2014 - The Year in Music

2013 was the year Idle No More smashed Canadian complacency like a huge rock landing in the middle of a calm lake. 2014 saw a Tidal Wave of Native Music washing from sea to sea to sea created in that wake up call.

Canada's Conscience Award - Neil Young took up the challenge to Canada and rock n roll's conscience brought the message home. Young kicked off the year with the Honor the Treaties Tour on Sunday, January 12 at historic Massey Hall in Toronto. Young raised awareness but also money for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation to hold back further Tar Sand developments on their territory. Dianne Krall joined in with Young for some of the tour dates although support from Canada's music and entertainment community was sadly lacking.

Worth the Wait Award - In March, the Juno's recognized George Leach with Aboriginal Album of the Year and it was well deserved. Leach's Surrender came 12 years after his much loved debut album "Young Enough". It showcased a musician and songwriter expressing his art at the height of his talents. He continued to exercise his love of traditional and gutbucket blues while spicing up the disc with straight up rockers and more experimental sounds that veered into the pop polish of Coldplay. It was a great second album. Hey George, don't make us wait so long for the next one.

MTV's Rebel Music - MTV chose Supaman's Prayer Loop Song for it's video of the Week in March of this year and it signaled that the Music broadcaster south of the border was seeing rumblings of a musical revolution. MTV followed up that promise later in the year with the broadcast of Rebel Music which showcased Witko, Inez Jasper, Frank Waln, and Nataani Means.

Breakthrough of the Year Award-  The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Science gets the breakthrough of the year for awarding A Tribe Called Red the Juno for Breakthrough Group of the Year. Perhaps the glass ceiling won't be completely repaired by the time the Juno nominees are decided for 2015. If all the Native Artists are in one category and there is no room for us in the other categories then we will know.

Idle No More Anthems - Tara Williamson's Come My Way makes me want to blockade the railway and fall in love all at the same time.
Nadjiwan released Broken Treaty Blues which brought the message with a bumping guitar riff, war drum beats and angry chants.

Songs for our Missing and Murdered - Pray Sister Pray was the first single released from Crystal Shawanda's The Whole World's Got the Blues and it was no doubt intentional. In this powerhouse song Crystal lays down one of the harshest lines of the year a cold hard slap in the face of Canadian false humility. "They're just glad another is gone." The prayer at the end of the song is for all of us.
In the song Bella from Leela Gilday's fantastic disc Heart of the People, she sings, "They say we're still to blame for the things that happened to us." It was the truth and it was painful and defiant.
Shawnee who released one of the year's best rock EP's Let It Burn also released a single Canadian Cry to speak out against the silence and asking, "How can you sleep at night?"

Heart Tugger of the Year Award - Rellik's Hank Williams meets Tupac Shakur ballad The Hour about his late mother is beautiful and sad in all the right ways. The guitar is simple and soulful, Nathan Cunningham adds the hook and you have a song that deserves the names referenced.

Biggest WTF Moment of the Year - In June, Billy Ray Cyrus is the headliner at Aboriginal Day Live. The organizers must have thought this would bring some much needed mainstream media attention to the event. The only way that would have happened with Billy Ray Cyrus as a headliner is if he twerked his bum against Robin Thicke's crotch during the performance. This is one of the great years for Aboriginal Music and...and...WTF?

B-O-M-B of the Year - A Tribe Called Red dropped a bomb right on American Thanksgiving when they released Burn Your Village to the Ground. The single was trending on Twitter that day and the Huffington Post had it on their front page. The single builds around a speech by Wednesday Addams from the movie Addams Family Values. Wednesday shares that the Native Americans have learned the true intentions of the settlers and will now burn their village down. It is hilarious and menacing and you can dance to it. It may well become a Thanksgiving Classic.

How We Got our Groove Back Award - This was the year in which Native music reclaimed it’s sexuality in a big way. Meet Me at the Pow Wow by Lightning Cloud and Leonard Sumner was filled with cultural references, inside jokes, questionable pickup lines and a singalong chorus for the Men and for the Women. It was the Snagging Anthem of year. Digging Roots goes All Night Long to kickoff their For the Light album. Raven is singing about going deep enough for you baby and he doesn't mean his baritone. I played Crystal Shawanda's Cry Out For More at 2 in the afternoon on my radio show and I was blushing....my, my, Crystal.

It would seem to be some kind of cosmic karma that the original Native American come-on classic would make a comeback forty years later. It was certainly cosmic.

Come back of the Year - Red Bone's Come and Get Your Love was featured in Guardians of the Galaxy which became the biggest movie of the year and the top selling soundtrack of the year.
RedBone's funky classic kicked off the movie that many people are calling a Star Wars for a new generation. The song written by the late Lolly Vegas was the first song by a Native American group to reach the top of the billboard charts. Ring up a few more number ones to that list after this year.

Debut of the Year - Rikki Linklater's The Last Time sounded like Taylor Swift was making the kind of music that made us fall in love with Taylor Swift in the first place.

Album of the Year – Crystal Shawanda – The Whole World’s Got the Blues. This is the best album in a very, very good year. Not just for Native Music but for Canadian music. It is the Golden Age. The star on this glorious year in music is Crystal. I don't think it was easy to make this record. A continuation in the new country genre would be the critical and commercial safe bet. Crystal broke down all the barriers and released the album that sounds like the record she was born to make...bluesy, ballsy, hot and heartbreaking.
Crystal may have come up in Country but her voice always had a raw edge that was too much for Country to contain.  She's more Janis Joplin and Etta James than Martina McBride and "The Whole World's got the Blues" let's us hear that voice. This isn't computerized. The pain, the anger and the pleasure; it's all right here. The lyrics delve into the deepest darkest regions of the soul of Canada itself. It is the best album of the year in Canada. It may be the best album of 2014.

Collaboration of the Ages Award - Dawn Star Rising is the first truly Canadian contribution to the world of ballet. The story of the two young Native People who find that their lives in the city remain imprisoned in the cycle of violence and rape that began in the Indian Residential Schools. There are many moments of breathtaking beauty and heartbreaking silence in this historic work. There is a moment towards the end of the performance. A women is singing a solo hand drum song and it is filled with hope and is gorgeous at the highest. Then the strings come in. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra joins in with the drum and it takes all I have not to break down and start crying. Maybe there is hope for us to make something beautiful together after all.

Tanya Tagaq Wins Polaris Prize- It is the most prestigious award in Canadian contemporary music and this year the winner was Tanya Tagaq's Animism. Tagaq's selection continues the tradition of the Polaris where winners are often the most complex and challenging music of the year. I am not going to lie to you. I didn't get Tanya's music. I understood it. I respected what she was doing. But that's not what music is about. That is not what art is about. If you can't feel it, you don't get it. 

I was fortunate to be in the audience when Dawn Star Rising made it's debut. In the beginning of the second act after you have been introduced into the reality of the residential school legacy the second half takes you into the horrors of the past. In the darkness the voice beats and we see Tanya centre stage. She moans and grunts and screams and each breath and gasp and rise and fall and fire and will and life define what words cannot. I got it.

The Tour of The Year - Red Ride 2014 featured Kristi Lane Sinclair and Cris Doerksen two artists who are making some of the most dynamic music around. They performed with special guests including George Leach, Iskwe, Nick Sherman and others on every stop of the tour and we can only hope that the Red Ride continues to roll and grow.

Industry Builder We're Gonna Miss Her Award - Miss Melissa is heading to the Desert and a new gig at a rock n roll station in Phoenix Arizona. She built Streetz FM with her bare hands and the proverbially blood, sweat, and tears. The National Aboriginal Music Countdown is an institution that was built on the credibility of her voice and personality. 

Language in the Music Award - Tall Paul put his Prayers in a Song and showcased the struggle to maintain your identity in this world and threw down a challenge for our own community when he rapped how culture is "More than Frybread and Contest Powwows." Digging Roots brought in the flavour of the language to the title track of their album To The Light.

Drop the Mic on 2014 Award: The year ended with Derek Miller dropping his latest disc Rumble. Miller covers the Link Wray classic Rumble which has the distinction of being the only instrumental to be banned from the airwaves for being dangerous. That's how you end a year.

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This is just what I heard. Great new music from a number of artists that didn't make the list but deserved to be heard such as Teagan Littlechief, Hugh Poorman, Janet Panic, Donny Paranteau, Gary Farmer and the Trouble Makers, Murray Porter, Kinnie Star and on and on. Here are other lists of artists and music that you might want to check out.

RPM's Best Indigenous Music 2014

RPM'S Best Indigenous Videos 2014

Jonah, The Bill Collector

The bill collector had a Manitoba area code and his name was Jonah. My co-worker handed me the note and shrugged his shoulders in apology. I gave him the no problem nod and wave. I took the note home with me, this wasn't something to be dealt with at work.

I have been reading the Bible in a random manner. I thought this was a reason to read the Book of Jonah. It is one of the shorter books and that didn't hurt. From what I could recall the story of Jonah was about how the Creator had saved Jonah's life after he had been swallowed by a whale or giant fish. Jonah's faith in the Creator and his various good deeds and positive outlook was rewarded.

It turns out that the story I remembered is most likely based on the illustrated version for kids that kept the messages simple. I never did any serious reading of the Bible as an adult until I read Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis about five years ago. It is an exceptional telling of this text and the illustrations brought everything to vibrant and steamy life.

In reading the Book of Jonah, our hero runs away when the Creator has charged him with the duty of preaching to the people in the city of Nineveh. Jonah doesn't want to do this and he jumps on a ship and heads out to the sea. A storm is waged upon the ship of such ferocity that everyone aboard knows that they are being cursed by a higher power and they all pray to their various gods to no avail.

They draw lots at this time trying to decipher who has brought this cursed storm about their vessel. It is Jonah who pulls the lot and finally at this time he admits that he is fleeing the command of his God. Understandably the people on the ship don't think this is very cool and Jonah is cast overboard. Jonah is swallowed by the whale and the seas become calm.

Inside the whale, Jonah prays for forgiveness and says that he will fulfill his calling. The whale spits Jonah up on dry land and he goes about preaching the word to the people of Nineveh. He tells them that the city will be overthrown in the next 40 days. He convinces the people of the city even to their king to fast and wear sackcloth and sit in ashes. The Creator sees that many of the people of the city are repenting and Nineveh is spared. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry."

Jonah was preaching the end of days for the people of Nineveh and he was angry that the Creator did not bring it about. Jonah then goes and sits outside the city and stares at it with anger and pretty much pouts for the rest of his life. Jonah could not offer to others the forgiveness given to him by the Creator.

This is not the story that I knew. I wondered what else I had misunderstood about the Bible. That weekend a Jehovah's Witness came by the house and found me outside working in the garden. He provided the proper pronunciation of Nineveh and suggested I read the book of St. Matthew, which is the story of Christ. I said I would.

I soon came across a discrepancy that I find almost revolutionary. In the Bible, when Jesus says the Lord's prayer he says, "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors."

I had always known the prayer as "Forgive us our trespasses as those who trespass against us." If someone trespasses against you that doesn't mean they owe you a debt. In the difference, the lesson is less if not lost. Jesus was anti-capitalism. He didn't just tip over the money changers tables once, he did it twice.

Not sure what all that means, but I'm pretty sure Jonah the Bill Collector is going to be disappointed.


Epilogue

I take the call the next time it comes into the office. Jonas, his real name, apologizes for calling at work and asks if I am the Mr. Morrisseau that lived on Cathedral in Winnipeg. I say no. He then adds a so to his first sorry and I hang up.

It wasn't for me.

P.S.

I fulfilled one of my longtime fantasies and I preached on the corner in Toronto. But I could not speak louder than those amassed and I so I preached to the preachers. I approached the various groups who shares this story Christians Muslims and Jews of various tribes and I asked what they knew about Jonah.

They knew what everyone knows.

Jonah was not a good man before he was saved and after.

I spoke with respect and passion.They listened.

I would ask if they understood my reading of the story.

I asked, who was the Messenger of God.

And they all said the same thing.

Jonah was the Messenger of God.

No, I said. It was the Whale.

Memories of My Metis Nation

When I think of the Metis Nation. I think of my family and my communities. I don't think of a big office in the city and a fancy hotel room in some other city. I think of grandma and granny and grandpa and grandma and mom and dad and my aunties and my uncles and my brothers and my sisters and my cousins and my cousins and our babies and babies and babies.

If you grew up in the Metis Nation in Manitoba this is how it was. There were Metis kids on this side of the river and Indian kids on the other side of the river. We didn't really notice that much when we were little because we just mostly played with our cousins and whoever was closest on our side of the water. At school it didn't seem to matter. When we got to be teenagers we knew we could run around with the teenagers on the other side of the river. We were not likely cousins but we were also possibly cousins.

When I took my first real job working on the gang for CN. I worked with Metis guys and Indian guys and the story checked out. There would be a Metis community near a First Nation usually across a river. I did not know that it wasn't that way for the rest of Canada until I went to the University of Western Ontario and saw the First Nations in that territory.

In our family we are connected to the two distinct Metis Nation groups in Manitoba. In Crane River our family in the south are part of the Metis Nation that are Anishinaabe (Saulteaux, Ojibway), French and Scottish and Roman Catholic. In Grand Rapids our family was Cree Scottish and Anglican and were connected to the Hudson Bay Company and the trade routes along the North Saskatchewan River.

My childhood on the prairies in my father's community was a life where the living was still off the land in harvesting, hunting, fishing and farming. In my mother's community the people lived off the river, the lake and the bush and our family still lived on Metis Scrip land along the shores of the North Saskatchewan.

We were told we had no rights and Metis people who were out hunting, fishing or harvesting were breaking the law. We were raised with a pride in both avoiding the government and not being beholden to the government. It was the Metis Way. No one was going to help us but no one was going to stop us from helping ourselves.

These days our once thriving Metis communities are fading away and no one seems to care. In Crane River, it is though the community survives despite great neglect that sees few opportunities and little reason to stay for the youth.

In Grand Rapids my mother's generation saw their way of life bulldozed into nothing while Manitoba Hydro built it's first dam. Our family and perhaps others had scrip on that land and yet today there is a road and buildings on land that was once Metis Nation land. Only a fraction of scrip land still remains within the family.

Last year the Metis won their land claim at the Supreme Court and recently the Federal Court of Appeal has refused to challenge a ruling that says that Metis are the same as First Nations and Inuit and should be afforded equal rights and supports. The 1.4 million acres promised in the Manitoba Act should allow historic Metis communities the same services and rights afforded the neighbouring First Nation.

Land owned by Metis Nation citizens could be deemed Metis Nation land which means that it would no longer be taxed and although the land could be sold it could only be sold within the Nation. It would always be Metis Nation land. Communal lands and Individual lands would create Metis Nation Homelands similar to those in Alberta.

Once territories have been established in which Metis communities have been identified for the 1.4 million acres, economic development can occur utilizing all models available to Inuit and First Nations.

This needs to be followed by identifying fair traditional land use practices. It is a shared resource but one in which Metis right have only recently been acknowledged as equal to First Nations and Inuit. After the Powley case established that Metis do have the same harvesting rights as the other Indigenous Peoples of Canada the Supreme Court of Canada made it clear that those harvesting rights are connected to historic Metis communities.
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Revitilizing our home communities is essential to the future of the Metis Nation.

Our Metis Flag is the oldest flag recorded in Canadian history as it was flown by Cuthbert Grant at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816, a generation before Canada existed and almost 150 years before the Canadian flag flew these skies.

We are at another great moment in our history and we need to take the time to gather our voices and this should take place in our communities. We need to have Homecomings in our communities and identify our families and our connection to those historic communities. The grandmas know their children and grand children and great grand children.



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"Appropriate a portion of such ungranted lands, to the extent of one million four hundred thousand acres thereof, for the benefit of the families of the half-breed residents, it is hereby enacted, that, under regulations to be from time to time made by the Governor General in Council, the Lieutenant-Governor shall select such lots or tracts in such parts of the Province as he may deem expedient, to the extent aforesaid, and divide the same among the children of the half-breed heads of families residing in the Province at the time of the said transfer to Canada, and the same shall be granted to the said children respectively, in such mode and on such conditions as to settlement and otherwise, as the Governor General in Council may from time to time determine."

Manitoba Act 1870

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Who are the Metis? 

What is the Metis Nation? 

I am Metis. 

I am the Metis Nation.

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Portage and Main - 2