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'Grassroots Musical
Renaissance Man'
About the author:
Gary 17 is the publisher and editor of
TO-NITE MAGAZINE, and www.to-nite.net which has been covering the
music scene in the Greater Toronto Area since 1992. He is also the organizer
of the annual SpringRise Celebration concerts held each spring in Toronto
since 1989.
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Written By Gary
17
At a time in history when it*s difficult
enough to be a standout in any one field, Brian Gladstone is proving to be a
kind of Renaissance Man by excelling in four very different aspects of the
music business.
Not only is he a brilliant songwriter/guitarist whose songs on two albums
have received critical acclaim around the globe, he is also a foremost
designer of musical technical components through his own engineering
company, appears to be an event organizer with a Midas touch and has
established himself as a role model for the self-producing, self-promoting
musician/songwriter.
"The music is the hub of the wheel," he explains. "the motivation for all my
activities. All the other activities are merely a vehicle to get the music
out there. It's my way to create my own scene, creating innovative channels
to get my music heard as all the regular channels were grid-locked."
When Gladstone launched his Back To The Dirt album on an unsuspecting world
in 1999, few had heard of the quirky but soulful songwriter. He*d mostly
contented himself with occasionally appearing at open stages or doing
opening sets at friends* gigs and concentrating on writing his tunes, which
cover subjects as diverse as freeway traffic jams, life*s hopeless losers
and the need to preserve the wolverine.
Aside from his sometimes sardonic, often intense and occasionally playfully
witty lyrics, his songs stand out also for his masterful guitar picking and
interesting changes and melodies. He's been compared to Arlo Guthrie, Bob
Dylan or Phil Ohs and other masters of complicated simplicity, but, like
these antecedents, he*s also irrefutably and resolutely an original.
The writing and recording of Back To The Dirt was taking place while
Gladstone was also busy building his Plitron Manufacturing Inc.
manufacturing company, which single-handedly revolutionized the type of
power transformers being used in high-end audio equipment and are rated the
best by several high-profile sound system manufacturers.
Gladstone*s high-tech dissertations and accompanying mathematical equations
on Plitron*s website explaining why he basically reinvented what*s known as
the toroidal, donut-shaped, non-laminated transformer, are probably
incomprehensible to the layman. But the way even in this technical writing
that he combines passion and precision is eerily evocative also of the
idiosyncratic but highly focused approach he takes to both lyric writing and
to blending and bending various musical genres.
Back To The Dirt was profiled on the cover of Toronto magazine to-nite and
www.to-nite.net shortly after it was released but could easily have met the
same sad fate of withering into obscurity that befalls many albums written
about glowingly in such grassroots publications except for one thing:
Gladstone*s dogged determination to disseminate the album all around the
world.
Not content to sit back and wait for radio and reviewers to discover him,
Gladstone trained his focus on designing and constructing his own
distribution and promotion machine. He spent countless hours, trolling each
evening over the internet, researching industry publications, sending emails
and letters, making phone calls and asking for leads from others in the
business to determine where he should send copies of the record in order to
get reviews and airplay. It worked!
"I think an important factor in any success is that I believe so strongly in
what I'm doing, it becomes a passion. I'm driven -- almost obsessed -- when
I get into a project."
*That drive quickly resulted in Gladstone receiving airplay and favourable
reviews across North America and even a major profile in the European
edition of U.N. Magazine. The release and resulting press coverage also
secured him a distribution deal with award-winning independent label
Comstock Records of Fountain Hills Arizona, headed up by Frank Fara, a
20-year veteran of the Country music industry who was voted *Country Music
Personality of the Year* for 1999. The album was added to their global radio
pipeline marketplace, further extending its reach and Gladstone*s
visibility.
In 2000 Gladstone was the subject of a feature profile in the International
County Music Association*s newsletter, did a feature interview with
California*s HHGI Magazine, was prominently profiled in The Nail Online
magazine, CanEHdian Music magazine and many other local publications. In
early 2001 he was feature artist in Germany*s Country Home magazine, was
added to prestigious Canadian Musician Magazine*s list of Canadian musicians
who are known world-wide, and was written about or reviewed in numerous
other music magazines.
Guitar-9 Magazine selected Brian as *Undiscovered Artist of the Month*, Feb
2000. Brian was contacted by Colonel Bobby Patterson, President of the ICMA
(International Country Music Association) that his tune *Car Song* has
received 50,000 plays in two years.
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*Meanwhile, in keeping with the Back To The Dirt philosophy, Gladstone had
begun organizing annual concerts for Earth Day featuring many outstanding
artists from Toronto*s local Folk music scene. The events, held for four
years consecutively, not only raised cash for the non-profit Earth Day
Canada organization, they also helped to forge a sense of community among
the participants, That was to prove instrumental in Gladstone*s biggest
event production thus far, the highly successful first annual Winterfolk
Festival held in Toronto in early 2003.
Frustrated at not being able to secure more reasonable paying, high profile
gigs at which the music is the focus instead of aural wallpaper, Gladstone
simply created his own concert shows and Folk festival in order to showcase
not only his own music but also that others of his acquaintance on the
talent rich Toronto and Ontario scene.
"If opportunity isn't knocking, then you need to build a door. I realized
that the best way to get to play a festival was to create one. And I
recognized there were many musicians in the same category," Gladstone
recalls.
But long before that landmark achievement, Gladstone was to make another
even more scintillating mark with his own music upon the release of his
second album, Psychedelic Folk Songs, in September of 2001.
Building on the artistic and business success of Back To The Dirt, Gladstone
was able to deliver copies of Psychedelic Pholk Psongs to many campus and
community radio DJs and music publication reviewers who were already
familiar with and impressed by his work.
What resulted was an almost immediate landslide of praise for the new disc.
Songs from the album have been played on stations on every continent and
early in 2003 the album was re-mastered and re-released in a second and now
third pressing.
Shortly after release, Joe Vincent selected *Psychedelic Pholk Psongs* album
of the week on JRRI Radio Ireland, and broadcast around the world, but later
was also listed on the Top 100 Albums of 2001. Gladstone was the guest
artist on a one hour radio special in France, shortly before the album was
listed on five major European charts based on radio play including Spain,
France, Italy, and Germany.
Psychedelic Pholk Psongs was signed to Silverwolf Records, Vermont (label of
Josh White Jr, Odetta, Kingston Trio, etc.) for North American promotion,
distribution, and airplay.
Other honors include an Honours Lifetime membership in Country DJ
Association of Belgium, presented in person by president Mia Heylen on her
trip to Canada in 2002. Brian was honored by Colonel Buster Doss, founder of
Stardust Records, as the artist of the Month in August 2002. In the same
month, the album was awarded FIVE STARS by the ICMA (International Country
Music Association).
*There*s also been, of course, a whole raft of new interviews and reviews,
some, such as a July 2002 interview with Folkwax Magazine, concentrating on
the self-made methods that Gladstone used in order to get the international
distribution and exposure that has given him the international prominence he
enjoys today.
His stature in his hometown of Toronto - which normally ignores its
home-grown geniuses until they sell millions of records in the U.S. - is on
the rise too. These days he's playing premier venues such as HughRoom*s,
Healeys, and Silver Dollar and is a feature at outdoor public concerts like
Metropolitan United Church, Mel Lastman Square, as well as festivals
including Winterfolk, Mariposa in the City, Live From the Rock and more -
all to appreciative and large crowds.
"The energy and focus tends to attract other artists and press, I suppose,"
he says of raft of media and industry attention he's received.
His Winterfolk Festival will be back in 2004 and will be held in conjunction
with other local cultural events as part of the City of Toronto*s new
Wintercity Week. Winterfolk II, like the original, will feature over 100
performers over three days and prove a point of coalescing for participants
and fans alike.
It also appears that another Gladstone event initiative, the Folk Singers
For Peace one-day concert he organized and put on at the city*s Mel Lastman
Square last June 28, will also become an annual event - featuring some of
Canada*s premier Folk names from today and yesterday.
It seems that whatever projects Gladstone turns his incisive mind and
prodigious work ethic to, the result is not only success but conspicuous,
one-of-a-kind achievement.
With a new live album being released in October 2003 called Alive & Picking,
a new studio disc in the works for release in 2004, the continued success of
his design and manufacturing company, enthusiastic community support for the
events he organizes and his ability to balance all these activities, Brian
Gladstone does indeed appear to be a Grassroots Musical Renaissance Man well
prepared to thrive in the 21st century.
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