About Artist
Elizabeth Yates
Showcase - Thursday, July 19, 2007 @ 09:00
One of Brantford's best-known musicians has never actually played a live gig.
Jesse Stutsman is an Internet phenom, logging more than 200,000 hits for dozens of songs posted on sites including YouTube and MySpace. Cyberspace also allows him to collaborate with musicians as far away as Kenucky and Ireland. And his songs were extremely close to being featured on a new BBC TV comedy show.
All this without ever stepping on a stage.
The Internet is the perfect venue for a 30-year-old multi-instrumentalist and gifted singer-songwriter who's too shy to perform in public.
But Stutsman, who works as an apartment building superintendent and is father to four girls, hopes to step out of his bedroom and into the limelight soon.
"I'll definitely have to hit the open jam scene to test the waters. But I'm very self-conscious. That's what's been holding me back all these years."
Though he played in the concert band at St. John's College and briefly in a local rock band in the late '90s, music was mostly a private obsession for the past few years
Then came the Internet - and supportive messages from hundreds of fans who love his songs.
"People keep giving me feedback," he says in an interview at home on Freeborn Avenue. "They say, 'You should record an album. You should do a show: I'll buy your album, I'll go to your shows.'
"The more it happens, the more you think maybe there's something there."
The warm response - up to 100 comments per video - inspires him to keep making music, posting new songs every few days. It also keeps him busy e-mailing fans.
"It's really surreal to me . . . I get to maintain a personal connection with these people."
Though Stutsman has been posting music to the web for a few years, his popularity skyrocketed after joining YouTube 10 months ago. The video-sharing site is a treasure trove for performers, says Stutsman, who posts his own songs - "dark music with a message" - as well as covers of favourites such as Tenacious D, Pink Floyd and Arlo Guthrie. Currently, he has about 200 videos on the site and 833 suscribers to his channel.
"Things have really exploded for independent artists putting out original stuff. The community is growing and growing and growing."
The web encourages sharing and interacting with fellow musicians - regardless of where they live - taking Stutsman's downloads, adding their own arrangements and instruments, and posting new, mixed versions. (Check out the jinxbeatz remix of Stutsman's The Last Song on YouTube.)
Stutsman's fame almost extended into a whole new medium recently, when a composition called My YouTube Song was initially selected for an upcoming show called LennyHenryTV. To debut this fall, the BBC One program featuring the famed British comic will feature "ridiculous, funny, weird and wonderful" videos culled from the Internet.
When producers first contacted the singer-songwriter, he was incredulous. Signing release forms enforced the reality of it all.
But ultimately, the piece didn't make the final cut, says Kate Wheeler of Tiger Aspect Productions in London. "It's a shame we couldn't use it. It's a very good piece: everyone chuckled a lot."
The extra exposure would have been nice, but Stutsman will keep writing songs, whether he lands a record deal or just lays down his own CD.
A self-taught instrumentalist, the singer usually accompanies himself on acoustic guitar. But he also plays mandolin, flute, piccolo, clarinet, keyboards, percussion and "pretty much anything I can get my hands on."
Music is a compulsion which consumes at least three hours each day. "There are a lot worse things to get addicted to: I'm happy to have a creative outlet," says the father of eight-year-old twins, Olivia and Kennedy, and Libby, 9, and Savanah, 11.
"It's probably one of the main saviours in my life."
