Soundman quietly supports his causes
Submitted on Sat, 01/14/2006 - 5:48am
By Gordon Kent - The Edmonton Journal, Sunday, January 08, 2006
EDMONTON -- Mike Tulley has spent much of his life making sure the causes he supports get their messages out.
The soft-spoken Riverdale resident doesn't make many speeches, but if there's a peace march, an arts fundraiser or a labour rally, Tulley is usually there -- operating the sound equipment.
For the past 35 years the sound engineer has been volunteering behind the scenes with the many causes he supports, hoping his work will help make the world a little better.
"I do not have the skill of speaking to people, motivating them, organizing them ... . I'm taking the skills I have and putting them to the service of what I believe in," Tulley says.
"I'm technical support for a culture of joy and freedom. I'm the guy in the background making sure you can hear all that joy and freedom."
American-born Tulley, 57, grew up in several foreign countries as he moved with his family to his father's various postings with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He went to high school in the United States, but fled to Edmonton in 1970 after deserting the army when he learned he would have to serve in Vietnam as an infantryman instead of a non-combatant medic.
His early life and his "Irish liberal" father shaped his political leanings.
"Possibly my experience growing up in many countries left me with the feeling that killing people isn't the best way to resolve personal or political differences."
Tulley has been involved in hundreds of local events, from the May Week labour arts festival to fundraising picnics to the mass protests in 2000 against a provincial bill allowing expansion of private health care. The biggest demonstration he has worked is the 2003 march down Jasper Avenue that attracted 18,000 people opposed to the pending American attack on Iraq. It was part of national action "which I think persuaded the ... government of Canada not to join the U.S. in the invasion," he says.
In recognition of his work, Tulley won the 10th annual Salvos Prelorentzos Peace Award in November from Project Ploughshares. The award, named for a longtime member of the peace group who died in 1995, is intended to honour "unsung heroes" of the movement, award committee chair Melle Huizinga says. "Mike has for 35 years been there, given his time and his equipment ... freely," Huizinga says. "He is a really superb example... . The Salvos award is going to someone who shows integrity and walks the talk."
Tulley, who received a plaque and $250, is also an engineer at University of Alberta radio station CJSR and is active in Edmonton's alternative music scene with his company MKT Systems Ltd.
He has provided sound for such varied acts as the hip-hop funk of Eshode bin Wyza, folk singer Maria Dunn and garage rockers Vertical Struts.
True to his beliefs, he's one of about 40 local members of the Industrial Workers of the World and uses the union to help him negotiate for his own staff.
Eventually, he hopes to turn his business into a worker-run collective, although not until "I can no longer lift heavy boxes and I'm too deaf," he says with typical self-deprecation.