Volume 28 Issue 1 | September 20 - November 8, 2022

The WholeNote
FOR OPENERS
VOLUME 28 NO 1
SEPTEMBER 20 - NOVEMBER 8, 2022
IN THIS EDITION
STORIES AND INTERVIEWS
Vanessa Ague, Wendalyn Bartley, Jack Buell, Max
Christie, Paul Ennis, Steph Martin, Jennifer Parr,
David Perlman, Lydia Perović, Colin Story,
Andrew Timar
CD Reviewers
Stuart Broomer, Max Christie, Sam Dickinson,
Raul da Gama, Janos Gardonyi, Richard Haskell,
Fraser Jackson, Tiina Kiik, Kati Kiilaspea,
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, David Olds, Ted Parkinson,
Ivana Popovic, Terry Robbins,Michael Schulman,
Adam Scime, Andrew Scott, Adam Sherkin,
Andrew Timar, Yoshi Maclear Wall, Ken Waxman,
Matthew Whitfield
Proofreading
Paul Ennis, John Sharpe
Listings Team
John Sharpe, Gary Heard, Colin Story
Design Team
Kevin King, Susan Sinclair
Circulation Team
Wende Bartley, Jack Buell, Sharon Clark,
Vito Gallucci, James Harris, Bob Jerome,
Miquela Leahy, Chris Malcolm, Sheila McCoy,
Lorna Nevison, Tom Sepp, Dave Taylor.
UPCOMING DATES AND DEADLINES
Weekly Online Listings Updates
6pm every Tuesday for weekend posting
for Volume 28 No. 2
Nov 1 - Dec 6, 2022
Publication Dates
Friday, Oct 28 (digital)
Tuesday, Nov 1 (print)
Print edition listings deadline
6pm Tuesday, Oct 18
Print advertising, reservation deadline
6pm Tuesday, Oct 18
Printed in Canada
Couto Printing & Publishing Services
Circulation Statement - July 1, 2022
8,800 printed & distributed
Canadian Publication Product
Sales Agreement 1263846
ISSN 14888-8785 WHOLENOTE
Publications Mail Agreement #40026682
WholeNote Media Inc. accepts no responsibility or
liability for claims made for any product or service
reported on or advertised in this issue.
COPYRIGHT © 2022 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC
By the Dawn's
Early Light
DAV ID PERLMAN
Everything I know, for better and for worse, about making a magazine comes from
watching my father pack the trunk (“the boot” we called it) of whatever second-hand
family second car we were entrusting our lives to on that particular vacation (“holiday”
we’d have called it).
“This time we are leaving crack of dawn” dad would say. So there I was, standing shivering
in the dawn’s early light, marvelling at dad’s packing prowess – as wave after wave
of impossibly large quantities of stuff kept arriving beside the car, somehow finding their
way into every nook and cranny of the trunk.
Only an hour later than planned, victory! Dad slams the boot lid down. Well, nothing
so satisfying as a slam, actually. More like a muffled “humph” as he stands on tiptoe and
bears down till the latch clicks. And turns in triumph, only to see my mother coming out
of the front door, dwarfed by the largest suitcase yet.
It’s called explosive silence. With a little staring contest thrown in. “Well you didn’t
think I was going to leave my own suitcase behind, did you?” I can still hear Mom say,
witheringly quiet, across the many years. I don’t remember what ended up having to be
cut to make room. Not any of us four children or the two dogs. So maybe nothing at all.
Just like making a magazine.
Packing to come to Canada in 1975, some 18 years later, was a different story. “Just
me and a backpack and a two month bus pass,” is how I used to boast about it to my
own children, until they started rolling their eyes. A very full backpack it was, I should
add: shoes for every occasion, passport with student visa, complete works of William
Shakespeare … three favourite ties. Even a toothbrush. A masterfully stuffed backpack,
every nook and cranny of it.
So as this first full post-pandemic season, fuelled by gallons of hope and a dash of
denial, roars back to life, and you browse your way through this overstuffed first issue of
our 28th season, spare a thought for all the packing and repacking that went into accommodating
that last big story that got wheeled out to be added after we thought we were
done. (I won’t tell you which one it was.)
Saying I came to Canada with only a backpack is not strictly true, though. I walked
into the U. of T. International Student Centre (on St. George St.), some afternoon in late
August 1975, dragging my backpack with the broken strap behind me. “Hello, name
please?” asked the friendly person at the desk. “Perlman” I said, and started to spell it
“P-E-”, but before I even got to R she turned around and shouted to whomever was on the
other side of the partition behind the welcome desk, “PERLMAN’S HERE.” And a loud
chorus of “woo-hoohs” came back in response. And all of a sudden I remembered the 30
to 40 manilla-wrapped parcels, each with six or seven precious books, that I had mailed to
myself care of the ISC in the two months before I left for this new life.
The books we cannot bear to part with reveal us! Even now, 48 years later, if I spot one of
them among the many hundreds more on my shelves, and touch it, take it down, turn to a
page at random, it is like opening a time capsule.
I dip into the 27-year archive of The WholeNote in a similar way. (All our issues are
available on line at kiosk.thewholenote.com.) I skim for the stories I am afraid of forgetting,
then find myself lingering in the listings, marvelling: for the legendary artists I have
been privileged to hear; for the ones I heard before they became legends; for the music
I already liked, for music I never knew I would come to like; concerts I went to for some
exalted piece of music I craved like comfort food, and instead came away gobsmacked
by the joy of encountering something rich and strange that I would never have found
on my own.
May the joy continue.
publisher@thewholenote.com
8 | September 20 - November 8, 2022 thewholenote.com