Sean McCann, Great Big Sea And A Familiar Message…A fan’s response.

I am not sure why Sean McCann’s story of leaving Great Big Sea and his recovery is still newsworthy nearly three years after the Great Big Sea hiatus. However the traditional media in Canada seems to think this story has some merit. This is my response to three articles and interviews done by Sean McCann for an online magazine Stigma, Ottawa Life and CBC Edmonton. The links to the articles and interviews are at the end of this post.

Sean has been on the road pouring his heart out and telling his story to anyone who listens, in particular the traditional media including magazines, television and newspapers. Sean has publicly declared many times he was unhappy with same message Great Big Sea was telling when they were together, yet he certainly has shared this one over and over again during the last three years. The message seems to be that any addict or anyone with serious mental health issues is ‘they are not alone’.

Recently Sean circulated an interview he did for an online magazine called Stigma on his social media accounts. Again Sean shared his reasons for leaving a successful band behind, his fight with alcohol, his new life and music. In this interview Sean seems to take responsibility for his problems and there was not the usual digs at his former band members, their music and his previous lifestyle. He seemed to have moved on. However, this seems to be short lived.

“I remember Googling the term alcoholic because I suspected I had a problem. Now when you suspect you have a problem, you have a problem. So I Googled the term alcoholic and said “Oh that is what the problem is. Okay!! I’ll just stop. I can fix this.” Sean McCann in Stigma.

I have not read or listened to a lot of articles and interviews Sean has done over the years. However, this interview in my opinion states Sean has never been officially diagnosed as an alcoholic, attended a support program for an addiction and to the best of my knowledge never received any type of professional counselling to help him deal with his issues. Sean self-diagnosed his problem by Googling alcoholic. Although Sean admits he tried to stop drinking many times and failed, he finally did this time, going cold turkey after being given an ultimatum from his wife that he would lose her and the kids if he didn’t stop.

As the story goes Sean helped himself not by getting professional counselling, but by pouring his heart and soul into his music. Sean has adopted the role of a spokesperson for addiction and mental health issues talking to anyone who would listen to him talk about his problems and hoping his experiences may be of some use to someone experiencing a similar situation. Social media posts and responses to his story indicate Sean has received a considerable amount of support, sympathy and admiration, in particular from people who are not Great Big Sea fans and who do not know the whole story.

“What message of hope would you like to share with people out there who might be struggling? “I would like to tell them they are not alone…What I was really doing was accepting and realising I needed help.” Sean McCann in Stigma.

While Sean sees himself as an advocate for people with addiction and mental health issues I have only heard the message ‘that people are not alone.’ I have never read Sean advocate for people affected to seek professional counselling or help for really serious addiction and mental health issues. It would be interesting to know the statistics of people wanting professional counselling in Canada, without celebrity status, extensive networks or the financial resources to pay for it who do not get it. I gather many addicts and people with mental health issues and their families are alone, not through any fault of their own and not talking about it, but through a lack of access to appropriate services.

To me this raises many issues about Sean's addiction and self-help program he is publicising. How many addicts of any kind really have the luxury of being financially secure, having an extensive network of support both from family and strangers and have the ability to be self-employed while sorting out their demons. How many addicts with serious addiction problems go ‘cold turkey’ without falling off the wagon? Many ordinary addicts lose everything, their jobs, family and friends prior to getting professional help including counselling, going into rehabilitation and attending addiction programs. Many lose their life.

“If I had any regrets it’s that I wish I had said more earlier.” Sean McCann in Stigma.

Sean’s addiction and abuse came out after he had earned a lot of money from the Great Big Sea XX tour and album and had set him and his family up for a long period of time. Sean had no trouble taking a lot fan’s hard earned money for concerts and album sales from this and other tours. Sean seems to admit he allegedly was in a bad place and he was just going through the motions. The front cover of Stigma magazine says ‘Sean McCann, Great Big Recovery. Invisibly Disabled at Work.’ While I haven’t read or listened to every interview Sean has done I have never heard an apology, especially to the fans for this perceived deception and act and taking their money.

“The first thing I experience was the isolation. I had a lot of friends. I was a pretty popular guy! But your drinking buddies are your drinking buddies. When the liquor wasn’t there they scattered and they weren’t there. I was alone.” Sean McCann in Stigma.

Sean has mentioned in this interview and others that his friends deserted him when he stopped drinking. The Newfoundland music and arts community to the best of my knowledge is a small close knit community that seems interdependent and supportive of each other in so many ways. There is no mention in these interviews about the fact Sean has tied up the other members of Great Big Sea in legal action and he wants a payout which now seems to have met with a stale mate. As Great Big Sea operates on an agreement, the other remaining members have not been able to move forward in the way they want too with Great Big Sea.

There is no mention in these interviews that over the past three years Sean has taken little digs at his previous lifestyle in Great Big Sea, their work and music and the members of the band that has in many ways has not reflected positively on the band, but also the Newfoundland music culture in general. To me there seems to be an unwritten rule about artists, musicians and bands on the road on a bus and at work. That rule is what happens on the bus and at work, stays on the bus and at work. So perhaps Sean’s legal action and wiliness to break the unwritten rules may have something to do with his friends leaving him and not the decision to stop drinking and alcohol. Newfoundlanders and in particular those who still live there and the fans are going to take sides and it wasn’t his.

“I have learned that you cannot overcome your problems unless you are willing to face them. For over thirty years I used alcohol and drugs as an anesthetic to cover up my constant pain and it almost killed me”. Sean McCann in Ottawa Life.

Although I knew about the alcohol I have never read articles or heard interviews where Sean was taking drugs as distinct from alcohol. As the stalemate of a financial settlement lingers for Sean, the other members of Great Big Sea are moving on to other successful projects both inside and outside of music. Sean seems to have increased what some would call honesty and while others like me call nastiness about the drinking side of their lifestyle and internal conflicts as he waits for the financial settlement. To me this is something that should stay between former band members. However, I wonder what professional health workers would say about a client with addiction and mental health issues who states they are in full recovery and in a good place while engaging former friends and workmates in legal action, sharing negative stories about them to anyone who will listen and preventing others from moving on.

I do wish Sean McCann all the best in his new life after Great Big Sea. 

Sean McCann articles

‘Sean McCann The Great Recovery’ by Luke de Leseauc in Stigma. A Voice For The Voiceless. Spring 2016.

https://issuu.com/stigmamag/docs/stigma_spring2016_web/1?e=16709048/35817500

‘From the Rock to the Capital, Séan McCann’s Road to Recovery: Part 1’ published on September 2016

http://www.ottawalife.com/2016/09/from-the-rock-to-the-capital-sean-mccanns-road-to-recovery-part-1/

'We're not alone': Recovery Day held for 4th time in Edmonton’ by Mack Lamoureux for CBC Canada on 16 September, 2016.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/sean-mccann-recovery-day-1.3768233?cmp=rss

 

Alan Doyle And An Episode Of Murdoch Mysteries...

Updates and episode information published on a post titled Alan Doyle And An Episode of Murdoch Mysteries...published 18 January, 2017. 

or a link here https://lyndaherestalker.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/alan-doyle-and-episode-of-murdoch.html

Recently Alan Doyle announced on his official Twitter account that he had a guest role in the Canadian drama series Murdoch Mysteries. 

For those fans like me who do not live in Canada and who are not familiar with the series, Murdoch Mysteries is a Canadian historical detective drama set in Toronto in the last decade of the nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century. The series is based on the novels by Maureen Jennings.

The date of the airing of the episode in which Alan has been cast has yet to be announced. It is great to see Alan branching out and taking on some acting roles as he is a natural.

Alan posted some absolutely drop dead gorgeous selfies and photographs from the set and in costume on social media. I have copied three of my favourites from Alan’s official Twitter account. As always no copyright infringement intended.

Great Big Sea And A Concert Recording From 1993…

On the 17 September, 2016 John Pasquini posted on the Great Big Sea Online Kitchen Facebook page that he had found and restored an early recording of Great Big Sea recorded in St. John’s, Newfoundland from 1993. 

John generously provided a history of the recording and shared the technology and links so Great Big Sea fans and members on the Facebook page could download and listen to the recordings before they were made available on YouTube.

After much humming and harring over the ownership rights of music recordings, where historical recordings like this should be kept and the bootlegging and piracy of shows, I followed the instructions and downloaded a copy. Part of me would have liked to see them returned to their rightful owners to do with as they please. However, since the hiatus and the chance there is unlikely to be any more music from Great Big Sea those concerns were laid to rest.

What a thrill that recording was for all Great Big Sea fans, including me to listen to their early music. The recording was of an amazingly high quality considering the technology the show was recorded on, a Sony Walkman and cassette tape.

The members of Great Big Sea who had only been together for a short time were comfortable on stage in a pub on George Street, St. John’s, Newfoundland. There was great chemistry between the band members and the crowd as they joined in and clapped along. Early Great Big Sea played a range of traditional Newfoundland folk music, some of their own songs, to some great covers of Canadian favourites. Some of the music from those recordings is still being played today, twenty three years on and the fans love them.

John dates the recording to around 1993 and a month before their first album Great Big Sea was released which could very well be true. However, there is a recording of the song ‘What Are Ya At ?’ the crowd seem to know this song and join in. ‘What Are Ya At’ was the first song Alan Doyle and Sean McCann wrote together and appeared on the first album Great Big Sea. The crowd knowing this song may indicate the recording could have been at a later date and after the release of the album. But regardless of the date of the recording the discovery is a significant find for the Great Big Sea members, Great Big Sea fans and Newfoundland music.

This recording also raised for me many issues about the intensity of bootlegging today and the chance of finding something like this recording in the future. Bootlegging is such a feature of concerts these days. The Great Big Sea members performing solo careers are no exception to the intensity of bootlegging. There is overkill as some fans try to capture whole concerts and every little thing that occurs on stage and distribute their recordings without much regard to the quality and the existing material already available. Extensive bootlegging can spoil surprises and discoveries for those attending concerts in the present for fans of any artist, musician or music group of any genre. I always hope there is something left for the future to discover about the past when it comes to music.

If you are interested in the recordings you can find the link on the Great Big Sea Online Kitchen Party on Facebook.

A year later Great Big Sea were performing in Toronto. I have also included a copy of a photograph from the first concert Great Big Sea did in Toronto posted by Alan Doyle on his official Instagram account. No copyright infringement intended.

From John Pasqini on Great Big Sea Online Facebook page…

"Hi everyone,

I have a gift for all of you.

Some of the administrators are already aware of this, but back in 1992-94 I was a Folklore Graduate student at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's. One of my fellow students at the time was Sean McCann. This was around the time he met Alan and they formed Great Big Sea with Bob and Darrell. Sean took a hiatus from the program at the time to "try this band thing out for a bit."

One night in 1993, another student of mine recorded an early show of Great Big Sea about a month before their first album was released. It was recorded on cassette using a portable Sony Walkman with a detachable mic. The show was at a bar on George Street called Sevens George.

A few months ago, I rediscovered my copy of the cassettes that were recorded directly from the originals. I digitized those recordings and put them on two CDs. I had an old concert flyer of GBS that I took off a telephone pole one night after the show and used that image to created the "cover" for the CDs.

I presented the CDs to Alan this year after his show at Sellersville, PA and his exact words were "What a treasure, this is a real treasure." I'll never forget the look of awe on his face when he held the CDs in his hands. He said there weren't many recordings of GBS around that time and he only had a 4-track recording that he did himself around that time.

This quite possibly could be the very first live bootleg recording of Great Big Sea ever. I have since given the recording to Sean, Bob and Darrell via DropBox. I'm soon going to upload the concert to YouTube but I wanted to give the members of the Online Kitchen Party first crack at it before it is available to the public.

The DropBox folder contains two folders of tracks (MP3s) that are broken up so each folder can be put on a separate CD. I broke the in-between song banter into their own tracks in case anyone just wanted to listen to the songs without the talking (though I don't know why anyone would want to do that). The YouTube version will just be two one-hour long track videos with the concert flyer as the only image on the screen (very low tech). I also included in the folder my cover album mock-ups for each CD and the original poster that I scanned.

In order to access the files, you'll have to download DropBox onto your computer or tablets or use the DropBox App on your phones.

DM me if there is any problem accessing the files."

Alan Doyle And One Day In September…Throwback Thursday.

One of the things I love about researching and writing my blog is when I find something really creative and interesting. This time my research took me to a webpage called myheartmyhand.com and is about Russell Crowe, Alan Doyle, The Ordinary Fear of God and the making of the album ‘My Heart, My Hand’. While this webpage is probably well known to Russell Crowe fans, it was new to me.

The ‘My heart, my hand’ webpage contains some wonderful material including song lyrics, videos, downloads and links to other sites and a great collection of photographs of a much younger Russell Crowe, TOFG and Alan Doyle taken during the recording of the album in Australia. The story section contains some of Russell Crowe’s thoughts on Alan Doyle, their creative partnership and how they met in Canada and Alan Doyle’s thoughts about working with Russell Crowe, the song lyrist and recording the album during the Australian summer. Russell and Alan have written a lot of thoughtful and reflective words about each of the songs they wrote as individuals and together.

My favourite was this explanation for the Alan Doyle song “How Did We Get From Saying I Love You ?” which he still sings today at concerts.

“How Did We Get From Saying I Love You? (Doyle)

Alan writes:

The genesis of this tune was an awkward conversation, a coming of age epiphany.

I started the tune in 1995, but the incident occurred a few years previous when, just in my 20s, l experienced my first ‘adult break-up’. Throughout my teenage years, guys and gals got together and split up regularly, with no apparent long-lasting effects. The recovery time for a teenage break-up was about an hour-and-a-half, after which time the two ex-lovers were back as friends and moved on to the next opportunity, No – or little – harm done.

But on this day in the early 90’s I happened upon my recently ex-girlfriend on the road and things were so very different between us. A short time before this we’d been saying ”I love you” and whispering plans, promises, dreams and secrets. On this day, however, we could barley utter a passing comment on the weather. Our awkward conversation is remarkable for only two memorable truths: It was a cold day for September and there was rain expected in the afternoon. That’s it. I was struck for the first time by the fact that adult relationships carry with them weight and power that teenage ones do not.

It is a fact that once you share an intimate personal relationship with another adult, and that relationship sours, your previous friendship may never be attained again. Most reasonable adults are aware of this, but on that cold day in September, I learned that lesson for the first time.”

The webpage is well worth a visit if you are a Russell Crowe and Alan Doyle fan. As the webpage is powered by TOFG I am imagine the words and reflections are authentic. I have included a screen shot of one of the photographs of Alan taken during the making of the album and as part of The Ordinary Fear of God. The photographs are from the myhandmyheart.com webpage and no copyright infringement intended.

I have circulated some videos from this album including One Good Year, Raewyn (from the Indoor Garden Party in Newfoundland and South Sydney YouTube site) and Mickey (from the South Sydney YouTube site).

Murray Foster…To new beginnings.

I have been away from my research and writing my blog for a while. Every time I return I find the Great Big Sea boys have continued to do some exciting, creative and amazingly positive things with music and the community since the Great Big Sea hiatus. This time it is Murray Foster.

Some interesting articles, videos and photographs have been circulated on social media keeping us in touch with what Murray Foster has been doing to create a new life. He has of course continued to write and play music with a range of musicians and artists. I have circulated a new song he co-wrote with another songwriter which they recorded and loaded up on YouTube. I have shared it on my Google + page.

Murray talks openly and honestly about his life after the Great Big Sea hiatus and how he learned to embraced all the opportunities that came his way for the Connected Circle Live Show. I won’t even try to summarise all his projects as there are so many. At the end of the talk Murray sings a new song he co-wrote with a student at the Toronto song writing school he runs. What a thrill that must have been for the student to see their words put to music. Murray has remained extremely positive and inspiring in following his creative dreams, whatever they may be and having an unconventional non 9-5 job. The talk and song were recorded for the Connected Circle Live Show and circulated on YouTube and social media. I have shared a copy on my Google + page.

One of the interesting articles I found describes the collaboration between Murray Foster and a Canadian university professor that link music, ordinary people and business, musicians and artists and charity work. From the press release, the feeds on social media and from all involved this project sounds totally awesome. I have copied the press release here as I have been unable to circulate it using my Google + page.

All the best to a much loved member of Great Big Sea…Murray Foster.

‘Brock research leads to Choir Nation benefit event in Toronto.’ Published by Brock University on 5 August, 2016 (no copyright infringement intended).

Brock University press release – Collaboration between a Brock University researcher and a Canadian musician has led to an upcoming concert raising funds for charity.

Todd Green, assistant professor, Department of Marketing, International Business and Strategy, has long been examining the challenges facing Canadian musicians as a result of the onset of digital music.

In March 2015, Green moderated a Goodman School of Business panel discussion at Brock called Music Matters, where a handful of industry professionals discussed the ongoing issue. On the panel was Murray Foster, bass player for Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea.

“His mandate is to make life better for struggling musicians,” Green said. “He was looking for a way to connect musicians with corporations.”

In January, the two launched Choir Nation, a company that helps corporations form company choirs and sing music as team-building exercises. While it’s a for-profit company, part of the goal is to raise money for charity, which led to the Choir Nation Benefit Concert being held Aug. 16 at Lulu Lounge in Toronto.

The event will raise money for Momentum Choir, a non-profit, performance-based choir for individuals with emotional, developmental or intellectual disabilities; MusiCounts, a music education charity; and Unison Benevolent Fund, a charity providing counselling and emergency relief services to the Canadian music community.

“Todd and I are both passionate about music, and we see Choir Nation and our benefit concert as extensions of that passion — creating new opportunities for people to sing in a choir, supporting local musicians and contributing to three music-related charities that we both strongly believe in,” Foster said. “Music is incredibly important to mental well-being, and choir singing is really fun — Choir Nation is a vehicle for us to bring these benefits to as many people as possible.”

Foster will host the evening, which will include musical performances from Devin Cuddy and Miranda Mulholland, who will both sing with backup choirs formed by Choir Nation groups from two Toronto-based companies.

There will also be a large silent auction with signed memorabilia from Canadian bands, ticket packages and a Ron Sexsmith-autographed guitar.

“I’m thrilled with how the research we’re doing at Brock has led to an event like this that will support three excellent music-related charities,” said Green, adding Brock students are also gaining hands-on learning experience through working with Choir Nation.