Articles

  • My Rules - The Boxcar Boys
    Articles,  Big Ideas

    My Rules

    I’ve been a music booker for a while now, ((People have even paid me to do it at places like The Montreal House, The Peterborough Folk Festival, Harbourfront Centre, and The Distillery Historic District.))  and over the years I’ve developed some guiding practices that govern most of what I do – something I think of as my rules for booking. I tend to stick to these rules because they work, and because whenever I’m unsure, I’ve got them to point to true north. Other bookers are their own people, and I neither expect that they’d adhere to this exact set of ideas nor do I think any of these are…

  • Fuck Instrument Thieves - Hug_a_Guitar_by_MyCameraIsSuicidal
    Articles

    Fuck Instrument Thieves

    A lot of my friends and acquaintances are musicians, and so fairly regularly I see notices crop up on forums and social media about stolen musical instruments.  Every damn time, it makes my blood boil. Any performance-level instrument is worth a few hundred dollars, at the very least – most a lot more than that.  Depending on quality, age, and customization, they can be worth much more – easily thousands of dollars.  So I understand why it’s tempting for the sticky-fingered, desperate, or unethical person to grab a guitar and go, heading to Craigslist or shady pawnshops to offload their ill-gotten beauties. ((I’ll admit sympathy for some thieves, based purely…

  • Articles,  Big Ideas,  Events

    Ideas: the difference between a folk festival and a music festival

    The difference between a music festival and a folk festival isn’t the kind of music they book. I can’t tell you what is and is not folk music; like most genres, the definition is shifty and slippery and very personal, and I’m not too interested in what it really is.  And I don’t pay much mind to people who complain that Folk festivals don’t book folk music any more, partially because I think the argument is bullshit, partially because I think that a lot of musical traditions have picked up some of the torches that folk has dropped, but mostly because I don’t think a Folk Festival is defined by…

  • Articles,  Events,  Ontario

    Ideas: A small-town musical roadshow

    Ideas is a series talking about the communities, people, and ideas surrounding the music and culture industries. I love Ontario’s small towns; I grew up in one, a tiny village called Keene that, even today, is home to only about 500 people.  I’ve got no illusions about small-town life – it can be stifling and tortuous, especially for a young woman with unusual tastes who doesn’t fit in.  But there’s lots to be said for their sometimes-fading charms; heritage downtowns, odd little shops, idiosyncratic bits of architecture.  They’re monuments to a time when our country was more sparsely populated but prosperous, when travel was slower, and when even a small…

  • Articles

    Listening to 2012 Festival Submissions: Part 3

    I get hundreds of submissions to the Peterborough Folk Festival every year, and this year I’ve decided to capture my favourites in a series of posts. You can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. Here’s a list of artists who I listened to who caught my positive attention for one reason or another; being included in this list doesn’t mean I’m going to book them (tho I’m noting the ones that are shortlisted for PFF 2012), or even think they’re right for our festival, but it does mean I think they’re doing something right, whatever that’s worth. Kae Sun (Toronto?) [PFF Shortlist] – Gorgeous acoustic guitar, poppy rhythms, and a hip-hop groove as…

  • Articles

    Listening to 2012 Festival Submissions: Part 2

    I get hundreds of submissions to the Peterborough Folk Festival every year, and this year I’ve decided to capture my favourites in a series of posts. You can read Part 1 here. Here’s a list of artists who I listened to who caught my positive attention for one reason or another; being included in this list doesn’t mean I’m going to book them (tho I’m noting the ones that are shortlisted for PFF 2012), or even think they’re right for our festival, but it does mean I think they’re doing something right, whatever that’s worth. Vandana Vishwas (Missisauga) – I can imagine lying back in the grass on a sunny August day…

  • Articles

    Help Me Promote You

    This article first appeared on RootsMusic.ca in 2010. You can view the original here. Last month, when talking about methods of submission to presenters, I wrote “I would… give a lot of thought before booking anyone who has not at least made an attempt at a professional presentation.” So, does how you appear and present yourself matter?  Well, of course it does.  It matters in every single social interaction you’ll ever have, and influences the way people perceive you on a very basic level.  But setting that aside, how does it affect your artistic career? I know we’re all here for the music, and the other stuff is seen as often…

  • Articles

    10 Things I Want Musicians to Know

    This article first appeared on candaceshaw.ca in 2009. You can view the original here. I’ve been a ‘Talent Buyer’ for a decade; first, booking a local bar called The Montreal House, then moving on to become the Artistic Director for the Peterborough Folk Festival from 2006 to 2013. I’ve been a juror for the JUNO Awards and FACTOR, and currently run a mutli-arts festival called Artsweek. I’ve found that artists tend to make the same mistakes over and over, and I hope that by laying them out fairly bluntly I can help emerging artists understand a few things about the bookers’ side of the music industry. Read on for things you can do to avoid…

  • Articles

    Listening to 2012 Festival Submissions: Part 1

    I’m entering my sixth and final year as the Artistic Director for the Peterborough Folk Festival, August 24 – 26, 2012. It’s been an interesting job, full of astonishing discoveries of both very good and very bad music and insights into human character. We’ve come to that time of the year where I stare down the enormous pile of submissions and start to chip away at it, one song at a time. If you’re interested in my immediate reactions and thoughts while I listen, you could follow along on myTwitter account, where I mostly bitch about the things that artists do which are driving me crazy as I see them over…