Friday, October 3, 1997By MIKE ROSS --
Getting good quotes out of Jane Siberry is about as easy as stealing nuts from hungry squirrels.
Performing Sunday at the Myer Horowitz Theatre, Canada's super-sensitive singer-songwriter is a tough interview. It's to be expected. She is the living embodiment of "quirky." Her music makes Sinead O'Connor sound like corporate rock. Siberry has been known to time her album releases with phases of the moon. And the opening of her Internet Web site (www.sheeba.ca) was determined astrologically.
It might make you think of David St. Hubbins' ditzy girlfriend in This is Spinal Tap if Siberry wasn't creating such fascinating and original music.
So, after a telephone Q&A session that grinds to a halt because of the way I've "set up the energy," steps must be taken to salvage it. We end up talking about her record company, Sheeba Records. Ironic as it may seem from such an anti-commercial artist, Siberry is the president, although she's signed just one act so far - herself.
"It's enough just to figure out how I'm going to do it for my own stuff," she says. "I have no interest in other acts. The point is to create a vehicle for myself, so the last thing I want is someone looking at me as if I control their destiny, after I've been in that position for so long."
This is getting to be a trend - former successful Warner Bros. artists taking the independent route. First the Artist (formerly known as Prince) and now Siberry.
The 41-year-old singer is promoting two of her latest albums, A Day in the Life and Teenager (a third, a Christmas album, will be finished shortly), but neither is available in stores. Like Prince, she's utilizing an extensive Internet Web page (www.sheeba.ca) for all marketing, promotion and sales. The Internet, Siberry says, "is the perfect place for me."
She doesn't begrudge her time with Warner, however.
"Every bit of it's been a good ride," she says, "It was right to be on Warner Bros. for a long time, to have that kind of muscle behind me, and now this is right. I need a bit more creative freedom. This is very good for me. It's where I want to be."
As for the decreasing "accessibility" of her music, "to some people, it's butter," Siberry says. "Some people have a hard time and they turn it off. But that's show biz. It hurts my feelings when things I do are dismissed. A lot of work I do doesn't quite work the first time for people. They have to give it a couple of listens and then they start to decode it. Everything I do is trustworthy. I don't throw things out with any kind of wank mentality, a clever exercise in this or that. It's totally trustworthy as far as I can be trusted as a human being in 1997. And when people tune into that, they have a long adventure ahead of them."
Hear for yourself. Tickets to Jane Siberry are $21.75.
