October 07, 2010

Publication title: Vancouver Sun, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Vancouver
Writer: Denise Ryan

The musical saga of Sarah McLachlan and Nettwerk records in words and pictures

VANCOUVER — The first in-depth conversation I had with Terry McBride, the CEO of Nettwerk records, we were both naked, in a sauna.

For this meeting, in which he would try to convince me that I was the right person to compose a book about his company, he had proposed we do a Pilates class together and talk afterward in the sauna.

The request was unusual, but I thought, this must be what rock ’n’ roll people are like. They get naked a lot, and have parties. Maybe even naked parties.

So, after grunting through a Pilates class with the much-more graceful Terry, I took a deep breath, stripped down to a towel and crossed the threshold into the sauna with him.

While I clutched my towel and tried to figure out how not to reveal too much, Terry said he was ready to reveal all. He wanted a book to commemorate Nettwerk’s 25th anniversary, something that gave Nettwerk fans the inside story of the Vancouver-based label’s start up.

The founding partners, and some of the artists — Sarah McLachlan in particular — would open up, and I had full rein to make something out of it.

In the heat of the sauna, he won me over. Maybe it was the fantasy I had about a rock ’n’ roll adventure that would include private jets, naked parties and a world that must be half-Playboy mansion, half-rabbit-hole: I said yes.

What Terry, his partners, their spouses and former spouses, and Sarah revealed was something quite different.

The story that emerged was not just about the birth of Nettwerk records, Canada’s most influential indie record company. It wasn’t just about McBride, whom nearly everyone I interviewed referred to as a cross between a genius, a mystic and Wayne Gretzky (he sees where the puck will go, not where it is).

It became the story of how it takes a village to make internationally renowned musical artists like Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne or the Barenaked Ladies.

McLachlan was ruthlessly honest about her creative process, her relationship to songwriting, her family and her fame in interviews conducted over tea in her kitchen.

There were plenty of hair-raising “insider” stories about parties, and “the road” (Sarah dancing naked — there it is! — on a table in Paris, then breaking down and tearing up her bus in a rage after a testosterone-soaked tour of Europe just before appearing at the Vatican), but what became most apparent was this: Nettwerk, and the lives of anyone involved with it, is about music.

Where music comes from, where it takes us, why we love it, is somewhere beyond explanation or simple reporting. The real insider story Sarah, Terry and the rest of the gang shared with me, and which became the book, is the deeply personal journeys they took to write songs, make music they loved and share it with the world.

This excerpt is told in the second person – Sarah’s voice, one that emerged organically from interviews. (Sarah has a way of talking about herself that makes her exceptional experiences seem universal.)

In this passage, Sarah arrives in Vancouver for the first time, and struggles to produce her first album, aware that she comes close to letting the opportunity slip through her fingers.

Excerpt from NETTWERK: 25 Years of Music We Love

September, 1987, Vancouver

Day after day the sun shimmers — it is a blinding, yellow brick road. You follow it, let its warmth lull you until you feel drugged with pleasure, and like Dorothy in the poppy field, you surrender.

You are 19 years old and sweet as a new potato. With two suitcases, a guitar, a five-record deal with Nettwerk, and a boundless Indian summer, anything is possible.

*

You set up in the storage room at Nettwerk’s tiny office in Kitsilano, with a small candle by your mattress — a few rats scratch around at night, but you can sleep through that.

Terry McBride has a slightly annoying habit of creeping in at four in the morning to start work. He tries to do everything as quietly as possible, slowly pulling drawers open, softly clicking a light on. The more he tries to be quiet, the more irritating he is.

Sometimes you’re just rolling in from a night out, and he’s arriving to start working on the books. He’s meticulous about numbers. Keener. Pretty soon you find an apartment. Thank God.

Your job is to write songs. You’ve never really written a song by yourself, not a whole song, lyrics, melody, and all.

But you’re game. Why the hell not?

*

By January, it’s raining. Halifax had its foggy springs, its storms coming in from the sea, but you’ve never felt rain like this. Every day you leave the house and feel like you are under a cold shower that seeps through your hair, down your back, the crack of your ass. The rain soaks your shoes, spreads like an oil slick that you can’t step out of.

You were tricked by the sunny September — now the city is dark in the morning, dark all day, dark at night.

To get to the makeshift little studio that Mark, Terry’s partner, has set up at the back of Nettwerk’s cramped offices, you have to pass by Terry —he’s always there to remind you why you’re here.

“So what are you doing back there? What have you got?”

You bring muffins in the morning — warm in the pan. These are your songs.

“I can’t sell a muffin,” says Terry as he takes a second one.

Nothing comes out of the backroom but an occasional graceful melody. The quick climb of a few notes, the descent, a love lyric or two.

One day you see Terry on the street, through the window of the coffee shop in the West End where you have a job that pays, a job waiting tables. You give him a huge smile and wave. He just stares back, perplexed.

You overhear Terry talking to Mark. “What the hell is going on? She’s supposed to be writing.”

Your baking becomes more elaborate: cinnamon buns, vegan zucchini bread, white chocolate brownies.

“This girl is costing us money,” says Terry. “She keeps coming in with these f—ing muffins. What is she doing all day?”

“Well,” says Mark, “she bakes.”

*

When Terry starts talking about sending you back to Halifax, you get nervous.

Mark agrees with Terry that you may benefit from the application of some pressure. They move you out of the makeshift studio in the back office to Limited Vision, another studio they have set up — it’s bigger, more private. This is where the producer, Greg Reely, comes in. This is where you start to benefit from the pressure of the money clock and Greg’s good guidance.

You’re determined to learn your way into songwriting.

It’s either that or go home.

First thing is pure feeling. That comes from melody.

Melody and phrasing. Lyrics are a distant third. You have to compose. What is that?

Have a beginning, build bridges, have an ending.

You start listening to the songs you love, but in a different way. You dissect them with some analytical part of your mind you never knew you had. You think about what the artist is trying to do, how words work to build images, how to make less obvious choices, how to play between lyrics that are literal and others that are esoteric, how to tell a story.

It takes over a year, and many trays of muffins, but finally the first album is done.

When Touch is released, they send you by taxi to the Vancouver airport. You are going to Toronto to do press.

You feel like it is your first time being out in the world.

Nettwerk publicist Tonni Maruyama comes with you. The day is brilliantly sunny. You’ve always remembered the sun in those first weeks you came to Vancouver, how cleverly that Indian summer tricked you into staying and adoring this place.

So much so, you can forgive all the grey, cold days of rain; the rain that came spring, summer, and fall; the darkness visible that will come and come again.

This day is so sunny the sky seems to split like the taxi itself is plowing it open. Not since you arrived have you seen this bright a day.

As the taxi spins toward the airport, you cross the bridge over the Fraser River, the endless blue sky furrows outside your windows, and suddenly, your first single, Vox, comes on the radio.

Holy crap.

You are on the radio. You scream. You clap. You bounce up and down in your seat, like a kid. Tonni is laughing and screaming, too. “Oh my God! How did that happen? You’re on the radio! For real!”

The cab veers over to the side of the road, making your bodies crash together in the back seat. The driver jumps out, runs to the trunk, and then orders you out of the cab.

He knocks on the window, gesticulating until you stagger out into the blinding sunlight. The airport, and your plane, will have to wait.

“You are famous,” the cab driver says. “I want to take your picture.”

So you sling your arm around Tonni’s shoulder, smile, and squint into the camera.

You will never see the film from this man’s camera, but it will stick in your mind always, like his big, toothy smile.

Whenever you hear Vox, you will think of him and feel the same surprise.