August 2008

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August 2008 

Return to Table of Contents August 2008

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Music Makers

Lamont Hiebert writes from experience; Joan Jett gets her Gibson


By Ingrid Randoja

Setting difficult words to music

In 2002, singer and songwriter Lamont Hiebert walked away from a music career to fulfill a higher calling, to care for children who had been exploited as sex slaves. The native of Grand Forks, B.C., was recording his second CD with his band, Ten Shekel Shirt, when he travelled to Southeast Asia to join undercover investigators who were searching for children working as sex slaves inside brothels.

 

“As my music career was taking off, I also found I had a desire to speak up for the growing problem of child slavery,” says Hiebert on the line from Pennsylvania, where he performed the night before. “I learned there were investigators ready to rescue children but they had no places to put the children. So I gathered some friends and started an organization — Love146 — that deals primarily with aftercare, and also more recently focusing on the prevention of trafficking to begin with.”

 

So from 2003 to 2007 Hiebert shelved Ten Shekel Shirt to concentrate on his social justice mission. But the urge to make music was always there, and when Rounder Records asked Hiebert to reform the band and record a new CD, he set pen to paper writing Jubilee (available August 19th). 

 

One of the CD’s songs, “Fragile,” deals with the aftermath of sexual abuse. 

 

“I ended up changing the song slightly,” says Hiebert, “because when our head trauma counsellor in Southeast Asia heard ‘Fragile,’ and me singing, ‘It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault,’ she asked can you change some of the lyrics to say, ‘It’s not my fault?’ She said, ‘I want those words to come out of their mouths.’ It’s the number one blockade in their healing and recovery process, the idea that they think that although they were enslaved, or abducted, or sold it’s their fault somehow. So you hear me changing the lyrics about two-thirds of the way through the song.”  

 

Joan Jett

GUITAR HERO

Revered rock chick Joan Jett becomes the first woman to be honoured with her own signature model Gibson Electric Guitar ($839 U.S.). Gibson successfully replicated Jett’s 1977 Melody Maker model, right down to the custom velvet hammer pickups, which haven’t been available on Gibson guitars for more than 20 years. The guitar’s body is made from lightweight mahogany, features a white worn finish and a period-appropriate black vinyl pick guard. 

 

 

LINER NOTES

Ready to rock but don’t know how to get started? Check out The Indie Band Survival Guide (in stores August 5th, $17).

Co-authored by Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan, the book covers topics such as selling your music online, crafting a wicked website, merchandising, protecting your music and dealing with the all-powerful Ticketmaster.

 
 

OUT THIS MONTH

August 5

Hawthorne Heights - Fragile Future

The Faint - Fasciinatiion

 

August 12

T.I. - Paper Trail

Michelle Williams - Unexpected

 

August 19

Stereolab - Chemical Chords

Juliana Hatfield - How to Walk Away

 

August 26

Slipknot - All Hope is Gone

Solange Knowles - Sol-Angel and The Hadley Street Dreams

Go to HMV.ca for more information


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    As the largest motion picture exhibitor in Canada, Cineplex Entertainment operates 130 theatres with 1,347 screens serving more than 70 million guests annually. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Cineplex Entertainment operates theatres from British Columbia to Quebec and is the largest exhibitor of digital, 3D and IMAX projection technologies in the country.