Just a few weeks ago Emily Carr performed at a small café in Montréal’s NDG. The show was pure melody as one would expect from listening to the few tracks available on her MySpace page. I had the opportunity to ask Emily a few questions, and invited her to play on air, on CKUT’s Dykes on Mykes in early October, available to all via podcast.
Mél Hogan for Art Threat: In my CD collection, my favorite songs are the ones that tell a story, but just a part of it. They leave you feeling like you're in on something--they are intimate--but leave you insatiate. You do this in all your songs, which makes me think you are not new to song writing. Tell me about what makes you write... how thoughts become songs.
Emily Carr: When I started singing original music I was in high school. I was in this punkish band and the lead guitar player wrote all the songs. I was the singer, I was trying really hard to scream and yell and rock out but shamefully, I’d go home and listen to Jewel and Lisa Loeb, and oldies radio. I started writing songs myself out of frustration. I wanted to sing songs about my own feelings and experiences. The first songs were painfully slow and awkward. I would go the open Mike at the Cock ‘n ‘Bull and get booed off the stage…
When I sit down to play guitar I’ve usually got a specific feeling, happiness, anger, frustration, sadness, and often a few words in my mind. I wind up using my life experiences to illustrate the emotion. When people ask me what my songs are about I usually say they’re about nothing. That’s not really true, but the meanings change over time. Sometimes I just want to play something fun. I’ll write some really quickly, those are always the songs people like the most. The songs that take a long time to write usually don’t even make it to the recording.
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Posted by Mél Hogan on September 1, 2007 in
A fresh yellow street sign silently instructs Toronto's pedestrians to demonstrate a respect that has long been absent from sidewalk's of Canada's largest city. Homeless sleeping: QUIET, reads the metallic notice, freshly bolted to a downtown lamppost.
The creative genius of Ontario College of Art and Design student Mark Daye, this sign is one of many he designed and erected in downtown Toronto, subverting official signage to draw attention to the city's homelessness crisis. The others sport similar messages: "Homeless warming grate. Please keep clear." "Please have change ready for the homeless." "Homelessness has nothing to do with lack of shelter."
In an interview with the Toronto Star, Daye explained his rationale behind the project. "I started thinking about the way sign systems work. There's official signage. There's advertising. So I thought, what would happen if I used official-looking signage, but I put an unofficial message in it?"
Simple, subtle, effective--just enough to draw the ire of government officials. Lacking both a sense of humor and compassion, the City of Toronto has been feverishly removing the unapproved messages in a bid to cleanse the city of any subversive signage.
"You can't do that," city spokesperson Brad Ross told the Star. "We have an encroachment bylaw, so we've been removing them as we come across them. The signs that the city (has) are way-finding and also letting people know what the restrictions are with respect to parking and stopping and turning and those kinds of things. They're strictly for motorists to understand what the bylaws are on the roads." By this rationale city workers should parade around town removing billboards for cologne and car dealerships.
Although Daye's signs will not last long on the streets of Hogtown, they are already being immortalized online. For more photos of the signs, follow these links: [1], [2].
(Photo: Toronto Star)
Posted by Rob Maguire on April 8, 2007 in
Fueling social change with eclectic folk rock across Canada and abroad, Ember Swift has received accolades for her inviting web presence in the form of a Canadian Indy Award nomination. Up against four other acts for the title of Best Website, Ember and crew are appealing to fans of their punchy, progressive music to cast their ballots.
Votes can be cast online, and polls close February 23 at midnight.
Posted by Rob Maguire on February 14, 2007 in
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