Steeringwheel de Bergerac

Allison Cameron: The Economist

"The further North you go, the more intense the music becomes." - Paul Bley

Keeping a band together is tough. People get busy, move to Paris, hammer nails into a piano, retool the bank's I.T. department, board a Barquentine tall ship, and so on. In this regard, the Allison Cameron Band is no different. In fact later this month, while Eric Chenaux is forging a Canadian passport in a French prison and Stephen Parkinson is confirming the existence of the Higgs boson; Allison Cameron along with a group of other artists, scientists and sailors from around the world will be taking part in one of the world's most insane residency programs you've never heard of - the Autumn Art & Science Expedition based in the International territory of Svalbard off the northern coast of Norway in the Barents Sea.

In the Toronto Composer tradition (Christopher Butterfield, Martin Arnold, Brodie West, Jennifer Castle and others), Allison will first be finishing her season as a gardener before flying to Svalbard with a bag of Honeytone amps, contact mics and a ZOOM recorder, boarding a Barquentine tall ship and touring around the Arctic Circle for two weeks. Once there she will begin documenting the ferocity and darkness of the Northern skies and seas through a filter of dying batteries.

Allison Cameron is one of a gang of resourceful and no-nonsense composers who came out of the University of Victoria in the late 1980's after studying with the singularly creative Czech composer and teacher Rudolf Komorous. Arnold, Parkinson, pianist Eve Egoyan and recordist David Travers-Smith are others. She writes chamber music of all kinds and improvises using electronics and small objects. She also made her first installation this past summer in a silo at Electric Eclectics where she paid tribute to her recently passed friend the prolific artist Colette Urban. Allison is also a mean hockey player.

One of her most distinctive successes as a composer is the Allison Cameron Band which features the composer along with Chenaux and Parkinson playing collaborative pieces that make use of British Isles folk songs, alternate tunings, tablature, traditional notation, guided improvisation, acoustic guitars, banjos, small keyboards and a double reed harmonica to make a kind of music that could well be a genre unto itself. To date, the trio has made a self-titled CD on the rat-drifting label, and more recently, an EP entitled Mach Shorn recorded expertly by Sandro Perri. (see review in this issue of Offerings)

Often when I listen to music, which isn't that often, I have to turn it off because something bad happens. When I listen to Allison's music this never happens. Nothing bad ever happens. Nobody gets too excited or loses interest. Nobody thinks it's time to make something happen. Nobody is going through a phase. Nobody is having an off night. It's just there doing it's thing. By paying attention to the details Allison makes the ordinary extraordinary. It's always been so easy to be cynical. It's always been encouraged. But there is no cynicism in Allison's music. Instead there is a great unending patience.

-Justin Haynes

Our friend in Parliament
-Justin Haynes
Dear Honourable Member Cash,
Besides your current one, what was your worst gig?
Ha, craftily put question and very funny. I'm running down now to the steps of the House of
Commons to play a tune with Charlie Angus for a bunch kids who have converged on the Hill
demanding equal rights for First Nations children to the same quality and access to education as
any other kid in Canada I can respond to the question -- although as a survival tactic I'd say you
tend to forget most of the bad gigs and cherish, and yes, inflate, the good ones. I don't have a lot to
add except to say that those good gigs, which one tends to elevate to epic proportions keep you on
the trail--they keep you hungry and focused. It's because the feeling you get when a show goes
well, or there is a transcendent moment in a show--even if you are the only one to experience it-well
you can live off the vapours of that feeling for a lot of bad gigs in between. The reflex to blow those
moments up also has the effect of upgrading the bad shows--the ones best described by Joel
Plasket in these immortal lines: "Picture one hand clapping, now picture half that sound..." But even
those gigs can have their moments. What can say, most musicians I know are dreamers and
optimists with a knack for turning lemons into lemonade. That'll have to be it for now Justin. I'm
running from A to B.

Cheers

Andrew Cash

Martin Arnold's Bottom Line

by Justin Haynes

The first time I heard Martin Arnold play music I knew something was up. I didn't know what. Still don't. When I learned some years back, that he was not just a psychedelic electric guitarist but amongst other things, a real-deal Composer, I went fishing for his music, eventually getting some recordings from the man himself which may be the best way to get them. He encourages those who have his recordings to share them freely with others who are interested. Be interested. Martin's music is some of the most beautiful and beguiling I have ever heard. Never have I played one of his pieces for someone who wasn't deeply moved and perplexed by it. His virtuosic humility puts him at risk of being overlooked in his lifetime so I offer this bit of discussion we had on a Saturday morning, after he finished grooming a millionaire's kid's skating rink, as a penny in the jar. After convincing me he knew everything about 70's soft pop; speaking eloquently about Listening To Rain, Rudolf Komorous’ composition which uses every patch available on the Yamaha DX7); and explaining why he has only ever taken two photographs in his life; I asked him why he composed music. What follows is some of what he said.

Martin Arnold:

Fundamentally, it’s because I discovered a way to make some music that I like to listen to and that is as mind-altering for me as music by other people I listen to. It comes first from listening. I was never that interested in music as a kid beyond having the radio on after school playing cards and talking about girls. I liked a lot of soft pop; but even then, it wasn’t a big part of my life—it’s not like I was out there hunting for Carpenters rarities or anything. But when I was around15 a friend of mine started lending me some records that completely changed my life. The first batch were:

Charles Mingus The Candid Recordings featuring Eric Dolphy (1972 Barnaby Records)

Cecil Taylor New York City R&B (1961 Candid)

I didn’t know what to make of this at all.

It was still when he was sort of swinging but the dissonance was unlike anything I’d ever heard.

Gentle Giant: Octopus (1972 Columbia/Vertigo)

The Chuck Mangione Quartet (1972 Mercury)

Which I still like. I mean it hasn't faired as well as some of there others but I played it a couple of years ago for (Toronto bassist and composer) Rob Clutton and could still hear what I liked about it.

Oregon Music of Another Present Era (1972 Vanguard) then later Winter Light (1974 Vanguard).

Weather Report's Sweetnighter (1973 Columbia)

This totally messed me up.

Still one of my favourite albums in the world.

The wah-wah Rhodes is still completely deboning.

I guess that hearing all this stuff was so profound I wondered if I could take part in music somehow. I had played a little bit of pop bass in church and thought maybe I could be a bass player. I was aware that you didn’t have to be that good at bass to still be able to play with people which actually stayed true when I decided to pick up string bass academically (the University of Alberta orchestra was always short on bassists back then).

But I never, ever wanted to play more than listen. Regardless, I started playing more. It was sort of okay at first but I hated practicing. I took piano lessons with a friend to see if I could earn a credential I could use as an academic prerequisite; I played the same four pieces for a year and a half. You had to choose four pieces from the Grade 8 Royal Conservatory book for the exam; I did that and they’re the only things I learnt. One of them was a Ravel prelude—the simplest piece by far—two lines, really slow, rubato, modal, and I absolutely loved it. That was thing that really kicked it over for me. Holy smokes, I thought, this guy has written something with just two lines—easy enough for me to play as a non-piano player with almost no practicing—yet it’s absolutely killing me musically. I thought: maybe this is the point. The point is to be a composer because you can contribute something simple that can matter as much as something complex.

I mean, I think I held illusions that I could be a jazz bass player for years after that; but that steadily fell away and composition preoccupied me more and more. And it was basically because making music became more and more about wondering what I could possibly offer someone to listen to that could matter. That activity seemed way more conducive to my personality than trying to get really good on an instrument. I don’t think you can be a lousy bass player and contribute anything in jazz for instance. You actually have to practice (and I hate practicing).

So as long as I can keep writing things that matter to me I’ll keep doing it. But if I had to choose between writing a piece or playing a gig versus buying recordings and listening to them, I would quit making music this second. It’s always first about being a listener. That’s the bottom line.

Before Not The Wind Not The Flag…there was Bill Orcutt

Harry Pussy Alum Bill Orcutt is one of the kindest strangers I've ever had the pleasure of bothering. My abortive interview with him was completely defeated by the lousy technology that litters my lousy apartment. I wanted to talk about why his four-string absentminded acoustic guitar playing seems to be making such a significant wave in the culture. How can it hold together so well? How does it string the listener along? Is there a method? A secret? After trying to tease out information amidst unstable cell tower and satellite signals, distortion, clipping, and compression, we finally threw in the towel but he kept a buoyant sense of humour whilst enjoying his morning coffee in the comfort of his pyjamas.

When I first heard Bill's recent solo work my first impression was that this is someone who's played a lot of music. It seems to be some kind of distillation of having played hundreds and hundreds of shows and I wasn't surprised when he told me that there was no big conceptual design behind what he was doing. "I'm old", Bill said, "and I'm not trying to tell anyones story but my own".

Bill is 51, holds a Masters Degree in English literature and has two young kids. He caught the wave of the .com boom in 1997 once Harry Pussy went the way of all things and he moved with his wife from his hometown of Miami to San Francisco where he works full-time as a software engineer.

"I tour a couple of weeks out of the year and otherwise I'm at home. If someone comes to town and asks me to play a show I'll do it but otherwise I don't go out looking for them. It's really the last thing I want to do. I'm just too tired after work."

Wouldn't you know it? Working a job, having some kids, and playing some shows can be enough. More than enough even.

Nick Fraser's Mein Kampf

I met Nick Fraser when he was 15 years old. He already had an encyclopaedic knowledge of music; had shaken hands with Elvin Jones; had performed all-ages shows in his brother Malcolm Fraser's (World Provider) punk band The Permanent Stains; was studying and practising hard; and possessed a ferocious talent, unwavering dedication, and an intensely creative spirit. Since then he has played with some of the most accomplished jazz musicians in the world including Donny McCaslin, Wynton Marsalis, John Scofield, and Joe Lovano, but has also shared the stage with Seroquel poster boy Jandek, and drank a pint of his own urine at Wavelength whilst playing Depeche Mode cassettes backwards through a ring modulator. In many ways, he is one of the best. He took a break from his day job at the University of Toronto where he teaches drums to speak to me. I asked Nick why he plays music and about his recent project with Jersey City-based saxophonist Tony Malaby and what follows is some of what he said. - Justin Haynes

Nick Fraser:

I enjoy music and I like it and I'm good at it and people ask me to do it. Even if I get paid $14.00, which is not unusual, I still feel like it's worth it. I enjoy the process of making, practising and listening to music. I'm a very lucky man. I have imaginary tendonitis which is actually just repressed anger and anxiety. Twice I took a year off because of this condition and played electronic music with cassette tapes and a four track which I recently tossed. I have a complicated relationship with items. I have composed music but feel like I am on the low end of the spectrum of Composers. The only kind of composing I do involves a simplicity of expression and a trust of the people I have playing it. This is a compositional move I guess - a skill even - but it's one of the few skills I have as a composer. I like to play music and sometimes it's good for me to have music to play. I'm not crazy these days about totally improvised music. Just the minimal amount of composition that I do creates a significant difference in what happens musically. It offers some thematic centre. When you're just improvising freely you have to come up with those thematic centres collectively and there can be considerable disagreement, or what's agreed upon is often the lowest common denominator. Sometimes it's just really nice to hear something played in unison or "together" and then have it abstracted. Some people believe that music is fundamentally more conservative than other art forms. I don't know. Some people believe that talent doesn't exist. I don't know if I buy that. I would like to make a record with Betty Carter but she's dead. I like Billie Holiday too but she died before I was born; or Bob Dylan but he's never asked me. I can barely afford Tony Malaby so, I mean, it's totally acceptable to make artistic decisions based on how much money you have because if you don't, what you end up with is Hollywood. So we don't have to look very hard to find work where money is no object. I met Tony in 1996 in Sandpoint, Idaho and then later in Banff and New York. He's always been on my mind. Part of wanting to do this project is that I could just hear it. There was a collection of tunes I had that didn't really work with my band Drumheller. I thought if I had Tony playing these tunes it would sound amazing. There is also an aspirational part of it too I think. There are points on our recordings where I can pinpoint exact moments where he took the band and raised it up. That's what I need. If I could get that many, many times…It doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from being put in that position many times - that bigness. He kicked our asses in the most generous, musical sense. On some level that's what I need if I'm going to advance as a musician. I love working with peers - those guys kick my ass too - but it's equal. It's a different relationship with someone with that much power. Tony is a powerful musician. I need to get with that.

Before Not the Wind not the Flag, there wasTriumph.

The lead singer and guitarist of famed Mississauga-based power trioTriumph Rik Emmett, admitted to me that the only reason he called me back was because he thought I was the songwriter Justin Hines who runs a charitable foundation for people with disabilities for which Rik sometimes volunteers. Once he discovered I was just some yahoo from Offerings he was still amiable, and humble enough to meet with me at a coffee shop in Port Credit. At 60 years old he looks like like he's pushing 40 and is as far away from a Rock & Roll casualty as you're likely to meet.

Rik got his start singing in the choir, and playing on a banana harmonica, until he finally got his hands on his Great Aunt's Sears guitar at the age of 9. Growing up north-east of High Park, he attended Runnymede High School, won a contest to get a few private lessons, then did a semester at Humber, (where he is now on faculty), until he realized that he wasn't going to be a studio musician. He dropped out and went for it hard. After playing in a number of bands with moderate success he was headhunted byTriumph who went on to sell hundreds of thousands of albums and share stages with The Clash, Yngwie Malmsteen (who toured with the band briefly), and other equally disparate stadium acts. Though I tried to steer the conversation away from his days in Triumph it seemed impossible to not talk a little bit about it. He spoke some about the challenges of having penned mega-hits like Magic Power whilst still trying to move on as an artist.

"There is a power that exists in musical performance that can be like a holy communion but it can have a dark side too which is similar to the mob mentality that HItler was able to raise. I owe my fans some allegiance, affection, and respect but if they think that I'm not going to be a musician climbing a mountain; if fans are not going to respect that, fuck 'em. You can't actually please those people. I just try to be the best Rik Emmett I can be in this moment. I can't be 29 years old again in a pair of spandex pants."

I also asked him about the circumstances around which he got to meet and play with fellow guitar heroes Chet Atkins and George Benson.

"I was signed to RCA and when I was in Tennessee they took me to the RCA building that was actually owned by Chet Atkins. He was their landlord! You have to remember that Chet was the A&R man who first signed Elvis Presley. RCA largely existed on the revenue that Elvis generated. Chet was a sweet, cigar-smoking man who kept a guitar in every corner of his office - a great guy. As for George Benson, I did a show in Buffalo once and I knew that he was playing the same night in a different club because we had the same promoter. I really wanted to play with him so I cooked it. I got the promoter to staple a note on Benson's cheque that said a kid who was a big fan was playing down the street and would love it if he would come down and sit in with him. George Benson's album Breezin' was literally the soundtrack to my honeymoon. My wife and I played it over and over again while we were upstairs fucking. He was a big part of my life so getting to play with him was a dream come true. And he killed."

My last question to Rik was what advice he gave to students who were about to enter into a career in what's left of the music industry. He told me to write down the number .367. I thought it was π which is actually 3.14159 - whoopsie - and thought he was going to go all Yann Martel on my ass.) In actual fact, the number .367 is the batting average of Ty Cobb, widely recognized as one of the best ball players of all time and keeper of the highest career batting average of all time. I guess the lesson there is that even the best don't always get the pot of gold."

"It's a myth to think that opening a Car Wash or a Second Cup or whatever is going to secure you some kind of living. Businesses come and go. Musicians are in the business of providing passion and stories. Whatever you're passionate about is what you gotta do. There are two kinds of fear: (i) Don't jump off that bridge because something really bad will happen and (ii) You know you really want this is in your life but it's scary. You must ignore the first one and follow the second."

He took the CD I brought for him which he promised to give a listen but passed on the March edition of Offerings. Rik Emmett, he's all ears.

-Justin Haynes with special thanks to Chris Banks for the lift.

Steeringwheel de Bergerac

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Monday, 1 April 2013

allison cameron portrait by jennifer castle

Allison Cameron: The Economist

andrew cash portrait by jennifer castle

martin arnold portrait by jennifer castle

bill orcutt portrait by jennifer castle

nick fraser portrait by meghan lacroix

rik emmett portrait by ryan driver & justin haynes