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The Influentials 2007
BY CARSTEN KNOX
The business of Nova Scotia music has become Canada's most important cultural export. Meet the people behind the music: the producers, sound engineers, managers and publicists who have propelled our homegrown talent out to all four corners of the globe building a thriving local industry in the process
LINKS
Susan Hunter started Jazz East 20 years ago
Peter Allen's other home is Dal Music
Charles Austen is Ultramagnetic
Russ and Sharon Brannon shop is Musicstop
Laurence Currie's online home
Dennis Field is Denmark Productions
Wendy Gilmour Promotions
Bernhard Gueller's homepage
Lynn Horne's MySpace page
Jud Haynes' Dependent Music
Dave Hillier is part of Sonic Temple
Sherri Jones & Co.
Gordon Lapp is head of Music Nova Scotia
Robert Lawrence is co-owner of Taz Records
Max MacDonald started Celtic Colours
Waye Mason created the Halifax Pop Explosion
Craig Mercer is lead guitarist of the Jimmy Swift Band
Mary Pat Mombourquette conducts business for Symphony Nova Scotia
Wendy Phillps works with Sonic Entertainment
John Poirier is the Atlantic rep for Warner Records
Terry Pulliam owns Sound Market Studios
Mickey Quase is the province's music man
Louis Thomas is Sonic Entertainment
Chris Wilcox operates the Scotia Festival of Music
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Susan Hunter lives for jazz. |
 FEBRUARY 2, 2007
The Montreal native was living in Edmonton, working in community development and adult education when she started to frequent a jazz club in town.
“It was a place you could go alone as a woman,” says Hunter. She volunteered at the local jazz festival and society, and when she and her family relocated to the east coast, she did the same here, working at the 3rd Atlantic Jazz Festival in 1989.
She and saxophonist Don Palmer decided to run it from there on, forming the non-profit arts organization Jazz East, whose main purpose is to present jazz and creative improvisational music in concerts and educational workshops in the community year round.
Last year the Atlantic Jazz Festival ...
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Peter Allen, pianist and composer |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Haligonian Peter Allen has made a name internationally as a composer and a pianist.
He attended Mount Allison for his undergrad, followed by a course of study at Yale, where he earned his masters in piano performance. A staple of classical music on CBC radio, he has played in concert series across the country and spent four seasons as an artist in residence at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where he played as a chamber musician and a soloist.
Now an assistant professor of music at the Dalhousie Music School, Allen has performed with the Symphony Nova Scotia, at the Scotia Festival, and has released four discs of his work, including two with flutist Patricia Creighton...
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Charles Austin is Ultramagnetic |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Charles Austin’s career in music started with his first band, Iron Egg, that tried to mimic ACDC riffs in songs about eggs.
Austen came to Halifax from his hometown of Toronto to go to school but spent much of his time recording and playing music in bands.
He played bass in the popular Halifax rock act The Superfriendz from 93-96, a band that has recently reformed, and is in the midst of recording a new album while playing shows “recreationally.”
Austin runs the popular recording studios Ultramagnetic, once in the Khyber Building but now up on Kempt Road.
He had produced and/or engineered albums by David Myles, Buck 65, Matt Mays and Joel Plaskett, and has given many other yo...
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Russ and Sharon Brannon, the "must-stop" retailers |
JANUARY 14, 2007
Russ Brannon grew up in Dartmouth and spent the 60s playing in a variety of pop bands in the area. He used to build his own speakers and imported audio equipment from the United States and says there was a time when most of the local bands were using sound systems he made.
Brannon and his wife Sharon were married in 1972, the same year they opened the first Music Stop location on Wyse Rd. in Dartmouth.
Over the years Brannon ran a recording studio called Solar Audio, a space that he now rents out to producers and bands. He has continued to play guitar in bands, and Sharon is also a musician — she plays piano.
The Brannons have built Music Stop into the most prominent music retail...
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Mike Campbell's excellent new adventure |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Mike Campbell will probably always be recognizable to music fans for the years he worked as a VJ on the nation’s music station Much Music, on shows such as Mike & Mike’s Excellent X-Canada Adventures, Much East and Going Coastal.
Following his TV career, Campbell formed Soapbox Racer Entertainment, a company with partner Sherri Jones to manage Joel Plaskett. He's also a music industry consultant, having worked with Ottawa's National Arts Centre (Atlantic Scene Festival) and Keith's Brewery (Keith's Fest 2003) and the East Coast Music Awards.
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Greg Clark, working on No. 10 |
JANUARY 14, 2007
Clark is the perennial warrior of Halifax music venues, and no one in Halifax has so persistently kept bringing quality live music to generations of local music lovers.
His most recent bar having just closed, Stage Nine (named for being the ninth music venue he’s run), won’t stop him.
He has said that his tenth venue for live music will open in town before long.
Clark's first business was Backstreet Amusements on Prince Street, an early-80s video game arcade, but it wasn’t long after that he opened Club Flamingo, and since then he’s been associated with a list of legendary Halifax venues, including The Double Deuce, Birdland, and the Marquee Club on Gottingen Street.
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Stephen Cooke, notes from a critic |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Dartmouth-raised, Stephen Cooke graduated from the King’s College journalism program in the late 80s and worked in radio for awhile, producing entertainment-based shows for C100.
When the CRTC killed spoken word requirements in the early 90s he was laid off but by then he had made inroads at The Chronicle Herald.
After working for them as a freelancer, he was hired fulltime in the winter of 1998 to cover the East Coast Music Awards.
Cooke has an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and yes, it’s true, a band named after him (that’s he’s not in): Stephen Cooke and the Respected Halifax Journalists Wolf (Wolf because all the cool bands these days have Wolf in their titles).
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Laurence Currie, sound sensation |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
The Halifax native grew up in a household surrounded by music: his father is a multi-instrumentalist and a singer in barbershop groups.
Laurence Currie worked professionally as an audio engineer and producer in Halifax for 14 years, and ran one of the most prolific studios in the region for 10 years called Idea of East Recording.
He worked with acts as varied as Sloan, Wintersleep, In Flight Safety, Lennie Gallant and Jerry Grannelli.
Though he’s moved his home base to Toronto, he still works with a number of local acts, most recently Air Traffic Control, The Museum Pieces and King Konquerer.
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Dennis Field, plugged in |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
An award winning technician, engineer, producer, and a longtime Juno juror, Field was a local musician through the 1980s in bands such as Exposure.
He started Denmark Productions with Mark Bryden in 1988 to record both his own music and other acts, but by ’94 he was a fulltime studio wizard, focusing exclusively on other musical artists including The Chronicles, Katey Day, JSB, New Vinyl, Eddys Basement, Soundproof and Bernie Doucette.
Denmark Productions handles bands from across the musical spectrum, voice-overs for film, as well as producing the annual independent music compilation, “The Halifax Plugged-In Series.”
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Wendy Gilmour's web of influence |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
A website designer, Gilmour’s first venture into the music industry was in 1998, when the Sons of Maxwell asked her to maintain their site.
In 2000 she formed her own company, and that led to publicity, promotion and artist management.
She manages Lennie Gallant’s business and career development and her company’s clients include George Canyon, Charlie A’Court, Dave Gunning, JP Cormier and Rylee Madison.
Gilmour has won Music Nova Scotia awards for both her publicity work and her web design.
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Jeff Goodspeed, teacher of note |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
A three-time winner of Music Nova Scotia Educator of the Year Award, Jeff Goodspeed is a veteran saxophone and flute player (he can count Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Liberace among the giants with whom he’s played).
He spends a great deal of his time teaching music to young people in private practice as well as the Acadia University Jazz Camp where he is director of the program.
In the late-90s he formed Los Primos, a cultural exchange program with Nova Scotia and Cuban music students and he has a Latin Dance combo called Latin Groove, and is a founder of the East Coast Music award-winning Havanafax, a group of Cuban and Canadian players he calls “the professionals on each sid...
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Bernhard Gueller, cellist and conductor |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
The music director of the Symphony Nova Scotia since 2002, Bernhard Gueller is credited for raising the creative standard of the organization.
A classically trained cellist, Gueller, besides conducting, has also played with the symphony, both in concert and as a soloist.
Gueller studied music in Stuttgart at the leading German school, Hochschule für Musik, and has conducted orchestras in Shanghai, China, Manaos, Brazil, and Nashville, Tennessee, as well as the Cape Town Philharmonic in South Africa.
Symphony Managing Director Mary Pat Mombourquette puts it quite simply when explaining Gueller’s talent: “He just understands the music and he understands the musicians.”
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Lynn Horne is back |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Lynn Horne says she “tortured all of the concert promoters” she knew - she wanted to learn the music business.
It was 1976. Eventually promoter Brooks Diamond gave hired her to hang posters for Bruce Cockburn and Dan Hill concerts, and that got her started.
Later she worked for Doug Kirby and managed Susan Crowe and Buddy & The Boys, before taking 11 years off to be a stay-at-home mom.
More recently Horne’s been a radio marketing consultant, and has come back to artist management and publicity, counting Ron Hynes, Steven Bowers, The Trews and Charlie A’Court as clients.
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Jud Haynes' collective thoughts |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Originally from Newfoundland, Haynes has been a fixture on the Halifax music scene for years, playing bass in Wintersleep, one of the hottest young rock bands in the country.
Haynes is also is one of the key players in Dependent Music, the startlingly successful independent record label that includes on its roster Wintersleep, Brian Borcherdt, Contrived and Jill Barber, though Haynes says it’s more of a collective than a label, with the members running the show from within.
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Dave Hillier, the engineer |
JANUARY 14, 2007
A Maritime resident for 20 years, Hillier came out to the Maritimes from Kingston, Ontario (via Toronto) as a touring audio engineer for Rita MacNeil, just as she was becoming the next big thing.
In Toronto he had done sound for a variety of awards shows, including work for MuchMusic, and here became the technical director for MacNeil’s tours of soft-seat venues.
He continues to freelance and says he has worked with “every major artist in the Maritimes,” done all the ECMA shows, and more than 100 different recordings, from CDs to television programs.
Hillier won a Gemini award for sound design on a documentary about the Cape Breton coal miners choral group Men of the Deeps, and w...
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Sherri Jones' creative endeavours |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Jones began her music industry journey some 20 years ago doing office administration for impresario Brooks Diamond.
She says she quickly found she needed new challenges which led her to become an artist manager (even though she says “she had no desire” for the position) when Ron Hynes convinced her to represent him.
Jones formed Jones & Co. and went on to work with Ashley MacIsaac, Mary Jane Lamond, Gordie Samson and Shaye. Jones also partners with Shelley Nordstrom in NOJO Music.
Jones is one of the founders and chairs the East Coast Music Awards, and sits on the boards of FACTOR and CARAS.
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Gordon Lapp, the Music Nova Scotia man |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
PEI-born Lapp has been involved in Maritime music for over 30 years, first as a concert promoter and then as the general manager of the Argyle Cobbler Group that ran venues such as The Marquee Club, The Seahorse and The Economy Shoe Shop during Halifax's booming alt-rock scene from 2000 to 2005.
He is now executive director of the 700-member strong, non-profit music industry association, Music Nova Scotia.
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Robert Lawrence, Mr. Alternative |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Robert Lawrence started writing for radio on CHNS while still a teenager in the late 60s.
He went on to do work for the Fourth Estate alternative weekly, the original Halifax Magazine and the CBC, before eventually movng to Toronto. His experience in the music scene crosses generations and genres.
Lawrence had his own alternative record store, Vortex, on Queen Street West, a funky alternative vinyl retailer and concert ticket outlet, and one of the first to champion Sub Pop Records.
Lawrence is a co-owner of Taz Records on Gottingen Street.
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Max MacDonald shows his Colours |
JANUARY 14, 2007
Max MacDonald, the Celtic Colours organizer was born and raised in Cape Breton. MacDonald got into music through being an actor.
His first musical experience was in 1972, on a recording for CBC Radio in Sydney, and through the 70s and 80s he made a living performing, often in revue-style music and comedy gigs.
He found the time between 1978 and '81 to form a group, Buddy & The Boys.
In 1994 he hung it up, sick of the road, but in ’95, after chairing the ECMAs, he realized he had to make a living, and all he knew was showbusiness.
It led him to form Rave Entertainment to manage events and artists, and he started up the annual Celtic Colours festival in 1997. In 2006 the festiv...
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Colin Mackenzie and Cinnamon Toast |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Mackenzie has been the music director at CKDU, and was a founding member of the Cinnamon Toast indie music label. He also managed Sloan’s label Murderecords, and managed the careers of seminal Halifax bands Jale, Superfriendz, Thrush Hermit, the Inbreds, and also Neko Case.
He has recently transplanted himself to Montreal, but finds himself back in town regularly directing videos and helping put together legendary jazz musician Jerry Granelli’s Sand Hills Reunion project.
Forever modest, Mackenzie says music lawyer Chip Sutherland was the most influential of his old buddies. “He kept us all in line.”
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Waye Mason lit the fuse for the Pop Explosion |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
Waye Mason’s cultural and activist history in Halifax runs deep.
Best known for starting and running the annual Halifax Pop Explosion, one of the most renowned music festivals in the nation, Mason also helped establish the Khyber Arts Centre Society, held board positions at community radio station CKDU, and MIANS (now Music Nova Scotia) as well as serving as president of the association for a year.
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Glen Meisner, talent spotter |
JANUARY 14, 2007
Meisner has been working for the CBC for more than 30 years, starting as a recording engineer, before producing the long running CBC program Atlantic Airwaves.
His title is Music Producer for the Maritime Region, and he has logged countless hours at CBC Studio H producing albums for up and coming artists including Jill Barber, Rose Cousins and the Chucky Danger Band.
“My main job is doing radio shows,” he says, “but these sessions grow out of that. It’s more talent development than anything else, going from a small local audience to a national audience.”
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Craig Mercer, from Salacious to Swift |
JANUARY 14, 2007
The Sydney, Cape Breton native learned in high school that being a musician professionally was a lot of fun, certainly “way better than mowing lawns,” when his band Salacious would play every weekend to make money.
He moved to Halifax in 1992 to go to Dalhousie, earning a degree in Philosophy, which he never uses or uses constantly, depending on your perspective.
He’s now the lead singer and guitarist in the Jimmy Swift Band, which keeps him pretty busy, but he’s also managed to win Best Agent in the Music Nova Scotia awards every year since they’ve had the category.
He considers himself a freelance agent now, his music collective Below Me Music having recently folded.
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Mary Pat Mombourquette, the other conductor |
 JANUARY 14, 2007
In her fourth season as Managing Director of the Symphony Nova Scotia, Mombourquette’s responsibilities are varied: “Other than making music, I do everything else,” she says.
Nominated for this list by her admiring staff, “everything else” includes grant writing, programming, proposal writing, budgeting, dealing with sponsors, and even “schmoozing.”
Born in Sydney, Cape Breton, Mombourquette worked in theatre in Ontario and put together classical music festivals, but her plan was always to come back to Nova Scotia, and when the opportunity came up at the SNS she took it.
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Shelley Nordstrom spins out of retail |
JANUARY 13, 2007
With more than 20 years in the music industry, Shelley Norstrom has experience with virtually every medium that impacts on the business.
As an Operations Director for A&A Records & Tapes she gained serious knowledge of the retail sector and has used that to move into artist development and marketing and promotional strategies.
She is a partner with Sheri Jones in NOJO Music and regularly works with
the East Coast Music Awards.
Norstrom has been on the boards of the ECMAs, the East Coast Music Association, and the national advisory board for FACTOR, and for the last two years, she has been Export Manager for The East Coast Music Association.
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Wendy Phillips, publicist |
JANUARY 13, 2007
Wendy Phillips operates her public relations company, under the Sonic Entertainment umbrella, handling publicity for Matt Mays, Nathan Wiley, Jill Barber, The Novaks, In-Flight Safety, The Divorcees, David Myles and many more artists, and the very active concert promotion company, Sonic Concerts.
Phillips also handles publicity and marketing duties for events such as The Halifax Pop Explosion, The East Coast Music Awards and the Stan Rogers Folk Festival, and she has contracts with CBC Radio and Television and The Songwriters Association of Canada.
Phillips has won the Nova Scotia Music award for best publicist for two years running.
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John Poirier started in music with SMU radio |
 JANUARY 13, 2007
The Warner Brothers Music representative in Atlantic Canada has a long history in Maritime music, going back to the SMU radio station in the 1970s, when he imported records in from the UK to put himself through school.
Poirier built and ran Sam the Record Man stores in New Brunswick before being recruited by Warners and moving to Halifax to be closer to the artists.
Poirier helped bring Maritime musicians as diverse as Buck 65, Great Big Sea and Rawlins Cross to Warner's attention.
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Terry Pulliam helped Sloan get started |
 JANUARY 13, 2007
An award winning music producer and engineer, Pulliam has been a part of the Halifax music scene for years, operating out of his SoundMarket Recording Studios on Quinpool Road that he started in the ‘80s while he
was working in radio as a production manager and on-air DJ.
Fulltime since 1992, Pulliam’s worked with the CBC, the NFB and bands from the peak of the Halifax alternative rock scene of the 1990s (including Sloan and Eric’s Trip) as well as artists such as John Gracie, Lennie Gallant. He's also produced and engineered scores for locally shot feature films.
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Mickey Quase, music man for the Province |
 JANUARY 13, 2007
A staple of the Halifax music scene since the early 80s, Montreal-born Quase was a former performer (guitar, piano and vocals), booking agent and administrator before becoming an artist manager, first for Black Pool and then for the Rankin Family for close to a decade, during which time he also was their tour manager, joining them on the road for six years.
He has served on the board of Music Nova Scotia and is the first Music Development Officer for the Province of Nova Scotia, a position he’s held for more than a year, which he says is the culmination of all his previous experience. His company specializes in international opportunities and development and he has taught international to...
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Louis Thomas and the speed of sound |
 JANUARY 13, 2007
The former drummer for Newfoundland-based 90s alt-rock act Thomas Trio and The Red Albino, Louis Thomas has been managing Great Big Sea since 1994.
Expanding his management capacities he started the Sonic record label, concert promotion and finally a recording studio, Sonic Temple, run by his brother and another Thomas trio member, Lil, above the Sonic Entertainment offices on Hollis Street.
The Sonic roster now includes Matt Mays, Wintersleep, Nathan Wiley and the three leads from Trailer Park Boys.
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Christopher Wilcox, the Music Room man |
JANUARY 13, 2007
Christopher Wilcox owns the stylish Lady Hammond Road performance venue The Music Room and is the managing director of the Scotia Festival of Music, the two-week-long, multiple-event chamber music festival now in it’s 27th season.
A veteran of the Atlantic Symphony (clarinet from 1967-1981) and the Scotia Winds, a woodwind quintet he founded and managed, Wilcox was also the managing director of the Ontario-based Music Toronto chamber music festival from 1989 to 1992. He has taught music in Halifax and Toronto and is a former member of the faculty of music at Dalhousie University.
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