BROWN TURNS OFF THE LIGHTS
CBC Radio 2 late-at-night music show The Signal is set to send out its final transmission Sept 2
“It’s a very hard transition for people to make, from daytime to nighttime. It’s a sort of retreat back into yourself.”
Laurie Brown would know. As host of CBC Radio 2’s dreamy latenight music show The Signal, she has been helping listeners make that transition for the past decade, telling stories and playing songs that drift through the Canadian ether from 10 to midnight, six nights a week. Ironically, she has been doing so from the other side of the day ’s dividing line. Just past noon on a recent Thursday, Brown was calling from her desk at CBC’s Toronto headquarters, where she was following her regular routine.
“I’ll go into the studio around 1 o’clock and roll out another couple of shows before this long weekend,” she said. “I’ll dim the lights, make it feel like 10 p.m., when in fact my day starts at about 8 in the morning. I listen to all the music at home, I think about it and then come in here and blab.”
She was playing it pretty cool for a woman who’s coming to the end of the line. Brown will be hanging up her microphone on Sept. 2, and moving on toward new horizons.
It’s the end of an era, for the veteran media personality and her legions of loyal fans who turn to their radio each night seeking solace in her soothing voice, thoughtful anecdotes and the transportive music she plays, which come courtesy of longtime Signal producer and musical selector Andy Sheppard.
“I didn’t know him before,” Brown said. “I came to Radio 2 and said, ‘I want to do a radio show. Put me together with a person here who you really want to see create a new show.’ They introduced me to Andy Sheppard, we had a brief chat, then we started to trade pieces of music. From the beginning, it was non-verbal.”
The most important consideration for both, she recounts, was the time-slot. “That governed just about everything that we brought to the table; it has to feel like late at night.”
Music is the great unifier at The Signal, bringing together listeners of all stripes, all ages, from all walks of life and all corners of the country. Decidedly contemporary and borderline hip, yet never alienating, the show’s playlists feature a wide range of sounds.
The musical menu in recent weeks has included songs by British post-soul singer Sampha, Toronto indie-rockers Broken Social Scene, Montreal DJ Kid Koala featuring Icelandic vocalist Emiliana Torrini, Congolese-Canadian musician Pierre Kwenders, FrenchCuban twin-sister duo Ibeyi, the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie, U.S. alt-folky Sufjan Stevens and Danish techno producer Trentemøller.
Tying them all together is a mellifluous, non-abrasive but consistently adventurous esthetic that leaves space for people to think, and do whatever they might be doing as the clock ticks toward midnight.
“The music is the most important thing,” Brown said, “and the music inspires what I say. I listen and my mind wanders when listening to the music, like yours and everyone else’s, and I just say things into a microphone. And the thoughts that come are kind of like the dust bunnies under your bed. They’re like clues — they hold the signal.”
Another factor of the lateevening setting is the intimacy it creates. Brown’s candour and free-association storytelling style have amassed a base of diehard fans who have come to feel almost like friends.
“From the beginning, I made the assumption that I knew the listener well,” Brown said. “And I also made the assumption that they knew me well — so well that I could dare to be myself.”
The show’s fans write letters, send emails sharing stories, and post on The Signal’s popular Facebook page, sharing thoughts on the music she plays and offering snapshots of their lives.
“I hear from all kinds of people,” Brown said. “People who are struggling in rehab, people at home with chronic pain, people who have just had babies, are unemployed, and people who are having the best nights of their lives.
“And I think that all of them, if there’s something they have in common, it’s that they have big hearts. I think all these people are aching for a way to show more heart.”
Being exposed to all that vulnerability has left Brown with a sense of responsibility to her audience; if not to help each listener individually — which might prove a little difficult — then to be there for them collectively, by simply showing up, night after night, playing some tunes and shooting the breeze. “When I first started (the show) it really scared me,” she said. “I thought, ‘I have to treat this very carefully. This is a very powerful medium — way more powerful than TV. It’s not a passive experience, listening to radio.
“I started to understand the power of being in the room with someone, and the comfort that can offer; and to feel that, if I was going to be invited into the bedrooms of the nation, I needed to be someone they wanted to have around in their private space.”
That space is about to change, for her and for us. The Signal will end for good after Sept. 2. But The Signal’s music, Brown promises, will live on. While she and Sheppard are leaving, a new show and host will take over two days later, carrying on the vibe she and Sheppard have maintained over the past decade while creating something inherently different.
What’s next for Brown? She has committed to a podcast, called The Pondercast, with musician friend Joshua Van Tassel, the first episode of which will be available Sept. 3. Beyond that, she hasn’t the faintest.
“I have no idea what else I’ll do,” she says, gamely. “The thing about doing something new is you have to take the first step yourself. You have to show faith by jumping into nothingness and seeing what comes up. The only rule I’ve made is that it will be something I’ve never done before and involve a new creative skill I need to learn.”
How does she feel, standing on the edge of the unknown, I asked. Her response came swiftly.
“How do I feel? Totally energized.”