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Festival Man
- Narrated by: Toby Berner
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
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Festival Man
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Summary
Maverick music manager Campbell Ouiniette makes a final destructive bid for glory at the Calgary Folk Festival.
Travel in the entertaining company of a man made of equal parts bullshit and inspiration, in what is ultimately a twisted panegyric to the power of strange music to change people from the inside out.
At turns funny and strangely sobering, this “found memoir” is a picaresque tale of inspired, heroic deceit, incompetence, and - just possibly - triumph. Follow the flailing escapades of maverick music manager Campbell Ouiniette at the Calgary Folk Festival, as he leaves a trail of empty liquor bottles, cigarette butts, bruised egos, and obliterated relationships behind him. His top headlining act has abandoned him for the Big Time. In a fit of self-delusion or pure genius (or perhaps a bit of both), Ouiniette devises an intricate scam, a last hurrah in an attempt to redeem himself in the eyes of his girlfriend, the music industry, and the rest of the world. He reveals his path of destruction in his own transparently self-justifying, explosive, profane words, with digressions into the Edmonton hardcore punk rock scene, the Yugoslavian Civil War, and other epicentres of chaos.
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Critic reviews
“Geoff Berner's debut novel is a fun, fast read. Berner's career as an international touring musician undoubtedly provided a wealth of experience to pull from. Filled with rock’n’roll misadventure and emotional debris, Campbell’s speed-and booze-fuelled ramblings reflect - accurately and often hilariously - the unconventional characters who exist within the music industry.” (Quill & Quire)
“…Berner employs his unreliable narrator as effectively as Paul Quarrington’s Whale Music, or, say, Keith Richards's Life - each of which, page for page, Berner can match with both anecdotal hilarity and razor-sharp Richler-esque satire. Festival Man is required reading for anyone who's ever played, worked or fallen down drunk at a folk festival.” (Maclean’s)
“It’s a picaresque little tale indeed, full of pitfalls, pratfalls, sex, and drugs, but then so’s the business in which Festival Man is set. So be warned: If it's The Sound of Music you’re after, this one’s definitely not for you.” (New York Journal of Books)
“A searing, side-splitting book with charm and character, painting a vivid picture of the Canadian music landscape in all its grand bamboozlery.” (Vancouver Sun)