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2016 Canadian Festival Report Card
For the past twenty years, the music industry has seen its stages dominated by men in most genres and scenes. With the exceptions of the occasional women-focused festivals, like Lilith Fair, women have tended to see very little representation on stages, and nowhere is that more noticeable than at a festival, where sometimes hours can pass before a woman, a racialized person, or a member of the LGBTQ community walks on stage as a member of a band. With that in mind, we’ve been tallying up the numbers, and are presenting them below. This list is presented in the spirit of information-sharing – often, bookers and Artistic Directors don’t realize…
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NXNE PRESENTS A SAUSAGE FESTIVAL
From a piece I wrote for Electric City Magazine: “The Canadian music industry is a diverse, varied place, but you wouldn’t know it from the endless parade of white guys with guitars wanking across the festival stages and conference panels of the nation. Over the past month, NXNE have been releasing the lineup for their Portlands festival, and the list, while appearing more racially diverse with the most recent release, is still very dude-heavy. With three women-fronted bands and one genderqueer artist out of 16 total acts released so far, I have to ask: where the fuck are the women, NorthBy?” Read the rest at Electric City Magazine.
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Some thoughts about – and a good, green idea for – Music Submissions
There was a time, 15 years ago, when the wealth of CDs that suddenly started coming my way, as a full-time booker at a dive bar, was exciting and fun. Opening packages mailed from across the country was exciting – who knew what fabulous undiscovered gem was lurking inside that yellow padded envelope? Now I find myself looking at CDs – or any physical media music submissions – with a sense of weariness. The thrill of discovery is still strong, but it’s sometimes overwhelmed by the knowledge that every CD and paper package represents a use of resources that isn’t very smart or justifiable. I know there are some bookers/DJs/industry…
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Music City – A strategy
The points I’ve included below – headlined ‘A Strategy for Music Peterborough‘ – was created with my hometown in mind, but swap out a few names and organizations and this would be useful in any city to frame the way you approach different sectors with a view to creating a cohesive push to highlight music (or, I think, almost any local art or cultural highlight) and create a Music City mentality. I’ve made a few edits from the original document to make explicit the sort of things that I take as a given, but which aren’t obvious to everyone (like gender parity, inclusion of racialized people, good working conditions, etc.). A…
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A brief commentary on band websites and bios
I get a bit frustrated when I’m working to promote a band and they don’t have what I need in an easily-accessible format. Considering that all promoters are looking for the same things from artists, it always boggles my mind a bit when I can’t find what I’m looking for an an artist’s site, or when their bio is so poorly-written that it’s unusable. Remember when writing your bio that you’re talking to several audiences – fans, bookers/promoters, and media. Make sure that what you’re writing would be interesting and useful to those audiences – are there descriptive sentences that reporters and promoters can use to tell their audiences…
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2015 Festival Report Card
In 2015, two volunteers collected data on festival lineups in our second iteration of the Canadian Festival Report Card. This report graded Ontario festivals on gender parity on their stages. Here are the results: A 45% – 50%+ (2 festivals) Home County Music & Art Festival ON – 61.11% Summerfolk ON – 60% B 35% – 44% (3 festivals) Hillside Festival ON – 38.10% CityFolk ON – 37.84% Live From The Rock Festival ON – 36.84% C 25% – 34% (2 festivals) Eaglewood Folk Festival ON – 33.33% Mariposa Folk Festival ON – 30% D – 15% – 24% (1 festival) Northern Lights Festival Boreal ON –…
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On not getting gigs or grants.
The work I do means saying “No” a lot more than “Yes.” Whether I’m working as a booker or jurying a grant or award, the ability to say no clearly, politely, and unequivocally is one of the most valuable skills I’ve developed. As AD of the Peterborough Folk Festival, I’d generally get about 700-1000 submissions from musical acts, and I’d have 25 or so slots to fill. At minimum, I’d be listening, evaluating, and saying “No” 675 times to hopeful artists who’d poured their time, energy, sweat, and cash into their work. The jury for Artsweek Peterborough ((A festival which I saved from certain death, restructured, and ran for 2 years.)) got…
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Folk Alliance International Showcase
We’re heading on down to Kansas City in February with 3,000 of our closest friends and folkies to the Folk Alliance International Conference. Secret Frequency’s own Candace Shaw will be there, presenting a showcase room of Trad & International artists. Private showcases are the gem of music conferences; they are the late-night, hotel-room, no amplification opportunities for artists to play to a very, very intimate crowd – as many people who can cram into a hotel room. The next room over, there’s another band showcasing, and on and on, filling two full floors of the hotel with music and promoters and DJs and more. You’re up against If you can…
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On the cult of genius.
The arts are full of abusive narcissists, people who are “soooo talented” that we’re told we have to overlook their bad behaviour and cherish their scarce genius. We have some prominent examples before us currently, but it plays out everywhere. These people are in every arts community, and they are endlessly destructive. They hoard resources and connections, they cut down their peers, they support no one but themselves. Anyone who contradicts them is ostracized, shouted down, shut out. You don’t kiss the appropriate ass, or – god forbid! – you offer an honest critical opinion of their work. Suddenly you can’t access cheap rehearsal space, you can’t find collaborators, you…
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Women in Music Database
One of the discussions that arose from the Women in Music at FMO meetup in October was that a lot of women in the industry are looking for other women to work with – as producers, as side players, etc. It also seems to me that conferences and festivals who are asked or challenged on the issue of gender parity often say things like ‘We can’t find enough women to fill these spots.’ So with the aim of helping each other and promoting women in music, I’m gathering a database of women and the things they do in the music industry. Paid or volunteer, it doesn’t matter; if you identify…
