So…..last night my wife went out for dinner with some friends. My two teenage daughters and I stayed home and ate dinner together around the family table. During the course of our dinner we chatted a little about this and we chatted a little about that. As the dinner progressed, the conversation came around to what some of their mutual friends had been up to. It was at this point that one daughter mentioned to the other that one of their school mates had been to a concert in Toronto the previous night. The concert was for a singer named Noah Kahan. At the mention of his name, both girls gave a little sigh and a shriek, as if this had been a celebrity encounter of epic proportions. As I noted their reaction from across the table I made the mistake of innocently asking, “Who is Noah Kahan?” Well! Judging by the shocked looks on both of their faces, you would think that I had just informed them that I wasn’t really their father or something of that magnitude! How could I not know who Noah Kahan was!? Everybody knows who he is, or so I was immediately led to believe. At that point, I was informed that he had a big hit song called “Stick Season”. As if that was supposed to jog my tired mind into a state of immediate recognition. Being a dad who lives for the dad joke, I immediately launched into a ditty worthy of the Grand Ole Opry stage about sticks in our backyard after the snow had cleared. I thought that I was terribly funny. The girls just gave me the look. My eldest daughter reached for the nearest internet-ready device, found the song “Stick Season” and began to play it. As soon as I heard the first notes, I knew that I had actually heard the song on the radio, but, obviously, I never paid any attention to who the singer was or what the song was called. But now, thanks to my two daughters, I knew that the singer was someone called Noah Kahan and that he is supposedly the next big thing, appearing on stage with the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Shawn Mendes, Hozier and other stars from today’s firmament. The girls proceeded to find his entire album, also called Stick Season and play that in its entirety. The lesson in all of this for me….and, substantively, for some of you as well….is that the road to fame and fortune is different now for many of today’s music stars. Technology and social media have changed the way that stars interact with their fans, how they market and promote their music and how rising stars introduce themselves most efficiently to the largest number of people possible, often without leaving the comfort of their bedrooms or basements. Please allow me to pass along to you the lessons that I learned again last night with my daughters who, in many ways, are both excellent teachers. Here is the story of Noah Kahan and why so many people were heading into the city on a work day evening to attend his show.
Noah Kahan was born in 1997 in the small town of Strafford, Vermont. Strafford is nestled between the White and Green Forest National Conservation Areas. It is about a two hour drive northwest from Boston and about a seven hour drive, as the crow flies, from my own home in Cobourg, Ontario. Strafford, Vermont, has a population of barely over 1,000 people, 98% of whom are white, 60% of whom are married couples with families of their own. American flags fly in front of many homes and public buildings there. When you imagine picture-postcard Americana-esque towns, you are thinking of Strafford, Vermont. Noah Kahan grew up in Strafford and has lived there most of his adult life. Not much ever changes in Strafford except the weather. Being as close to the Canadian border as it is, Strafford residents experience the same four seasons of weather that most Canadians do. Thus, Kahan grew up with snow in the winter, rebirth of plant life in the spring, the heat of the summer, and then the cooling begins, with the leaves on the trees changing colour and eventually falling to the ground in the fall, giving the trees a stick-like appearance. Being a resident of a small, sleepy hamlet gave Kahan the opportunity to ponder the beauty of it all. Being the son of a man who was a Jewish musician and a Christian mother who wrote how-to guides to life, Noah Kahan lived in an environment in which he was taught to appreciate the world around him and to be respectful and grateful for the gift of life that he enjoyed in Strafford. It was with this mindset that Noah Kahan learned to play the guitar as a child and was encouraged to write his own original songs and upload them to a file sharing internet site called Soundcloud. Anyone can upload audio files to Soundcloud, even you. All that you do is create an account, activate the microphone on your computer, press the record button on screen and create your own song, spoken word poem, speech, sound effects or whatever your little heart desires. Just like on YouTube, the audio files you create go “live” whenever you click the OK button. At that point, your song, poem, whatever becomes accessible to anyone else with a Soundcloud account. If you are lucky, those first few people who see your file and give it a listen will click the “Like” button. Clicking the “Like” button is important, as is having people agree to “follow” your account. In a world where data rules, having a large number of “likes” and “follows” helps keep your audio files near the top of the viewing list, which means that the chances of more people hearing your work increases. If your audio file really takes off, tens of thousands of people can hear your work without you ever having to change out of your pajamas or leave your bedroom. All that you need is a Soundcloud account, a computer and a microphone and you are good to go. That is how Noah Kahan interacted with the world as a young boy from his home in the small town of Strafford, Vermont, where nothing much ever changes except the weather.
As Noah Kahan grew into a teenager, he opened an account on the streaming platform known as TikTok and another on Instagram. Like many young musicians such as Lil Nas X (profiled in a previous post that you can read here), Noah Kahan began appearing on screen to make short videos in which he interacted directly with fans of his music. In these videos, Kahan would play short samples of a verse from a song or a chorus and ask for feedback from his fans. He would then build up momentum for each new track by dropping new videos as the song’s development progressed. This had the effect of making his fans feel like industry insiders who were in on a special secret that only they and Kahan shared. When the song was complete, Kahan would then start creating videos that gave hints as to when the song would be going live in its final form. Excitement would build among his fans to the point that when Kahan’s latest song did actually go live, there would be a large fanbase already in place and prepared to shower the song with likes and downloads, giving the song large sales numbers without Noah Kahan ever having to leave his home to tour. That having been said, with high sales figures already in hand and a ready made audience eager to see him live, Noah Kahan (and most other musical acts today who market themselves the same way on social media) can confidently set out on tour with tickets available via presale and sold out shows guaranteed. Since I have neither an Instagram nor a TikTok account, I had no idea that someone named Noah Kahan existed, let alone that he was selling tens of thousands of records. Fortunately for the Noah Kahans of the world, my ignorance of his career had no discernible impact on his fortunes, because he was never being marketed to geezers like me in the first place. Instead, he placed his career in the hands of a younger generation for whom being pitched to on their phones is a natural facet of everyday life. To those folks, Noah Kahan was already the next big thing. Last night I learned that he is the next big thing, too. After my wife came home from her dinner, my daughters raced to tell her about how I knew nothing about this guy named Noah Kahan. To my surprise, my wife had heard of him, but only because a member of her school staff had taken his wife to that very same Toronto concert that my daughter’s friend had gone to. According to my wife, when she found out about the concert, her first reaction was “You’re going to see who?”. So, I’m not entirely alone on my island of ignorance. Let’s find out who this guy really is, shall we?
Noah Kahan is an introspective songwriter, first and foremost. He models himself after singer/songwriters such as Paul Simon, Cat Stevens and bands like The Counting Crows. He is more of a coffeehouse-style guitar picker than he is a rocker. When I first heard his song “Stick Season” that my daughter played for me at the dinner table, my immediate reaction was that I really liked this music…when I heard it fifteen years ago as I was being introduced to the music of Mumford and Sons. If you like the folk alt-rock of Marcus Mumford or The Avett Brothers or The Decemberists, then you will probably enjoy Noah Kahan as well. His songs sound exactly the same. That is not a knock. The folk alt-rock genre is a definite style of music that is pleasurable to listen to. It is often played at a slower pace and possesses a more literate, storytelling aspect to the lyrical content. I remain a big fan of the groups that I mentioned above and really think that if you are a fan of those bands, then you probably also like Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot and singer/songwriters of that ilk, too. To place Noah Kahan in that company is a very definite compliment to him that I am not entirely sure he has earned yet. As with any writer worth their salt, it is their voice that you need to hear when you listen to their words. For now, when I listen to “Stick Season”, I hear Mumford and Sons. That is fine as far as that goes, but I already listen to Mumford and Sons for their music. If Noah Kahan wants my attention, then he needs to evolve further and find his own voice so that I hear him in his songs and not the voices of his influences and heroes. But having said that, we all start somewhere and this is where Noah Kahan is at. He sounds professional and polished, and, no doubt, for this generation that may not be as familiar with Bob Dylan or even Mumford and Sons, I am sure that Noah Kahan’s music sounds like poetry to them.
As for this song of his that is a hit, “Stick Season” is built upon a writing foundation that follows the old rule of writing about what you know. “Stick Season” is a song that people who experience weather the way it exists in the four seasons would understand. There is a certain splendour associated with the season of fall. The leaves on the trees change from green to the most glorious reds and yellows and oranges. The whole world becomes magical and beautiful for a few short weeks, and then the leaves begin to turn brown, they wither and one by one, they fall to the ground. This causes the trees to become increasingly bare as the days go by. Then, as quickly as it began, the changing of the leaves is over. The landscape is devoid of colour. All of us eagerly await the first snowfall of winter, as it redesigns our world, freshening it up in one fell swoop, painting everything white and making it all seem so very pure. That time of limbo between the falling of the last coloured leaf and the first pure white snowflake is the time Noah Kahan is referring to as “Stick Season”. In this song, Kahan writes about the breakup of a relationship and how that feeling of loss and separation mirrors the natural world that exists during “stick season”, when the joy of a leaf-coloured world has given way and nothing is happening as we sit and wait for winter’s first flake to fall and give us a renewed sense of purpose for living. The lyrics to this song are fairly mature and are a welcome change from much that passes for music in this modern world. I give Noah Kahan much credit for being a good writer and a good storyteller. I certainly know of that time of which he speaks. We have a “stick season” in Ontario, too. It is drab and dull and sucks, so I understand the references he makes in his song. All in all, I think that “Stick Season” is a worthy song and I congratulate Noah Kahan for having a genuine hit on his hands. I hope that he continues to grow and evolve as a songwriter and as a musician as he experiences the world beyond Strafford, Vermont. Thanks to my girls, I have listened to his album and found that most of his songs sound pretty much the same, so for now, “Stick Season” is all I really need to hear.
Who knows who the next self-made music star will be? Not being as plugged in as many who are these days, I am sure I will find the answer to that question long after the rest of the world does. I came from an era when new talent took to the road and performed in half-empty rooms, only growing in popularity from hard work and word of mouth. Not to say that this was a better way of rising to the top, but do me a favour and watch the beginning of the video for the song “One Armed Scissor” by a punk band called At the Drive-In. You don’t have to listen to the song if punk is not your thing. In this video, the band has returned to their hometown of El Paso, Texas, after having toured for years and finally making a name for themselves. The lead singer takes a minute or so off of the top of the song to chronicle their journey and to thank their fans for sticking with them from the beginning. The link to the video is here. Now, compare that journey (which was made in the 1990s, pre-internet and social media) to the one that singers like Noah Kahan take today. He was a star with a moderately large fan base before he ever played a single show live. Musicians and fans interact differently these days. Whether that is good or bad is not for me to say. It makes sense to those who live life attached to their phones. Perhaps I will have a different tale to tell in a few months because I recently got a phone of my own for the very first time in my life. Right now, I am at the point where if you were to ask for my number in order to send me a text, my ability to accurately give you that number would be purely a guess. Maybe one day soon I will be plugged in and connected to the same extent as so many today and view the matrix as being real life as well. But for now, my main goal is simply to remember to even have my phone with me when I leave the house. I don’t know about you, but I find myself saying “Who?” more and more these days in my own house. This is life now, I suppose. This is how we roll. Last night the answer to my question of “Who?” was Noah Kahan. Please give his song “Stick Season” a listen. Overall, I think it is a pretty good song. Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you have someone that I may or may not have heard of that you wish for me to profile, feel free to let me know that as well in the comments below. On that note, I will take my leave and try to figure out my phone number. Until then, take care. Bye for now.
The link to the official website for Noah Kahan can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to the official website for Soundcloud can be found here.
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