Welcome to the Melodies in Mind myspace page.

This is a radio program that airs from CJSF 90.1 FM in Burnaby, British Columbia, Tuesdays from 8 to 10 PM. Broadcasts are also available through, www.cjsf.ca, and you can also get a podcast subscription.

Melodies in Mind thrives on the local and international folk music scene. Each week it features the best of local musicians who join Live Ryan in the main studio, and a review of the best in new local and international folk album releases, which is recorded by Taped Ryan in the recording studio. 

The show is music focused on community and consciousness. Each week we are making the best in life through the fantastic medium of music, and the spirit that creates it.

The goal of Melodies in Mind is to be fun, to have fun, and to be enlightening. Folk music is a great medium for learning, be it about history, social issues, emotions, parables, stories, or anything else because it is intensly intimate and contagiously fun. Both Taped and Live Ryan seem to agree that folk music is the best way to share. And on CJSF 90.1 FM we share it for free. 

And we would be happy if you were to share your time with us this Tuesday, starting at 8pm.

M in M history Part 1

Melodies in Mind was born at a UNB Fredericton residence laundromat in the year 1999, 

     In 1999, the now pretending to be famous Ryan Fletcher was up late at night in the Harrison House basement floor sleeplessly doing some laundry under the influence of an odd combination of caffeine, adrenaline, and beer, as would often occur in those early university days. He had recently been introduced to the unbelievably inviting, free, and easy world of campus radio and, too excited to sleep, he took a sniff, and went to the laundry room.

     So, sitting atop one of the machines with millions of thoughts whirling wildly in his head, some about radio, some about school, and many about girls, he was struck with what was surely a piece of misguided genius:

You are listening to ’Melodies in Mind’

Because without a tune in your head you are seriously misled.

     It was so unusually bright and fitting that he felt like he had stolen the lines. But, somehow, even he knew that it was important, so quickly he ran down the hallway and fetched some paper, and scribbled it down.

"Aha!" He thought,

"I have a title!... and a slogan!..., ..., ..., ...," And then much later... it dawned on him... 

"Maybe I should do a show!"

     That was about all the thoughts poor Ryan could handle for one evening, but somehow, the story did continue,

so please stay tuned...

For some more...

Melodies in Mind, his story

So it happened, our oddball subject, Ryan Fletcher, managed to convince the (luckily) dazed and confused folks at CHSR 97.9 FM Fredericton to give him a shot. He showed them some albums, gave them some ideas, went through the training, and was granted a time slot.

The moment of all moments, for Ryan, and the path of his story, was when he for the first time set before the microphone and babbled to a live radio audience. He realized in that very moment that this was something that he had been looking for his whole life, and that he was just then finding it. It was immediately comfortable and easy for Ryan to ramble on about songs, make strange jokes, and philosophise about being alive. Yes, not much has changed since that first day. The jokes are still strange, Ryan still babbles, and he is still alive.

It was something not yet experienced for him, this not getting interrupted. Ryan was finally free to follow his incomplete thoughts for the long minutes it takes for them to be complete and share each odd stop they take along the way with an audience, and they could either turn the dial, or stay along, all the way, until the thoughts reach their full expression, but they could not interrupt!, YES!! And there was no need to prepare either, he could just go off right from the top of his head into the microphone, through the sound board, and through the air waves that reach all of poor ol’ Fredericton on that fateful Autumn day.  

’Wow’ he thought, ’I have found my home.’

And the story continues, stay tuned for more of the Melodies in Mind his story.

Life changed for Ryan.

His every week quickly came to revolve around Melodies in Mind. From the end of the last show until the beginning of the next one he was thinking about what songs to play and preparing his order and presentation. He soon began recording his shows so that he can experience the thrill again when listening to himself later. He could often be found reviewing shows when jogging out and about Fredericton. He essentially wasn’t a UNB student anymore, but a student of radio.

Between classes and on open ended evenings Ryan would without fail head to the Radio station or head for the hills to listen to music. If he didn’t need to be in the books, Ryan was reviewing music. He was hooked.

With growing experience and comfort, on air mistakes became fewer and the improvisation became stronger. Although not very bright, our self proclaimed hero was a rising star.

And some people even began to listen.

It wasn’t long before Ryan’s horizons moved beyond music too, he subscribed to some joke mailing lists and decided that he would read them on the air, and soon after the laughing man soundtrack appeared. Delusional anyway, Ryan began to have dialogues with the laughing man soundtrack, which would only laugh. Sometimes teasing him, sometimes annoying him, and often really, only humoring him, the laughing man became a mainstay. Although the man more frequenlty laughed at him than with him, Ryan felt better having him there, because the audience would at least maybe consider that he was making jokes when he was. Because it was hard to know if Fredericton really got his dry sense of humor, but at least he knew that the laughing man did.

Activism news became part of the show also. Ryan subscibed to list serves for international activist groups and shared the things he found interesting. He thought of it as a way to better school the people than the schools. There was no reason not to do it... so he did.

Ryan was inspired by quite a few people at the station too, one was Jeremy Gorman who was a production genious and humorist, and there was Adam Noble who was a real life laughing man and fan, and then there was the CJSF Program Director Pierre Loiselle, who’s passion was using radio as a tool for activism. While Ryan had a growing interest in Radio, his interest in activism also grew.

One of his favorite pastimes was to go to CHSR on his lunch times where he would listen to the award winning activist show - Democracy Now, help Pierre with his local show - The Lunch Box, or listen to the consciousness expanding program New Dimensions.

CHSR was a rich envrinoment for the shows growth and many seeds for the future of Melodies in Mind were being planted during this time. 

He was on his way.         

Stay tuned for the next edition of Melodies in Mind, his story.

Later in its CHSR carnation, Melodies in Mind started having music interviews and reviewing folk shows in Fredericton. The first music interview Ryan ever did was a phone interview with the Toronto artist Ronley Teper that was largely inspired by her weird sense of humor and the song Yamaha, a love song she wrote for her guitar. It was a personal favorite tune. Ryan will always remember the heart felt thank you he got after the interview. It helped a lot towards his understanding of how much this kind of thing means to the up and coming artists. It was a good positive reinforcement.

Then there was a forgetable phone interview after that also. Of whom we forget who it was. But the first live in studio guest was Gordie Johnston of Big Sugar, and that will never be forgotten.

Ryan was just writing out some questions when Gordie Johnston arrived. He was early. It ended up being a very random unprepared sounding interview, but it was cool. It was Gordie Johnston! Most of the time the interview consisted of Gordie asking Ryan, Do you know this artist? This artist? This artist? And Ryan saying yes, to perhaps 1 in 10. Gordie a big big music fan and quite an outgoing guy.

He was promoting Big Sugar’s 2001 album ’Brothers and Sisters are you ready?’, of which Ryan was playing to death the single ’All Hell for a Basement’. In the interview, Ryan will never neglect to tell you, he suggested they release that single because it will go to 1. Ryan will want you to know, because they later did do that, and it did go to 1. Whether or not he had anything to do with it, he will never know, but he will always tell himself he did.

Another notable interview was with the Newfoundland band, ’Buddy Wassisname and the Other Fellers’, they are a very comedic farsical group that is deeply loved across the country. For this one Ryan prepared questions and then realized when they arrived, that they don’t need prompting. They started talking from the moment they arrived and didn’t stop until they walked out the door. It wasn’t long before Ryan knew he didn’t need questions. Everyone had fun, and he later got a nod from them at their show that evening.

There were not many local musicians and interview opportunities in Fredericton, but there were some good ones. Ryan’s confidence in being allowed to sound like an idiot was growing, and, as you know, he has invited many more musisians on to the air since then.

The most fun Ryan’s ever had in radio was doing live on-site interviews at the annual Highland Games events in Fredericton. It is a weekend long Celtic Fest that CHSR takes part in every year broadcasting live before its audience. 

Ryan spun tunes and the people sang and danced. He interviewed whoever he saw, and made people laugh, it was very encouraging. A couple of moments will always stick out for him about the event. One was not related to music but doing play by play broadcasting for the strong man compitiitions.

He went to interview the winner of the competition who just finished tossing a huge caber to a great length and breaking a record (not a cd). When he started the interview, Ryan ran up to him and accidently jabbed him with his pen. It went unnoticed, but Ryan (and now you), will always know it happened.

Here is this guy who just exerted a huge amount of energy at great physical risk to entertain a crowd, and then someone runs up to him and jabs him with a pen!

Thanks a lot!

Anyway,

Another highlight was miking a huge piping band for the radio. There were 200 odd bagpipers marching in a great line across the festival grounds and Ryan was following them with a microphone so that the radio audience can hear it. There was one point where Ryan got in front because he was told that that was where they are going to turn around and head back the other direction. He remembers sitting there watching the huge mass of marching bagpipers heading towards him, hoping and praying that his sources were right and that they were indeed going to turn around and not trample all over him!

In day to day matters, it is worth mentioning a change in timeslot that occured. Due to being a student, Ryan ended up changing the air times of Melodies in Mind often, but for its last year and a half in Fredericton, the time was Wednesday afternoons, 3:30 to 5:00. This was the best possible time for the show because the most popular show on CHSR was on just before him. It was ’According with Camen’ an old time country music show that was hosted by an endearing and knowledgable senior citizen named Carmen.

It was to Ryan’s great fortune that Carmen liked some of the songs he played because Carmen began promoting Melodies in Mind to his large audience, encouraging them to stay tuned for the next show. There was a notable difference, Ryan got a lot more feedback about the show since then, he guesses that his audience probably doubled after Carmen started doing that. Ryan catered to the audience too, starting the show with the older, more traditional of his selections in order to not loose his older listeners right away. By the time he got around to the stuff you would scarcely even call folk, like the Big Sugar selections, that audience, he knew, may be tuning out.

Thank you for reading this far! And stay tuned for the next edition of Melodies in Mind, his story.

Those were the glory days of Melodies in Mind Fredericton. The show rolled along like a well oiled cd and every week was a new and exciting adventure in folkiness. However, the studential career of Ryan was soon to end, and for a few long dark and dreary years Melodies in Mind existed only in the heart and mind of its host.

In the summer of  2003, as he was finishing the last course for the completion of his Bachelor of Arts Degree, things fell apart. That summer and into the fall Ryan had a personal struggle between idealism and trustability. He got involved in a community newspaper project with a seemingly well meaning person that was to be called the, ’Fredericton Town Crier’. A paper written by citizens of Fredericton for the citizens of Fredericton. A regular forum for communication between regular folks living in Fredericton.

Ryan got really wrapped up in the project and was unusually swayed by the charisma of a man who named himself Richard. A man Ryan later learned was an obsessive liar, user, and thief. During this time however, Richard had a hypnotic effect on Ryan, who got wrapped up in the ideals of the Fredericton Town Crier and felt pulled towards the cause.

Led and swayed by Richard, Ryan came to give up his involvement with CHSR to work 24 hours a day on the Town Crier. He finished his school career and left the station despite the protestations of those who were there. He went further into the dark space thereafter until late September when he finally snapped out of the illness he was in and saw the light of day. Richard was a very dishonest person, and the evidence was becoming to stacked for even the disillusioned Ryan to deny. And as time went on, Ryan was becoming very influenced, and dishonest like Richard was, and it was scaring his friends, his family, and most of all, himself.

With no money or means remaining other than his bicycle, Ryan left that confusing nightmarish situation, and headed south with a trailer, a tent, and some clothes.  

After a short excursion into a life of starving, and struggling solitude, Ryan eventually went home to PEI to recover from the bad experience, and began a two year career hiatus.

It gets better, so please stay tuned for the next edition, or Melodies in Mind, his story.

(Interim)

After Fredericton Ryan spent two years living with his parents in Prince Edward Island with a 3 month vacation to Ireland sandwiched between. There was no suitable radio station in PEI for Melodies in Mind.

PEI was really dull. He was trying to find a job that he wanted and to earn some money to pay off student loans, but there were no job openings on PEI for things that he wanted, so Ryan occasionaly would take small jobs he didn't want or did nothing at all. He had drive and ambition for positive social change but living at home was not condusive for Ryan's feeling up to pursuing anything. It was the same dead ghost town he always knew with the same people doing the same things he had always known them to do. He couldn't get inspired by that.

Finally in May 2005, Ryan decided to move on.

His sister was living in Vancouver and wanted him to move out there. Ryan was hesitant to move somewhere without having a job already secured nor much financial means to survive in the meantime. But there was a place for him to stay and his sister was convincing enough.    

Ryan had briefly met people from a NCRA radio conference he had gone to years before that were part of CJSF 90.1FM, and had a really favorable impression of them. He knew he would be getting involved in campus radio again. It was the really inspiring thing for him to be thinking about, going back into campus radio, because ever since leaving CHSR Ryan had a definate sense that something very vital from his life had gone missing. When he arrived in BC late May 2005, within his very first week, Ryan went to Simon Fraser University to check out CJSF 90.1 FM.

It took a while for the show to get started. The training process was slow as people weren't often available to train him. It took 3 or 4 months for Ryan to go through all the hoops involved in getting a show. He then did Jumbalaya (non-commited) time slots for a while until a good day and time for Melodies in Mind became available.

Being back in studios was really exciting! Especially this one. The equipment was a whole lot better, the place had a lot more paid staff working longer hours, the radio signal reaches a couple of million listeners (as opposed to eighty thousand in Fredericton), and Vancouver was a really happening city.

February 9th, 2006 was the day that Melodies in Mind debuted out of CJSF 90.1 FM  

In February 2006 Ryan was quite the man about city, going to activist events, seeing public speakers, and reading at open mic nights. Every day he was working or at CJSF, and most nights going to events. But, it was the open mic nights that inspired him most.

He regularly attended a particular open mic called, 'Thundering Word Heard', at Cafe Montmartre to watch the performers and read poetry. The atmosphere was awesome and he was seeing more quality live music than he had ever seen before.

At an open mic at Cafe Du Soliels in February, the same week Melodies in Mind was to debut, he realized that he could be promoting these musicians on the radio. He watched the show with a different eye that night, looking for people that would fit the show. And that was that night he booked his first Vancouver music guest. Whose name is currently forgotten.

It went well though, and Ryan started booking guests with some frequency, the second guest was Gena Perala, and the third was Rob Fillo, finding booking people was easy and it was working well. The show began as a one hour program which was either completely taped or 40 minutes taped, 20 minutes live. It was when the first live guest appeared that Live Ryan and Taped Ryan were born. Taped Ryan reluctantly accepted the behind the scenes leg work, and Live Ryan went on to have all of the on air fun.

There were frequent guests on the show up until July 2006, when Ryan broke his leg in a car accident while cycling. Taped Ryan took over for a few months until Live Ryan could work the controls live. The generous assistance CJSF DJ extraordinaire Nick Pannu was a real asset for those first few weeks after the accident.

The first live guests after the accident were the Heartfelt Apologies. And the Melodies in Mind fans forgave him. More guests kept piling in, then Nov/Dec 2006, The CJSF studio was renovated, more mikes put in, and... Ryan got an idea.

Stay tuned for the next edition of,

Melodies in Mind, his story.

In February of 2007, with a newly renovated CJSF studio and a growing list of former guests to the show, Ryan had an idea that significantly changed the show forever. He was becoming very fond of all the different guests that were coming to play live music on the show and was becoming more and more invested in their career success. He also wanted for them to be able to meet one another and network, and for Vancouver to know how good a local music scene it had.

A month earlier he had been to a show downtown with his brother at the Roundhouse called the Circle of Songwriters that featured a few favorites artists of his like Lennie Gallant, Joel Plaskett, and Bob Snider. They played in the round and would tell stories of their songs as their turn came on. The feeling of artistry and comraderie among the players was great.

Ryan got struck by a notion, and this being so rare, he payed attention. What if I had a Song Circle on the radio... hmm... It was a fair risk to take in trusting he could find enough guests to make it happen week to week, but his mailing list was at least 30 artists long at this point.

He decided to go ahead with it and invented the song circle. At the same time in his story the current CJSF Program Coordinator Joanne Penhale, who was a big fan of the show, asked him if he would like to double the length of the program from one hour to two. This was also an impetus for the idea, he was thinking of how he wanted to fill that second hour.

The new format was to keep the first hour the same, a feature guest and 40 minutes of taped Ryan, and then to have the song circle in the second hour. And then, on February 9th, 2007, the song circle debuted.

The first song circle feature was Hilary Grist, and the circle was Rob Fillo, Glenn Chatten, and Nathan Marcuzzi. A little known his story tidbit, for the trillions of Melodies in Mind geeks that want to know every single little detail of the Melodies in Mind, his story.

Stay tuned for the next edition, coming to a blog near you.

The song circle managed to roll. Mystery, panic, fun, and adventure became a new mainstay for the show. For Ryan the show became like a box of chocolates, he never knew what he was going to get.

In the early days there were quite a few significant loyal guests to whom the show owes a debt. Suzanna Lonsdale was a frequent visitor whose enthusiasm was contageous, Johanna Chapman Smith made appearances in many forms and provided great leads, Kate Reid was big talent and a whole lot of fun, and the Sumner Brothers gave it an aggresive cutting edge. These are a few of the crucial guests that would appear frequenlty in the early days when the rotation was small.

Mary Kastle, especially, made two huge contributions that changed the face of the show. This myspace page was both her suggestion and her design, it looks good because of her and the brilliant photographer Eric Wong came in one week as a visiting friend taking photos of Mary. He enjoyed the experience and when he, Mary, and I met at a pub later, he became the show photographer.

Many features to do with the song circle developed quickly like the myspace round in which all songs of the second round go on this myspace page and the Public Service Announcement challange where the musicians are challanged to compose a tune to read a Public Service Announcement over.

There was a solid base for good times growing with the song circle and I am happy to say it's not stopped since.