I SPAMmed a the Tim Hortons coffee shop on the way to my studio after work today. Brought in the bass and asked if the employees would like a little music while they did their business. After I played for about 20 minutes, they said that this was the weirdest and coolest thing that had happened on one of their shifts yet. That works for me!

Spontaneous Act of Music #12: I played for a class at UVic called “Creative Being” which explores the creative process and encourages students to unlock their own creativity. I played some walking lines, while the students came in to the lecture hall, then Jenny and I played a song before the class began. We also put a Spontaneous Acts of Music paper invitation on the overhead and invited them to join us. These students are being challenged to do a “creative act” each week and we hope they’ll join us. JOIN US!!!

I committed a Spontaneous Act of Music (SPAM) on the Ferry between Victoria and Vancouver with my friend Jim. On Double Bass and Oboe we sight-read celtic tunes out of a fiddle fakebook and some duets from a study book. It all went down in the stairwell where the acoustics were awesome and lots of walk on traffic could happen upon us. We had a great time… and put smiles on quite a few faces, one guy even stopped and recorded us on his pocket recorder. (I’m hoping he’ll send it to me any day… and if he does I’ll post it here.)

Here it is; you heard it here first.  In the spirit of the Spontaneous Acts of Music facebook event I will be creating a Spontaneous Act of Music each day for the month of February.

I’m going down to the legislature today to protest the BC  Arts funding cuts that this government has dropped on its populace.  So I thought it would be a good idea to freshen up on some of the relevant numbers, ya know… get a look at the lay of the land.  Guess what?, it don’t look good.

Here’s a good piece of news about the BC Arts Cuts of 2009 from the Tyee, including some very important numbers to understand if you live in BC. According to the Tyee the BC government itself has done the research necessary to calculate that it makes back $1.38 tax dollars for every $1.00 dollar it spends in arts support.  With that in mind it is incredible that the BC Liberals have put in place a plan to cut 88 percent of the BC government’s arts funding, over the next two years. Those are the numbers I was looking to brush up on, but there are plenty more interesting things to consider in the article itself.

Here’s a more recent tyee article with similar cutting numbers and some fresher statements from ministers.

In August of 2008 the federal government had The Conference Board of Canada do some research to understand how to “Value” the Canadian creative economy.  What they produced is a 72 page report called,

Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy
Report by The Conference Board of Canada
July 2008, Source: The Conference Board of Canada, 72 pages

if you don’t mind signing in to the free e-library, feel free to Download document*

Here’s a couple of my favorite parts, that I’d like to share with you.

“The economic contribution of the culture sector to Canada in 2007 was 84.6 billion, or 7.4 per cent of the total GDP, taking into account direct, indirect and induced contributions.  Over a million people are employed directly or indirectly as a result of cultural economic activity in Canada.”

I’m sure BC fits into those canadian statistics somewhere….but not as largely as it could.  Would you believe that even with the positive returns it would get on its tax dollars that I mentioned before, BC spends the least on the arts sector of all the provinces?

The report mentions repeatedly the connections between arts & culture, and tourism, the high tech sector, and the general welfare and happiness of the population.

The report concludes with this as one of its final recommendations,

“Creative communities are important drivers in Canada’s economy.  They project unique identities that act a magnets for skilled and creative people and for business investment.  An important challenge for all levels of government is to ensure that communities have the means necessary to support creativity and diversity and to build a thriving culture sector.”

I wonder if anyone from the BC liberal government ever read or even skimmed it?  Because the word on the street is that a lot of the familiar types of arts organizations you’ve seen and enjoyed d0n’t know how they’ll survive without any government funding.  Which is what a 88 per cent cut amounts to I’d say.

Well that’s enough for me today.  I’m off to the legislature to complain and shout.

Hope to see you there.

Found an old school blues sound going on at the Blethering Place, old Jelly-Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong tunes with the local Conservatory Theory teacher.  They call it the Bastion Jazz Band.  I’m told that the long standing leader of the band Pat “Colonel” Paterson has past away recently at a healthy 90 years of age.  Next week they’ll be playing him some funeral sounds on Sunday to see him off.  Starting the sunday after that look for me walking with my bass to my Sunday night gig entertaining the older crowds in the pulsing heart of Oak Bay.  Gig comes with bottomless english tea and scones served on what looks like my grandmother’s china – in case you’re thinking of coming to hear it, they do serve other things too… english things like; beer and wine, fish and chips and ‘indian’ curries.