Tales from the Strip by Micah Barnes

Charity Season Is Here Folks!  

 
Being able to sing in support of a cause or a charity is something that I take very seriously these days. In fact from the very beginning of my career the charity component has been an important focus, but recently with the success of "New York Stories" there have been so many more opportunities to give back, in fact last year the holiday season was my busiest in terms of charity concerts! Yahoo! 

This year has presented an deepening of that commitment and it is with great pride that I announce having taken on the artistic directorship of the LOFT Community Services "Home For The Holidays" annual fundraising concert. LOFT is a charity that I have been involved with for a few years performing for their annual concert along with folks like Molly Johnson, Billy Newtown Davis and Jackie Richardson and I have seen first hand the incredible ways in which they house and support folks in the Toronto area who would otherwise slip  between the cracks of the health care system. From older people with mental disabilities to young folks with addiction issues and all kinds of "at risk" and vulnerable people,  LOFT is dedicated to making sure their programs give people a sense of dignity and respect and a place to call home. For more information about what they do have a peek here http://www.loftcs.org 

This year "Home for the Holidays" will be held on Monday, December 5, 2016 at the beautiful St. James Cathedral in downtown Toronto and I've been lining up some top notch talent including Musical Theatre star Thom Allison http://www.thomallison.com, the delicious Jazz harmonies of The Ault Sisters http://www.aultsisters.com and the incredible Hogtown Brass Quintet http://www.hogtownbrass.com among many more.  We hope you will join us for this beautiful holiday concert to kick off the season and enter the real spirit of giving back!  

Tickets are only $40 for the general public!  Home for the Holidays 26th Annual Christmas Concert Monday, December 5, 2016 St. James Cathedral (downtown Toronto)  Ticket purchase and more info here: http://www.loftcs.org/support-loft/events/christmas-concert-2016

A Jazz Singer-Songwriter Pays tribute to Bob Dylan  

 


"Songwriter Bob Dylan wins the Nobel prize for Literature"

The thing is that Dylan's powerful determination to find "new ways to tell the old stories" began long before we ever heard of him. First he worked inside the tradition then he began to find his own voice inside of the tradition, then stretch and bend and push on the walls until he had created the kind of freedom that all songwriters who followed were able to work with! 

 In that sense our  Mister Zimmerman is the best template for any artist seeking to find their own voice.     First we imitate, then, if we are serious about finding our own voice we experiment and try and find a way to make the traditions our own.  Then if we truly seek personal expression we dig in to find the way to communicate our most authentic selves through the music.  Thats the gig of being an artist. It doesn't come easy. It doesn't come fast.  Have a read of his masterful autobiography "Chronicles Vol 1" for the whole story. 



I remember sitting down with Bob Dylan's "Greatest Hits" LP when I was just a kid and studying what it was that made him the voice of a generation of counter culture grownups. I hated the scratchy voice that I would later come to dig, (have you heard Dylan's recent recordings of standards? They are a revelation!), but understood that somewhere in his beatnik ramblings there was a kind of patchwork map that was helping lead a generation to their own sense of self hood. 

And as a budding songwriter I remember trying to find a way into Dylan's complex songwriting which explored older forms of folk and blues and a kind of rule breaking literary poetry of the street. It made me want to find a new way of expressing myself through Jazz and Blues using the traditions to communicate my contemporary experience (hence "New York Stories" etc) 

 What is it that makes a young artist determined to find one's own voice to add to the culture?
We may never know but Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature answers the questions once and for all whether what we do it simply entertainment.

  A Jazz Singer On David Bowie's Legacy  

 

I was playing piano in a teenage rock n roll band  playing T Rex, The Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop when I discovered jazz.  

When I heard Billie Holiday I quit the band and went home to learn every jazz standard I could get my hands on. I was 13 years old. 

Of course it was David Bowie that had made me want to join the rock n roll band in the first place. His big wide crooner voice and the inventive lyrics with the theatrical delivery seemed as close to performance art as could be possible in the context of pop music. I was a smart teen and I was interested in the "revolutionaries" of every tradition. Bowie flew in the face of everything safe, and seemed to be inventing himself as he went along. 
I loved the attitude. I loved the show. I loved the drama.  

In Jazz I responded to the same sense of "making it up as we go along" the same spirit of invention and fearlessness that we found in David Bowie.  So I didn't experience all that much of a leap as I learned to deepen the harmonic landscape and emotional intelligence that was demanded by the standards. 

We're All Bowie's Children

 When I began performing in night clubs (first solo at the piano then with my jazz trio) I found myself combining the old school charm of the standards with a cheeky kind of rock n roll /cabaret originals that owed no small debt to Bowie's oeuvre. The songs and the attitude poked holes at modern society with songs like "Food Has No Future", "Lost In The Computer" Utensils On Rampage".  Audiences seemed to enjoy the challenging mix of genres and my band and I (including brother Daniel)  became the darlings of the New Music set on Queen Street.  

Later his legacy would become more obvious with everyone from Madonna to  Lady GaGa  using changing persona to grab out attention and keep us looking, but In those days we were all Bowie's children, putting on masks and changing persona's as quickly as we did our hair colour.  But what was operative wasn't the costuming, it was the daring to be something "new" that the world had never seen before.  Bowie made the dare…as a jazz artist my aim to to answer that challenge.

We Can Be Heroes Indeed.

Tickets for Sept 9th Rebel Rebel Bowie Tribute Concert at Hughes Room here: Tickets

The Festival Experience  

 Music fans crave discovery. 
Thats why we love the festival experience. And of course Music Festivals are all about discovery. The music lover may be there to see a favorite artist but along the way will have the opportunity to stumble on a whole bunch of other acts! Thats why artists love to play festivals too, we get to introduce ourselves to a whole army of potential fans we would never have reached otherwise!  

Coming together in a community around a shared interest is even more important to us in the digital age. Just witness the communal experience Canadians felt as the Tragically Hip played it's last shows together this summer. At a music festival everyone can feel a part of the atmosphere of the bigger event.  Its not about attending one concert,  it's about our shared love of the music which is why everybody is there in the first place!   

 Jazz festivals are no different. From the big international festivals like Montreaux to the local festival such as the Beaches Jazz Festival there are all kinds of arguments for hearing Jazz in a festival setting rather than only in a small local venue.  There are many challenges to putting on a great festival and one of them is how to attract an audience in a busy marketplace, which is why mainstream music festivals tend to invite international artists that we rarely get to see.     

 

Toronto loves it's festivals.
From the big ones like Tiff and Hot Docs to the local neighbourhood food festivals like Taste of The Danforth  there is hardly a week without a festival happening somewhere in the greater GTA.  
Our newest entry to the Festival calendar is The  Kensington Market Jazz Festival (in my old stomping ground) which has been conceived  of by musicians (our first lady of culture Ms. Molly Johnson) as a neighbourhood-oriented weekend for Toronto to discover and celebrate it's own jazz artists.  

Its happening in a batch of unusual local venues which are just waiting for discovery.   I'm particularly excited to be reunited with Sophie Milman when we share The Round stage Sept 17th. Our Ottawa gig with the National Arts Centre Orchestra singing Cole Porter duets was a pleasure indeed! 

 There is already an amazing street vibe in Kensington Market, and the weekend of Sept 16th, 17th and 18th the air will be filled with Jazz of every kind!  Come and hang out for the weekend. You'll see thrilled to see old favourites and make a few new discoveries I promise! 

 Kensington Market Jazz Video!


 

Is Hamilton The New Brooklyn?  



Well first of all lets just say it up front ... Hamilton folks have always been proud of being Hamilton folks ...so being compared with a  borough of New York City doesn't sit easily with people around here.      However the Hammer has always been a city of rugged individualists and folks who have decided to do it their own way, and in that regard Hamilton people are proud to flourish far from the high rents and hustle of larger cities like Toronto which now feel almost unliveable with it's high cost and over crowding. So the comparison may be loaded …..but it isn't all that off base. 
 In a recent article the Globe and Mail stated that "Brooklyn is booming as an arts hub because Manhattan is unaffordable for artists. Toronto is in severe danger of out-pricing its own creative types. Hamilton, with its cheap rents and supportive arts community, looks better with each visit." 

Its true that Hamilton used to be where people escaped from.            
 But these days its the place where people escape to!  

  

 Why are people moving to Hamilton? Artists of all kinds need space that is affordable so we have time to develop  ideas, try new things and not just scramble for the daily rent.  Typically its artists that move into depressed areas with lower rent, developing the housing and making community in places that allow room for creativity to happen.  And that ladies and gentlemen is how a scene develops.  

The cool coffee house,  artisan beer joint and organic vegetables are never far behind.  Like worker bees, artists create the conditions that attract people to a new neighbourhood or town, digging into undesirable areas and creating an atmosphere that allows developers to step in make money down the road.  

 And that ladies and gentlemen is how cities develop. 

Just thinking of the handful of Hamilton based artists that I know I see the benefits of living in a smaller city where we can grow our big size ideas!

So if  media folks have decided to compare Hamilton to Brooklyn, both being places that are artist friendly and where a healthy local scene ends up influencing  mainstream culture…well then, sure not! Just don't bring it up with your "Proud To Be Hamilton" pals. They're not looking for your approval..(thats why they are here)!

MICAH BARNES & NEW YORK STORIES 
at The Artword Artbar in Hamilton Ont 
Friday June 3 and Saturday June 4, 2016, at 8 pm.  
$15 advance through http://www.artword.net/artbar /  
$20 at the door. 

 

Whats Your New York Story Canada? 

 

When I brought the songs that would become New York Stories back from the Big Apple it took a lot of polishing and crafting before the material was ready to record. First I played the material for audiences across Canada and they told me which songs were landing deepest with them. Then my trio and I worked up the arrangements and tested them out on Toronto audiences during our residency at The Jazz Bistro. By the time we hit the studio we knew exactly which tunes and which arrangements were telling the stories the best! 

So it is in fact the audiences that helped create this CD from the very get go! 

When creative producer Leonardo came to me with the Indie Go Go campaign idea I scoffed and told him I would never ask for money from fans. By the time we had our campaign in full swing I was feeling the support and engagement and the sense of community that was building around this music.
Truly an incredible experience for an artist let me tell you! 

So, when Leo and I decided to use the CD launch at CBC's Glenn Gould Studio to film the audience and fans telling their own New York Stories it just made so much sense! After all the audience has been a huge part of this project from the very beginning. We enlisted filmmaker Diana Piruzevska to create a little studio set up in the lobby and filmed folks one at a time telling their favourite NYC adventures. You can hear an edited version of those stories in the new video of "Don't Take My Baby (New York New York)" (Big Thanks to all of those who came to support the music and  leant their stories to this video!)

                                                                                

AND as a way to say THANK YOU, as part of the national tour dates we're extending the conversation and inviting folks to post their favourite New York Stories on this page Facebook Fan Page  using the hashtag #WhatsYourNewYorkStory in exchange for a free digital download of the New York Stories album!  

…..Let the New York conversation continue! :)

Tour Life 


I am not one of those artists that resents going out on the road. In fact I embrace it with a passion.  

Touring is a fantastic way to see and hear the big wide world.  

When I started my career I never imagined that music would become a way to experience new places, new people and have new adventures.  

Keeping in mind that my introduction to full time touring was with the already established Nylons (flying to shows rather than touring in a van, staying in nice hotels, performing in beautiful theatres etc) so the beginning of my road life was supported in every way possible. 

 However even during my early career, which included tuff rock n roll bars and seedier lounges across Canada I was already caught up in the romance of collecting crazy stories and adventures.  

In fact the road became so romantic for me that for many years I made it a practice of driving back and forth from the east coast out to California, stopping to see friends along the way, but relishing the alone time away from the crowded cities where my head and heart could expand and explore. 

Perhaps thats the gift of being a songwriter, I see all of that road experience (or most of it) as grist for the creative mill.  Even at the start of my career I loved taking time to wander in each city  finding an old pier or a run down factory, or back alley's near downtown, looking for the lonely old guy to have a chat with etc. Writing notes in an ongoing journal through my wanderings (often turning up in lyrics for songs) I made a kind of loose map of North America in my head.   

Being able to travel and make music for audiences has almost always felt like a gift, an opportunity, a blessing. These busy days I find solace in a hotel room, a good book, a newspaper and a cafe and so often plan to arrive a day early and leave a day later than I need to.  

The road is a kind of home to me where my artist self feels most alive.

City Of A Million Stories 



New York is famously described as a city with a million stories.    

Of course, like so many folks, the books I'd read about New York, ( El Doctorow's Ragtime, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and Patti Smith's Just Kids for example), had created a literary map New York in my imagination. When I was living and working in NYC I used that map had me exploring the cobblestone alley's, down into the subways and out onto the grand avenues as I wrote the material that would become "New York Stories". The influence of literature  is obvious with each song acting like a chapter like a book of interweaving short stories designed to take the listener on a romantic journey describing a love story amongst the swirl of life in Manhattan. 

A literary approach comes very naturally to me as a songwriter given that I was raised in a house filled with books and music in Toronto's Annex which, much like the West Village, was an area of town filled with  Professors, Activists, Artists and Independent thinkers such as our mom author Lilly Barnes, who raised us in three story victorian home filled floor to ceiling with books.  So, as I was discovering the music of Billie Holiday, Tom Waits, Laura Nyro and Tony Bennett  I was absorbing the short stories of Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro and a literary tradition that asks the author to describe an entire universe in only a few pages. Perfect for a budding songwriter looking to create a new musical universe of his own!    

Of course the two romances at the heart of "New York Stories" are very real, both the romance of the lovers and the romance with New York City itself. New York becomes a character in of itself, a bustling metropolis so crowded that one never feels lonely or alone, but welcomed by the city to re create one's own story at every corner of the city of a million st 

Two collections of short stories set in NYC that I can heartily recommend are "Wonderful Town", a collection of New Yorker stories edited by David Remnick and the  Every Man Pocket Classics "New York Stories" both of which I discovered after the release of the disc but happily reread from time to time..  

 

   The New York Story   

 
So, we've made #1 twice with the same song thanks to you guys. Amazing! Making music is never a sure thing. You just have to do it and hope that someone else likes it. OR just do it and not give a crap. In my case as much as I want to communicate I've learned over the years that the best approach for me is to serve my inner voice and create from that very personal place. And thats how this New York Story happened. 

 When I accompanied my honey to NYC, who had moved there to work on Broadway, I  booked myself into a writing room off Time Square and started composing the songs that would become New York Stories.  I was inspired by the energy of the city around me, especially the musical history of the place which seemed to vibrate right up from the floorboards.. but more than anything I was caught up in the insecurities  and anxieties of a new relationship.  When I am experiencing inner drama the writing and composing of songs is the most alive for me, I can write very fast and instinctively ..hence the "song cycle" nature of the material that makes up New York Stories.  

The tunes act like chapters describing different parts of developing relationships, both with my honey and with New York City itself.  But before finishing the "book" I knew I  needed a "first chapter" that would bring the listener into story right off the top. Most of the album was already written when the title song New York Story started to come, the idea forming during a memorable long walk down from Harlem through Central Park and into lower Manhattan.  You can feel the romance of the city all around us in the lyric, but I will admit the words and the shape of the melody took hard work and crafting before I felt it was right 

Like the other songs on the record I brought New York Story to my trio (Daniel Barnes on drums, Russ Boswell on bass and Michael Shand on keyboard) and tested them with the audiences at the Jazz Bistro in Toronto and across Canada on tour dates before recording them, mostly live off the floor at The Drive Shed studio with engineer John Beetle Bailey. Bringing the legendary Jackie Richardson in to work out a duet version was the most logical and organic process imaginable, we have been singing together for many years now and I always learn and grow as an artist when I work with this amazing lady. Jackie helped me understand and plot through the emotional journey of the song, as it was still very "hot off the press" when we took it to the studio! 

The fact that this music is finding an audience is no surprise to me, (although I am very grateful and happy about it), after all these songs come from a very deep and private place and something Ive learned as Ive grown as an artist is the if you write it "true" to your experience then a whole bunch of the rest of the human beings will know exactly what you are talking about!   

Who Knows Where This New York Story Ends…..

Romance in New York City  

Long walks through Central Park in the cool crisp air of autumn with the leaves changing colours.  

The magic of a wintery day with whole city slowed down by the snow.   

Springtime with the possibility of new romance bursting all around us.  

A delicious meal outdoors in summertime at a little cafe, feeling intimate and cozy in the midst of a busy avenue. 

What is it about New York that makes everything feel so damn romantic!?  

Foremost its a city that demands the most of ourselves, in business, in love, and in our reaching for the good things in life. 

The building are tall, and likewise our expectations, which stretch towards the sky with a belief in the impossible! 

Made for peek experiences, New York is all about the new adventure waiting to happen.  

The unexpected meeting, the chance encounters that changes everything.  No wonder our heads swim with possibilities! 

 Anything can happen in New York. That tiny island holds so much life and so much energy,
of course it allows for the biggest possible dreams and the craziest kind of magic. 

 It's that heady feeling of new romance that inspired me to compose the songs that make up "New York Stories".  

"Come take my hand and we'll stroll through the park, far from the noise and the crowd….."


                                                                                

Friday Live @ Five

Join Micah each week as he shares insightful tidbits and sound bites to help you with your professional directions.