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Nash talks page 2
The more sophisticated the tools of technology become, the more they demand of our creative lives.
These tools can crash and burn, and thus destroy creativity. Creativity does not rely on hardware or
software, it relies on the soul. The soul has no time for technology. If the technology is not ready
and working to capture the "soul of the moment", then that moment can be lost forever.
Creativity is better served by tradition than by technology because only tradition can handle
spontaneity. Creativity can use technology if the needs of creativity are satisfied on a regular and
predictable basis. However, many modern tools of technology are not predictable, and thus hamper
rather than help the creative process. Artists beware.
I think of my music as a kind of folk music. Folk music is the simplest expression of music with the
simplest of tools. In today's high-tech music world, I am a proud Neanderthal.
I compose primitive, electronic music that is dramatic (classical), weird (electronic), and familiar
(melodic). The music is true to the tools at hand. I do not use samplers, sequencers or any computer
or midi hardware. The only mechanical device I use when composing is the drum machine. After the
drum sound and pattern are defined, all other parts are played by human hands, including sequence
patterns that may sound like machines, but are actually played in real time. A dash of mando-blaster
or violin-scream completes the sonic design. I have always created my music in this fashion.
Perhaps that is why my music sounds electronic, but has a human feel. It is a predictable effect that
if you add natural playing to mechanical devices, the human touch will always be prevalent.
Folklore also involves the belief in some kind of accepted voodoo or alchemy.
I have experimented for 30 years with electronic recorded sound, and I have created sonic monsters
that to this day I cannot re-create. Certain manifestations can only be summoned once.
Nobody should read manuals.
The instructions for your new VCR or Digital Keyboard were translated from bad Japanese into worse
English (or French, Spanish, etc.). As an example,when my VCR is disconnected for a certain period of
time, it can only be re-started if the clock is re-set first. The clock information is obscurely presented
on page 19 in small letters. Who organized this waste of paper? .It is a common complaint in music
stores across Canada and the USA that certain Japanese companies supply musical equipment with
such bad manuals that those very manuals have become a kind of sick, running joke. Thus the
manuals become irrelevent, and the users create their own network of information. Computer
information has a similar problem. The best instructions are not transmitted by Books For Dummies or
by reading manuals. The information is gathered by asking others who have "been there, done that".
This is the communication of the New Millennium. Through the Internet, people
share experiences, not instructions. The computer-nerds think the Internet is a vast library of manuals
and instructions. Instead, it has become a sharing of vast experience.
As I am getting ready to put my music onto MP3.com, I have a few observations about the revolution
in the music industry and how it came to pass. For the last several years, commercial radio has
become stagnant, insessantly playing tired old material or boring new material. If you are a collector
of esoteric music as I am, you have probably wondered why you never hear more variety on the radio
when you know in the stores there is more exotic music than ever. If you can discover an exciting
new artist from Texas in your local HMV store, why do you never hear their music on radio? .
It is because all radio today is programmed and controlled by the Record Companies. Commercial Radio
is not designed for the disemination of interesting music to the masses. The music on radio is simply
filler between the commercials. If the right music isn't played, that radio station's market share will
drop, and so will their advertising revenue. In the past, many commercial stations such as CHUM-FM
in Toronto, had the inventiveness to allow creative programming from midnight to4 AM, thus
opening a pandora's box of enlightened listening; Frank Zappa into Edgar Varese into Soft Machine into
Jimi Hendrix. Today, it would be unthinkable for a commercial radio station to allow any one of
its DJ's to stray away from the Programming Schedule. No variety, no imagination, no individuality.
The advertisers know that the Record Companies spend big bucks hyping their artists into the Top
Ten, so anywhere the Record Company's money goes, so goeth the advertisers. Any Radio Station
that wants to break this formula is committing suicide. Play what the Record Companies are hyping
and all will be fine.
Many years ago, CFNY-FM in Toronto helped get my career started.
They played my music almost every day, although it had two things going against it; the music was
instrumental and it was from an independent. There was no way my little record company could buy
advertising time or give any kind of perks to CFNY for them to perpetuate my airplay. Instead, they
played my music because it got requested. Today, there isn't one program slot on CFNY that would
accept my music. I am too old and "un-hip" for the INDY time slot, and I'm not represented by a Major
label to generate serious commercial airplay. College radio has always been the vanguard of
experimental programming, but even this territory is being invaded by Major labels who are
pressuring the College programmers to play their releases. Canadian bands like The Tragically Hip have
been hyped in this manner by their American record company to the US College market. This approach
has failed because the American market already has their own Tragically Hip; they're called R.E.M.
This situation has repeated itself throughout the history of radio. If you sound like an American band,
chances are they've already got a band just like you. Slade (one of my favorite British groups) could
never break America because America already had KISS. Likewise, Kim Mitchell could never overcome
the impact of Cheap Trick. All of these non-American bands were very successful in their home
market, but could never getthe desired exposure in the US.
MP3 changes all that. Instead of an American, Canadian or European market, we now have a level
playing field in cyber-space. All world markets are there to exploit through the Internet, and it is just
a matter of being different from all the rest that will expose your music to the world. This Internet
music does not have the support of Performing Rights Societies because the music on the Internet is
intended to be free, and thus cannot be compensated. This isn't such a loss considering the world-
wide exposure the Internet provides. Let me give you one free song and maybe I can turn you on to
the rest of my music. What an original idea. In the August 30 edition of Maclean's magazine there is
an article about Paul Alofs. Eight years ago he was head of HMV Canada, dramatically affecting the
way music was purchased in Canada. He went on to head up BMG Music Canada and then moved on
to the Disney Corporation, where he oversaw the marketing of 500 retail outlets. Since May of this
year, he has been in charge of MP3.com in the USA, and the article goes on to state his opinions
about the way music is retailed both in Canada and throughout the World. He says,"I wanted to dive
right into the Internet, because to really make it here you have to leave behind everything that's
worked for you in the past. I don't think the future of music is in bricks-and-mortar retailing".
Currently, there are more than 130,000 songs on MP3, all for free. There are 340,000 hits per day at
MP3, mostly by college students. This is a huge market that can only get bigger. I hope my connection
with them will prove more fruitful than my relationship with commercial radio. It can't be any worse.
''Show Me The Money And I'll Show You My Art''
September, 1999
This letter was sent to George McLean, Board of Directors of The McMichael Gallery and one of Canada's foremost nature artists.
Monday August 30, 1999
George McLean c/o The McMichael Gallery
10365 Islington Ave. Kleinberg, Ontario L0J 1C0
Dear George,
I feel compelled to write to you after reading your wonderful article in the Toronto Sun, Sunday
August 15, 1999. My parents were friends of Bob and Signe, and I had the good fortune as a young
boy to enjoy the beauty of Tapawingo before it became the public gallery of today. I remember sitting
on a cougar-skin rug in front of the fireplace, listening to A.Y. tell stories of his travels in the North.
It gave me an appreciation of both art and country that has never diminished to this day.
Where is the inspiration for today's youth? Certainly not from un-inspired works like "Babylon".
What can that artist tell the world about our great natural heritage with such a piece of "art".
The McMichaels, if not legally right to maintain artistic integrity over their collection, have the moral
right to give Canadians and the world the finest example of our natural heritage presented through
art. The focus of your article was on the bureaucratic nature of art galleries, but I wish you had
expressed more opinions about those artists who embrace the false sense of accomplishment that a
government grant bestows on them. As an established musician, composer and performer, I have
never asked for a grant of any type, and would rather be accepted by a bank manager than rejected
by an arts council. My music is not commercial, but it is saleable, and I have made great efforts to
expand my audience by performing in the States and in Europe. The Canadian audience is often
complacent about our native talent because it assumes that Canadian artists don't need their
support. I call it the "Prodigal Son Syndrome". Twenty years ago, I was an obscure performer on the
Canadian music scene. The gigs were scarce. Then I went to England, where enough fuss was made
about my music that the Canadian Wire Press did a large article on me that appeared in many
newspapers across Canada. Upon returning to Canada a year later, I was swamped with bookings.
No agent, manager or record company in Canada had the vision or talent to elevate my career while I
was here in my homeland. Sounds like a certain group of painters we know.
I agree with you that the public is not ignorant of art. No amount of intellectualizing can explain the
artistic significance of rotting meat or giant papier-mache hamburgers. These self-righteous art
directors prove time and again that the emperor has no clothes. It seems the bureaucrats of the art
world have ignored the spirit and vision of the McMichaels. They have instead created a situation of
conflict that is demoralizing and embarrassing. Where is our national pride? Certainly not with generic,
abstract works that could have been done in any other country. As you point out, few modern
Canadian artists represent our unique natural beauty for the very reason that they can't get
government grants. If the same artist invents some monstrous, abstract creation and gives it a
profound description, the government money comes flooding in. Perhaps it is the inherent beauty in
nature that so offends these grant-givers. It must be easy to paint a portrait of a beautiful
wild creature when Mother Nature is so obliging. I have often thought it would be fun to submit my
musical works as performed by a one-armed, lesbian dwarf from Somalia, and thus could qualify for
government assistance. How socially and artistically irrelevant!
I'm not anti-modern art. For example, I enjoy the work of Toronto sculptor Gerald Gladstone.
His radiating globes of steel remind me of Alexander Calder, and the pieces have a kind of energy that
would work well in a natural setting. They would be fun to discover on a nature trail in the woods,
but not as part of Tapawingo. Modern abstract art should not be in Kleinberg surrounded by pine
forests. Tapawingo was a place of magic, where the natural wooded world outside was represented
on the walls with grand paintings of breathtaking originality. To look at a Group of Seven painting and
then look out the window at the natural setting, made one see that world in a whole new way;
Inspiring, dramatic, and natural. Few modern artistic works come close to this description.
Put modern, abstract art in its own urban gallery, and if the public appreciates it, the gallery
and the artist can swell their heads with civic pride and their bankbooks with civilian dollars.
I remember years ago The Isaacs Gallery in Toronto presented the modern sculptures of Mark Prent.
The works were disturbing, provocative and profound. The police raided the first exhibit and the public
came in droves. Av Isaacs brought him back for 2 more exhibitions over 5 years.The point is, Mark
Prent is an American. He had no government funding and yet his artistic vision was fully developed.
His output never stopped and his originality was never compromised. All forms of art in this country
suffer a common malais. Classical composers create monstrous works of tedium because their
application for a grant was presented so convincingly. Rock and Country music artists get "video"
support to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. These are nothing more than commercials.
Writers and painters get government money to portray subjects that are both socially reviling
and irrelevant. Then along comes someone on the CBC or other arts media and the work is analysed
and glorified on pseudo-artistic merit. Most grant artists in Canada are not pushing any boundaries,
nor exploring the national psyche. They are calculating the impact on the grant-givers and not the
public, and often create immature and self-indulgent pieces of so-called "art". These "works of art"
are usually performed or presented only once in some place like The Music Gallery, never to be heard
or seen again. Some legacy for future generations. The key point you make about art is that the
public is intelligent enough to discriminate between the inane and the profound. This involvement
between art and the public is completely ignored by the art bureaucrats. There has to be a communal
sense with the artist, the work of art, and the public. To encourage otherwise is pointless to the
artist and the public. Because of this bureaucratic involvement, we have public displays in downtown
Toronto of so-called-art such as "Gumby Goes To Heaven" that would be an
embarassment to Saddam Hussein. Bureaucrats who are in a position to give out grants are often
trying to justify their existence to a higher level of government. FACTOR grants are often given to
musicians who have little talent but the right connections. These musicians also learn from other
successful applicants how to fill out the forms to have the greatest impact on the panel of judges.
As well as financing unappealing music projects, FACTOR often gives grants to established artists
who don't need the money but will take a gift anytime. By giving money to established artists,
FACTOR justifies its existence to the government and perpetuates its own coffers.
What a sad situation. The true artist is not a one-shot-wonder. The true artist is
constantly creating and finding new supporters for their art. There is no waiting between grants,
there is no flavour-of-the-weak mentality. There is nothing more to it than "This is what I do".
Now find an audience, strike a nerve and make money.
As an independent Canadian artist, I do not represent in my music any particular Canadian identity.
That doesn't mean that I can't take my music to the world and say, "Yes, I am a Canadian".
The irony is that my music is more appreciated in other countries than in Canada. Here, the
lack of support starts at the top and trickles down. The most common statement made by my
fans in Canada is "Why don't you win more awards? Why doesn't the music industry recognize your
talent?" That is because there is no real Canadian music industry. It is a bastard child of the
American music industry and has no teeth of its own. The Canadian record companies are often the
first at the trough of government handouts, and again,this just promotes mediocrity. There is
an ironic story about A.Y. Jackson. During World War One, A.Y. was commissioned to paint images of
the war with tubes of paint supplied by the Canadian government. After the war, he found he had a
lot of white paint left over because most of what he saw and painted in Europe had been dark,
bombed out and gloomy. Not wanting to waste these precious tubes of white paint, after the war
A.Y. decided to go up north and paint landscapes of snow. To this day, no one can paint snow
with such dense, vibrant colours as A.Y.Jackson. Considering the source of his paint, it could be
said that the Canadian government helped A.Y. become a great artist. Don't ever tell this story
to anyone in today's bureaucratic art circles. "Snow ? Ya gotta be kidding!" Among my many film
music credits, my two favorite projects are "Father Snowshoes", a documentary on A.Y.Jackson, and
"Bombardiers", a presentation of the paintings of Robert Vanderhorst, a contemporary Toronto artist
who also receives no government funding.Rob and I are good friends, happy with our lives and our
art,in spite of being Canadians. If you ever need my support for Art versus Bureaucracy, let me know.
We need to inspire young artists in this country, not pamper them.
Yours truly,
Nash The Slash
Independent Canadian Musician
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