"I'll Make It Worth Your While" Part Three - Alan Right Where He Belongs; Sean's Plunge Into Twit(ter)dom; & Videos Of Hawksley Workman, Producer Of "Fortune's Favour," Great Big Sea's Newest CD

Since I'm still taking a great deal of pleasure in that concept of Alan On The Top/Alan On The Bottom (& Alan In The Middle, of course):

Two versions of a photo from Alan's time onstage with Danu at the Visemollen at last summer's Tonder Festival. See below for more beauty - right around the middle, and then again at the end.

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Everybody's been saying I seem like an odd choice for Great Big Sea, but those fellows really wanted to take the bricks out of the house and put it back together again. - Hawksley Workman,  on producing the soon-to-be-released (June 24th) Great Big Sea CD, Fortune's Favour

But things are looking up. Way up. -  Alan Doyle 

The first time I ever saw Hawksley Workman perform was at the George Street Festival in St. John's, 2004, one of a series of grand performances leading up to GBS's headlining show that evening. In the midst of all of those great performances, Hawskley left me more than a little dazed; I wasn't quite sure what I had just witnessed in terms how to describe or categorise his music and performance dynamic...all I knew for sure was that I had just seen and heard someone amazing.

I've caught Hawksley's shows a few times since, usually at festivals, and he has held me spellbound each and every time. His show last month at Holy Heart Auditorium in St. John's was no exception to that high standard, not for me and not for some 800 others (the majority of them who looked quite at home in this high-school auditorium); if ever an audience was rapt, this would be that audience, and for good reason.

Hawksley Workman is an artist of daunting creativity and passionate commitment, on and off stage, as well as in his successful stints as producer. The mere thought of GBS's wanting to "take the bricks out of the house and put it back togther again" is a thought full of wonder and hope all on its own; that they would choose Hawksley Workman to oversee such a promising renovation project makes the wait until the June 24th-release date of Fortune's Favour near-unbearable. I hope that first single they're shooting video for here in TO this weekend comes out soon. Why do the best things always require so much patience?

I agree with Alan: Things are looking up.

I'm not even going to try to write a normal "review" of Hawksley's Holy Heart show, largely because I lack sufficient familiarity - lack the proper context, as Bob might say - with the wide range of music Hawksley and his band played that night; I have been told quite a few of the numbers were creatively bold re-workings of his older songs and a few were tunes not heard live in a very long time, the latter which could be distinguished by the immediate outcries of surprised delight from the faithful in attendance, who appeared to make up most of the crowd. For those curious about Hawksley's current shows in support of his (sometimes-breathtakingly-beautiful) new CD, Between The Beautifuls, a pile of informed, intelligent reviews are only a google away and there is little I can add to them, other than to say how impressed I am with Hawksley Workman, and how excited I am that he is the producer of the upcoming Great Big Sea CD

That, and a few videos to add as well, fair-to-middling quality in a dark (too dark for photos) auditorium and shooting from row eight, but still...they do give a glimpse of what is so special and so exciting about Hawksley Workman's music and his performance.  And his potential as a producer, as well.

Jealous Of Your Cigarette (partial), Hawksley Workman, Holy Heart Auditorium, St. John's, March 2008     (108 MB)

Addicted, Hawksley Workman, Holy Heart Auditorium, St.John's. March 2008      (158 MB)

Striptease (partial), Hawskley Workman, Holy Heart Auditorium, St. John's. March 2008      (150 MB)

When Mountains Were Seashore, Hawksley Workman, Holy Heart Auditorium, St. John's, March 2008      (185 MB)   (off-mic, stage edge)

You & The Candles, Hawksley Workman, Holy Heart Auditorium, St. John's, March 2008      (275 MB)

Safe & Sound, Hawksley Workman, Holy Heart Auditorium, St. John's, March 2008      (157 MB)

A few video-frame images, for those who can't download the big videos, showing the bemusing wonder of the intro tunes being played on the toy drums and piano (as well as with the antennaed headgear) and then giving a does-not-do-the-moment-justice glimpse of how wonderful the off-mic, stage-edge tunes were (do dowmload at least that one, if you can). As always, these are image frames and not anywhere near photo quality :

Those last few look pretty good in black and white too:

Keyboards/Drums: Mr. Lonely; Keyboards/Vocals par excellence: Ruth Cassie; Fiddle Afire: Jessie Zubot; Flute/Clarinet/Sax: David Christensen. Hawksley played most everything on stage, and he did it all so well.

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I've been meaning to put this article about Hawksley up here for quite some time.

A Busy Workman World

Between producing East Coast artists, writing for Cotillard, musician finds time to tour with own tunes

HAWKSLEY WORKMAN: Canadian smart pop purveyor, diehard romantic, international bon vivant and . . . honorary East Coaster?

The Ontario-based Workman hits Halifax's Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Monday night, touring behind his latest CD, Between the Beautifuls, before heading on to St. John's. But for Workman it'€™s like a sort of homecoming for the engaging musician-producer, who spent most of last autumn in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia helming new recordings by folk-pop combo Great Big Sea and baroque-pop ensemble Hey Rosetta!

"I was in St. John'€™s for six weeks with Great Big Sea and then Halifax with Hey Rosetta! for two-and-a-half weeks," says Workman. "I don't know man, after working with those groups. . . . I'm telling ya, the East Coast has got something. It'€™s an energy and there'€™s an intrinsic kind of charisma about the region that is really charming.

"I was feeling really blessed to work out there, and Sonic Temple is a wonderful studio, and Darren (van Niekerk), the engineer, is a genius."

Great Big Sea has worked with producers ranging from Peter Prilesnik (Sarah Harmer's You Were Here) to Los Lobos saxman Steve Berlin, constantly tinkering in different ways with a sound that combines Newfoundland folk energy with brash melodic pop.

It seems Workman, whose own sound encompasses rock, pop and cabaret, would make for a good tinkerer.

"It was a really relaxed experience, and those guys wanted to try some new things; there was little to no reluctance to my kooky ideas. I'€™m really lucky to be part of some clever records over the past year," he says.

"Everybody's been saying I seem like an odd choice for Great Big Sea, but those fellows really wanted to take the bricks out of the house and put it back together again. They're very smart and very funny; I never felt so dumb and so not funny as I did during those six weeks that I was in Newfoundland."

Workman's efforts behind the board have also paid off for performers like Sarah Slean, Serena Ryder and double 2008 Juno Award-nominee Jeremy Fisher. Most recently he was in Los Angeles writing songs for best actress Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard, a friend from his days living in France at the start of the decade.

"She and I have known each other for a long time," he says. "She was in my No Reason to Cry Out Your Eyes video from Lover/Fighter, and we'd been wanting to work together on some music for a long time.

"She was in Los Angeles, and there's a project happening in France that we’re both a part of, so we recorded a couple of tunes and it was very exciting. It'€™s always nice to write something and hear somebody else sing it, and she couldn't be riding higher in her career right now. She was definitely my Oscar pick."

Despite all this hubbub, Workman still manages to find time for his own music, having recently returned from a successful tour of Australia. Released in January, Between the Beautifuls is an album perfect for spring, full of nature imagery on songs like Pomegranate Daffodil and All the Trees Are Hers and an infectious hopefulness. Recorded in his new home studio in Burks Falls, Ont., the disc came out of the kind of intense creative spurt that often leads to Workman making records faster than he can put them out.

"Things move awfully slowly in the record business, so it'€™s tricky to be prolific and know what to release," he says. "I made four records after Lover/Fighter; one was Treeful of Starling and another is Between the Beautifuls.

"But there's also a big rock record I made in Los Angeles that's currently sitting on the shelf called Los Manlicious, and another is a bit of a sprawling acid rock record. Oh, and there's also My Little Toothless Beauties which I made right after Lover/Fighter, but was soundly rejected by the powers that be.

"I guess I like to move quickly, and I like the idea that you could make something and have it out in the world that very same day. I guess that's where we're headed with technology, and the way and spirit in which I work may be more conducive to the future of making and distributing music."(scooke@herald.ca)

And this one as well:

Hawksley Workman's A Tough Gig

by Shannon Webb-Campbell

Beauty seems most attractive when it's unattainable. The unknowable and unachievable are always alluring.

Hawksley Workman has experienced his fair share of longing. After more than a decade in music, he still feels in between things, he says.

"The title [Between the Beautifuls] suggests I've realized I'm never going to be satisfied with anything," says Workman, calling from his home outside Huntsville, Ontario. "I'm never going to feel settled. I'm always going to be critical of myself and what I do. I'm always going to be thinking about the next thing as soon as I finish what I've been working on."

Workman released a small pressing of Before We Were Security Guards (1998), followed it by For Him and the Girls (1999) and then garnered critical support with the 2001 album (And last night we were) The Delicious Wolves. That same year, Almost A Full Moon and Puppy (A Boy's Truly Rough) bolstered his discography and grew anticipation for the next release.

In 2003, the artist took a tougher rock stance with Lover/Fighter. The record fell short of the industry's yardstick of commercial success and left Workman, he says, pondering his potential. The pensiveness resulted in a stripped-down, acoustic release in Treeful of Starling in 2006. Almost lullaby-like, this hopeful yet sober collection contrasts with the bold, boisterous performer who once seemed fuelled by alcohol and existentialism.

He questions vanity on "Prettier Face," interrogates religion on "What Would You Say To Me, Lord?" and romanticizes a tree farm ("All the Trees Are Hers").

With Between the Beautifuls, Workman moves further away from his past musical tumbles and carnival-esque moods. Produced by Andre Wahl, the 12-track album is slicker-sounding than previous outings, which may catch some listeners unawares. The overall sound could be the result of Workman producing other artists, including Tegan and Sara, Sarah Slean and Serena Ryder, and seeing first-hand what can be done.

The artist recently went all the way east to produce Newfoundland's Great Big Sea and rising pop-orchestral group---and Newfoundland natives---Hey Rosetta! Both bands had requested the rural-Ontarian's musical expertise for their forthcoming albums.

"Oh, Newfoundland is brilliant," Workman says. "I was so inspired by it, I mean, in my opinion, there are two truly great cultural forces in Canada. One is Quebec and the other is Newfoundland," he says. "The rest of English Canada is less defined. There is such a distinct voice that is Newfoundland and there is such a distinct voice that is Quebec and that distinction isn't as clear anywhere else."

The way music insinuates itself into life in St. John's caught his attention: "I feel that music is just a part of people's existence there. Like on a Tuesday night you can walk down Water Street and hear guys playing traditional music in pubs, not just one pub. Every pub. It's unbelievable."

Workman swore off liquor throughout his stay in St. John's. Working on someone else's art, he says, is something he approaches with great seriousness.

"You can fuck around with your own record and at the end of the day you only have to please yourself. But with somebody else's record you are being paid to do a job and it's very high pressure. It's a job where if something is going wrong, it's your fault. I learned a lot from Great Big Sea, I learned a lot from Hey Rosetta! They taught me a lot about spirit, a lot about intention---just all sorts of things about life, music, and about perspective."

Currently Workman is touring throughout Canada and Europe with Halifax musical arranger and member of Heavy Blinkers, David Christensen, violinist Jessie Zubot; and his long time collaborator, the mysterious Mr. Lonely.

"He and I don't go anywhere without each other, we're essentially married now, which is lovely. I am touring with a band, but not a conventional rock n' roll band. I'm touring with an unconventional...I'm not even sure what to call it yet. They are all living at my house right now. We're diligently rehearsing every day."

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"In the middle of it all...," the man for whom there's no looking back.

And another article I have been intending for quite some time to put up:

Premier congratulates Gordon Pinsent On Genie Award Win

Executive Council
Tourism, Culture and Recreation
March 4, 2008 

Newfoundland-born Gordon Pinsent has earned yet another prestigious acting honour, taking home a Genie Award as best actor for his performance in the critically-acclaimed Canadian film Away From Her.

The Genie Awards, Canada'€™s top awards for achievement in cinema and television, were handed out last night, Monday March 3, in Toronto. Away From Her was the big winner at the 28th annual event, taking home seven awards, including best picture.

The Honourable Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, said Mr. Pinsent is a credit to this province and to the country.

"I offer my sincere, heart-felt congratulations to Mr. Pinsent, a living legend who continues to embody the creative spirit well into his 70s," Premier Williams said. "He is an actor, author, playwright and director whose remarkably diverse career has spanned radio, stage and screen. His success - and the professionalism with which he conducts himself - has made us proud time and again.

"Mr. Pinsent is, without a doubt, an inspiration and role model for many within this province'€™s creative community," Premier Williams said. "This latest, national recognition is certainly well-deserved."

Newfoundland and Labrador's Alan Doyle was also nominated for a Genie in the category of best original song, for Young Triffie'€™s Been Made Away With, from the film of the same name.

The Honourable Clyde Jackman, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, said both artists have enjoyed creative success and have become true cultural ambassadors for Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Both Mr. Pinsent and Mr. Doyle are incredibly talented and we, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, continue to share in the celebration of their remarkable achievements," Minister Jackman said. "We expect the Provincial Government's continued investment in our cultural industries will see increasing national and international recognition for our professional artists in the future."

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If someone had told me the day would come when I'd be getting comments here from people concerned about Sean's revealing too much personal information about himself, I'd have checked the calendar to see if it might perhaps be April Fools' Day. Sean's new foray into The Land Of Twitter as Great Big Sean  (can't begin to count how many times that has come out onto the page as a typo, perhaps even a bit of a Freudian slip), seems to have perturbed a few, probably excited even more.

My thanks to several people for the heads-up about this. I followed the link and read Sean's "tweets" (could this terminology possibly be any more foolish?), then went on to read the purported "debate" about Great Big Twitterdom on the gbs.com home page, then went back to re-read a few comments on the subject people had posted here. On the one hand, I can see good reason for the concern, especially given how protective the men of GBS, and Sean most of all, have been of their private lives. But it could be argued that if this protection of privacy were to be taken too far, it could become somewhat self-defeating because of how it might increase the demand for such personal info due to limited supply.

Look at it this way: There are always going to be the kind of people who nose and poke and push until they get personal information about these men; the more closely guarded that information is, the greater its "value"- so the more intensely it is sought after. To be in possession of any kind of personal info about them, especially about Sean, since he has been the one who has most diligently guarded his private life from prying outsiders, has customarily been quite the coup...the person who acquires such info, no matter how unscrupulously they might have acted in getting their hands on it, has often gotten a lot of mileage out of using it to appear "inside" to all of the other outsiders, simply by virtue of appearing to be more in the know than someone else is.

So the hunt rages on. There have been literally hundreds of search-engine hits on this blog alone for something, anything, about "Sean McCann's wife," "Mrs. Alan Doyle," "does Bob Hallett have a child" and just about every other version of poking noses you can think of. It takes no effort at all to get most St. John's merchants to go on and on about all of the pesky GBS fans who ask them anything and everything about the band members' private lives (not much more than it takes to get them to blab that information if they think it will get you to purchase something from them). Enquiring minds definitely want to know, and up till now in Sean's case, enquiring minds have been mostly getting that info from - and feeling all envious of - the most obnoxiously relentless ones, who have gotten their facts, such as they are, from gossip and rumour and fools talking out of turn.

So now that personal info, some of it at least, is coming straight from Sean. And it's given out to everyone. Everybody can read it.  Nobody can use the info to try to make themselves look special or privlieged. No one is more inside than anyone else. Supply and demand: If you increase the supply, you decrease the demand; by doing this, there's a good chance that some of the perpetual nosiness into these men's personal lives will actually abate, at least among that large group of fans who are fundamentally decent and fundamentally sane.

Yes, there are the crazies who will be over the moon about getting personal information about Sean, about the rest of them too, and what they do get will only make them desire even more. But those are the same crazies who are going to be insatiably after getting any scrap of personal information any way they can, no matter what Sean or any of the rest of them do. Regardless of what anyone does or does not do, the crazies are going to be there, doing what they do best. At some point, you have to stop living your life based on how the crazies are going to act in response, because the alternative is that it's the crazies who are running your life for you. Perhaps I am not the only person who has recently decided against letting the bush flies prevent me from doing what I want to do in the place I intend to remain.

And that's what it really does come down to: Deciding for yourself what to do. I doubt much of anyone believes there's a power on earth that could force Sean McCann into revealing personal information about himself or his family against his will. It's probably likely that's he's been encouraged to find some form of fan-friendly-type of pseudo-intimate contact that's similar to what Alan and Bob do in their online journals because of the inarguable PR value of such methods, but still, no way is he ever going to be forced down that road.

I'm not at all surprised he'd be familiar with Twitter, less so that he found out about it from his brother; it's popular among DC-ites, especially since being used by Hillary and Obama. And, in some ways, it does seem suitable for Sean, more so than the more-conventional journal format used by both Alan and Bob, most of all in how "comments" are handled. With Twitter - which has also been called a form of "microblogging" - you never have to bother with seeing the comments of those you do not "follow," no matter how many of them might choose to "follow" you.  It's not unlike having a blog that is open to all who choose to read, but the only way readers can "comment" on your blog posts is to make those comments on their own blogs; you are then free to find and read them - or remain completely oblivious of them - as you choose. That's a very interesting feature of the format.

And come to think of it -  more importantly, come to think of Sean - the potential for the spreading of disinformation via tweet is frigging awesome.

So far, what I've read of his entries (still having trouble typing "tweet" with a straight face) sounds very sweet. (Sweet tweets - Jesus.) Actually, in these entries Sean sounds a lot like Glenn does when he talks, which I am finding very endearing. I've been blathering on for years now about how I wish more people would see these men as fellow human beings, and if this is one of the ways to get a few more people to do exactly that, then I'm all in favour of it. Come to think of it, after reading about colouring Thomas The Tank Engine with his little boy or getting computer help from his loving wife, perhaps some of the Seanivores will find it a just a bit more difficult to objectify him into their self-esteem-boosting acquisition target. Then again, perhaps not.

Talk about getting an immediate benefit from Sean's new communicativeness: When Christina called me from the airport to say her plane had gotten in a bit late, I told her that I already knew all about it...thanks to Sean. What a very odd way to find out. I didn't need a tweet from Sean to find out that it's raining in TO, though. One look out the hotel wndow is good enough for that. The weather might have disrupted their photo/video plans for the day - for the weekend, most likely, if they had anything out-of-doors planned that requires dry weather - but it's not impacting us too much since we're museum-bound as soon as I wrap this up. Then it's Eaton Centre and then after that off to the pub, I hope, to see the game. Indoors all the way, except for the coming and the going.  Let it rain...so long as the bright light shines on the Habs tonight.

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I love it on those rare occasions when I wind up unexpectedly rewarded for my shortcomings. I am not particularly well-organised, to put it mildly. I don't really lose things, but I am an expert at losing track of things, a trait which, on occasion, leads to those unexpected rewards.

I wanted to record NTV's most recent bit about Daffodil Place off the rebroadcast of the evening news the other night, since I knew Alan was in the piece; while setting up the VCR (still using yesterday's technology), I reached over and grabbed a random tape out of the "OK to record on" stack. While checking to see just what had previously been recorded on this as-ever-unlabelled tape (having learned the hard way to check first before recording over...I lost my original copy of the entire 2001 CBC Songwriters' Circle program that way while taping the final episode of Babylon 5), I noticed that 1) Someone had taped something from Canada AM and 2) Jeez, Seamus looked young. A bit more fast-forwarding brought up a date in October of 2002; I had no clue what was coming up. About a half hour in, there were Alan and Sean, 2002's Alan and Sean, just the two of them. I shifted from fast-forward to play and watched while the two of them sang and played a gorgeous Clearest Indication duet. It was specatcular, and I had never seen it before. David must have recorded it while I was travelling and then by the time I got home, we'd both forgotten all about it. That tape has been sitting there in that stack, untouched (well, dusted every now and again, at least) and unwatched for more than five years. Truly an unexpected reward.

It was so good, I'm thinking about finally learning how to get it, along with some of the rest of what's sitting there on videotape, converted to a digital format and put up here on the blog (any advice or suggestions about the best way to do this are always welcome). I've already been going back through all of my files on the laptop - uncharacteristic diligence caused mostly because this laptop is showing signs of suffering from a terminal disease and I want to get everything on it safely backed-up - and am finding it a bit daunting how much is here that I've yet to do anything with, a perennial problem of those who are easily distracted - I have trouble enough just going through it all and listing it without getting distracted by a sweet face that keeps showing up around every lovely curve.

Lovely curves and sweet faces make for an apt seque to my end of choice. The following are once again two versions of the same photo, taken at a moment of Alan's utter triumph at the ECMA Songwriters' Circle in Charlottetown in 2006; he had just performed Walk On The Moon for the first time since that rainy New Orleans night in autumn of 2003 - this time, dedicating his new song to Brad Gushue and his Olympic-gold-medal-winning curling team - and Alan's playing and singing of his beautiful song had been utterly perfect. The crowd, which had sat in rapt silence while Alan played this brand-new-to-them song, was now applauding and cheering and he was sitting there letting all of that praise and awe and approval  sweep up and wash right over him, with the look on his face I think I love the most of all.

Later that same evening, circumstances would conspire to create a scenario in which this same man with the impossible-not-to-love face would wind up behaving a bit like a horse's arse...but that is not what matters. At the end of the day, the memory of the cheering crowd is what lingers, and the sight of the victorious flash of a sweet smile is what endures.