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Tanya Davis and Dirty Dancing
95 Plays1 year ago
The Poet Laureate of Prince Edward Island (PEI), Tanya Davis, joins the lads to talk about the 1987 musical romance, Dirty Dancing.
Tanya is a poet, musician, and performance poet: “My work is very much words based and writing based,” she says. In addition to her performance work and promotion of poetry generally, Tanya takes commissions and writes for events and special occasions.
She also has a band with her partner, called County Line Romance.
“Dirty Dancing to me is about the soundtrack. It’s the first music I listened to just by myself,” says Tanya. She used the music to feel and express something as a young person. Otis Redding’s song “These Arms of Mine” was, and continues to be, a particular favorite.
Learn how it changed Tanya’s life – and influenced her writing – in this episode of Re-Creative.
For more information, check out this episode's show notes page.
Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press.
Contact us: joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com
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Transcript
Morning Recording & Humorous Banter
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, Mark. Joe. We're recording in the morning for a change. If I sound different, that is why I like you and our guest. I am not a morning person. Yes. Well, I saw your post on Facebook in which you likened yourself to, uh, I don't know what that was. That thing was that you posted some kind of animal with really bad hair. Yeah. Blinking in the morning going, uh,
00:00:34
Speaker
Yeah. And your actual appearance this morning is uncannily similar to what you posted. No, actually it looked great. Yeah. The hair's not quite as crazy.
PEI Bridge & Nostalgia
00:00:43
Speaker
Yeah. I did have a question though about, I think actually I got another PEI question for you. Okay. Now this might be controversial.
00:00:50
Speaker
Bring on the controversy. Yeah, we need a little controversy in this podcast. You weren't living in PEI in the 80s, were you? Oh yeah, I was still in high school in Somerset. Yeah. Okay, so then would you have voted in the plebiscite on the bridge? I must have. So were you pro or against the bridge? Because I didn't realize I was doing a bit of research about this. I guess this was a controversial thing. Well, I was definitely for the bridge because
00:01:15
Speaker
I mean, I'm like a science fiction guy, right? And the bridge was kind of like a science fiction. It's like, wow, we can actually put like a huge long bridge. And, you know, just the other day, my wife asked me, she said, is this like one of the longest bridges in the world? So I looked it up and it's like, it's like the 60th longest bridge in the world. Is it the longest bridge that goes over ice?
00:01:37
Speaker
It is, yeah. It's the longest bridge that goes over iced water. And the longest bridge is in China, I think, and it's a lot, lot longer. But it's still a very impressive bridge, and I was in favor. But that being said, we all loved the boats, the Abigail and the John Hamilton Gray and
00:01:57
Speaker
vacation land. I still remember them all, but this is so much more convenient, especially now that I'm back living in the Maritimes and going back and forth to P.E.I. all the time to see my family. It's great. The only thing you have to worry about now is not running into a moose.
Tanya's Connection to PEI
00:02:13
Speaker
All right, over to our guest, Tanya Davis. Thank you very much for joining us today. What do you think of the bridge?
00:02:20
Speaker
Thanks for having me. Yeah, I also live on PEI. I grew up in PEI and I surely would have voted for the bridge. I don't remember having the opportunity to vote in one, but I was so excited when it opened and like you, I love the boats. Right now I live down East on PEI. So actually live very close to the ferry that goes to Nova Scotia. So I still do get to take a boat in the summer months when the ferry is not broken or on fire.
00:02:46
Speaker
Which happened. Which happens, apparently. But the bridge, yeah, I mean, it opened everything up in a new way for us. I remember going, you want to leave the island and going to wait at the ferry, but then you didn't get a spot or there was a storm and you literally had to turn around and go home and you couldn't get off the island. So I appreciate the psychological ability. Like in my head, it feels good to be able to exit.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, but those boats were cool. You know, those boats, they drove trains onto those boats and configured them. And you wondered how could they float with an entire train on it, but they did. They did. I know they were very cool. Well, thank you. That answers my question. Yeah, because for me personally, I would have wondered if maybe some people would be just like, I don't want to be that accessible. That for me was the other psychological side. It was like, there's something nice about
00:03:36
Speaker
being separated from everybody. It's your own space, right? Well, yeah. And now we're getting into the psychology of Prince Edward Islanders and we could... Well, okay. So first, I guess we should explain. So Tanya Davis, we invited you onto the podcast because I'm a big fan of your music. Some of your songs, they're on permanent rotation on my playlist and some like Sad Secret especially have become like one of my favorite songs.
00:03:59
Speaker
So it's a great pleasure to talk to you and really respect your work. Um, but also you're from Prince Edward Island and so am I, cause I grew up in Somerset and I think you grew up in Somerset, right? Yes, I did. I can't ask your age. That's an impolite question, but you can actually, I'm 44 years old. Okay. So you're, yeah, so you're 14 years younger than me, but you must've gone to three Oaks senior high school.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yep, I went to Three Oaks, I graduated in 1997, and then I promptly left PEI actually, pretty soon after I graduated. That's advisable, I think. Yeah, I'm glad I did. I never thought I'd live here again actually, but now I'm back and I love it here. I've been here for three
00:04:45
Speaker
for four years, I don't know. Time has been a bit warpy lately, but I do think it's really good to leave a small place if you have the opportunity and the resources because small places are beautiful and they have a lot to offer and they can be isolating, bridge or no bridge.
00:05:02
Speaker
I learned a lot by leaving and now I have, you know, PEI has changed and grown in part, maybe because of the bridge, you know, maybe it also contributed to the idea of PEI opening up to people. And so it is a more open, accepting, diverse place and therefore more interesting to me. And now it's worth being on in a totally new way. But it was good to grow up here. It was really good to leave for a while. And now it's good to be back.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sort of curious before we get onto other stuff, your comment that Prince Edward Island has changed. Do you really think that's true?
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, I really do. I really think it's true. I wouldn't have moved back here otherwise because, you know, I mean, I grew up in Somerset as you did. It's a small town. Charlottetown is also a small city, but Somerset felt especially small and homogenous and not as open-minded or politically astute as I need it.
00:05:59
Speaker
I didn't know I needed it at the time I left, you know, I was a little bit of a dramatic teenager, maybe. And I left without really realizing why or what I felt like I was missing. And I only learned that in hindsight as I became an adult. But now when I'm back on PEI and when I've been visiting before I moved the made the decision to move back here, I was here for an artist residency for a few weeks. And then I went back to where I was living, which was Ottawa at that time. And life sort of had fallen apart and I needed to move from Ottawa.
00:06:27
Speaker
And I had had such a good time on PEI for three weeks in that fall and meeting new people and there was events and shows and there was a protest that moved me. And there was just like a bunch of things happening and I saw it in a new light. I was like, oh, wow, there's a lot more going on here than I remembered. And people who have moved PEI from other countries and other provinces and other worldviews. And it just really helps. That's true. Yeah, it makes it way like the amount of newcomers, the amount of just growth that Charlottetown especially has had.
00:06:57
Speaker
that has extended to other parts of the island because people can't all live in Charlottetown or Forto. But I really felt it and how it was more interesting and spending those few weeks here enabled me to consider existing here again. And yeah, so I kind of moved back as a temporary, let's see what this is like. And that was just before the pandemic and I settled in and now I'm here.
00:07:21
Speaker
I never thought I would come back. I never planned to actually, because I loved Toronto. And then just as time went by, it just seemed to be like the sensible thing to do. And now that I'm back in the Maritimes, I love being back in the Maritimes. I love being a Maritimer again. And we'll get Mark down here eventually. Definitely. I want to come for a visit for sure.
00:07:41
Speaker
No, no, I'm talking about permanently. Okay, possibly. I'm open to it. I like going to new places. The very least I'll come for, you know, a few weeks and see what it's like. Any time. Yeah. Actually, you make it sound very appealing, but I do pay attention to the weather forecast and New Brunswick looks pretty brutal. Oh, the weather's great. It's like it makes you feel alive.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the one thing that is appealing to me is that here in London, Ontario, we've kind of lost our snow. So we used to get snow that stayed all winter and now it's, it's like, we get a bit of snow and then it melts and we're right. And you know, we'll get a streamer that comes off the Great Lakes and you know, we'll get 30 centimeters or even sometimes even more, but then it's gone within a week. Like, so that part does appeal to me because I love to cross country ski. No, come on down. Yeah. And then we love to talk about the weather here. Love to talk about it so much.
00:08:32
Speaker
We should ask Tanya to describe what it is she does.
Tanya's Artistic Journey
00:08:36
Speaker
We know that you're the poet laureate of PEI, which is congratulations on that. That's very cool. Thank you. But what is your work about and can you describe that to our listeners?
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I can describe it and whether I can describe it succinctly is another thing. I say that because I've been in conversations lately with people, with friends and peers and out in the world when people are like, what are you up to? What have you been working on?
00:09:03
Speaker
And it's a bit unwieldy right now. And so that answer kind of trips me up because my career in the arts is very, it's somewhat patchwork. I will say it's based in words, pretty much. Words are the foundation. I'm a writer, a poet, a performance poet, and a performer. So from there, the rest of the work branches out. So it's very much words-based and writing-based.
00:09:32
Speaker
As a poet laureate, I mean, that's a different conversation. I'm mostly still Tanya. I just happened to also be the poet laureate, and that involves a bit of advocating for the arts, promoting literacy, literature, poetry in particular, and then also being, I consider it like being a public poetic representative. So I go to events, sometimes write specifically for those events, which I do in my own artistic life as Tanya Davis. Part of my work is
00:10:00
Speaker
I take commissions to write for things. Like this morning before this podcast, I'm working on a piece for World AIDS Day, an event that's happening here on PEI for World AIDS Day. So I still take those commissions and write for events, things that happened or things that are going to happen.
00:10:19
Speaker
I do also play music, although less so these days than I used to. That's in part because I find the music industry harder and less affordable than even the poetry industry is. Wow. Yeah, I know, right? That says something. That's a lot, man. You said a lot right there. But it was such a shame because you're so good.
00:10:45
Speaker
Well, thank you. I still do shows from time to time. In fact, I'm booking some for next year. And with my performance poetry kind of stuff, I do incorporate music with that often. So I have another new project that was like a show that was some poetry, some music. I have a duo with my partner here, it's called the County Lion Romance, and we play more like country folk stuff together. My partner is a bassist. And so I still- Are we allowed to ask your partner's name?
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, their name is Carly Howell and they moved here from Toronto not too many years ago, during the pandemic actually to be with me. And yeah, so they work in music and arts as well as a bassist and educator and writer and performer. And then we have our little project together called The County Line Romance because we live on the county line road here in Eastern PEI.
00:11:39
Speaker
So, okay, yeah, so you do a lot and you're very busy and accomplished. And despite that, I think that you've done the homework that we've imposed upon you. And thank you for that. And sometimes we know about the piece of art that our guests have selected and other times like today, we don't. So this is kind of exciting. I'm very curious to hear what you've chosen.
00:12:00
Speaker
Well, upon reflection and going over some things in my head that have meant something to me or spurred me in a direction or just affected me, I settled pretty quickly actually on the movie Dirty Dancing.
00:12:16
Speaker
Patrick Swayze. And Elizabeth Gray, is it? Jennifer Gray. That's a great choice. And so why did you choose that? Well, I chose that because Dirty Dancing to me, I don't know when it came out, the 80s, sometime in the 80s, it's really about the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. The music from Dirty Dancing is the first music I loved on my own, innately, in my own little self.
00:12:44
Speaker
instead of just, you know, I didn't grow up in a very musical household like we had. My mom is from a French Acadian family, so she has some musical.
00:12:51
Speaker
roots and appreciation for it, but we didn't actively listen to music or seek it out. It was just the radio. The radio was always, always on. And I had no choice in what the radio station was. And PEI, for that matter, didn't have a lot of great options, nor did we have the internet yet. So just the music that was on in my household all the time was background, I don't know, adult contemporary soft rock a lot. There was some
00:13:17
Speaker
Am like all these stations that were in rotation and I did really love I actually liked them too because I like old music but I never had Music as a hobby or interest of mine that I sought out and we didn't talk about it It wasn't a very artistic household. I did take a
00:13:35
Speaker
piano lessons for a while and I was in the band. But it felt more like an extracurricular pursuit or something I should do. Like I was a very- What did you play in the band? I was in the band too. Were you? Oh, I played the flute. Okay, yeah. What did you play? I started playing the baritone and then I wound up playing the baritone and the trombone.
00:13:56
Speaker
Oh, nice. Under our band leader at the time was David Foy. Yes, he was mine. He died when I was in high school. He died when I was in grade 11, but he was my band teacher.
00:14:09
Speaker
Loved David Voie. Yeah, many of us, I mean, that was a great tragedy. He died so young. Yeah. And yeah, he used to call me Rhubarb. Rhubarb. Okay, why did he call you Rhubarb? I gotta ask that question. You can't dangle that. I don't know. He just, that was his nickname for me. And in an earlier podcast, you asked me what my nicknames were and I didn't say that one because, yeah. He didn't like that one.
00:14:35
Speaker
It wasn't my favorite, but he was great. He was a very influential figure in my life. He wanted me to go and study music and
00:14:47
Speaker
I didn't. Sometimes I think about that. But anyway, yeah. So you were in the band? Yeah, I was in the band. I was in the junior high band with Peter Galant before that. And so I did do musical stuff, but again, kind of like an extracurricular activity or a thing I should do or something. I didn't have an innate love yet of any of the arts besides writing, I would say. But anyway, so when Dirty Dancing came out,
00:15:10
Speaker
I just remember something being activated to turning on inside me for some of the music in that movie. I also loved the movie and I loved Patrick Swayze a lot and, you know, can talk about it was maybe my introduction to, you know, some other issues. I didn't know like there's, you know, abortion rights come up in their class struggle.
00:15:28
Speaker
It was a very white movie. It didn't have for a lot of racial analysis, but it did introduce some things that I hadn't been open to yet. And I wouldn't be very much in Summerside still for years after that movie. But the music, I remember I bought, I guess it was a cassette tape probably at that time.
00:15:44
Speaker
For my Walkman I bought the soundtrack and I would sit in my bedroom with the lights off and sit on the floor and listen to especially there were some songs over and over alone and I would cry and it was I wasn't in an emotionally Adept household we didn't talk about feelings a lot I had a lot of feelings as makes sense now that I'm you know working artists and a creative person and an emotional communicator but at the time we didn't have that so
00:16:12
Speaker
I used this music. I would listen to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack in my room alone and cry just to get something out, just to feel something and express something. And again, didn't know how how notable that was at the time, but it made sense years later. And it's still I was listening to that soundtrack last night, actually, while I was cooking. I have final. I was listening to more Dirty Dancing because there are two records because there was a lot of songs. So I was listening to the second one while cooking.
00:16:39
Speaker
So what are some of the songs and artists on this soundtrack? Well, really my all-time favorite that was introduced to me and is still one of my all-time favorites is Otis Redding. So Otis Redding has the song These Arms of Mine and it's just so beautiful. It's such a beautiful song and for those who are listening and know the movie Dirty Dancing,
00:17:01
Speaker
And can put the scenes to the music or not I can I can all the songs that come up I can imagine the scenes because I watched the movie a lot But this is the scene where Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey Start dancing in in Patrick Swayze's cabin. It's the beginning of the love scene and it was just you know sexy and romantic and it's like just a new thing to me and then the other song that comes right after that if you're watching the movie is Cry to me by Solomon Burke
00:17:31
Speaker
And so those two songs in succession just got at my heartstrings and yeah, so those are my favorite on it and they started me loving old soul music.
00:17:42
Speaker
So it's not the usual because, you know, when I asked that question, I thought that you would immediately say songs that like pop songs that I was familiar with. But no, these are this is like music of a higher border, if I may. Mark, have you seen the movie? I have. But I'll be honest, it's one that didn't stick in my head very well, though the music was great. I do remember the music being awesome because I also like soul music. So.
00:18:06
Speaker
I remember it wasn't that long ago that Jennifer Gray was, you know, meme-ified from the nobody puts baby in the corner thing. Right. Yeah, that comes up a lot. Yeah.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, and also that movie, I love dancing, but I didn't know that yet either. And growing up, I didn't see any dance. I never saw people dance for years and years of my life, which is maybe not abnormal in some cultures, including maybe PEI at that time.
00:18:37
Speaker
I never could dance and it's something that I wish that I could. Like I was, I was awkward at the high school dances. I'll tell you a story about dancing. So you know, you already know I'm not a morning person. So when I was in Queens players, we did the musical cabaret Queens and, and so it was dancing as well as singing and acting. So I was not a triple threat. In fact, I was so bad at learning the steps. I had to go to the remedial dance practice first thing on Saturday mornings at 8 AM.
00:19:05
Speaker
You had to take remedial dancing. I had to go for the remedial dancing so that they could, they literally had to drill it into my muscle memory. That's the only way you could get me to like dance along with everybody else. You know, I can still do most of the routine from a couple of songs because of that. Gee, are you a good dancer, Tanya? I would say that I am. Yeah.
00:19:32
Speaker
I'm not a trained dancer. Lucky. Well, I say that I really enjoy dancing and it's been a big part of my life. And I mean more like dancing at clubs and parties, dancing with groups of people. I do want to take me and my partner, we're actually dancing in the kitchen last night to one of the songs from the soundtrack. And it's more of a, it's not quite salsa, but it's called the Todo Apoco and it's Latin American or maybe Cuban rhythm. And so we were dancing a little bit.
00:20:02
Speaker
we were talking about, oh, we should take partner dance just to, you know, we have rhythm together, but to learn some of the steps and the moves. So I've been more of a solo dancer, like dancing at raves, dancing, you know, in that, in that context. And I'm not exaggerating when I say it's.
00:20:19
Speaker
changed the course of my life. Some of the nights that I've gone out dancing have really given me a lot. And I didn't know that at the time of this movie either, but there's one scene where, cause the dirty dancing for people who don't know it, like I won't explain the whole movie, but there is, you know, they're at a resort, a summer resort. And there's these classes where people can take sort of ballroom dancing type lessons and stuff. And
00:20:43
Speaker
one of the characters, Patrick Swayze, teaches people how to dance in these ways. He has, you know, dancing lessons with, say, old ladies at the resort and they learn how to salsa. But then at this one point in the movie,
00:20:56
Speaker
It's after hours and all the staff are in the staff quarters, which is this class division also, like all the staff, lots of people of color, working class people who keep this resort running after their day where they teach old rich people how to dance and they serve them fancy dinners. They go to their staff quarters and baby who Jennifer Gray is known as in the
00:21:14
Speaker
in the movie goes to one with someone. She's a guest, so she's not usually in the staff quarters, but she finds herself there. The doors open and all the staff are just dancing their socks off. They're just dancing for release, joy, connection for love and sex.
00:21:34
Speaker
Just fervor in a way that the juxtaposition between watching them dance and watching the dance lessons that happen at the kind of bougie uptight Summer resort is so stark and as soon as you open the doors You just see all these people dancing. They were dancing I think the first song when they open the doors is love man by Otis Redding or that's one of them that comes on in that scene and
00:21:58
Speaker
That is a profound image to me too because I didn't know yet that dancing and community of people is something I've done a lot in my life in the queer community, going out with queer friends and dancing and those sort of safe, really euphoric spaces.
00:22:16
Speaker
It has brought me so much joy, safety, connection, inspiration. So that was just a little seed that maybe, not even a seed planted, but something that happened in my young brain that I wouldn't know exactly about until many years later.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, I feel so grateful. I feel like I didn't move towards it intentionally. Maybe it moved towards me or I walked through enough doors with curiosity that then I got swept up into a totally new world and I'm really grateful and I needed to leave PEI to experience that or for that to happen to me. And I know that you did some brave things that I wouldn't have had the guts to do like hitchhike to British Columbia when you were young. Yeah, I did that. Yeah. It was very fun. I wouldn't do it now.
00:23:04
Speaker
Really? No way. I mean, I was naive, young, probably a bit entitled or definitely a bit entitled like, oh, here I am, me and my friend, we're just going to hitch rides all across the country and we'll be fine. And we were fine. We were two young women, albeit white women. Our parents were so worried about us and I just didn't care at the time. Oh my God, I would have been. Yeah, I was like, whatever, you don't understand youth, you don't understand me.
00:23:29
Speaker
Now when I think about it, I was 20. I took a break from university and hitchhiked out west to Vancouver. I just didn't care what my parents thought. I'm glad I did it. They didn't say don't go, but you could tell they were disappointed or worried, of course. But now when I think about it, I'm like, oh, I probably put them through so much stress and anxiety. That's what kids are for, right? That's what happens. You have to separate yourself from your family at a certain point.
00:23:58
Speaker
That's true. Yeah, you do. Yeah. And it's like, um, it's a cliche journey story, but it's, uh, it's cliche because it's true. Like where people do that all over the world in, in so many ways. And I will not have a cell phone because there are none yet. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, did you call your parents off from here?
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, I called them enough, I think, from pay phones along the way. Yeah. Okay. Now I'm feeling really guilty. But all the stress I put my parents through, traveling in Asia during the middle of revolutions and stuff. Oh my God. You should feel guilty, Mark. Well, I mean, yeah. I'm joking. I don't feel guilty at all.
00:24:39
Speaker
No, I was going to ask you about the dancing. Did that have an influence on your poetry? Because I've only seen the web, so that's the only thing of yours that I've seen, but there really is a flow to it. So I wonder if your other work has that feeling as well that I could see coming out of dance.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there is some influence, both direct and indirect. I started dancing just before I started writing poetry in this fashion. I always wrote poetry. I was a writer as a kid and I wrote short stories and a small novella and like things, but I wasn't going to pursue the arts or anything like the arts because I didn't know that was a possibility or a job even. So I had gone to university for other things.
00:25:28
Speaker
And around the time I started dancing, I would go out to pubs with the women I lived in residence with and we'd go dancing. That to me is a different thing, like having double vodka tonics and dancing at a pub on a Thursday. That's not the kind of dancing I think of. When I was 20, I moved to Ottawa for a year for university and I had switched programs and I went out to my first rave.
00:25:56
Speaker
and that was the dance. That was when my life noticeably took a turn. There was something that happened to me that night in my head and that was the first time I ever danced alone and I danced solo under
00:26:09
Speaker
you know, big lights and loud music and all these people and it just changed something in me. So that was when I was 20 and I hitchhiked to BC within months of that. And then within one month probably of arriving in BC, I went out to a show
00:26:26
Speaker
downtown in East Van on Hastings Street. And it was at a venue called the Church of Pointless Hysteria. And it was a really cool art space up, you know, in an old, like lofty old abandoned building of artists and activists and queers and weirdos. And they would put on shows. And so I ended up there one night and there was spoken word performance by Shane Koisan, who's a pretty well-known Canadian poet at this point.
00:26:55
Speaker
and Kinney Starr, who is a poet and musician. They were both performing that night, and I went in and I saw them, and I had never heard anything like it. I didn't know that poetry could be performed out loud. I had never heard of slam poetry, spoken words, anything like it. I hadn't listened really even to hip-hop music very much at that point. It was just, oh, wow, a whole new thing.
00:27:16
Speaker
And so those events happened within, you know, months of each other. So I would say back to your question about is there a relationship between dancing and the way I do my poetry or my music? I'd say that there is. And it is a frenetic quality, sometimes fast paced. There's lilting and rhythm in how I write and perform poetry. And I think that is tied to to music and to the rhythm of that and how I how I just want to move a lot.
00:27:47
Speaker
What was the first art that you did that made you realize that you could do this for a living?
00:27:55
Speaker
The first time probably was within months of watching that performance at the Church of Pointless hysteria and those two poets and having that new kind of epiphany, I decided to write a poem and do it at an open mic in Vancouver, in East Vancouver on commercial drive. There was this place called Cafe du Soleil. It just closed actually about a year or two ago. It's been open forever. So they had a performance, like an open mic once a month that I think might have been at the time like
00:28:25
Speaker
I don't know if it was for women, but there were a lot of women and queer people there and it was called Cat Call, I think. Anyway, I went to this open mic and I had written a poem after seeing those two other poets and I was nervous. I was so sick about it to get up on stage and say my poem. I don't know if I vomited or almost did. I was so nervous and I used to be an athlete in high school
00:28:49
Speaker
and in university, too. And it was a similar nerves that I had before a game day. It was like this performance anxiety. I was like, I have to perform. But anyway, I got up on stage and did this poem and it was about labels and boxes. And I was very like I was just learning a lot. I was sponge. I was newly political. I was newly queer. I was just righteous and like really expanding quickly on my ideas about the world. So I wrote a poem about that kind of and labels and boxes.
00:29:19
Speaker
We put people in and I said it out loud at this mic and I got such an overwhelmingly positive response. It was a full house of people. Clapped, I got some people stood up. It was immediate, the feedback and then the feedback loop and then how I felt. It just, that was the beginning. That was the first time. I had never done it before and it was just very clear. Did you want more? Yeah, that I wanted more and I wanted to do that more and
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I experienced this connection, which is what I've always been seeking and what I was seeking very firmly then. Yeah. What was it that you were going to do? What were you studying? I gathered that there was a change of direction at that point.
00:30:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I was going to be a teacher because I always loved to write and I loved English So I just had this idea that I was going to be an English teacher and then I was going to write in the summertime when teachers You know have a break. So I really had no critical thought about what I was gonna do I think I was just a sheep and flock following along is like okay after high school we go to university and then we get a job and
00:30:30
Speaker
teacher is a good job. I had no true desire to be a teacher. In fact, I hate teaching, I have to say. I really dislike it. When people ask me, I used to give more poetry workshops because people...
00:30:45
Speaker
It's just a it's a natural thing but it's incorrect that artists can teach or you know creative people or like any not even just creative people if you know how to do something you must therefore be able to teach it but I really don't that's not true and it's another skill set.
00:31:03
Speaker
It's a totally different skill set and you can cultivate it even to become a better teacher. But I don't have the innate skill set and nor do I have the interest. It actually gives me a lot of anxiety. So I think it's funny now that I was assumed I was going to go and become a teacher.
00:31:18
Speaker
And no, not at all. I realized that after the first two years, I went to two years of that English. And then I was like, I don't need an English degree to be a writer. Maybe I should get another thing and be a writer. So I was an athlete at the time. So I went to health science for a year, like kinesiology, which was
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, totally other path. And I only did a year of that before I took a break. Never to return. Wow. Yeah. You say you were an athlete. I believe it was rugby that you played, right? Yeah. Yeah. I played basketball too, but rugby I played through high school and then into university.
Challenges in Music & Art
00:31:54
Speaker
So you wind up working in the arts and you're making a go of it. I feel like maybe I've complimented you enough, but I'm still going to compliment you more. The production of what I hear is so polished. I want to know where you did it, who the producer was, who the recording engineers were, and how you got that sound.
00:32:13
Speaker
From there, when you said that you're kind of moving away from that because it's so difficult to make a go of it with the musical industry, that's so dismaying to hear that you can produce such good work and still find it challenging.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you think of it as polished and hear it as polished. That's great. Thank you. I don't know if I ever thought that, or it certainly wasn't a goal of mine to make polished music. I did work with some good engineers and producers. The single, the web that you heard, I recorded in Nova Scotia with Daniel Ledwell. He's from PEI.
00:32:47
Speaker
and he engineered and mixed that. And then my record called Clocks and Hearts Keep Going, I did it with Jim Bryson out of Ottawa. He produced that and we recorded it in Ottawa at a place called Little Bullhorn.
00:33:00
Speaker
But yeah, Jim Bryson had a big hand in how that record sounded and in some of the production ideas of that record. And I did one in between that I didn't put out physically. I just put it out online as a part of a film I was in called Heartbeat, which Andrea Dorfman made in Halifax. So I made music to go with that film with Halifax guys, a staple around Halifax named Charles Austin. So he was in the Super Friends, a lot of bands. He's recorded tons of records over the years coming out of Halifax. So that's where I did that one.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you guys obviously knew and know what you're doing. For my part, I hope you do more. Yeah, I would like to do more. And actually I have had stirrings too.
00:33:39
Speaker
record some more music or me and my partner Carly might also record some together. It's a little bit a matter of funds and cashflow recording. If you can do it at home, you can save a lot of money, but we don't have all the gear. So you do it at studios and I love being in studios. I actually really love recording, but it's so expensive. It's so expensive to make a single, let alone a record like a single anywhere from $1,000, $2,000, a record 10, 20,
00:34:09
Speaker
More people spend you know, so much money making a record and I have spent a lot of money in the past I've invested a lot of my money into making records and recording and touring
00:34:19
Speaker
the costs of touring are insane. Like, no, people aren't buying as much music. Like I'm not saying anything new. This is definitely being talked about right now. But you know what? I think a lot of people don't know about that. I just was thinking one of my students has pitched a story about how the merch rules have changed so that the venues that you go to actually claw back some of the merch that you're selling. So it used to, you know, bands would have t-shirts and stuff and that's, you know, where a big chunk of their income came from and that's being clawed away.
00:34:47
Speaker
Or you have to sign a contract where you have to increase the price. If you're like opening for a band, you have to increase the price of your stuff to match theirs. I mean, it's like, that's so hostile to the artist. Yeah. I mean, this is what, you know, Cory Doctorow was writing about recently. It's the big squeeze, you know? Yeah.
00:35:05
Speaker
I mean, it's capitalism. It's just another example of where it fails. Some people are making a lot of money off music. Executive CEOs are people who are making money off the industry. People have jobs in the music industry and they make a living too. But a lot of the artists at the heart of it, the writers, the creators, the musicians, side players are not making very much money.
00:35:32
Speaker
some of our fees, like if you get asked to play somewhere right now, it's the same as it was 10 years ago, but we all know that gas is more, food is more, housing is more. Other people are making more, in some salaries, not in all of them, but a lot of artists are not, and we're still being offered the same fees, but our costs are way up.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, so all that said, I love to make music. I love to be in the studio and I would like to have more songs and put more things out there. I just can only do it either with funding, with support from someone like I don't really have patrons or
00:36:09
Speaker
or do it on my own slowly with probably not the best production quality because we don't really have the gear so it's hard to figure out these days how to make music and not lose money and I can't lose money anymore I will say like I'm honestly I
00:36:25
Speaker
I years ago went, I filed for bankruptcy and a lot of that, you know, was because of expenses I incurred being an artist and also mismanagement of my expenses, financial illiteracy, bad decision-making and being taken advantage of also by banks. Like there's lots of factors, but I invested so much money as a musician and I never saw the return and then I just got over my head. So now I'm very diligent about that. I won't spend money.
00:36:54
Speaker
I think it's, it's very common. Mark and I are both writers. It's so easy to fall into the trap of it basically just becoming an expensive hobby, you know, where you're just, yeah, you invest all this money and you think that somehow magically there's going to be some return. So let me ask you this then, because one of the things that we like to do in this podcast is try to get people to support the artists that we're talking to. What is the best way for people to support you and your work?
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I guess there are a couple of ways, you know, coming out to live performances and shows, but that's very localized and I don't perform that much. But that is, you know, a direct way to support artists, of course. I think for me, I do have stuff available online. I have a band camp page. So if people are listening to my music or streaming it a lot, they can go to my band camp. It's like Tanya Davis.
00:37:44
Speaker
and then buy it digitally so that you can listen to it. That comes to me. Bandcamp, they take a percentage of sales, but it's modest. It's average. Also, I do eventually get money on Spotify once it adds up. I wouldn't say it's the best way. I'd say Bandcamp is more direct.
00:38:06
Speaker
yeah and then also you know sharing it sharing it is a really good support because then other people might share it again or that kind of creates this web that goes out like and then it's the burden isn't on i'm admittedly not a great marketer or promoter it's the part of the business that interests me the least
00:38:22
Speaker
I don't excel at it. I should be better so, you know, just so people know what I'm up to and I can share my work data. You know, there's all this stuff that I could do better so people could support me. But one thing that they can do in that absence is to tell other people or to share my music or poetry along. I do have lots of stuff online that they can just watch and listen to.
00:38:45
Speaker
Well, we'll link to all of that so that people can check out the show notes and find the stuff easily. Yeah. Now you mentioned that you don't do Patreon. Is there a reason for that or?
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah, it might be interesting. I've definitely thought about it. I think I've even subscribed and started writing out a profile and abandoned the mission, probably more than once. I think it's a mix of just having the wherewithal and administrative effort to put that together. And then also a little bit of uncertainty with the platform of it.
00:39:15
Speaker
I don't want to ask people for for that. I realize like Patreon is an exchange. Fans and audience give money to artists so that and then artists in turn give them back something, a single piece of writing, whatever it is. I don't know if I want to get into that into that loop of having to create things on a schedule like that. I already do a lot of scheduled work because I take commissions and I have contracts. And so I'm beholden to people on deadlines and I'm finding it really squishes in on my
00:39:46
Speaker
own creativity a little bit. I work a lot more from outside in than inside out. I think Patreon might end up being another version of that for me. I just haven't been willing to
00:39:58
Speaker
to try it out yet. I would love, you know, people to support me, but I also feel awkward asking in that context. So this is another question just related to that is have you thought about doing like for, if you wanted to do another album at some point, maybe doing an Indiegogo or something like that might be a model that would work. Cause then you're not constantly having to produce new material for your listeners. They, you know, they help you build the album and then they get the album.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I know. And I have so many friends who have done that. I feel like for a while there were so many campaigns online for like GoFundMe, Kickstarter, Indiegogo. There was a lot of them and I haven't seen as many. I don't know if they... That's true. If I'm online less or if they've kind of dropped off, there was a real wave where everyone was doing it for a while. And I started making a page for that and I also...
00:40:50
Speaker
came across the same impulse of like, oh, I feel awkward about this and I don't want to ask people. I'm very bad at asking for that kind of support. I'm good at accepting it though, I have to say. When people offer it to me and I have had like patrons or people who have supported me in big ways and I'm not one of those people who say, oh no, oh no, don't know, it's fine. I'm one of those people who would say thank you and accept the help. I just am bad at those
00:41:13
Speaker
Campaigns, I'm not a good campaigner at all strikes me that you've got you're part of a really ancient tradition really in a sense like if you're if Some of your income is coming from commissions Those are essentially like patrons like from you know Yeah, exactly from the Renaissance, you know, you've got a you know You've got a rich Lord who's gonna give you some money to produce
00:41:37
Speaker
a cohesional portrait of someone in the family and then you can spend the rest of your time doing something great. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's true. I'm still in that model. It's a bit adapted from those times, but there's a thread that runs through it. I like that a lot. My commission work is one of the good things about it is that it's a parameter in which to exist and create and there's an end.
00:42:03
Speaker
Um, because they're not just, someone's not just commissioning me to live and be a poet. They're commissioning a specific poem for a specific deadline and then it's over. So I do, I do find it restful to work on those deadlines and within those timeframes, even if sometimes, if I take on too many commissions at once, then I don't have opportunity to do any of my own other work. So I gotta, I gotta be careful of the balance, but it is a good model for support for me.
00:42:30
Speaker
Mark, any final thoughts or questions? No, I just was lovely meeting you and thank you for that. I love talking to poets, like we just, yeah, more poets. Yeah, that's good. Poets love to talk. Yeah. Yeah. This has been terrific and we really appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us. And if there's ever anything that you want to champion or promote or anything, drop us a line and we'd love to have you back on.
00:42:57
Speaker
Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Tanya. Great to chat.
Supporting the Podcast & Creative Works
00:43:21
Speaker
So Mark, you and I have discussed how people can support this podcast. And one of the ways I would like to get them to support us is by, and I think you're going to like this, by purchasing one of your books. Ooh, I like that. How about your books? We're going to start with your books. Start with my books. Okay. And today I would like to point people in particular to Alpha Max, which is a novel about the metaverse, which is kind of in vogue these days.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah, and it doesn't take a lot of the standard approaches that the Metaverse stories do. I think it's a bit more grounded. It's funny, and it's witty, and it's smart, and it's entertaining. Go to recreative.ca slash support, and you can find your books there. Alpha Max by Mark A. Rayner.
00:44:03
Speaker
Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney. Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney, web designed by Mark Rainer. Show notes in all episodes are available at recreative.ca. That's re-creative.ca. Drop us a line at joemahoney at donovanstreetpress.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.