The Dominion - Matt Brennan

Race, Rock and Soul

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:50:01 +0000

<em>Jamaica to Toronto</em> raises questions about Canada's pop past

Decades after this photo was taken, the music of Wayne McGhie is finally being recognized. This Magazine

The Canadian media has recently been celebrating the release of the excellent compilation Jamaica to Toronto: Soul, Funk and Reggae 1967-1974:, part of a series of re-issues that are single-handedly prompting the rediscovery of a vital era of Canadian soul music. But they should also provoke Canadians to consider why such albums were forgotten in the first place.

The story of Jamaica to Toronto begins in 1962, when Canada changed its immigration laws in an effort to eliminate racial discrimination, an act that led to an influx of newcomers from around the world. Many of them settled in Toronto, including several talented musicians from Jamaica. One such artist was the young guitarist Wayne McGhie, who recorded an album with his band The Sounds of Joy in 1969. By 1970 there were approximately 45,000 people of West Indian origin living in Canada and a unique music scene was buzzing in Toronto, carrying influences of soul, rocksteady, funk, rock and reggae. Unfortunately, despite their talent and previous musical success in Jamaica, many musicians found it difficult to make headway in the North American recording industry, realizing that reformed immigration laws did not necessarily mean discrimination had lessened in other areas of Canadian society.

As Guy Dixon discovered while conducting interviews with these musicians for a recent article in the Globe and Mail, the musicians affected were still understandably sensitive decades later when remembering the discrimination they faced in Canada in the 1960s. Bob Williams, the singer for the group Bob and Wisdom, recalled: "We were making very good money in Jamaica. We were actually the highest-paid band in Jamaica, back in Montego Bay with Billy Vernon and Celestials. So when we came here, to be actually called a minority, it was very tough." As an example, when Bob and Wisdom recorded an excellent cover of Mac Davis' "I Believe in Music" (re-released on Jamaica to Toronto), Williams recalled that, "We actually took it to CHUM [then the dominant top 40 station in Toronto] and the guy told me that he wouldn't play it. I said 'Why?' And he said it was the best version he had ever heard, but he wouldn't play it because we were black. Straight up. So we kind of got despondent about it. And we just continued to do live shows and stuff, you know? We didn't bother with recordings because there was no outlet for it. So it's ironic that after about 30 years, it has made a resurgence."

Apart from the obvious strength of the music itself, the resurgence is mainly due to the efforts of Matt Sullivan, the co-founder of a small Seattle record label called Light in the Attic, and Kevin Howe, a music researcher and DJ based in Vancouver. For years, an album by Wayne McGhie and his band The Sounds of Joy had been sought after both by record collectors due to its rarity (most copies were lost in a warehouse in 1970), and by hip-hop producers due to its excellent breakbeats by drummer Everton Paul. After much investigation and hard work, Sullivan and Howe located McGhie and re-issued Wayne McGhie and the Sounds of Joy in 2004. Its success led to the expansion of the project to include more albums and songs by immigrant Jamaican musicians in Toronto.

It is wonderful to see the media attention devoted to these fine re-issues, celebrating the discovery of Canada's multicultural pop-music past. One would hope it would also prompt Canadian media to consider why such music needs rediscovering. Unfortunately, the same media that currently celebrates the Jamaica to Toronto re-issues simultaneously turns a blind eye to Canadian pop music of non-white origins in its representations of our music history.

As recently as January 2006, CBC-TV broadcasted a special entitled Shakin' All Over. It was billed as a "joyful look at Canadian music from the 60s" and was based on Nicholas Jennings's book Before the Gold Rush: Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound. The documentary purported to showcase not only the usual suspects in the Canadian pop pantheon—Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, the Guess Who, the Band and Gordon Lightfoot—but also many lesser-known musicians who didn't necessarily have any chart hits, but who were nonetheless important in shaping Canadian popular music history. Unfortunately, the only pop musicians of colour represented in the documentary were those we already knew: the Cree folk singer Buffy Sainte Marie and "super-freak" Rick James (James himself appeared to be included only as a novelty rather than an artist, due to his brief stint playing in the same band as Neil Young). The CBC documentary should have included any of the dozen Toronto bands that make up the Jamaica to Toronto re-issue series, especially considering the re-issue project started two years before Shakin' All Over came out, and that the documentary was touted as a programme that would uncover and pay homage to forgotten bands.

The forgotten soul, funk and reggae scenes of Toronto matter—or they ought to, anyway—precisely because they create a better, more accurate, not to mention more ethical, revision of Canada's music history, so that we might ultimately better understand how Canadian culture was constructed in the past, injustices and all.

Matt Brennan reviews Jamaica to Toronto, raising questions about Canada's pop past.

Proffessor Undressor

Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:19:34 +0000

Sumi-E Experiment (2003)

Many of today's most acclaimed electronica albums are recorded in the cramped bedrooms of computer-literate music nerds. Meanwhile journalists have invented the curious genre of "laptop music" to describe the trend. As far as I can tell, the term is not actually restricted to music made exclusively on laptops but rather refers to any synth-oriented music made on a person's home processor instead of the expensive computer workstations that are now ubiquitous in professional recording studios.

Now meet New Brunswick-based Jay Arnold, who has created the persona of Proffessor Undressor in a playful attempt to challenge and poke fun at these assumptions. Outfitted with a full vest, tie, pocket protector (!), and a beard that would rival even the tweediest of male university profs, Arnold begins to come into his own on his second album, The Sumi- Experiment.

I like Sumi-E most for its surprises. When you expect a funky folktronica bounce, you're hit with a lush Tricky/Bjork-style ballad, the melody soaring over patches of Aphex Twin-esque beats. When you expect a Roland 909 drum machine, you get a soundscape of static with jazz trumpets played backwards. Most surprising of all is that these odd juxtapositions actually work.

Sounds that are surprisingly satisfying are surely a hallmark of good music, in which case the Proffessor's experiments have proven successful, and are certainly worth your time.

Sumi-E Experiment (2003)
Many of today's most acclaimed electronica albums are recorded in the cramped bedrooms of computer-literate music nerds. Meanwhile journalists have invented the curious genre of "laptop music" to describe the trend.
- by Matt Brennan -

New Brain Machine Improves Musical Creativity

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 14:09:36 +0000

Image: Ftrain.com

Yes, you read the headline correctly, and no, I can't believe it either, but apparently scientists have invented a brain machine that dramatically enhances musical performance, thus paving the way for a new race of highly skilled super-musicians. According to the BBC, "the system - called neurofeedback - trains musicians to clear their minds and produce more creative brain waves. Research, to be published in the journal Neuroreport, indicates the technique helps musicians to improve by an average of 17% - the equivalent of one grade or class of honours. Some improved by as much as 50%."

The brain machine was tested on 97 students at the Royal College of Music in London, UK, and the percentage scores refer to examinations conducted by professional adjudicators. Anyone who has ever taken piano lessons as a child and gone through the trials of Royal Conservatory exams will understand that a 17% grade boost represents an incredible increase in musical proficiency (enough to send even the crankiest of teachers into fits of joy). But the student wouldn't be able to take the credit - thank the brain machine instead.

Most musicians feel that their best performances are the ones where the music just pours out naturally, and such moments of effortless vitality are usually rooted in a clear state of mind. Teachers will try to describe this state of awareness to students, but it's very difficult to put such a thing into words. As it turns out, its not so difficult to put it on a video screen.

The brain activity of a healthy human being can be understood as a collection of brain waves which scientists have learned to identify and isolate. With no musical instruments in sight, the technique consists of attaching sensors to your scalp so the machine can identify three main patterns - dubbed the alpha, beta, and theta waves - and display your own brain waves on a video screen in front of you. From there, as if playing a video game controlled by her mind, a musician can learn to concentrate and hone in on certain brain waves while the machine happily chimes a bell as she successfully learns to isolate one from the other. By teaching patients to increase their theta wave activity, scientists at Imperial College London and Charing Cross Hospital have effectively used the machine to help patients with epilepsy, alcoholism, attention deficit and post-traumatic stress disorders. The new development is that scientists have discovered that increased theta wave activity also enhances performance skills including musical understanding, imagination, and communication with the audience.

And so it is that machines have become far more effective than traditional human teachers in helping us to clear our minds and enhance our creative side. If such technology manages to spread beyond the limits of the experiment and grow in availability it will surely provoke no end of debate between the technophiles and luddites of the arts community. Since it so dramatically boosts performance skills, should musicians who use the machine be banned from competition with those who never had a chance to get hooked up? And from a philosophical standpoint, will this discovery come to be seen as the moment when all of our creative impulses were reduced to waves on a screen, shattering the mystery of the muse and sucking the wonder out of grace and inspiration?

I hope not. I can envision professional musicians who might chastise students for using such a machine, but what I cannot see is a good reason for their scorn. In its time, the invention of the metronome was no doubt met with similar resistance based on similar, unfounded reasons. The machine is not a performance-enhancing drug; it is a teaching tool. Its availability is prohibitive, of course, but so are the costs of tuition and of owning a professional musical instrument. Nor does the machine eliminate the need for practice; instead, if the technology becomes more widely available, it will simply raise expected performance standards for the next generation of musicians.

The philosophical implications may be another source for apprehension, but those who dismiss the discovery are probably the same people who want to cling to the notion of creative talent as being reserved for a chosen few, something you have to be anointed with at birth. But such views are as ignorant as they are selfish - musical talent is something that can be developed, and in a few cases, revealed dramatically by a special teacher. Perhaps this technology will be able to open up creative potential in those who were discouraged from pursuing music but have always secretly wished to be able to strum a chord. Which has to be a good thing.

Matt Brennan is studying media and culture at Stirling University.

-by Matt Brennan -

Review: Manitoba's Up in Flames

Fri, 11 Jul 2003 06:19:57 +0000

Manitoba Up in Flames Leaf Records Spring 2003 www.manitoba.fm

Dan Snaith is a stinking thief, of that I'm sure. His 'Manitoba' alias might throw a few off his track, since he actually hails from Ontario, though I'm sure none of his cronies in London, UK, will ever notice. He lives there nowadays, and claims to be working on a PhD in pure mathematics. But don't let that fool you.

Just like teenagers dumb enough to videotape themselves committing acts of vandalism, Manitoba recorded an album to document his misdemeanours. Listening to it, I was sure that he had broken into my old primary school and positively raided the music room. Egg shakers, a glockenspiel, finger cymbals, and a pile of recorders that were once used to play 'Hot Cross Buns' -- you'll find them all on Up in Flames.

Does this man have no shame? At one point, it sounds like he followed unsuspecting children and recorded them giggling. Not to mention the countless copyright laws he's broken by poaching everything from drum breakbeats to saxophone solos, strings and toy music boxes. Sure, he may have programmed some original rhythmic spurts and sputters and sung a few silly choruses overtop the rest of his microsampled mayhem, but does that mean we should all turn a blind eye?

Yup. Up In Flames is one of the most eccentric, creative and playful sample-based albums I've heard, and frankly, I can't wait to hear what he'll steal next.

Matt Brennan is finishing a master's degree on music and the media at Stirling University, UK.

Sounds Prohibited

Thu, 26 Jun 2003 10:00:58 +0000

Censorship rockin' in the free world

For the first time in nearly three years, aging hip-hoppers the Beastie Boys recorded and released a new song. Called "In a World Gone Mad", the song was inspired by the overt militarism of U. S. President George W. Bush. But Mike D of the Beastie Boys also cited another motivation for the recording: the reports of artists being discouraged from mentioning the Iraq conflict during this year's Grammy Awards. In the months of March and April, it seemed that everywhere you turned there was a pop artist or activist complaining that dissenting voices were getting crushed by the powers above. Surely, you'd think, all the belly-aching was exaggerated -- but then again, you'd also think that if the Beastie Boys released much-anticipated new material, you might have had a chance of hearing it on the radio. Fat chance, apparently. The age-old debate on censorship in the so-called free world has returned to the headlines.

Artists ranging from Chumbawumba to Yo La Tengo released protest songs during the war, but according to The New York Times these tunes were "virtually absent from commercial radio stations, where most programmers wouldn't dream of dividing or alienating their listenership." And yet somehow corporate censorship didn't stop redneck-cum-country-megastar Toby Keith, who scored a huge #1 in America with "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue", featuring the stunning lyrics "This big dog will fight / When you rattle his cage / And you'll be sorry that you messed with The U. S. of A. / 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way."

The recent wave of music censorship in the West has led some journalists to discover that the corporations who control the entertainment industry have long been close buddies with the world's most powerful political leaders. The top management at Clear Channel, which owns over 1200 radio stations in the U. S., has well-established personal and financial ties to the Bush administration. A recent Village Voice article summarized how Clear Channel's vice chair, Tom Hicks, made George W. Bush a multimillionaire by buying the Texas Rangers from him, and chaired a state university board that steered most of its endowment to firms with Bush and GOP ties. Caught with their paws in each other's pockets. Is it at all shocking to hear, then, that Clear Channel stations sponsored pro-war rallies across America? (This included one in Louisiana where they rented a tractor to crush Dixie Chicks CDs and merchandise, on account of singer Natalie Maines having mentioned at a London concert that the band was "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas".)

Meanwhile, President Bush has called rapper Eminem "the most dangerous threat to American children since polio". You can see how some musicians might be getting nervous about being listed in the music industry's axis of evil.

Here in Canada, there haven't been widely-publicized cases of music suppression, but that hardly means we're immune from the change in the censorship landscape that's occurred since the war on terror began. Martin Cloonan, chairperson of the censorship watch group Freemuse, says that the new climate in the west is not so much one of outright censorship as it is one of consensual control, where the listening public has voluntarily accepted the corporate mechanisms that restrict the free flow of musical ideas.

We're getting used to the idea that certain pop songs are inappropriate or -- a broadcasting public-relations favourite -- "insensitive" to such fragile times. You'll rarely hear of stations using ugly words like "banning"; instead, Clear Channel, BBC Radio 1, and MTV Europe have all recently circulated memos with "suggested guidelines" for playlists. Apparently, these broadcasters believe that listeners are incapable of handling subversive music, but are ready to swallow euphemisms.

So what exactly should we be watching out for in the future of this debate? Censorship under another name, perhaps. Goodbye to "censorship", then, and hello to policing pop.

Matt Brennan is finishing a master's degree on music and the media at Stirling University, U. K.

In the months of March and April, it seemed that everywhere you turned there was a pop artist or activist complaining that dissenting voices were getting crushed by the powers above. Surely, you'd think, all the belly-aching was exaggerated -- but then again, you'd also think that if the Beastie Boys released much-anticipated new material, you might have had a chance of hearing it on the radio. - by Matt Brennan -