It’s been a while since I posted here. I’ve been doing things off-line (or on-other-lines). Like signing Jeremy Lyons and Yoko Miwa to my artist roster. And working on a spring tour for Members of Morphine & Jeremy Lyons. And working on Kerri Powers’ first European tour on which she opened for Fred Eaglesmith. And dream sailing with Dharma Voyage. And visiting new nephew Matty in San Francisco. Of course he’s the most beautiful baby you have EVER seen, according to me and niece Molly. And SO smart. And cozying up with writer friends and Tracker the beagle and finishing a draft of a short story (much work left—see above for reasons for slow progress).
And encouraging my friend Anne in Maine on her solo adventure to Sydney friggin’ Nova Scotia to see her favorite band, the Oysterband. Anne is an astonishing poet, soon-to-be-discovered novelist, and as you’ll see from her post, an astute music reviewer. She is the kind of fan any performer would kill for. I will just observe that her love affair with the Oysterband began with a copy of songs downloaded from iTunes from Tommy Shea. Lost revenue? I don’t think so: it goes on with Anne buying all of their CDs, infecting others with her enthusiasm, and being responsible for additional sales of band merch. Seems to me that the “lost revenue” of the initial copy from Tommy could be filed under marketing expense. And should be considered quite effective, as you’ll see from this post on Anne’s Awesome Adventures:
April 11, 2010
Off to Cape Breton for the Oysterband
Filed under: Music — by Anne Britting Oleson @ 3:01 pm
Tags: Alan Prosser, Brenda Prescott Coordinates LLC, Chopper, Dil Davies, Ian Telfer, John Jones, Membertou Trade and Convention Center, Over the Water, Oysterband, Put Out the Lights, Sydney NS, ukulele, When I’m Up
I have just returned from a whirlwind trip to Sydney, Nova Scotia–a trip in which I spent 21 of 36 hours driving–to see a concert by the Oysterband.
The Oysterband, from their website
I’ve been telling everyone that this is my all-time-favorite band no one has ever heard of. Which, of course, is not quite right, as they have been busily playing in Europe and Canada for more than thirty years, and have released that many albums and CDs in that time. Sadly, though, here in the U.S., they have been flying under most people’s radar since the late ’70s. In fact, when I crossed the U. S./Canadian border at Houlton early on Friday morning, two hours into my ten-hour drive, I had to explain my business in Canada to the agent as “attending an Oysterband concert in Sydney, Nova Scotia.”
“Blue Oyster Cult?” he asked. I told him no, the Oysterband. “Never heard of them,” he said, then cocked his head. “All the way to Sydney, Nova Scotia for a group nobody knows.” And he laughed. But then, so did I, because the joke was on him, after all.
When I first heard the Oysterband–thanks to sportswriter and music aficionado Tommy Shea, who introduced me to their songs after hearing a piece I wrote about my friend Lowell Oyster attempting to teach me to play ukulele (very long story there)–I was horrified to realize they’d been playing for all those years and I had been ignorant of them for most of that time. However, I’ve done my best to make up for that ignorance. Tommy sent me a CD of songs he’d downloaded from iTunes, which he’d labeled “The Best of/Sort of the Oysterband.” He’d included nineteen pieces he thought I’d need to hear in order to understand the ethos and evolution of the band.
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