WHAT: Christine Kane in the Tomorrow River Concert Series
WHERE: Jensen Community Center, Amherst
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 22
COST: $12 in advance/$15 day of show
INFO: jensencenter.org, 715-824-5202, christinekane.com

>>WIM: Christine Kane
WOMEN IN MUSIC

Christine Kane is always happy to return to Central Wisconsin, a place she has known since the release of her first CD This Time Last Year (1995).

“One of my biggest audiences is in Stevens Point and Amherst,” said the North Carolina resident. “Amherst was my very first club. Dave Green (who at the time owned the Amherst Coffee Co.) took a huge chance on me. He had me on a Wednesday night and it sold out. I think it was because Dave told so many people about me. From that point on, I’ve had a pretty good following in that area, and I love it.”

Green also tapped her as the first act at the defunct Clark Place in Stevens Point when it opened in 2002.

“People will say to me, ‘Do you play in L.A. or Austin?’ No, but there’s this great place in Wisconsin. I can go to Stevens Point and Amherst. Why would I go to Austin? It’s just a funny conversation to have. You realize there are these enclaves all over the place,” Kane said.

She returns to the Jensen Community Center in Amherst on Nov. 22 as part of the Tomorrow River Concert Series.

In addition to her music, Kane has also become a leader in helping others achieve their creative goals, which is surprising when you learn how difficult it was for her to let her own creative spirit blossom into an admired and respected musician/New Age thinker.

“Like so many people, I had so many doubts about what were the possibilities for me in my own life,” she said. “I had a lot of insecurities about what I could do. As much as I loved writing and music, I never offered that to myself as an option.”

She took a job right out of college, but couldn’t stand it.

“I loved the people I worked with but it just wasn’t the right match for my whole soul,” she said.

She was taking guitar lessons while working, and she began talking, thinking and journaling about what she really wanted to do with her life.

“I rarely admitted that I wanted to play music,” she said.

After a year at the job, Christina was promoted.

“That was when I chose to quit. I realized it was now or never,” she said.

But she didn’t just quit her job. She set her sights on her future, and music was definitely in that future.

“I took about three years after quitting the job to write songs, take more lessons,” she said. “I was waitressing a lot. I moved to a different town where it was cheaper to live. I kind of changed my life to work around this dream I had.”

Still, she kept the dream mostly to herself at first.

“I wouldn’t tell anybody for a long time about this dream I had,” she said.

She made a friend of a master’s degree student who began introducing Christine as a musician, and who insisted that Christine do the same.

“I started meeting people who completely supported me and pushed me in ways that I really needed,” she said. “It’s a great act of self esteem when you start realizing, I am a musician. I am an artist.

“Now I look back and say, you know what? There was no option for me other than being an artist. I think that artists are just artists. A lot of people think it’s a major act of self esteem to admit you’re an artist. I just don’t think a lot of people have a choice. They don’t work in this left brain linear world as well. Now I look at it, it’s not an act of self esteem any more, but at the time it was a big thing to say, this is what I’m doing.”

Almost divinely, Christine had a sign she was on the right path with her first weekend of paid gigs.

“I had a tip jar out and made more that one weekend than I had at one block of time in my entire life up to that point,” she said. “It was just that kind of thing where the angels or the universe or the gods gave me that little now, ‘OK, this is working for you.’ That was 13 years ago and I’ve been going strong ever since.”

People who go to see Christine are won over by her music, as well as by her genuine warmth and honesty, by her musicianship and her humanity.

“I think we recognize it in people, when other people are going to help us and encourage us in our path,” she said. “What started happening, people were coming up to me after shows and saying, ‘You know, you seem really happy and you’re so authentic. How do I live a life that’s more fulfilling to me?’ We would have these long talks after shows. I would recommend books. I would tell them what happened to me. I would give the reality of what it is to be living your dreams. It’s not just the hour you spend on stage. It’s all the stuff that comes up. Here’s the truth behind what I’m doing. Those conversations got deeper and deeper while I was on tour.”

At first she was shocked that people were responding to her that way.

“I was still in the phase of being surprised at doing what I was doing,” she said. “There were still little bouts of self-esteem issues. But I realized at some point you have to move on from being the student to being the teacher. You have to be a little bigger. When people start turning to you, you don’t serve them by staying small and withdrawn and pulling in.”

So in 2001 she sends a note out to her mailing list that she was organizing a retreat for women, to be held at a lodge in the North Carolina mountains.

She started with one Great Big Dream retreat for 25 women, but the demand was so great that the number continues to grow. She will have done five retreats by the end of this year (according to her website there is still room in the Dec. 27-29 retreat).

“That has become a different passion for me and one that I feel just as strongly about, helping people to understand what their life calling is.”

She says it is her way of returning all the encouragement and support she received when making the leap to music.

“I looked at it as my time to be that voice for other people,” she said. “These are people who are genuinely saying, how do I do bigger things with my life?”

Christine believes there has never been a better time for women to be musicians.

“We have seen time and time again how women have trounced the world of music,” she said. “You see the Indigo Girls, Dar Williams, Ani DiFranco and all these others. Women are loyal fans of women. Women love that women are getting popular. Every door is open. There are all these opportunities out there for an independent woman in the music world. I think the only way it is bad is if women toss themselves in the doors of corporate music structures and play that archetype of the damsel, ‘Please rescue me, big music!’ That’s the game that’s no longer working.”

And while she says the argument that it’s harder for women to be taken seriously in the music business is outdated, she has run into some “weirdness moments.”

“I’ve had some very bad nights with big-name artists, who I will not name. Very sexist situations. Dismissing ‘chick music.’ Saying crass and rude sexual things. The choice is to get outraged or just let it go. That’s such an old, outdated thing, and if people want to like their music, then I don’t want those fans. I want my fans. I want the people who come to see me. And if I focus on the big, sexist, gross musicians, then I’m in their game. I’d rather make my own little Planet Christine. That’s more fun. I think everyone has that choice, I don’t care what business you’re in. Every woman has that choice of what she’s going to focus on and what she’s going to create.”

Christine Kane is working on a new CD that she is documenting online at bemyrecordlabel.com.

“I’m giving people the new versions of the upcoming CD, offering package pre-order deals,” she said. “We’ve already raised $15,000 in pre-orders.”

She is also launching an online magazine called Live Creative.

“I’m taking all the stuff we talked about earlier and making it into a weekly e-zine for people on my list – articles, little tips, creativity thoughts,” she said.