lucky enough to be paid a visit by Alex. He stayed with me for a month before heading on through Europe and now in India. I didn’t get to spend quite as much time with him as I would have liked, but we did get the major stuff out of the way – Niagara Falls, the CN Tower, The Bruce River Trail, a Raptors game and about 10 Liters of Sauza Blanca. As he was leaving, he said to me that he would never want to live in this city. Which kind of scared me to be honest. It reminded me of how much I hated this place when I first got here – the weather, the architecture, the franchise culture, the personal attitudes, the social divisions. And I still kind of hate it, but I can’t help but feel like it’s home.

I’ll admit it, lately I’ve been thinking about coming back to Australia. Maybe I feel like I’m getting older and need to settle down into a real life… putting a downpayment on a house and getting a 9-5er or something. But then, I think that’s what I came here to avoid. It’s really odd; I feel much more at home in Toronto than I do in Melbourne, and yet I know I don’t wanna live here forever, and would never do something lending itself to permanence such as buying a house here.

Meanwhile back at home, lots of my friends have babies. I don’t have any babies. I have lots of friends. Babies don’t have any friends. So I’ve got one up on them. But as for my friends… I love and miss them, and perhaps envy them. I’m really happy and thankful for what I have here, but I’m also very aware of what I’m missing out on.

Sometimes I wonder if what I’m doing has any value, or if any success in this field is going to be fulfilling. Maybe I’d be just as content building boats on a pacific island somewhere. What the hell is life all about anyway? You know… the meaning we’ve all been searching for. Anyone worked it out yet?! Holla atcha boy.

You’d have to be a lobotomy patient to consider getting into the music industry now. Last year was the worst year on record for CD sales, and so far this year is 25% below that. (Actually, as an aside, when was the last time you purchased a new album? I’d be interested to know.) The labels are screwed, there are fewer act signings than ever before, and platinum albums don’t exist anymore. Avril Lavigne just had a monster hit that no-one’s ever heard. J.T and The Rolling Stones can still fill a stadium, but the other acts that you might think are big can’t sell tickets or records in any substantial number. Obviously downloads are yet to be monetized, and while bands are getting incredibly (albeit briefly) popular on YouTube and MySpace, they’re not making any money. The bulk of musicians are DIY so producer or engineer roles are fewer than ever before.

I was aiming high when I moved here with intentions to operate in the higher tiers of the North American music industry. But even since I made that decision 3 years ago, that tier has become smaller and smaller to the point of non-existence. I met a guy who penned and produced one of the biggest r&b tracks last year, and he’s not all that much better off for it. No-one’s ever going to hear of him, and he doesn’t feel that he has any form of security in his job. It’s not like back in the day when you write a hit and get hired by Motown for the remainder of your years. He’s actually still living in his parent’s basement in Alabama. And this guy has MADE IT!

Amidst the chaos, I’m still trying to garner what knowledge I can of the industry, both technical and environmental. From these ashes, many a phoenix will fly. As dumb as it sounds, it’s good for music. Marketing means next to nothing – we’ve all become immune. So emails and word-of-mouth from TRUSTED sources are how things spread – which ostensibly is based upon the merit of the work. At least we’re not limited to MTV and Top40 Radio to tell us what we’re allowed to hear. A few things still need to happen – the world needs to adopt a system that will allow musicians to make money from their work (there are a raft of possibilities, including subscription services, fees built into ISP bills, new robust software for d/ls and plays that incorporates auditing… etc etc). A song might cost 0.1 cents, but the upside is that it will go directly to the artist, and the more legitimate listeners, the more they earn.

This is for the big time players to wrestle with. For my lot, I’m trying to figure out what opportunities are arising along the periphery. Again, is this something of value?

So now you know what occupies my headspace, while I’m banging out augmented chords down at the club to pay rent.

And with that, I’m out.


Slang update v2.0
- ‘from time’ (adv) = something that’s been going on for a long while. Eg “He’s been playing drums from time”
- ‘rammed’ (adj) = full to capacity, usually in reference to clubs/venues
- ‘bubble’ (n) = a type of dance where a girl backs up to a guy and lets it flip like a cell phone. I actually overheard a girl say “I’m gonna give him the bubble of his life”
- ‘running’ (v) = trying to get someone to leave, or forcing a particular idea onto someone. Eg “Are you running me?”

PS. A HUGE round of congratulations to Ben & Nadia on the birth of Josephine, to Laurenne & Costantino on the birth of Matteo, to Krissy & Jose in anticipation, to Paul & Cristy on their wedding, to Kara & Ali on their marriage, to Theo & Chloe on their engagement, to Roland & Dewi for sticking up for the rest of us and not getting married or pregnant, and to everyone else for continuing to be awesome.

PPS. If you’re reading this letter, I love and miss you, and hope that all is well with you. Would love to hear back!

PPPS. I’ve attached a few (hundred) photos just to make this post longer and more obtrusive.

While Alex was here we did a little hiking and decided it would be fun to walk on top of the iced over river.

Of course, the ice is all thawing now, and it gives way surprisingly fast. We can laugh about this now though.

This shot is from the CN Tower, facing in toward the bulk of the downtown core. I’ve pointed out a couple areas of interest.

While we were up in the Skypod, I got a call from a friend who was walking along King St. We thought we'd try out the camera's 12x optical zoom to see if we could locate her, which we did. She was across the road from one of the clubs I play at, which is over half a km away from the Tower. Then take in account the height of the skypod (447m), apply a little pythagorean style mathematics and you get a distance of around 700m. Not bad resolution for handheld from that distance!

This was also from the CN Tower. Alex and I took turns of hanging over the banister and taking pics of each other. Security never showed. Note the ice receding along the edge of the lake.

Here’s Alex doing his best Country Road catalogue shot.

Niagara Falls… first time I’d seen it during the Winter. Completely different experience.

Niagara Falls close up. This is down in the middle of the fall. I wouldn’t have guessed it with the pure force of the water pummeling down, but large ice/snow bergs form at the bottom. And ice clings to twigs and other bits of ice around the rim in the foreground.

Alex & I carved out a snowman for kicks. We decided to try to make him semi realistic… this was about halfway. In the end it ended up looking more like a snowvestite, but it was still cool. Everyone in the neighbourhood was dumbfounded – apparently snowmen are usually made by children and people found it strange to see two 26 year olds messing about making quasi-anatomically correct snow people. Btw, once we carved the eyes out, they followed you wherever you walked.

This was taken at the Winnipeg show. 6 piece including the DJ. Crowd of about 800.

Me in Winnipeg

One of the shows I did I was lucky enough to meet (and get kinda messy with) Cee-lo Green from Gnarls Barkley / Outkast. He must be craaaaazy.