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 It all
started in Auckland, New Zealand. At least, the inspiration for the kind of aboriginal radio system Gary Farmer
hopes to some day realize started there, and by virtue of that, the impetus for the first annual Rock and Roll
Celebration Tour 2000.
The tour features a lineup of some of the hottest aboriginal acts today, including Derek Miller, the 1999 Canadian
Aboriginal Music Award winner for Male Artist of the Year; Keith Secola, the acclaimed singer/guitarist, and Lucie
Idlout, up and coming rock/blues artist. It is touring First Nations communities across southern Ontario and New
York State now through Aug. 16, 21 dates in all.
Farmer, an actor, publisher, and indefatigable champion of aboriginal media and arts, sees the tour as being inextricably
linked to radio.
 "The tour is in communities that have radio; most have public stations. What I'm trying to
show is that once you create a listenership then you can feed that listenership with concerts, or whatever you'd
like to expose them to," he said by phone from Kahnawake. "We're trying to see if the radio stations
have the audience to sustain one-night stands of aboriginal talent -- which has never been able to sustain itself
really, except local bands playing weddings and that kind of thing, but not in terms of creating venues and offering
entertainment to a community that's going to pay for it."
Farmer was one of the key organizers behind the successful application for the 106.5 signal on the FM band in Toronto,
which, if all goes well, will launch on March 21, 2001, as Aboriginal Voices Radio. The prototype was MAI-FM, a
Maori-run station in Auckland that has existed for 10 years. Farmer spent six weeks studying MAI, and saw how the
Auckland station connected 26 Maori-operated and Maori-programmed stations across New Zealand, providing some programming
all the stations could share. He sees the potential benefits of a similar scenario here.
"It's all about expanding the horizons and imaginations of our people. For us the biggest experiment we're
doing with the radio is, I think, the most significant -- for the first time we'll be tying the urban community
to the rural community. The city Indians and the reserve Indians have two different experiences. The two meet at
some levels, but there really is no interaction, and I hope the radio acts as that tool."
The idea for a music tour was sparked by Farmer even before his New Zealand trek with the inception of the radio
station at Six Nations reserve near Hamilton.
"I knew right off the kick when we put that station on the air 10 or 12 years ago, that the thing we should
sell as a public station is the music that we're playing -- we could bring concerts to the communities. But it
never happened."
 Now that it finally is happening, with the promise of 106.5 as incentive, Farmer sees it as an
opportunity to develop talent. Each radio station at each stop on the tour has been advertising a contest for local
musicians. The winners get cash prizes, but more importantly, 20-minute sets as opening acts when the tour rolls
in.
The tour is also a first for the headliners. "These musicians have been playing for years but they've never
had a tour. They're getting to play 21 dates back to back -- it's a big deal."
The concerts are being recorded for a documentary on the Aboriginal People's Television Network, airing later in
the year.
Although he does hope the tour will break even, the financing is largely personal, from Farmer's own finances as
well as some of his colleagues at Aboriginal Voices. Farmer considers himself fortunate to be able to make his
own living from acting.
"I haven't been paid for eight years, I get my money from being a bozo actor in a Robert De Niro film,"
he joked, referring to his most recent role in The Score, a movie being shot in Montreal.
Although Farmer clearly enjoys talking about his acting, the conversation inevitably turns to the issues that lie
closest to his heart, like the Rock and Roll tour. "People are playing music, it's all good. We're gonna be
doing this forever."
Find out more about the tour and Aboriginal Voices
Aboriginal Voices
http://www.aboriginalvoices.com/
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed
without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and educational purposes only.]
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