Uxbridge is doing a great pop up series in pre-celebration for Spring Tide Music Festival happening in June. I’m playing a morning show this Sunday, so bring the kids, sunday listeners, and a bag for farmer’s market goodies. I’ll bring my songs and it’ll be great. See you there!

Hi Friends,

Looking forward to two great shows this coming weekend. A great lineup of songs and musicians for Friday’s show at Clifford Brewing in Stoney Creek, ON. Tickets for that show can be ordered here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/lucinda-williams-tribute-night-at-clifford-brewing-hamilton-tickets-337594412977?fbclid=IwAR1IM2ALbDvVH811d9gdcM0mWArHN0POzUBJY1gryvRpTBTV-joJ1iLVWQk

Come Together Music Festival is an independent festival happening in West Grey at the Infamous Frontier Ghost Town and features some of Southern Ontario’s most active independents. A true rock and roll (and folk) pioneer village. The remarkably talented Greg Brisco will be playing with me and the tunes are sounding so, so super. Playing with piano is a real treat and GB has some serious barrelhouse chops. Ya’ll should come. We play a late afternoon Sunday set, at 4:30. See you there!

If you take a good look at what happened to Indigenous people in Canada (Turtle Island), it'll mess you up for a while. But you'll come out smarter. It’s good to let down the mantle.

A few years ago I got pretty restless around indigenous culture and racism so I decided to take a bunch of books out from the public library. Do a deep dive. What I found was pretty informing. It's a bit difficult to put into any kind of post really, but it was one of those times where you learn something(s) and you can't go back to not knowing. Your mind makes too many connections to too many important things, values, principles and essential stuff to how you believe things are and need to be. And that’s not in a ‘you got your brain and I got mine’ kind of way. That’s like, all the books and songs and cultural works that have been created would no longer mean anything. And I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. So, here we are.

I'd learned about colonization from a talk during my PhD. It was given during a university conference (CREST) hosted by Women in Science and Engineering. I wish I could recall the speaker but enough time has passed that I don’t. Still, the colonization talk was eye opening. "Why is this not common knowledge?" The talk was so compelling and thought provoking. I came away thinking "this person just gave a talk on abusive relationships, but for a country."

Admittedly, it probably started the racism hangnail I began working on with books and ultimately a visit to the Mohawk Institute Residential School. They were hosting tours a few years back. About 3/4 of the way through the tour the guide used the word "concentration camp" to describe the conditions and practices. While it was all a bit unfamiliar to me at the time, the words and her inability to contain her contempt seemed a bit 'emotional'. [Immature discomfort shadows under the prevailing culture].

With what I have learned since, I think calling it a concentration camp was being kind. I now understand the residential system to be much, much worse.

For context, here I’d like to put the settling of Canada (Turtle Island) together in a wholly unacademic way. I expect a few people to balk, but here goes the personalized sketch:

You’re home and having a nice time, but you hear about some bad premonition dreams that have been happening in the tribe, which have people a bit on edge. Then, a bunch of light skinned pirates show up haggard and sick from a bunch of months at sea. You, suspicious, but ultimately good natured and reasonable let everyone in and give them some food. Everyone decides to call it Thanksgiving. Then, one day, perhaps quite cold, the pirates start thinking about how difficult it is to set up a new home in a completely new territory. The pirates then realize they have guns and you only have arrows. With this, the pirates compliment your design choices 'Oh this is a nice house’ and then declare ‘I think I'll live here now' and then tell you to get lost at gun point. Then a bit of time passes, and they realize you are not quite far enough away to keep the reminder of this thievery at bay. [It’s a human instinct to know what is not ours and a “sin” not because god will ‘strike you down’ but because you will struggle to reconcile yourself or have any kind of lasting peace in its unrepented presence.] So, to make it really stick, kidnapping gets legalized under a piece of legislation called the Indian Act, where all children, even those with regular home-school get sent away to places with zero accountability, ultimate authority, and you can't visit. This will do it, the pirates think. And they were basically right.

Ok, historians may be rolling over in their crusty flats with these broad strokes, but I’m not here to win advocates among the academic community and you get the picture. Also kidnapping is strong language likely to ruffle a few feathers, but I'm really not sure what else to call it. Like, what did the pirates think the “savages” were going to do? Ask to be invited back over for dinner? Desecrate sacred ceremonies and texts? Build munitions factories? I know intergenerational critique is a nebulous thing, but honestly, white people at the time seem like a bunch of coked out drug dealers with a real paranoia problem. Which is putting it somewhat mildly….


When it comes to residential schools, in my mind I can see parents kept outside in tents, having travelled hundreds of miles, only to maybe possibly see their children at all and/or not being able to connect with them or talk to them because the language skills had been reprogrammed and because repeated traumas were happening. Show me a person that that wouldn’t devastate and I will show you someone who should not be responsible for another human being, ever. And yet they all seemed to be employees in this system.

The last residential school closed in 1996. As in, after the internet.

So, here’s the capstone. Read up, not just on residential schools, but the whole thing. You will learn important things not just about what the residential schools were about but be reminded about what you care about. Truths. I can’t help but wonder if this post is grossly inappropriate or apt to irritate more than a few people, especially with the severely truncated historical run down, but I want to remind you that we are in a very important time in history and civilization. For us as people, as countries, as citizens, and as a species. Whether we choose to claim these past choices and the knowledge embedded within them or not is very important. These are chances to decide differently than when we didn’t know what the hell was going on. It’s ok to show up now and see and call things what they are. Tectonic places will shift in ways that we all need. So, just be nice to yourselves and each other. Paying respect, giving respect, these are human requirements and things we already know how to do - and we have to do things better than we did for all the kids that died in really awful circumstances, away from home and people who loved them. We can do better. And if we need to have orange t-shirts to raise awareness and pay respect, well then amen to orange. May we all take the chance to grow.

Today I learned that Fram oil filters cost 3x more than these generic ones made by the exact same company, just without orange paint and a grippy thing (which apparently does help get them off). Next Friday, March 22, you can hear back yard Corktown tunnel mechanical pearls such as this when me, Matty Simpson and Justine Fischer do up some trio styles opening action at This Ain't Hollywood. Tom Youngsteen headlines.

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AuthorSarah Beatty
CategoriesShows

Thrilled to be offering a 4-week Intro to Songwriting Workshop under the Mental Health Rights Coalition / Sitelines / Community Arts / Centre[3] banner starting in February.

Showcase times, news and updates

Check out the new video that Peter Horvat and I put together with the help of our good friends at Electric Mango Film Company! Thanks to FACTOR for cash to help make this video happen, and to Sean Lovering for direction, Zach Shultz for 2nd camera work, and John Challinor for Tech and Mixing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLqyApgYnV4

Come to both! Early time slot at Share the Warmth and then tucked in for the rest of the evening at The Rock on Lock.

Keep Shawn rolling in Burlington, ON. Shawn Brush, aka The Crooked Cowboy needs a new set of wheels…so he’s having a party of course!

Come and celebrate with us as we get weird in Hamilton in support of nature conservation….

I'm home from tour and excited to announce a super cool development that happened after playing Moccasin Creek Festival down in Effingham, IL. Kaycie, one of the the Hatha Sisters Podcast hosts sent me a note with all kind of cool positivity and interest in using one of Bandit's Queen's song as the intro theme song to their podcast. With prolonged email responses only tour can produce, we got it allll sorted out. Check it out, have a listen! https://soundcloud.com/hathasisters/minisodeone