From: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org (navy-soup-digest) To: navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Subject: navy-soup-digest V7 #105 Reply-To: navy-soup@smoe.org Sender: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk navy-soup-digest Saturday, November 20 2004 Volume 07 : Number 105 In This Digest: ----------------- The Coast: Piano Woman [Paul Schreiber ] Re: the coast - sarah slean article ["James McGarry" Subject: The Coast: Piano Woman http://www.thecoast.ns.ca/thearts.html Piano Woman Sarah Slean locked herself away in the wilds of Ontario and emerged with Day One. Sean MacGillivray listens and learns. [demime 0.97c-p1 removed an attachment of type image/tiff which had a name of image.tiff] Since the release of her first major-label recording, Sarah Slean did what a lot of people in her situation doshe toured her ass off. She spent two years travelling the world, charming audiences with her unique, smart, piano-driven pop and her effervescent stage personality. When she arrived home, a funny thing happened. She got scared. I remember a moment one day when I just started laughing in the middle of the street, she says from a friends house in Toronto, because everything was so fantastically, hilariously meaningless. Slean, who plays the Rebecca Cohn on Saturday, had returned to Toronto to find herself in the grip of an existential 20-something malaise that she couldnt shake. I did all sorts of things to try and feel like I had some handle on knowledge that was significant, she says, and it didnt really work. Facing insurmountable questions about the very nature of humanity, Slean began to seek answers. I think I just needed teachers or something, she confesses. I was desperate for a teacher or a master, and I couldnt find it, anywhere. The time had come for drastic measures. I gave away most of my things, and my piano and I went to the woods, and a la Foreau I sat in a wooden room for about four months and thought about things. Existential and eastern philosophy, the meaning of existence, the struggle for nobility in everyday lifesuch were the topics weighing on Sleans mind, as well as whether or not the world is in a dangerous state. The results of her meditations are both troubling and encouraging. One of the songs that sprung from this revelatory period in Sleans life is the chilling When Another Midnight, which is the eruption of all of my terrors and my nightmares about the state of the world, she explains. One would hope that for all her seclusion and searching, Slean might have some answers as to what we should do about this dangerous world of ours. They may disappoint the placard-wielders and protesters. Something has to be done, and it has to be done right now, she says, but I was thinking that the thing that would be done would not be fighting fire with fire, or becoming an activist. It would be spreading your own light as far as you possibly couldyour light meaning your ability to create beauty of any kind, your ability to shine beauty on other people and the gorgeousness that is your original self. Despite having only reached this conclusion recently, Sleans been practising what she now preaches for some time. After two successful independent releasesUniverse and Blue ParadeSlean got signed to Warner/Atlantic, and in 2002 released Night Bugs, a lush, sweeping orchestral pop masterpiece. Fellow Canadian wunderkind Hawksley Workman co-produced the record, which was a lavish realization of Sleans dramatic, symphonic tendencies. She gushes readily about the experience. We were just looking at each other with huge eyes and laughing and going oh my god, I hope they dont find out that were just these dumb kidsit was just a whiskey-filled, inspiration-drenched session. Not this time. Returning from her pilgrimage, Slean faced the daunting task of completing her next record, potentially the creative result of months of isolation. I was broken. I was in pieces. Especially after what I had done and what I read and all the self-work that I did, it was really difficult to get back into it. Get back into it she did, though, and the resulting workDay Onetells the story of Sleans journey into existential uncertainty and the resulting change in her life. Co-produced by Slean, Pete Prilesnik and New Deal alum Dan Kurtz, the record is darker, grittier and more contemporary-sounding than its predecessor. For Slean, terror is the muse: I needed to get afraid again, because I think when youre afraid you make your best music. Toward the end of this dark time, Slean started a blog, recording in frequently poetic style the machinations of her perilous trek to the end of existence. She makes no apology for her flamboyant writing style. Theres no time for dull reporting, she declares. I think we have to make every aspect of our lives beautiful in some way. For all the acrimony and soul-searching, Slean is sunny about the results of her philosophical endeavours. I had to get the music down, she says. I had to barf it upto be done, to be cleansed. Sarah Slean w/Ron Sexsmith and Nathan Wiley, November 20 at the Rebecca Cohn, 6101 University, 8pm, $28.50, 494-3820. Slow going Cape Breton dance-a-billy outfit Slowcoaster finally gets a full-length out. Norma Jean MacPhee finds out where the band is going. Slowcoasterthe ruckus ruffians from Cape Bretonhave released their first full-length album. Finally. Im very happy with the album because we havent done shit-all for 18 months, says Slowcoasters singer and guitarist Steve MacDougall from his home in Donkin, Cape Breton. With over 600 live shows under their belts during the last five years, thats a wee understatement. With a band member out of the country for six months and the rest on a touring tear, finding time in the studio was the biggest obstacle in getting the CD out any sooner. MacDougall, with bassist/singer Mike Lelievre, percussionist Darren Gallop and drummer Devon Strang (when in Canada) did laps around the Maritimes for the past two years, often playing three venues a weekend. Touring in the summer was insane, says MacDougall. After travelling every weekend, going to festivals, partyingwhen we got home we didnt want to talk to each other again until it was time to get back in the van. While Strang travelled through India last year Keith Mullins, Brian Talbot and John Holmes each kept the beats flying. They did manage to gather enough time to lay the tracks for the eight-song album Where Are You Going? The album, which gets a Halifax release on November 19 at The Attic, is a soulful blend of Slowcoasters eclectic dance-a-billy fusion of reggae, rock, hip-hop and jazz. Going from the stage to the studio required some adjustment. We just pare it down, says MacDougall of some of the longer live jam songs, like Cant Change Me and Patio. And others we wrote in the studio and recorded right away. Slowcoasters live performances work with and derive from the audience. Hopefully theyre barely listening, just feeling it and dancing, says MacDougall. Whether theyre enticing people on stage to dance or to shoot the boot, the connection is tangible. And its not by coincidence. They have the fans in mind even when theyre not on stage but thick in songwriting. MacDougall says theyll add certain beats knowing itll bring people to their feet: The balance of energy between you and them becomes one big energy machine. Their stage show is crafted in a loose, but organized fashion. Its like having a friend over for dinneryou dont want to shove turkey in their face before they have their shoes off, MacDougall explains. They ease into it, feeding off the vibe of the crowd, and never play the same show twice. The albums name is a reflection of the band since their start five years ago and also of the music. Sometimes when were playing, Ill look at Mike and say, where are you going? as he takes a tune somewhere new, says MacDougall. At times the creation of a song arrives amidst the fun and frolicking of an after-show party. Thats the case with The Patio, the first single. Sitting at a party in Charlottetown, in a patio situation, someone was asking how we wrote our songs. Darren starts playing a disco beat and I start yelling out things we do on the patioand now its the single and the video, says MacDougall, laughing. While Where Are You Going? makes its first appearance in CD players across the Maritimes, these musical madmen are already back in the studio working on their next album. This month, in addition to another Maritime tour, the boys will remind towns in Ontario of their riveting rifts and contagious energy. But lets focus on now. What should folks expect at Slowcoasters release show this Friday? The usual madness, says MacDougall with a chuckle. It depends on them. If they act like animals, well act like that. If they act like prisses sitting down, well act like prisses. Slowcoaster CD release w/The Middleclass Pushovers, November 19 at The Attic, 1741 Grafton, 11pm, $6, 423-0909. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:13:10 -0500 From: "James McGarry" Subject: Re: the coast - sarah slean article - ----- Original Message ----- From: "leif" To: Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 7:06 PM Subject: the coast - sarah slean article >i was browsing "the coast" online for my upcoming halifax trip to see what >else was happening and found this article: > > http://www.thecoast.ns.ca/thearts.html Ooo! Sean MacGillivray, its Thoreau! Thoreau!!! {Where is his _editor_!) I do remember Sean from Plumtree Fandom days, long, long ago in the wilds of the 1990s, before the turn of the century. James. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:08:11 -0700 From: "Katie Belsher" Subject: RE: the coast - sarah slean article thank you for that. it was wonderful. >i was browsing "the coast" online for my upcoming halifax trip to see what >else was happening and found this article: > >http://www.thecoast.ns.ca/thearts.html > > >toodles ~ >leif ------------------------------ End of navy-soup-digest V7 #105 *******************************