The Volume Knob

If you have a pitch for TVK Live (May 13th at Sala Rosa in Montreal) please don't hesitate to send it to me or to the fine folks at Confabulation . Their email is [email protected]

An honour to have Emira give of her time and vulnerability this week. I have to admit it, I was surprisingly moved by listening to What a Feeling, while mixing the show. 

I found it really strange to hear something that I'd heard so many times associated with true emotion rather than mocked for being ubiquitous or silly (even if it might actually be both).  As always, I'd encourage you to spend a few minutes listening to the entire song either before or after you listen to the episode (or even both).

As Emira mentioned, she is a writer in addition to being a lawyer. Her essays can be found on her blog Montreal Murmurs  or in the pieces she wrote as the the CBC/Quebec Writers' Federation Writer in residence.  Her work has also appeared in The Montreal Gazette  and  The Globe and Mail.  Emira's storytelling has also been featured at a Montreal Confabulation show that you can listen to here. Check out her stuff!

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And if you have a story about the song that saved your life be sure to send it to me at [email protected].

Ronna lives in Brooklyn but is a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan. She is a Moth Slam winner, has been featured on the PBS-WGBH Stories from the Stage series, and is a National Storytelling Network (US) slam finalist. You can learn more about her by visiting her web site or following her on Instagram or Twitter.

If you're interested in getting tickets to see Keith (and five very talented storytellers) at the PHI Centre in Montreal, just follow this link! Hope to see you there.

As for Lionel Richie's All Night Long (All Night) (YES! That's the full title) it's pretty easy to underestimate as a cultural phenomenon in the early 80s. First of all, those of us of (um) a certain age will remember that Richie performed it at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The single itself went to number one in six different countries (including Canada) and the video (which, to be honest, is a hilarious throwback for me today) was actually produced by Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. Too much 80s pop culture!!!  As always, the story might sound even a little bit more interesting to you if you listen to the whole song. (Or if you're interested in a little rabbit-hole, Jacob Collier's Grammy winning re-arrangement)

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list. 

I was so honoured to have the chance to work with Carolyn Erickson to bring this story into the world, not only because it's powerful and finely wrought , but because it's one of the first times she's shared a story in public. She lives a little bit off the personal storytelling "beaten path" in Michoacán Mexico and doesn't have a big social media presence. It's just wonderful, though, that this pod keeps reaching all of these fantastic, brave and powerful people all over the world. Keep an eye out for Carolyn (I know she's talking about doing other podcasts and the like) I think she's amazing.

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list. 

Hey! Great to be back for another season of the show and really great to start the season with Steve Zimmer (who was far too modest when he introduced himself as a "formerly very active amateur storyteller" in this week's show). 

Steve's work -- particularly in the "first wave" of New York storytelling around the turn of the century -- is not only funny, considered and wonderful, it's also very influential on many of the artists that I respect most in this space. Don't believe me? You can watch a bunch of Steve's work here. It's also worth mentioning as well that Steve recently finished his first novel, a black-comedy murder mystery set in the NYC storytelling scene,  and is currently seeking representation.

I don't want to get into another Bowie rabbit hole too quickly, but I did want to share one of the cool things I learned while listening to Young Americans on repeat over the last couple of weeks. Did you know that Luther Vandross got his big break singing back up on Young Americans? Now you do!

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list.

I know I throw around "multi-talented" quite a bit to describe the storytellers who come on TVK but it'd be a mistake to use a less complimentary word to describe Deb. In addition to being a storyteller and a valuable member of the production team at Montreal's Confabulation storytelling series, Deb is a media artist, videographer, and writer. She also (after my own heart) is an experienced radio producer having (for sixteen years!) produced and hosted Dykes on Mykes, at CKUT 90.3 FM. 

She won the 2015 3Macs carte blanche  QWF prize for her short story Self-Serve, and published Ghost Station in the Queer Perspectives edition of The Malahat Review. Deb is the production coordinator at Ada-X, a feminist artist-run centre.

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list.

Fantastic to work with a professional like Marc this week. You can learn more about his work as a personal storyteller (and a writer of horror fiction) from his web site or by following him on Twitter and Facebook.

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list.

Alexia is just starting out as a storyteller (I met her back in September when her story about dating a man nearly twice her age brought the house down at Confabulation's Summer Love show). As such, you can't get much about her storytelling from her web presence. That said, watch out! She's talented and energetic and just a little fearless. You may well be hearing from her again soon.

Attentive listeners may have noticed some alternate recordings of Bowie's Heroes in this week's mix. I rather enjoyed this version featuring the Gothenburg Symphony. It's not the original, obviously, but I'm quite fond of covers which take songs in directions very different from the originals. 

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list. 

It's hard to think about storytelling here in my home town of Montreal without thinking of Johanne Pelletier. She'll soon be appearing on WGBH Boston's Stories From the Stage and is a regular at events here in Montreal and in the states. You can keep an eye on her work via Youtube, Twitter and Instagram. 

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list. 

James does stand up comedy in the NYC area under the stage name "James Mac" you can learn more about that part of his life by following him on Instagram, Youtube and Facebook. He also produces a comedy night at Mulligan's Pub in Hoboken NJ which you can learn more about here. Check him out!

Even though Katie was, once again, not overly impressed by Zac Brown Band's Toes, I found it catchy as hell. Sometimes there's a reason why popular music becomes popular, after all.

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list.

Anyone who wants to learn about personal storytelling as a craft could do a lot worse than to listen very closely to a bunch of the work of Erin Barker. She's won story slams and grand slams and, in a personal storytelling world that is pretty much dominated by The Moth, she has ably guided The Story Collider (and it's podcast which I would recommend) to a place where it can continue to do fantastic work all over the world. 

You can follow Erin on Twitter and Instagram and Story Collider on Insta, Facebook and Twitter.

Also, if you're looking for a blast of rhetro-pop sci-fi weirdness, spend 3 minutes or so watching this Spice Girls' video for Say You'll Be There and try to explain to me why there are exploding throwing stars in it.

As always, remember to follow the show on instagram, twitter and facebook and to get over to the website to sign up for the TVK mailing list.