The Baroness: Sarah Slean

Written for the New West

Toronto songstress Sarah Slean doesn’t make a record unless she has something to say.

After seven months in Paris, a visit to a Buddhist monastery and time finishing her degree in music and philosophy at the University of Toronto, Slean has accumulated some excellent fodder for her fifth album, The Baroness.

“In the last four years, I have had so many experiences that were wildly educational... This album is about a real desire to tell the truth and speak plainly in an unadorned fashion,” clarifies Slean, on the phone from Toronto.

Named after her big theatrical alter ego who Slean describes as a “brassy, ball-gown wearing technicolour dame,” the Baroness is her most lyrically direct and musically accessible work to date.



As Slean was making this record, she realized the songs were nothing like her larger than life persona, so she started looking at it more from a ‘barrenness’ point of view. “The urge to make art is fiery. The Baroness is about total nudity and the strength that is required to leave oneself that exposed.”

Sarah Slean’s haunting, angelic voice and her poignant lyrics have created a loyal fan base in both Canada and the U.S. What fans may not know about this foxy femme is that she is also diversely talented. She is a poet, an accomplished piano player, a string arranger, an actor and a visual artist.

But Slean didn’t always know that she wanted to be a performer. “I thought I was going to be a member of Academia. It was a hard decision when I got signed in 1998. God, was that ten years ago already?” she chuckles.

Luckily, this path has afforded her the pleasure and luxury of being a perpetual student and she is continually applying and expressing what she learns through her art.

Warm, genuine and enthusiastic, Slean is herself fiery and engaging. Although her influences include such female powerhouses as Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell and PJ Harvey, Slean points out that half of her music collection is classical.



"I just spent the last two weeks studying for my classical music exam and woke up humming Beethoven symphonies every morning.”

Slean’s nation-wide tour kicks off in Vancouver on April 29th and ends in Halifax on May 29th.

“I love being on the road with a great bunch of guys singing in beautiful venues. I have been cultivating audiences for the last ten years and it feels good; it feels like I am a part of their lives.”

When asked about the difference between Canadian and American crowds, Slean responds that Canadian crowds are not so immediately inclined to make a celebrity machine.

“In the US, it can sometimes be about nothing but money, and I find that crushing. In Canada, Slean believes that art can happen. Minds can get stimulated. All of the great power of art has a chance to work.”

To the Edge of the World

Written for the New West

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Spring, John Sayer ignited my imagination through his sculptures and paintings. Sprightly and whimsical, tumultuous and brooding, Sayer’s work runs the gamut of emotion. One can’t help but want to meet the artist behind such eventful work.

Hardly tumultuous or brooding, it turns out Sayer is a perfectly affable fellow who is happy to connect with his audience.

“My paintings reflect both conscious and subconscious thoughts. They are both visionary and surrealistic, making comments on life or about life,” says Sayer.

“All the work I do is pure imagination. I have a vision and I create an image based on it.”
He doesn’t like to interpret all of his work though, and would much rather hear what you have to say about it.

There is always something new to see in his paintings, some of which are bustling and teaming with verve. Faces and images, bubbles and smiles all intertwine to spark in us our own thoughts. Sayer’s work shows heart, imagination and originality. Of note in his more recent work is his use of holographic effects in his paintings, which he started using about seven or eight years ago.

“When I first began painting, I did landscapes and still life. Even then, I was experimenting with abstract. I feel that the work I am doing now is my breakthrough as an artist,” says Sayer.

“I feel it is very original.”

Indeed, the holographic material catches the light and creates an ever-moving image, which changes from one angle to the next. My favourite of these fanciful paintings, Landscape in a Dream, contrasts drought and abundance.

“If it rained in colour, I would be out there every day jumping through the puddles," said gallery administrator Shirley Walker.

Likely to incite a smile, a furrowed brow, or a forgotten dream, Sayer’s work makes you want to jump in. Sayer has started using the same background for his more recent works which looks something like crumpled paper. But look again and you see faces and eyes and images—or whatever you wish—masquerading in the clouds.

“No matter the picture, Sayer’s work has a translucent quality,” said Jane Rowe, who attended the opening reception.

“You can see through the surface image to the deeper representations within.”
Sayer’s work truly is a reflection of his life. With themes of chameleons, crows, dancers, birds of paradise, fashion, image, belonging, time, good, evil, transition and pain, this is a journey to the edge of the world.

Flames Fever? Not for me...

Written for the Calgary Herald Q

Generally in life, I like to defy stereotypes. I enjoy the unconventional—women who rebuild engines, men who know how to accessorize, polite children. You know, the unexpected. But one area in life where I am absolutely your stereotypical female is when it comes to sports in general, and hockey in particular.

What? There’s something going on with hockey right now? The only reason I know this is because someone was wearing a Flames jersey around the office today. And yes, I know what those look like.

I just don’t see what the big deal is about hockey. I’ve tried to watch a couple of games, I have. And I’ll admit that going to a game can be quite enjoyable, mostly on account of that flat Stadium beer and the Pocket Dawgs, but again, I just don’t get it. From where I’m sitting way up in the nosebleeds, hockey and hockey games are a huge money grab: The exorbitant players’ salaries make my blood boil; the merchandise is outrageously priced and good seats are unaffordable for your Average Joe.

All of that aside, to me it’s still just a bunch of guys chasing a puck around the ice. I still remember with exasperation the Year of The Red Mile. I suffered long and hard in 2004. I must have been the only one in Calgary breathing a sigh of relief when the Flames were finally out of the playoffs, if only because it meant an end to the ridiculous and unnecessary pandemonium. Tickets were selling for four hundred bucks a pop, flags littered every car and gutter in the city, students couldn’t be given homework because there was a game. Man, you couldn’t go anywhere in this town without having hockey practically shoved down your throat. I think I saw more shirtless women that year than Hugh Hefner. And you would have thought that the outcome of those games was a matter of life and death. Like Jerome Iginla was curing cancer down there at the Saddledome.

Being a Canadian and a non-fan can sometimes feel like having two heads. For my own protection, I generally keep my ignorance and disdain to myself. And really, I’m just not up for the argument. You like hockey, that’s fine with me. I may not understand it but I respect it, as long as you respect that I could care less about it. Yes, I get that you think it’s the Greatest Game Ever Played; I just think it’s still a game and that that money could be better spent on just about anything else.

Every couple of years, I feel like I am being closed-minded and that I should revisit my hockey aversion. Like there’s something wrong with me that a little Don Cherry won’t fix. So I give it another try. It sure would be nice to get what everyone’s on about. There are entire posts on this blog that make absolutely no sense to me. So I grab my big foam thumb and head on down to a game and try to get into it. I can’t see anything. I don’t know where the puck is, what the rules are, who the players are, which team is winning, why that guy got a penalty, how long there is left in the game or why all of a sudden everyone has jumped up out of their seats. And just when I think we’re almost at the end: OVERTIME.

I suppose the appeal of hockey is the feeling of belonging to something greater than oneself; a sense of pride in community, a city supporting its players and being able to get behind something bigger and better and more exciting than the dishes or the garbage or the recycling. Hockey is a form of entertainment like any other, an escape from the mundane events of our daily lives. I get all of that. I just don’t understand why it defines us as Canadians or how it is in any way part of my national identity.

So I guess I’ll just have to ride out hockey fever for a few more weeks. After all, the blissful hockey-free days of summer are just around the corner…

The Syringa Tree

for The New West

If you hadn’t noticed, the Junos took Calgary by storm over the weekend. The four-day event kicked off Thursday night at Olympic Plaza. But this isn’t an article about the Junos. It is a story about a little girl navigating the difficult emotional and moral terrain of South Africa during Apartheid…with the muffled bass of Bedouin Soundclash in the background. So if you weren’t one of the thousands of people downtown for the free Junos concert, then you may have been next door with me at Martha Cohen Theatre.

Junos or not, nothing could distract from Meg Roe’s commanding and compelling performance as Elizabeth Grace, a precocious, endearing, observant and hilarious six-year old. This actress of formidable talent and energy inhabits 22 characters on a very bare stage and proves that one person can do it all, and do it all very convincingly.

Among the many groups that make up the population in South Africa are at least a dozen African cultures, including Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho, as well as white Afrikaners descended from Dutch settlers, Jewish South Africans, and South Africans of English origin. Each has a unique accent and a very complicated role in the political social order.

Meg Roe populates the stage with each one of these characters with enthusiastic gusto and vigor. In fact, she switches so deftly from role to role that sometimes you have a hard time keeping up. What’s even more astonishing is that you can actually picture the black housekeeper Salamina on stage as well and as clearly as if she was standing there in the flesh. And as a conversation unravels between Elizabeth, her mother, the gardener, the brother’s nanny and her housekeeper, you kind of forget that there’s actually only one person on stage. One can’t help but think that it must be very entertaining in Roe’s dressing room.

It has only been two years since Alberta Theatre Projects opened this moving and ingenious play, an autobiography of playwright Pamela Gien’s life - clearly written out of her love for South Africa. Gien was the sole performer in the original production of the Syringa Tree and one really feels the sense of connection, sorrow and longing which she has for her country. Both Gien and Roe prove one of the play’s themes, “Free and Brave live inside your heart.”

Buoyed by the positive vibe on the way out the door, I conducted a very unofficial survey of a few fellow theatre-goers. One said seeing The Syringa Tree a second time only deepened her love and appreciation for the play; the first time around, you get the broad strokes; the second time allows you to pick up on the nuances and focus on the story.

Another said The Syringa Tree is the most powerful play that she has seen in a long time, and that with such an outstanding performance, she could see why they would choose to do it a second time.

Take that, Finger Eleven.

Volunteering at the Junos an Eye-Opening Experience

Written for Calgary Herald Q

Well, we can’t *all* be Michael Morrison, and as much as I would love to spend a day walking in his hallowed shoes, not all of us have the clout to bribe Juno officials into getting us media accreditation. So this blogger had to resort to getting a behind-the-scenes pass to the Junos the old-fashioned way: by volunteering.

For me, the Junos have never been more than a two-hour awards show with hosts like Pamela Anderson, who make me embarrassed to say I’m Canadian. Who knew that the Junos were actually a four-day festival showcasing some of this country’s best and most under-recognized, under-supported talent? It almost felt like Stampede around here.

If you couldn’t make it to Olympic Plaza on Thursday for the free concert, there were plenty of other chances for you to get up close and personal. On Saturday, I volunteered at the Juno Fan Fare, a free event where fans could go and have their memorabilia signed, photos taken and questions answered by their favourite artists. And the list was quite impressive. In attendance were Finger Eleven, Theory of a Deadman, Bedouin Soundclash, illScarlett and Hedley, among others. Never heard of them? Me either. All the more reason to head on down.

As you can imagine, I doubled the average-age of the fans there, some of whom had lined up since six in the morning to reserve their spot in line. Fourteen year-olds hyped up on sugar and adrenaline screamed, squealed and shook with delight and awe as lead singer Jacob Hoggard touched their hands on his way past. Sound like hell? As a former junior high teacher, this was just another day in the life. And it was kind of sweet. It definitely took me back to the day. If this had been a New Kids on the Block event and it was 1990, I would have been right there with them, fawning over Jon and sending him my special psychic love vibes. He was clearly the most under-appreciated member of that band. But I digress.

I by-passed the emo group, the rock group and the country group and opted for the so-called “indie group.” I had the good fortune of taking care of Belly, Jeremy Fisher, Jill Barber, Joel Plaskett, Jully Black and Serena Ryder. So what does that mean? Does it mean that I got to sit in the VIP lounge with them and talk about their process and the challenges facing music stars in Canada? Well, no. It meant that I stood and gave out wristbands and held a sign for five hours and then made sure that the fans didn’t get out of line. (Again, very reminiscent of my teaching days.)

But my question is, where were all the fans? Each group gave out 200 FREE wrist bands. This entitled them the opportunity to go and have one thing signed by the artists in their chosen group. As you can imagine, the Finger Eleven and Hedly groups sold out quickly. But in two hours, my group had only given out 21 wrist bands. So was this a matter of poor advertising? Laziness? Apathy?

Is this really the type of event left to the masses of junior high girls? Were people unaware or unwilling to give up time on a blustery Saturday morning to head on down to the Olympic Oval? Maybe nobody knew about it? Approximately a thousand people showed up, but there was enough room, enough staff and enough volunteers to accommodate double or triple that number. It’s a shame really and the truth is, I was embarrassed for these artists, all of whom have incredible talent. Couldn’t we all stand to channel the fourteen-year-old in us?

Eventually as the day wore on, we managed to give away all of our wristbands, but it took some convincing. Based on last night’s Juno Awards Gala where Serena Ryder, Jully Black and Belly all won awards, they definitely deserve some props.

I am the first to admit that had I not been volunteering, I would have had no idea or interest about going down there. So why is that? It ain't easy finding success in Canada…for athletes, artists, actors and writers alike. It’s hard out there for a pimp. So isn’t that all the more reason for us to support the artists who reflect the diversity of our Canadian music scene? And really, getting close enough to see Belly’s diamond grills was reward enough. I was tempted to buy some CDs at the HMV booth and a hoody at the merchandise table, but then I remembered that I'm not fourteen anymore and I just don't have that much disposable income.