Nigel John Stanford
Published on 14 Sep 2017
► Album & 4k Video: http://NigelStanford.com/y/a-/Automatica
► Spotify: http://NigelStanford.com/y/Spotify
Subscribe and like to see more Robot videos, as I release them for my album Automatica.
Robots rock, they were fun to work with. My favorite is the robotic drummer. More work to be done, and maybe I could play with them live. Stay tuned Thank you to Kuka, Sennheiser and Roland
Cinematographer
Timur Civan
Collaborator
Roman Bilichenko
Director
Shahir Daud
Category
Music
Licence
Standard YouTube Licence
Music
“Automatica” by Nigel Stanford (iTunes)
A huge thanks to all the people who helped me make this record. And thanks to everyone for your patience. I hope you all like it. http://NigelStanford.com/y/a-/Automatica
This video is just… Man! Melody, feelings… I just felt like this mashines feel what they do, not just go after script. (Sorry for my English). Tried my best. Great! Masterpiece indeed.
Is it ethical for media streaming companies, such as Spotify, to take advantage of IP loopholes, which are known to negatively impact artist revenues?
Values:
>Balance & Fairness
>Legal Values
Loyalties:
a. Duty to service
b. Duty to subscribers
c. Duty to shareholders
d. Duty to Intellectual Property
e. Duty to Art & Commerce
Principles:
Aristotle’s Mean: “Moral virtue is a middle state determined by practical wisdom.” Virtuous people will arrive at a fair and reasonable agreement for the legitimate claims of both sides somewhere in the middle of two extreme claims.The two sides must negotiate a compromise in good faith. “Generally speaking,in extremely complicated situations with layers of ambiguity and uncertainty, Aristotle’s principle has the most intellectual appeal.”
BASIC CONCEPT:
Negotiated compromise.
>>Streaming Media Company
For the Purpose of analyzing an isolated streaming media company, Spotify will be examined through the lens of the potter box. Spotify is a streaming service with cross-platform availability that specializes in music, and generates income from its 20 million premium and 75 million free users, respectively. Spotify boasts an extensive catalogue for free and for a nominal fee. Spotify’s extensive catalogue is made possible due to established agreements between various record labels and media companies. Agreements that are known to negatively affect artists, while benefiting both Spotify & Record labels, plague the music industry. Payout deals between Spotify and record companies range from royalty payout to equity deals.
Spotify does not want to make adjustments to the model of its free service, because if their users are not able to find it on Spotify, they will utilize other streaming services such as youtube, which is likely to have the content. They have identified this free offering as being their driving force for getting new subscribers to the service. New subscribers that turn into increased revenue for record labels, as 70% of revenue from $10 per month subscriptions and advertisements are paid to record labels, artists, and song publishers.
>>Artists—Influence: Art/Media Creators
The Artists on Spotify collectively stream over 30 million songs across 58 different markets. Despite collectively making up a heart from which Spotify thrives, Artists receive 6.8% of streaming revenue, the smallest share of the pie.
Artists receive 10.9% of the post tax payout between artists, labels, and songwriters/publishers. Many artists including Adele, Taylor Swift, the Beatles, and Coldplay have opted for keeping music off of Spotify.
Spotify does not have direct agreements with most artists. The streaming company has agreements with labels, whom are responsible for not only securing licenses to music, but to are also responsible for payouts to artists. So essentially, Spotify pays labels, and the label is empowered with payout to artists. The problem is not that Spotify refuses to fairly pay for royalties; it is the trickling down of payment from labels to the respective artists. Spotify has wholesale access to music catalogues from record labels, which makes it hard to fairly split royalty payments amongst artists that are under contractual agreements with respective label.
Even with leaked contract between Spotify and Sony Music available, it is still unclear how much of payouts to record labels actually get to the hands of the artist. It is clear that Sony Music is getting a hefty payout annually, but the question is still whether or not these hefty payouts are passed on to the artists.
>>Major Record Companies
The music catalogue on Spotify is mostly populated by content from major record labels that include Sony Music, Universal Music Group, EMI, Warner Music, Merlin, and The Orchard. Self-published artists as well as artists from independent labels also help makeup Spotify’s catalogue.
Record companies have begun to further question Spotify’s free model since Taylor Swift and other artists have proactively opposed Spotify’s extensive free offerings to users. Streaming consumers of music increased by 54% between 2013 and 2014 according to the Nielsen SoundScan. Major record companies are often made better deals, which disproportionately disadvantage independent artists and labels.
Executives at major record label such as Universal Music and Warner Music have made statements about the extensive free offering of its licensed music is not sustainable long-term. It was suggested that there needs to be a more clear differentiation between content available to free and premium users. Bjork has suggested that Spotify should not allow access for certain content right when it comes out, but should allow for content to go through certain rounds of monetization before ending up on Spotify, similar to Netflix’s rollout method for its content. Major record labels are currently in the process of renegotiating agreements, and are mostly pushing for adjustments to free service offered.
Their goal is to have the “freemium” model disappear as time persists.
What is the current policy?
A legal agreement between Sony, the second largest record company in the world, and Spotify recently leaked, which further intensifies questions about fair payouts for artists. The contract confirmed that major record companies benefit from the success of the streaming service Spotify. The contract details advance payments of over $40 million, with a $9 million advertising credit. Sony has declined to comment on the leaked contract, as it was illegally obtained. Labels routinely keep advances for themselves according to an industry insider.
The leaked contract detailed agreements between Sony Music and Spotify, but not between Sony Music and artists. Such fruits of private agreements don’t necessarily trickle down to the artist, because in most cases they are not even aware of an under the table deal unless a leak has occurred. Unstated under the table deals are not ethical, because artists do not benefit from funds received on account of their intellectual property. The International Music Managers Forum urges European and American authorities alike to use the Sony leak as an example of why more transparence is necessary.
Artists are not being fairly compensated for use of their intellectual property.
Streaming companies have established a revenue arrangement with major Record Companies that often does not favor artists. The obvious shortfalls with existing policy include the lack of transparency when it comes to agreements between record labels and Spotify. There are no systems of checks and balances for ensuring that labels adequately and fairly share Spotify revenue with artists. There needs to be a streamlined system that puts everything on the table in clear view, for fair agreements between artists, label, and streaming company to be arrived at. Current policy also allows Spotify to take up to 15% off the top from revenue generated from ad sales.
What needs to be changed?
Spotify seems to be fairly paying for royalties, but the flow of cash does not always get to the artists. Substitute apps; try to compete with Spotify, by challenging the freemium model. Other apps such as Tidal aim to provide audience with exclusive content that they won’t find anywhere else. The problem is that apps such as Tidal market themselves as a music-streaming app by the artists for the artists. Nowhere in that equation is the interest of the average potential consumer considered. Artists may receive more money per stream, but the service is double the price of Spotify. Record companies, and artists alike, are moving away from Spotify’s freemium model. The digitization of music is not the problem, as most artists and labels generally trust certain digital services such as itunes, because it translates into revenue for artists with no veil or strings attached. Extensive free offerings seem to be the major issue that involved parties have with Spotify, but it is the only thing that drives traffic according to Spotify. The freemium offerings need to be changed in some way, but in a way that is non-disruptive to Spotify’s commerce. Since Spotify pays its fair share of royalties, a more streamlined agreement between record labels and artists should be established and transparent, as should deals made between Spotify and record labels.
Major record labels need to stop double dipping. Not only do they receive cash advances & royalties, but they also benefit from Spotify’s overall revenue stream as they have equity in Spotify of up to 18%. Billboard magazine interviewed two dozen record executives and they agreed that they were confused as to what Spotify was replacing, whether being a substitute for sales or piracy. Examples of setting limitations of the freemium service have showed signs of slowing down subscription growth rate. Spotify has stated that if artists are not fairly compensated from stream revenue, then it is a result of recording contracts and or label accounting practices. Some major record labels are fine with Spotify using their music to build business, because of their equity; they are looking ahead for profit from a future IPO. The artists would not benefit in the same manner, despite their content being the driving force for the app in the first place.
Click me! Future Art Sound
Scenarios
In a time of changing platforms and distribution methods, consumer trends has undoubtedly been in transition. The radio still accounts for an estimated 35% of music consumption, followed by CD consumption at 20%, free streaming at 19%, and paid streaming at 1%. Multichannel consumers, mostly millennia’s, account for 66% of music consumers. A multichannel consumer may pay for a streaming subscription, and make a physical and/or a virtual music purchase. The most common multichannel consumption combination is free streaming coupled with CD listening which accounts for 49% of multichannel listeners, followed by free streaming coupled with music downloads which accounts for 44%. Millennia’s are also known to engage in both free streaming and downloading.
Evidence
During the first quarter of 2014, Pharrell Williams garnered 43 million Pandora streams, which only paid him $2,700 as a songwriter. A statement from Pandora indicates that all rights holders were paid upwards of $150,000 within the first 3 months, and that the real issue is the financial dispute between labels and publishers. Pandora also indicated in the statement that labels are free to split royalties between themselves and artists, however they see fit. Clearly there needs to be more transparency for the cash flow between streaming company, label, and the artist.
Spotify returns 70% of its revenue to rights holders, with information about each artist to aid in the royalty split process. Streaming companies are engaged in fair due diligence where payment of royalties are concerned. The evidence is as follows:
Actionable Policy
The music industry needs a streamlined agreement between streaming companies, record labels, publishers, and artists. It is imperative that there is increased transparency, especially where cash flow is concerned. Artists should be able to see all cash and data exchanged between streaming company and label. Royalty holders need to publicly split funds amongst themselves and artists. Record labels need to be accountable to both their artists and streaming company, because an artist that feels swindled can create bad blood between the artist and the label and/or the artist and streaming company.
Recommendation
>>Actionable
1. Artists are cut into equity deals based on audience pull to streaming service per qtr
>>Streaming Services should provide analytics with specific data to aid audience pull observation for given artists
2.Major Labels are transparent with cash flow of compensation from Streaming Companies
Is it ethical for media streaming companies, such as Spotify, to take advantage of IP loopholes, which are known to negatively impact artist revenues?
Judgment:
It is ethical for streaming services to take advantage of IP loopholes, which are known to negatively impact artist revenues. Music platform are changing, and as such, better agreements need to be drafted to complement this change. Streaming companies have shown the numbers, and they are paying for royalties, which is essentially paying for the use of the music in their catalogue. Music streaming is an emerging market, which record companies themselves are invested in. The common mode of music monetization is moving away from CD sales, and that is undeniable. Music downloads take up a lot of data, so streaming is the most practical way for consumers to enjoy their music.
The freemium model of Spotify should not be eliminated, but it should certainly be reconsidered, or at least limited in music access. Premium, new, and sought after music should not be as accessible as music that has already exited the promotion stage. Their needs to be some sort of compromise between record labels and Spotify, to better differentiate between premium content and freemium content. Spotify does not want to compromise the availability of its music on either platform, and labels reserve right to pull any of their artists from Spotify as they wish. Spotify should do a better job differentiating free content from premium content, it’s only fair. Spotify should not compromise to the point that it becomes impractical, but should compromise in a way that is cost-effective for all parties. If this were to be attained, streaming companies, record labels, and artists would be happy, circumventing social dilemma. Jordan Muthra The New School University, M.A., Media Studies, Graduate Student
I then entered the working world and forgot all about making music. Fast forward 30+ years, and the itch to make experimental music overtook me again, but now technology had changed drastically. I no longer needed hardware. I discovered apps on my iPhone, and music platforms like SoundCloud and Bandcamp were all that I needed. I was immediately obsessed.
I yearned to use hardware/instruments again, but not being able to play an instrument is a definite hindrance I searched for cheap keyboards on the net. I soon discovered the “Stylophone” and ordered one ‘sight unseen’. It was unique, inexpensive and fun, but quite limited in sound variety. I started mixing the Stylophone with app produced sounds/music, as well as other “found sounds”. (I really appreciate the functionality of software based mixing apps, which are almost essential to my creations these days). I then stumbled upon a couple of user videos of the Hyve synthesizer, and knew I had to have it. It was clearly non-musician friendly (and looked so different, cool and fun).
Then came the disappointment … You can’t buy one! (BUT I HAD TO HAVE ONE!!!) Turns out, the engineer/designer guru behind this awesome device (Skot Wiedmann), has work shops in the Chicago area, and you can go build your own, ( very inexpensively ). I knew what I had to do. I looked at a map, saw that Chicago was about 8 hours away, and realized that I had to go build it. I started to plan the trip. I knew that a fellow SoundCloud musician and Facebook friend (Leslie Rollins) lived in Berrien Springs, Michigan, about 2 hours outside of Chicago.
This presented a twofold opportunity. I could hopefully, meet Leslie face to face, and hopefully have a place to spend the night. I contacted Les and everything was A-OK! I purchased a ticket to build my Hyve, and started to plan my road trip. The workshop was going to be from Noon to 3pm, Saturday Sept.24 in a cool space called Lost Arts in Chicago.
I had the whole week off from work, because I was overseeing a contractor doing extensive yard work at my house all week, and I was hoping to leave Friday so as to arrive at Leslie’s place in the late afternoon or early evening, spend the night, and leave for the workshop Saturday morning. Alas, plans rarely work as hoped.
The contractor wasn’t finished until Friday afternoon, and Les wasn’t getting home from a business trip until late Friday night. New plan! Early to bed Friday. Early to rise Saturday (2:30 am), and depart for Leslie’s place in Michigan. It was an easy drive, and I got to Berrien Springs (a beautiful sleepy little university village) around 8:30 am. Met Leslie, and got to trade stories over a great breakfast in a local cafe. Then, I quickly admired Leslie’s impressive modular synth racks at his home studio “Convolution Atelier” and then left for “Lost Arts” in Chicago.
Lost Arts is located in a cool old industrial complex. The workshop provided everyone with a surface mount board with the touchpad on one side, and components layout on the back. A sheet listing components and placement was also handed out, along with tiny plastic tweezers. Everyone then had their component side “pasted” with a solder paste applied through a pierced template, in a process similar to silk screening. Everyone then started to receive their very tiny components from the parts list. Following the placement locations, the components (chips, capacitors, resistors, etc) were set into their pasted areas with the tweezers (magnification and extra lighting was a must). Once all the components were placed, they were carefully “soldered” into place by simply holding a heat gun over each component until the solder on the board had adhered it. Once this was done, everyone had their 9v battery and line-out jacks hand soldered into place by Skot , and then … the moment of truth, Skot tested each one for proper operation.
It was a fascinating process and great experience. I met a lot of cool people at the workshop, both builders and staff/helpers! I can’t say enough what a fantastic experience this was, and what an awesome, diverse and versatile device the Hyve is. I doubted my sanity when planning this trip, but it turned out to be very rewarding!
Leslie and I then went back to Michigan, stopped at a local brewery in Berrien Springs (Cultivate) and sampled a few of their excellent brews, and then proceeded to Convolution Atelier to play with Leslie’s modular system. (I’m a newbie to all things modular, and I received a great crash course from Leslie on his very cool array!) Then it was out to dinner with Leslie and his wonderful wife Lisa, and finally back to their house where I stayed for the night, and finally hit the road towards home the next morning. It truly was a great adventure! For the Silo, Mike Fuchs.
There is general disagreement on whether Indian music can be performed on the harmonium and public interest in the debate is accordingly intense, as the controversially written articles and discussions prove to this day.
The matter has evaded scientific scrutiny until now…….click the following link to learn more about the harmonium in North Indian music: Full Text PDF- The Harmonium in North Indian Musicby Birgit Abels.
I learned about the Hamilton Audio Visual Node (HAVN) a few years ago by doing the rounds during Art Crawl. Since then it’s become obvious they’re hosting some of the most innovative music and visual art in Hamilton. I sat down with Connor Bennett and Chris Ferguson at the beginning of July to learn more about the collective and discover yet another reason to move to Hamilton. Connor and Chris made it pretty clear you don’t need an invitation to join the party. Featured Title Image, The HAVN Storefront on Barton Street Credit: Ariel Bader-Shamai
Timothy: How did HAVN get started?
Connor: Um, a few of us started a band, and we were practising in the basement of a student house and when it came time to leave that house, we wanted a space where we could continue to play, and show art, and we just lucked out, our collaborator and co-founder Amy McIntosh was living above a storefront and…
Chris: …had a good relationship with the landlord and managed to get the downstairs space at a price we could afford.
Connor: That was May, 2012, we opened up just as most of us were graduating from McMaster University.
Timothy: What does it mean to be a node for the arts? Is the storefront a critical component?
Connor: It’s probably not critical, although it’s nice, it’s really nice. I wouldn’t say it’s critical because we don’t do regular gallery hours, where people can just pop in. It is nice to have the storefront space for things like art crawl. We’re off of James Street but it’s still easier to get people out as compared to a studio space.
Aubrey Wilson Quartet in February 2015, Photo Credit: Amy McIntosh
Chris: Back to your question, as to what it means to be a node. Nodes are intersection points, which denotes the collaborative nature, the interdisciplinary nature of what we’re trying to do. And it was chosen for the sake of the acronym [Laughter].
Timothy: So what are your activities?
Chris: You could put it into four categories. We do art shows every art crawl, and occasionally outside of art crawl. We do music shows two to five times a month. And then there’s HAVN Records, our cassette tape little label. There’s also some miscellaneous things that are harder to categorize. We’ve done craft nights where people come out. Or if people in the collective supply an idea and make it happen. For a little while we had a darkroom in the backroom where people could develop photos.
Timothy: What are some of the highlights from the past couple of years?
Chris: It wasn’t something that I was involved with personally but I thought the darkroom was a really cool idea. It’s not something that’s widely available and it was a DIY thing where they obtained all the equipment and brought it all together. Some of it was donated by a like-minded friend from Guelph.
Connor: One of the best concerts I’ve seen recently was hosted by Cem Zafir and his partner Donna Akrey at HAVN, and they had a percussionist by the name of Tatsuya Nakatani come in and everyone in the room was transported to a different world, it was a magical moment. Those happen a lot. We’ve been really lucky with a lot of good music.
Hagface and Zena in August 2015, Photo Credit: Tony Hoang
Chris: What was the name of the show, I think Ariel and Petra did it, with the yarn, it was kind of, performance stuff; would you consider it a successor to the Quanta_1 show, where you and Kearon…
Connor: Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of like that…
Chris: An extension of that idea. Petra and Ariel did it, how would you describe it?
Connor: It was kind of a poetic yarn installation, with figures…
Chris: …and quotations.
Connor: It was great.
Chris: Really well executed. Not something you see a lot of.
Connor: Yeah, there’s lots of highlights.
Chris: We could keep going.
Connor: Once you start thinking about it.
Chris: I really liked our show for Supercrawl last year, which ended up being themed around Cootes Paradise, the Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark System, which is a conservation effort beginning with Cootes Paradise all the way into Burlington to connect some critical natural lands. The show really nailed the peaceful nature of it. Supercrawl is very busy, there’s tonnes of people and then you come to HAVN and it’s peaceful, relaxed.
Connor: Serene.
Chris: Yeah, Judy Major-Girardin, a professor at McMaster that taught a lot of the HAVN crew, was very generous with her time and she’s a big supporter of that initiative, so she put up a gorgeous installation with sound recordings from Georgian Bay. Frogs. Printed cheesecloth. It was stunning.
Corridors, in Support of the Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark System, September 2015, Photo Credit: Ariel Bader-Shamai
Timothy: What are your objectives? What is the need or desire that you are addressing?
Connor: I’d say from the music side of things, it’s a space for outsider music, for music that doesn’t really fit in a club or a bar. It’s a small space, really intimate, so even if ten people come out it feels like a nice crowd.
Chris: Yeah, It could just be a touring band who might have trouble booking a show at a bigger venue, because they wouldn’t attract a bigger crowd.
Connor: We know a lot of people who are booking shows in Hamilton and we’re filling a bit of a void since they’re not booking these types of shows. Like free jazz, for example, there’s no venues that are booking free jazz but we will gladly and enthusiastically book a free-jazz show.
Boyhood and Holzkopf in July 2015, Photo Credit: Tony Hoang
Timothy: How did you determine the scope of your practice?
Connor: Time determined that. When I started out with HAVN I was working a lot more with Kearon on the visual arts and installation projects and with time my interests and time investments moved more towards the music. It’s a natural evolution within the group, that we’ve settled into our roles based on our interests.
Timothy: Were those interests present from the beginning, or have they been nurtured over time?
Connor: One of the reasons why this has worked out for so long is that everyone has been really passionate about creativity, and art in general, and open to all art forms. That’s been the crux of why we’ve been around for so long, and putting on shows that are successful.
Timothy: What is your current relationship with institutional structures like the university and the gallery?
Connor: Well, quite a few professors from McMaster have shown art in our space. Judy and Dr. McQueen had a show recently. Other galleries? We have good relationships with other galleries, in particular, the Factory Media Centre, because we’ve done a lot of media art, not only that, we’ve shown a lot of art there, and both Amy McIntosh and Aaron Hutchinson have been on the board there. Amy’s been involved since the beginning.
Timothy: You position yourself as an alternative, though.
Chris: It’s not an adversarial relationship, like ‘that stuff is no good.’
Connor: We just don’t want to replicate things that are being done elsewhere. I’m sure we do it all the time. But the intention is to fill a void, take a risk.
Timothy: What are the benefits and limitations associated with your present configuration?
Connor: We’ve had trouble finding grants that apply to us. That’s one challenge because we operate with no inflow of money, so it’s just tough to make it work sometimes. That’s one of the limitations.
Chris: Sometimes I wonder if we put more time into the grants whether we would begin to take a different path. Like, having gallery hours wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it would be different than what we do now, and it would mean that we would be travelling down a more traditional path.
Timothy: Can you speak of the benefits and effects of HAVN, for yourselves and the broader community?
Connor: It’s such a useful space for us as artists and musicians, that’s kind of priceless.
Chris: It’s great to have a spot that you’re part of.
The Celestial Offerings Show in December 2015, Photo Credit: Petra Matar
Connor: Ideally we’re providing a space that’s inclusive, and open, where people feel comfortable. But if I was new to Hamilton and I went to HAVN I could understand feeling intimidated because there’s all these people who know each other already.
Chris: I think it’s always hard, because you establish your audience, and your friends, and you want people to have a stake in the space, that they’re part of it, that they’re not just attending shows, but that they’re part of the community too. But you have to balance that with being open and having new people feel that they can be part of it.
Timothy: So do you have any words of advice to people who might want to start a collective?
Chris: If I had any advice it would be pretty cheesy.
Connor: I don’t know. [Laughter]
Chris: The real trick is having the right group of people.
Connor: Get lucky.
Chris: Yeah, we couldn’t have made this happen in a bigger city where the rents are more expensive.
Hip-hop is not rap, although rap is part of hip-hop. Hip-hop is a culture and style that was born in the American city, growing out of the minds and experiences of predominantly African-American communities in late ’70’s New York. But by now it is everywhere. They love hip-hop in India and South America and here where I live in Norfolk, most farmers may not listen to hip-hop, but their kids certainly do.
Hip-hop is also a beat: the beat of rap music, the beat of the city beating here in the country, over the airwaves and out of car windows, vibrating through headphones in the air-conditioned cabs of tractors. It is a beat originally created by isolating the percussion breaks of jazz and funk records and remixing them live for dancing and block party revelry, and later to accompany the flowing, groove poetry of a whole new kind of poet: the rapper, Master of Ceremonies or MC—often poor and disenfranchised, but still creative, soulful and strong. Hip-hop, in its original form, could be considered a kind of technological, urban folk music, in the sense that its early practitioners did not record their sounds, and even resisted recording. Hip-hop was something that happened live.
But was rapping really a new form? There is another part of this story that has always interested me. In many of the African tribes from which slaves were stolen, the griot(pr. gree-oh) was a cultural fixture. Griotswere to West-Africa what the bards or troubadours were to Europe: mobile repositories of history in the form of oral tradition; cultural history sung and chanted to the beat of drums. Except in the case of the griot, that beat was African.
Griots were also expected to improvise poetry based on the current social and political scene, and were known for their sharp wit and verbal mastery. In many parts of West-Africa, a party still isn’t a party without a griot.
It is a testimony to the resilience of slaves that, denied the right to speak their own languages, they found other ways to speak, and sing, their true voices. There were the work songs of course, documented before they disappeared in the field recordings of Alan Lomax. But consider other examples. As blacks embraced Christianity, they injected the forms of church with Africanness. Black preaching became famous for its emotional power, spontaneity and, you guessed it, verbal mastery. Black gospel, blues and then jazz took the existing forms of American church music, folk and brass military music and made them African. Jazz and blues again incorporated the principle of the masterful voice, not spoken this time, but sung through the instrument itself, giving us the improvised instrumental solo. And rock and roll is a whole other subject…
Given this history, hip-hop is seen as an urban innovation on an old theme and a turn, perhaps full circle, back to the centrality of The Word. Rap is not merely poetry to a beat: these words flow with and around beats to create layers of syncopation, tickling the mind while they move the body. They are polyrhythms with verbal content.
At this level hip-hop is an art form, and while we may not always like the content of an artist’s message, if we care about art we can still engage with it on the basis of its merits. And we may consider its context. Some people, even creative people, will respond to poverty and systemic oppression with anger and violence. Some will focus their desire on all the trappings of money and fame formerly denied them. It’s not so hard to fathom.
But there are some, a few, who go another direction for justice. These are the warrior-poets who seek from pain the gifts of understanding, even wisdom. Even love. Hip-hop is known to borrow motifs from kung-fu movies, because there, too, you find the archetype of the warrior-artist, skills honed to razor sharpness, delivering beat-downs with fists if necessary, but just as often with the mind itself.
Granted, you will not find much of this style of writing on the radio. But it’s out there. To dig deeper, Google “conscious hip-hop” or “underground hip-hop” and see where that takes you. Word. For the Silo, Chris Dowber.
Be sure to ‘like’ Johnny’s Facebook “Jam Page” (link at the end of this article)- you can find live videos, recordings and other trivia and info about Johnny Mac Slater.
For those in the country music scene, talented Johnny Mac has a song for you. Known first to family and friends as John McIntosh, he added ‘Slater’ as a surname, hence his stage name is Johnny Mac Slater. It is a handle that fits his style well. He writes stories from the heart and magically transforms the words into beautiful songs which he sings and plays. Johnny Mac Slater spent some time in Nashville, writing songs and developing his craft. Now living in Hamilton, and happy to be close to his roots, he is working on a new project. Johnny says “I’ve recently been recording at Westmoreland Recording Studios in Hamilton for awhile now, and a CD release will happen soon.”You can bet he will stick with his life’s stories and experiences. Typically his lyrics are centered around girls and love, both lost or found, and then performed with passion and filled with emotion. He also appreciates a good party and quirky story. All of which are found in his songs. It is easy to see, he feels that “nothing makes a better song than a good story.”Some of his early influences you’ll find varied, including Glen Campbell, Keith Urban, Eric Church, Micheal Martin Murphy, Elton John, Kris Kristofferson, and even Boston, Pete Townsend and Motley Crue.The musicians he has teamed up with for his soon to be released CD have added some great sound. From a strong drum beat, clean bass lines and some very sweet guitar licks. There is no doubt it will be a hit CD. Watch his You Tube home page for a sneak preview of a song or two that will be on the new CD.
The daisyrock debutante guitar, ready to break a few hearts
As a younger man, I was like a cat in a bag, probably not unlike most, scratching for meaning and adventure. So when I got the chance for a job teaching in the Bahamas, I decided to go for it. Before I went out to my post on the island of Andros, I stopped over in Nassau to meet with my cousin who lived there. She cooked me dinner, and afterward she showed me around her house. In the basement there was a sandy old guitar leaning against the wall. She didn’t play it anymore and suggested I take it out to the island. I told her I didn’t know how to play, didn’t know anything about music, and didn’t want to take it. But I took it anyway. That teaching job was a total washout, but that’s a story for another time. Six weeks later I was back in Canada, with no job for a year, living with my parents again as a 29 year-old. It was a difficult circumstance. For some reason, that old guitar made the trip back to Canada with me, and I remember it staring at me in my bedroom. I didn’t know E from G, but decided that for me to be in this situation, with this guitar, with the time to learn it, was some kind of important sign I needed to recognize. So I started taking lessons, once a week, at my local hometown music store. Like any beginner it was a struggle, but struggle I did, learning those Neil Young songs that all the kids start with. It was very liberating. A couple of years later I met a real nice girl—Lisa, a chiropractor. Definitely marriage material. I’d been seeing her for quite a while, and it was getting to that crux-time of commitment, where future plans need solidifying, lest a biological clock begin to ring too loudly.
I was keenly aware of my responsibilities and knew that I loved this girl, but I just wasn’t sure if I was ready or not. The soul-searching had been going on for weeks and the matter continued to be grey, and I’m certain she felt me creating a certain distance while I figured things through. It was at my house one day when decisiveness finally cleared a path through my tangled emotions. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you” came out of my mouth. Lisa wasn’t in the house when I said that. Nobody was. But my guitar was sitting snugly in its stand, and it heard those words, and that was it. I broke up with Lisa the next day.
Such an important part of that decision was knowing my guitar playing would essentially stop if I went to the next level with her, and I was just starting to make real leaps in my ability, and had so much further to go since I’d started so late in my life. I couldn’t leave it behind now. The chapter was still being written. As much as I loved Lisa, I had to let her move on. Since then I’ve probably written 100 songs (definitely a couple about that situation), released a CD, cut my teeth in Nashville…too many things to mention. I’ve met so many great people and had so many great opportunities because of that guitar. The spirit and the energy surrounding it all is unparalleled. None of it would have been realized if I had different words for my guitar that day. As tough as it was, I know I made the right decision. Lisa is married and has a child now, and I feel really good about that.
For the Silo by John McIntosh (Speaking of Nashville, it really is true that you’ve got to “know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ‘em.” It’s a key to life. I’m reminded as well of a cameo in the Canadian road movie One Week. Tragically Hip frontman Gordon Downie is questioned by the protagonist: “How do you know if you’re really in love.” His answer is uncommonly succinct: “If you have to ask, you’re not.” Maybe the real question is: who, or what, do you love enough to live by? ed.)
The music collective GANFUNKEL released the 5-song-EP Fighting Music with Music following the successful 2013 release of Machine Coincident Jazz. The former album produced one song that reached #1 on jazz radio charts, 2 songs that reached #2, and one song that reached #3.
Ganfunkel listing on SOMA FM charts.
Ganfunkel is California-based and led by Simcoe native Rik Ganju. Personnel on Fighting Music with Music have recorded and toured with Esperanza Spalding, the Kronos Quartet, John McLaughlin, Terry Riley, Bela Fleck, Wayne Shorter and Zakir Hussain.
Ganfunkel’s sound is influenced by rock, jazz, funk and Indian classical music. Standing out on the new album is Stars Fell on Daniel featuring tabla maestro Salar Nader, and the legendary George Brooks on saxophone.
“The success of Machine Coincident Jazz validated our belief that multi-genre music has an audience that doesn’t want to be confined by traditional categories, “ says Ganju. “People are open to many styles of music depending on their mood. And just as film music evolves from minute to minute, our sound changes texture as the mood of the tune allows.”
Ganfunkel albums are available today on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and most major music download sites, and music videos can be found by searching on Ganfunkel at Vimeo.com
Ganju’s experiments with multi-genre music stretch back to the mid-2000s when he collaborated with Jarrod Barker on many avant-garde experiments.
Jarrod Barker
The track listing for Fighting Music with Music:
Chunky Town (featuring Kai Eckhardt and Dana Hawkins)
Shot in a Gambling House
Stars Fell on Daniel (featuring Salar Nader and George Brooks)
That Feel on Flesh (featuring Kai Eckhardt and Dana Hawkins)
I’ve never particularly been a Beatle’s fan. I like some of their songs. I like a number of them very much, but if I was asked the now proverbial question, “The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?” I would probably say, Oh, I don’t know, maybe The Who? The body of work of Mark Knopfler. Massive Attack were massive for me.
But I was not a child of the sixties, “an age of assassins,” John B. Lee writes in his poignant and powerfully executed preface, when “[o]ur childhood martyred almost all the heroes that we’d had.” John F. Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King (Malcolm X, not mentioned but later, yes). “The list is overlong,” Lee says. “It will not end.” I understand more fully than ever these life-shattering moments, for Americans and Canadians alike; for so many Across the Universe . Into this near death of hope came The Beatles. The Beatles came to America, came on a Sunday night in January 1964 to The Ed Sullivan show and, and as Lee exclaims with no exclamation mark, “sang my life awake.”
It’s not a perfect looking book. Yet as I read, the grainy cover photo (by an unknown photographer) of four dapper mop-tops fishing out the window of their Seattle hotel—they literally weren’t allowed to leave—starts to resonate. It’s imperfection could be viewed as integral, evoking a time in music when moments of “perfect imperfection,” as Michael Shatte calls them in his essay, were more common in pop; “happy accidents” which would not be tolerated in this era of hyper-produced top-forty songs, when singers voices are routinely, digitally “auto-tuned” in the studio, and we get used to being disappointed when we hear them live. Then there’s lip-synching. I don’t need to go on. There is great music being made by great musicians right now. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. This is about a particular moment in pop-music history, in cultural history, and many of the moments that followed.
The book is selected and edited by John B. Lee, a Canadian poet and writer who has published more than fifty books and received over 70 prestigious awards for his work. If you haven’t heard of him don’t feel too bad. He tells me openly there is little money in poetry, reminding me it’s not about that anyway. If it was it probably wouldn’t be poetry.
If you haven’t read him it might be time to start: his verse and prose catch the beauty of rural life, farm life, family life, hockey, human sexuality—life. Just Google him. He’s from home, you know. Right around here, right around me, the Poet Laureate of Brantford, Ontario and Norfolk County, home as well to Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky, a poet of sport. Like McEnroe was one of the poets of my youth, making tennis beautiful, thrilling, creative; revolutionary. How I tried to emulate him…
Window Fishingis about a time of Revolution, evolutions in culture, and about growing up in the thick of it all. I wasn’t here yet, but as I read this book I learn. It is a literary volume. The cover photo and torn ticket stub on the back page are its only images. Or are they? Because black words on white paper are also images. And the book’s words, artistically rendered, conjure images as well as ideas. It is poetry, and prose poetry, and personal essays; fine writing by a collection of fine writers.
I learn that for most of the men, who were boys then, pubescent, the Beatles were all about music: musical discovery, even ecstasy. And style too. There was style.
For the women who write about the phenomenon of Beatlemania, there was music too. Absolutely. But there was something else. Something profound: the awakening of sexuality. Even a kind of love. Suddenly I understand all the screaming and crying, the fainting. For emerging, young (straight) women, the Beatles were more than musical. They were also beautiful. Sexy. As Susan Whelehan puts it in her essay: “John. He was mine and I was his…I was going to be his FOREVER. And I am.”
While many parents of the day may have dismissed The Fab Four at first as a silly “boy-band,” we might say now, shaking their longish (for the time), round hair-cuts—singing “Ooooo!” and “Yeah Yeah Yeah!”—fact is from the beginning The Beatles were always at the very least competent,andobviously compelling, musicians. Writes Honey Novick in her probing, poetic essay: “You could actually dance to their music.” And we know they became more and more sophisticated as they progressed through their careers, eventually making challenging, often satisfying real art-music, the way Radiohead did for me in my 20’s.
All this beautiful literature about The Beatles and the 1960’s has inspired me to listen, finally, seriously, to the music. Even if you thought, at the time, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” was just bubblegum for kids, consider the lyrics. One friend to another: “You think you lost your love/Well I saw her yesterday. She says it’s you she’s thinkin’ of/And she told me what to say: She says she loves you.” She loves you man. Yeah! (Yeah! Yeah!). What more is there to celebrate? Ecstatically.
If you were there, or if you want to learn, or if you care about music or culture or the 1960’s or just literature, embrace the “perfect imperfection” of this unique and potent book. Some of the poems made me close my eyes and shut the pages. To savour, digest. Bruce Meyer made me cry. I was 8 years old when Lennon was shot. Assassinated. It made no impact on me then. I wasn’t really there yet. The book put me there, as close as I can ever come. For the Silo, Alan Gibson.
Toronto, ON – A group of artists is setting out on a ten-day poetry and music tour by canoe down the Grand River in southwestern Ontario. For the fourth year running, the group, calling itself Fish Quill Poetry Boat, will be paddling from Elora to the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and performing their work in cafés, arts centres, and heritage sites along the way. Fish Quill Poetry Boat in 2013 is comprised of poets David Seymour, Gillian Savigny, Leigh Kotsilidis, Linda Besner, and Stewart Cole, with London musician Grey Kingdom.
Fish Quill Poetry Boat will kick off the tour with a performance in Toronto on June 13th at 8pm at the TRANZAC Club. Scheduled stops for Fish Quill Poetry Boat are the Elora’s Beaver House on June 15th, West Montrose Kissing Bridge on June 16th, Waterloo’s Words Worth Books on June 17th, Cambridge’s Wired Up Pugs Café on June 19th, Paris’ Cedar House Martini Bar & Grill on June 20th, Brantford’s Station Coffee House & Gallery on June 21st, and Six Nation’s Chiefswood National Historic Site on June 23rd. With the exception of Toronto (8pm) and Elora (2pm) all performances are at 7pm. Cambridge’s performance has a $10 cover charge, and all other performances are free.
One notable stop on the tour is Chiefswood National Historic Site on June 23rd. Chiefswood is the only surviving pre-Confederation Native mansion in Ontario, and is the birthplace and childhood home of celebrated writer and performer
Tekahionwake, E. Pauline Johnson, best known for her iconic canoeing poem, “The Song My Paddle Sings.” The year 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of Pauline Johnson’s birth. Curator Karen Dearlove says, “We believe that the Fish Quill Poetry Tour is a great way to feature contemporary poetry and creativity at a site known historically for fostering literary creative dreams.” Fish Quill Poetry Boat will be sharing the stage at Chiefswood with local Six Nations writers and performers.
Fish Quill Poetry Boat is in its fourth year, and canoes are once again being lent free of charge by Paris-based outdoor adventure company Treks in the Wild. “A very cool idea,” says Andy Tonkin, canoeing guide and co-owner of Treks in the Wild, who will be coming along for the ride. The Grand River Conservation Authority and rare Charitable Research Reserve also sponsor the tour and will be giving presentations at select venues.
This year Fish Quill Poetry Boat has also put together an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. You can watch a video of Leigh Kotsilidis and Linda Besner explaining how the tour works-
As a reward for contributions made, donors to the campaign can receive perks, such an anthology of past and present Fish Quill Poetry Boat participants. So far, that’s fifty poets and musicians! CP
Thank you to Kuka, Sennheiser and Roland
I yearned to use hardware/instruments again, but not being able to play an instrument is a definite hindrance 
This presented a twofold opportunity. I could hopefully, meet Leslie face to face, and hopefully have a place to spend the night. I contacted Les and everything was A-OK! I purchased a ticket to build my Hyve, and started to plan my road trip. The workshop was going to be from Noon to 3pm, Saturday Sept.24 in a cool space called
The matter has evaded scientific scrutiny until now…….click the following link to learn more about the harmonium in North Indian music: 
