Tuesday, September 2 ~ Artist and Audience Come Together: C'est si bon, si bon!!
For such an independent soul and musician as Allison
Crowe, this is the best time since she's been born to be creating
music, recording and performing for people all over the world. It's a
time for music lovers to rejoice.
The internet has profoundly altered the way artist and audience can now
come together. It's a wonderful thing to behold, and, pretty much every
day brings reason to welcome, and be joyed by, a world that is
connected online.
An interview with songwriter/poet+ Leonard Cohen, appearing earlier
this Summer in Montreal's La Presse newspaper, goes to the
essence of this new reality:
"I was never convinced about my success because my recording
company never consider me as a viable singer. I made discs, that were
little promoted. I was not told my discs were selling and I was not
paying attention to that. I toured, venues were filled and critics were
mostly modest, some very positive but I never had the impression that
things were exploding, that people were looking forward to see me. What
changed everything was the internet. The internet is democratic; it
does not depend on journalists or the promotion service of record
companies; all that is obsolete today. When I started receiving a lot
of feed back from Finland, Iceland, Taiwan, Africa, South America, I
suddenly understood that there was a public I never suspected existed.
It grew, my work got known and, at a given point in time a Finn, Jarkko
Arjatsalo launched the Leonard
Cohen Files and became the secretary general of the party. It
includes more than 800 web pages, fascinating archives. I understood it
was a work of love, I started contributing and we became good
friends".
The above text en Anglais
is translated courtesy of Velovermont, a member of the
discussion forums @ The
Leonard Cohen Files - the great compendium of all things
Cohen.
Here be the original quote en français
:
"Je n'ai jamais été convaincu de mon succès parce quema
compagnie de disques ne m'a jamais vu comme un chanteur viable. Je
faisais des disques et on n'en faisait pas la promotion. On ne me
disait pas que mes disques se vendaient et je ne surveillais pas ça.
Je partais en tournée, il y avait des salles combles, et je lisais les
critiques, la plupart plutôt modestes, certaines très positives, mais
je n'ai jamais eu l'impression que ça explosait, que les gens avaient
hâte de me voir. Ce qui a vraiment tout changé, c'est l'Internet.
L'Internet est démocratique et il ne dépend pas des journalistes ou
du service de promotion de la compagnie de disques, tout cela est obsolète
aujourd'hui. Quand j'ai commencé à recevoir beaucoup de feed-back de
Finlande, d'Islande, de Taiwan, d'Afrique, d'Amérique du Sud, j'ai
compris tout à coup qu'il y avait un public dont je ne soupçonnais
pas l'existence. Ça s'est mis à grossir, mon travail s'est fait connaître
et, à un moment donné, (le Finlandais) Jarkko Arjatsalo a lancé les Leonard
Cohen Files, et il est devenu le secrétaire général du parti.
Ce sont plus de 800 pages web, des archives fascinantes. C'est un
travail d'amour, je l'ai compris, j'ai commencé à y contribuer et
nous sommes devenus de bons amis."
Cohen, today enjoying his widest appreciation, has seen his songs, such
as Hallelujah,
become popular standards, heard in a global chorus of voices, around
the new age campfire that's kindled via such sites as YouTube and a
community of bloggers, webcasters, podcasters and all 'round music fans
online.
Posts this year on this, Allison Crowe's site, have introduced authors,
visual artists, other musicians, each discovering one another on the
web.
Emblematic is Jessica Kuijer, artist manager to French
singer-songwriter Sandra
Poulain, and a promoter for Canadian Allison, Ireland's Gemma
Hayes and more - creators, performers, no longer bound by rules of
industry or by geography in getting their music "out there"
and reaching the world.
Earlier this year, Kuijer teamed up with Moroccan-based impresario and
IT specialist Olivier Rohart for the first presentation of Allison
Crowe's spectacular spectacular at L'Archipel in Paris - a bill that
also included Parisienne artist Sugar
Plum Visions (Emily Green) - also a friend found thanks to the
internet.
On her website, Where
the Lions Weep, Jessica Kuijer chronicles the adventure across
France, from her home in Toulouse to the concert in Paris. In
French
et en
Anglais
she reveals the "work of love".
Of Allison's musical performance, she notes: "I really liked 'When
I'm Gone', (Phil Ochs') lyrics were much more stronger with her
voice. I don't know why but I thought about my grandmother's recent
death during this song. I cannot describe what I felt, but I wasn't
sad. We have just to live our lives while we can!
She spoke about Ani DiFranco. Allison is just following her steps as an
independent singer in the wild musical industry as they both produced
themselves their records since the beginning.
She sang my song 'Whether
I'm Wrong' and told about me. I was more than happy.
She almost missed the steps to leave the scene, so I gave her my hand.
(...)
'It was just fantastic!, that's what I said to Angus when I had to pick
up my luggage in the 'loges'. It was a really beautiful event, there's
magic in her voice.
While she was singing "Disease",
she made the drums with her feet. I was like diving into the song. (I
know this is not possible!
)
Then she was always joking and was enthusiastic all the time. It was so
cute when she wanted to speak French.
I can't wait for September to see her again!!"
En français
: "J'ai beaucoup aimé ainsi que la reprise (Phil Ochs') 'When
I'm Gone' dont les paroles avaient encore plus de sens de par
son interprétation. Je ne sais pas pourquoi mais j'ai pensé à ma
grand mère récemment décédé durant cette chanson et ça m'a
beaucoup émue. En gros il faut profiter de la vie tant qu'on le peut.
Elle a cité Ani DiFranco qui je pense est un peu son modèle surtout concernant l'auto-production musicale.
En rappel, elle ne manqua pas de me citer pour "Whether
I'm Wrong", c'était
très émouvant et je ne la remercierai jamais assez.
Elle faillit manquer les marches en descendant de la
scène, je lui ai tendit ma main pour l'aider.(...)
"It was just fantastic!" c'est ce que j'ai dit à Angus quand
je suis allé récupérer mon bagage dans les loges. C'était
magnifique, d'une justesse vocale et d'un contrôle précis. Pendant
qu'elle jouait sur "Disease",
elle marquait le rythme du pied, ce qui nous entrainait dans son
univers que plus encore.
Ce qui enrichissait le tout fut cette bonne dose
d'humour dont elle fait preuve constamment et de joie de vivre du début
à la fin en s'exprimant en français comme elle pouvait.
Vivement Septembre pour un concert du même acabit."
Jessica Kuijer and Allison Crowe outside a famous Paris bookshop... can you guess which?
This diary entry concludes: "Ce fut une superbe expérience humaine, j'espère aller au Canada un jour." = "It was a human experience that I won't forget, I hope to come to Canada real soon."
Allison's next concert in The City of Light, La Ville-lumière, performing again on the Fazioli piano at L'Archipel, is Saturday, September 27 - Jessica's birthday!
Right
now, there is a contest, un
concours, at Where
the Lions Weep - giving people a chance to win
Allison's Paris concert tickets and "Little Light" CDs
- by identifying the legendary bookstore visited by Allison and Jessy
and seen in this image above. (The answer is found in Jessica's The
Days I've Met Allison Crowe diary.)
Curious about the meaning of site's name? It's inspired by the Stanley
Kubrick/Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence.
Jessica says, "and so it is: where the lions weep, the place of
discoveries and where dreams can be born."