Meet the Noise: Misha Bower
We're very excited to be closing out the 2012 Make Some Noise concert season with a reading and performance by Misha Bower and Matt Cully (EONS). We hope you'll drop by the Lillian H. Smith Branch at 8pm tonight (Friday, Dec. 14) to hear Misha read from her debut collection of short stories sprinkled with musical interludes courtesy of EONS. Here's a little interview appetizer to hold over until this evening.
Tell us about your most memorable Toronto concert experience (either performing or attending).
I have to echo Matt’s answer about those early Wavelength shows – right down to the mention of the Cons and From Fiction. Seeing Timber Timbre for the first time at Poor Pilgrim (back when Matt was hosting Wednesday nights at the Press Club) is another memorable one. Performance wise, I have to put the Lee’s Palace after our east coast tour to Newfoundland high on the list. Fred Squire + Bahamas + huge hometown love + three amazing weeks with the band + lip-meltingly hot mics = a huge, shiny drop in the memory bucket.
What GTA band or artist would you recommend everyone have on their iPod?
Jennifer Castle and The Sadies have been in my regular rotation for a while now. I’ve also been listening to Snowblink’s latest record “Inner Classics” pretty incessantly since it came out – and also (man, you asked for it) some new Fiver songs that Simone Schmidt was kind enough to pass along. Always I would recommend keeping an ear out for latest instalments from members of the BP family: Neil, Tamara, Matt and Andrew are all in their respective workshops right now with rolled up sleeves.
This is an embarrassment of riches situation! I’m picturing iPods with unbuttoned pants, stuffed from dinner, sipping cognac.
Seeing as this is a library website and all, what was the last really great book you’ve read?
Right now I’m reading Life Is About Losing Everything by Lynn Crosbie. It is ruthless and beautiful. Apparen'tly, it gets classified as “fantastical memoir.” Reading it, I wonder if I’ll ever have the desire and/or the guts to disclose such accurate lies about myself.
Your musical career has involved a lot of collaboration with other artists; how did you experience the transition to writing (a comparatively solitary process)?
I’ve been writing a long time – but it’s true that the latest literary hunkering down has come after a long period of musical collaboration. It was a relief to put writing back on the front burner. I love the solitariness of it, but also anticipate the sharing/editing phase – especially after such a great experience with Jacob Sheen, who edited, designed and put
out this first book. By giving him almost every item on his editorial “I want” list, the stories became real and living and nothing like what I originally wrote (but exactly what I originally meant). His involvement was like gradually dispensed permission to “go back and write it now like you always wanted.”
If you could hang out with one famous literary character for a day, who would it be?
That would have to be V. Woolf, the one and only. Maybe we’d sit in silence for an hour, and then each go away and transcribe what was said!

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