How Music PEI tried to crush me

Stephen Pate, Always on the Street Victoria Row Charlottetown PEI 2008

I don’t think anyone likes to feel abused. Although I may appear tough, it’s hard to take abuse. However, you have to suck it back many times in life.

The abuse I’ve been dished by Music PEI has shaken my confidence. I’m used to rejection, criticism, disapproval, personal attacks like you are. Decades of it – we all get it and learn to live with it.

In business, I’ve lost deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. You learn to let it slide and move on. Mostly you try to learn what went wrong and not repeat it.

I was so badly shaken by Music PEI’s rejection in May that I seriously thought of quitting music altogether.

It took doggedly playing day after day, week after week during the summer to shake the feeling I was incompetent or no good as a singer songwriter. Thanks to Chris Budhan for believing in me and letting me do my thing on Victoria Row and the great people at Baba’s who listen to my songs old and new each week.

The website for Music PEI says “Music PEI…is…devoted to advancing careers of Island musicians… actively seeking ways to promote, foster and develop artists.” That’s pure bull-shit.

As far as my experience goes, they are just the opposite. I found them insensitive, cruel and bent on making musicians feel small and insignificant.

I wonder if Music PEI Executive Director Rob Oakie would like it if people gave him the impression that his performances suck big time?

Musicians are a sensitive lot. It’s hard to put your feelings on the line by performing in front of others. It takes nerves and many artists suffer stage fright and turn to alcohol and drugs to overcome those fears.

Gordon Lightfoot suffered from stage fright

“What would you do if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?…Oh I get by with a little help from my friends.” (Beatles)

Two members of Gordon Lightfoot’s band told me Gordon, a great Canadian artist, suffered from stage fright. One of the ways he could get the courage to go on stage was to drink heavily before performing. Apparently that’s why he often seemed zoned out on stage.

I remember talking to Helene Arsenault of Barachois about a year after the band stopped performing together. At the Jubilee Theatre in Summerside she told me that night’s performance was very hard on her.

It’s easy to ignore your jitters when you perform regularly but when you stop for awhile all those butterflies come back, she said. Wow a great artist like her had the same stage fright as me.

The first time I played a Dylan and a Lightfoot song in public was at St. Mary’s Hall in Sturgeon. My mouth was so dry when I went on stage. I fumbled chords that I’d known for 30 years. When I got off I was shaking and never wanted to do that again. Someone said I played too many chords and I stopped playing anything but three chords songs for two years.

In case you’re wondering, I started playing guitar at 9 years old. I like to sing country, Elvis, light opera, spirituals, folk and show tunes. I would sing out loud on the school bus. I loved to sing but lacked the courage to go on stage.

While not a great voice, I can sing bass like “Old Man” river and Elvis ballads. I do a credible Bob Dylan imitation! Walking through the lobby of the Newfoundland Hotel, the concierge asked me to join their barber shop quartet.

I’ve also performed in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to great audiences.

At Brennan’s Kitchen Party Kier Kenny and Robert Arsenault convinced me to perform in public. Heidi Jury my vocal coach in 2004 was always brutally honest with me. She however did encourage me to practice and said I had good tone and pitch. She also told me I knew more the words and music to more songs than anyone she had ever met.

Each time I got on the stage, I felt insecure. I struggled with that feeling like many musicians. Anyone who performs has been heckled, criticized by bar patrons, friends and critics. But you press on, trying to get better with each performance.

Being rejected by Music PEI shook my confidence. Maybe they knew I was totally lacking in talent, something no one had told me before. Maybe I was fool to go on stage and people were laughing behind my back. That was it: the top music people on PEI had decided I was no good.

But it wasn’t true. I am a good singer. I entertain people. The reality was that Oakie was just prejudiced against me, didn’t like me. He had already demonstrated that several times before.

Like the time last winter we had “Rocking The Guild” with Disco Rocking Llamas, Intoxicado and Faded Blue. It was a fund-raiser for people with disabilities.

It had been a great night of music and friendship. I will be indebted to those musicians forever. Oakie came backstage after it was over. He loudly invited the band members back to his place for an after-party.

Nick Gauthier, who is a wonderfully warm person, asked me if I was going. Oakie got a black look on his face that said “Don’t invite him.” But Nick persisted and Oakie relented. It was super embarrassing.

Here I was the producer of the show but not good enough to attend the after-party. I didn’t go: who would go to someone’s home when they clearly let you know you’re not welcome? I smiled and sucked it back. You can’t let your feelings come out in the music biz.

Oakie really is a jerk with no manners whatsoever, in my opinion. I personally wouldn’t give him the time of day. He’s proved himself to be a destructive influence and totally the opposite of the  Music PEI mission statement.

Give some men power and it can go to their head. A lifetime of insecurity turns him into an oppressor of those he can control. The Peter Principal, he has risen to the level of his incompetence.

Fortunately, I’ve overcome the blow Oakie tried to deliver to me. I realize he is nobody, a no-talent little person with an artist destroying attitude. He is not at Music PEI to help us but merely to advance his own career and ego in my opinion. I wouldn’t put myself under his control again.

Expecting Rain, Kensington PEI 2004, Marc Belland, Heidi Jury, Chickie Brown, Stephen Pate (Derek Vokey is off stage left)

PS – this story had to be updated when all the picture links got broken. The one thing I noticed was all my pictures show me with that worried man blues. I’ll have to forget the jerks at Music PEI this year and be my old happy self.