[mplpost] Canadian Guitars

[Shelter Valley Productions]

Well this is a bit of a wandering Canadian guitar story...I thought I'd just
throw in a comment or two but now find myself writing an introductory
disclaimer after an hour of reminiscing at the keyboard.

Enjoy!!


My first guitar was a Yamaha bought at Jims Music in Cobourg.

I was 16.

My father cashed in a savings bond to by it for me because I casually
mentioned an interest.

I had forgotten he had done that, and marvel at the faith he had.

It was a glossy guitar. sleek and tight, and though I liked the idea, I was
disappointed. I though with a guitar you would immediately have some sort of
connection, some sort of feeling.

it sat in a case for years because I had no idea how to work the thing and
it made my fingers hurt like hell. I couldn't understand what would drive
other guys my age to spend endless days locked away in their bedrooms
playing the cursed thing.

But despite this I dragged it everywhere I went, and it sat like a shadow,
waiting.

it came on Highschool field trips and was never played
it flew with me to college in BC and studied patience
it sat under my bed on a dairy farm in Quebec for 4 months
and bumped its way up the stairs into my first apartment in Montreal.

This wild guy Frank lived across the hall from me. He spent most of his time
evading police for some ridiculous amount of parking ticket offences and he
was quick to everything.

One day he was over and saw my guitar case propped up in the closet. He
opened it and saw a band new Yamaha (4 years old by then). He loved it. I
told him I never played it. he charged across the hall and dragged back a
wretched old case and producing a guitar he said "TRADE YA!"

It was soft and quiet and had a slim tapered headstock and a humble yet
elegant print of a bird at the top. I loved it.

It was a Seagull.

Frank marched away with the Yamaha and I sat and played my Seagull for
weeks. Missed entire chapters of my archaeology and English classes. My
room-mate, David Newland, had a book of campfire songs from some Parry Hoot
Campfire Club and with his beat up Sigma and my well worn Seagull we chopped
through as many songs as our fingers allowed and our neighbours would
tolerate.

He knew all the small-town classics and plenty of CCR. Cords were
irrelevant..it was the singing that did it, it just seemed strange to sing
without something to play and so the guitars were strummed till they knew
how to follow us. As I figured out where to send my fingers I started to
share the old Irish songs my parents sang.

And so songs of dusty back roads and misty lanes filed our wobbly little Rue
Decarie abode.

Then one evening, one of many at The Old Dublin Pub in Montreal, slowly
nursing the only pint I could afford, I realised something...I was paying to
come and hear a guy sing songs I knew, and could increasingly play. And HE
was being PAID to sing them.

I was sold. the next few years were spent working up to playing the pub so
that my Ontario Student Loan might be put to some better use.

(Sorry I don't have a story with less mercenary motivation for my first leap
to the stage)

however

I quickly tired of the pub scene but learned enough to enjoy singing songs
around the campfire at work in Alberta for the next 2 summers. The Seagull
went everywhere.

It eventually came with me to Moosonee and sat in my apartment overlooking
the ice roads, the liquor store and the Polar Bear Express Tracks. Many a
night I sat in the dark of my apartment and sang songs staring out that
window, trying to sing my way out of that town.

when I ran out of songs I would put on my favourite records, tapes and
CDs(many of which were artists I now have the honour and pleasure of sharing
the roads, stages, and airwaves of this country with.) At the time I could
only dream that one day I would get to travel to folk festivals and watch
great performers I had only heard through my stereo.

Liz Foulds was also in Moosonee at the time and the two of us dreamed of the
world of FOLK MUSIC and longed to be part of it.

Things got rough in Moosonee, too rough and bitter to remember mostly. In a
town of 1000 with no roads out, plenty of animosity, and the only liquor
store on the Bay, you could find yourself spending a lot of time indoors
starting out and singing songs to any friend who would sit down to listen.

My Seagull guitar sat and offered itself time and time again as a voice and
a charm.

Driven inside myself by the town I wrote my first song on it, then my
second...
And then decided it was time to leave my teaching career behind and become a
folk-singer.

that's all you need isn't it? 2 songs?

It so happened that just then Tamarack came to Moose Factory for a one week
school workshop.

I had tried to track this band down for years but always missed them, a week
too late or early in every town I saw their poster in. I had carried with me
for years what I now understand is a rare copy of a cassette called the
Tamarack Collection (a greatest hits to date - at the time - collection). It
was a promo tape they had sent my Dad in the mid eighties when he was
organizing a little waterfront festival in Cobourg. But here they were, in
the barrens of James Bay muskeg. I wasn't going to miss my chance. I took
the water taxi across the Moose River to a songwriting workshop where I
hoped I might play my song and have them carry me away to freedom and
perhaps have need for a driver or a roadie for the rest of their lives on
tour.

Of course I hadn't honed the art of shameless self promotion at that point
and only at Liz Foulds' prompting did I play "Fly Away". Alex Sinclair took
me aside to talk about the song and asked to record it on a little
Dictaphone he had with him.

I was elated for weeks.

Then up came Lorna Ryan with the Ontario Arts council (now with Trillium) to
talk to folks about grant programs for northern communities. I had a mild
case of "trying to restore the old town theatre" fever and then it faded,
but I was left with the new knowledge that there was an arts council that
had funds for artists (I had yet to experience the joys of completing the
actual application for said grants)

then, wonder of wonders, the internet came to Moosonee. Yes folks it was
1996.

I bought a second hand computer, signed onto the internet and typed in "folk
music".

The Borealis site was listed so I clicked on it. My first internet
adventure.

I read their material, saw Paul Mills, Grit Laskin, Bill Garrett and Ken
Whiteley involved and began my first ever email.

It was sent to Jane Harbury, who was handling publicity for Borealis. She
forwarded it to Eve Goldberg, then office manager, who was kind enough to
respond.

I say kind enough because it was a desperately naive email.

"a cry from the north' I believe, wondering how to get recorded by someone
at BOREALIS.

With my 2 songs how could they resist.

I also asked if I was out of line to think I could come south and simply
walk into the music scene. Where would I start?

Eve suggested that the folk community, of all music scenes, was very
supportive but that one would have to spend a lot of time just playing the
scene, getting know.

Well that was enough for me, I could see the ink on the paper already.

I packed my bags and made for the Southland.

I won't go on too much longer...it's 2 am and I have rehearsals with Trevor
Mills and David Rogers tomorrow for the 3rd anniversary of my own record
company Shelter Valley Productions.

I don't play the seagull much anymore (other than around campfires) because
it has a terribly tinny sound through a board. Chris White was the first to
suggest stepping into a more suitable stage/performance guitar, and in fact
took me under his wing 3 years ago and put me up in his house for a weekend
while showing me the folk scene in Ottawa. Eventually he brought me to the
Ottawa Folklore centre where I fell in love with a CORT. Played it for the
past 3 years. Recently sold it to pay for the endless repairs made to a 1972
Gibson I picked up in Cobourg at the same store my dad bought my first
guitar in. Got it repaired in Ottawa, in a basement in Vanderhoof BC, and
finally in the wonderful hands of Mark Stuttman here in Guelph.

I have plenty of people to thank for tugging me along on this journey, and I
have one guitar I will never part with. the quiet little seagull that made
me feel like I could play. It gave me a voice, cash on street corners, a
number of fine pints of Guinness from the old fellas who "hadn't heard that
song in years", the courage to leave behind a salary, dental plan, vacation
and pension, the conviction to drive all over Hells acres to perform, and
from it was drawn the cords to my first 2 and truest songs.

The same two songs I dared to ask Paul Mills to let me play as an opener for
him 3 years ago when I didn't have enough to get into his show at the Free
Times Cafe and he didn't know me from any other guy with a guitar standing
in the rain.

The same two songs (among others) that I'll be playing tomorrow night at the
TRANZAC Club (292 Brunswick Ave.)   ** this self promotion thing is now
impossible to escape **

Goodnight all


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