Monthly Archives: September 2022

My first guest is Canadian musician, car-accident survivor and champion of mental health; Robb Nash.

 

Robb Nash has accomplished a lot in his life. He’s had popular songs, a record label offer, was named one the most influential people in 2016 by the Washington Post and been featured in stories by CBC, Global News, the Huffington Post and CTV. If you ask him, however, he’ll tell you his biggest achievement lies in the thousands of kids who have heard his mental health message and used it as a catalyst to find their way to healthier lives. The story of how Robb went from a rock star with a record deal to dedicating his life to connecting with youth is unique. After a serious car accident, Robb fell into a deep depression. Finding his way to the other side was hard, and when he emerged, he decided to use his experience to tell kids that “they don’t have to die like I did before I started to live.” Today, Robb and his band, The Robb Nash Project, travel across Canada playing shows for students, sharing their music and inspiring youth with their message of hope. Robb has received over 600 suicide notes from students who decided they didn’t need them anymore after hearing his story. Through his songs, students connect to hope, seeing someone who like them has struggled with thoughts of suicide only to re-emerge stronger than ever. Robb has helped save the lives of hundreds, an impact bigger than selling thousands of records.

Need Support? Please contact Kids Help Phone at 1800-668-6868 or text NASH to 686868

The Robb Nash Project is an immersive concert experience that engages audiences through the power of music and storytelling addressing topics related to mental health such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, addiction, bullying and suicidal ideation.

Some other resources you may want to check out:

Canadian Mental Health Association – https://cmha.ca

Mood Disorders Society of Canada – https://mdsc.ca

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – https://www.camh.ca 

Mental health and substance use support for people in Canada and Canadians abroad. Always free and virtual, 24/7.

https://www.wellnesstogether.ca/en-CA

https://www.wellnesstogether.ca/en-CA/service/talk

A new three-digit telephone number available to Canadians in need of mental health and suicide prevention will be in place by November 2023, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission recently announced.

My second guest is award-winning artist, writer, filmmaker and broadcaster, who is proudly Indigenous, queer, and disabled.

Christa Couture is an award-winning performing and recording artist, non-fiction writer, filmmaker and broadcaster. She is also proudly Indigenous (mixed Cree and Scandinavian), queer, disabled, and a mom.

Over the course of her acclaimed career, Christa has become known, unenviably, as an expert in loss: singing, speaking and writing about the childhood cancer that led to the amputation of her left leg, abortion, and the tragic deaths of her two infant sons. When it came time to make her fourth album, 2016’s eclectic, upbeat and twangy Long Time Leaving, a more run-of-the-mill loss, divorce, provided inspiration.

Those years of loss are revisited in her debut non-fiction book How To Lose Everything, published September 2020 by Douglas & McIntyre. But Christa’s most recent recording Safe Harbour tells a different story. Safe Harbour’s six songs were written during a thankfully tragedy-free, joyful time in Christa’s life that saw her leave Vancouver, her home of 17 years, and relocate to Toronto to start anew. During this time, Christa took a step back from recording and performing music to write her memoir, take on a daytime radio host job, and welcome a third child.

Her fourth album Long Time Leaving was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 2016 Indigenous Music Awards, and before that, 2012’s The Living Record made Best-of-the-Year lists at CBC Music, Radio Regent and the Georgia Straight, which also chose the album to represent 2012 in their 50 Albums That Shaped Vancouver.

Christa’s sophomore album The Wedding Singer and The Undertaker won a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award, made the Top 10 on CBC Radio 3, and landed a #1 song on the National Aboriginal Music Countdown.

As a writer and storyteller, Christa’s essay “Sanibe” appears in the collection Radiant Voices: 21 Feminist Essays for Rising Up (TouchWood, 2019), and “These Are My Children” appears in The M Word: Conversations on Motherhood (Goose Lane, 2014). She has been published in Room, Shameless, and Augur magazines, and on CBC.ca. In 2018, her CBC article and photos on disability and pregnancy went viral. She has spoken for audiences of Walrus Talks, DNTO Live (CBC), Moses Znaimer’s ideaCity, and Imaginate in Port Hope, ON.

Her short, animated film How to Lose Everything: A Field Guide, based on an excerpt from her book and co-directed with bekky O’Neil won Best Animated Short at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco and the Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival in Brooklyn. The film will be the first in a series of five animated shorts for CBC Arts.

She was the midday host on Toronto’s 106.5 ELMNT FM for three years and has been heard as a frequent contributor to CBC Radio on Now or Never and The Next Chapter. As an arts administrator and advocate (and lover of tidy paperwork) she was the project manager of the Indigenous music platform RPM.fm and the general manager of Native Women in the Arts.

Prairie-raised, Christa spent 17 years in Vancouver and now calls Toronto home.

Some resources for grief suggested by Christa:

For bereaved parents: https://tcfcanada.net/articles-2/the-bereaved-parent/

Check out Christa Couture’s memoir, How to Lose Everything 

Katie Hawkins-Gaar has this great list of books about various grief experiences: https://bookshop.org/shop/mysweetdumbbrain

https://www.mygrief.ca/

episode three was a live-taping during country music week in calgary with multiple juno and ccma AWARD-WINNING entertainer, dallas smith.

A multiple JUNO and CCMA Award-winning entertainer, Dallas Smith is one of the most celebrated artists in Canadian country music. Amassing 18 Canadian Gold-certified singles, four Canadian Gold-certified albums, and seven Canadian Platinum-certified singles along with more than 500 MILLION collective streams to date and 2 MILLION global album equivalents. Smith is also the first and only Canadian country artist in the Nielsen BDS era to have TWELVE #1 singles, including four consecutive chart-toppers from the same album, and closed out 2019 as the most played artist (domestic/international) at Canadian country radio for the year. Adding to the list of accolades, Smith is the sole Canadian country artist in the Nielsen BDS and Mediabase era to earn TWELVE #1 songs in history and have 23 consecutive singles peak in the Top 10 of the country airplay chart. Smith is the three-time CCMA Award winner for Entertainer of the Year (2019/2020/2021), continuing to set the bar high for Country music in all that he does.In 2021, Smith launched the Lifted Dallas Smith Charitable Foundation – a non-profit organization committed to ensuring that mental health services are accessible to anyone and everyone in need.  

Here are some other mental health resources:

Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse and Addiction – https://www.ccsa.ca 

Canadian Center for Addiction – https://canadiancentreforaddictions.org

Canadian Mental Health Association – https://cmha.ca

Mood Disorders Society of Canada – https://mdsc.ca

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – https://www.camh.ca