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While I was totally disillusioned with the music "business",
scraps of musical inspiration continued to creep into my head,
whether I wanted them or not. My way of dealing with this
was to record the idea on cassette (just in case), shove it
in a drawer and then ignore it.
 
Martha meanwhile, inspired by our daughter, had been slowly
writing and recording a collection of original children's
songs which we eventually released on our own Muffin Music
label as "Songs From The Tree House" in 1995. "Tree
House" received positive reviews and won the Juno Award,
(Canada's equivalent to the Grammy) for Best Children's Album
the following year. After being invited to join the roster
of Prologue To The Performing Arts, an arts organization that
brings children's performers into schools, festivals and other
public venues, Martha has performed for thousands of children
across Ontario and beyond.
In late 1996, Martha and I negotiated the sub-licensing rights
with BMG Music Canada president Paul Alofs for the albums
in the BMG back catalogue. After approaching EMI Music Canada
president Deane Cameron for help in obtaining sub-licensing
rights to the Virgin-owned albums, Deane offered to release
our proposed MatM/M+M compilation. With the additional commitment
of EMI's Shan Kelley and Warren Stewart, "Then Again
- A Retrospective" was released by EMI Canada and Muffin
Music in 1998, ending the ten year struggle to release a comprehensive
overview of the seven studio albums to date on C.D. The resulting
email from fans around the world, the rise of e-commerce on
the Internet, the inspiring websites of other bands, (many
of them also neglected or ignored by the major labels), helped
convince me that there was value in continuing to make music
for an audience we thought had disappeared.
Since the release of "Then Again", the number of
requests for the reissuing of "This Is The Ice Age"
and "Danseparc" among others has increased, as well
as the demand for new material. While there is no interest
from our former labels in reissuing past albums, Martha and
I have the right to exploit our back catalogues - at our own
expense of course. We are continuing to explore ways of making
this financially viable.
Over the last few years, Martha and I have been pulling all
those cassettes of ignored musical fragments out of the drawer.
From those tapes have come ten or more new songs. As songwriters,
the best thing for both of us has always been that moment
when a song starts coming together. It's great to be writing
again and we hope to be able to share these new songs with
our listeners soon.
To be continued… |
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