Preview
HOLD YOUR GROUND CD RELEASE PARTY
Featuring Old Reliable, The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir and Tom Phillps and the Men of Constant Sorrow
Thursday, December 11
Ironwood
Gerald Wheatley had a plan in mind when he conceived the latest Hold Your Ground Alberta music compilation series.
"First and foremost, we said ‘let’s not do something we’re really proud of and never listen to. Let’s do something fun.’"
The "we" Wheatley is talking about is the steering committee that chose the musicians for this third disc of socially conscious songs. By the third time you do anything, generally you start to develop a system and a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Hold Your Ground version three proves the theory true.
"When we did the first one, we didn’t know whether it would ever happen again. But the first one did well. People enjoyed it and said ‘do it again,’" says Wheatley. "Then Volume two felt a bit too much like an exercise. Volume three is my favourite so far – it’s just a really great collection of songs.
"We’re in a bit of a transition era between people buying CDs and downloading everything, but people will still pay $15 for a good CD, so it’s still possible to make some money for community groups on a venture like this… There’s a whole lotta bands in this province – there’s easily another 17 for next year’s disc. We could do this for years to come."
The plan, however, isn’t just about having fun putting out a compilation CD. There’s activism at the root of all this music – although frankly, Wheatley is happy just to talk about the music.
"People don’t read articles with the word activism in the title," he says. "I mean, I sometimes don’t even read articles with activism in the title. If we can just talk about the music, I think we’ll do a much better job selling the CD."
However, in the interests of journalistic integrity, and the people’s right to know, we’re going to have to expose the painful truth – Hold Your Ground is as much about community mobilization as it is music. It was initially conceived of as a fundraiser for the locally-based Activist Network (www.activist.ca), which tracks all the funky and interesting grassroots activity going on in Alberta, as well as providing links to activism across the country and continent. It’s a thriving and valuable resource, but while Wheatley’s one of the die-hards who keep the Activist Network running, he worries about the perception of activism locally, both inside and outside the activist community.
"One activist Cha Cala, sometimes refers to the local activist community as ‘the grim and determined.’ There’s a small core group of people doing some amazing work, but sometimes we have a tendency towards, well, grim determination that doesn’t leave enough room for fun, silliness, celebration.
"So Hold Your Ground is a way to raise money for the Activist website, and other community organizations can buy the CDs cheap and use them for a fundraising activity as well. But mainly I like the idea of people listening to some great Alberta bands over and over, and learning about local music as well as local issues."
In the end, Wheatley’s hardcore love of community and support of local enterprise seduces him into a bit of solid activist rhetoric for a moment.
"I’ve only lived in Alberta less than 10 years, but I’ve gotta say this is very much an Alberta album, and that’s how it should be," he says. "There are very definite values and qualities attached to Alberta culture and history. We need to reclaim from Stampede culture the stuff that’s valuable – the close-knit, community-oriented part, the history of radical political discourse. Alberta isn’t just oil companies – there’s a real community history there too.
The music chosen for Hold Your Ground doesn’t have to have a messge, although it’s surprisingly easy to find bands with songs that have some sort of social commentary on them – even in Alberta.
"Everyone has something they feel passionately about," says Wheatley."Sometimes we talk to a band, and they feel bad that they don’t have any music that has social commentary, so as a result we’re featuring three original numbers, recorded just for this compilation. When the album encourages artists to create, that’s just awesome."
And while the first Hold Your Ground tended pretty strongly towards the stereotype of folksy protest music, the third release is more eclectic, encompassing everything from ska and punk to Greek music to reggae and rock.
"Up to this point, we haven’t promoted it to bands so much as we’ve been picking and choosing artists. Not based just on the professional quality of their sound, although that counts, but also because we think it’s important to showcase and support working local bands that are going to be around for awhile. We always include new bands too, though. If somebody bought all three, they’d get a pretty good snapshot of what’s out there regularly in Alberta." |
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