ROARING
GIRL (r)EVOLUTION
words by Randy Alexander
It takes the right mix of determination and passion to take on the
daunting task of starting your own independent record label, especially in the ever evolving music industry, but that’s the new path
taken by Miranda Mulholland and Amanda VanDenBrock. They
didn’t even know each other a few years ago, but when they first met
it was evident that music ran in their collective veins. They are a
likely pairing, and with the recent founding of their own label Roaring Girl Records, they are set to make music together.
She’s the girl with the 100 year old fiddle. Born and raised in Guelph,
Ontario, classically trained Miranda Mulholland had a violin placed
in her hands by academic parents at age four. It was a good fit. Miranda stayed with her instrument through opera performance studies at
McGill and Queen’s University, parlaying her talents into a music career that has included being a member of Great Lake Swimmers, Belle
Star and The Rattlesnake Choir, extensively touring North America
and Europe. (And yes – she owns a 100 year old fiddle she once borrowed at a folk fest jam, instantly fell in love with it, and eventually
bought it, adding it to her fiddle collection.) For some time Miranda
had wanted to release her own solo album, but on her own terms.
She’s the girl with the 45 rpm spindle adapter tattoo. At an early age,
Amanda VanDenBrock gravitated towards the rhythms of the airwaves. In Delhi, Ontario, her parents had more success entertaining
their daughter by sticking her in front of a stereo than a television;
she clearly preferred the fm dial to the tv dial. Much like her father,
Amanda was a natural music aficionado. As a teenager, she consumed the likes of Supertramp, Bob Dylan and Depeche Mode, but
she wasn’t just your typical concert-going teenybopper. She wanted
to know about these performers’ lives, their backgrounds, how they
worked and played, how they crafted their art. She studied their lives
through a voracious curriculum of Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine,
and during her university years, she realized she wanted to pursue a
career in the music industry.
(btw…a 45 rpm spindle adapter is the small plastic insert that allows
a 45 rpm record to play on a turntable record player. A turntable
record player is…never mind…google it…)
In 2011, Miranda and Amanda met backstage at a Blue Rodeo concert at Massey Hall and quickly discovered they shared similar values
- a kinship towards musicians, a strong sense of community within
the Canadian music industry, and a desire to collaborate with artists
of various genres and generations. Miranda expressed a desire to produce her own album, but was hesitate to sign with a large music label,
which would come with creative restrictions and numerous conditions. At that point in her music management career, Amanda had
had successful stints with the likes of Blue Rodeo and Lights, and it
was her experience that as long as there was an avenue for distribution, it was very feasible to form your own independent label. In
early 2014 they decided together to form their own independent record label - Roaring Girl Records - named after the Jacobean comedic
stage play The Roaring Girl.
Although Miranda and Amanda have very differing music industry
backgrounds, Miranda being more the vocalist/performer/songwriter
and Amanda’s experiences more so on the side of artist management,
they 6