Brian Taylor, an advisor with BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. in Winnipeg, has been toying with a new name for his band, which will be playing April 16 at Winnstock, one of a number of a mini-rock festivals put on by members of the financial services industry.

This year’s Winnstock contenders include the Depressionaires and Hello, I’m Outta Cash, the latter a nod to Johnny Cash’s famous introduction to his Folsom Prison Blues album.

For more than a decade, financial services professionals with a flair for rock ’n’ roll have formed bands and competed during evenings of music for the honour of top band; in the process, they have raised money for charity. It started with Baystock in Toronto in 1998, and soon financial services professionals in other cities began organizing their own events — in Winnipeg, Vancouver, London, Ont., Quebec City and Halifax.

These music festivals generally sponsor charities that otherwise might not attract a lot of attention and sponsorship dollars. The charities also tend to be aimed at helping children. Winnstock, for example, set a record haul last year, bringing in more than $100,000 from about 40 sponsors. Taylor, who plays lead guitar, is also one of the event’s founding organizers; he has played in a band at Winnstock every year since its inception in 2004.

Over the years, Winnstock has raised more than $250,000 in total for various charities, including the local Arthritis Society chapter and the Open Access Resource Centre, which provides communication devices to children with speech impairments. Winnstock also supports the Movement Centre, an organization that promotes physical health in children and adults with physical disabilities.

Winnstock organizers have yet to decide on a recipient for this year’s donation dollars, but Taylor is considering an inner-city scholarship fund.

Baystock, a similar event held in Toronto, got the ball rolling in 1998. It has raised more than $700,000 for more than 30 charities over the years, including Toronto Boys’ Home, Young People’s Theatre, Big Brothers of Metro Toronto, Boy Scouts of Canada, Girl Guides and the Hospital For Sick Children’s Foundation. This year’s Baystock will take place on May 28.

Another element that all the mu-sical fundraising events have in common is Malvin Spooner, president of Mavrix Fund Management Inc. in Toronto. Spooner is credited by all organizers of these events as their inspiration. He helps them get started, gather sponsorship and get organized. He plays guitar and sings in his own band, The Dealers, which has performed at Baystock and makes cross-country “tours” to the other festivals. Mavrix is also a sponsor for all of the events.

The Dealers travel on their own dime, stay at the same hotels and occasionally treat themselves to the full rock-star treatment, complete with limousine rides to the gig and champagne in the green room.

The bands that compete in the various festivals are made up of advisors and others in the financial services industry who may have played in basement bands as teenagers and now play in their spare time. A few may even have played professionally. In many cases, these current-day band members had put their musical ambitions aside to complete university, pursue their professions and raise families. Many had rekindled their musical interests when family obligations became less time-consuming.

“When your kids get bigger,” says Spooner, “you start thinking, ‘Gee, I miss the fun, the relaxation that comes with that kind of activity’.”

Some people, at this point in their careers, get into cars, Spooner says; others get back into music. “It’s a stressful business we’re in,” he adds. “So, any kind of relaxation — getting frustration out of your system — is a treat.”

In many cases, musicians meet up by chance. “You speak to a colleague in financial services you’ve known for years,” Taylor says, “and you don’t realize that he or she has been playing the guitar for 45 years.”

Steve Wahrer, an advisor with Canaccord Capital Inc. in Coquitlam, B.C., is a founding organizer of Vanstock, which will be held this year in Vancouver on Feb. 27. Wahrer, who has been a guitarist since he was 12, is the leader of a band called the Sofa Kings (as in: they’re “Sofa King good”).

A native of Toronto, Wahrer, for a time, resisted joining a band, fearing what might happen when he got a whiff of that life. “I told my wife I wasn’t interested,” Wahrer says of one particular offer, “because, inevitably, I try this out, then I get addicted because music is my love.”

@page_break@Eventually, he did join a band — and he did get hooked. The enjoyment he gets from playing with the Sofa Kings and supporting Vanstock, he says, makes it all worthwhile.

Typically, three bands play at Vanstock: Wahrer’s Sofa Kings, Spooner’s Dealers and Back Beat, another group of financial services professionals. Vanstock, like the other festivals, has grown throughout the years. The event began in the Yale Hotel, a venue that holds about 300 people. For several years, Vanstock raised between $20,000 and $30,000 annually — until last year, when it sold out the legendary Commodore ballroom and raised $75,000.

Since 2005, Vanstock has raised more than $150,000 for the B.C. Arthritis Society, particularly to fund pediatric research programs. Goldcorp Inc. and Canaccord have been chief sponsors for the past two years — as well as of this month’s event.

A recent addition to the tour is Quebec Rocks. Held this past November in Quebec City, the event raised about $20,000 for Regroupement des maisons de
jeunes du Québec, a network of 145 drop-in homes for youths across the city. The Dealers played, and Mavrix was a main sponsor. Ten more businesses joined the cause, including Pictet Asset Management Ltd., Laurentian Bank of Canada, RBC Dexia Investor Services and Industrial Alliance Securities Inc. Desjardins Securities Inc.was a sponsor and also contributed a band, The Broken Brokers.

All of the events are experiencing a bit of a financial pinch this year. Corporate sponsorships are harder to come by, but the movement is still seeing growth. More cities join every year — Halifax hosted a small event last year — and, as the number of events grows, that boosts sponsorship totals across the country.

Taylor is not sure of the name of his Winnstock entry this year, but he’s not worried. Names at these events lean heavily on irony and financial puns. The 2007 Winnstock event featured The Artist formerly known as Money, Sound Advice and Poison Pill.

But whatever name Taylor decides upon, his band’s performance will be steeped in country twang. The band tries to switch genres every year to keep its material fresh. Taylor is looking forward to bringing a fiddle and banjo to the stage.

“This year,” he says, “ it’s really about keeping the momentum going.” IE