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Goderich Sprol.Sar, Wednesday June 17, 2009. Page A33
Are you a singer/songwriter or a boy -band in your life?
A few weeks ago, I was lucky
enough to enjoy a night of music at
the schoolhouse just south of God-
erich where Jef White, Kati Durst,
and her band Quarter Mile Lane,
were giving a performance.
The music was absolutely fan-
tastic. The voices were beautiful.
The instrumentals were amazing.
I was absolutely blown away! But
the singing and the instrumentals
aside, what really knocked me out
was that all the pieces that they
were performing were written by them. It was
all original material.
As I watched Jef and Kati singing, it just
knocked me out that the words I was listening
to were created from somewhere deep inside
of them. They were able to bring them out,
write them down, make them flow and then
even add music to them. And here we were
getting to hear these beautiful inner thoughts
and feelings being sung and played for us.
What a phenomenal gift for us! It was just
wonderful!
A couple of weeks later, went to Toronto
to see the fabulous stage performance of the
Queen tribute, "We will rock you". The story
is set in a future time that is completely ruled
by computers and the internes. But what's im-
portant to the story is that there is absolutely
no music!
One of the great lines in the shows explains
this: "We believe that the death of music be-
gan with something called "American Idol".
They started creating boy -bands and girl -
bands — and the soul of music was completely
lost."
Why would the creation of boy and girl -
bands be part of the death of music? Well,
boy -bands and girl -bands are created for one
purpose — to make money. Someone decides
that they want a certain kind of band. They
audition thousands of singer/dancers to find
ones with just the right look, just the right age,
just the right sound, and all the right moves.
Once they get the right mix, these singer/
dancers perform songs that other people write
and the dollars flow in. It's very simple.
But is there any soul in it? When you are
watching ,them perform, you aren't actu-
ally connecting with the humans
up there. The performances have
nothing to do with the people do-
ing the singing and dancing. There
is a strange disconnect.
You see the people singing and
dancing. You hear the music. But
the music has nothing to do with
the people we are watching. It is
just performed for the fame and
money. It's all about appearances
and entertainment.
The difference between this and
my evening at the schoolhouse caused me to
ask a couple of questions.
Which way do we live our lives? Are we
singer/songwriters in our life? Or are we more
like boy and girl bands?
Do we write the scripts of our lives based
on our inner thoughts and feelings? Or do we
write them based on what other people want
to hear?
Do we spend each day expressing our in-
ner truths, following our own paths? Or do
we "play to the crowd" doing what we think
others expect of us?
Do we present ourselves as we authenti-
cally are? Or do we make sure that we have
the right hair, the right car, the right weight,
the right job, and the right life? Is it the feeling
that matters most or the look?
Do we even write our own "songs"? Or did
our parents write our songs? Or our spouses
or society? Are we all just cover bands— al-
ways singing other people's music?
How cool would it be if we could all be sing-
er/songwriters? How great would that be to
meet each other and truly share our own unique
"music" — whatever that happens to be?
Of course, there is risk to being the singer/
songwriters of our lives. The masses might
not connect with our inner selves. We run the
risk of "not fitting in" and being unique.
But there will be some who really connect
with us and these connections are so much
deeper and real than they are on the alterna-
tive "boy -band" path of life. These people
will know who we really are. They might
be family, clients, colleagues, neighbours, or
life-long friends.
And in the case of Jef White and Kati Durst,
- Photo by Gerard Creces
Corner accident
A red Dodge truck sits idly at the corner of Suncoast and Bayfield Road Fri-
day morning, after a T-bone collision with a gold Toyota Camry. The Camry
attempted a left-hand turn west onto Suncoast when struck by the southboud
Dodge. Both vehicles suffered severe damage though no one was hurt in the
collision. A small dog was stuck under one of the Toyota's seats but was even-
tually coaxed out by its owners unharmed.
they will be life-long fans. Why life-long?
Because the soul of their music connects with
the souls in their audience. That kind of con-
nection doesn't go away.
Hmm...Living every day with those kinds
of connections sounds wonderful to me.
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