Man of a Thousand Faces - Part 2 - Pass the Jam

Welcome to this week's episode of # forwhatitsworthwithBlakeMelnick,  #AManofaThousandFaces part of our #PasstheJam series.  This is part two of our interviewwith our new #ArtistinResidence #DouglasCameron. In part one  Douglas,  and I discussed his motivation for music, his career, his stories, and the bands he fronts and has played with over the years.

In part two, we're going to bring Heather Gammell, our current #ArtistinResidence into the conversation to do a deep dive with Douglas about the arts and craft of songwriting and the business of music... for what it's worth.

And if you like the show, please share it out , and consider making a small donation to the cause by buying us a coffee, using the Support the Show link or by entering the following url in your browser: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/forwhatitsworth

The music for this episode is written and performed by our new artist in residence, #DouglasCameron. You can find out more about Douglas by visiting our show blog and by listening to our episode, #TheOldGuitar

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Transcript

Man of a Thousand Faces - Part 2

[00:00:00] Blake Melnick: Well, welcome to this week's episode of, for what it's worth a man of a thousand faces part of our past the jam series. I'm your host Blake Melnick. And this is part two of our interview in part one, Douglas, Cameron, and I discussed his motivation for music, his career, his stories, and the bands he played with 

[00:00:49] In part two, we're going to bring Heather Gemmell, our current artist in residence into the conversation to do a deep dive with Douglas about the arts and craft of song writing and the business [00:01:00] of music for what it's worth.

[00:01:04] Heather Gemmell: Hey guys, how's it going? Good, 

[00:01:06] Douglas Cameron: Heather. 

[00:01:07] Great to meet you, through all of this. 

[00:01:09] Heather Gemmell: What a unique way to meet, halfway across the country over a really cool podcast. So thank you very much, Blake for including me in this.

[00:01:16] Blake Melnick: Well, thank you, Heather. It's truly been my pleasure having you on the show, playing all of your music for the past couple of months, and congratulations for making the finalist voting list on CBC's Searchlight talent contest for your tune. NorthStar’s burning. Amazing. Well, now that I've done my part of the interview with Douglas, it's over to you.

[00:01:37] Heather Gemmell: Doug, it's been so interesting listening to your career, your lifelong career in music.

[00:01:43] You've gone into several different avenues and all of are of interest to me actually right now, especially. Well, your song writing as I'm a songwriter too, but your work in the sync licensing game, I found a particular interest actually, I'm just starting to dabble in that world.

[00:01:59] Blake Melnick: Uh, [00:02:00] synchronization license, commonly shortened to sink generally refers to illegal agreement between the copyright owner of a piece of music and the parties seeking to use that music, which permits the synchronization of copyrighted music to any other type of content, mainly visual content. Although certain types of audio usage require sync licenses as well.

[00:02:21] The synchronization license can be further subdivided into two parts, each aligned with a specific section. Of copyright music sync licensing on the composition side and master use licensing on the sound recording side.

[00:02:35] Heather Gemmell: So, I was going to ask you a few questions about it and I'd like to ask you some more questions outside of this interview. 

[00:02:40] Douglas Cameron: I think I could also benefit from some of that from you because, my experience with that has not been so much me, having any of my songs used in that respect.

[00:02:50] Although I've had a couple, when I worked in TV, there was a lot of that going on. But I see now that it's even more important to the industry and to certainly to a songwriter [00:03:00] then than almost any other avenue. 

[00:03:02] Heather Gemmell: My goal in the music industry is to have a full-time income as a musician.

[00:03:07] It just, what you've done, right? This is your full-time job, and this is what you've done over the years. You've ticked so many different boxes, whether it's playing with a band, different instruments with different bands, doing the sync licensing, and then your singer songwriter stuff, lessons, touring opening for people, you name it.

[00:03:25] So that's, it's quite an accomplishment. The list goes on and on of things you've done over the years. 

[00:03:30] Douglas Cameron: Interestingly, before I worked in television, I always had other jobs. And, I'd simply had to, music supplemented my income when I worked in the world of television, more or less composing all the time.

[00:03:43] That was a real job that, and I was able to make a full-time living, I can only imagine that it's a challenge, and what, I don't know if these days there are as many opportunities to play live as there were, when I was younger. You could play in a bar for three nights a [00:04:00] week, or six nights a week.

[00:04:02] There were local events and things that you could do. Now I'm at a point in my life where I'm not working as much, although I have been teaching quite a bit and, I guess for me, because I did a lot of different things. It helped me because I got to play a lot of different instruments in a lot of different circumstances, but it didn't necessarily always mean that I was achieving the one thing.

[00:04:24] The other thing I found very interesting listening to your stuff was the lap steel. How about in common? Don't we well, I suspect that you were a much more adventurous left still there than I am. And I was curious because first of all, you don't see many people at all playing lap steel.

[00:04:41] At least I don't encounter that many people. And certainly I only know of one or two women who play. I say that in the context of, I don't know very many people at all who play lap steel. So I was really impressed. And how did you start playing lapse? 

[00:04:55] Heather Gemmell: I started playing because I love blues music and way back, [00:05:00] around 10 years ago now I started playing dope, bro.

[00:05:03] So I started playing the bill grow, which is, lap steel, just acoustic lap steel, essentially. And I started going to these, bluegrass workshops, Sorento, bluegrass camp, it's called nimble fingers, old time and bluegrass festival and workshops.

[00:05:15] And so many of my friends were going and I'm like, I don't play bluegrass. I play blues. Which instrument should I pick? Cause I already played guitar. Which instruments should I pick that I could incorporate into blues music as well and there enters the Dobro. So that's kinda how I got into it.

[00:05:30] How did you get into it? Because you play a six-string lap steel, and then I heard you playing that's bottleneck slide. You were playing on the songs you submitted to Blake. 

[00:05:40] Douglas Cameron: Yeah, I played bottlenecks like guitar before I played lap steel. And so I was very familiar with a G open tuning and D open tunings.

[00:05:50] I started playing lap steel because I was doing a TV show called big and small. And the producers of the show said there were two characters, big and small. This is a [00:06:00] kid series. And big was going to be represented by a ukulele.

[00:06:05] And small was going to be represented by the clarinet. I think that was it. It was either that way, the way around. And they presented me with this idea. So I had to write the score using ukulele and clarinet and I said to them, you're going to need something to connect. These two sounds we need something to fill it in.

[00:06:22] And I said, I think lab steel would be. And I thought to myself, there won't be any money to hire somebody. I'll have to figure this out. So I went down to capsule music in Toronto and I bought a lap steel and I took it back to my little studio and I went online and figured out, C6 tuning.

[00:06:40] Okay. That's the tricky one 

[00:06:41] Heather Gemmell: for me. 

[00:06:42] Douglas Cameron: It worked because I didn't play bluesy like you do. I played a little more like Hawaiian I played basically, whatever I could make work, I would make work. Now I happen to know somebody who plays really well, guy named Burke Carroll here in Toronto.

[00:06:57] He also plays pedal steel, but he plays lap steel [00:07:00] and he plays dope, bro. And I hung out with Burke a little bit, to pick up on a few things and I've learned a couple more tunings since then. I don't play as often as I would like to. But, you were rocking out. I was very impressed by that because, I've tried that style and not been all that successful, but it also reminded me of David Lynch.

[00:07:23] Heather Gemmell: He was my first, influence, I would think into lap steel aside from Deborah, but yeah, that's the sound that was hypnotically attracted to. Yeah. 

[00:07:32] Douglas Cameron: Yeah. And listening more to your stuff, you have a real blues influence, both in the way you play and also the way you sing.

[00:07:40] Because you have those inflections in your voice,

[00:07:43] Heather Gemmell: That last deal that you're talking about, that you got for the television show is that the lap steel that I see in the YouTube videos 

[00:07:49] Douglas Cameron: yes, it is. I wish I'd bought more lap steels. They seem to have gone up in price.

[00:07:55] Think about that one for 300 bucks, which was pretty good. It's an old man. 

[00:07:59] Heather Gemmell: And what can you [00:08:00] tell me about the band Jola? 

[00:08:02] Douglas Cameron: Well, this is interesting cause I listened to also to some of your Frailing - the Snowdrop piece which I really enjoyed and I love the way you play.

[00:08:11] Blake Melnick: Railing is a style of banjo playing that uses a strumming technique that catches the fifth string with a thumb and strikes down with the back of the index or middle fingernail to play melodies. It produces a bump dirty sound, sometimes referred to as old time banjo playing. 

[00:08:29] Douglas Cameron: You play so gently. So the Banjul, I have this good friend of mine who lives in Denver, who is a banjo player. His name is Edward, Edward Riddick, and he, wanted to build a softer sounding instrument that he could play banjo on. And he's a guitar builder amongst other things. And he found these old, instruments from the 18 hundreds that had five string, banjo necks, and wooden bodies.

[00:08:56] He found a whole bunch of them and he started to build [00:09:00] his own version of that. And he ended up calling it band Jola. And there are other commercial ones now made called Ben Jonah's. He initially made five string banjo lists, like a normal five string banjo and played them like a banjo.

[00:09:14] He subsequently added a lower, bass string, to the instrument. And that's the one that I ended up with, which I play more guitar like, although I combine a banjo sort of feel to it. And they're quite lovely. I can send you some links to stuff that he's done and he's still building them.

[00:09:33] They have a softer tone, obviously. The steel string ones, like I play have a pretty ringing kind of. 

[00:09:40] Heather Gemmell: I was looking at your videos and some pictures is the top fifth string? Is it, in behind the neck? I don't see the tuning peg on it.

[00:09:47] Douglas Cameron: Yeah, he makes them with that tuning peg sticking out where the string ends. What there are on mine is there's a tunnel. So the string goes up and it goes into a tunnel and then it runs up to the peg head.

[00:09:59] A [00:10:00] banjo, Claire would pick up my banjo and feel very awkward because that tuning machine is not there and they get used to playing, around it. But a guitar player who would, pick up a five-string banjo would feel awkward because that tuning machine is there.

[00:10:15] I've done a couple of Frailing things on it. I learnt to frail on the badge. Again, Edward wouldn't show me. I was working in his shop years ago in Peterborough, and he wouldn't show me how to frail on the bench. 

[00:10:29] Heather Gemmell: Is this the same fellow that wouldn't show you how to play Johnny B good's intro?

[00:10:32] Douglas Cameron: No, but it was the same kind of things. I really wanted to learn how to do this. And I figured the easiest way to just have someone show me, but they wouldn't show me 

[00:10:40] Heather Gemmell: so unfortunate, you know, 

[00:10:42] My dad told me, he's run into so many guys in the cabinetry trade that like, younger guys would ask them how to do things and the older guys would maybe hold back some of those trade secrets and for what, , why it takes two seconds out of your day to show somebody younger than yourself, how to do something, that kind of bothers me that [00:11:00] that person didn't show you how to frail. And that guy didn't show you the intro of Johnny. So what end,

[00:11:04] Douglas Cameron: well, they were my contemporaries. And so if I was going to part in, on their territory, they might've been a little upset with me. But I did learn how to frail. I'm not that great, but I love playing that way. I greatly admire banjo players. Cause banjo was hard banjo. It was weird. They open tunings and, figuring out melodies and things like that. That's really something. 

[00:11:26] Heather Gemmell:  do you find with your song writing, is there a certain instrument that you like to write your songs on with and then later on, go back and forth between your different instruments or do you primarily write on one. And then just accompany with the others on your recordings what's your process?

[00:11:42] I would say predominantly I have used guitar for me it there's always some kind of idea and it's usually a lyrical idea that matches up with some kind of melody. and I'll often write songs that, that are genre based.

[00:11:58] Douglas Cameron: Like I'll write a country song. [00:12:00] That sounds like a lot of other country songs. And what I'll do is that all work with the guitar and chord progressions that I'm very familiar with, but then I'll try to mix them up a bit or make them a little more unique. But for me, it's always melody and lyric.

[00:12:14] Your song about the ski lift burning I think you were using an open tuning. Was that,

[00:12:22] Is it a D tuning of some kind? It was dad, dad. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. And I liked that. But it struck me that you were playing kind of in. That ethos, that kind of open tuning, bluesy, folky kind of tuning. 

[00:12:37] Blake Melnick: Dad GAD or Celtic tuning is an alternative guitar tuning most associated with Caltech music, though. It has found use in rock folk metal and several other genres instead of the standard tuning B3 E for the six strings are tuned from low to high D two, a two D [00:13:00] three G three, a three and D four.

[00:13:04] Heather Gemmell: Yeah. It's kind of got a cool mish-mash. I find dad GAD between the really pretty melodic stuff. And then that darker spookier sounding, focused kind of sounds so I like that tuning it because it's so versatile. When you play your Mendel or what tuning do you stay in most of the time and then which ones do dabble with? 

[00:13:23] Douglas Cameron: Predominantly it's a banjo tuning. It's a C tuning, a C CGC D with a hygiene string. And that's augmented by a lower G, which can also be tuned to an ex. So you get a real C tonality, a modal kind of tonality with a lower feel to it as well.  I've also used an open G tuning. Cause I do a bit of slide on banjo and I play a lot of slide in open G , like Robert Johnson kind of tuning. But I I've just been turned on to a whole new banjolele [00:14:00] tuning. It's a low D tuning and I said to Edward who amaze him? I said, it'd be lovely to have something like dad get, to play on this instrument.

[00:14:09] COVID isolated me as a I'm sure did everybody. And I started really working on playing everything because there was no one else around. 

[00:14:18] Heather Gemmell: You put out a lot of YouTube music during that time with when you're learning your base, your upright base.

[00:14:23] Douglas Cameron: I did a lot of that, just so I'd have something to play base too. And also, I started to reflect on some of the music that I liked, songs I've liked over the years and wanted to play. And even songs that I hear now that I want to play. And I haven't, had much chance to perform.

[00:14:40] I don't know about you. 

[00:14:42] Heather Gemmell: I think you guys got hit a little bit harder with COVID, out east, especially in the big cities, which city are you in? 

[00:14:48] Douglas Cameron: Toronto. 

[00:14:49] Heather Gemmell: You're right in 

[00:14:49] Toronto. So yeah, you guys were shut down for, I think a lot longer.

[00:14:53] We actually got playing quite quickly after the main shutdown we had one restaurant in town that [00:15:00] kept music going. They did a plexiglass, divider for the musician and, they were able to keep going. 

[00:15:06] In a small town, it's good to find a private venue to play at. So you're playing for, tourists as much as possible, but you can play your town to death, so to speak if you play in a small town too much, right. So you got to keep it fresh. And it's also a good challenge to always be trying to play something and perform differently for your local audience. When you live in a small town. If I lived in Toronto, I'm sure I could play every night. In some sort of bar or coffee shop or, private event. And no one hear the same thing. You know what I mean? You could play the same set list and have different people at each venue.

[00:15:39] It's so big. I imagine. Is that kind of how big city works for performers? 

[00:15:44] There's a swath of musicians that I know who play a lot, in little clubs, they often play in different ensembles. Somebody will put together a kind of themed and recruit the same kind of players.

[00:15:58] Douglas Cameron: A lot of the performing that [00:16:00] I do doesn't happen in Toronto. Playing with the show that I do, it's usually in communities outside of the city. But, now that I'm playing upright bass, I would love to have a regular gig somewhere in Toronto in a little place, playing behind people. That would be a lot of fun. It struck me from what I could gather from your recording is that there were other musicians that you're playing without there. And, I think that's really critical is that you have a community of people that you can play with.

[00:16:29] Heather Gemmell: Absolutely. I love playing accompanying people, especially on the dope, bro. It's such a fun, to embellish off of somebody else's lead vocal play in between the gaps of the song. And, it's fun doing the singer songwriter thing, fun, doing the cover thing for.

[00:16:44] For bars and restaurants and I play in a band called older bash and I play lap steel. So I'm playing the lap steel in the Bilborough tuning with them and yeah, it definitely fills my cup. I love jamming and playing with other people.

[00:16:57] So much fun. I'm very happy to be surrounded [00:17:00] by a lot of players that you can find jams and, form a band. So what do you think over the years, have you found to be your most challenging aspect of, being a musician, your goal to full-time income?

[00:17:14] After really years, he said you had always had a side job, but when you're in film and TV, that was your main thing. But going from, true north records and your, your path after your big hit, I was listening to your other conversation with Blake 

[00:17:27] what would you say was your biggest challenge? 

[00:17:29] Douglas Cameron: I think for me, and I think I'm still in it. When I was young. I imagined that I would just become a big star, because that's what I saw. I saw, people who were stars, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, all these big stars, people doing the thing that I aspired to do.

[00:17:46] When I actually got into the business, I realized that I actually didn't know how to do it. And I, also realize that part of me didn't want it so much. And I think for me the biggest challenge has not just been around making money. [00:18:00] I was told from a very young age that I couldn't do music as a career, that I had to do something else while I was sort of my parents and the culture.

[00:18:09] I was, I had to do music because they wanted me to, and ultimately, I wanted to do music all the time, but I was also told you can never make a living at it. And so part of me was very conflicted. Even when I worked in television where I did make a living, it was a job I would every day, sometimes six days a week, I worked from seven in the morning till six at night.

[00:18:30] It was an assembly line to a large degree, years to show make the music go for it. You'd think I was on top of the world, I'm making money being a musician. I'm, writing music for TV. This is pretty impressive. And a part of me said, I don't know if you want to do this.

[00:18:46] And I think the hardest thing for me is figuring out who I am both musically, but also in terms of what it is that I want and the thing that I've come to, and it may not be helpful because I know, I making a [00:19:00] living is important and you need to do it.

[00:19:02] I. Even now to make a living, even as I'm kind of retiring but, it's just figuring out who you are and what you want. And the thing that I want is I want to learn. And I feel this, even as I get older, it's even stronger. I want to become better. And, part of my wanting to play upright bass is I want to become really good at it.

[00:19:23] Good enough that someone will hire me to play a gig. That's my standard because there's something in learning. And, I think that music presents that possibility that you can always learn, you can learn a song, you can learn a new riff, you can, increase your technical ability, whatever it is.

[00:19:43], and so for me, it's been, trying to find the balance between learning and. Producing. And the other thing that's challenging for me is that as I've gotten older, it's become harder to find those creative impulses to write songs. And, [00:20:00] I find that I'm slowing down. I don't write as many songs.

[00:20:05] when I wrote songs for that last record that I did Riverdale, which is now a number of years ago, I had a purpose. And so I was motivated. And since then, I've written a few songs, but, I've lost a bit of that momentum and that's a bit of a challenge. I think when you're young or younger, you are determined and you're wanting to do it.

[00:20:21] And as you get older, it's like, plus I don't get as many good ideas. 

[00:20:27] Heather Gemmell: You're always finding that balance of enjoying your life. And then when is it worth, really pushing so hard that you don't enjoy it anymore or just let it come naturally and enjoy the process. I really respect and admire what you're saying.

[00:20:41] I feel like we connect quite a bit, even though we don't know a ton about each other, just listening to you talk about your process and your experience and, your craving of learning new things and always getting better. I really connect with that and I bet a lot of the listeners on this podcast will connect to it too, because got to be a lover of music to listen to music related [00:21:00] podcasts.

[00:21:00] And you've just got such a wealth of knowledge what do you think makes for a good song? Like now, you feel like you're not stuck, you slowed down. What do you find makes for a good song back when you were in your, heyday of, writing song after song versus, on your last record?

[00:21:16] Douglas Cameron: I've done a little bit of studying of song writing I respect this guy named pat Patterson a lot, who is a lyric, teacher at Berkeley. If you can get an idea, an image that moves you or attracts you in some way, entertains you or makes you laugh or makes you cry or whatever chances are.

[00:21:36] You can do something with that to create a song and reach other people, it's almost as if there's enough energy in the idea, it will move through the song and sustain itself in the song and in the telling of the story. When I was younger, those ideas seem to be prevalent. And whenever I was in a band where someone else wrote songs, it was always very stimulating because it was slightly [00:22:00] competitive. It's like, okay, if you're going to write three songs this week, I'm going to write four or, oh, I only wrote one this week. Not all of those songs are great, but surely out of some of them, something is going to come.

[00:22:10] When I worked in TV, I would be presented with the. Here's the idea. We need 50 songs here are the ideas they relate to the episode and we want them in this style. And so that became a much easier prospect because then you didn't have to think of the idea. So now what gets me is some turn of phrase, some lyrical idea that presents an image.

[00:22:34] That is interesting. For instance, a song I've been working on for about the last year, I was up north at our place and I had blue jeans on and a nice blue shirt of some kind. And my sister-in-law said, oh, you know, they may look really good in blue. And I turned to her and I said, I'm just trying to stay blue.

[00:22:52] And I thought, oh, there's an idea. I'm trying to stay blue. And so it became. And it still is a process of, well, what [00:23:00] does that mean and who is saying it and to whom are they saying it and what happened, that they want to stay blue. Because normally when you're blue, you don't want to be blue.

[00:23:08] You want to not be blue, but I'm trying to stay blue. And that's the kind of thing that gets me now. Whether or not it's a successful song, in the end. I don't know, it'll depend on someone hearing it, someone singing it. My test when I hear a song is, do I remember it? And do I remember it almost immediately?

[00:23:27] Are you going for a hook when you write a song like that one little part that can ring in your head over and over again? Or does it just come down. 

[00:23:34] I think it flows from the idea if the idea and the image present that, then yes, and, I've also moved away from trying to be a commercial.

[00:23:44] songwriter. I remember going to a song writing workshop where they said, within however many seconds, you need to have the hook and they would say never write a waltz. And I think, but I love a waltz. So for me, does the image translate?

[00:23:55] I feel very gratified when someone comes up to me and tells me what they think that song is [00:24:00] about. Talking with Blake about the songs and he offers that he thinks it's about this. And I go, wow. Obviously that idea that I thought was interesting is interesting to someone else.

[00:24:11] And if the melody, is pleasing or memorable or whatever hard to know. Because I think, it's also something that you don't want to overthink. because you are kind of in it. I often found that when I did other things, I would write songs. Like if I did manual labor, a house painting that ideas would come to me, or I worked in a group home for a number of years, with deaf blind adults.

[00:24:37] And on the night shift, when I would be doing the cleaning, I would get ideas for songs 

[00:24:43] Heather Gemmell: That's a great use of time. Isn't it? You can turn off your brain, so to speak and try to focus on something else while you're doing a somewhat mundane. 

[00:24:51] Douglas Cameron: And then, that other part of the brain is freed up to swim through things.

[00:24:56] Heather Gemmell: David Francy. I was in a song writing workshop with him once it was [00:25:00] leading up to the Calgary folk festival. He had some song writing workshops and he said he was blessed in his early years, working in the construction industry. And he was able to make use of his day job time and write songs and then when he goes home at the end of the day, transpose them onto paper or, some sort of one-track recording device and make use of the time while he was earning a wage and translate that to his music career.

[00:25:23] I try to remember that when I'm at work, because I have a full-time job too. And if I can work alone, I love working alone because then I can sing to myself and be working on a melody in my head while still earning a wage. So I find it's all a balance of making use of the time that's allowed to you and then going home and putting it to use.

[00:25:43] One of my other questions before we wrap up. I think you alluded to maybe the best advice that you were ever given, and that might've come from pat Patterson. -was it Pat Patterson that gave you that lick of advice - is there anything else that that someone could take away from the best thing that [00:26:00] you've ever been told that sticks with you?

[00:26:02] Douglas Cameron: I thought about this because this was an idea. It was swimming around in my head the other day. The best advice that was ever given to me when I was in the middle of my pop music career. And it was advice I didn't take, I wish I had, it was a record company rep and it happened to be out west somewhere.

[00:26:18] I think it was in maybe in Vancouver, I can't remember. And he picked me up at the airport. I was doing a promo tour for my 10 song that was on the radio. And he turned to me, he says, do you have a manager? I said, yeah. So do you have a good manager? I said, yeah. You know, I said, get yourself a good manager.

[00:26:35] And I always remember thinking, oh, okay. Get myself a good manager. What I think that translates into. And I wish that I had immediately gone to someone like Bernie Finkelstein and said, Bernie, be my manager. Because I watched what Bernie would do for his artists and how you would promote them.

[00:26:51] I think what it means is either get somebody who knows how to promote you to whoever you need to be promoted, to figure out how to do it yourself. I was [00:27:00] never any good at doing it myself and I never was able to get somebody to do it for me. And so my pop music career was very short.

[00:27:07] It was spectacular, but it was very short. And, I would think that if you were sending out in the business right now, and I watched people do this. I watched them manage their own careers and they're tireless about promoting themselves, or they connect with somebody who can help them do the, and I think that's very, important because the artistic end of it is one thing.

[00:27:28] And then the business end of it is another thing. And the business end of it was never anything I was any good at. I'm still not. And, I think it profoundly affects what happens to you as an artist 

[00:27:40] Heather Gemmell: when you, attained that, that goal of yours to get on with true north records back in the day.

[00:27:45] How did that come about? 

[00:27:47] Douglas Cameron: Completely by accident, true north records had been presented with my demo. Prior to that and had rejected them. When Mona with the children was being, when the video was being made, someone [00:28:00] wrote about it in the newspaper and Bernie Finkelstein read about it in the newspaper and called up and said, I want to put out your single.

[00:28:05] And he said, but there can't just be a single, there has to be an album. And so all the demos that he rejected two months before it became the album that he put out, 

[00:28:14] Heather Gemmell: Interesting. 

[00:28:15] Douglas Cameron: Now the thing was, he didn't have to pay for it. And, we did a lease deal. So he got an album and a single without paying a cent or true north records, did. They worked tirelessly to make it successful, which was great.

[00:28:29] I don't in any way, hold anything against them. They did a marvelous job of making it really successful, but because they didn't own it. The point of time where, they would have then gone gangbusters to do another record or whatever had to be done to promote another single they didn't because they didn't have an interest in it, in that way partially.

[00:28:49] And I think also, it's quite possible that what I was attempting to do, I was labeled adult contemporary and adult contemporary did not [00:29:00] sell records. It got radio play, but it didn't sell records. And selling records in those days was the thing you had to sell. I sold 15,000 LP records, and that wasn't enough.

[00:29:12] I would've had to sell about 50,000 and then it would have been something. So get yourself a good manager. 

[00:29:19] Heather Gemmell: Yeah. Back to your sync licensing. Since you, you did so many, things with, tree house. I was actually watching a little YouTube clip of you. It was recorded on VHS obviously and put over to digital, because it was super grainy and there's lines through it.

[00:29:35] And I got to see your setup in the, the early nineties, but all the songs that you recorded, on some of those television shows are still playing you mentioned you worked on goosebumps. That's a show that I used to watch as a kid and I just noticed it on, I think it's on Netflix.

[00:29:49] So every time a song is played on one of your goosebumps episodes is so can still giving you the backend off of those recordings is [00:30:00] quarterly. 

[00:30:00] Douglas Cameron: Didn't do a lot of work on goosebumps, but yes, somebody is getting money. I can pull 

[00:30:06] Heather Gemmell: though, like the stuff that you did in the nineties and the eighties is so can still honoring that.

[00:30:12] Douglas Cameron: Oh, yeah. If it's getting airplay, airplay was, and I suppose is in some ways, the way in which you can make money. So if you can get a song on a show or in my case, I was mostly hired to write music for shows. And so I would get a composer credit, when, and if that happened, most of the stuff that I worked on is no longer on the air, which is a drag because it's not generating income.

[00:30:35] most of the stuff that I got credit for, there was a lot of stuff I did that I didn't get credit for. And some of that is still making money. But I think. Part of what you're looking at doing is working independently from the producers, but having songs presented to them that they might want to use 

[00:30:53] Heather Gemmell: I've got somebody I'm working with and he works with the sound library kind of execs that work with the supervisors. [00:31:00] So you had a really cool in where you were working directly for the show, which is like the gold standard of sync licensing, I guess right now is if you can be working specifically for a show, but a world I'm trying to learn about and wanting to get into as is sound libraries and maybe getting a relationship with a sound library, but I've got a fellow that, mixed and mastered my album and is currently doing that. And then he's had a very successful run for the last 10 years. He's got hundreds, if not thousands of queues out there that have been accepted and little tiny placements, all over film, TV, and commercials and stuff.

[00:31:34] And that's the game I want to pursue. So it was kind of cool listening to your story. Or how you did it for 20 

[00:31:40] Douglas Cameron: years? Well, I'd love to talk to him. 

[00:31:45] Blake Melnick: So now we're at the point where we're officially passing the jam on from Heather Gemmell, to Douglas Cameron, Heather, it's been a real pleasure having you on the show and a number of episodes, but I've certainly loved your music.

[00:31:58] And I know our audience has as [00:32:00] well. And I know you are about to release your record and we'll certainly do what we can to promote that. 

[00:32:05] All of this has been absolutely fantastic. I thank you both. It's been a great conversation. This will make for a fabulous episode and Douglas, I think you're a very humble guy. I listened to your music and I think it's beautiful. Maybe it's because I'm older too, but I really do think, you've got a lot of runway left. 

[00:32:23] Heather Gemmell: Wonderful music. And thank you so much for, including me in all this too.

[00:32:27] Like great to talk to somebody like DACA. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to talk to him. So it's been an honor to be on your show and thank you so much for chatting with me. 

[00:32:37] Douglas Cameron: Oh, me too. I feel the same way. Thank you. 

[00:32:40] 

[00:32:40] Blake Melnick: I think you've both given our audience a lot to think. The whole purpose of past the jam is to have musicians talking to musicians to share knowledge know-how experience and aspirations, which in turn gets passed along to aspiring musicians and artists everywhere. And that's exactly what we wanted to achieve.

[00:32:58] As I've mentioned, after a [00:33:00] few more cycles of past the jam, we want to do something as a culminating event, and I've been in discussion with folks out in Kimberly BC about hosting such an event. Where we'll bring together all the artists. Who've been guests on the show for a live performance and perhaps a series of workshops.

[00:33:15] So we'll keep you abreast of all of that. As we move forward. 

[00:33:18] This concludes this week's episode. Uh, past the jam, a man of a thousand faces with my guests had their demo and Douglas Cameron, the jam has officially been passed to Douglas Cameron, who is now our new artist in residence. And we'll be playing his songs for all the intros and outros to the show for the remainder of this season and into the next, for what it's worth.