The value of face time. That’s something that’s been on my mind recently. When I first began communicating with my booking manager Ethan Schiff, it was done purely through e-mail and text messaging. It was actually quite amazing how much we achieved without ever meeting each other. Another example of a ‘faceless’ relationship is the one I had with producer Dan Cantor. For couple of months Dan was an unknown and unquantifiable being on the other end of a series of e-mails, which made truly communicating with each other on a more comfortable level a rather difficult thing.

When I finally met Ethan and Dan in person, the experiences gave to me a renewed appreciation of face time and the completeness it lends to relationships, whether personal or business. With Ethan, here was this very hard-working guy who had done so much for me yet with whom I’d never met and had a yearning to meet him in person so as to fully appreciate his hard work. That business relationship then felt consolidated and galvanized.

Meeting Dan for the first time, in the comfort of his studio in Massachusetts, was another eye-opening experience. No matter how much you learn of someone through articles, biographies and pictures, you are never going to grasp the ‘truth’ of the individual without meeting them face-to-face. As Dan and I had such hectic (often highly conflicting) schedules, our communications were quite spotty and we found it very hard to connect. As such I found it hard to create a sense of responsibility in terms of our relationship as musicians. When I met Dan I was struck by his friendly, yet highly professional, aura. Yet another connection consolidated and brought to colour from black and white.

My observation may be simple but I found it to be a rather important one.