One of the things that is always difficult being a fan who doesn't live in Canada is we don't have access to lot of publicity from the traditional media such as radio and television unless it has been pirated by the usual sources and distributed via the fan sites. I am not prepared to watch pirated content anyway as I believe those that make any kind of content should be able to distribute their material how they see fit and fans should be be able to go without.
Fans like me can feel disconnected as other fans share their experiences on social media however, the last couple of interviews I have listened to from the radio and television have been made available internationally soon after. It has been totally awesome to hear these from Australia, so thank you to those organisations who make their content available internationally.
Perhaps the promotion I also enjoy the best is from Alan distributed via his official webpage or social media sites. On the day of the launch of this new book he wrote a nice From The Road blog post on his webpage. 'As ever, there's a nervous energy and an anxious hope that people enjoy what they read. I think that is inevitable for anybody like me who loves to make people smile.' You can read the rest of he post available from his official webpage at alandoyle.ca.
I have been writing this blog for over five years and I have been here through the Great Big Sea break up. I have found Alan's attitude towards the early years really positive compared with another member who has talked extensively about their time as part of this band.
The majority of these interviews were shared via Alan Doyle's official social media pages including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. As always no copyright infringement intended.
The Ottawa Writer's Festival
While I always enjoy reading the fan posts of how much they enjoyed the book and talks and looking at their selfies with Alan, today I saw one of the best things I have seen in ages and that was the Ottawa Writer's Festival tweeted comments, photographs and recorded a short video of him singing during his talk to a packed house in Ottawa.
I was sitting on the west coast of Australia and I could see comments and photographs coming up on my screen from a place thousands and thousands of miles away. I found it totally awesome to be included in an event like this one, not after the fact of something happening with a video but as it was happening.
Many thanks to the Ottawa Writer's Festival for doing this and I have included a couple of their tweets from their official Twitter page below. I have posted a copy of a couple of them here.
I think the comments Alan made about Great Big Sea trying to break down stereotypes of Newfoundlanders and something all the members of the band are still doing today is really important.
'Ten books that Alan Doyle' by Olivia Pasquarelli from CBC Canada 19 October, 2017.
CBC Canada asked Alan Doyle to share some of the books that have inspired his life and creative work. As I have followed Alan on Twitter for many years one of the questions he is constantly asked, is what books is he currently reading or what books would he recommend. He is always reading (and writing) a book somewhere.
As I love Newfoundland I was interested in the writers and stories from Newfoundland that interest and inspired him. Although he has said on Twitter many times that he really liked Lisa Moore and both her books Caught and February, he mentioned another writer Wayne Johnston and The Story of Bobby O'Malley. From these books he realised that it was possible to write stories about his own backyard in Newfoundland. As Alan is a hockey fan I did kind of expect there would be a hockey biography in there somewhere and yes there was.
This article certainly provides a new insight into Alan Doyle and his love of literature but also provides fans like me with a love and interest in all things Newfoundland with some great suggestions.
I was unable to share a copy of this article via Google +.
'Q & A Alan Doyle on Great Big Sea and being a Newfoundlander in Canada.' by Jordan Zivitz in the Montreal Gazette on 19 October, 2017.
This is a transcript the author did with an interview with Alan Doyle about 'A Newfoundlander in Canada'...
The interviewer asks some really interesting questions about first generation born Newfoundlanders in Canada and choosing between Newfoundland and Canada after the 1949 referendum. Alan also talked about how Great Big Sea become ambassadors for Newfoundland as he travelled with the band in the yearly years and challenging the stereotypes of who Newfoundlanders were. Alan went on to talk about the making of the album 'A Week at The Warehouse' with his band and Bob Rock in Vancouver.
The book tour for 'A Newfoundlander in Canada' started with a packed out house in the Toronto Public Library. The library recorded the talk but has yet to share it on it's official YouTube site.
I have shared a small bootleg video by a fan of Alan Doyle and the audience involved in singing the Great Big Sea song Excursion Around The Bay. I really enjoyed it and thank you so much for the fan for sharing.
CBC Canada asked Alan Doyle to share some of the books that have inspired his life and creative work. As I have followed Alan on Twitter for many years one of the questions he is constantly asked, is what books is he currently reading or what books would he recommend. He is always reading (and writing) a book somewhere.
As I love Newfoundland I was interested in the writers and stories from Newfoundland that interest and inspired him. Although he has said on Twitter many times that he really liked Lisa Moore and both her books Caught and February, he mentioned another writer Wayne Johnston and The Story of Bobby O'Malley. From these books he realised that it was possible to write stories about his own backyard in Newfoundland. As Alan is a hockey fan I did kind of expect there would be a hockey biography in there somewhere and yes there was.
This article certainly provides a new insight into Alan Doyle and his love of literature but also provides fans like me with a love and interest in all things Newfoundland with some great suggestions.
I was unable to share a copy of this article via Google +.
'Q & A Alan Doyle on Great Big Sea and being a Newfoundlander in Canada.' by Jordan Zivitz in the Montreal Gazette on 19 October, 2017.
This is a transcript the author did with an interview with Alan Doyle about 'A Newfoundlander in Canada'...
The interviewer asks some really interesting questions about first generation born Newfoundlanders in Canada and choosing between Newfoundland and Canada after the 1949 referendum. Alan also talked about how Great Big Sea become ambassadors for Newfoundland as he travelled with the band in the yearly years and challenging the stereotypes of who Newfoundlanders were. Alan went on to talk about the making of the album 'A Week at The Warehouse' with his band and Bob Rock in Vancouver.
I also enjoyed the questions and reference to the audiences and the positive attitudes towards Great Big Sea which I decided to copy for those interested. The article is edited for copyright reasons.
"...MG: But you must have absorbed some of these audiences into your own, too, right? That rowdy crowd you write about at that Junkhouse show — I can recognize that kind of audience from your own shows I saw just four or five years down the road from then.
AD: Yeah. And it’s one of the things I’m the most grateful about being a Canadian band: the lines between the genres in Canada, as far as the fans are concerned, I think are a lot blurrier than they are in other places. I’m not sure diehard country fans in the south of the U.S. would listen to much folky music from Portland, whereas guys from northern B.C. who were there to see a hard-rock band very quickly gave an ear to another part of the country that had fiddles and whistles in it. So I’ve always been very grateful for how open Canadians have been to hear things out of their primary taste, and certainly out of their own local region.
MG: Writing about those early days, does it make you nostalgic — make you want to make music with Great Big Sea again?...
AD: Well, that’s never stopped. I never stopped wanting to make music with the guys. So it’s not even nostalgia, really, so much as just an honest-to-god fascination with that time. It focuses so much on the earlier times, the earlier half of our 20 years, really. And if I could say one thing about it, I would say that I’m so proud writing and reading through that decade of how we got it done. We did it. I read that and I go, “That was really hard.” But it didn’t feel hard at the time — we were just having so much fun. But it was really hard. Not many people get to do that. And we did it, and we did it pretty well. That gives me great pride to even think about it now. For a lot of people, the shine, the thrill of it wears off a lot earlier. But we were driven, and I can’t say it enough — how lucky I was to have met those three guys when I met them. And our voices combined to make something special, but also because they had skill sets I didn’t have. And so often I look around, people who are in their 40s who are amazing musicians, for example, and people say, “Well, how come that guy never made it?” And I say, “Because he didn’t have all the skill sets and he didn’t get teamed up with people who did.” I was lucky. I did. As soon as I got out of university, I got teamed up with people who had completely different skill sets than mine off the stage, so we could get stuff done. I was blessed in that regard...."
I have circulated the full article on my Google + page for those fans interested.
Rudy's Reviews on Rudy Blair's Entertainment 17 October, 2017.
A nice interview about the book 'A Newfoundlander in Canada'...
The interviewer asks some really interesting questions about the life of a musician and how Alan went about selecting stories and writing the book. I really enjoyed his comments about the way Alan describes how he tells stories in his own voice and heart whether it be in story telling, songs or acting.
This interview is available internationally and I have shared this on my Google + page for those fans interested.
The Morning Show 17 October, 2017.
This is one of the first interviews Alan Doyle did about his book 'A Newfoundlander in Canada.' He talks about growing up in Newfoundland, Newfoundland joining Canada and the attitudes of Newfoundlanders who voted, what he knew about Canada growing up as a child in small fishing village in Newfoundland and his first trip across Canada in the back of the van as part of Great Big Sea.
I found this interview really, really interesting when the interviewers and Alan talked about the uniqueness of Newfoundland and other Canadian regions in particular the diverse dialects and languages.
I was unable to share this interview via my Google + page. The interview can be found at The Morning Show webpage.
Toronto Public Library 17 October, 2017.
"...MG: But you must have absorbed some of these audiences into your own, too, right? That rowdy crowd you write about at that Junkhouse show — I can recognize that kind of audience from your own shows I saw just four or five years down the road from then.
AD: Yeah. And it’s one of the things I’m the most grateful about being a Canadian band: the lines between the genres in Canada, as far as the fans are concerned, I think are a lot blurrier than they are in other places. I’m not sure diehard country fans in the south of the U.S. would listen to much folky music from Portland, whereas guys from northern B.C. who were there to see a hard-rock band very quickly gave an ear to another part of the country that had fiddles and whistles in it. So I’ve always been very grateful for how open Canadians have been to hear things out of their primary taste, and certainly out of their own local region.
MG: Writing about those early days, does it make you nostalgic — make you want to make music with Great Big Sea again?...
AD: Well, that’s never stopped. I never stopped wanting to make music with the guys. So it’s not even nostalgia, really, so much as just an honest-to-god fascination with that time. It focuses so much on the earlier times, the earlier half of our 20 years, really. And if I could say one thing about it, I would say that I’m so proud writing and reading through that decade of how we got it done. We did it. I read that and I go, “That was really hard.” But it didn’t feel hard at the time — we were just having so much fun. But it was really hard. Not many people get to do that. And we did it, and we did it pretty well. That gives me great pride to even think about it now. For a lot of people, the shine, the thrill of it wears off a lot earlier. But we were driven, and I can’t say it enough — how lucky I was to have met those three guys when I met them. And our voices combined to make something special, but also because they had skill sets I didn’t have. And so often I look around, people who are in their 40s who are amazing musicians, for example, and people say, “Well, how come that guy never made it?” And I say, “Because he didn’t have all the skill sets and he didn’t get teamed up with people who did.” I was lucky. I did. As soon as I got out of university, I got teamed up with people who had completely different skill sets than mine off the stage, so we could get stuff done. I was blessed in that regard...."
I have circulated the full article on my Google + page for those fans interested.
Rudy's Reviews on Rudy Blair's Entertainment 17 October, 2017.
A nice interview about the book 'A Newfoundlander in Canada'...
The interviewer asks some really interesting questions about the life of a musician and how Alan went about selecting stories and writing the book. I really enjoyed his comments about the way Alan describes how he tells stories in his own voice and heart whether it be in story telling, songs or acting.
This interview is available internationally and I have shared this on my Google + page for those fans interested.
The Morning Show 17 October, 2017.
This is one of the first interviews Alan Doyle did about his book 'A Newfoundlander in Canada.' He talks about growing up in Newfoundland, Newfoundland joining Canada and the attitudes of Newfoundlanders who voted, what he knew about Canada growing up as a child in small fishing village in Newfoundland and his first trip across Canada in the back of the van as part of Great Big Sea.
I found this interview really, really interesting when the interviewers and Alan talked about the uniqueness of Newfoundland and other Canadian regions in particular the diverse dialects and languages.
I was unable to share this interview via my Google + page. The interview can be found at The Morning Show webpage.
Toronto Public Library 17 October, 2017.
The book tour for 'A Newfoundlander in Canada' started with a packed out house in the Toronto Public Library. The library recorded the talk but has yet to share it on it's official YouTube site.
I have shared a small bootleg video by a fan of Alan Doyle and the audience involved in singing the Great Big Sea song Excursion Around The Bay. I really enjoyed it and thank you so much for the fan for sharing.
