My 2009 Music Business Homework: "Chronicling Your Life"
Crissi Cochrane
Each time my parents come to town, they bring me some more of my childhood things. In November, they brought all my old schoolwork, from elementary to college.
For two weeks, the bags of old treasures sat idle in my office, until I finally got a chance to see what had been brought to me. And oh, friends: there are treasures, indeed.
Here is one of the assignments I had to complete when I was a student of the Nova Scotia Community College’s Music Business Program in 2008-2009. When I got to page 2 and saw my professor’s note in the margin - “gross” in red pen, underlined three times - I knew I had to share this with you.
Enjoy…!
Assignment #1 - Chronicling Your Life
Crissi Cochrane
January 28th, 2009
1998
Picked up the guitar for the first time and started learning basic chords. Impressed all the kids at school with awful renditions of American Pie and songs by The Eagles.
Formed an awful attempt at a girl-band with my friends, which was more of a club, where we kicked people out on a regular basis and wrote acapella songs about chasing boys.
2001
Took a beginner’s guitar class as an exploratory session through my school (Evangeline Middle School), learned how to play The Gambler and Looking Out My Back Door. Kids on the bus (who played three-chord Blink 182 songs) made fun of my ugly student guitar that I’d found in a shed at my great-grandmother’s cottage, which was probably made in the 50s and couldn’t keep tune.
2002
Picked up the electric guitar, started learning three-chord Blink 182 songs. Bragged a lot about being able to play Adam’s Song, because it had a picking riff in the beginning.
2003
Watched my brother sing New York, New York at a school-wide karaoke event. Teachers would stop my mother in the supermarket and compliment his singing abilities, spawning a blinding jealousy, and a renewed determination to out-do him.
2004
Went to my very first show at the Wolfville Legion, after discovering that a grade 12 boy I admired was playing in a band on the bill (they were called The No Slugs - we didn’t know the boy’s name, but took to calling him “Skinny Boy”). Was introduced to ridiculous haircuts.
Formed a band with my friends Jeff and John called Flooding London. We had only one song, called The Holidays. It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that good either.
Became obsessed with the show The OC, whose season finale included a heartbreaking rendition of Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. Learned the song and performed it at my father’s 40th birthday party - he was drunk and kept giving me the guitar. My mother’s sensitive friend wept, and so did my father’s burly beast of a best friend.
Had my heart broken my a co-worker at the Grand Pre National Historic Site, resulting in my very first song, which I performed while festively inebriated at a company campfire - fortunately, nobody was really paying attention. (I was fifteen.) Fun fact: I eventually changed the words to the song, which is now called October, in regular rotation in my repertoire.
Began to write songs on a regular basis, inspired virtually entirely by two-week long relationships.
Performed at my high school’s benefit concert, singing Hallelujah and a song I wrote. Officially out-did my brother.
2005
Launched my MySpace website in March, featuring one-track recordings I had made with “Sound Recorder” in my parents’ basement.
Went to Cuba with my parents, got drunk and played Brand New covers in the all-night bar.
Forged a friendship with Caelin C, whose brother had performed in countless local bands. Under her influence, I began to attend local shows on a regular basis.
Collaborated musically with artsy grade 12s who smoked a lot of herb and played hand-drums, singing duets at coffeehouses.
Performed at the school’s Variety Show, won first prize ($50!).
Met Kurt G., a grade 12 who was opening a venue in Wolfville and offered to record me - we did some rough demos in his basement on our lunch breaks. Needless to say, my music wasn’t exactly the feature he admired most about me - a situation that occurred with the majority of generous musical offers made to me in my high school career. (The venue tanked hard.) Here’s where the teacher wrote “gross” and underlined it three times.
2006
Continued writing songs, but rejection had been my main inspiration, and I was in my first real long-term relationship.
Started to hang out after shows to talk to the promoters and the bands, trying to impress anybody who would let me borrow their guitar, eventually leading to performing local shows outside of school (although the slot would always be at the very end of the evening, so all the metal kids could go home).
Began performing in Halifax - twice at the Just Us! Cafe on Barrington, once at the Pavilion (Ruth Minnikin was on the bill, but nobody came out), and a couple times at the One World Cafe.
Started to experiment with recording programs (beyond “Sound Recorder”).
Broke up with the boyfriend when he went away to my university and cheated on me.
Fortunately, this resulted in:my decision to forget about Saint Thomas University and Journalism (thank god, or I’d probably be a lot more boring now),
a realization that I had an awesome talent that I had been neglecting,
my release of The Bathroom EP so that when he came back for Christmas break, I could brag about how awesome I was now that he was out of my life.
2007
Started dating idiots, which was great musical inspiration. These idiots all happened to be in bands in Halifax, so I ended up bussing to the city every weekend (“I’m going to Caelin’s for the night” or “Jeff and I are going to visit our friend Sam, you remember Sam?”). As a result of this, I…
saw lots of shows,
networked with tons of new people, promoters, and bands,
performed more shows in Halifax/Bedford,
built my reputation as a musician,
received many marriage proposals.
Performed on a more regular basis - likely up to about 30 times that year.
Went on a school trip with the band (I played flute) to New York, where I wrote my MySpace URL on the wall of a bathroom in a busy market (people actually added me, saying they’d found me there), and left copies of my EP in the pews of churches.
Graduated from Horton District High School with flying colours.
Moved out when my dad was offered a better job in the cultural wasteland of New Brunswick* - I went to Halifax instead. (I moved about three times that summer, and couch-surfed for about three weeks.)
Performed at the New Minas Days Celebration (was paid $100!).
Was supposed to embark on a three-week tour with The Rescue under the hand of Bridgewater promoter Josh W., but he broke off all contact. I called the venues two days before our intended departure only to realize he had not booked a single show.
Went on a mini-tour with my Tumbleweed Entertainment friends to the south shore, playing the Liverpool Privateer Days festival (was paid $100!).
Began working at a call center with no schedule flexibility, cold-calling for credit cards. Used up all my sick-days to play gigs.
Performed at the Halifax Pop Explosion twice - once at the Pavilion, and once at the Khyber with The Most Serene Republic and The Zoobombs.
Started to receive airplay on CBC Radio (got long-distance calls from people saying that their mother had heard me).
Stopped dating idiots, started dating Simon.
2008
Moved twice - once to escape an alcoholic roommate, and once to escape an escalating rent.
Recorded two songs at the Nova Scotia Community College as part of the curriculum of the Music Business program. Through the College, I also received a press kit compiled by the Public Relations students, and starred in a production by the Screen Arts Students, which featured my song “In The Street”.
Turned legal age, began to perform more regularly at bars.
Went on a trip to Toronto in March with Simon on his birthday. We saw two shows - a ridiculous hardcore show (I got kicked in the head and proceeded to make no sense for the rest of the evening), and a nice relaxed wet/dry bar show featuring Mike Kinsella, one of my musical idols.
Received a grant from PromoFact to make a website - $3200.00. (The website still isn’t done yet.)
Toured to Toronto and back in May - kids in Montreal were singing along to Mexico. We didn’t quite break even, but gas was $1.30 at the time, too.
Performed around 50 times that year.
Performed at the NB Craft Festival in August (was paid $200!).
Quit the call center. Went on break one day and never came back. I was about to hop into another full-time job, but received an email from NSCC announcing that there was an opening in the Music Business certificate program, and went back to school instead.
Volunteered at various festivals - the Halifax Pop Explosion, Nova Scotia music week, and the Atlantic Film Festival.
2009
Who knows?
* New Brunswick is NOT a cultural wasteland; my parents just lived in the woods and the only non-relative I knew in the province at the time was my ex.
Anyway, that’s that! I found another noteworthy assignment that came after this one, a “Personal Inventory” that touched on things that I had completely forgotten about, and perspectives that I had completely lost until I re-read it. That’ll be up next on the blog… stay tuned! And thanks for reading all of my old (and current) nonsense!