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(singing) When I first laid eyes on Iceland, she over threw me.
All treeless purple grey against the sea... (fades out)
My name is Marian Call.
I suppose I started becoming me as I now know me about 5 years ago.
When I first took a crazy notion in to my head to make an album.
I grew up believing in a working musician's life.
You learn your trade, you learn your skill. Just like being a plumber.
Then you go and you do it. And you get paid.
And you don't have that sort of tortured relationship to fame and spotlight.
It just feels like a thing you've studied, a thing you know how to do.
I'm not really trained for any other trade, this is my trade.
I'm right in the middle of a tour year right now.
Where I'll be... I've played a lot of shows, and I'll be playing a lot more.
For the next couple months.
Other musicians read about my tour schedule and flip out
About how much I travel, and how hard I travel.
But, for a while there it was a matter of survival.
And, playing 7 shows a week while travelling for 9 months in a row,
didn't seem so crazy to me.
But, it has its consquences. It's not good for the body, it's not great for the soul.
Although, it produces some good songs.
(singing) And it's the old things, the big things humble you...
The mounts of what we all will crumble to.
And it's the hot things, the mad things, make you tough.
Make you soldier through (fades).
I frequently am asked by other people who wish they were doing full time music...
For advice. And I have to explain to them
that doing full time music is usually not doing full time music.
Because this job is mostly entrepreneurship, creative thinking, correspondence...
writing, website development, reading about what is changing in my industry...
and driving. I could get a CDL by now.
So, it's performing to a degree, but it's also just a discipline of loving people.
And, trying to connect with them.
Every day is often a struggle to try and connect with people as deeply as I can...
as quickly as I can. Because I don't have very much time. With my fans, with friends...
with people I only get to see once a year in some funny part of the country.
Sometimes you succeed, most times you don't quite, but you keep trying.
(singing) Morning is coming.
I had been trying to figure out a way to get to Europe for a long time...
because I've had fans over there who have waited patiently for five years for me to come.
And, I knew that I could go, but I couldn't afford the financial risk of going.
So, I decided to kickstart just the basic tour expenses.
It was really exciting to sort of make it a game that people could play.
To fund a certain country, or a certain town. And, then I had to actually go there.
I had to show up on someone's doorstep and play there.
And, it went really well. My fans responded very positively.
I used the tour as an excuse to do a live record, which a lot of people have been wanting.
That way, I would have something to give back to fans who gave to the kickstarter,
even if they weren't in Europe. And, we did alright. We did pretty good, I think.
I credit Alaska very much with helping the walls fall down inside my mind
about what I could and couldn't do.
Before I moved up here, I don't think I ever would have thought
that I could have owned a business or that I could have been,
self employed, or that I could do something so different.
People are just so unafraid to try things. That just seems to be a part of the culture.
And, I don't know. There's something liberating about getting all your risks
put in perspective... (laughs).
So much of what I do is grounded in geography. I've been to all fifty states now,
I've been all across Canada. And, there's something about places like this.
I won't say it's totally unique. But, there's something about places like this...
that make it less of a setting, and more of a character in your story.
And, that character for me has inspired so much of my work.
Having driven 40,000 miles all around the contient in a year
Having done the Alcan several times, not even thinking about it anymore,
My art is the art of place. And this is the place.