Craig McMillan
"On a night like this" Planet Waves (my dad's copy on vinyl). . . always a go to at the Drum.
Bradley Boy reflections on Bob Dylan; Dylan plays July 4 at the TCC in OShawa
The Bob Dylan is coming to the Tribute Community Centre in Oshawa Tuesday, July 4 2017, To mark the return of the Nobel winning poet, singer, painter, novelist, actor, songwriter, musician, iconoclast we asked our creative pals for their Dylan reflections. We will run them as they come in.
Bradley Boy MacArthur
"What is my favorite Bob Dylan song and why. Without question as a writer and narrator. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. It is a brilliant narrative of observations of the world through the eyes of a blue eyed son (innocence ?). Each line in a few words captures the ugly and the beautiful. The moral is don't let it get you down, silence you and make you numb. Acknowledge it, know it, think it, speak it and breathe it. That is the road to help change it and remember what is beautiful and positive in the world. The two go hand in hand, so don't get lost in either, balance."
Kumonga Dan reflects on Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize winner plays the TTC in Oshawa July 4
Dan Walters, Kumonga
"My favourite Dylan song is "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall". While each verse is absolutely beautiful, I especially look forward to the one that he (accidentally?) rushes. For me, his giggle humanizes the entire masterpiece."
Slowcity.ca Durham Reach arts listings Thurs. Jun 22
NEW ON:
Sat. Jun 24Art in the Part, @ Darlington Provincial Park
The Oshawa Art Association has been invited by Darlington Provincial Park as special guests of the park! Located at Picknic Shelter #3, the OAA will be offering a FREE workshop on creating artwork using black markers! Suitable for ages 12+. Preregistration is needed at the Park Store.
ON NOW:
Blue Heron Canada 150 Student Art Exhibit, Blue Heron Books, Uxbridge - Jun 20
The Great Canadian LEED-scape, by Amy Shackleton @ the Visual Arts Centre, Bowmanville - until Jul 2
Abstraction: the Rebel Cause @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to Aug 27
Moving Landscapes by Steven Kean @ the Station Gallery - Jul 2
Visitor Information @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - Sep 19
Annemarie Greenwood: Six mixed media works on display at Rawlicious restaurant, 120 Dundas St. W. in Whitby.
Members of Rhyme Jaws, Blaster and The Doozies reflect on Bob Dylan, Dylan plays Oshawa July 4 at TCC
Chris Wunderlich, Rhyme Jaws
"I saw him last time he came to the "GM Center". It was a strange show with lots of organ, indecipherable mumbling and few, if any, crowd favourites. He was up there doing whatever he wanted and I can't for the life of me remember a single song, but I loved every minute. I'll pick a newer Dylan tune."
Aidan McGuirk, bassist, Blaster
"I Want You" - "it makes me feel good inside,"
Josh Kvasnak of The Doozies
"By far.... Subterranean homesick blues. Because he's not afraid to continually sing the same melody in the verses. It's just such a silly, grizzly tune."
Wayne Petti reflects on Bob, Dylan plays the TCC in Oshawa July 4
The Bob Dylan is coming to the Tribute Community Centre in Oshawa Tuesday, July 4 2017, To mark the return of the Nobel winning poet, singer, painter, novelist, actor, songwriter, musician, iconoclast we asked our creative pals for their Dylan reflections. We will run them as they come in.
Wayne Petti of Greylands, Cuff The Duke and occasionally Blue Rodeo cites "Girl from the North Country" as his fave track, its a track he covered with Joel Plaskett on Grey Land's debut, Songs By Other People.
"There is something so peaceful about the original version. No matter how I might be feeling, when I hear that song it always chills me out and takes me away for those few minutes. Later in his career when he recorded it with Johnny Cash, for Nashville Skyline, it became an even more endearing song to me. That duet is the most casual and beautiful recording I've ever heard. Especially for two iconic musicians. Two of the all time greats, with no fancy production just a couple of dudes singing a song. Sometimes that's all you need!"
Dog Is Blue reflects on Bob Dylan. Dylan plays the TCC in Oshawa July 4
The Bob Dylan is coming to the Tribute Community Centre in Oshawa Tuesday, July 4 2017, To mark the return of the Nobel winning poet, singer, painter, novelist, actor, songwriter, musician, iconoclast we asked our creative pals for their Dylan reflections. We will run them as they come in.
Musician Paul Watson of the Ghost-folk duo, Dog Is Blue, reflects in song
Durham Region artist reflects on Bob Dylan, he plays the TCC in Oshawa July 4
The Bob Dylan is coming to the Tribute Community Centre in Oshawa Tuesday, July 4 2017, To mark the return of the Nobel winning poet, singer, painter, novelist, actor, songwriter, musician, iconoclast we asked our creative pals for their Dylan reflections. We will run them as they come in.
Artist Maralynn Cherry, a founding member of the Oshawa's first art gallery in 1967.
"That’s a tough one, to tie Dylan down to one song but here goes for me. I love so many but there are special memories kindled by ‘If Dogs Run Free’ on his amazing New Morning vinyl. When I heard this piece it embraced my wandering soulful need for freedom. I lingered alone for hours musing at the borderlands between city and wilderness. I felt like a creature of the wild and then along came this incredible jazz song. It cut to the bone as Dylan’s words were woven through with that unforgettable scat-singing from Maeretha Stewart and those licks of Al Kooper on piano."
Slowcity.ca Durham Reach arts listings Thur Jun 15
Gallery 67 at 67 Simcoe St. N. downtown is open. Congrats to the Oshawa Art Association for getting this pop-up gallery space in the Holiday Inn up and running. Hours are 10-4 Tuesdays and Saturdays, 10-8 Thursdays. There is currently an exhibition of members who volunteered to help out at the gallery. A new exhibition will begin July 15.
NEW ON:
Sat. June 17 - 2017 Artist in the Gardena Hearth Place Fundraiser
There are ten gardens throughout Whitby and Oshawa, each garden has artisans and live music. Tickets are $20 each in advance, $25 day of. Anne Labelle-Johnson of Blue Willow Studio will at Margaritville Garden along with Tony Johnson. Betty and Mike McGowan will be at Julies Garden in Whitby.
ON NOW:
Residency - Durham Black Artists Collective @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - Jun 18
Blue Heron Canada 150 Student Art Exhibit, Blue Heron Books, Uxbridge - Jun 20
The Great Canadian LEED-scape, by Amy Shackleton @ the Visual Arts Centre, Bowmanville - until Jul 2
Abstraction: the Rebel Cause @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to Aug 27
Moving Landscapes by Steven Kean @ the Station Gallery - Jul 2
Visitor Information @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - Sep 19
Annemarie Greenwood: Six mixed media works on display at Rawlicious restaurant, 120 Dundas St. W. in Whitby.
Gallery 67 launch, Living Room Art Studio fundraiser and Oshawa Council's priorities
The Oshawa Art Association will formally launch their new pop up gallery space in the Holiday Inn downtown Oshawa on Tuesday June 13 2017. There will be art, there will be cake, there will be the usual suspects, there will be bureaucrats and there will be a lot of people, a lot of older people. The OAA has been around for 50 years and this is the first space they can call their own. Fifty years is a long time to be homeless but the OAA has found a home and some others too have a home to call their own.
There is a crowd of young entrepreneurs who call Oshawa home who are investing in the downtown to make it their own. These are the places I believe can turn the core around, with the right support. But Council is more willing to seek an American corporate brand than a local start-up. if its not GM then the Holiday Inn will fill in or Global Spectrum. Chase down a Yankee corporate restaurant and there is enough brand name recognition downtown to draw in the punters. Yah, no, the suburbanization of the downtown is exactly the wrong direction to go in. But thats our council, always wanting big global outsiders when small local insiders is where it’s really at.
But lets compromise and have both, in a balanced holistic manner however. This City could invest in the small as well as the tall, supporting Berry Hill, Isabella’s, Justice Burgers, Johnny Cuts, Jimmy Gauco’s, the Atria, the Moustache Club, Buster Rhino's, Riley's and others just like they support Global Spectrum and the Holiday Inn. There are many small businesses striving to thrive in the core and the help would be welcome.
Ironically I see hope in the area outside of the purview of the BIA and the city’s revitalization efforts. South of the core, success is happening in an area which has fostered cool independent thinking for decades. Within walking distance of each other there is the Brew Wizard’s Board Game Cafe, the Living Room Community Art Studio, Kop’s Records and Paraphernalia Books. There is Lisa and Jamie’s Upscale Garage Sale and of course Memorial Park and the Pepper Patch Community Garden. There is also the Car Museum and a stroll through the park will take you to the RMG and the McLaughlin Gallery. One could spend hours.
Issues, sure, problems, sure but also solutions, solutions sourced from the residents themselves. They grew there and they are surviving there. They are surviving in part because they are willing to put the work in to make it a better place for them and their kids, making art and growing gardens and populating streets. Here is where the city could step in and offer resources to help. It is here Council could develop the area in conjunction with the residents and small businesses investing in the area. But will they support independents, in youth, in small. My guess is no, after all it’s not something they are used to doing.
There will be many dignitaries I imagine at the launch of the OAA’s Gallery 67 Tuesday night celebrating and rightly so. I hope to see the self same faces out at the Living Room Community Art Studio’s Fundraiser Thursday June 15 at the Trent Campus on Thornton Road. Then and only then, when politicians support the grassroots, will we know culture and Culture Plans in particular, matter and the suits and shoulder pads really do get it, at last.
Slowcity.ca Durham Reach arts listings Thu. Jun. 8
NEW ON:
Sat. Jun 10 - Doors Open Clarington
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - A Country Path, tour of north Clarington
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - Oshawa Peony Festival
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - Art at the Waterfront, Port Perry
Sat. June 17 - 2017 Artist in the Gardena Hearth Place Fundraiser
There are ten gardens throughout Whitby and Oshawa, each garden has artisans and live music. Tickets are $20 each in advance, $25 day of. Anne Labelle-Johnson of Blue Willow Studio will at Margaritville Garden along with Tony Johnson. Betty and Mike McGowan will be at Julie's Garden in Whitby.
ON NOW:
The Great Canadian LEED-scape, by Amy Shackleton @ the Visual Arts Centre, Bowmanville - until Jul 2
Blue Heron Canada 150 Student Art Exhibit, Blue Heron Books, Uxbridge - Jun 20
Abstraction: the Rebel Cause @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to Aug 27
Annemarie Greenwood: Six mixed media works on display at Rawlicious restaurant, 120 Dundas St. W. in Whitby.
Slowcity.ca Durham Reach arts listings - Thu Jun 1 2017
One of my favourite places in Durham Region, The LivingRoom Community Art Centre is holding its fourth annual fundraiser Thursday June 15 at Trent University, Oshawa. The studio’s Little Art, BIG Difference Secret Sale features over 100 works from artists across North America, each of which will sell for $75. The creators of the works are the secret, only revealed after the purchase. The first 100 people through the door will receive a one-of-a-kind silk screened hand sewn swag bag. Raffle prizes include gift packages from Arts & Crafts Music, Cafe Belong at the Evergreen Brickworks, DeSerres Art Store, Brew Wizards Board Game Cafe, Panic Factory Escape Rooms, HB Happy Bliss, Scentsy and Lock 3 Media Documentaries. Doors open 6 p.m and all works can be previewed at the LivingRoom’s website. If you have never heard of the LivingRoom do yourself and the wonderful community it helps a favour and check it out.
Happy 50th OAA!! The Oshawa Art Association has a home, which they are calling Gallery 67. The OAA are working with the Holiday Inn Express, located at 67 Simcoe St. N. in downtown Oshawa, to take over a large empty space on the south west corner, designated for a restaurant. As no company has been found yet the OAA will move in. The OAA founded in 1967 are launching the new art space with an exhibit and grand opening Tuesday, June 13 at 7 p.m.
Things like this don’t happen all by themselves, this was a collective effort which included the city’s Economic Development department, local businesses, volunteers, the facilitation of Councillor Rick Kerr and the full support of the hotel’s general manager Sita Gardiner.
NEW ON:
Fri. Jun 2 - RMG Friday celebrates PRIDE Durham @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - A Country Path, tour of north Clarington
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - Oshawa Peony Festival, art contest submissions due June 9
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - Art at the Waterfront, Port Perry
Sat. June 17 - 2017 Artist in the Gardena Hearth Place Fundraiser - There are ten gardens throughout Whitby and Oshawa, each garden has artisans and live music. Tickets are $20 each in advance, $25 day of. Anne Labelle-Johnson of Blue Willow Studio messaged me to say she will be at Margaritville Garden along with Tony Johnson.
ON NOW:
Come Closer, Pamela Dodds @ the Visual Arts Centre, Clarington - to May 21
In Transit – Jan Lyons @ the Kent Farndale Gallery, Port Perry – to June 6
Stephanie Foden exhibit @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery – to June 11
Blue Heron Canada 150 Student Art Exhibit, Blue Heron Books, Uxbridge - Jun 20
Abstraction: the Rebel Cause @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to Aug 27
Annemarie Greenwood: Six mixed media works on display at Rawlicious restaurant, 120 Dundas St. W. in Whitby.
Barry Smylie: online exhibit, Boundless
Slowcity.ca Durham Reach arts listings - Thu May 25 2017
NEW ON:
Sat. May 27 - Art on the Esplanade, Pickering
Sat. May 27 – Digging Roots @ Greenbank Folk Club, Greenbank
Sat. May 27 - Paul Sloggett exhibit at the Hatch Gallery, Bloomfield, Price Edward County
Fri. Jun 2 - RMG Friday celebrates PRIDE Durham @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - A Country Path, tour of north Clarington
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - Oshawa Peony Festival, art contest submissions due June 9
Sat. Jun 10/ 11 - Art at the Waterfront, Port Perry
Sat. June 17 - 2017 Artist in the Gardena Hearth Place Fundraiser
ON NOW:
In Transit – Jan Lyons @ the Kent Farndale Gallery, Port Perry – to June 6
Stephanie Foden exhibit @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery – to June 11
Abstraction: the Rebel Cause @ the Robert McLaughlin Gallery - to Aug 27
2016, was it so bad after all?
Hard to catch up on 2016, it moved so fast as the present runs at us with such speed, its the age of everything and such flux is keeping us all off balance. It was one hit after another, there was little time to mourn for one deceased celebrity before another washed up on the news.
It wasn’t just celebs but systems that fell too. It seems by many counts to be a year not to be celebrated but of course there is always reason to be cheerful, even if its just to have survived the year. Many friends a generation younger are celebrating, they’re are growing families, homes, work projects, having children, Music Festivals will be even more a family affair and yes I still believe music can save us all - stay tuned.
Some of my fave moments happened at festivals in 2016; being interviewed by Steve DeTaeye at Hillside (4 pm - 30 min mark) about a piece I wrote on the best little Royal City gathering; River and Sky, Hillside’s Northern sibling - a fave festival that had The Sadies play on a beach for what seemed liked hours, also the afternoon chat with METZ, and introducing them onstage as the closer. Also doing an Apologue in-car podcast with Simon Head (ep 87) about Oshawa’s music heritage, not mush of it left, many of our venues have become shelters - something ironic in that I guess, they were once our shelters.
I had the chance too to interview Baron Wolman, Rolling Stone magazine's first official photographer, and I finally met David Marsden, for a coffee and a chat. I also interviewed Buffy Sainte-Marie (through my new freelance job at Metro, which I began in 2016), and witnessed Gord Downie’s "Secret Path" show, twice. Canada’s band toured the country as its farewell.
Downie has used the spotlight to highlight the plight of Canada’s aboriginal communities - He has said many times the country, in 2017, should not celebrate its past 150 years, but should look towards building the next 150 years - ahead by a century is our Gord and we can only hope his name does not crop up on the news as among those we will mourn this coming year.
Records to note; Jadea Kelly’s album “Love and Lust”, an absolute tour de force that will only get bigger and bigger, such a deep personal story; also Meghan Patrick’s debut “Grace and Grit” - Meghan too has a star on the rise, she is one who gets it all on every level and I think she will emerge in her own time as one the country’s finest singer/songwriters. As well The Standstills have emerged as the one’s to watch over on the harder rock side of things.
I had gone to see Lennon and Maisy at Field Trip but unfortunately it was washed out by a drenching storm so I missed them, however they did come into town for the Music Scene’s talent contest, an opportunity to chat with The Stellas too then; but its not just the Nashville family we should take notice off, Tracy Penhale Stella is a member of the Oshawa group The Professors of Funk led by Derek Giberson. Giberson organized a charity Christmas concert featuring a solo by Tracy, - (I was in the Rogers Live Broadcast truck and she was wonderful) - Cadence Grace was also a guest singer. The concert raised about $10000 I believe, for the Back Door Mission in Oshawa’s core.
Politically it was a strange year but as all politics are local lets look not south of the border but to our own south, South Oshawa, which seems now to begin at Adelaide north of Hwy 2 instead of the traditional south of Hwy 401.
The good man behind the Back Door Mission, told me Oshawa’s core has a concentration of poverty, addiction, bad landlords, unsafe housing and prostitution that is if not worse than then on par with Vancouver’s East Side - a place with an international reputation. As Oshawa expands north we are leaving a broad vacuum at the core of this city and it is being filled with the hopeless. More needs to be done. We are also continuing to lose our creative minds as they leave the city for more opportunities. It seems to me we need them more than ever as the old system is falling and failing. Rather than fill the vacuum with exclusion lets fill it with inclusion.
Councillor Amy England got this, and went further with it, creating a documentary on the community garden there, and also we must give a shout-out to Carol VanderSanden and her own mission to grow gardens all over the city. The latest is by the hospital. Now they are the very definition of someone creating hope, and art.
As for for further future hope creators, we have a crew of young musicians, Headswirl, Native Other, Laughed The Boy who are digging through the back catalogues and building new from the pieces, music inspired by everything. Seems a good time to slot in a shout out to Wildlife and their recent released album, “Age of Everything”.
As for fave album - these got a lot of repeats on my player, its a toss up between Okervil River’s “Away” and Preoccupations’ S/T debut, but I will say the Most Important Record of 2016 was Secret Path. Get it if you don't and join the conversation to create an even better Canada. In 2017 be better and mostly be kinder. The world needs it.
Spend Christmas Eve with David Marsden on NYThespirit.com
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, founder of CFNY and the man who took FM radio mainstream in Canada, David Marsden, has been around the block a few times but it was one block he walked around in 1973 that he would never forget.
Christmas is a time to gather with friends and family. Marsden at that time however was alone. He was working for CHUM FM and after leaving the radio station he walked sadly by himself along a empty wet snowy Yonge Street. Everything was closed, all were home, or heading there but there were many, Marsden thought, like him who would be by themselves.
Forty three years ago he made a promise to the lonely; He would always be on the air Christmas Eve, to be live for those who may need to hear a voice, one who understood their loneliness and thus a tradition was born.
The tradition continues this December 24, 2016. Starting at 8:00 P.M, EST on his latest project, the internet only subscription based radio station, NYTheSpirit, Marsden will spin a freeform Christmas music show of classics, alternatives, oddities, oldies and rarities curated from over four decades of leading edge broadcasting, (Four Decades!!).
Diemonds, Citizen Red, Pigeon Park, Outshined at Moustache Club - photos by Mirjana Simeunovich
HIGHS, Dizzy at the Moustache Club Nov 12 with Native Other
The lowdown is watch for Frank Ocean to flow beneath the next HIGHS music you hear. Or perhaps the eclecticism of Bon Iver. The HIGHS are open for engagement with the world and their collective gatherings imbue their sounds with a personal yet wide reaching sensibility.
They landed with a jingle when they dropped the Tanzanian Afropop framed EP. The debut full length album Dazzle Camouflage follows up on that particular soundscape, one very much a discovery of each other as musicians, singers, voices, lives and concerns. Dazzle is a band album.
Subsequent tours and performances allowed them to explore beyond their immediate boundaries, most importantly musically. The folk-melodic undercurrents main songwriter Haynes carries within him from his seminal years attending festivals, Hillside in particular, are married with the Radiohead/Fleetwood Mac wranglings of Joe Harrower, but add time and energy, experiments, and an ease, a wilful ignorance of charts and the game, and its wide open what they will deliver, maybe a kid eh?
But the frame is only the beginning for HIGHS, they are out in the world absorbing, each day, each new experience triggering a trajectory in their music. They are approaching their first European tour, stops in Paris France and Berlin Germany, marvelling at the way in which their bedroom pop songs have carried them across the world and eagerly anticipating a full-on reassessment of who they are and what they will make as a band, what will Paris make of them and give them, what of Berlin? Will they walk away with an embarrassement of stories ready for melodies as Haynes did when he visited Tanzania. And what of personal growth, a swirling 360 grand tour of history, what do you become from wandering the same streets as Bowie and Baudelaire?
Over the summer HIGHS wandered and wandered into the smallest of streets in Dawson City, the annual fest way up there in the beyond of most folk’s ken, the Yukon, where the sun seemingly never sets or conversely never rises, where the whole we’re in it together is exactly that, Dawson is the village of this global village of ours, this planet, its all of us in the landscape, its marks one and it marked Haynes, literally in the tattoo sense but also in his heart.
Its a thing to come off tour and be at a loss, buts its a thing more so when one found oneself on the tour and had to leave oneself behind, its a split, a wounding that may be sutured with music, who knows what will come straight out of Dawson, who knows who will head straight back to deeply northern Dawson?
HIGHS head out, stops around southern Ontario, around the GTA, soon and then its on the back of Dazzle Camouflage to find the others, who heard and called across the Atlantic.
Its curious Dazzle Camo was used to hide ships during the Wars, to obfuscate the enemy peering up periscoped from the deep, the jagged designs confusing the stranger beneath and yet the camo became art. And art becomes HIGHS. The trip will deliver new intrigues, new dazzlings, to wrap with brilliance and light and jangly jingly poptimism and gift back.
The gift may come floating by on a wave of Frank Ocean or it may be hidden in the cryptics of Bon Iver or it may come in the form of a Van Halen inspired remix, whatever catches HIGHS fancy in the van shared headphones or a taxi cab radio or the open window on the smallest of the smallest streets in a French suburb. HIGHS are alive to it all, tours end but the journey continues for life.
Dream Serenade 2016, voices and funds raised for Beverly Street School
The third annual Beverly Street School fundraiser, Dream Serenade, held at Massey Hall Oct 22 2016, promised a good time for staff, parents, families and friends but last night’s show really delivered on the promise, it was the stuff of dreams.
This year's Serenade marked the debut of Broken Social Scene at the storied venue and they brought out almost the complete original line-up, including a surprise appearance by Feist. A very pregnant Amy Milan of Stars was also with BSS but she had her own separate set. Barenaked Ladies, Hayden, Lou Canon, Dan Mangan and New York a cappella group, The Persuasions filled out the bill.
It was however the surprise opening appearance of Gord Downie and his back-up band to play three songs from their Secret Path album that drew the loudest applause.
For those in the audience who are fans of the Tragically Hip, for those who missed out on tickets for the sold-out Canadian tour billed as the band’s final outing, for those who thought they may never experience the thrill of seeing Downie perform again after his diagnosis of terminal cancer earlier this year and in particular for those families whose own life circumstances would prevent them from seeing not just Downie in performance but any show, well, just the stuff of dreams really.
Funds raised at the Dream Serenade goes to Beverley Street, a school for special needs children aged 4 to 14. The money is used to provide respite services for parents who need a break every now and then, maybe even to see a live show. The daughter of Hayden Desser and Christie Greyerbiehl attends the school and they co-founded the fundraiser. So far they have raised $125,000, with some of of the sum also going to a new playground at Beverley. They also donated $20,000 last year to Toronto’s George Webster Elementary School for upgrades to their classrooms. Serenade concert alumni include members of the National, Billy Talent, Sarah Harmer and Kevin Hearn of Barenaked Ladies. Hearn’s daughter also attends Beverly.
Hearn pulled a double shift as a member Downie’s Secret Path band and of BNL. The Ladies played a rollicking fun-filled set with free raps, a song medley that included Drake’s Hot Line Bling and David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, plus a duet (?) with The Persuasions.
The six member singing group from Brooklyn have been together for 50 years and were discovered initially by Frank Zappa. They performed earlier this year with BNL at Central Park and Hearn was credited by school principal Alana Grossman for bringing them to the show. She also said she was sure he had something to do with getting Downie onboard too.
Downie’s advocacy for education about the history of First Nations in Canada struck a chord of course with so many teachers present but it also struck his fellow performers deeply too. Hayden ended his set with “Ahead By A Century”, just for “the beauty of the man” and when finished the song, left the stage quite abruptly, overwhelmed it seemed by the evening’s poignant undercurrent.
The emotions flowed throughout the night including during Broken Social Scene’s closing set. This was their Massey Hall debut, and with a lineup that had the aforementioned Feist and MIlan plus Kevin Drew, Charles Spearin, Brendan Canning, David French, Evan Cranley, James Shaw, Sam Goldberg Jr. and Andrew Whiteman, they chose the moment to poke a little fun at the venerated music hall by opening with “Lover’s Spit”, continuing into Anthem for a 17-year-old and the celebratory feel good roar of “Shoreline 7/4”.
The 2016 Dream Serenade was a roaring success, a celebration of community, of possibility, of hope, of music and ultimately of life itself. With so many stars on stage it would be easy to overlook the real stars of the night, the children and parents of Beverley Street School. Its their dreams the Serenade is helping to come true.
Gord Downie's path to Truth and Reconciliation, screened at Roy Thomson Hall
Our children know all about the Underground Railway but now they will also be taught the history of the children the train passed by.
Secret Path is Gord Downie’s own journey into Canada’s closeted past and his singular desire to shine light on the hidden history of this country’s Indigenous peoples. His personal Truth and Reconciliation project tells the story of Chanie Wenjack, an Anishinaabe boy who died of exposure by a railway line, escaping from a residential school in 1966. Wenjack was twelve.
Downie has built a crew of about a dozen musicians, animators and illustrators to record an album of ten songs, create a graphic novel illustrated by Jeff Lemire, and produce an animated film, animated by Justin Stephenson, as well as a short documentary about Downie meeting the Wenjack family, a couple of weeks after the Tragically Hip’s final concert in Kingston.
Downie has terminal cancer but as the Secret Path album was completed a couple of years ago, the album says nothing of his present plight. Downie’s diagnosis only added urgency to the telling of Chanie’s flight and the project was kicked into overdrive. The film which normally would take upwards of a year to create was finished in matter of months. The album is available on Arts & Crafts, the book is out too and the film was screened at a special performance by the band at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Although Chanie’s story is heartbreaking, Downie, and musical collaborators, Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene and Liam Hamelin of The Stills, did not choose to create a soundtrack of sorrow. Secret Path is at times a joyful celebration of possibilities, of hopefulness, of the power of choice. Chanie’s story ended in tragedy but it doesn’t take away from the fact of his choosing and of his celebration of self. He chose his path and each slow cold shivering step along the railway lines in the Fall of 1966 was one step closer to his parent who loved 600 kms away.
The music roams from atmospheric hauntings to joyful pop. It is the strength of the percussion at its core that allows for the building of the soundscape beyond it. The album stretches out, it is a big country after all. But with always one foot on the ground, it is a big but sensible country after all. At bottom is one foot step after another, one beat after another; The album featured guests are Charles Spearin on bass, Ohad Benchetrit on lap steel, Kevin Hearn on keys and Dave “Billy Ray” Koster on drums. Drew, Hamelin, Spearin and Hearn were part of the band on stage at the screenings of Secret Path. They were joined by Josh Finlayson of the Skydiggers. However the album is not just a soundtrack, it stands on its own as an accomplished work. Even as a concept album the songs are contained within themselves, there are even tracks that would play well on radio, even ones to unabashedly dance to. It is a remarkable piece of art and look for it to dominate discussion of next year’s Polaris Music Prize.
Downie humanizes Chanie. The boy is a symbol perhaps, a possible icon, but he was just a boy. Drew’s production wraps the boy in a deep warm embrace, in the great epicness of Broken Social Scene’s collective sonic hug. The music feels like a companion on the boy’s journey, it is a friend to someone who doesn’t know a soul out there in the wilderness. The music walks alongside, instep with Chanie along his walk, as he dreams of his father, as he worries about the forest, as he faces down a hallucination of a looming black crow, (perhaps the black crow of Christianity, the crow priest of Joseph Boyden and the Black Robe of Brian Moore). The music settles in beside him as he stares into a fire, created with the seven matches he has with him, as he picks over bushes for the year’s final berries and he moves closer and closer to reuniting with his family but we also know, as does Drew and Downie, that each step is a step closer to his last moments.
There has never been anything like this that I can think off. Perhaps the sea to sea to sea multimedia broadcast of the Tragically Hip’s final show, using every channel possible to create an acoustic space for the whole country to inhabit. Downie has done something similar here, he has used it all; fame, music, books, film, architecture, drawings, talks, interviews, every possible mode of expression to tell the Wenjack tale. He has created an environment, this space of peace, and invited us all in to listen and to talk about Chanie the boy and all those like him.
Chanie puts a face on Canada’s legacy of residential schools and on its history of cultural genocide. From the 1890s to the 1990s 150,000 children were placed by the feds in residential schools. 20,000 died, and that is 1990s as in two decades ago. But Canada is more geography than history says Prime Minister MacKenzie King.
History is past but geography is the ever-present and perhaps the most vital part of the Secret Path project is that the trail does not end when you close the book or resleeve the album. It begins.
History is the then but geography is the here and the now and here and now there are many many, too many Chanies dying, feeling lost and alone, a full fifty years after the Wenjacks were told their boy was found by the railway tracks,
While Downie and his crew of fantastic makers were out talking, promoting and performing the Secret Path project, a ten-year-old First Nation child from Deschambault Lake, SASK, committed suicide. Earlier this month two teens, one from Stanley Mission and another from the community of Lac La Ronge also took their own lives. Another twenty children are said to be at risk.
In Northern Ontario in the community of Attawapiskat there is also an ongoing suicide crisis among the young. Graveyards in First Nations communities across Canada are filled with the young. The Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde says aboriginal youth suicides are five times the national average.
At the end everyone involved in the project was brought onstage. Mike Downie, who first brought the story of Chanie to Gord was the MC. He had heard the story on CBC radio in a documentary by Judy Foster. Subsequently he read the piece written by Ian Adams for Macleans magazine in 1967. Chanie’s story had been told, it had been known but it was pushed away like so much snow down the embankment of history.
Adams was asked up onstage and he joined thirty six members of the Wenjack family along with the musicians, filmmakers and the illustrator for a final bow. Pearl Achneepineskum, Chanie’s oldest sister, sang a healing song, a sorrowful refrain for the boy in Fiddler’s Green. Chanie’s favourite song Ashes of Love was played over the speakers.
Mike Downie spoke about education being the answer and recently on Oct 17 and 18 educators from across the country met in Ottawa to plan a curricula around the Secret Path and the new Gord Downie Chanie Wenjack Fund (proceeds from all Secret Path projects will be used for other Truth and Reconciliation purposes).
Downie announced onstage that education of residential schools, cultural genocide and the legacy left on First Nations will begin in schools nationwide in 2017.
During the performance Gord Downie didn’t speak much, mostly allowing the work to speak for him. But the poet laureate of the hockey rink did break his silence to say “Let’s not celebrate the last 150 years, let’s just start celebrating the next 150 years. Just leave it alone.”
And then they all left us alone, with our thoughts and I thought about my own upbringing in Ireland in the 70s in a Christian Brothers School, the abuses meted out, the systemic collusion between church and state to cover up and my own desire to flee as far and as fully as possible.
And I thought about Chanie’s last moments and I imagined him to be happy, he had chosen to run, to keep his identity, to keep on his own secret path and the immense inner strength he must have had to have gone as far as he did.
I thought of the secret path the First Nations and colonized peoples everywhere (the Halluci-nation of A Tribe Called Red) have been walking on for centuries and the strength they have to keep on maybe for the next 150 years.
Gord Downie's Secret Path leads us forward into the past, into the hearth of the matter
The campfire circle became the stuff of theatre when the storyteller arrived. The teller of tales would compete to find the best. The circle became a semi-circle as the winner was elevated onto a stage set off to the side of the circle. Its widely accepted that Thespis was the first, and theatre as we know it, the binary world of actor and audience, was born.
The device we hold in our hands is the new campfire circle. We communicate instantly with people around the world, telling stories, our shared experiences creating tribes. If we follow Marshall McLuhan’s Laws of Media we see media repeats itself; old forms returning in new forms, and thus our new tribe online will act as those first tribes. The online circle will give rise to the best storyteller, the best actor, perhaps even the best liar.
The phone is something to look at and into but it is also a platform to stand on. A campfire circle is fraught with fear, a glimmer at the centre inside the all-enveloping darkness. It’s scary out there and a father-figure, a strongman, a big man is welcome. The phone elevates power personified, the big man and his tribe will go all in on support for him.
However it is only the circle that became theatre that became architecture that became books that became film, television and web that will present itself as platform. The tribe that never broke the circle and never set up the stage will not suffer the same fate. No big man will be sought but fear will be dispersed by the maintenance of the circle and at its centre, the campfire, around which we hear the equality of voice.
Not one voice, not one storyteller, not one actor, not one liar, even but many. All keepers of the tribe’s knowledge, knowledge of the home and the land, resources, creativity and the cultures, and most importantly the equality of voice of women as well as of men.
So we choose our circles. We choose our tribes. Do we align ourselves along gender, race, colour, wealth, geography? Do we gather around only those who reflect us or do we open the hearth to all travellers?
Gord Downie is opting for the hearth. He spoke to CBC about a new project he has taken up even as he faces his own battles with brain cancer. The 52 year-old lead singer for the Tragically Hip has a solo album, a film and a graphic novel. He has set up a fund with all proceeds from the associated projects going towards reconciliation.
The Secret Path relates the story of a young indigenous boy who froze to death on his way home from a residential school he had been forcibly placed in. In 1966 Chanie Wenjeck set out on a 600 km journey but died by the rail line he took home, his secret path back.
Chanie’s story had been told before.
However when Downie heard it it inspired him to dig deeper and tell the story his own way. Ten poems became songs and an album. A graphic novel was produced and also a short animated film.
At the final concert of the Tragically Hip’s final cross-Canada tour in Kingston, broadcast live on TV, radio and social media to over 10 million, Downie chose to shout out Prime Minister Trudeau, who was in the audience, and place the resolution of indigenous issues firmly before him.
Downie has also spoken at length to CBC about the project.
It seems to be that the spoken word, the communication of one on on is the most trusted communication in the new tribes. There is no agenda between family, friends, a tribe of the like-minded. It is a circle of shared values and we share with each other the stories we care about, knowing those we speak also care. But we must know them first.
The Idle No More movement was an effort to reach out and have non-indigenous communities hear the historic and, most importantly, the present realities of life as an indigenous person in Canada. There have been other attempts to bridge the gap between north and south Canada, some successful. Both Buffy Sainte Marie and Tanya Tagaq have become globally known artists and they sing to the same issues. A Tribe Called Red is taking their electric pow wow around the world and their new album Halluci-Nation extends their tribe to indigenous communities on all continents. The wounds of colonialism are shared among many.
Retribution is the title of Tanya Tagaq’s new album. It includes a cover of NIrvana’s “Rape Me”. It has a whole different effect when sung by Tagaq. The Retribution will be swift it seems, there are centuries of repressed anger, centuries of hurt and an ongoing crisis among young people of the First Nations, some of the highest rates of suicide, addiction and mental health issues in the world. As Downie says the Canada we think we live in is not the real Canada. As those who live in the south contemplate boycotting bottled water companies for overstepping their welcome First Nations have had boil water advisories in place for decades. The hurt is real, it must be dealt with.
What we are hearing is the voice of the global village. Our neighbours are speaking up and out about how we rate as neighbours. We don’t rate very highly it seems but it’s time to make the changes needed.
PM Trudeau has said Canada is the first "postnational" country. It is not a nation based on one culture, language, religion, but instead a country based on values, on agreement, on conversation between neighbours. It is a country of many nations colonized by two and opened up to many more. It is wide and open and diverse and it worked for a while on the basis that good fences make good neighbours. The fence was built along the wrong property line however.
The electronic media has broken fences, borders, the artificial separations of class and nationality mean nothing online, even gender is no longer static. All is fluid, all is in flux, all is one long conversation and as long as we keep talking we are in the same space, the same time around the campfire (electronic or otherwise), listening to each other.
Marshall McLuhan had it right. Filmmaker Norman McLaren too had it right in his 1952 animated short. Its over 60 years old. The Big Man says he can make the country great again. Canada only needs to be better.