The Brights - Living Loving and Dreaming

Postscript

2011-09-30T22:25:00.000-04:00

Our 13-1/2 hour drive actually only lasted about 13 -- which includes all of our pit-stops and stopping for lunch in Blind River.

We won't mention which one(s) of us has a lead foot... ;-)

We pulled in to Swanmore Terrace for the FridayFolk opener, and couldn't find a parking spot! Had to park up the road. I've never been so happy to not find a parking spot in my life.

Missed Tyler's opening set, but got there just towards the end of first intermission. Paul was out for his smoke break and gave us big hugs as we came in. Our newest volunteer, Meredith, was doing the announcements -- way to step up to the plate, Meredith!

I've never been so happy to be not needed. :-)

We caught all of Andrew's first set. Then... we just couldn't do it any more. Hugged hellos and goodbyes to many people, and headed home to unpack.

The cats looked at us blankly for a moment or two. Cookie ran outside, realized it was cold, then came the snuggle fest. Both of them have forgiven us, life is good.

Walked into the kitchen -- Paul had left us flowers and GFB's (great flippin' -- not really flippin', but you get it -- brownies, for the unitiated) as a welcome home.

It's good to be loved.

And it's good to be home. There are piles of mail to sort through... eventually. I've found the cheques, the rest can wait. :-)

We cracked open one of the many bottles of champagne still in our fridge from the wedding. We survived the tour. We still love each other. Our friends still love us. Our cats forgave us in less than ten minutes. Life is good.

Much love and gratitude to all who braided paths with us on the road, and all who kept the home fires burning.

We are blessed.

Alyssa & Don

Day 40 - the end

2011-09-30T22:16:00.000-04:00

The last day of the tour -- the long drive home (13-1/2 hours, oy!).

There's a reason why all the long journeys in the bible are said to take 40 days and 40 nights. Oh sure, there's that whole numerological / biblical reason, but the most obvious reason for me today is:

FORTY DAYS IS A FRIKKEN' LONG TIME!!!

At least we didn't have to share our home with all the animals of the world -- although a dog to keep my feet warm would have been nice. :-)

It rained and poured for forty day-sies day-sies day-sies

Rained and poured for forty day-sies day-sies day-sies

Must have driven the whole world crazy crazy

Children of the lord...

Forty days gives a lot of time for transformation -- of the self, of the world around the self.

When we left, it was the middle of a heat wave. Today, on the drive home, we're seeing snow -- yes, SNOW. Just when I was looking forward to a Margarita...

When we left, the country had just lost Jack. This weekend, people across the country are taking part in Turning Point, an exciting new movement created by Lead Now, and inspired by Jack's parting letter.

Don and I are still married and still talking (although it came close when he served me watery decaf this morning), which is a miracle in itself after six weeks in each others' faces 24 hours a day! Although my introverted self is looking forward to being able to lock myself in a room all by myself for a few minutes again.

Hmm... what do I miss most on the road? Fresh fruit and the ability to be antisocial. ;-)

Makes it seem even more funny that I'm looking forward to girls' night tomorrow, but then again... they're girls. :-)

For those of you wondering, yes we did wake up at 6:00. Were on the highway by 7:00 -- no coffee shop to be seen until Marathon, though, and that was a Robin's. We have yet to enjoy anything from a Robin's, but we were desperate. Tasted like crap, but it had caffeine. Held us over 'til Wawa, where there's at least a Tim Horton's. Our next stop was just outside the Sault, in Goulais River, so I could pick up the novel I'd left behind the first night of our tour -- just as I was getting to the good stuff! We gassed up in Sault Ste. Marie and I took over the driving for a while as -- you guessed it -- Don slept.

We were making good time, so stopped in Blind River at Pier Seventeen (where we'd stopped on our way home from Red Rock in August) for a late lunch. Cream of mushroom soup (comfort food to stave off the snow) and a halibut burger for me. Sirloin burger with fries for Don. A nice break, then Don went back into the driver's seat.

The snow has turned to drizzle now. Mother Nature has wrapped herself in all those colours your human mother said only belonged together in the wash -- reds, oranges, pinks, purples. The trees are almost iridescent in their rainbowy state. Every time we get a glimpse of Superior, the waves are crashing up against the rocks, reminding us that Mother Mare isn't one to be messed with. I'm enjoying all these strong feminine images -- maybe it's because I'm gearing up for girls' night with some of the strongest women I know; maybe it's because in my exhausted state, I need a reminder of what lies beneath and will be at my disposal once I'm taking care of myself again.

Why does taking care of details always come ahead of taking care of myself? No wonder I'm exhausted...

I'm reminded of the first song I wrote for Lilly, just after she was born -- or maybe she wrote it for me?

Ground yourself upon the earth

Take inspiration from the skies

Circle has brought you here, circle within you lies.

Fire, Earth, Air and Sea

Just Breathe

We left early so we wouldn't get home too late -- didn't want to hit a moose in the night our our last day of the tour, and we want to get home in time to at least see the last set of the FridayFolk season opener. I look at the clock, 5:30pm, they should be setting up now. I'm fretting about all the things I usually fret about at 5:30, even though there's nothing I can do about it from the Sudbury region! There's a team in place, all is well. I want to see Andrew play, but I'm kind of toying with the idea of not going -- don't want the new team to think I don't trust them to do it without me (I'm thrilled they're doing it without me!); and I don't trust myself to not try and help once I get there.

If you saw the bags under my vacant-stare eyes, you would know I'm in no shape to help out in any capacity. But try and convince Little Miss Helper-Bee when push comes to shove... Maybe I should go in with an "I'm not really here" sign on my shirt? :-) They're going to be on their own for the most part next month, as well, so they're going to have to get used to it -- Don will be freshly out of hospital and stuck in bed.

Ah yes, with the closeness to home comes all the stuff that could be put on hold while we were away, avoided, ignored... I know there are at least 140 "to-do's" I hit "snooze until October 1" on... guess what day tomorrow is? No wonder I'm looking forward to girls' night. :-)

Looking forward to the treadmill (yes, really!) and losing this lump of flab that keeps blocking the computer. Looking forward to cooking food that doesn't have 4 times my daily sodium requirement or 3 times the fat limit. Drinking water out of my big JB glass. Getting clothes out of a closet instead of a suitcase. WEARING A DIFFERENT PAIR OF PANTS.

Seeing the pussycats and waking up totally uncomfortable because I didn't want to move Cookie. Having Bomber start yelling at me an hour before breakfast.

Hey, seeing the completed roof!

Getting the students back into shape, getting my classical self back into shape, getting my inbox back in shape, getting the front yard back in shape (that's as far as I go -- the back'll just have to wait).

Oy. We're home. The tour is over, everything else is about to begin.

But first -- girls' night.

Musically and manically,

Alyssa

A nice way to end the tour!

2011-09-30T16:42:00.000-04:00

Another sleep in -- yay! But Don finally gave up and woke me -- John had an energy audit guy coming in at 11:30, and we wanted to be out of his hair by then. They'd saved me some coffee. :-)

A bit of visiting and chit-chat, a fair bit of arguing about him paying us back for dinner the night before -- what can we say?: we're stubborn, and greatly appreciative of having a place to stay. Don loaded the suitcases in the trunk, and then we prepared to load the instruments. "Where are your suitcases?" asked John.

"Already in the trunk!"

"Well, how am I supposed to sneak money into your suitcase when you're not looking?"

Mwaahaaaahaaaaa...

OK, we were sneaky, but he was even sneakier -- later that night, when we got back to our room, there was an e-mail from John to check the glove compartment. Grrrr...

Hey, I know you've got a PayPal account, buddy! ;-)

As previously mentioned, it was the first grey, low-ceilinged, drizzly day of fall. I was finally wearing knits. Getting ready to cocoon, but not yet... just a little longer.

Don still had to get his nails done, as he was making the type of crackly sounds with them that make my teeth sweat and my spine go fizzledy -- and not in a good way. So he dropped me at the closest Starbucks and went in search of a nail place. I enjoyed a pumpkin loaf and grande bold and did some blogging and e-mails. My battery started to limp just as a table next to a receptacle freed up -- but where the heck was my husband? He had been stuck in traffic, went to the first mall where there was no nail place, but a hairdresser sent him to another place who sent him to another place and then he got stuck in traffic again.

Oh well, at least we weren't in a hurry this time. Only a two-hours-and-a-bit drive today. He finally got back and grabbed his own breakfast -- bringing me a second grande bold. Don checked his e-mails for a sec, and then we got ready to hit the road, with Don saying he needed to fill up the gas tank on his way out of town.

Twenty minutes out of town, he remembered this statement, just as the yellow light started flickering on and off...

What starts with 4 and rhymes with more sight?

I pulled up MapQuest -- no gas station listed for an hour and a half. We headed back to Thunder Bay.

Gas in car and tongue firmly bitten down, we got back on the highway.

Oh well, at least we weren't in a hurry this time...

The drive was incredibly windy, but incredibly beautiful. The hills, the rocks, the lake, the waves... the fall colours! The reds and oranges had been shocked into display, and the yellows just brilliant.

Big sweater / roaring fire / hot chocolate kind of day. We settled for fleece / grande bold / turn the heat up in the car. Soon, soon...

We got to the turnoff for the Rossport loop. Quickly found the Serendipity Gardens Guest House, with a sign to check in at the Cafe, about 400 metres ahead. Sure enough, there was the cafe -- a cute spot from the outside, with colourful Muskoka chairs laid out along the grounds and a big staircase leading up the hill into the main building.

There was nobody eating there, but it was late afternoon. Roger was the first to come out and greet us, and called his wife Mary shortly after. We signed in to the guest house (complimentary, as part of our payment for the night), and he brought out our "breakfast box" to take back to the room for morning -- a cute blue and white thermos purse, filled with juice, yogourt and muffins.

They showed us the corner where we'd be playing, so we decided to set up before the dinner folks showed up. They directed us to the alley and parking lot out back, so we didn't have to haul all our stuff up those stairs! We loaded everything in and started to set up.

Mary offered us a glass of wine, which we declined for now, but told her we'd take her up on it after we were finished singing. She also told us dinner was also on the house -- a pleasant surprise. It was easiest for her to serve us before the regular guests came in, and that would give us time to digest before we sang, too. She gave us a couple of menus and set us up at a table.

The menu looked fabulous, and there was also a fresh-caught fish entree. But my eyes had already been caught by the spanakopita and greek salad. Don ordered the mediterranean chicken. Both these came with the soup of the day, which was a bean soup. Mary started us off with a basket of hot bread and little bowl of spicy olives. I hadn't realized I was so hungry...

Out came the soup, in big platter-like bowls. Good thing I was hungry, because it was a meal in itself -- nice and hearty, more like a bean stew than a bean soup! We ate it all. :-)

And then, Mary brought out an armload of food. We looked around the room -- no, that big group of ten hadn't arrived yet, this was all for us! A platter of THREE spanakopita slices for me, plus a separate dinner-plate sized greek salad. Don had a giant platter with rice, vegetables, mediterranean chicken and greek salad. Good thing we still had a few hours before showtime!

I dove into the first triangle -- and perhaps burnt my mouth a bit in my enthusiasm. It was worth it. :-) I realized, though, that if I ate everything in front of me, it would take more than a few hours to digest! So I aimed to finish the salad and just the first triangle -- the other two would be nice as a midnight snack or car picnic.

Don ate the whole darned thing. :-)

The dinner guests were coming in, so we grabbed a to-go box from Mary before she got too busy, and took it and our breakfast box to the guest house.

From the outside, it's a bright and cheery aquamarine-painted building, looking a bit like two tall and skinny barns or perhaps fat church arches glued together. Inside are four separate guest rooms. We were in room 4, which is on the second floor. We let ourselves in the front door, and walked up the wooden staircase, taking a peek at all the local art on the walls, and the bookcases at each landing. Let ourselves into room #4 and... WOW!

The four trusses rise up from the corners, curving up to meet in the centre of the ceiling -- the walls and ceiling are a mixture of red cedar, spruce and pine. More like a cathedral than a hotel room. And a beautiful room! Very large, with a bed area, a living room area, kitchenette / dining area, and a huge bathroom with big bathtub -- I promise myself a bubble bath after the show (but never make it...).

I settle down on the couch with the laptop. Don lies on the bed "to look at the ceiling". Yeah, whatever... I type to the sound of snoring. :-)

Almost showtime! I wake up sleeping beauty, and we head back to the cafe. We pop in the back door and Mary tells us that Liz, Kathy and Tim are here from Red Rock. We head over to their table and enjoy a nice round of hugs. This is the first time we've seen Liz in a while -- she was in China when we were at the festival this summer, and is full of interesting stories about her work and travels. Kathy is the hospitality co-ordinator for Live From The Rock, so doesn't get much chance to visit or listen during the festival, so she was looking forward to being able to sit down and finally hear a full show with us. We enjoyed a nice visit with the three of them, and then Roger said it was time to get started.

We headed to our "stage" and tuned up. The party of ten stood up and made a hasty retreat. Ah well, not music lovers... they were soon replaced by a number of people who were coming in just for the show -- including some more friends from the festival, and a bunch of total strangers (otherwise known as future friends!).

We're working without a P.A., but the acoustics are so good, we don't really need one -- once the table of ten makes it out the door and the grannies in the corner get the "sshhhh" hints aimed their way. It's kind of like a house concert, but in a really big living room overlooking Lake Superior. :-)

Roger has built the cafe, as well as the guest house -- quite a master, in our opinion! He and Mary are obviously music lovers, too, and Roger is often asking Don about various tunings he's using, etc. The audience -- even the grannies, eventually -- is attentive and appreciative, and we're having a great time.

We take what's supposed to be a short break, as our start time was delayed with the large business group that left, but everyone's wanting to chat, so... we chat back (surprise!). But we know Mary wanted to put her feet up by 11:00 (she's been working solo tonight, as her scheduled staffer's mother was in hospital), so we ease our way back to the stage for our second set.

We're finished. The tour is over. Wow, we did it -- just one 13-1/2 hour drive to go! (Just?!?)

Some more visiting with friends new and old, and then folks gradually trickle out to their cars (nobody in the audience was actually from Rossport, everyone had a bit of a drive still). Big hugs from our Red Rock crew.

Roger brought us each a glass of Merlot (he pours like my sister -- right to the top, yeah!), and we started to pack up.

Mary had a quandry -- only one piece of chocolate cake left, what to do, what to do? ;-) Don opted for the cake, and I went for the cheesecake. She disappeared in the back for a moment and came out with two GINORMOUS plates of dessert, all artistically drizzled in chocolate sauce and raspberry syrup.

We sat down to eat, drink and chat with our ever-so-generous hosts. As well as running the cafe and guest house, Mary is a parole officer for youth in the area -- and a very wide area it is. Roger came to Canada in '68 from Ohio, and his design and construction expertise is self-taught. They both love music of all sorts of varieties, although seem to have a leaning towards the rootsy side. And they've got strong pouring arms -- Mary refilled our Merlot with a Tarah-pour, to help us digest those giant desserts (Don finished, I left the last few bites).

More big hugs good-bye, and an invitation for us to return anytime -- they loved it when someone of our quality came to their venue!

We headed back to our beautiful room at the guest house, just leaving the instruments in the car -- there are only 35 households in Rossport, and the parking spot was right under our window, and it hadn't yet gotten TOO cold outside.

I decided to forego the bubble bath, as it was after midnight and we were setting the alarm for 6:00 -- yes, really. We signed the guest book and settled down for a very short sleep.

It was a great way to end the tour, though -- a fun concert, a fabulous meal and a great place to stay. When the last memory of the tour is a good one, it's more likely we'll go on another one sometime. :-)

Musically,

Alyssa

Heading home

2011-09-29T13:27:00.001-04:00

I am blogging about Wednesday, though today is Thursday. I'm sitting in a Starbucks (surprise!) while Don is out finding a place to do his nails. It's the first real day of fall -- at least, in Thunder Bay. The sky is grey, clouds hanging low and being blown to and fro. We had to swerve around numerous empty garbage pails and lids to get here. The leaves are swirling.

I am finally wearing one of my warm shirts, for the first time all tour. In the next 36 or so hours, I'm gonna have to wear four more plus a couple of sweaters in order to justify their presence in my suitcase. :-)

Ah well, if I hadn't packed them, the weather would have been freezing all month!

So, back to Wednesday.

Another travel day, so not terribly exciting. Even Mr. and Mrs. GrumpyPutz were hidden out of sight (and sound).

We woke up early -- yes, really -- so we could say good-bye to Sam and Susan before they went to work. Sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee, commenting on articles in the paper -- you know, that stuff people normally do when they wake up early for work. :-) Sam grabbed an extra cup, which he acknowledged would make him late for work, but... I guess he didn't want the visit to end, either! Susan left first, Sam when his coffee was finished -- I think he got out the door around 8:20, which didn't bode well for his 8:30 start. :-)

I got some last-minute stuff done for the OFS and home -- the cell connection from the provincial border in to Thunder Bay being rather questionable -- then got dressed and packed up, while Don filed the gas tank.

We left the house more or less when we'd wanted. MapQuest sent us on an extremely convoluted route out of town, much of it under construction, too. A few wrong turns and u-turns later, we were finally close to the highway. Quick Starbucks search and... bonus, we're just about to be there! Properly loaded up, we hit the highway. Despite the late highway-getting-to, Mr. and Mrs. GrumpyPutz are nowhere to be seen. :-)

We did a little happy-dance as we crossed the provincial border. Almost home!!!

Took a little detour / scenic route / didn't really know what we were doing into Kenora, but found our way back to the main highway without a problem -- somebody should really update MapQuest, though, that 17A is the way to go around! OK, I guess that would be us...

Internet and cell connections disappeared -- ah yes, we must be on the north shore of Superior. You know, the place where the map shows a bunch of coverage and we and our other touring friends have yet to find any? Let it go, Lyssy, let it go...

Another little happy dance as we passed the sign indicating the time change. Now we're the same time zone as home!

The rest of the trip was fairly standard, albeit with some construction taking time away. We ended up reaching Thunder Bay about an hour and a half later than we'd wanted to get there -- oops!

We had offered to take John and Sharron out for dinner as a thank you, but their grandson was staying with them on a surprise visit this week (his mom was sick), so we'd decided to order in, instead. When we arrived at the house, Sharron and Nathan were heading out for a "b" errand -- getting bread, bananas, etc. We loaded our stuff in with John, making our way around the lego and trucks (most of the time!). Had a nice visit, were wondering what was taking Sharron and Nathan so long, but they finally arrived, with the reason for their delay -- Nathan was halfway through a banana-strawberry smoothie!

Back in the house, Nathan took it upon himself to show us all his toys. Don enjoyed playing with them far too much. :-) Nathan was showing us all his police cars and ambulances with sirens on the top, and I mentioned that Don used to be a firefighter and had a fire truck with a big red siren. Nathan's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he nearly exploded... then he found his two red fire hats and all of his various fire trucks. Boy bliss. :-)

The adults tried to figure out where to order in from -- it got narrowed down to Kelsey's or Appleby's, but Kelsey's was the easiest menu to find, so it won. Yes, we're definitely closer to home -- all we needed was for Kim to greet us at the bar!

Sharron attempted to get Nathan into the bath, while John and Don headed out to pick up the food. Apparently, there was quite a fight over who was going to pay the bill. Don won, but I'm not sure how he did it -- I ask no questions. :-)

Occasionally accompanied by Nathan, who was having trouble falling asleep, the four of us sat at the kitchen table and ate our meals with a lovely bottle of Shiraz, followed by a bottle of "Sharron's Plonk", as John called it -- which was perfectly good as well.

Just when we thought it was safe... Sharron brought out dessert! Neither Don nor I could even conceive of it -- we'd eaten far too much already. We promised to do it for breakfast (oops, just realized we didn't keep that promise, AND I forgot my leftovers in the fridge -- hope you like lemon-pepper shrimp penne, John and Sharron!).

A bit more visiting, and then it was definitely nap time! John and Sharron were in Nathan's room, with him on a camping mat on the floor and Remo (the golden retriever) out in the hall. We, once again, were given the master bedroom -- people are far too nice to us!

Musically -- and maybe doing a little almost-home-happy-dance,

Alyssa

Birthday Day / The Mists of Avalon / Oh Canada!

2011-09-28T21:10:00.002-04:00

I did hear Sam and Susan leave for work Tuesday morning, but then my go-back-to-bed gene kicked in, and that was the end of that. Still, when I woke again, Don was comatose and snoring his birthday snores. I played a few rounds of Sudoku to warm up my brain before making demands of my body -- besides, I was kind of trapped, having taken the side of the bed against the wall, so Don could get up first without waking me up. So much for that... :-)

Finally, I heard a mumbled "good morning". And I broke into Happy Birthday -- but quietly. :-) We'd agreed to actually celebrate "for real" once we got home, but he at least needed a birthday song!

This was the day for me to finish up the Orillia Folk Society stuff, before I entered the no-internet territory around Thunder Bay (no Rogers, your map is still lying through its teeth, there is no signal, no matter how many ways your so-called Customer Service representatives invent to talk down to me!), as well as taking care of some personal stuff back home. So much of the day was spent in my slouches at the kitchen table -- oh, the glamour! :-)

Don was playing with Sam's guitar in the living room, and fell in love with his clip-on tuner. At 3:15, he announced he was going to go to Long & McQuade to get one, and then get his nails done on the way back.

I reminded him we had to leave the house at 5pm to get to our gig and there would be rush hour traffic. No problem, he said.

Remember what I mentioned in the previous blog about foresight?

About ten past four, just as I'm about to go upstairs to wash my hair, I get a call on my cell -- he's lost, still hasn't made it to Long & McQuade.

Seriously.

I figure out where he is and talk him in the rest of the way. Call another ten minutes later to make sure he found it. Yes. Good.

Shower time! (Once again, you're welcome.)

When I get out of the shower, Sam and Susan are home. No sign of Don. They would have been home earlier, but they were stuck behind an accident on Main St. for over half an hour.

Yes, Main Street, the road Don will be coming home on.

Seriously.

I call Don's cell again to figure out where he is. Fortunately, he got lost again (!) on the way home and asked a guy for directions, which steered him around the worst of it. He's just around the corner.

5:15, Don arrives home to change and get his instruments ready for our 5:00 departure. (!) He's got two new tuners (even though his two old tuners worked just fine and we have several Long & McQuade-s back home... just sayin'), but is not certain his nails will last through the gig. (!!!)

5:28, we make our 5:00 departure.

Fortunately, Sam and Susan have given us an alternate route that isn't too clogged. As we're about 5 minutes away from our destination, Don exclaims "oh, this is where I turned to go to Long & McQuade this afternoon!".

Seriously.

Foresight, remember? When checking the route to Long & McQuade, he never clued in to the fact that it's right around the corner from Pam and Kevin's (where he's been before), nor did he think to check, at 3:15 when he left, whether this was something we could do en route from the north end of the city to the south end of the city.

Seriously.

But it was his birthday. And it's considered bad form to call your husband a dimtwit on his birthday. No matter how much you'd like to.

Seriously.

So I smiled and ignored and tucked it all away for the day-after-birthday blog, when I'm once again allowed to call him a dimtwit without breaking the birthday code. :-)

Seriously.
(Just once more, for old-time's sake...)

We find Pam and Kevin's house without further ado -- "Avalon Arts". Pam answers the door and is all big hugs, even for me, who she's just met. I like hugs. :-)

We load our gear in, and then she introduces us to two guests who have come early to join them for dinner -- Kian and Zeinab, who just arrived here in August from Iran to study at the University. Pam and Kevin seem to make it a habit to take foreign students under their wing -- another former student, Tiago, has now moved back here from Brazil, and will be at the concert later, too. So our Avalon Arts concert is a truly international event!

Kian and Zeinab are a lovely young couple, still trying to get the hang of Canadian slang and catch up with Pam and Kevin's fast-talking son, but doing beautifully with the language, helping out wherever they can, and trying very hard to adapt to the culture in their new home. (As Pam later commented, it must be quite the culture shock for Shiite Muslims from a rather fundamentalist country to come to Winnipeg -- Zeinab is learning to knit mittens and toques now! -- and a community of people who are constantly hugging each other!)

Kian played us some music from a CD by a traditional Persian singer and an old American blues guy -- the blending was beautiful, and the song we listened to was presented with her singing the original song, and then he would translate the poetry into English and sing it blues-style. He promised to send us a link to their iTunes page -- we'll share when we get it!

Don ate dinner with them too, as he hadn't had time to even have lunch, while I set up the CDs and mailing list. Then the other guests started coming in. It was a really great group of people, including their friend Wendy, who shares a birthday with Don -- although, as she pointed out, a decade later. :-) Someone (perhaps her husband? I didn't notice) had brought in a giant birthday cake -- which we had to just look at until we'd finished singing. :-(

All the guests had arrived, so we started our first set a bit before 7:30. What an appreciative audience!!! We kept hearing "wow" after many of our songs. AND they loved Scarlett (my accordion, for the uninitiated) almost as much as I do. My voice was finally getting back to its normal, healthy self -- my brain seemed to be going in the other direction. A few "whoopsie!" moments, but people were kind and forgiving -- thank you, Winnipeg. :-)

Break time, and we enjoyed visiting with Pam and Kevin's friends. Some of them had been out to see Don's solo concert way back in 2004, and came out to see him again. It was, as always, fun chatting with everyone, but we were conscious of the fact that many folks had to wake up the next morning, so Pam urged everyone back to the living room for the second set.

OK, the voice had a wee moment on the last high note of "Real Big Man", but other than that, it was feeling back to normal. Wish I could say the same for my brain... I haven't messed up the accompaniment so badly all tour. Sigh... Once again, very forgiving folks. We finished the set, got excited to finally eat cake, but they wanted an encore. :-)

They got the encore, we got cake. Everyone was happy. :-)

AND birthday girl Wendy won the "line from a famous Canadian poem" contest -- the 4th person ever to do so, with the first 3 being from B.C. Happy Birthday, Wendy!

A few folks stayed around to chat, but not terribly late. Kian and Zeinab helped to tidy up while we packed up our things, and then Kevin got ready to drive them and Tiago back home -- we think there's the beginning of a wonderful multi-national friendship between the three of them! We headed out ourselves, with big hugs all 'round.

As we were driving home, we had big silly grins on our faces. We'd had just a fabulous evening and, despite my brain farts, were enjoying quite the music high -- as well as the joy shared with Pam and Kevin's friends. Plus, we were really loving the fact that we lived in Canada, where Iranians and Brazilians can sit in Winnipeg and listen to music from Ontario that draws its roots from myriad other cultures. Oh Canada!

Still glowing today, in fact.

Seriously. :-)

We got back to the house, where Susan's meeting had just ended about 20 minutes before we got there. Sam had been working on proposals all night. We gave him the hug and the kick in the shins Pam had sent for not being there. :-)

They were easily tempted with a bottle of Dirty Laundry's Pinot Gris, though, and we headed to the sunroom to chat about our evenings.

Susan was beat, but Sam wanted to show us some of what he'd done with our photos, and transfer the originals to our hard drives. They're looking great! I have zero room left on my hard drive, so will have to show them to you when we get home -- not much longer now!

JPGs transferred, we all went to bed for a short sleep.

Musically and multiculturally,
Alyssa

Monday -- beginning of Week Six!

2011-09-28T13:52:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the delay, folks -- yes, we had just a travel day, but with much personal stuff to attend to, plus had to organize the Orillia Folk Society's season opener with Andrew Collins and Tyler Knight this Friday, plus... Don had the audacity to ask me to drive part of the route. ;-)

Not a huge amount to report about Monday, anyhow. We were awakened at 6:30am by a call from my dentist office, reminding me about next week's appointment. Geez, lady, when Don told you a few days ago that we were out west, did you not think about the time change?!? Ugh...

I am the master of falling back asleep. Don, not so much... When the alarm went off, he wasn't in bed. A few snooze buttons later, and I realized he was nowhere to be seen, either. Saw, finally, a note on my laptop that he'd gone back to 23 Main Street for breakfast with his laptop. I had just sent him an e-mail to ask him to bring me a coffee and a treat (remember those coffee-in-the-morning wedding vows?), when he came in the door. Empty Handed. So much for the wedding vows...

We packed up the car, checked out of Capone's Hideaway, and found the Starbucks. Where I bought the coffee. Hmmm... maybe I should take the same kind of liberties with the whole "forsaking all others" part?!?

And yes, this man was about to be stuck in a car with me for seven hours. Foresight was never Don's forte...

And so, Mr. & Mrs. Grumpyputz made the journey from Moose Jaw to Winnipeg. Descriptions eliminated so as not to upset small children or other mortals. Started with Don driving, me working. Then me driving, Don sleeping. Then me driving, Don playing Solitaire. Then Mrs. Grumpyputz having a bit of a snarkyfit. Then Don driving, me working. Then Don driving, me navigating us in to Winnipeg.

We got to Sam & Susan's place pretty much on schedule -- we had been running early, but construction on the way in had slowed us down at the very end. It was yet another glorious evening. The front door was open, so we loaded in our stuff and called our hello-s. Silence. Hmm... We heard running water -- maybe they were in the shower? Nope, that was the dishwasher. Maybe they'd been kidnapped by aliens or those guys in the purple-blue shirts (long story -- see below)? Maybe they'd heard about the snarkyfit and were hiding?

I looked out the back window and saw the top of Susan's head down by the water. We made our way down the lawn and found both of them back there, enjoying some rye & gingers and watching the water. Susan sat me down in one of their new "gravity chairs", and Sam sent Don to get us our rye & gingers. Balance was restored. :-)

OK, the story of the purple-blue shirts: When we were staying at Sam & Susan's on our way west last month, Don was walking back to the house after getting his nails done, when an older guy on a bicycle asked if he could speak to him for a moment? He pointed to Don's shirt, and said "I just wanted to say that I know about all you guys with the purpley-blue shirts. I just wanted you to know that I'm aware of what you're doing, and even though it's top secret I think it's a really good thing you're doing it, and I support what you're doing. I'd really like to help you out, but I have some things to do first, you know, I have some mental health issues I have to sort out first, but I wanted you to know that I'm totally in agreement with what you're doing, and I thank you guys for doing what you're doing." [Whatever that is.] Don said "thank you very much, I appreciate your support," and off he went.

So, back to Monday...

Rye and gingers finished -- well, actually, I had been sipping daintily, but was ordered to "chug", because people were hungry ;-) -- we got ready to head out. We'd offered to take Sam and Susan out for dinner, to thank them for putting up with us yet again. A discussion ensued (we aren't the only ones!): Sam wanted to go to Colosseo, Susan to Civita. Sam was driving, so he appeared to be winning...

But, once the parking spot was found, we had to walk by Civita first. The menu was looking pretty darned good, so we decided to head there. It was fairly quiet, being a Monday, and there was only one water on staff -- she somehow covered TWO patios and the inside dining room, where we ended up. Sam said if we were getting dinner, they'd get the wine, and ordered a litre of Fat Bastard -- I think, just so he could say "Fat Bastard" and get away with it. :-)

Unfortunately, Susan had already had a large lunch, but the rest of us went to town. :-) Don started with a prawn cocktail -- the prawns were bigger than his fist! -- I had a spinach salad, and Sam had bison chili, which he shared with Susan. For main course, Don went for ribs, I had a sweet potato ravioli with smoked cheddar sauce -- decadence! -- Susan had mussels in garlic and white wine sauce with yam frites, and Sam had the pulled lamb (so many jokes, so little time...) and fettuccini special. All amazingly delicious. The waiter had brought Don the wrong prawn appetizer (there were two, but he didn't care, he just took what she brought), AND she'd overheard it was his birthday, so she offered him dessert on the house. He picked the chocolate lava cake and two forks, and Sam and Susan had hazlnut torte and two forks.

We definitely needed the walk back to the car.

And when we got home, we still needed a walk -- more like a waddle. So we took a waddling tour of the neighbourhood, before coming back to crash into the kitchen chairs and moan a little. :-)

Sam and Susan had an early morning the next day -- you know, that whole working a real job thing -- so headed to bed, with us not too far behind.

Zzzzz...

Musically -- even when asleep,

Alyssa

Sunday, not-so-bloody Sunday

2011-09-26T14:41:00.001-04:00

What a great bed -- didn't want to get out. But we'd agreed to 10am brunch, so we could leave by noon -- whose crazy idea was that?!? ;-)

We checked the weather (hot!), got dressed and padded into the main part of the house, where Duff and Holly were just starting up as well. Holly had shown us how to use the coffee maker the night before (one of those single-serving thingamajigs), and Don was able to make his own cup, with a bit of Duff's help. When it came to my cup, though... uh-oh. Between the three of us, it could not be done. Holly to the rescue -- I am human once more.

They've whipped up a delicious brunch for us all: "easy risers" (fried eggs on english muffins with sliced cheese and sausage for the carnivores) and real home fries. Once again, we are pleasantly stuffed.

We learn that Duff once ran for M.P. in his riding (Liberal in a staunch Conservative territory -- you can guess the result), so of course the conversation turns to politics. Uh-oh, now we'll never leave! ;-)

But, I'm able to pry Don away, and we actually make it to the car fairly close to our desired schedule. Holly loads us up with ice waters (much needed, thanks!), we say our good-byes and we frappe la rue.

The directions are quite simple -- stay on highway 16 until you get to highway 2, then turn right and go until you can't. I think we can handle it... It's the typical prairie open road and big sky for most of it. Don keeps quipping about the mountains every time we see a hill (I think I liked him better when he slept through the prairies!), but then as we're heading south on highway 2, we hit a beautiful river valley near North Grove. That shuts him up until we get to town. :-)

Moose Jaw is a very historic town -- we were advised to go on a tour of the underground tunnels from the prohibition days but, alas, our schedule doesn't allow. The venue is easy enough to find, right in the heart of the downtown historical district, and right next to it is a motel, "Capone's Hideaway" -- "an adventurous choice" said one couple we met at the cafe later on that evening, but perfectly clean and cheap (our only complaint was there was no soap in the bathroom...). They've tried to decorate it according to theme, with an old-style lamp and telephone, and a chest of drawers that looks like an old liquor cabinet. It's right across from the former train station, and probably above one of the tunnels. Capone, of course, probably didn't spend a whole lot of time here, but it's good for tourism. :-)

We'll have to leave some time next visit to take a tour of the tunnels -- apparently a 2-hour tour. They start at the train station and work their way towards various hotels, a shoe store and "Rosie's house". Not sure who Rosie was, but I'm guessing visits to her house were rather, ah, entertaining.

We check in to the motel and walk our first load of instruments over to the cafe, 23 Main Street. What a great place! This is exactly where I'd be hanging out all the time if I lived in Moose Jaw. A long room with exposed brick walls and hardwood floors, tall cafe tables and clusters of big comfy couches. The "stage" is a slightly raised area in the front window (tall cafe tables are there when it's not being used as a stage). The food counter is to your left as you walk in -- first the ice cream parlour (!), then the coffee shop, which also offers pizzas and paninis and salads, etc., plus the whole wide array of specialty coffees and teas. There are some scarves and clothes being sold in the back section, plus books and jewellery on shelves around the store, and artwork along the walls.

We introduce ourselves to the barista who tells us the boss is out getting some supplies but should be back soon, and we can store our stuff in his office while we wait. We go back and get our second load to stash in the office. She offers us drinks while we wait -- I pick "white orchard" tea (very nice) and Don just goes for water. We figure we might as well eat now too, so we have time to digest before we sing (lesson learned from the night before!). She says it's on the house -- we knew the drinks were, but dinner was unexpected -- thanks 23 Main! I opt for the veggie roma panini, Don orders a spicy chicken pizza with chipotle-lime seasoning, and we stake out a big comfy couch. Don finally gets a chance to check his e-mail (they also have wireless -- yay!), and I finally remember to check the messages at home -- hey, what's two weeks, really? Anyone who really needed to get us would call our cell phones... but not the 14 recorded messages from PC Financial. Geez, if they'd bothered to hire humans to make the calls, they would have heard the cell phone numbers!!!

Our dinners arrive and... oh geez, this is really good food! I'd pretty much live here and get really really fat...

Taylor, the manager, comes back -- a young guy with a really great energy about him. He's recruited a man to help him set up the stage, I'm guessing in return for a coffee or sandwich or something, as this guy seems to be a little hard on his luck and perhaps battling some mental illness, from the conversation we later have. OK, so this is also a cafe with a good heart. Me like.

We get ourselves set up and ask him the details of when we should start / break / stop, etc. -- he's pretty easygoing with it, just play it by ear. Oh, but wait, there's also a spotlight he wants to set up on us. :-)

It's a tip-jar gig, not the kind of thing we'd usually want to do, but on a night we'd have to travel through anyhow, It's a nice filler in a town that doesn't know us, and helps cover the motel bill. A friendly, community spot that I'd recommend to any musicians travelling through under the same premise -- no guarantee, and probably not your highest-earning tour gig, but it's a nice place, a great meal, and a friendly, feel-good community. We really enjoyed ourselves.

The place is pretty hopping for a Sunday night, too -- we had no idea what to expect, this was one of our last-minute gig finds, and with our cafe experiences this tour, we were obviously a bit wary. The cafe-goers were appreciative, especially this one couple in the first set of couches, and the staff seemed to love it too.

We took our break and chatted a bit with the couple in front. They were in town from Yorkton, SK (the east end of the province) for an anniversary visit to the spa. They'd seen us walking our instruments in earlier and had come in to check us out after their dinner. They were lovely people, and incredibly generous to the tip jar -- thank you, belatedly!!!

The cafe closed at 9:00, and by about 8:45, that couple and the staff were the only ones left. So we packed up our stuff and helped clear our dishes. We took our first load back to the hotel. When we came back for the second, another couple was there -- we're presuming the owners -- who said how much the staff had loved our music, and we were welcome back any time. We left them with a CD for the cafe, and said cheery good-nights.

Back at the motel, I did some online banking, Don played some solitaire (hmmm...), and then we fell asleep to the sounds of motorcycles (there are a LOT in this city) and trains.

Musically and Moosejawingly,

Alyssa

Kindasorta one province closer to home...

2011-09-25T18:36:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning -- another sunny and clear one. I'm somehow awake first (has the world shifted on its axis?), but stay in bed for a while, enjoying the silence and the light patterns coming through the blinds... interspersed with a wee bit (!) of snoring coming from the pillow beside me. OK, maybe that's how I woke up first! ;-)

Footsteps and water running -- Maria must be up. I wait for the shower sounds to subside, then tiptoe out of the guest room. Hmm... no Maria. But she did mention a farmer's market, so maybe she headed over there? I grab some water (still dry in Edmonton, though not as dry as Calgary!) and tiptoe back to the room to get dressed. Don's awake now too, so no more tiptoeing. Maria comes in -- she'd just been sitting on the back patio, soaking up some sun.

Coffee time! Maria says she likes hers strong, too -- no wonder we get along so well. :-) She's used to doing 2 scoops of grounds into her little press, and has calculated that the larger press is three times the volume, so we all agree that 6 scoops must be the way to go.

Woah, mama! That's some mighty strong coffee!!! OK, apparently coffee making follows a logarithmic curve and not a directly proportionate diagonal. Maria dilutes hers with cream, and we add some extra hot water. It could still put hair on our chests, but is pretty darned good!

Maria puts me on toast duty, Don on chopping duty, and prepares to whip up a great Saturday breakfast -- scrambled eggs with roasted green and red peppers, and bacon for the carnivores. We are spoiled. :-)

Then it's time for my accordion lesson! Maria says she feels a little odd teaching me, as she herself is self-taught -- but I figure she's been playing it for longer than I have, and she's darned good, so she must have a few words of wisdom, at least! She'd noticed a couple of things about my posture the night before (she's gone through many Alexander Technique workshops, which are all about balancing the body properly, and are terrific for instrumentalists!) which concern her -- so we experiment with some new strap lengths and instrument placement, which feel quite a bit better. As far as the bellows are concerned, she seems to keep things a lot closer to the body than I've been doing, which gives her a bit more control over the direction changes -- she gives me a few more tips on working with the phrasing and in-outs. Got much to practise!

Some more chatting -- geez, it's bad enough to get us started, but when we're chatting with someone we enjoy, and who enjoys chatting too, it can be a little dangerous! We realize it's quite a bit later than when we thought we'd leave. Better hit the road! Maria looks up the best way to get out of town (as there are more road closures), and shows us where the Safeway is -- so Don can get winegums (important road food!) and we can get our grande bolds for the car (there's a little SB kiosk in the grocery store). Not that our bodies probably need any more coffee, but it's the principle of the thing...

Once again, the roads are open and straight, and we're seeing lots of beautiful fall colours -- even some darker oranges and reds, so perhaps the Chinooks don't make it this far? Or maybe Louise's theory just got overturned... ;-)

Lloydminster is officially in Alberta, although it really straddles the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan -- Duff and Holly's house is east of the dividing line, so I'm not exactly sure whether to post my "one more province closer to home" status update. I opt to wait until we're really and truly in Saskatchewan, no doubt about it.

We finally get to Lloydminster about 4:30, and find the Stewarts' house easily. Duff comes out to greet us and tells us to pull into the driveway so it's easier to unload. Holly also emerges, closely followed by their Shih-Tzu, Scampi (I never did figure out if the dog's name is actually Scampi, or if it's Scamp but they've added the "y" suffix as a term of endearment). They help us load all our stuff in through the back door -- which is actually a door into a private courtyard and then into the house.

They've just moved here in the last month, renting for a while until their daughter finishes high school, they both retire and can move back to Ontario. It's a really interesting house, full of character, although perhaps lacking a few of the finishing touches here and there. The owners obviously have a bit of a Santa Fe bent, as Holly points out that the string of chilli-pepper lamps came with the house. :-) But it's a really great layout, wrapped around the courtyard. To the right of the courtyard as you're coming in the back lies the master bedroom with ensuite bathroom. The main body of the house (ahead of you as you come through the courtyard) is a big, open "great room" -- the open kitchen to the left, looking out on the large dining / living room, and then dropping down to the right into a recessed den with fireplace. Between this great room and the courtyard is a long thin office with sliding glass doors and big windows looking into the courtyard (would be a fabulous writing room!). Down the other side of the courtyard is the front entrance, two bedrooms and another bathroom. There's also a nice-sized back yard. Someone has started to put a tin ceiling on the kitchen, but stopped about a foot short of the wall -- nobody's quite sure why. A quirky DIY, but it's got a really nice feel to it.

Duff and Holly's 16-year-old daughter, MacKenzie, emerges from the room. We are warned she's very shy, but... that's parents for you. :-) She's quite talkative with us, and eager to show us her favourite tea shop around the corner, where she's been tasting her way through the dozens and dozens of different teas they sell. Duff drops the three of us off at the mall, and we spend time smelling and drooling over (but not into, don't fret!) some of the teas on offer. There's one called Love Potion #7 that smells more like dessert than tea, and indeed has tiny chocolate bits mixed in with the tea leaves. I opt for Butternut Cream, Don has Ginger Detox (we could probably use a good detox after this tour!), and MacKenzie has an iced Creme Caramel. It is, indeed, a good tea shop! Duff had gone off to buy some ice (there's a big red clawfoot tub in the courtyard, which they were planning to use as the cooler for the party that night), and was waiting for us in the parking lot -- then we all went to pick up their friend Cindy, who was coming for dinner and the concert.

When we got to the house, Holly had put out platters and platters of food -- my goodness, we will never be able to call ourselves "starving artists" after this tour! Cheese, crackers, chutney, sushi, spring rolls, antipasto, stuffed peppers... and they were also making dinner for us!

Duff was cooking pork and beef ribs for the carnivores in the outside smoker, MacKenzie was preparing her special salmon recipe, which she'd prepared for a recent cooking competition. This is one heck of a sixteen-year-old! There were also delicious purple carrots from Holly's friend's garden, rice... and more plates of pickles and other nibbles. The six of us sat down for a scrumptious meal. A huge meal. And then Duff brought out dessert -- little raspberry crumble tarts drizzled in clover honey. Egads... ok, well they are tiny...

Are

STUFFED

And, holy geez, we still have to put on a show! Water, lots of water.

We retreat to our room (actually, the master bedroom, which Duff and Holly have every-so-generously handed over to us for the night) to digest and get ready for the guests to arrive. We ask how many they're expected -- anywhere from ten to sixty, quips Holly, they're never too sure, but they are thinking about 20, as many are away, enjoying probably one of the last summer-weather weekends. A few of those people may be a bit late, due to kids' soccer games, etc.

As 8:00 nears, Duff and Holly are pacing and looking extremely nervous... A wave of relief crosses over them as the first doorbell chimes. :-)

We near 8:30, and they're still quite disturbed by the turnout -- it's closer to their minimum projection so far -- but we figure we'll get started anyhow, so the people who did show aren't having to wait around too long (especially as there is one very young guest who is probably already way past his bedtime). More folks trickle in as we're playing. ("Oh, hello new people!" Don exclaims, after coming back from a tuning session to see fresh new faces have arrived in his absence.) Everyone is most appreciative and mentioning all sorts of people who should be here because they'd really love it and are missing out.

We take our "intermission" and have a chance to chat with some of the guests. Carson seems to be the troublemaker of the group. ;-) Originally from Newfoundland, but moved to Calgary when he was 16 and now owns his own construction business in Lloydminster -- while he may have lost most of the accent (until he's had a few, he tells us), The Rock has certainly not left him. He and Holly seem to be constantly ribbing each other, and he seems quite at home in kitchen parties.

What Cindy thought was just allergies has turned into a full-fledged cold, so she asks Duff to take her home, but not before buying a CD. We agree to wait for his return for the second half, and they're still expecting a few more people to arrive after various kids are taken home and other events completed. The young guy is still going strong, so we take a very extended break.

A few more guests arrive, Duff returns home -- they're still waiting for two they know for sure are coming. It's getting pretty late, though, so we get started on the second set. As we get to the second song (Yum), the couple arrives. Oh geez, the poor guys are going to wonder what the heck they've walked into if that's the first song they hear! Nevermind, they're dog owners, so it's OK. We redeem ourselves with the next bunch, anyhow. Then I do "Sweat" and single out Duff in the last verse -- his head snaps back so wildly to Carson, I think he's going to throw his back out! ;-) Just as we're about to finish up, in walks yet another couple, who weren't expected as they had a company "do" -- which we later learn involved a bagpipe-playing comedian (!) -- but they want to catch the tag end, at least. Not sure if it technically counts as an "encore", but we were asked to keep playing a couple more songs, so they could enjoy a bit more than one song. Just as we thought we'd finally get to share in some of the wine, Carson wants to hear something on the Hawaiian King again -- Don obliges.

Finally, wine. :-) (As I told them in the concert, my songs tend to be about either broken hearts or alcoholic beverages -- and I no longer have a broken heart.) Holly brings out a huge tray of vegetarian taco dip which "I made just for you, so you have to eat it all!". It is delicious, but fortunately there are others who assist, because there's a lot of it, and I've already got too many rolls of fat hanging over my keyboard as I type in the car... Just a few days until I hit the treadmill with a vengeance again!

We have a really delightful night with all Duff and Holly's friends -- a really diverse and fun bunch, whose numbers have now grown to what they were expecting (although Duff admits he was secretly hoping for more -- but it was fine for us!). Even the couple with the young one stays until almost midnight -- hopefully he's as good at sleeping in as he was at staying up! Slowly the remaining adults trickle away -- except, of course, Carson and his wife Cheryl (sorry if I'm spelling it wrong!). She's trying to get him out the door, but he's trying to ply us with more alcohol and start playing again. We've got a five-hour drive and a gig the next day, though, so we stay strong. Holly calls him a few names and Cheryl starts to slowly edge him towards the door. ;-) (Can you imagine how hard it would be to get Don to leave a party if he were also a Newf?)

We try to help clean up the dishes, etc., but Holly and Duff won't have any of that, so we pack up our gear, instead. Holly's eyes are rolling into the back of her head -- she's used to being asleep by 9:30 -- so Duff banishes her to bed, and we all follow suit shortly thereafter!

Head, meet pillow. Pillow, meet... zzzzzzz

Musically,

Alyssa

Silver linings

2011-09-24T18:41:00.000-04:00

Leaving another home -- damn, I hate that part.

Louise, of course, had early morning meetings (she's gonna sleep well this weekend!) on Friday. Don had left the door open for Ellie again, but it took a certain amount of cajoling to get her into the room this time. She only stayed on the bed a few minutes before taking up residence at Don's feet -- Don, of course, was eating breakfast, and she didn't want to miss a crumb. :-)

I gave up on Ellie and got out of bed for my coffee. Then we started packing up our bags and folding up the guest bed.

Ellie was not amused.

She went into Louise's room, curled up on the bed, and wouldn't meet our eyes. This dog can sulk!

We loaded up the car, to get the suitcases out of view, and sat with our laptops in the living room, catching up on stuff and waiting for Louise to come home from her morning of meetings. Ellie was happier when she showed up, but was still sulking.

We had a last wee visit with Louise, then big hugs and good-byes. It was time to head for Edmonton! An early stop for grande bolds and artisan sandwiches, and then we were on the highway.

The drive from Calgary to Edmonton is quite a bit straighter and flatter than what we'd been driving the previous weeks! Wide open roads, big sky, and the trees just starting to change colour -- lots of beautiful yellows, the occasional pale oranges, though none of the reds of Ontario. Apparently the Chinooks around here aren't too good for Maples (or so says Louise, but with the caveat that she doesn't remember where she heard that!).

The drive wasn't too bad, although we did run in to a bit of construction. As we neared Edmonton, Maria Dunn e-mailed us to let us know of the road closures in the area, and steered us to her house via roads that were actually open. People are so much more trustworthy than MapQuest. :-)

Maria's in a lovely neighbourhood overlooking parkland, in a cute 2-bedroom bungalow she's lived in for almost nine months -- although, with all her touring (if you don't know her music, check her out!), she feels she's barely gotten used to the place.

We had a couple of hours before she had to head out to a radio interview and we had to get ready for our gig, so we were able to get a nice visit in. Maria also made us a light meal of sandwiches and salad, which held us all over quite nicely.

Maria dashed off to her interview, leaving us to relax for a while and get dressed for our evening gig -- our load-in wasn't scheduled until 7:15, so we had lots of time.

The route to the venue was easy enough (thank you, Edmonton, for making your grid system an actual grid and understandable system!), with just a bit of slowness as we passed the football stadium. Though once we got to the area, The Haven was a little tricky to find. It's a single door entrance to a basement venue, nestled among a block of XXX movie stores, "Adult" entertainment venues and massage parlours.

Er... geez... have we just made a horrible, horrible mistake?!? What kind of venue is this? But The Haven Social Club has hosted many respectable folkies -- I don't think they'll expect us to play naked...?

Trepidatiously, we walk down the stairs into the venue. Alright, there's no pole in the centre of the stage, we're OK! In fact, it looks downright classy. Nice stage, tables laid out with chairs facing the stage, lovely artwork on the walls. No people... Don't restaurants usually have people? On a Friday? Hmmm... maybe it doesn't start hopping until showtime...?

We're starting to understand why Maria previously raised an eyebrow but remained politely silent when we told her where we were playing.

We find a human, who introduces himself as Rob, the bartender for the night. He's a really nice guy, shows us to the green room, tells us the sound guy will be coming in shortly, unlocks the back door so we can load in our gear from the parking lot.

And that is how we ended up loading our gear in through the door marked "Temptation Massage", and "Your pleasure is our service" written over a semi-erotic cartoon painting on the inside wall.

For the record, we were not tempted. ;-)

Our gear safely stowed away from tempting hands, we grab some water and wait for the sound guy to come and tell us where he wants us. Our opening act, Lyra Brown, hauls in her keyboard -- assisted by mother and sister, we believe, though they never introduced themselves (neither did she, actually -- perhaps a little lesson in artistic attitude might be helpful, because she spent the rest of the evening unknowingly annoying one artistic director enough to put a "don't bother" stamp in the database, despite her interesting music) -- a local girl who recently won in the Youth category of the Calgary Folk Fest's songwriting contest. She immediately takes over the stage.

Bryce, the sound guy, comes in shortly after that, politely mentions that he only gives the feature act (us) a full sound check, but she can come 15 minutes before her set to do a line check.

Bryce gets us quickly set up and starts pulling up the sounds -- damn, he's really good! He's got a fabulous mix up in no time.

It's now about 8:15, cover started at 8:00. So far, there's one man (who looks kind of familiar, but it's dark looking out from the stage) at one table, plus the local girl's entourage of two. So much for the local opening act bringing out some new faces for us... Never mind, we know of a dozen or so people who said they were coming, so at least we'll see some familiar faces -- and maybe once the music starts, other strangers will pour in... you know, those who aren't first tempted by massage or XXX films... :-)

We head to the back to put together our setlist and not worry about it. When I emerge to refill my water glass, the single man at the single table has left. I don't even see a staff member in the room. This does not bode well...

Last night, we had dozens of people in the room and a crappy sound. Tonight it looks like we'll have awesome sound and nobody to enjoy it.

Don has a nap in the green room. I pace.

The opener does her line check... short pause, then we hear her doing something again. The sound of three hands clapping -- oh dear, she's started. We decide to be supportive and sit at one of the front tables to listen to her set. Mom and sis are in the front table, we're second to the front, and... well... there's Bryce doing sound... and a couple over at the side... and Rob the bartender... and the waitress scurrying around lighting candles on the tables.

We break our usual don't-drink-before-a-show rule and cash in our beer tickets.

Maria comes in part way through the opener and sits with us. Yes, she nods her head, that is the problem with this venue, there's no built-in crowd, you have to have a following you bring in yourself. Which, being the first time we've ever set foot in Edmonton, we don't have. Neither, it seems, does the local opener (perhaps she's pissed off more than artistic directors?).

Our turn. Well, the show must go on. Maria goes to sit next to the couple over at the side -- who, it turns out, are Sidney and John, who we met when playing at the Rose & Kettle in Cole Harbour, NS (they were on a year's sabbatical there at the time). We've got three true fans in the audience, that makes us feel better, at least. There's another woman sitting behind us now, and look, another man has just walked in, things are looking up!

Except that man and the diva-ette and family stand at the front of the stage, in constant loud conversation all through the first several songs of our set. I can see Maria's head bobbing in there direction, and she looks like she's about to head over when the two loudest in the group leave and the other two stay to listen for a bit. Bloodshed is spared. :-)

We do a pretty good set, although it's definitely hard to keep the energy up. But our three fans enjoy it, the two quieter family members are very complimentary, and the venue's staff are really seeming to enjoy it, as well! OK, the audience may be small, but they're certainly appreciative! What the heck, it was a fun evening.

We're able to visit and chat a bit with Sidney and John -- they're terribly apologetic they weren't able to bring more people with them, they'd tried really hard, but many friends were away for the weekend, or had other commitments, there's a bunch of other concerts going on that weekend, AND it's the season opener of one of the (three!) Edmonton folk clubs that night, so all the people who would have really liked our music were probably there instead.

The bad timing bug...

(Although that doesn't quite explain the people who had told us they were coming...)

Rob at the bar is similarly apologetic, and is raving about how much he enjoyed the show. He says he's going to tell the booker how great we were, says as far as he's concerned, we're welcome back any time, and that next time he'll talk to the booker and make sure we're paired off with a local act who has a big following, because "you guys deserve a much bigger audience!"

The deal at this venue is that the hall keeps the first $250 of the door -- we obviously didn't come anywhere close to that, but the guy at the door has either dipped in to the kitty or taken money out of his own wallet for Rob to give us. "He felt bad, because you guys are so good, he thought you should at least go home with something!"

So... really pretty venue, really nice staff, super-colossally bad timing -- and, it seems, not the ideal first venue to play for newcomers. Lesson learned, we'll advise our fellow new-to-Edmonton musicians, and come back some day when we've got a bit more of a following (and it's not a weekend with so much going on!).

We hug Sidney and John good-bye, thank all the staff, and pack up the car.

We're starving!

We follow Maria to her favourite pizza place -- Tony's Pizza Palace. We're in luck, they're still open! We order one large "Sal's" and one medium vegetarian to go. The waiters try to ply us with liquor as we wait, but our drivers have already had a pint each, so we'll wait.

Dinner in hand and a bottle of wine in the trunk, we follow Maria back to the house and grab some plates and glasses. She has not led us astray, this is really good pizza! The wine (an Okanagan Merlot) is quite lovely, too. :-)

We chat some more -- well, quite a bit more -- and realize it's quarter to two. We decide it's time for our beauty rest and call it a night.

Musically -- even in miniature!

Alyssa

Why the previous blog was late...

2011-09-24T03:50:00.000-04:00

My body must have been worried about sleeping through our gig, because I was awake before the sun and even before Louise. Stupid body. I spent the next few hours dozing, but not terribly successfully. Don got out of bed first and, as requested, left the door open. It wasn't long before I had a golden retriever on top of me. :-)

I miss morning dog cuddles...

We decided to forgo the morning showers, etc., and get the P.A. figured out asap. Headed down to the pub to meet our contact and check out the mixer situation. She was there and happy to meet us, showed us where we'd be playing that night, and disappeared for a moment to show us the machine.

While standing in our "stage" we notice the room is very, Very, VERY loud. Hmmm... We'd better figure out a set list that doesn't require any sensitive-singer-songwriter stuff, just the up-tempo, loud ones. You know, all three of them. ;-)

Out walks grumpy and rather rude manager and tells us we can't be here right now, they're preparing for lunch rush. I politely and patiently (yes, me!) explain we just need to see what connections the mixer has, because if it's not something we can use, we only have a few hours to figure out what to do!

No.

Go away. Don't come back until after 1:00.

Okay...

So, we take a walking tour of downtown Calgary. Including walking by (not into!) the Palliser Hotel, where Don's uncle used to take him for dinner on special occasions.

Hungry ourselves, we decided to grab some lunch. Guess where we DIDN'T go for lunch?!? ;-)

Feeling a little haughty after having so much of our day wasted and blood pressures raised, we went back to the pub with our Starbucks cups in hand, and sat at the front table until rude manager allowed Kristi to come and talk to us.

As suspected, we'd waited all that time to discover that what they had was absolutely useless to us -- the "mixer" was a stereo mixer, with just RCA jacks for inputs and outputs.

Insert primal scream here.

Alright, off to the D.I. we go!

The D.I. is a huge building, flatiron shaped. Apparently it first opened on September 11, 2001, with its first clients being passengers stranded when all the airports shut down. It's a full-service homeless shelter, rehab centre, food bank, soup kitchen, employment and life skills training centre -- pretty much everything you need all under one roof.

Registered clients seem to be able to let themselves in with a fingerprint screening. We were buzzed in by the front security, and told to wait in the lobby for someone to come and get us. Lots of folks were milling about on the first floor, with many staff running through and saying hi to a lot of them by first name. Seems like quite the community.

Louise finally made it down -- she'd been in a meeting when we'd arrived -- and gave us a very brief tour (she'd wanted to give us the grand tour, but we were pretty pressed for time by that point!). She took us up to the music room, which is next to an art studio, and there's beautiful hand-crafted furniture for sale in the hall. Some of the more musically inclined clients get training in live sound and recording, those good with their hands learn carpentry, etc. Seems they've got lots of opportunities for people to learn many new skills!

Jordan had already set up a cart with everything he thought we might need. He was in a meeting, too, but Michael went through it all with us, and threw in a few more cords, just in case. Unfortunately, they only had one boom stand, and it was held together with duct tape, but they gave us that and a straight mic stand. They also didn't have any instrument mics or stands for my drum. Drat... don't think the subtle acoustics of the cajon would carry over in that pub (2 floors, square, us in the corner by the door and across from the bar). Sigh... beggars can't be choosers! (But I might have uttered a few curses at the pub manager, under my breath.)

We promised we'd take good care of everything, and loaded it all into our car and Louise's. Zoomed home (didn't get lost this time, thank goodness!) for the by-now-much-needed showers. While I was washing my hair, Don MapQuested Long & McQuade.

The car fully loaded (milk crate of cables on my lap, 16-channel mixer precariously balanced on cello behind Don's head), we found L&McQ quite easily. We definitely needed boom stands, not to mention ones that would stay together until the end of the gig. We found two collapsible ones, bought a couple of extra cables and -- ho ho! -- found a great deal on a kick drum mic for only $35. We'd use the duct-taped boom stand for that one. Things are looking up!

We rush off to the pub in good time, when suddenly... Calgary rush hour traffic. Eek! A little after 5:00, we get a cell call from Louise, who's at the pub with her carload of speakers. We're almost there -- just three blocks away!

Of course, one of those blocks is under construction, and reads "no through traffic". Screw it, we're from Toronto -- we bump and hurdle our way through, anyhow.

Kristin is there to help us set up, as his her foul manager, who must have sensed the daggers coming from my eyes, because she keeps her distance the rest of the evening. :-) We also meet Jessica, the representative from the United Way who's running the benefit that night. She's carrying what looks like a fold-up lawn chair in a sling. As we discover later, in wide-eyed wonder, this is actually a huge self-contained banner display for the United Way of Calgary -- it folds into itself kind of like an old projection screen we used to have as kids, only much tinier.

We get our gear set up -- which is kind of tricky, as talking to each other above the din is no easy feat. I feel like I've lost my voice before we even start -- water, guzzle lots of water! Ready for our sound check, we ask the bartender to please turn off the stereo, thinking we'll finally be able to hear ourselves.

No such luck. This pub is like a huge echo chamber, and the table in front of us is filled with eight rather sozzled twenty-something guys. We do the best we can on our own, and wait for Louise to return (from walking Ellie) to help us figure out the rest. The stereo comes back on -- quite heavy rock. Methinks this may be the wrong venue for folksy singer-songwriter fare... Sigh...

Nevermind, Louise in all her enthusiastic cheeriness returns, soon followed by Nan and Bob from the dinner party, and a few more friends we haven't met yet. There's a large table of United Way folks over to one side, and several other people who actually seem to be listening -- just not the table of sozzled twenty-somethings. :-)

I begin "My Cup" and hear a giant "WOAH, YEAH!!!" I feel mighty full of myself, until I see there's a football game on the big screen...

But, if you can ignore the sozzled twenty-somethings, and the fact that neither Don nor I can hear each other, let alone ourselves, there IS an enthusiastic, appreciative audience. Instead of our regular two sets, though, we opt for the extended single set of songs that may be vaguely appropriate for a bar setting. We're asked to turn up the speakers by the bar staff -- so they must be enjoying it too, or just trying to drown out the twenty-somethings. :-)

These are the truly exhausting gigs. You know there are people who are really listening, so you want to do your best and put together an ideal show for them. But you're fighting the sound and have no idea what, if anything, they can hear, and we don't even know if we're in tune with each other. So many good intentions... Apparently, though, we were in tune with each other. Or our "fan club" was too polite to complain. :-) Some lovely comments from our new friends and total strangers. And three encores -- though the last two seem to have come from Louise. :-)

Seeing we were pooped, she promised to stop asking for encores, and bought us beer. We love Louise. :-)

We learned that we'd managed to raise a few hundred for the United Way. We did good. :-)

And then the packing up began -- many people offered to help, but with a combination of our gear, the D.I.'s gear, and some of Michael's gear (and I had earlier discovered I was missing some clothes from... maybe Victoria?), we figured it was best if we did it ourselves, to minimize the room for mistakes.

As we were halfway through our packing, in walks MY blast from the past -- Julie Van Rosendaal. Julie was my best friend all through nursery school 'til the summer after grade one, when her family moved to Calgary. I haven't seen her since. I did rediscover her while working as a librarian in Cannington -- one of her cookbooks came to me for processing, and I was able to e-mail her via her publishing company. So we've been in touch from time to time over the past few years. She'd also helped with some of the PR for this trip, as she works at the CBC. Louise was very excited she was my friend, because she listens to Julie's cooking show all the time.

Julie and her husband had been to a restaurant opening earlier, and had come over as soon as they could -- unfortunately, after we were finished. But we did get to see each other again for the first time in about 35 years, which was tons of fun. We promised to be better coordinated the next time out. :-)

We packed up our gear into ours and Louise's cars, and sent Louise home to bed. We still had to eat dinner (and couldn't handle the noise at the pub any longer), so she recommended a great pizza place on our way home. We grabbed a Margarita pizza with extra roasted mushrooms and took it back to the house.

Louise's car wasn't in the driveway, so we were worried something had happened to her. We let ourselves in and said hi to Ellie, and then Louise padded out in her jammies -- she'd put the car in the garage (really? I thought garages were for storing your junk?).

Saying "what the heck? I can sleep on the weekend!", she opened a bottle of Malbec and joined us on the couch, as Ellie very hopefully watched us eat our pizza. Sorry, dog, this is too good to share!

Louise and Ellie padded to their room, we shuffled into ours and... crashed!

Musically (or so I'm told),

Alyssa

Down memory lane

2011-09-23T15:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the delay -- been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest!

Wednesday, as mentioned, Louise had an 8:00 meeting -- not sure how she did it, but she was out the door long before we reached consciousness. When Don opened our bedroom door, Ellie was very happy to still have company. We had a lovely coffee- and dog-filled morning!

Then it was time for the trip down memory lane. We started in the Starbucks -- which I'm pretty sure was not around when Don lived here! But we needed lunch, and to map out the route to Don's old homes and schools.

I have to say, Calgary must have been designed to confuse tourists!

I'd always thought, when addressing letters to Calgary, that with all the numbered streets, it would be set up in a grid that was logical.

Not really.

The street numbers jump, or don't exist, or merge into each other, or are numbered and lettered: 13... 13A... 17. And I have to say, sometimes their signage is just plain lousy. Also, there are some neighbourhoods with actual street names, but they all begin with the same darned letter, so anyone unfamiliar with the language could be in big trouble. Plus all the various versions of each street name (4th St. NW, 4th St. NE, 4th St. SW, 4th St. SE, 4th Ave. NW, 4th Ave. NE, 4th Ave. SW, 4th Ave. SE), and the confusing "take the exit for 45 East and go southwest" is enough to make your brain bleed! I wonder how many lost children get reported here?

If I ruled the world... Just sayin' ;-)

Anyhow, we managed to find neighbourhood #1 (in the SE, should you be keeping track) -- not the first place Don lived in Calgary, but the first whose address he recalled. There was his old school (which he, of course, thought looked much smaller than he remembered), his friends' houses, the stoplight where the bully used to wait for him on the way to school...

The scaffolding where his house used to be.

Aw, dang! Looks like we really just missed it -- the old house had been torn down, and a monster home being built in its place. Very disappointing.

We managed to find our way to neighbourhood #2 -- eventually. This was in the northeast, in a neighbourhood where all the streets -- yes, ALL the streets -- begin with the letter "H". Except for the numbered ones and the ones that aren't. Oy!

This house was still intact, albeit painted in a different colour. We ducked through the alley he used to use to walk to school, and found the old school -- now looking like a very multi-cultural perhaps private school, as all the kids were in uniform and playing out in the yard. Must have been recess. We checked out the other school, which also looked smaller than remembered, and meandered through the neighbourhood. The place where he bought penny candy, the ravine he used to -- hey wait a second, it's now a 6-lane highway!

Don also commented on all the houses that didn't used to be there, "although they must have been, because they don't look that new". That's when I reminded him that he left Calgary 47 years ago, and 45-year-old houses don't look terribly new. ;-)

Then it was off to the cemetery, to find his father's gravestone. It's a huge cemetery -- kind of like Mount Pleasant in Toronto. Fortunately, the administrative office was open and easy to find, and they were able to print out a map of how to find the site. Section L looks like parkland, as all the markers there are flat, and some large willows have grown up between some of the older graves. (Note to my survivors -- feeding a willow tree after I die would be a good thing, indeed.) We had to do a bit of wandering along the appointed row, but there we found it, very close to one of the trees, but still out in the open sun.

A moment. This was the first time Don had ever seen his father's gravestone. Some words, some tears, some hugs.

A bit more of a neighbourhood crawl, and then we were navigating back to Louise's. We're getting better at finding her house, although I still have to double-check the St./Ave. NW/SW every time...

Ellie, of course, was very happy to see us. She and I spent some time on the back porch, hoping Marley (the cat, named after Bob) didn't kill any birds, and writing that day's blog. Don practised inside.

The laptop battery was starting to falter, so I headed inside to recline on the divine divan and be serenaded by Don while I did my PR work.

Louise made it home early from work -- a planned fire drill meant if she didn't leave early, she'd have been stuck there for a couple of hours. She got changed, went into the kitchen for five minutes, and -- presto! She'd made an appetizer. How the heck does she do that?

It was a 4-layer dip or spread. Bottom layer was guacamole, second layer diced sweet onions, 3rd layer diced hard-boiled eggs in a bit of mayo, topped with caviar. This was another of Don's gourmet discoveries, because he doesn't usually like the bottom two ingredients, and had never tried the top, but he was brave, and... liked it! We managed to devour most of it, actually -- although we needed something to sop up the leftover half bottle of wine from the night before (yes, really, we had leftover wine!).

As her lousy house guests had not yet walked poor Ellie, Louise grabbed the halter and took her out for a romp, while I completed some more PR and felt guilty for not going with her and Don played guitar and felt guilty for not going with her. We're really good at guilt. :-)

We had offered to take her (Louise, not Ellie) out for dinner as a thank-you, but this woman loves to cook! So we enjoyed barbecued salmon, beets, potatoes and salad. Don kept offering to help, but the way she cooks is pretty improvisatory, so there's not much for her to delegate -- other than opening a new bottle of wine. :-)

Another delightful meal, followed by another evening of delightful conversation. Techno-geeks that we are, we did end up at the dinner table each with our own laptops -- Louise to share the videos she had of us all singing our group song at the haven, us to share photos, trading copies back and forth so we can keep even more memories alive.

It's been difficult (as it was in February) to jump straight from Haven bliss right back into tour mode. All the backlog of stuff that has to be done, the packing-unpacking-packing... I'm always worried I'll forget the essence of what filled me there. Of course, I don't -- although it does temporarily get shoved to the backburner until I get home. But it's been so lovely to have this little oasis in the middle of tour chaos, to re-connect with Louise and all those feelings I was afraid I'd left on Gabriola.

You're not alone... Come on Home.

Whether it's on Gabriola or Calgary or in our '97 Toyota Camray. Come on Home. Whether we're sharing a meal or just sharing the memories, Come on Home.

The reverie was rudely interrupted at 10:30pm, when our contact at Thursday's venue e-mailed to tell us they did NOT have a P.A. or microphone stands, or any of the other things we'd e-mailed about A WEEK AGO. And she'd waited until 18.5 hours before our arrival time to notify us?!?!? Egads... But they did have a mixer that their DJ uses, which feeds into the restaurant's speaker system so come in any time tomorrow to check it out.

Gulp.

Never fear, Louise said -- the D.I. has a music department, so we can borrow whatever we need from them! We e-mail the head of the department to let them know what we need to borrow for sure, and say we may need even more, depending on the state of this mixer.

Panic averted.

Once again, though, we'd kept our poor host up until midnight -- and her internal alarm always goes off at 5:30am! (Not sure how we ended up friends, really...)

Time for a nap!

Musically,

Alyssa

One province -- and one time zone -- closer to home

2011-09-21T19:16:00.000-04:00

Day 30. Working our way back, but still many people to see, many gigs to play.

We actually wake up early -- who'd-a-thunk? Well, early for us, anyhow. :-) Have a quick breakfast with Tim and Roberta before Tim has to head into work. Like his brother, Tim is very good at procrastinating going to work via good conversation. :-)

The visit has been all too short, but they're happy to have us back any time, and we promise to return soon -- and maybe send them a few musical friends in the meantime.

Then it's time for us to leave, as well -- we've got a 7.5 hour drive ahead of us, plus we're going to lose an hour as we near the provincial border.

We manage to find our way out of Castlegar much more easily than making our way in, so the morning is bicker-free. And then -- ah, the mountains! Did we mention beautiful vistas? Oh look, another one! So much beauty in this country...

We're in need of some gas and caffeine and wine gums, so stop in Creston briefly. The bagels are great, but the coffee, sadly, tastes like someone melted a brown crayon... :-(

Through more and more mountains, and then into Cranbrook. Ah yes, the beloved Starbucks. Our sanity is restored. :-)

After Cranbrook, we spend the next several hours criss-crossing a very long lake or very fat river -- not sure which. But it's beautiful, of course! In through Fairmont Hot Springs, which appears to be a place where a lot of rich people go. Big condos and resorts and an airport and... lots of cars we really don't want to hit!

Up past Invermere and into Kootenay National Park. Oh my glory... the road is dug through some of the cliffs, and there are all sorts of formations that look like giant sand castles. Yes, we've taken pictures.

From the Kootenay National Park, we cross the border and into Banff National Park. Just as beautiful coming through this side as it was on our way out to BC.

The mountains slowly give way to hills which give way to little lumps and then... flat. We're coming into Calgary.

We manage to find Louise's house without incident -- a little later than we'd wanted, but still early for the 7:00 dinner she said she'd be making for us. Louise cheerfully greeted us at the front door, quickly overtaken by her golden retriever, Ellie -- as well as the black cat, Marley (an incredibly friendly cat, or dog-cat as I like to call them). We brought our instruments in and met her daughter, Liseanne, who said she was her mom's date for the evening.

Surprise! Louise had invited some of her friends to come meet her "famous musician friends". Hmm... no pressure. ;-) I joked I'd forgotten my tiara, so she gave me her white bejewelled cowboy hat (she'd made it for a charity auction this year, then bought it back because she liked it so much).

Nan and Bob were the first to arrive, and then Jane and Al. Nan and Jane had been Louise's friends for a long time, and helped her through some of the rough patches (described in her book, The Dandelion Spirit, which I'd meant to read by the time we got here, but... such is life on the road).

It was a lovely evening, filled with wine and wonderful food, and many stories about "The Fun Club" -- what happens in Fun Club stays in Fun Club. :-) We might have to start one, though, because their evenings sound like a hoot! The friends were also interested in hearing about our songwriting workshop at The Haven, and were thrilled to hear that Louise had written a song.

Homemade guacamole and a baked brie for appetizers (I could have just eaten that all night, but restrained myself, so as not to embarrass the spirit of my 'tiara'). Salad Nicoise, plus barbecued sausage for the carnivores. Delicious!

Louise's friends were interested in hearing her song. Louise managed to steer the conversation over to our new songs -- but not for long. Don said he'd only sing his new one AFTER Louise sang hers. She tried to deflect again, but the group was working against her. :-)

And so, we pulled out the instruments and I found my chord charts from when we played Louise's ballad at The Haven. Transposed a new chart for Don (since I'm pretty sure Eric had a detuned guitar and capo when he played this), and we were ready to rumble. Louise claimed she was only going to sing the beginning and ending, but... once she got started, she couldn't figure out a place to stop. So we managed to hear the whole darned thing -- yay! Of course, everyone loved it.

Don sang his new one "I Blame The Horizon" and I sang my new one (still a capella) "The Pendulum". Louise wanted to hear something with the cello, so I did "Jezebel", hoping the neighbours didn't get worried. :-)

As Louise mentioned, the whole experience brought back our experience of the Haven -- here for a brief moment, just to remind us all of the whole thing once more. Maybe we should have a reunion? :-)

A little more chat, and then it was time to call it a night -- most of the group had to get up for work the next day, including an 8:00 meeting for Louise!

We hauled in our suitcases from the car, did a quick e-mail check, and then sunk into bed in the guest room for a solid sleep.

Musically,

Alyssa

From O'Doherty to shining O'Doherty

2011-09-20T16:52:00.000-04:00

OK, we weren't travelling sea to sea on Monday (hello, this is Canada -- that would take us ten days!), but we were travelling from O'Doherty to O'Doherty. There's gotta be a song in there too, right?

Leaving the first O'Doherty base camp was difficult, indeed -- and not just because of the sleeping patterns we'd gotten ourselves into! In fact, we all woke up earlier than we'd had for the last several days -- and had the bags under the eyes to prove it. :-)

The last breakfast was a little mopey... But Mike had to get up the highway to give an estimate on a new job (the prospective employer had originally asked him for 8am, but Mike bumped it a few hours later!). We procrastinated his departure as best we could, and then big hugs and slightly misty good-byes. Ruth also had to get cracking for a morning appointment, and we needed to hit the highway, so we gathered up our stuff, packed it in the car, and had some more misty good-byes.

Fortunately, we were headed for O'Doherty base camp number two -- Mike's brother's place in Castlegar -- who we hadn't met yet, but figured any brother of Mike has to be a good person. :-)

It was a beautiful day for driving. Not to mention a beautiful place for driving! Down the Okanagan, through the mountain ranges. Oh look, a beautiful vista! Oh look, another beautiful vista! Hey look, another beautiful vista! Gorgeous, just gorgeous. Saw a couple of rather large deer along the highway, but they were smart enough to just stay there and look cute.

We totally missed the one cafe Mike had recommended en route -- realized it after we'd driven past, and with a big truck on our tail, didn't feel like cramming on the brakes! Instead, we stopped in at Grand Forks -- home of one of our favourite gigs on the last tour -- and had a light lunch at Jogas Espresso Cafe, which is kind enough to provide free wireless (our internet stick doesn't really work in the Rockies). We settled in with our laptops and had a nice leisurely meal.

Then it was time to get back at 'er. We continued on the Crowsnest to Castlegar and... discovered that MapQuest might be slightly insane. Although, to be fair, Castlegar streets aren't terribly logical, either. We were told to get off at 14th Ave., which, as far as we can tell, doesn't actually cross the highway. Of course, there are, apparently, two 14th Ave-s in town, plus a 14th Street or two. (We're thinking this is how they avoid tourists...)

We end up passing the entire town and heading up a mountain -- nowhere to safely turn around. About 15 kilometres later, there's a place for trucks to check their brakes, so we're able to do a u-turn there and head back to Castlegar. We never do figure out the 14th Ave. part, but do eventually find the correct street for Tim and Roberta's. We may be bickering a bit...

Roberta comes out to greet us and show us in to the house. Tim is on his way home from work, but should be there shortly. We grab some much-needed water and marvel at the mountain view and the garden (we later have some delicious tomatoes and cucumbers fresh from the yard, and they've got an apple tree, raspberry bushes, herbs, lots of veggies...).

Tim comes in shortly after -- Don had said he sounded like Mike over the phone, but we're straining to see any physical resemblance. Like his brother, though, Tim is a cheery, enthusiastic, generous guy, very excited about the upcoming concert. We all chat for a while, and then sit down to dinner together with their daughter Alisha (sorry if I'm not spelling it correctly!). Spaghetti with herbs from the garden, garlic bread, and garden veggies. The perfect pre-gig meal. Life, once again, is good. :-)

It's time to head over to the concert -- Tim's boss, Tracey, is providing the venue for the night. Turns out the house concert is actually in her three-car garage (minus any cars, of course). We're a little wary of the sound possibilities, but what the heck... The house is just past the Big Bear Golf Club, and sure enough, as we're arriving, there's a Mama bear with two cubs -- one black, one cinnamon -- in the back yard. We miss them completely, as they wander into the woods before we get to the window.

Tim points out the loaded rifle at the back of the room, tells us not to feel any pressure about our performance... geez, is that what they do to folk musicians in Castlegar?!? ;-)

Tracey assures us the rifle is in case Mama bear gets too close. Roberta tells us a Mama bear could rip right through the garage door if she wanted to. Gulp...

The guests start to trickle in. Jim, who is the editor of the local paper and e-mailed us a few days ago to tell us how much he loves our music, introduces himself and asks if it's OK to take a few pictures. He then interviews me a bit for a feature / review he's going to post later in the week. He and his wife also have a musical duo, so we have much to chat about.

Showtime! With all the people in the garage, the sound is surprisingly good. There's one woman in the front row who's just grinning the whole time -- good for the soul. Everybody is appreciative -- hardly any have done the house concert thing before but they seem to be catching the bug, as we chat to them at intermission. Tim is excited about this, as he'd like to do some more presenting in town, so bringing these folks on board is a great first start. The audience is pretty diverse, from a flute player to a farmer to a banker to an army guy -- quite a cross-section of people, all of whom seemed to enjoy the house concert concept and wanted more!

Bunch of chit-chatters, it was hard to get everyone back into their chairs for the second set, but we actually got some newcomers in part 2, who later said they were really disappointed they couldn't have been there earlier, because they loved the second half. Show over, many folks stayed behind to chat with us some more, which was great.

Not wanting to keep our host / Tim's boss up too late, we packed up and followed Tim & Roberta home. We were finally able to join Tim in some wine consumption! Don checked out Tim's Guild dreadnought (nice sound!), and we chatted away some more, until eyelids grew heavy. Tim did have to (eventually) work in the morning, and we had a long drive ahead of us. He gave us the password for their wireless, we did some quick e-mail checks and then crashed into a sound sleep!

Musically,

Alyssa

Sweet Sunday

2011-09-20T04:19:00.000-04:00

We've set the alarm, this time. Yes, it's a day off, but we've got plans!

After the obligatory coffee and chat, we all get dressed and load into Mike & Ruth's car for a little sightseeing. We're driving further south in the Okanagan, along the lake (no sign of Ogopogo). First we duck into a little village called Peachland, right on the water (which is quite choppy today), with a nice beach and little shops along the beachfront road. Apparently it's packed in summertime, although still seems to be a happening place in September, too!

Then it's further down the lake, and into some hillier territory, with many more green patches -- those would be the vineyards!

We arrive in Summerland and drive among a number of vineyards before reaching our destination -- the Dirty Laundry Vineyard.

Whoever has set up the marketing for this vineyard would be a hoot to have at parties.

As we learn, the Dirty Laundry Vineyard is named after an old Summerland place nicknamed... you guessed it, The Dirty Laundry. You see, back when they were building the railway and having a goldrush in these parts, there were many Chinese workers brought in to the area. It wasn't the safest job in the universe, so one of the guys looked for an alternate way to make a living. He decided to set up a laundry service. Realizing that he had many clients with many needs other than clean shirts, he extended the services provided, so long as you knew the password (woo woo) to get upstairs. As the townspeople started to notice that the men were leaving with clean shirts and giant smiles on their faces, the laundromat became known as The Dirty Laundry.

And so the logo of Dirty Laundry Vineyards is an old iron, representing the laundry, and the steam rising, representing what went on upstairs. If you stand back to look at the steam, you will also find seven naked ladies in various poses.

As you walk in the main gate, you will first see the old laundry machines, and then you'll notice the various frilly undergarments strewn along the path, on light fixtures, etc. (OK, Don might have noticed the frilly undergarments first...)

At this point, of course, I'm thinking "brilliant marketing ploy -- the wine must not be that good." I am proven wrong when we get to the tasting bar.

Our first taster is of their 2010 Pinot Gris -- a wine so delicious, even Don (who's not usually a white wine kind of guy) is gaga over it. "Fresh and breezy, this lady is. Let her caress your senses with fresh nectarines and a lively citrus finish." OK, she can caress me any day!

Next up is their 2010 "Hush": "A complicated, evasive woman, this one will keep you 'blushing'! Consisting of 35% Pinot Noir, 29% Merlot, 22% Cab Franc, 5% Riesling and hush hush. This wine sings of black currant and raspberries with hints of passion fruit." Again, neither of us is particularly keen on rose, but we're each willing to make an exception for Ms. Hush.

And then, the 2010 Merlot.

Oh... my... god... !!!

Sadly, they've limited purchases to one bottle per customer, and we can see why. If we'd had room in the car, we'd have taken ten cases of this! "Dark, mysterious and alluring this woman is. She will remind you of dark cherry, wild berries and chocolate." And she will make you feel tingly in many places -- holy geez, this was a good wine. I could have just sat with a round of smoked gouda and a bottle of this Merlot and been a happy girl every day of the rest of my life. Oh yes, with Don beside me... ;-)

Finally, the piece-de-resistance, their 2008 Bordello -- Ruth and Mike were very excited, as they've never offered this at tastings they've attended before. It's the vineyard's top-of-the-line wine, almost double the price of the Merlot. We weren't sure anything could top the Merlot, but... once again, we were wrong. "An exotic swirl of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. This gal is silky, velvety, full bodied and rather provocative. She will flirt with you, and make you crave another encounter." Why yes, she did! Our bartender let us enjoy the first sip as-is, then gave each of us a piece of chocolate and asked us to try it again after. Sweet lord of all that is beautiful and orgasmic... the already-incredible wine smoothed out into velvety goodness that made you want to weep.

We are going to start a petition to get the LCBO to bring this stuff in to Orillia!!!

Now that our breakfast is complete, we decide it's time for lunch. Another beautiful piece of marketing -- we grab a picnic basket, fill it with scrumptious goodies (we pick baguette, garlic Boursin and smoked salmon), choose a bottle of wine which they uncork for you, and you bring your picnic out onto the patio, overlooking the vineyard and the valley below. Summerland even has a steam train that passes along below, tooting a joyful whistle as it picks up tourists and heads along its route. Decadence!

As we're partway through our picnic, the winery's owner comes out to present us with dessert -- a cone of freshly-picked green grapes that spurt juicy sweet tartness into our mouths with every tiny perfect bite.

I might have to move here. Not to Summerland, but to the winery's patio. I could even donate some frilly undergarments to the cause...

We linger a while, get the owner to take our photo, and then head back inside to go shopping. We grab two bottles of the Bordello -- one for our last dinner with Ruth & Mike, and one for Don's birthday -- one of the Merlot ('cause that's all we're allowed), two Cabernet Merlot (which we haven't tried yet, but how bad could it be?) and a Pinot Gris. Life is good. :-)

Sigh... we bid adieu to the Dirty Laundry, and Mike, who's fortunately been very self-controlled and lunch, drives us back up the highway to Kelowna. Don laughs that this is the one and only time he's ever known me to sleep in the car. I restrain myself from mentioning that Mike lacks the habit of getting distracted by "shiny things" and making last-minute correctional swerves back into the proper lane. We'll see if Don finally starts reading our blog... ;-)

A couple of errands, and we head back to the house and throw in some laundry. Mike wants a lesson in Travis-picking, and I'm determined to get some work (and blogging) done. I realize that I've been staring at the blank screen for a very long time, and may have started drooling... I head downstairs and face-plant on the bed, listening to Mike and Don Travis-picking "Louise".

I regain consciousness about two hours later. Just in time for more laundry and dinner. :-)

It's another beautiful feast -- barbecued steaks, salmon for me, corn, grilled veggies, potatoes, bread... and Bordello. Ruth notes we're all quieter than we've been... guess we've worn ourselves out a bit. Dessert is nanaimo bars, dark chocolate and Merlot. Mmm-mmm. We're all zonked, and it's only 10:30! Oh well, probably a good thing -- we have to drive to Castlegar the next morning for our house concert at Tim and Roberta's, Mike has to meet a prospective client in the morning, and Ruth has an appointment as well. The (extended) weekend is over, time to go back to the real world. Sigh...

Musically & Marinatedly,

Alyssa

Redemption songs

2011-09-19T17:11:00.000-04:00

(Sorry for the delay -- I opted for nap over blog.)

Morning became more like mornoon, as Bernie calls it. Whoopsadaisy... Dog bless coffee, and the men who pour it.

While the others had slept in, too, they'd given up on me for breakfast -- but kindly left some out for me. Scrambled eggs and mango juice. And coffee. Lots of coffee. :-) Mike and Ruth went over to James's house to set up chairs, and Don and I had a wee rehearsal -- we were getting a bit bored of the setlist, so wanted to shake it up a bit and add some new things.

Mike and Ruth returned home just as we were loudly realizing that "No Place Like Home" might take a bit more rehearsal time than the afternoon... they still like us, anyhow. :-)

We had a nice late lunch / early dinner together, then it was time to shower (one again, you're welcome) and dress for the house concert.

We loaded up Mike & Ruth's car -- yes, we all fit in, with instruments (barely!) and drove over to James's house.

If you missed our February blog about the concert here, you'll need to know that James has the perfect house concert house. You walk in the front door and there's a big open hallway, leading to the kitchen off to the left and a tiered living room leading down to the "stage" in front of the fireplace. I think it held almost 50 the last time we were here, and could have probably squeezed in more, if necessary. Unlike in February, it was still daylight when we arrived this time, and we were able to see the little river running by, complete with ducks and bicycle path -- lovely!

Warm greetings from James when we came in, as well as from Barb's dog, who seems to have become his dog -- can't for the life of me remember how to spell her name, so shall use James's nickname for her, "Swiffer". She's a cute little miniature white-haired something -- and yes, she does resemble a swiffer, albeit a well-groomed one.

We set ourselves up, and Mike made sure we had our big glasses of water -- the climate in Kelowna is quite arid, and my voice is definitely noticing the lack of moisture (as is my nose, which seems to be on a regular bleed-fest over here).

The guests started arriving -- many new faces (about 2/3), but some familiar ones from the last concert, too. It was nice to chat with some of our "old new friends" and meet some "new new friends". Drew, who had been at our February concert, was happy to introduce us to his wife, Zoe, who had had to work the previous time. It was their 17th wedding anniversary, and they wanted to spend it with us. (Warmed the cockles of our hearts, they did!) Zoe and Swiffer hit it off quite well, too -- we thought she might end up taking her home in a purse. :-) Laura, the ballet dancer we'd met and enjoyed chatting with in February was also there, very disappointed that the friends she'd wanted to bring were away for the weekend. Janice, the sheep farmer, who'd sat in the front row with Drew the last time also grabbed front row centre with him and Zoe again this time.

In the "small world" category, we met a man named Fred Froese -- after a bit of chatting, we realized he's the brother of Bob Froese, a musical friend who we knew from Newmarket, though he'd moved to the Ottawa area before losing the battle with cancer a short while ago. Fred said he was 92 -- we didn't get so rude as to check his I.D., but lordy, you would never have pegged him for someone in his nineties! Seventy, perhaps, but not 92... The guy's an active skier and sailor, so I guess all that fresh air has done him plenty well. :-)

We did our first set. Once again, Ruth and James had pulled together a great audience -- they felt free to ask questions about our various instruments and songs, and it was like we were sitting in our own living room (greatly expanded!) chatting and playing with a bunch of friends. A couple of people were taking photos -- hopefully they'll send us some copies via e-mail (hint, hint!).

We chatted away with people at the break. One woman, who I won't name (unless she reads this and OK's it), told me her father's funeral had been the day before, and she had a huge family in town, but she'd promised James she'd come, and she needed a break from all the sadness. She thanked me profusely for being exactly what she needed that day. OK, Lyssy, don't cry before you sing, don't cry before you sing... I held it together, barely. But it was so wonderful to hear that we'd done some good in the world -- that's why we make music, to give other people as much joy as it's given us, to touch people. You don't always know when or how it's done so, but it's always nice to hear about when it has!

Drew is similarly exuberant about the emotion in my playing and singing, and the raw emotion of my songs. He's curious about my songwriting process. I leave out the part about how I barfed up a song just a few days ago -- not terribly poetic. :-)

There is a trio of folks who apologize that they're leaving before the second set -- but they've got an hour and a half to drive home. Yikes! I can't believe they came that far just to see us.

Time for the second set, in which we have been "ordered" by many to play "Yum" -- a lot of dog lovers in this room! Don announces that we're about to do our last song. "Noooo!" cries Laura, "Alyssa hasn't done her instrumental piece yet!" Ah yes, we'd cut that one out of the setlist, because Don had wanted me to sing "Jezebel" in the first set -- which he says blew him away when I did it as an extra "filler" in Enderby. But a request is a request, so I play my cello version of "Both Sides Now" -- which seems to be much appreciated, so I'm glad she asked. :-)

Then it's the last song, for real this time. :-) Where does the time go? We could play forever, but... we're also eager to dig into the plates of munchies that Ruth kindly saved for us, and finally have a glass of that wine we've seen everyone else enjoying.

More chit-chat and big hugs good-bye. James seems terribly embarrassed that we didn't bring in as much cash as last time, but we really don't mind, and the "take" has been just plenty, thank you very much. Please do not feel badly at all, it was good money and we had such a FABULOUS time, we wouldn't mind if it was half of that. We've also had another offer of a house concert the next time we're coming through, plus Ruth's "partner in promotional crime", Ernie, is already fantasizing about putting us into a new venue currently under construction.

This sooooo makes up for Friday night in Vernon.

We kind of knew it would, but it sure feels good to have such a strong reminder of why we do these things, the day after we were wondering why we do such things.

Won't you help me sing

Redemption songs

Joyful, we bid adieu to our hosts, load up the car and head back to Ruth & Mike's. There, we break out the beer and the black bean tostitos (our newest addiction), chat away some more and listen to more music.

Oops, we did it again -- silly us. 2:00 am. :-)

Musically -- yes, musically!

Alyssa

Every tour has one...

2011-09-17T18:58:00.000-04:00

The bad gig day.

But we'll get to that later. Friday started off perfectly nicely.

I'd forgotten how dark that guestroom remains. I'd woken up a few times, seen it was still dark, and rolled over to go back to sleep. After the six round of this, I bothered to look at the clock -- 10:00 already! Joined the others upstairs and had a nice breakfast together. Then Ruth headed to her computer and I hauled out mine, and the boys went off to talk and play music together. Unfortunately, the wireless I had been able to "borrow" the day before was not reaching the house this day (the previous day's storm must have helped with the waves), and Ruth and Mike live next to a mountain that seems to hamper the internet stick's service. So... it was slow-going, especially since we had just gotten the details about our Calgary gig and had to upload 5MB posters and update online concert calendars.

I just have to keep reminding myself that Lorainne McKennitt did all this before the internet existed...

Lunch time! Tuna paninis and salad on the patio -- the breeze was a bit cool, but it was still sunny and nice, and we could hear the kids at the nearby school whooping it up for a football game (or something -- we couldn't see the game, just the folks watching!).

A bit more work for the girls, the boys went to give our car an oil change -- manly men, watching other manly men do manly things. :-)

Around 4:00, it was time for us to pack up the car and head back up the highway to our gig in Vernon. (Venue shall go unnamed, but the resourceful among you can figure it out fairly easily, should you so desire...)

We drove into the parking lot, and Don peeked in the windows while I put away the laptop -- "looks like a beautiful spot!," he said with glee. We start looking forward to our cafe gig -- not our favourite type of gig, but it'll do in a pinch.

Our gleeful anticipation quickly dissipates, however, when we introduce ourselves to the young man at the counter -- he was not aware there was any music happening that night! He calls to his co-worker, who similarly had not been told there was an event that night. The two look around sheepishly, and say "I hate it when this happens" -- indicating, it seems, that this happens on a regular basis.

We look around for a poster to point to -- after all, we had sent three different versions to the booker, all on a "you need to get it to me within the hour" basis, so with that type of desperation, she must have been launching an incredible postering campaign, right?

Er...

Yeah, not a single poster. Not even in the bathroom.

Shoot me now.

Nevermind, Christian and Landon are also the hosts for the Wednesday open stages, so they know the PA system well -- they get busy setting up the "stage" and we get our gear out. They help us with the sound check and are entranced with the cello and Hawaiian king... Landon further excited when he sees the accordion. We like these guys! :-)

Landon plays Don's guitar for a while -- there's absolutely nobody else in the cafe -- and Christian plays us his very first home recording (which sounds great!). We chat away about music and introduce each other to new musicians we like. We get some yummy tea and half-price sandwiches for our troubles (quite good food, really).

Fifteen minutes to showtime... it's still just the four of us. Christian and Landon call some friends in to come listen, which is fabulous of them. They're really conscientious guys (unlike the booker, it seems). Two girls also arrive and talk loudly in the corner, getting louder as we play, so strangers outside can hear them clearly.

OK, no, please shoot me now!

But Christian, Landon and friends are very appreciative and attentive -- very kind since, let's face it, our songs aren't really standard fare for 17-year-olds. I introduce my instrumental version of "Both Sides Now" as our only cover tune -- Don asks if they know Joni Mitchell. Embarrassed shuffling and "I've heard OF her...?" Poor guys, they were trying so hard...

We decide to elongate the first set a bit, and call it a night. Mike had promised to get the wine ready for our return. We send a quick e-mail to say our return will be earlier than planned -- put away the dancing girls and get your clothes back on! ;-)

We get back to the house unscathed, though eager for grape juice. Mike and Ruth have just read our note and feel awful. Ruth had initially contacted the owner about this gig for us, when our Kamloops gig fell through -- she disappears into her office and sends an irate note to her friend (I'm not the only one who writes irate e-mails, it seems!) Not sure what it said, but... she felt much better when she emerged.

Although, you know... as far as bad gigs go, this was certainly not one of the worst. We enjoyed Christian and Landon, and while we didn't make any money, we at least didn't have to pay for a hotel that night!

We sat in the living room and chatted, introducing some new music to Mike and Ruth from our car CD collection and drinking a lovely Rioja. Apparently it was a small bottle, because we also had to open a Cabernet Sauvignon. And then a Claret... And then it was 2:30 am -- yikes! Time for a sozzled snooze. :-)

Sortamusically,

Alyssa

Day 25

2011-09-16T22:15:00.001-04:00

Happy anniversary! What do you give each other on the 25th day of a tour? Silver? Hey, we're still talking. We're still talking politely. This is an event in itself... :-)

The bed in the RV was super-comfy, and the outside air was super-chilly, so we lingered for a while. But then the call of the bathroom became too alluring. (There I go with the truth again!) So we got up and dressed and padded our way down to the house. Phoenix had already left for school, and Jody was preparing to go to work herself. We got a wee tour of the house, though (OK, correction, I asked if I could snoop!). It's a beautiful old house, and while she's done quite a bit of repair and maintenance, she's kept the character. So there's a beautiful new old-fashioned kitchen, living room with restored trim on the ceiling, etc. And the obligatory claw-foot bathtub. Lovely!

I asked if Jody was a part-owner, since she put us up for the night and does the marketing -- NOPE! She does this all out of the goodness of her heart, and for the occasional coffee at The Cliffs, because she wants to keep live music happening in Enderby. We love her even more. :-)

We packed ourselves up and headed back to The Cliffs for our breakfast. Greek omelette for me, scrambled eggs for Don. The food was delicious, and the bottomless coffee greatly appreciated, as was the wireless. We set up office in the corner and hung out for a few hours. Gregg had asked us to sign the poster, and we also gave the Bistro a signed CD before we left.

Then it was down to Kelowna, to stay with our friends Mike and Ruth for a few days. Another home away from home -- kind of funny, when we realize we've only stayed there a few days before, in February, but... As we were driving into town, things started feeling familiar, cosy. :-)

Ruth was home when we got there, Mike still coming back from a job further west. We got caught up, then Don went to shower while Ruth and I got back to work, then he played guitar while I finally got to wash my hair (you're welcome). Then Mike was home -- time for more hugs, and perhaps a beverage.

Mike and Don opted for boring old beers. Ruth and I had blue margaritas. Whattheheck, we only see each other twice a year! :-)

We had offered to take them out for dinner as a "thank you", so Ruth had made reservations at Hanna's, by the water. Once again, the food was delicious. Don had jambalaya, I had wild BC salmon, Ruth had a super-huge rack of ribs (doggie bag!) and Mike had a pizza with... stuff... I can only remember the arugula right now. The restaurant was on the upper floor, right next to the water, looking out on the harbour.

After dinner, we went for a walk down to the locks and back, then drove home for more visiting and tasty beverages.

Sorry, folks another short one. Too busy visiting and having fun!

Musically,

Alyssa

Starting the slow journey home

2011-09-15T17:05:00.002-04:00

I tried to wake up for breakfast, really, I did... but the snooze and I had too good a relationship Wednesday morning. Finally, the lure of the expresso machine dragged my sorry arse out of bed.

A brief visit with Tony and Joanne, but then we really had to frappe la rue -- we had a six hour drive ahead of us. Hugged more good-byes, bid adieu to the coast, and headed inland to Enderby.

Tony and Jo had suggested we stop at a nice family restaurant in Hope for lunch. We must have gotten off at the wrong exit, though, because we weren't seeing the place they described on the left... we did see a family restaurant on the right, though, so hopped in there for a nice sit-down lunch. "Premium" grilled cheese for me, Montreal smoked meat for Don. Heart attack in bread, but worth every clogged artery. :-)

Heading out of town, of course, we discovered the exit and restaurant they had been talking about -- oh well, next time!

Then we were driving through the mountains -- ah, mountains! Gorgeousness everywhere. Unfortunately, that gorgeousness was accompanied by... er... some digestive issues for me. Yes, in the middle of the mountains, where there's nowhere to stop. I crossed my eyes and prayed...

We pulled into Merritt, which is, apparently, the only city in all of Canada with no Tim Horton's. Don found a gas station, even though we'd just filled up (and gotten a wasp sting -- ouch!), and refilled the top eighth of a tank while I spent some time admiring the lovely decor in the public washroom, and listened to about 6 others come and go. (Hey, you want to know all the stories of the road, you get the bad with the good -- you should know by now that I'm a firm believer in ugly truths as well as the pretty ones!)

Feeling much better (some time later), we hit the road again. Don spied a Chapters, and we spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to get to it -- the roads into the mall were pretty darned convoluted! They didn't have the magazine he was looking for, drat. And now we were running late -- not late, late, but later than we'd wanted (we like to spend a lot of time in a new place to relax before the show). Time to skedaddle!

We'd wanted to be in Enderby by 5:00 at the latest, we pulled in at 5:40 -- damned tummy and drunken road planners. Gregg, the owner, greeted us and showed us where the PA was, then gave Jody a call -- she was putting us up for the night in her RV just down the road. We headed over to her place to get the lay of the land before it got dark. Electricity, but no running water in the RV, so we were welcome to come into the house to use the bathroom, and she would get her son, Phoenix, to haul up a jug of drinking water for us.

We went down to the house to find the bathroom, and met Phoenix -- what a great kid! Jody should be (and is) proud. Very self-assured, considerate, respectful and polite -- he met us at the door, offered his hand with a "pleased to meet you". As we were heading back to our car, he asked us if it was OK for him to go into "our" trailer to put the water in for us. What a sweetie!

I commented this morning to Jody how much we had enjoyed meeting Phoenix, and what a great kid he is -- she responded with an enthusiastic "I know!" (which I loved), and "you didn't even get a chance to know him!" Apparently this twelve-year old also rides a unicycle, juggles, plays several instruments, and is now learning trumpet (if anyone in the area has a trumpet they aren't using, we know a person who'd love it!). Now we REALLY want to come back to Enderby, just to see this guy in action. :-)

We still had to set up for our 7:00 start (!), so we headed back to The Cliffs to put our stage together. One cord to the right speaker wasn't working, but we found one that was, so no problem. As we were getting ready to play, we saw a vaguely familiar face walk in -- kind of strange, as we'd never played in Enderby before. It was Bonnie, who had seen us at our Kelowna house concert in February, and had brought a table full of friends with her. Yay! Always nice to have friendly faces.

Though it seems there are many friendly faces in Enderby, and The Cliffs seems to be quite a happening sort of place. One of the early-arriving locals helped us balance out the sound on our first song, and she was an enthusiastic audience member throughout the evening -- even coming up to give us big hugs and thank-yous after the show. We like hugs. :-)

The Cliffs has been around for a while, but Gregg took it over just a few months ago. It's a lovely cafe, with a little stage in the corner, lots of patio seating, art on the walls, wireless. Delicious food (many vegetarian and some vegan options), and the kind of spot where you feel at home just hanging around and visiting folks. They seem to have a number of regular patrons, and many of them spoke of how great it is to have such a venue in town.

We finished our first set, and headed off stage to take our break -- but two of Bonnie's friends were leaving. "No! You can't go yet!" she said, "not before you hear that song!" And so we hopped back on stage to sing "Sweat" before this couple departed -- apparently they were newlyweds, and Bonnie thought this song should be dedicated to them. I ask no questions. :-) But they laugh and love it, and then we get our break.

Dinner was supposed to be a part of our payment for the night, but we ended up chatting so much, we completely forgot to order anything! We had a chance to meet Tom Radcliffe, who we'd known online before (and thought still lived in Victoria, but he's moved), but had never met in person. He's down in New Mexico now, but was on tour here, himself -- he's also got a house concert in Kelowna on Saturday, so we're completely missing hearing him, but I'm sure we'll get a chance again, as we both seem to be coming to BC quite often.

The room had been VERY hot for the first set, but there was a nice breeze coming through the door for the second -- phew! We must have been playing everything double-time, though, because we had to add a few songs to our planned setlist. We each added a couple of solo tunes, and I realized how naked I now feel doing things solo -- I much prefer having someone else around to play with!

After the show, Gregg realized we hadn't had dinner (and the kitchen was closed), so invited us to come in for brunch the next day, instead. He took off, as he had to be back at 3am (!), and left one of his waiters to lock up when we were finished packing up our gear. When we were done, we asked her if there was a place to grab a sandwich or something -- she said there was a Tim Horton's about 25 minutes north (OK, Merrit isn't the only place without a Tim's), or a McDonald's and 7-11 about 10 minutes south. Ouch. We really should have ordered that dinner...

We opted for the shorter drive and, yes, each managed to choke down a filet-o-fish and fries. Road food. With a vengeance. But this McDonald's had free wireless (maybe they all do now? not a clue...), so we were able to check in with Louise, who has confirmed a gig for us in Calgary -- yay, Louise! I have a craving for sour cream and onion chips, so we grab some at the 7-11 and then head back to the RV for a second dinner of potato chips and wine. Dinner of champions! That treadmill will be getting a workout in October, lemme tell you (as I type, in fact, I'm noticing a wee roll of fat is covering the front part of the mousepad -- ugh! Anyone know of ab exercises you can do in the passenger seat?!?).

And on that lovely visual... here endeth day 24. :-)

Flabbily,

Alyssa

Social butterfly day

2011-09-14T15:18:00.002-04:00

Yes, there's the cocoon metaphor again... not intentional, but I'll leave it there.

The room we were sleeping in was nice and dark, so we had a blissful sleep-in. Don managed to figure out the expresso machine, so life was good. He headed downstairs to work on his song, I dragged my laptop to the kitchen and got to work.

Tony came home from his morning appointment, did some work of his own, and then the three of us headed out for lunch at a little bakery called Liberty. Very nice place with funky mosaic table and art (both adults' and kids') on the walls, and very delicious food. At Tony's recommendation, I had the black bean soup (wow) and a red pepper and feta panini. Tony had the soup and... some other panini. Don had the ham and cheese panini, no soup. Simple and delicious!

All three of us headed back to the house to do some work for a bit -- well, Don fell asleep, but he had good intentions -- and then the two of us headed to Commercial Drive to meet our friend Louise from the workshop, who was in Vancouver visiting her daughter Alexis. We were going to meet at "the Italian cafe with all the statues out front -- you can't miss it." We got there a bit early, drove up and down, and realized there are about a hundred and seventy Italian cafes on Commercial Drive. Couldn't see any with statues out front (although, as we were later walking back from dinner, we think we saw the place she meant -- the statues were in the lobby, hard to see from outside), so we found a nice little spot with big picture windows to watch the world go bay (name forgotten already) and called Louise to let her know where we were. She and Alexis pulled in just a few moments later.

Alexis looked very familiar right away -- I assumed it was her resemblance to Louise, but Don finally put it all together: she looks exactly like our friends Paul & Deb's daughter, Morgan. Uncanny!

The four of us had a lovely visit, although Louise had disappointing news that the head of her shelter had vetoed the concert idea. Poop, it would have been a nice thing to do -- especially after seeing Louise's video of how musical so many of the clients are! Never fear, she said, she'd try for something else, and even hold a house concert herself if it came down to it. Holy geez, when Louise makes up her mind to something, she gets it done! :-) (Maybe this is why we hit it off so well?) That was the last day of her vacation, she's heading back to Calgary today (Wednesday) -- maybe we'll see her on the highway and wave.

It's funny how close you can get with people when you're only together a few days -- I used to call it "music camp magic" as a kid. Part of it, I'm sure, is the intensity of being face-to-face for all your waking hours, but a big chunk of it I heartily believe is the artistic side. We're spending that time together digging down deep and holding out our souls (or, in my case, barfing our souls into the middle of the circle) -- a trust develops, an understanding. It's not the day-to-day superficial hi-how-are-yous, it's who are you, what's your story, where's the connection, how can we weave our stories together?

I had a non-artistic friend quip a while ago: "oh you musicians, you all call yourselves friends with each other, even if you've only met a couple of times" -- in a tone that made it obvious he didn't believe we were really friends at all. But the truth is that, once you've met someone through music -- or any other artistic collaboration, for that matter -- you've already opened up parts of yourself and seen parts of each other that most people aren't able to learn, otherwise. It doesn't take thirty years of conversation, it takes a brief moment of souls touching. Which first requires you to be in touch with your own soul, of course.

That's what I was looking for in the workshop, after two years of "dry spell". To find a way back in, to make that connection. I found it. The trick is to keep it alive.

Our cousin e-mailed me earlier today, describing a musical experience and dream she'd had, where she could see the music shimmering in the air, feel it, see everyone vibrating to it. She wondered if we ever feel that way.

Yup.

Music high. The coolest thing on earth. When you aren't just playing music, you are Music. When the individual players just click and become one big bubble of Music. Sounds pretty woo-woo to the average person, but anyone who's touched it knows exactly what I'm talking about.

We had that at the workshop. And we know each other. Heck, two of them are blood relatives. But the rest of us are family, too.

Our visit was interrupted by a beep on my cell phone -- guess we had been talking too eagerly to hear the ring, but Doug had left a message saying where he'd meet us at 5:00. Time to go. Big hugs and kisses and I'll-see-you-soons (and we will, yippee!), and then we walked up to the other end of Commercial to meet Doug at a restaurant called Havana's.

We got there a little before Doug, so picked a table on the patio. He strolled along shortly after that, and we decided the street noise was a bit much, so headed indoors to a table in the corner. Our waiter was superb -- she was super-careful to not rush us or interrupt our conversation, but was incredibly attentive (and let me test the wine I picked, instead of sexist-ly handing that job to one of the men, thankyouverymuch). Any special requests (like no mussels in our dinner) were no problem at all.

The food was delicious! Don had the paella (with no mussels, but extra chorizo), as did Doug (with mussels), and I had a delicious pasta with prawns and capers and asiago cheese. And yes, I ate the whole darned thing. This was washed down with a nice bottle of Rioja.

As we sat and chatted, the lineup was building outside for the fringe theatre festival -- there's a little theatre attached to the restaurant, apparently -- so it was quite fun for people-watching!

Our waiter tempted us with the dessert menu -- three choices available, so of course we ordered all three and shared. Might have been a bit too much, but we ate it, anyhow. Bread pudding with blueberries and ice cream. Butterscotch cheesecake. Chocolate creme brulee. Three spoons. Bliss and pain. :-)

Fortunately, our car was still on the other end of Commercial, so we were able to walk off at least the top portion of our meal. We drove Doug to his home and -- sigh, more good-byes. But coming out this way now seems to be a habit -- and heck, we may be living just a short trip away, soon -- so we know it won't be long before we can have another visit!

We went back to Tony and Joanne's house. It was completely dark -- hmm, maybe they'd gone out, themselves? It took us a while to figure out that they just have really good blinds -- the kids were asleep, but the adults were downstairs, working away. We chatted for a bit, then it was bedtime for us, too.

Musically,

Alyssa

Over to the mainland

2011-09-13T17:38:00.000-04:00

Monday morning, Don made us all an eggy breakfast, which we enjoyed on the patio. Then showers (you're welcome) and packing and... that was it for Vancouver Island. :-( We packed up the car, hugged our good-byes, and drove off to catch the 1:00 ferry.

It was a smaller ferry than we've been on before, and not terribly busy -- guess 1:00 on a Monday afternoon is a good time to travel! We grabbed some coffees and camped out at a table with our laptops -- unfortunately, the wireless didn't seem to be terribly strong, so I wasn't able to get a whole lot done. Drat...

An uneventful journey, and we managed to find our way without much traffic to Tony and Joanne's place in Richmond. Tony was home waiting for us and getting dinner started, so the three of us had a nice visit and catch-up. Joanne returned from dance class at about 6:00 with the kids, and we had a delicious dinner -- ribs for the carnivores, salmon for me, BBQ asparagus, potato salad... yum.

After dinner, Don and Tony went out for "boys night" together, Joanne put the kids to bed and went to visit a friend, and I got to do all that work I didn't do on the ferry. The excitement never ends. :-)

Yeah, I know... not my best blog ever. Some days are more bloggable than others, and I've still got a poop-load of work to do. I'll be interesting again later... maybe. :-)

Musically,

Alyssa

Big fish in a little cocoon... (it'll make sense by the end, promise!)

2011-09-12T23:51:00.001-04:00

Sunday morning. Ugh. That last glass might not have been such a good idea... OK, the second-last glass might not have been brilliant, either. Whoops.

We grump our way down the hall to the breakfast room with 15 minutes to spare. Orange juice. OK, feeling a bit more human. Coffee -- oh, how I love you, coffee. Lemon poppyseed muffin... OK, you might have to wait in my purse for an hour or two.

Stupid second-last... third-last glass of wine.

We had decided the night before to take a drive-through of the various neighbourhoods in Victoria, to get a feel for the city. So we piled in the car and first headed west along the coast. Lots of beautiful neighbourhoods right on the water and walking distance to downtown -- we don't even want to think of the housing costs, though! Of course, the tourist map we got at the hotel does not indicate where the one-way streets are, or which streets are closed for market on Sundays, so we make a few unexpected detours, but eventually find our way back to the main roads. We figure out the bridge to Esquimault (eventually), and meander our way to... well, we hit another wrong turn and seem to be on an army base. They obviously have the local wildlife well trained, though, as we see three deer walking, single file, down the sidewalk -- I wonder if they obey streetlights, too? We go as far as Royal Roads University, tootling around the campus, getting lost even there, but enjoying the scenery!

We figure that's about as far as we'd want to be from downtown, so make our way back -- getting lost again, but enjoying the detours. We get back to downtown, then work our way along the eastern part of the shore. Much nicer views here. We drive through a beautiful neighbourhood that has us going "ooh" and "aah" -- right on the sea, nice bicycle path and long stretch of beach. We see an "open house" sign and decide to peek in -- wonder how much a house in this neighbourhood would set us back?

The answer: $1.3M. Well, isn't that nice.

We won't tell the agent we're musicians, and will fake that we belong here. :-)

The house is quite lovely, with a great "cottage" out back that would make a lovely recording studio. And the living room would be great for house concerts. As we murmur away at the bedrooms on the top floor, another man says "you the ones with Ontario plates?" Yes, we are. "Don't let this one fool you -- they're pricing it way too high, you should be able to get a much better house than this one for that price."

Good to know.

If I'm going to pay over one million for a house, I at least want water view, damnit. :-)

On our way to the car, another open-houser stops to chat. He's from Toronto as well, just moved out a few years ago, and has nothing but good things to say. Yes, even total strangers are encouraging us to move here.

We work our way further northeast, and the grande bold craving takes hold just as we're heading through Cadboro Bay -- with a nice Starbucks on the corner. We grab some lunch and coffee and decide to check out some more open houses. We're a bit late in the day -- most are going to be finishing within a half hour to hour and a half. We grab the coffees to go and, armed with laptop and internet stick, Mapquest our way to the nearest open house.

This one is much more reasonably priced.

Of course, we're also looking at it after viewing a $1.3M home, so might not be as impressed as we ought to be... Also, the agent is a bit pushy.

We head to the next one still open, down in Oak Bay (the neighbourhood where Sandra and Landon live, which is a beautiful place!). OK, now we're talking. It's a beautiful house, just a few blocks away from downtown Oak Bay, easy distance to downtown Victoria. Beautiful house, with a few funny quirks (it was built by the owner), but definitely do-able as far as recording studio / teaching studio / life in general is concerned. The agent inside is also really nice -- answers all our questions, not even remotely pushy. Hears we're into music, and has TONS of suggestions of where to go in town to meet other musicians (which he knows, because he's a jazz drummer in his spare time), and has a really good sense of the type of things we're looking for.

Folks, I think we've found our real estate agent.

We tell him it's not going to be right away, and we're not certain of all -- if any -- the details, but that we'd like to, sometime in the near future, come out again, stay a few weeks and maybe have him show us some things that match our wish list. He's on it. We exchange cards, and... ohmygod, I think we just found our real estate agent.

We've spent so much time chit-chatting and dreaming and scheming that we've missed any more showings. Which is probably OK. We'll be back.

Send a note to Ali, who says they're pretty much done with their conference folks, and are heading back to the house, themselves. We pick up some wine (masochists) for the crew, and go back to Sandra and Landon's, where a very happy Amber greets us. Don heads to the nearby (Oak Bay) bakery to pick up some bread for the morning, and returns just as Ali and Sandra come in -- Landon comes close behind, with a salmon for dinner.

Their first annual National CCVSI Conference went spectacularly -- was there ever any doubt? :-)

A little wine, a lot of dinner, many conversations and... oh my goodness, will you look at the time! Oh... whaddayamean it's not even 10:00 yet? Everyone is exhausted. We all give in to the feeling and say our good-nights.

Now all we have to do is find a way to get Ali out here, too. :-) She insists we at least stay in Ontario long enough to do Christmas. Yoiks, I don't think that's a problem. Even if we make this decision, it will need a wee bit of preparation.

I say "even if", but... I think our hearts are there. Brains need some time to catch up. Logistics need a lot of time to catch up. Guilt needs to shut up.

Cannington was a lovely place while I was there, but after a few years, it became too small. Moving to Orillia got me a little closer to where I wanted / needed to be, but... it's also becoming too small. Which is sad, because I've really loved it. But I really loved Cannington, too. It was a very important cocoon for me when I needed to be away from everything. And as I needed to ease my way back into the world, Orillia was similarly the perfect place for me at the time. But my wings are back, and I need a place to test them. I need to push myself, I need to be pushed. I've been way too comfy in my little nest (yeah yeah, cocoon, nest, I'm mixing metaphors, too bad).

So why do I feel guilty for wanting to pursue my path?

Damn, I feel a whole album of songs coming on... :-)

And maybe some therapy...

Musically,

Alyssa

To be, or...

2011-09-12T02:05:00.000-04:00

We woke up and had a quick breakfast with Charlie (coffee = breakfast for me, sorry Mom!), then said our good-byes and headed down the highway, stopping halfway in Duncan for the obligatory grande bolds. Another glorious day on Vancouver Island!

We got to Sandra and Landon's house and kept Amber company for the afternoon. My portable office setting up residence on the patio, the sweet sounds of laundry in the background.

Realizing I forgot to mention a couple more things from our last day of the workshop. First was the recording of Cameron's song. As Cameron was sitting down and getting ready to perform, his toes started doing a little wiggly dance -- EXACTLY the same thing Don does when he's excited about something. Must be genetic... Second was when we were driving Sylvi home, and a big wild turkey nearly lost his life on our front bumper. Damned thing wasn't afraid of cars, just waddled along the middle of the lane being a stupid turkey, before finally getting bored and waddling off to the side of the road.

So, back to Saturday... Nothing terribly exciting to report about our dog-sitting time. Don took Amber for a nice walk, she found something stinky to roll in, I washed it off, caught up on a whole lot of work -- but not nearly enough.

We were running late (surprise!) for our dinner with Ruth and family, so left a load in the dryer and headed to the hotel -- Sandra and Landon had a REALLY packed house, so we opted for the dirty little weekend (well, one day, anyhow) scenario at a nearby hotel. We had picked the Best Western down at the harbour -- a little pricey but what the heck, we were treating ourselves for a night! It was a fabulous room, with full kitchen and sitting area and private patio overlooking the garden -- much more than we needed for only one day, but would be fabulous for people staying in town for several days and not wanting to eat out all the time.

We ditched our instruments and headed over to Ruth's -- only about 20 minutes late, oops! Nevermind, they were running behind, too. Ruth and Brian's youngest girl, Gabby (a whirling dervish if I've ever met one), greeted us in the courtyard, where she was playing with a gaggle of neighbours. They live in a co-op, with all the houses' front doors opening up to this beautiful big courtyard with hugh playground for all the kids, where it's a constant buzz of activity and a collage of languages and cultures. We headed to house #2 and up the stairs to meet Ruth's eldest, Courtney (who I last met when she was pre-verbal and breastfeeding -- oy!), Phoenix (second oldest, who had come out to hear us when we were here in February) and Aidan (who had just been out to see us in Duncan). As if Brian weren't already surrounded by estrogen, they were also hosting a young woman on student exchange from Columbia, Julie. Did I mention Brian is also an introvert? And trying to quit smoking? Geesh, power to you!

And so all nine of us had a lovely dinner together. The older girls (women, did I mention I feel old?) peeled off shortly thereafter, Gabby went back outside to play for a while, leaving us time for a nice visit with the adults and Aidan (who seems to be a wise old woman trapped in a child's body, anyhow). Bedtime for the girls and a couple of yawns from the adults (who had to get up in the wee hours to get this brood off to church) was our cue to bid adieu.

Night owls that we are, we decided to check out the patio near our hotel, overlooking the waterfront, and have a tasty beverage or two... or more (bad idea, but it was enjoyable at the time!). The energy of the place was feeding us. Midnight people watching. Almost at the same time, we each realized -- we're city-dwellers. And we really miss the city. (Yes, I know Orillia is officially a city, but... it's just not.) The conversation leads to how the big (medium) fish / small pond concept has allowed our music to stagnate, the opportunities and possibilities available where we are versus where we could be... and we realize that guilt is probably the biggest thing holding us back.

Which is a big thing, indeed, because we're both really awesome at guilt.

So the question now is -- how much are we willing to sacrifice in order to alleviate our guilt, and would it ever be alleviated, anyhow. And who wins when we live our lives based on guilt?

Yes, intellectually, we know the answers to all those questions. Hearts are harder.

We wobble back to the hotel for an incredibly short sleep...

Wistfully,
Alyssa

The Songs and THE SONG

2011-09-10T19:44:00.000-04:00

Just some housekeeping -- I promised you the group song and the list of favourite songs.

Here are the songs each of us picked:

Ahmad: John Bingham "I Can't Stop Thinking About You"
Louise: Rascal Flatts "I'm Movin' On"
Sylvi: Joan Baez "Gospel Ship"
Cameron: Death Cab for Cutie "I Will Follow You Into The Dark"
Don: Cheryl Wheeler "Sylvia Hotel"
Alyssa: Jon Brooks "There Is Only Love"
Eric: Guy Clark "The Guitar" and "The Cape" (hey, he's the leader, he gets two!)
Sari: Troy Cassar-Daley "I Love This Place"

And here are the lyrics to our group song, written September 5 & 6, 2011 at The Haven, by Ahmad Baabahar, Eric Bibb, Don Bray, Cameron Dennison, Sylvia Edlund, Louise Gallagher, Sari Matinlassi-Bibb & Alyssa Wright, copyright Spirit In The Song Productions:

Come on home
The air is clear -- doors wide open
Whatever path your Spirit's chosen
You're not alone
Come on home

We're lonely and lost
Fear is blinding
Misunderstood
Souls in hiding
We're all seeking a haven
A place to belong
Where the breath of the Spirit
Calls so strong
Come on home

Come on home
The air is clear -- doors wide open
Whatever path your Spirit's chosen
You're not alone
Come on home

The journey is long

Hearts are heavy

No kin to hold

Troubles many

We're all seeking a haven

A place to belong

Where the voice in the wind

Is a welcoming song

Come on home

Come on home
The air is clear -- doors wide open
Whatever path your Spirit's chosen
You're not alone
Come on home

Come on home

Leaving Home

2011-09-10T19:36:00.000-04:00

I awoke Friday morning, pouty and petulant. I didn't want to leave. Cancel the tour, I'm staying here. "We're all seeking a haven / A place to belong / Where the voice in the wind / Is a welcoming song"... I was not ready to leave the magic, to rejoin the world of highways and suitcases and my passenger-seat office with no ocean view or smell of the sea, or Sammy the friendly sea lion who liked to sunbathe on the rocks at The Haven's shore.

Toby had sat with us for a bit at dinner the night before, and mentioned he'd been reading my and Louise's blogs about our week -- and invited us to contributed something to The Haven's Shen blog, if we felt so inclined. Ah, then Shen blog -- they posted an article of mine the last time we were here. That was just after the Big Ethyl incident, when I was relieved to be healthy and cancer-free. And now here we are again, but Don does have cancer, and our return home will begin the count-down to his surgery. Another thing I'd rather not have to deal with right now. Could we please go back to the singing and writing and holding hands with people we love?

Ah, but it's these times and these connections that help us deal with those difficult things, isn't it? We don't get our strength by staying in bed and refusing to face the world...

I get out of bed. But I don't like it. :-)

The Haven has anticipated my mood by making STUFFED French toast for breakfast. Yes, stuffed. With strawberries and cream cheese. This day might work out alright, after all... Jack is refusing to meet my gaze, and turns his back as I walk past. Sigh...

After breakfast, I head up to the room to shower and pack. We load up the car and check out of the room, and then I set up my portable office on the sun porch again. There's quite a breeze coming off the water today, the salt air scolding me for checking out so soon.

Lunch. Roasted veggie sandwiches with melted cheese and pickle. Delicious again. Don heads down to his favourite bench to play guitar to Sammy and the geese one last time, as I finish up some last typing. I look down again and see two hats on the bench -- Ahmad has joined him, and the two are in animated conversation. I almost don't want to interrupt, but we do have a ferry to catch... I wander down and join them. Goodbye sea, goodbye rocks, goodbye Ahmad, goodbye Haven.

Leaving home, even a temporary one, is difficult for me. You never really know if you'll see either the people or the place again.

Thank you rocks. Thank you sea. Thank you trees. Thank you beasties. Thank you Haven. Thank you friends. We'll be back. If we have any say in the matter, we'll be back.

We make the drive to the ferry, and are surprised to find the line is very short. It ends up being only half-full when we get on.

With several hours to kill before we have to check in for our Nanimo gig, we decide to head down the highway to check out the town of Cedar, which Graemme recommended. Sorry, Cedar, you just don't do it for us -- if we're going to leave Ontario, it won't be for a place that looks just like Ontario. Plus it seems way too isolated, as well, since part of my yearning is to have more high-quality musicians to connect with, and push me forward. We agree that if the move is ever going to be made, it's Victoria or bust. Typical us, going for the more expensive option... oh well, at least we aren't in love with Vancouver!

Cedar was closer than expected, so we still have several hours to kill. We head to one of the Nanaimo Starbucks. Not only does the mighty Bucks always have great coffee, they've got free wireless, and never make you feel like you've overstayed your welcome. (In fact, Sandra, our host in Victoria, often holds meetings in a nearby Starbucks with its own board room which can be used for free!) My portable office, minus sea breeze or sea lion, is set up once more, and we sip away on the first grande bolds we've had in days. :-)

We grab some sandwiches to take and munch before our gig, then head to the Red Willow Coffee House. We had driven there from the ferry, to make sure we knew where it was, but somehow we get completely turned around and have to double back. So much for being extra early...

We meet Charlie, our host, outside the church. Ruth is also there, setting up the refreshments. We don't really need to worry about the sound system, as the room is small, and there's a great omni mic set up centre stage, which should pick us up as much as necessary. We'd be playing around 9:00-ish, as there's an open stage that starts at 7:00. The church has a beautiful picture window overlooking the water -- we have no idea who listens to the sermon on Sunday mornings. :-)

It felt kind of like song circle at home -- each open stage act got 3 songs, with Charlie MC-ing. He began the night, and then about 5 acts performed. Very community-oriented, inclusive feel to the whole night. Charlie is quite the interesting man -- at 76, he recently completed a cross-Canada bicycle trip, putting us all to shame. He's been a Lutheran minister, headed up a friendship centre, worked as an accountant... he's done it all.

A quick break for refreshments, and then it was our turn to do a 1-hour set. We were very well received, including one young guy who had come out to the coffee house for the first time, had a rock band background, and hadn't known what to expect -- he was totally excited, took our card, and vowed to return. We also got an invite to play a house concert venue the next time we're out this way. Life is good. :-)

We followed Charlie and Ruth back down the highway to Charlie's house in Ladysmith, where we were staying for the night. We were offered some single malt from Speyside -- who are we to say no? Ruth said goodnight, and left the three of us to the Scotch. Four, really, if you count Andre, the long-haired Dachshund, who alternately growled at us and asked for ear rubs.

Charlie has incredibly eclectic musical tastes -- from Bach to Ella to Leahy to Lady Gaga -- is obviously a patron of visual art as well, with many paintings and photos covering the walls, and he walked us through many of them. Then he picked out a DVD of the Calgary Ballet presenting "The Fiddle and Drum", a multi-media ballet by Joni Mitchell. We'd never heard of it, but watched in awe -- we'll definitely have to get a copy when we get home! We chatted some more, and then realized it was after 1am -- better nap!

We said goodnight to Charlie and Andre, and headed up to our room, sleeping soundly.

Musically,

Alyssa

Last day - stay on home, stay on home

2011-09-09T19:37:00.000-04:00

Thursday morning -- how did we get here already? The snooze button gets another workout. Probably in part due to the previous night's wine and short sleep, but likely more due to not wanting to say goodbye.

Sylvi, of course, was patiently waiting for her posse. We joined her for scrambled eggs and lots of coffee (I was obviously feeling better, as my coffee craving was back!)

We had agreed Wednesday that the morning session wouldn't begin until 10:00, so everyone could sleep a little extra after the concert. But we must have all wanted to savour every last moment together, because by 9:15, we had all gathered in our Heron meeting room one last time. Everyone was excited about the concert the night before, but there was an undertone of bittersweet, as we knew these magical five days were drawing to a close.

The morning began, as had every morning, with Eric reading us a passage out of a daily meditations book which had been loaned by a friend. As every morning, it was uncannily appropriate. This was followed, as every morning, with Louise reading us her blog (which she wakes up at 5:30 every morning to write, even mornings after a two-glasses-of-wine late night). Cue the tears and sniffles.

Then we did our check-in. In alphabetical order. Me first (hmmm... alphabet with a wee zig-zag, I guess). I told the story of my stupid body tricks the night before, and read the new song I barfed up (it still feels more like that than birthing, even though less poetic). I made it to the last verse before starting to bawl again and choke out the rest of it. I heard a sob from Sylvi, Louise (who prides herself in never crying in public) was also crying, even Ahmed looked teary. The Bray Brothers, of course, were sniffling away, as were Eric and Sari. Guess I barfed up a good one. Next step was to sing it for them. I was able to do it until halfway through the last verse, when I heard another sob from Sylvi, which set me going again (I am SUCH an emotional sponge, it's ridiculous..).

Ahmed was next. His was still a work in progress, but he had done a considerable amount of tweaking, and had completed some new stuff that would rip your heart out. I can't wait to hear the final version. Cameron was still abuzz from the night before, glad he'd been able to find a way to stay, and full of new ideas of how to get himself back to singing on stage again. Don had disappointed us all by not writing three more songs in the meantime. ;-) He had made a few changes, though, which were polishing the song up nicely. Louise was happy with her song, and was ready to hand it off to me to sing. Nice try. :-) I'd be happy to cover it some day, but today it's still yours, lovely. Sylvi was still thrilled with her song, and seemed to have gotten a huge boost from singing on stage the night before -- the confidence of her delivery had taken a great leap.

And so, for the documentation! Cameron had a truck full of video gear, so he brought in his camera and set up the tripod. We wanted a video of each person's song, as well as our group song. Everyone did their individual songs. Sylvi made it through her own for the first time without crying on the last verse -- what a performer! Typical me, I waited until the very end. Put on my stage face and was determined to make it through without breaking down at the last verse. Almost did it, too, until a heard another Sylvi sob on my last line... that's OK, I had already heard a click from the camera. Cameron had run out of batteries. Nevermind, he had four more in the car. Plugged a new one in, and asked me to re-do just the last verse. I started and... CLICK. Ran out of that battery too. Cameron ran back to the truck and came back sorrowfully, apologizing profusely that he didn't have his charger and all the other batteries were dead, too -- this never happens.

Louise came to the rescue with her little camera. Not quite so fancy, but it could screw on to the tripod and record in HD, so it would have to do. I made it through the whole song with no tears, and everyone agreed it was the best version (even without the tears) I had done. Cameron was obviously meant to have forgotten the battery charger, because it allowed the best performance to get recorded. There are no mistakes, no coincidences -- a running theme of the week.

Time for our group song. Again, our best performance ever. E-mail sheets were distributed, as were our song lists. It was 12:00. Our workshop was over. We gathered in a circle, held hands, gave thanks, gave love, promised this wouldn't really end.

Cameron really, really had to go now, and Louise was also going to try to catch the 12:35 ferry. Big hugs and kisses to them both. We will see Louise in a couple of weeks. We will see our new-found cousin-brother very soon.

The rest of us head to the lodge for one last meal together. It's obvious nobody wants to leave. Eric and Sari are hoping to catch the 3:10 ferry, but haven't even packed yet. I wonder if they actually made it, because between the two of them, they put our procrastination techniques to shame. :-) More big hugs and kisses. More chatting. Some more hugs. Chat chat chat. Hugs... OK, really going now. Promise to be in touch and see each other soon.

We are down to four. Don is meeting with Graemme at 1:30, but promises Sylvi to drive her to her place down-island when he's done. Ahmed is staying a few more days for "The Haven Unplugged" -- a few days of helping to do cleaning, minor repairs, gardening, etc., around the property.

We grab some comfy seats in the lounge for a while, as Don waits for Graemme to finish his other meeting, and I get started on all the PR that has built up over the last few days. Damn, real world is coming on strong. I am approached by Jack [not his real name] -- an older guy who doesn't take any courses here, but comes here for a month-long stay annually and is a local fixture -- who want me to come and watch a video he was talking about the night before. An hour and a half video of fiddle music. He apparently didn't read my tone and body language well when he was talking about it the night before. I smile politely, say we're just waiting for Graemme for a meeting, don't really have time to watch it, but thanks. Graemme takes about ten more minutes to arrive in the lounge, during which time I am approached by Jack four more times, telling me I should come watch the video with him. Still no, Jack, sorry.

Graemme came to our rescue as Jack was making his sixth advance. It was really Don and Graemme's meeting, but I walked as far as the driveway with them, then escaped to our room to recharge my laptop. Sadly, the wireless does not reach our room, but I answered several e-mails and left them in the outbox for later.

Once the computer was charged, I tiptoed back down to the lodge to hide in a corner of the sunroom and do some PR work. I was safe, all was well, no fiddle videos for me. A lovely breeze was blowing off the sea, life was good. Don came back -- QUITE some time later, happy about his meeting with Graemme, and excited about the project. They really hit it off, and have the same musical sensibilities (as Don had suspected, but nice to have confirmed).

We drove Sylvi back to the house she rents for the five months she lives here -- she spends the other seven at her home in Ottawa. It's perched partway up a cliff, then up some cement stairs and into her main room -- studio and kitchen all in one, overlooking the trees. Up a small ladder is her bedroom and "bathroom" (a composting toilet), and out front is the porch she uses almost as a room itself. A cute little spot with a great view of Nanaimo if you walk up a little further. We stay and chat for a little while, then head back to the Haven. It's just us and Ahmed left, now.

I set up in the sunroom -- my new office -- and Don headed down to his favourite park bench to serenade the geese. Every time I looked out the window, he had a new audience of geese swimming slowly towards him, listening attentively -- Gabriolan geese are obviously very discerning. :-)

Dinner time! And here comes Jack... "oh, you're still here?" "Yes, we're staying an extra night." "Oh, so you can come and see my video, then!"

Oy...

"No, Jack, not now, we're eating dinner and I've got a lot of work to do." Damn, should have omitted the 'not now' part... "Oh, so I'll come get you after dinner and we'll watch the video." Sigh... "Don't know if I can, Jack, I've got a lot to do, but thanks..."

We grab our plates and -- oh, what is this deliciousness? Mushroom Wellington, scalloped potatoes, mustard-roasted kale... Heaven! "Mind if I sit with you?" I hear behind me... I startle a bit, bracing myself for a dinner's worth of demands to watch a fiddle video, but it's Graemme. His partner, Marlise (hope I'm spelling it right?) is following close behind -- she's going to be leading a body work session for the helpers in the evening. We have a delicious dinner together, and a lovely chat. Graemme seems to be eagerly joining the "get Lyss and Don to BC" team, telling me about all the various opportunities for cellists in Victoria. He might have an ulterior motive -- he really loves the cello (damn, and I thought it was all about our sparkling personalities!).

Jack finishes his meal and makes another round. "No, Jack, I can't right now. If I'm able to later, I'll come find you." I tell my table-mates I should probably just go watch the damned video and put him out of his misery. They laugh and tell me that would just lead to the hour and a half of question-and-answer period following the film. I feel a little less like a rotten person and realize I'm just holding my boundaries steady against someone with serious boundaries and people-reading issues. Yay me.

Marlise gets up to go prepare her room for the session, leaving the three of us to chat for what turned out to be a couple more hours. Jack sat behind of us for much of that time, clearing his throat often. I concentrated intensely on the conversation, and pondered what Tai Chi moves I could practise on him. More great conversation, accompanied by a cricket now, from music to politics to moving us to Victoria to... Oh lordy, Jack's back. "No Jack, I'm not coming to watch the video now, we're in the middle of our conversation." He resorts to pacing back and forth on the patio for a while, as we talk some more. I make up my mind to hold my ground -- if he comes back after Graemme goes back to the studio, I'm going to firmly tell him I've got way too much work to do, and simply can't take the time. I never do get that chance. Jack has finally got the message and, it seems, has taken it personally -- he avoids me the rest of our time on the island (not a bad thing, really, but... geez, if he had got the message earlier, we could have done it without sulking and pouting).

After several threats of "I really have to get back into the studio", Graemme finally does break free of the conversation to go get some work done. I put my portable office back together, and Don heads out to the sunroom (more of a moonroom by this point) to play some more guitar. Kind of like life at home, only I can see him from this office. We've pretty much got the lodge to ourselves for a while, as the Unplugged folks are in session and no other workshops are happening until Tuesday.

The evening session people came back to the lodge for schmoozing, and I uploaded files while quietly eavesdropping on some very interesting conversations -- still in songwriter mode, I guess! We grabbed a glass of wine ourselves, before heading up to our room for one last sleep.

I could hear the island singing "Come On Home" -- stay a little longer, you just got here, don't rush off...

Musically, blubberingly and lovingly,
Lyss

Come On Home

2011-09-09T00:40:00.001-04:00

Wednesday was shower morning. You are welcome, Gabriola!

So we were even later than usual to join Sylvi (just found out I've been spelling her name wrong -- sorry!) as her breakfast posse. She was already with some of the Phase II people, but ditched them when we arrived. :-) I should mention -- I don't think she'd mind, as she's quite forthcoming about it -- that several years ago, an infection in her appendix of all places caused her no small amount of brain damage. Yes, brain damage from an appendix infection -- who knew? One of the functions she lost is facial recognition. So photos of people mean nothing to her, and she warned us when she first met us that she would stare at us blankly if we walked by her on the grounds, so not to take it personally.

Well, when one sense leaves us, others rush in to take their place. Because by the next day, she recognized us perfectly well. Sometimes by our voices, but often when we weren't even speaking -- once she gets to know someone, she says she can recognize their energy. Apparently Don and I have a lot of energy, or a distinctive one, anyhow! She even recognizes us when we walk up behind her.

Anyhow, we headed to our morning session. The usual check-in of how everyone's doing and where they're at, followed by Eric and Sari's suggestions of what they wanted each of us to work on that morning. We did a quick rehearsal of our group song for the concert that night, and then we were all sent off to do our work individually. Cameron and Don were paired off (The Bray Brothers), so that Don could work out a guitar accompaniment for Cameron's song, leaving Cameron free to dig into the expressive glory of his new-found voice. Louise and I (the accordion sisters) were paired off, so I could figure out an accompaniment to her ballad. Eric was going to work with Sylvi on some tweaking to her song, and practising his own accompaniment for it. Ahmed was given the assignment to write a brand-new song, and the topic had to be his father.

Eric came out to give me the chords he was playing to Louise's song, and then left us to work on it. Louise was emotionally exhausted by that point already, and once I knew the chords (G# minor, Eric?!? Geez, these guitarists with capos... ;-) ), I only needed to know which verses were following melody A or B, so... we talked instead. Louise had given me a book the night before, about her abusive relationship with a man who actually ended up kidnapping her to try and get across the border, but the police saved her (apparently Oprah is doing a documentary, holy crap!) Minus the red ferrari, we obviously had much to talk about. But we also chatted about her art -- yes, this multi-talented person also paints and does mixed media -- her daughters, and other lovely things. And then it was time for lunch!

We walked out on to the lawn to collect Don, and he and Cameron were doing another run-through of the song. Holy crap, it sounded just incredible! We sat in awe. The Bray Brothers kick butt. :-)

Lunch time -- chipotle black bean burgers. Oh my, I could eat those for the rest of my life.

No afternoon break for us this day. We had work to do! The (early and shorter) afternoon session began with a recap of all we had been able to accomplish on our songs. I hadn't really done much, other than a tentative melody for the chorus. Tried out a couple of new verses that I wasn't totally happy with -- and I don't think the group was, either. So this time, my nagging doubts were telling me something truthful. Cameron and Don did Cameron's song. It was incredible -- just as Don started strumming the opening line, you could see Cameron's entire being just shifting and settling in to Become The Song. A beautiful thing. Don had tweaked his own song a bit, and the changes met with general approval. Sylvi and Louise were both happy with theirs as is, and sang them well. And then Ahmed's turn -- wow, he had dug deep. The song was still in progress, but was definitely progressing strongly. "The day they took my father away...". Some pretty emotional stuff -- he had given in to the process, and embraced all the stuff he needed to get out. Job beautifully done.

Then it was time to prepare for the concert! Eric's accompanist, piano player extraordinaire Bill Sample, arrived, so we all did a rehearsal together, to show him the ropes -- I don't think he needed it. :-) We did a few runs-through, and then the instrumentalists headed up to the Phoenix Theatre to set up the stage and do line checks. I don't think Graemme was expecting to need quite so many lines for a duo concert, but he handled us well. :-) As Eric and Bill rehearsed a few numbers, I quietly played along in the corner -- nothing like playing with good musicians, even if I'm not really playing with them. :-)

The "Spirit in the Song Choir" arrived, and we did a few more runs-through, so everyone could get used to the stage and the microphones -- Eric was very generous with his pre-concert time. "The Bray Brothers" had been asked to perform Cameron's song that night, so they got some rehearsal time in as well.

Then we had about ten minutes left to head down to the lodge and scarf down some teriyaki salmon before the concert -- damn, it would have been a good meal!

The workshop participants had the front row of chairs saved for us -- woo-hoo, VIPs! We sat down and got ready to enjoy the show. Stretched out across the back curtain were Eric's five guitars (he uses many different tunings, plus has a 7-string and a baritone), Don's guitar and lap slide, and my cello. Nice little bit of visual poetry. Don, of course, wanted to organize them by size... or maybe by colour. I mentioned they were already in alphabetical order -- cello, followed by guitar-like objects.

Eric took the stage, solo at first, and began a beautiful first half of the program, that had us alternately dancing and sighing.

That's when my body started in to Stupid Body Tricks, followed by Return of the Revenge of Stupid Body Tricks... WTF?!? First it was my cough, which had been pretty much absent most of the day, but was suddenly out in full force. Then cramps. Then a nasty pain down my side. Get a grip, Lyssy, what's with this? You never get stage fright, this is stuff you love to do, why all this weirdness? OK, talked myself out of appendicitis, but then... oh, seriously, you're going to threaten explosive diarrhea now? C'mon, I survived the mussels before going on stage, that's not going to scare me. Listen to me, body, even if I crap my pants on stage, I'm still going to play and sing, so cut it out. But wait... you've got to be kidding me... a seizure?!? You're threatening a seizure?!? I haven't had one of those since I got rid of the ex-husband, and you're threatening one because I have to play a few notes on stage? Listen, body, even if you're writhing on the floor, I'm still going to play my damned cello and sing my heart out. So smarten up. NOW.

In the midst of this internal chaos, Bill Sample joined Eric, on the beautiful grand piano off to the side. He's such a sensitive accompanist, the effect is just magical.

Eric's last piece, then it was time for Cameron's song. His girlfriend and a bunch of friends were in the audience to hear him perform -- many people rooting for him. And the man did not disappoint. Not by a long shot. Once again, he owned that stage and became that song. And the crowd went wild -- not just his friends, either. Standing ovation!!! Bray men rule.

Then it was time for the grand finale -- our group song, "Come on Home". And with Cameron as inspiration, everyone stepped up and did better than ever on the song. Even my Stupid Body Tricks went away (as they usually do, when I've got a performance to give). Everyone's solos were great, and in the gospel-y section at the end, every line was given with strength and sensitivity -- the audience was clapping along, singing with us. We were in the zone. And yes, the crowd went wild again. It was a great night. Many hugs and kisses on stage.

As the audience started to shuffle out and we were leaving the stage, who should I see but Tim Harrison, who was doing a review for his new website, Now On Gabriola. He seemed to have had a good time, but I guess we'll see when the review gets published. ;-) Many other happy audience members, too. I got a chance to practise accepting praise and gratitude... homework!

We headed down to the lounge for a celebratory beverage or two with Louise, Sylvi and Cameron -- Eric and Sari were heading out to finally have some dinner, but said they'd join us later (they didn't end up coming, because they were both falling asleep on their feet by the time dinner was over). Louise invited us to come and play at the shelter where she works when we're in Calgary, so we'll be seeing her again in a couple of weeks, yay! Cameron may have to go home before the morning, but we manage to talk him out of it -- it wouldn't be right to not have him there for the follow-up. In the midst of all my merry-making, the Stupid Body Tricks began again. Geez, maybe I actually am sick or something?

We walk back up to the room, and I realize I still haven't fixed the last verse, and we're supposed to be recording the final songs the next morning. Crap. OK, I'll see if I can at least cobble something together before my body falls apart or I fall asleep.

I sit down on the bed, haul out my pen and notebook, and...

BLLLAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Barf out a revised second chorus and a final verse. All in one fell swoop, no edits. And then I start to bawl my eyes out.

Those weren't the pains of unexplainable stagefright. Those were the pains of childbirth.

The Return of the Revenge of A Song Is Born.

I feel much better now.

Musically -- especially when I'm explosively musical,

Alyssa

More Songs are Born

2011-09-07T18:22:00.000-04:00

Tuesday -- is it already Tuesday? We might have pressed the snooze button a few times... even Don, who always makes fun of my snooze button tendencies, waited until 38 minutes (not that I was counting) after the first alarm to get his arse out of bed.

But breakfast was calling! Sylvie was waiting in the lodge with some of the Phase II participants for her "posse" -- we ended up being the only two to turn up, albeit a bit late. Slackers. ;-)

After breakfast, we all headed up to the morning workshop. First, we went over our group song from the day before. One minor change to the lyrics -- which made a big difference -- but that was it. Next step, the arrangement! We got it roughed out and recorded to work with.

Next step was individual songs. I had gone over a list the night before of all the partial songs I still wanted to finish, but only had one that went beyond a cool line or two -- and that one was definitely off limits, mine, nobody's gonna touch this. As in my entire year of grade 13 calculus, I just prayed I wasn't called on to show my homework.

Mr. Bray to my rescue (unintentionally, I presume). He, of course, had most of a song ready, which he wrote falling asleep the night before. Did I mention the word "bastard"? ;-)

A bit of discussion over some things he was having troubles with, but basically, everyone was loving it. Who wants to go next?

Eyes lower to studiously examine carpet... then gaze furtively around the circle... then back at the oh-so-interesting carpet...

PHEW! Ahmed has a song to share. (Although it's one he's already rehearsed with his band, so I personally think he's cheating... but at this point, I'm just happy to not be caught!) More discussion and... aw, shucks, it's time to break for lunch!

Lunch was... well, not terribly colourful for us veggies -- rice and stir-fry noodles. Thank goodness for the salad bar, or all I would have had would have been white... But I so love that salad bar, especially the chick peas and blue cheese dressing, num num nummm.

Guess how I spend my after-lunch break? Yup, cramming the songs. I try so hard to get some of the one-liners fleshed out, but... oh crap, what was that Sylvie said about how the thing you resist the most is the thing you most need to do? OK, OK... I'll do the off-limits song, damnit. I peel back through my journal for the two years' worth of failed attempts to complete this song, and try to piece the good stuff together. I even come up with some new stuff. Yay me! I'm still hoping to flesh out the lighter stuff, but... damn, two hours is over, back to session.

So, who wants to start first? My knight in shining armour wants to sing us all the new version, before he forgets how to play it. Everyone loves the changes, a bit more discussion. Who wants to go...? Cameron! Yay, I love those Brays. :-)

Cameron, of course, has that annoying Bray tendency of being able to write an incredible song as quickly as a burp. I really hate those Brays... ;-) Needless to say, it's fabulous. The only work done on the song is to get him more comfortable with the guitar part, and fit him into more of a groove. Other than that, the song and his delivery are incredible. I'm teary. Even though he's a bastard too. :-)

Next up is Sylvie, who has never written a song before. She presents a work-in-progress, which she declares to be too whiney for her taste, although it has some quite funny moments to break it up. Eric suggests she take the lyrics -- which are basically about how annoyed she is that everyone depends on her to save the day, and she's fed up with being the strong one (oh geez, I could never relate to that -- hardeeharhar...) -- and instead of looking down upon herself, to look at herself in a more positive light. Others recognize that she probably wouldn't mind doing these things if she got something in return, such as acknowledgement or acceptance. She agrees to take a look at it again.

Thank goodness, we're going in a circle now (I'm at the end, yay!). Louise has a perfectly-formed lyric in the style of an old English ballad, titled "Fear Lived In Her Belly". It rings way too true. The only changes suggested are to cut out a few syllables, and Eric and/or I will help her put a melody and accompaniment to it. The song in lyric form is pretty much done.

Then it's my turn -- oh, come on... already?!? Avec shaky voice (and did I mention still sick?), I wobble my way through the opening verses, speak through the chorus (haven't found a melody yet), sing the next set of verses, and then say where I'm stuck... Apparently my worry that it was too much of a country hurtin' song was not needed -- everyone sees it as genuine and heartfelt. Sari says it sounds more like an Irish tune than a country hurtin' song -- phew. And the bad stuff isn't over the top. Just have to fill out the ending.

OK, I survived.

So now, we break out for an hour to work on stuff by ourselves. I try. I really try. I write the next verse eleven different ways, then give up and upload the previous day's blog, and compose a to-do list of things to remind me how I fail to complete to-do lists. Yes, I am my worst enemy. You any better?

Time to go back, so I run to the lodge to get a refill of ginger tea. Don has the same idea. I laugh at the fact that I pulled off the tragic part of the song quite easily, and it's the happy ending that has me tied in knots. I'm really not good at happy endings. Hey, I have trust issues. Deal with it. ;-)

Back to finish off the session with a quick check-in from us all. Don, of course, has a shining, polished diamond of a song. (bastard) Cameron has been working with a metronome to figure out the groove. Sylvie has come back with some new verses that astound us all. Louise has worked with Eric and created a beautiful melody, sung in a sweet and beautiful voice. Ahmed e-mailed his family. I... sort of have a verse, and one hell of a to-do list. I read the verse, and get some suggestions. I come up with some of my own ideas to finish 'er off. We'll see what happens before tomorrow.

Dinner time! We eat with Sylvie and Louise again. The veggie dinner is quinoa and stuff, much less sweet than the night before. Which means we get to eat dessert -- apple cake with caramel sauce and whipped cream. Mmm!

Evening session. We work on the song, fine-tune the arrangement, and record a few new practise takes. It's sounding pretty darned good. Everyone who has done group songs before agrees that this is the best group song they've ever been involved with. Damn, we're good. :-)

After that, Eric has an agenda: Sylvie.

Sylvie has completely re-written her song, and now has a melody. First, she just reads the lyrics. Wow... or should I say: WOW. The refrain has now changed to "you can count on me", and ends with a verse every care-giver will cleave to their breast -- I need some support, too, just give me a hug or something, and that's all I'll need to carry on. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, don't want to steal her thunder.) We're all in awe. And then she goes to the piano to sing it. A little tentatively at first, as she hasn't played piano in 45 years, but she picks out the opening lines, and then takes it from there, with Eric filling in the chords underneath. She gets to verse two and gets choked up -- which of course chokes the rest of us up. But she ploughs onward, through the tears that cause her to pause from time to time, and finishes the song. It's incredible. We're all crying. Eric asks her to repeat it, so he can record it and figure out the accompaniment part later tonight. Even the second time, she's tearing up, so Louise quietly walks over, kneels beside her at the piano, and rubs her back as she's singing. Just that is enough to make me sob quietly in the corner... It was such a beautiful moment, one woman pouring several decades of strength and pain out in song, and another just quietly sitting there, taking it on for her, helping her through. You can count on me. Count on me.

We are all emotionally drained. Big hugs. Even the Bray boys are in tears (I love a man who can cry!). We trade a few songs, and Louise shows us a video of "Stand By Me" made at the homeless shelter where she works, where professional performers and the shelter clients are all singing together. Damn. I thought we were supposed to stop crying?!?!?

Too many wonderful things in this world. Too many wonderful people. :-)

Session is over. We head to the lodge for some more visiting and a tasty beverage. Once again, we're in bed before midnight. Yes, I'm eating breakfast and going to bed before midnight. No, this won't last forever. :-)

Musically,

Alyssa

A song is born

2011-09-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

Woke up Monday feeling much better... at least until I got vertical. Then an ocean's worth of snot flowed out of me like... well, like an ocean's worth of snot. Can you see why I need a little boost to my songwriting?

And, ahem, did I mention it was a 7:30 wake-up? I don't do 7:30 wake-ups...

But I got up, AND went to breakfast -- which was french toast with strawberry compote, so it made things a little better. Still not feeling much for coffee, but I did have several cups of their delicious ginger tea (they keep a big pot brewing all day in the main lodge).

We grabbed our instruments and headed to our morning session, with instruments in tow. I brought my accordion for Louise (she had apparently done up to Grade 8 Conservatory on it as a youngster), but she did not feel like taking poor Scarlett out of the box. We'll work on her further tomorrow. :-)

We started with our favourite songs, songs that touched us, with each of us introducing "our" song and why we loved it so much. Don's was Cheryl Wheeler's "Sylvia Hotel". I finally settled on Jon Brooks's "There's Only Love". It's really hard to settle on just one, but I think I did it justice -- and Eric was excited to learn of a new songwriter, who greatly impressed him! It was great to hear everyone else's choices, too -- they're putting together a list, so I'll share it later. Of course, once we had all shared "the" song, there were many more thrown in that reminded people of other songs, etc. A fun morning!

By the end of the morning session, I could actually breathe through both nostrils, so life was very exciting. :-)

Lunch was hoagies (including vegetarian hoagies for me) plus salad and... lots of stuff. We never go hungry here!

Don had started to write a new song going to bed the night before, so he went off to the field with his guitar to work on it, while I had a much-needed nap, to try and get rid of this $&#*(%^ cold. I slept like a baby...

Woke up in time for some more ginger tea before the afternoon session. We started working on a group song, and managed to get the chorus completed -- getting eight songwriters to agree is kind of like herding cats, but we were all happy with the result. This was Cameron's turn to shine, because not only was he amazing at singing the chorus, he came up with some really great lines and ideas, and seemed to have lots of confidence presenting them. Yay Cameron! (Go Brays!)

Of course, mid-way through, because I had actually been feeling OK, my body decided to go into full nosebleed mode. Yeah, seriously. It's pulling out All The Tricks today, isn't it? If my brain can't silence me, my body will find a way. Grrr... After about 20 minutes hanging out in the bathroom and having Don fetch me ice cubes, I was finally able to get back into the group, where the lyrics for the 1st verse were taking shape. But then it was time for our dinner break!

Dinner was pork somethingorother for the carnivores, and a yam and lots-of-other-stuff pie for the veggies. Louise and I both found it a bit sweet for our tastes, but that meant we didn't have to have dessert (Don had it for all of us).

Back to the evening session, and we somehow managed to write the music for the verses, AND complete the second verse -- we're thinking that's all the song really needs, since it starts with the chorus, but we'd see how we felt with fresh ears in the morning.

Did I mention my voice was going tonight? Stupid body tricks...

Sorry, folks, the blogs from our workshop days are going to be pretty short and probably unpoetic. The sessions are pretty intense, and this cold isn't helping much.

Musically and bloodily and hackingly,

Alyssa

Germ-y on Gabriola

2011-09-06T01:50:00.001-04:00

Sorry guys, falling behind... no more driving, and I needed to nap in our only spare time today. (They keep us busy, with three 3-hour sessions a day.)

So... back to Sunday.

Woke up with less of a tennis ball in my throat, but the cold had definitely moved to my sinuses. :-( As I said to Don later in the day, it's probably no coincidence that my body decided to not be able to talk the day before our workshop which I'm hoping will break me out of my rut... Stupid body tricks.

Breakfast was more yummy bread with blackberry jam, plus a quarter melon. Mmm...mmm.

Landon suggested I try their steam shower. He showed me how to work it, then left me to my own devices. As the steam started out of the tap, I looked at the time -- 30 minutes? They expected me to sit still for thirty whole minutes?!? How stupid is that? I can't sit still for... oh... maybe... whaddayamean there's only ten minutes left? Four? Waaahhhh, I want another steam shower! I should really have one of these just before I have to sing. Clear the sinuses, moisten the throat and lungs. Feels good!

A light lunch of crab salad, and then it was time for us to frappe la rue, with a promise to come back and Amber-sit on Saturday.

The drive up to the ferry was another beautiful day of beautiful vistas. The downtown ferry terminal in Nanaimo was working again, so all was well. We caught the 5:00 ferry and arrived at The Haven shortly thereafter.

Our room is in a different building this time -- I think their "bargain" rooms must have all been filled up, because it seems we got upgraded to a slightly bigger model. Not that we spend much time there, but it's nice to be able to have a place for all the instruments without tripping over them.

We headed down to the main lodge for dinner, and ate with Rick, who's taking the Phase II course (a 25-day long one!). We forgot how yummy the meals here are!

After that, it was up to our first session for the Spirit In The Song workshop. Eric Bibb and his wife Sari are leading it, and there are only six of us in the class -- three males, three females, so it's a nice balance. Khamed is a guitar player singer-songwriter, sort of in the gospel-blues vein. Louise is a writer, who thought taking a songwriting course could help her reduce her word count, while still getting a strong message across. Sylvie is no longer able to play an instrument, because of an injury to her hand, but sings and writes. Cameron introduced himself as someone who doesn't sing in public -- but HOLY CRAP, this guy can sing!!! We found out today that his birth name is Bray, and he and Don actually share a great-grandfather (and perhaps a grandfather?). And then there's Don and myself, who you people know already. :-)

We started out with introductions, getting to know each other, what sort of things we want to get out of this course, etc.. We each shared one of our songs, to help introduce our music -- I was so sick, I actually managed to mess up "Not Enough Whiskey". OY! And it was the freakin' refrain, of all things... Well, they liked it, anyhow. We talked a bit about songwriting and were sent home with the assignment to pick our favourite song (of someone else's) to present to the class the next morning.

We went back to the lounge for a tasty beverage, to upload yesterday's blog, and to visit with a few more people. Then it was time to crash. We slept like babies.

Sorry, guys, there's probably much I missed, but I'm about to crash tonight, too. Maybe I'll stay awake during our break tomorrow and tell you all about today. Or maybe I won't. :-)

Musically, and still with a friggin' cold,

Alyssa

Day 13 - unlucky icky and sickly day 13

2011-09-05T01:14:00.000-04:00

Woke up with an incredibly sore, raw, red throat -- every time I tried to swallow, it felt like a tennis ball was in the way.

Not good...

Stayed in bed an extra hour, but knew that Sandra and Landon's cleaning lady would want to get in to clean, so guilt got me moving. Slowly.

I was getting some water from the fridge when Landon said no cold drinks for me today. He opened up the cupboards of tea (that's not a typo, Sandra's tea collection takes up two cupboards!) and found me some throat remedy, which kept me going the rest of the day.

Knowing how busy and tired and so very much NOT in need of a cold this week they were, I banished myself to the family room and computed and drank tea and maybe moped a little bit. Amber came in to keep my feet warm and keep me company. I thought it was because she wanted me to feel better, but it turns out she was locked out of Sandra and Landon's office, because they had a bunch of charts and small pieces of paper laid out on the ground. I prefer to think it's because she loves me. :-)

Don went out to do some errands, including walking Amber to the bakery and bringing back some fresh loaves of bread. Landon made tuna salad, and we had sandwiches out on the deck in the dappled sunshine.

Then Don went out to do a few more errands (collecting some items for a gift basket for the gala, including local chocolate and jams -- can't believe they made it back to the house!), and I was left to tackle the laundry. The glamorous excitement never ends.

Fortunately, in all the time being vertical and with an ocean's worth of throat remedy tea, my throat was feeling much better. Sandra and Landon were, understandably, a little sick and tired of working on the gala, so we took them out to dinner. We piled into the van and headed out. As we were leaving their driveway, we saw two deer happily bouncing their way down the road. We kept watching until they disappeared into a neighbour's yard to chow down on the garden. :-)

[Ali, don't read any further, or you might be jealous!]

At Sandra and Landon's suggestion, we took them for their "thank you" dinner to Santiago's -- Ali's favourite restaurant, in case you were wondering. We ordered a pitcher of Sangria, and then perused the menu. Sadly, many of the dishes had mussels in them, to which I have a terrible sensitivity. (I used to think it was OK if I just picked them out, until a fateful performance of Sarah's Daughters in London, when Martha was knocking on the bathroom door 30 second before our call, wondering if I was going to make it -- I did, but it was one of the scariest 90 minutes of my stage career!) The waiter assured us, though, that they could cook the paella without the mussels, and just have some mussels on the side for those who wanted it. Yay!

We ordered the aforementioned Paella, plus Argentinian Prawns (garlicky goodness!) for our main course. Sides were a large serving of their famous spaghetti squash, plus a small order of papas (little red potatoes in more garlicky goodness). The waiter looked at us and said "that's a lot of food!" Filthy unbeliever...

When the paella arrived, they had indeed cooked the mussels separately -- a LOT of mussels, probably an entire separate order's worth, in more garlicky goodness (I'm told -- didn't risk it!). This, of course, was when we figured out that Sandra was the only one in the group who actually ate mussels. A happy girl, that Sandra. :-)

We started with the papas and spaghetti squash (Ali has always hated squash, until she had this stuff -- Don's not a big squash person either, but he loved it too!). Then Sandra dove in to the mussels in garlicky goodness, and I attacked the Argentinian prawns (which I shared, of course, although I think they let me have most of them). And we all joined in on the paella, tossing the chicken and chorizo at the boys and the olives at the girls.

And yes, Mister Waiter, Sir -- we ate the whole darned thing!

The waiter tried to tempt us with dessert, but it all looked to big and heavy -- kind of like we were feeling. So instead, we grabbed Sandra's scooter and went for a stroll along the waterfront. Well, we were in luck, because there was a wooden boat festival happening down at the docks, and the public was allowed to wander up and down and look at the boats. Tarah and Daniel (my sister and her hubby) would have been very jealous. :-) There were also buskers, artisans, a band up the way... quite the happening waterfront this Labour Day weekend! It's lit up so beautifully, too -- the legislative buildings look like Christmas, with their LED lights, plus a couple of hotels doing the same. And it was such a warm, clear night. Just beautiful!

It was getting a little chilly, so we headed back to the car and home to bundle up. Landon -- naughty, naughty Landon -- asked if we'd like some 12-year-old Glenfiddich. Have I mentioned how much we love Landon? :-)

We all sat on the porch, under the stars, sipping our wee drams (it's medicinal, damnit!) and gazing at the full sky of stars.

A good night, indeed!

Musically,

Alyssa

Duncan, dancers and more dogs

2011-09-03T20:50:00.001-04:00

Another sleep in -- we could get used to this! My theory is that Don waited until well after he heard the blender, so as to avoid the kale smoothie... But we both enjoyed the blackberry jam!

Another (short) morning of pyjama-clad work, some properly-clothed errands, and then a light lunch with Sandra and Landon. As it was the Friday of the long weekend, we decided to leave town VERY early, just in case, to head up the island to our gig in Duncan.

Long weekend rush hour in Victoria is so very different from long weekend rush hour back home. Like we needed another item for the "pro" column of moving here...

As the extra two hours we'd left, just in case, were not needed, we were able to stop at the scenic lookouts on the Malahat. Should you be wondering, they're called scenic lookouts for a very good reason. :-)

We somehow missed the first one (there are apparently three), but found the second one quite easily, right at the top of the mountain. Stunning, looking down the mountain at a beautiful inlet. Many photos.

And then the third lookout. Wow! Here, we weren't just looking down the mountain, we were looking across the inlet across the North Saanich / Sidney peninsula and over into the Strait, complete with ferry. Tons of sailboats, lots of hills and other mountains and water water water. Gorgeous!

Even with all the stops at beautiful vistas and visit to the Mill Bay liquor store, we still got to Duncan an hour early. So we went to grab a light dinner at Just Jake's -- a nice little restaurant serving micro-brewery beers, which we had to forsake as it was a performance night. :-( Don had chicken wings, I had (half of) a Sicilian pizza -- the rest was taken home for snacking.

We got to the Duncan Garage Showroom and unloaded our gear. A big hug from Georgia welcomed us back. Longevity John got us all set up and sound-checked, and we enjoyed many sighs and smiles and quotable quotes from John and Georgia. All sounding good, we were able to relax and chat and catch up a bit.

Now, the last time we were here, it was SuperBowl Sunday, AND there was a dance going on next door -- so we were a wee bit worried about attendance on the Friday of a long weekend! So when the first couple came in 20 minutes ahead of time (and they weren't friends of ours), we practically kissed them. :-)

We were pleasantly surprised when our friend Harry came through the doors -- we met at the Victor Wooten workshop in February, and he had recently moved to the Duncan area with his family, in time for his daughter to start up at her new school next week. We were able to spend some time before the show catching up, which was lovely.

And then our friend Ruth came in with her daughter, Aidan -- who is learning cello and guitar. I knew Ruth back in both of our Toronto days, when I was heavily involved with the Anglican Church. Yes, really. Pick yourself up off the floor. Please. This is how I know the right bible verses to quote to religious-right bigots when necessary. (A quick aside: we did a workshop with Cheryl Wheeler this summer -- exciting enough in itself, but... as she was introducing one of her songs, she said "I went to church long enough to learn all about what Jesus said about loving your neighbour. I guess I didn't go long enough to learn the bit about hating everyone who was different." Love it!) Ruth had brought Aidan's grandparents as well, so we had a truly multi-generational event.

More people we've never met filled out the audience, which is always a good, surprising, and relieving experience, plus the arts reporter from the Cowichan News Leader, who took a number of pictures and wrote a lot of notes -- will let you know if there's a review later on!

We enjoyed the first set, but both commented later how it's difficult to switch from house concert mode to full on-stage mode -- a different feel, a different set of skills. Once our brains made the switch, all was well, but it's kind of like switching between my cellos: I really have to remind myself which one I'm doing, what will or won't work on each.

The break again had us chatting with friends new and old, and then we were on for the second set -- Aidan, who had been swimming TWICE that day, may have lost consciousness on the couch a couple of times, but was a real trooper! Encore was requested -- actually, John was kind of like our friend Sam in Winnipeg, who wanted several encores, but we settled for one. :-)

Unfortunately, we just found out that the video feed didn't take, so you're just going to have to take our word for the fact that I got ALL THE WAY THROUGH our new arrangement of "Real Big Man" without faltering or cursing (those who were at the first three concerts of this tour will understand what I mean).

We had a chance after the show to chat with new friend Roger and his sister -- very supportive no-longer-strangers who we very much enjoyed meeting. Then it was time to pack up and take care of all the administrative stuff.

As we were loading up the car, another group was loading gear in to the healing studio (on the same floor of the Duncan Garage). Apparently there was going to be a goddess pole-dancing demonstration the following morning. I almost lost Don to Duncan dancers...

Georgia went into their home next door, John counted to five, and out came one... two... three... NINE wiggly dogs, all excited to be outside and with their humans. Not that they were particularly loyal to their humans, they accepted attention from pretty much anyone. :-) After some more visiting and good-byes, Georgia rounded them up on the patio, so we didn't have to worry about pooch pancakes as we drove out of the lot, and we headed back down the highway to Victoria.

Sandra and Landon were still awake when we got in -- though not for long! We shared a glass (or two) of wine, and then headed to bed ourselves -- myself with a dreaded tickle in the back of my throat. Uh-oh...

Musically,

Alyssa

No gigs, no driving, no worries

2011-09-02T19:00:00.000-04:00

Even Don slept in on Thursday -- bliss! Sandra and Landon were both home -- and already working hard on their conference -- but took a break on the patio to share their breakfast with us. Kale Smoothies. Yes, really, even Don. By some trick of nature, Sandra and I got the larger glasses, Don and Landon got the smaller ones. Even the smaller glass was apparently a bit too filling for Don. :-) He wasn't too full for Landon's blackberry jam, though!

We spent the rest of the (very short) morning catching up on e-mails, doing PR (me) downloading ProTools things (Don), and all the various things we need wireless to do properly. Then I finally got out of my pyjamas. :-)

It was really quite chilly, so we opted for first-day-of-September comfort food: tomato soup and grilled cheese. Yes, even in Victoria, they get fall.

Sandra and Landon went back to their toil, and we headed out back to harvest some of their blackberries -- a dangerous quest indeed. We couldn't tell by the end of it what was berry juice and what was blood -- those plants don't give up their fruit without a fight! Don used the ladder to get the really high stuff, and I stayed below to grab whatever my monkey-arms could reach. It's probably a good thing we were wearing our fall jackets, because bare-armed would have been very painful, indeed. Even so, we each had to extricate ourselves a few times from the long branches.

We picked about seven baskets full of berries (not sure how many we ate along the way...). A big bowl went into the fridge (much of which later went into our mouths too!), and a couple of trays into the freezer, for future jam.

Don and Landon spent some time trying to fix a few broken things out in the garage, including the much-needed kettle. Jenny serenaded us with the sweet sounds of the shredder, Sandra went back to the phones, and I did more computer crapola. Definitely a "git'er done" afternoon for all of us.

And then... dinner! We should seriously go on tour more often, we eat so well (of course, the treadmill is sitting at home all lonely and forlorn...). Barbecued maple-pepper salmon, corn on the cob and mashed turnips. Accompanied by a nice Californian Syrah we had brought them as a host gift (geez, does it count as a host gift if you drink part of it?).

The piece-de-resistance, however, was dessert -- Landon had made a blackberry crumble! Now, Don doesn't usually like crumble, so I was expecting to have to eat some of his (which I'd never have been able to do, considering the size of helping I was given!) But he not only devoured his own, he finished mine for me as well! Landon has found the way into Don's crumble-hating heart. :-) It was a damned good crumble...

More work for all of us, a brief visit in the living room, and then both Don and Landon looked as if they were going to melt into the sofa, so we said our good-nights.

It was a terrific first day off -- even with all that work, we were at least not performing or driving. And other than the berry-picking, I could have probably stayed in my jammies all day. :-)

Not even remotely musically,

Alyssa

From Heaven to Merlin's Gate

2011-09-02T00:51:00.001-04:00

OK, I'll put you out of your misery -- the sourdough starter was for homemade waffles for breakfast! Oh, we are so spoiled rotten...

We had been warned the rooster would wake us up early, but... guess what? No rooster calls. He must have had way too late a party the night before, because we didn't hear him until well after we'd finished breakfast.

So we all woke up naturally to a beautiful morning. Trev started making the batter and grilling the waffles, Dinah picked a bowlful of blackberries and set out a host of syrups and homemade jams, and I sliced up the biggest peach I've ever seen. Breakfast was, needless to say, magnificent. As was the conversation. We didn't really want to leave, but started packing up our stuff so we could make the 12:35 ferry and meander down to Victoria to get ready for the next gig.

Dinah headed out into the garden again, and brought back a handful of lemon cucumbers. We dove into one -- they don't actually taste lemony, they just look like lemons -- which was so deliciously juicy. Ah... if only I didn't kill plants! She sent us off with a few to take to our next hosts.

Big hugs and good-byes and promises to raise a pint together when we're back on the island next week.

It was a good thing we left when we did, because the lineup was already pretty long for the next ferry -- still almost an hour away. We started to wonder whether island life was really for us. This was confirmed when we got onto the ferry and they told us we wouldn't depart for a while, because the other ferry was running late. Don got out of the car on deck and chatted with an Austrian-Edmontonian couple in front of us, who had been on Gabriola to check out the new house they were having built. The ferry finally got moving, but we were delayed again before docking, because the other ferry wasn't out of the way yet. OK, thank you life, for convincing us to not spend our hard-earned money on Gabriola property. I left Cannington because I found it too isolating -- but at least I could get out of town whenever I chose.

We worked our way down the highway, and stopped for a light lunch in Duncan at you-know-where. Then we headed down into Victoria to "check in" at Sandra and Landon's.

Amber, the big Golden Retriever, was of course the first to notice our arrival, and greet us as only a big friendly Golden can do. Sandra came out close behind, and after all the hugging, introduced us to Jenny (who's helping out with planning next Saturday's CCVSI Gala) and sat us down for tea. In not much time at all, Landon also came in the door, and we all had a nice big visit and wee snack, before they had to get back to work on Gala details and we had to shower (you're welcome, Victoria!) for our concert.

The concert was only about 10 minutes away, which was great, because with all our chit-chatting, we were running late (so what else is new?). But we found the address quite easily, in the middle of a lovely residential neighbourhood. We knocked on the door and met Tim Gosley, the owner, who ushered us in and...

Oh my goodness gracious glory.

When Tim called it a home theatre, he was not kidding!!!

Three tiers of red-velvet-cushioned theatre seats, leading down to the stage, complete with wings and dressing room behind. Art and posters lined the walls, there was a lighting system... everything. A glorious room that can apparently hold up to 50 people, if everyone has bathed and likes each other.

Tim, who is a puppeteer, and his wife Petra, an actor, bought the house the year before from "an eccentric old woman" who had built the home theatre for her poetry readings and storytelling sessions. Considering their professions, it was just perfect for them -- although they lamented they had spent most of the time presenting other people, and were not going to do their own performance there until the fall.

James came in to help at the door -- he was going to be performing there the following week, AND he had just shot a music video there earlier in the day. So this theatre is certainly being put to many uses!

Tim had been rather concerned two days before, as only five tickets had sold. But it seems that Victoria is just as last-minute as Orillia (will you audience members PLEASE stop giving we presenters ulcers like this?!?), because we had a nice, comfortably full house by the time 8:00 came around.

Tim gave the introductions, and we were on! Sound-wise, it was a great place to play as well. I think this place is going to do well -- we're now dreaming up artists to send their way. :-) We managed to get through all the previous night's rough passages unscathed -- and let the audience in on the joke.

Intermission was held upstairs in Tim and Petra's living room, where they had a delicious spread of cheeses and dips and all sorts of lovely things we couldn't eat before singing -- drat. We each got to chat with some of the audience members -- many of whom are from away, and many of whom tried to convince us to move to Victoria, instead of Gabriola. They're ganging up on us. :-)

The second set went by far too fast. Apparently the audience thought so too, because they asked for an encore, which we were happy to give. Our friend Juilana (who hosted us at Pondside the last time we were here) was there, and promised to bring her husband to our Nanaimo show when he was back from the states. John Taylor, who had introduced us (via e-mail) to Tim and the Theatre hadn't been able to make it, due to a rehearsal of his own, but his wife did come and introduced herself -- we sent her back with a huge thank-you!

We headed upstairs with our hosts to eat some leftovers and chit-chat. Turns out they used to know our friend David Francey from back in Quebec, as well as Fransi Andersson (which I knew already), our puppeteer friend from ArtsU. It's a small world. Petra brought their dog back from the neighbours -- a big cutie, a lab-golden-somethingelse cross -- and we chatted a little longer, until eyes began to droop, and we packed up and headed back to Sandra and Landon's. (Sandra had had a meeting that night, but Landon had been at the show.)

More chatting and visiting and dog-patting, and then -- time for a nap!

More tomorrow, about today

Musically (and sometimes I really am!),

Alyssa

Glorious (except when we aren't) in Gabriola

2011-08-31T18:34:00.003-04:00

Tuesday morning, we opted for sleeping in over the free breakfast. Much needed, and much appreciated! As was the shower -- probably more appreciated by the general public, but still very enjoyable.

We were down to the wire for the 11:00 check-out, but squeaked by. :-) I made a point of mentioning to the woman at the front desk how much we appreciated our room having REAL glasses and REAL coffee mugs, instead of the plastic cups individually wrapped in plastic and covered with plastic for good luck, which we had seen in every motel up until then. Good thing we brought our sippy cups!

As previously mentioned, there was a Starbucks just around the corner, so we brought our laptops and camped out at one of the tables for a long, leisurely breakfast. I have received an e-mail from someone who shall remain nameless, but might have given birth to me several decades ago, chastising us for patronizing "the Yankee Imperialists" instead of frequenting the many Tim Horton's scattered across this country. Lest any of you be thinking such things under your breath, I must point out that Tim Horton's is now owned by the same folks as Wendy's in the United States, so are no longer a Canadian company, other than the name. Also, having done our due diligence and read up on various independent consumer reports, the environmental friendliness of Starbucks, while not perfect, is heads over tails superior to that of the chain named after the hockey player. The one named after a literary classic also has a far better record on using fair trade beans and ensuring that the coffee comes from plantations that treat their workers and their surroundings well.

That and their coffee just rocks. :-)

OK, lecture over.

Dinah, fortunately, had warned us that the ferry to Gabriola was not using the same dock we had used before. Apparently a very large truck had missed a turn and fallen off the gangplank a few weeks ago, doing a lot of damage in the process! (oops...) So we had to go south of town to the Duke Point terminal instead of the downtown one we were expecting. We had also been warned that there could often be a very long wait for the ferries in summer time, so we figured we'd line up for the 2:30 ferry early, and then if we weren't allowed on that one, we'd still be able to make the 3:45 and get to Dinah's in plenty of time.

Well, as it turns out, the drive to Duke Point was quicker than expected, AND the 1:15 ferry was running a bit late, so we made it on to an only half-full ferry, and got to the island well before 2:00. Knowing that Dinah and Trev were doing the panic-cleaning (as house concert hosts ourselves, we know the routine!), we didn't want to show up unannounced, so decided to toodle around the island.

We drove around the north end, where every second house seemed to be for sale. And beautiful. And on the water. Oh my... Saw a little information office, where we picked up a map, and casually asked if there were any real estate papers... you know, just in case we had friends... not for us... nope... nosiree. She laughed and said no, but there was a really big real estate office in the village that would have listings for the entire island. Oh, uh... ok... good to know... you know, in case we had friends... A bit more of a drive around and -- lo and behold -- we found ourselves in the village. How did that happen?

We casually looked at the listings on the outside window -- oh... my... god... -- and then the grinning receptionist asked us if we'd like to meet Emily. Drat, busted... So we chatted with Emily for a while, and she gave us a big folder of properties to look at, and told us to call or come in any time.

I haven't dared look just yet.

She also mentioned they only get snow about four hours a year (for me). And the ski hill is less than two hours away (for Don).

We still had some time to kill, so decided to head to the "Raspberry Jazz Cafe" for a cuppa. As we walked in the door, who do we see sitting at the table but Tim Harrison -- a recent "immigrant" to Gabriola, and was one of the first folkies I ever played with, back in the 90s when we were recording his album "Bridges", and touring around. (He also introduced me to my thank-dog-he's-ex-husband, but I forgave him for that long ago...) It was funny, because just a few minutes before that, we had been wondering what part of the island he lived on -- apparently, the part with the coffee shop. :-) As we sat and chatted and drank coffee, several other musical folks flitted in and out. Gabriola seems to be home to many musicians! Hmm... Tim even has a friend trying to sell a cello bow, so he said he'd send him my way when we're back next week, because how many people in the area need a new cello bow? (I probably don't, either, but it's worth a look!)

We figured the panic-cleaning was probably drawing to a close -- or at least enough that they wouldn't be embarrassed to have newcomers see the place -- and headed down to the south of the island (Degnen Bay) to meet our host, Dinah, her boyfriend Trev, a whole lot of chickens, and cat (who didn't show her face until everyone else had left after the concert). We knew which driveway was theirs, because of a colourfully-painted "House Concert Tonight" sign and balloons. Down a long windy driveway, past the chicken pen, past the house for the baby chicks, and up to the house, with the "musicians use back door" sign humorously displayed. The first door you open takes you into a stone-cobbled greenhouse, then another door takes you inside.

Walking inside I gasped, and exclaimed I could never get any work done if I lived there -- the view was just too breathtaking. A big picture window looking onto the deck which looks onto the rocks which look onto Degnen Bay. Wow. Dinah and Trev laughed and reminded us they were just panic-cleaning. :-) So I guess the awe doesn't wear off after living there a few years...

Dinah has made the place her own, with whimsical paintings on cupboard doors, etc., tons of instruments everywhere, of course, and Trev's hats. No, he doesn't have a hat fetish (or maybe he does, but just isn't saying), but he's a professional clown, "Clever Trever", and one of his specialties is juggling top hats. Dinah D. is a bass player, who does a lot of swingband music and solo crooning, but is also 1/2 the leadership of kids' band "The Kerplunks" -- the other half being Tina Jones, who we'd met at The Haven in February, and who hooked us up with Dinah in the first place.

We chatted a bit, were shown our room for the night, and got our gear set up in the living room. Then we headed off with Dinah to nearby Silva Bay for a bit of dinner, leaving Trev to finish baking cookies. It was a gorgeous day, so we opted to sit on the patio, overlooking the docks, with a beautiful flower garden. There was much delicious food to choose from, and all the seafood on the menu is certified ocean-friendly -- yippeee! Don had the ginger beef bowl -- which smelled incredible! -- Dinah had the chowder with yam fries, and I opted for a crab, shrimp and avocado salad with candied hazelnuts and all sorts of yummy goodness (no, I don't think that was the official menu description, but it should have been!).

Feeling gloriously satisfied -- but not too full to perform -- we headed back to the house, to have a wee visit with the chicks, and then to get ready for the crowd, who we were warned often showed up early. But they must have learned from previous attempts, because nobody showed up before the 7:30 "doors open" time, so we could warm up a bit. We were ever so happy to see Tina arrive, with her partner Penny, their niece (for whom they are now full-time guardians) and another young friend -- who shared the front couch with another adult friend and her son John. It was, indeed, a big, cosy couch!

There were about 30-35 people in the audience, plus us and our hosts. Pretty much everyone was new to us, of course, other than Tina and Penny Sidor, so the others must have just taken Tina at her word that we were worth seeing -- which is kind of funny, since she had never seen us perform as a duo, either!

Fortunately, those who were in attendance also had a sense of humour, as Don inserted some... er... interesting chords into our first number, "A Good Day", which we can usually play in our sleep. Aha, this is what happens when you spend four days driving and no days practising! Nevermind, we got back on track and they were very forgiving.

Seems pretty much everyone there was "from away", with many from Ontario. We mentioned having looked in the real estate office, and they all laughed and said that’s how it starts... the rest of the evening was spent trying to resist their encouragement to move here.

And, strangely enough, after playing all over Ontario and having nobody know where Cannington, the town I lived in for five years, is, there were AT LEAST four people on Gabriola Island who knew the town well. Yes, folks, I had to drive seven days to find people who know where Cannington is.

We got mid-way through the second set when I dragged out Scarlett (my accordion, for the uninitiated) for "My Love Shall Be Revealed". All was going beautifully... until the instrumental break. I have never played so many so very bad notes... and chords... It descended into a rocking zydeco-fusion solo that shall never be repeated. The pause before the fourth verse was much longer than usual, as I tried to stop laughing so hard I couldn't sing... ahem, composure, yes, there we go. Of course, just as I was finishing the never-to-be-repeated accordion solo, in walks Tim -- I couldn’t see the expression on his face, but he didn’t run away screaming, so all was well. :-)

We survived the rest of the first set relatively unscathed, then it was time for the break -- chai tea and shortbread cookies, mm-mmm! Had a nice visit with old friends and new, and then it was time for the second set -- which we managed to not completely massacre. :-)

After everyone had gone home and Merlin had finally made her appearance, the four of us sat at the kitchen table to share a nice bottle of wine and some more chatting, and Trev prepared the sourdough for the morning.

We shall leave you hanging with that tempting mystery and tell you all about today later!

Musically -- except when I'm not...

Alyssa

Last day of the long drive - oh, the glamour!

2011-08-30T16:32:00.004-04:00

Happy anniversary -- we survived a full week on the road. More or less. Right, sweetie? Sweetie...? Hmm, I think he ran screaming from the building...

Ah, nevermind, he'll come back. I'm in Starbucks, after all. :-)

Monday was another big day of driving, though much less than the previous days. We had a quick breakfast (hey Mom, notice all the breakfast I keep having?) in the hotel lobby at Salmon Arm, then hit the road. The love of my life had scoped out that the next Starbucks was in Kamloops, so guess where our first pit stop was...?

Of course, the road from Salmon Arm to Kamloops was beautiful -- mountains, lakes, mountains, lakes, yadda yadda yadda. I wonder how long you'd have to be here before you stopped gawking out the window twenty-four hours a day? In Kamloops, we were served by the cheeriest barista on the planet -- she had everyone laughing and kibitzing. A quick snack, a ginormous (uh, I believe the proper name is Venti) coffee, a trip to the potty (you want details of the road, I'm giving you details of the road), and we were off again.

Two hours of Vancouver, we were reminded of the joys of the big city -- congested traffic. At 2:00 pm? Yup. This is why we don't live in Toronto any more. But at least the highways around Vancouver have mountains. :-)

We made it to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal just after the cut-off, so had a bit of a wait for the next one. That was when we realized that wasps are carnivorous -- and perhaps cannibalistic -- as they were happily chomping away at all the carnage on our front bumper. Nature's car-wash.

Being among the first in line, we easily made it on to the 5:20 boat, parked the car and headed up to the cafe for a (very) late lunch. The announcer at the terminal had said it was a packed boat, yet we were able to get a table at the very front, so we could look out at the waves and islands. It was a pretty smooth journey -- especially considering the storms we'd encountered the last time we went across!

We got into Nanaimo, and then started looking for a Mark's Work Wearhouse, as Don, ever the master of advanced planning, had just realized he'd run out of underwear. Dog bless the internet stick, we were able to find one just up the highway. And right next to it was the beloved Starbucks, some restaurants and a Best Western. It was fate.

We definitely have to give the “thumbs up” to the Nanaimo Best Western. The room was great, the staff very friendly and helpful. Cheapskates that we are, we had opted for the "basic" room, yet it had a nice little patio, refrigerator and microwave, which would be great if we were staying longer. And right across from our room -- LAUNDRY!!! Here you go, the romance of life on the road: laundry rooms make us happy. We collected our quarters, sorted and stuffed, and did a little happy dance as the machines started whirring. Mick Jagger doesn't know what he's missing.

Of course, in our excitement over being able to do laundry, we had sort of forgotten about it being kind of late on a Monday night to find dinner. Never mind, there was a pub attached to the hotel whose kitchen was open until 10:30. We transferred the loads into the dryer and headed around the corner to the pub, checking in on the dryer from time to time, as there was a mother with several loads also waiting for the machine. The pub was about the same size as the night before, albeit with only six televisions, one keno board and one online poker screen, and the food and waiter's memory were certainly a cut above. And she understood the difference between a bottle and on tap. I don't think we've ever enjoyed a cold honey brown (or two) as much as we did last night!

Laundry done, dinner eaten, we returned some e-mails, paid some bills (that would be the Royal We) and did some PR (ditto), while we still had use of the internet -- we're told that it will be hard to get reception on Gabriola.

And a nice, long sleep was had by all!

Tuesday will be "blogged" when we're back in the land of reception. We're just about to head onto the ferry.

Alyssa

Into the Rockies

2011-08-29T16:45:00.001-04:00

A quick breakfast in the motel lobby, and we were off again, with the goal of making it to the Rockies -- Salmon Arm, BC, to be exact. (Spoiler alert!: we did make it, safe and sound.) Don, of course, had scoped out the closest Starbucks, which was just a couple of blocks away. So armed with Venti bolds, and perhaps a couple of oat bars in case of emergency, we hit the TransCanada.

As we made our way from Medicine Hat ("The Gas City", in case I need to remind you...) to Calgary, I realized that the mistaken impression I'd had about the Saskatchewan landscape actually applied to eastern Alberta. Not that it was desolate and boring, mind you, it was still quite beautiful, but there were much more of the flat-plain-and-acres-and-acres-of-grainfields surroundings. Dotted, of course, with those big wells that always reminded me of the bobbing birds we used to love at the science shop when we were kids -- or maybe drinking horses.

We were in the land of lots of internet reception, so I THOUGHT I'd get a bunch of PR work done in the morning. Fate laughed with a mighty hardee-har-har-har, though, as my laptop was crashing every three minutes -- more often if I held my mouth funny. This poor old clunker seems to be on its last legs... may we all have a moment of silence, as we picture it surviving the next five weeks without darkscreening or being flung off a mountain.

Ommmm...

I did a "verify disk" check, and all sorts of red letters scrolled their way across the screening -- basically saying, in layman's terms, that the hard drive was seriously messed up, and I'd better say some prayers or throw it off the closest cliff.

Ommmm...

I went for the prayer route, and shut 'er down.

But the cell phone was working, fortunately, and we did manage to snag a new gig on the 14th (or perhaps 15th) in Enderby. Yippee!

Back to the scenery.

As we neared Calgary, the road gradually got a bit hillier, and we realized that those low-lying clouds off in the distance were actually mountains.

Ah, mountains.

Yes, I realize that I was going on and on yesterday about how gorgeous the Prairies were. But mountains just tug at my soul. Mountains are the reason why, in our February BC tour, Don and I were THIS close to dumping everything and moving to Victoria. We may need an intervention this time. Or maybe Sandra should find us a real estate agent. Because when mountains meet water, we're kind of uncontrollable. It's like our Wonder Twin powers have gone completely over to the Wild Magic and there's nothing we can do except try and figure out how to move all our friends there with us. Whether they want to join us or not.

With the mountains still tantalizingly in the distance, we stopped in Calgary for a light lunch, and to find an electronics store -- we needed a FireWire cable to back up the essentials from my laptop on to Don's, just in case I could no longer resist the urge to throw it out the window. (Hey, I'm a fire sign, a Saggitarius with Saggitarius rising, a Temple Dog and a Queen of Wands -- I know the possibilities, and it's best to be prepared.)

Mission accomplished, I took over the driving, so Don could have a quick cat-nap before we got to the base of the Rockies. Of course, he spent most of the cat-nap just staring at the mountains, but he did get about 15 minutes of sleep in, before a ginormous pot-hole relieved me of the decision of whether to wake him up to enter the range, or let him get a bit more sleep.

We were, indeed, at the entrance to the Rockies. Don took a bunch of pictures for his brother (they lived in Calgary as little kids, and Bruce said he really misses the Rockies, and to say "hi" to them from him), but of course no photo could do them justice.

We drove most of the day with a travelling circus or fair or something -- lots of trucks with "Whack-a-Mole" and "Cotton Candy" signs, plus parts of amusement houses. Beautiful scenery, whack-a-mole, beautiful scenery, ferris wheel, beautiful scenery, clowns... I just love the way life juxtaposes things sometimes. :-)

We gawked our way through Canmore to Banff, and... oops, must have missed that turn at Albequerqe, found ourselves in the line-up to enter Banff National Park, for a slightly hefty fee (considering we didn't have time to stop). Sheepishly, we told the man at the gate that we must have been looking at mountains and not reading the signs, because we wanted to go through along the highway. He smiled and asked us where we were headed, we told him, and he waved us through. I wonder how many times that happens to them each day?

Banff National Park is a true national treasure -- and we didn't even need to get off the highway to see it. They've built a bunch of overpasses for the wildlife, matching the surrounding terrain, so they aren't afraid to walk over the highway -- in a way that won't endanger their lives. I wish we had these in Ontario!!! The construction crews were busy at work making a few new ones, I presume where they'd had accidents before. It was a gorgeous day, so there were tons of cyclists along the trails, as well as one crazy horseback rider who decided to gallop across the 4-lane highway just as we were passing -- thank you, sir, for the adrenaline rush.

Despite the warning signs along our route the rest of the day, we had no encounters with grizzlies, rams, deer, moose, elk, or even a squirrel. The front bumper, however, continues to exhibit signs of insect carnage.

We made it to Salmon Arm easily in time for normal people's dinner time -- could have kept driving, but... why bother? Found a motel with a ground floor room available (way too much gear to lug up stairs!), and a pub next door that gave motel guests a dinner discount. Yay us! The laptop was temporarily behaving properly, so I got a few things done that really had to get done, and then we headed next door for dinner.

The restaurant probably sat 30 people, and had 11 televisions, 1 Keno screen and an electronic poker game. But it wasn't as noisy as you might think, and the menu looked tasty, so what the heck. The waiter was very nice and friendly, but she apparently was never taught the difference between a pint of beer and a bottle. Nevermind, the bottles were already open, we took them. She had to clarify our orders three times (trust me, they weren't complicated), and left us with our bottled beer to wonder what adventure might be in store when she brought out the plates. She did quite well, although as she put Don's plate of Jambalaya down, she realized there was no chicken, so went out back to ask the chef to cook some -- which came out about two minutes later... kind of makes you wonder... We decided to order a beer that didn't come in bottled form, so settled on "The Backhand of God", a local brew, kind of like a nice coffee porter. Plus the name just makes you smile. :-)

Then back to the room for some computer surgery. I transferred the crucial files onto Don's computer, then ran Disk Warrior on mine (Don was smart enough to bring the CD, just in case!). Success! It was able to repair the hard drive. Although I'm still getting pages and pages of permissions errors, even when I haven't done anything with it. But -- and I realize I'm saying this with my outside voice -- it hasn't frozen or crashed in over 12 hours, so we're making progress.

Completely exhausted, WE crashed into bed, and Don was snoring before he hit the pillow. That's OK, it helped to drown out the train that ran behind the hotel all night. :-)

Slowly getting there,

Alyssa

Driving Through the Prairies

2011-08-28T21:49:00.001-04:00

After the obligatory Starbucks visit, we left the city of Winnipeg and headed out on the longest drive of this tour -- aiming for Medicine Hat, Alberta. After taking three days just to get the heck out of Ontario, driving in three provinces on the same day seemed a little bizarre -- yes, we're used to it in the Maritimes, of course, but still...

I have to say that anyone who has ever described driving through the Prairies as being an endless stretch of boredom SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO GET THEIR EYES CHECKED! Yes, the road is straight and level (which makes for a much more relaxed drive, when you aren't worried about moose bolting out from nowhere), but the landscape is freaking spectacular!!! Such a collage of colours and textures, with rugged beauty undulating as far as the eye can see.

The sides of the highway are littered with ponds where happy ducks shake their tailfeathers -- a gaggle of geese seemed to be working out the choreography to West Side Story in one of them. A herd of horsed frolicking in the field, then racing each other to the other side -- which was, indeed, a long way away, so they were able to get full steam going. Butterflies were everywhere -- including, sadly, directly in the path of the car. Yes, we swerved for butterflies, but weren't always successful.

And I don't understand how anyone in Saskatchewan could ever be even slightly grumpy, when the sides of the highway are inundated with such cheery flowers -- they looked just like miniature sunflowers, not the right shape for black-eyed susans, just "honey, I shrunk the sunflowers". I was grinning ear-to-ear the whole time.

All this beauty was soon contrasted with the soundtrack of Jack Layton's funeral on CBC One. Thank you, CBC, for broadcasting that -- although boo to your hosts who talked all the way through the final song with Julie Michaels. We were both sobbing and sniffling as we travelled the TransCanada -- passing and being passed by cars with equally teary passengers.

After the three-hour broadcast, and some time to dry our faces, we stopped for lunch in Regina at a family-style restaurant, where I discovered the perils of being a vegetarian in cattle country. Fortunately, one of their appetizers was a cheese quesadilla, which I was able to have with a salad, as soon as I was able to explain to the befuddled waiter that I didn't want the bacon bits. k.d., I feel your pain. :-)

Don was ready for a reprieve, so I took over as the landscape got even more craggy and wondrous. And the sky -- oh my, the sky! We were driving through sunny patches, but there was a rainstorm off to the south, and to the north -- oh my, the sky!!! Black and nasty thunderstorm happening over there (yes, I had the radio on, to make sure there weren't any tornado warnings!). Lightning zapped all over the plains, and the cloud formations looked like something out of the DreamWorks studio. For much of it, there was a swirl of clouds that looked like a spiral galaxy, and then right in the middle, a big bulbous gray patch that looked like a spaceship was coming down to land. And meanwhile the lightning and strange peeks of sunlight. Remarkable -- I've never seen anything like it (Don was asleep the whole darned time, or I'd have gotten him to take a hundred pictures). Kind of like the Northern Lights, but on a really bad day. :-)

As the sun started working its way earthward, we came face to face with the insect carnage of the day. We are Bad Buddhists. Had to stop for gas and a windshield scrub / scrape. There are still remnants of one butterfly clinging as a reminder... :-(

The sun was still up as we pulled in to Medicine Hat -- "The Gas City". How could we make this up? Sadly, we weren't quick enough with the camera to catch the welcome sign, so you'll just have to take us at our word.

We checked into one of the hotels on the strip -- and quite a nice room it was. It looked, of course, like the hotel strip in any major city, with all the same restaurants. So after settling in, we walked across the road for dinner at Montana's, which was not quite the same without Tammy as our waiter -- in fact, as Don noted, all the waiters here were blond and ten years old. (Tammy is our favourite waiter at the Montana's in Orillia, and is neither blonde nor ten years old -- and she wouldn't mind us telling you so, either -- but a dark-haired and ebullient Newfie who always makes us laugh, and is a Temple Dog like myself, as we share a birth year, as well as many personality traits.) Not only did this Montana's not have Tammy, they didn't have our usual wine in stock, so we truly had to slum it. :-)

Back at the hotel, we switched on Don's laptop (mine is behaving badly -- will try to rectify that tonight) and watched the online feed of the funeral. I think we bawled even harder watching it than listening to it. Don't think it was just because we missed Tammy...

We'd promised ourselves an early night, but... it was 1:30 am, so we crawled into bed and slept hard in anticipation of crazy travel day #2.

Road Warrior-ly,

Alyssa

In the Bhigg House

2011-08-27T18:04:00.002-04:00

Friday, we finally got a rehearsal in -- good thing, as that was the first concert date of our tour, and we hadn't had a chance to play together in over a week! We are nothing if not last-minute...

Sam and Susan got home from work just as we were packing up and leaving, so we were able to sneak in a bit more of a visit before we left their beautiful home and company. Of course, they were our guests at the house concert later, so it wasn't too teary, but... still too soon to leave. :-(

But leave we must, and we headed over to The Bhigg House, home of Dave Clement and several others! Dave and his wife Elizabeth have turned their home into a community abode, currently sharing the house with five others, as well as friends passing through and travelling musicians like ourselves.

We unloaded our carful of gear and set up our performance space, then sat down for dinner with Dave and house-mate Dar, with Don and Dave catching up (they met several years ago on one of Don's solo tours) and the rest of us getting to know each other.

Folks started arriving, so we got ready to play! Dave set up a recorder in the back of the room, and will be sending us the files via DropBox when he has the chance -- so we'll try to upload some of them onto our ReverbNation site (linked to our website) when we're in high-speed land. We played the first set, finishing with Don's classic, "Yum" -- perhaps not the best choice before the refreshment break, although it did leave us extra cake for after the show! :-)

Sam and Susan and Dave were the only people there we already knew, so we spent the break meeting and talking with new folks -- all tremendously supportive and enthusiastic, thanks so much, everyone! The second set went quickly, with encores demanded -- actually, Sam demanded several, but we left them wanting more with just one. :-) After the show, we learned that one of our new friends, Alan, has just started hosting house concerts himself, and invited us to come play for him the next time we're coming through. Such a great network of people in Winnipeg!

After the audience trickled out, a handful stayed behind in the living room for a song circle / jam session. I was, surprisingly, too tired to join in, but enjoyed listening from the couch! Dave's voice is so deep and rich, it's lovely to hear. Sam and Susan, of course, stayed and treated us to some of their numbers, plus two visitors, Anya and her Mom -- whose name I never did catch, but who was obviously a regular at these gatherings, with a love of singing.

Maybe it was the dark circles under my eyes or the vacant look on my face, but the party faded with one last sing-along from Dave. Great big good-night and good-bye hugs from Susan and Sam, plus a promise we'd visit again on our return home. We padded up to the top floor for yet another deep sleep.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning, thought "oh, come on!", and the next thing you know, Don was waking me, telling me it was after 9:00 and we'd better get going.

Ready for our close-up...

2011-08-27T13:33:00.000-04:00

Well, rehearsal didn't happen -- Don had his beauty nap, and I worked on the dreaded PR mountain for most of the afternoon. Then Sam got home from work much earlier than expected, AND we got a phone call that a studio was available from 4-8, so we gulped down a wee snack, primping ensued (Don and I), and Sam gathered his gear.

The studio was on the third floor of an old warehouse in the Market district, complete with a crumbling plaster wall that made Sam jump up and down excitedly. Photographers are weird... :-) The late afternoon sun coming through the corner window sent him into near hysteria! The lights there were less than optimal, but -- kind of like my poor ol' laptop -- if you gave them a bit of a rest from time to time, they'd get back at it.

We'd come equipped with several wardrobe changes and a bottle of wine -- we'd told Sam how uncomfortable we were getting our photos taken, so he was determined to relax us (and he assured us the red noses could be airbrushed out later!)

We mentioned sam was an amazing photographer, right? Well, we'll show you some samples soon, but... suffice it to say that he was actually able to get several pictures of Don not only smiling, but relaxed and smiling. And that was even BEFORE we cracked open the wine bottle. The man's a genius. :-)

We took advantage of the natural light and the crumbly wall for the first hour or so, and got a number of nice ones hanging out on an old white sofa. Sam was excited about the lines and light and shape. We were excited that we didn't look like ugly morons. Different strokes... We took a wine break to peruse the first half of the photos, and try to mop up some sweat -- third floor of an old building, hot day, and all that sitting around and looking good takes a lot of energy, damnit! We then moved to another corner of the room with a plain background and did another set -- we haven't had a chance to look at the second half, but Sam kept yelling nice things, so we're guessing there's a few good ones there too. Either that or the wine got to him...

Four hours went pretty quickly -- we were surprised! Back to the house for some snacks and chats, and then we all trickled off to bed.

We promise to post samples once Sam's had a chance to upload them -- please don't expect us to ever look this good in real life!

Musically -- and occasionally photogenically,

Alyssa

Catching up - days 3 and a bit of 4

2011-08-25T14:24:00.004-04:00

Sorry, folks -- only day three and I'm already falling behind! Oh well, it is me, right?

Now, where was I? Ah yes, just west of Red Rock, slightly annoyed with Rogers and driving through lots of New.

Well, I didn't think you could get much prettier than what we'd seen east of Red Rock, but I was, apparently, as woefully mistaken as the Rogers coverage map. Yes, as our friend Wendell Ferguson sings, it's a lot of "rocks and trees, trees and rocks", but... they're really pretty rocks and trees and trees and rocks and sparkling lakes.

And a whole lot of construction. Our Ontario tax dollars at work.

So we arrived in Thunder Bay a little later than anticipated, but found our friend John Stadtlander's house just fine, complete with John sitting on the front porch, in case we got lost! We first met John when the Heather Dale Band did a house concert at our place, and he was drumming for them. He also played with them on our November double-bill "Tourette", where we'd had a chance to get to know him a little better -- he's also helped set up one of the house concerts on our tour (Lloydminster, AB, September 24).

This was shaping up to be the tour of the big, golden dog, as John's big retriever bounded out to give us the customary "goose" greeting. Inside, John's wife, Sharon -- who we hadn't met before -- gave us a less PG-13 but equally enthusiastic welcome. They are a super-sweet and generous couple (kinda makes you wonder how they survive Ben -- just kidding!)

After a bit of settling in and chatting away, we sat down on the patio for a feast that makes me wonder how on earth I could ever claim to be a "starving artist" again. Stuffed to the gills, and rather wine-satiated, we were then forced to heat homemade apple crumble and ice cream -- we suffer greatly! The bugs were coming out, so Sharon filled up the citronella torches (and a bit of the lawn -- oops, good thing we had a wine-soaked retired firefighter in the group!) and we chatted away and attempted to digest -- although, geeks that we are, the laptops had to make an appearance while we were in a house with wireless!

Once we discovered that no, the world had not exploded in our day without internet access (oh, the humility!), we settled down in the living room for a bit more chatting and a nightcap to aid with digestion. :-) John and Don decided they would get up at 5:00 the next day and head out for coffee while letting Sharon and I sleep in a bit.

Yeah, I didn't believe them, either.

After a gloriously sound sleep (how is it we sleep better on the road than anywhere else?), there was a mildly concerned tap on the bedroom door, telling us it was already 8:10. Perhaps that nightcap had been a bit over the top, as even John the uber-morning-person had just woken up! We were still in good time, though, so had a bit of breakfast, bid our good-byes, packed up the car and headed out.

First stop was just a block or so away, to buy the all-important deodorant (Don forgot) and day's supply of wine gums (a necessity for driving). Much to Don's delight, the Safeway also had a Starbucks kiosk (last one 'til Dryden), so we also stocked up on Venti bolds (maybe we should have stuck to the grande, but whattheheck).

Much to our delight, we were able to keep CBC reception the whole trip -- apparently they have something to teach our beloved cell phone company. (OK, that's it, I promise.) The northern Ontario feed has some great shows -- always fun to hear a different perspective. Of course, we were also hearing of all the crazy weather back in the southeast -- hope everyone is OK, and the weather has calmed down!

We stopped in Dryden for a late lunch and to send some stuff out at the Post Office. Lots of very friendly people in that town! Then back on the road and towards Manitoba.

I will confess, I had a very mistaken view of Manitoba. I had somehow assumed that the eastern part of the province would be pretty much like Ontario, landscape-wise, and then gradually work its way into the Prairie image one has of Saskatchewan (of course, I may soon be proven wrong about that assumption, too!). But almost as soon as you cross the Ontario-Manitoba border, the landscape becomes very, very flat. Still lots of trees (without the rocks), but not even a little hill, at least along the highway. So yes, I learned something new yesterday. Yay me. Still lots of sparkly lakes, but the land seems... softer, in a way, without all those jagged rocks surrounding the roads. Added bonus, not too many places to hide a speed trap -- er, not that we'd ever drive faster than the posted speed limit, of course.

Construction had slowed us down a bit on this leg of the journey as well -- which was probably a good thing, as we made it into Winnipeg after the worst of the rush hour. Mapquest had given us a rather convoluted route to Sam Baardman & Susan Israel's house, but we would have been OK with it, had Winnipeg drivers been closer to Orillians than Torontonians. At the last zig-zag turn, not a soul would let me in (even with my Torontonian upbringing), so we were forced to continue down that road and find a place to turn. which would have also been alright, but for the construction which prevented us from turning anywhere. However, we got a lovely tour of downtown Winnipeg, including an up-close-and-personal view of the Opera House, whose driveway we used to finally turn ourselves around and get back to Sam and Susan's. We only bickered a bit. Right, sweetie? Pookey?

Sam and Susan have a beautiful house, with a yard that backs onto the river. Paradise! Don announced within the first five minutes that he was moving in. Didn't mention me... could it have been the bickering? :-)

Once again, we were forced to eat an inordinate amount of terrible food, and put some winemakers' kids through college. Barbecued chicken, salmon, grilled veggies, potatoes, salad, fresh, juicy watermelon... we tried to be polite. ;-)

After dinner, we sat back to discuss ideas for today's photo session -- you see, as well as being a musician, Sam is an incredible photographer. Damned over-achiever. And he's going to take some promo photos for us -- we're quite excited, despite hating to get our picture taken.

It's very nice to not be in a car today. Don's out getting his nails done (yes, the boys were talking manicure last night, while Susan, a fiddle player, and I rolled our eyes), I'm typing away, and when he gets back, we'll actually put a rehearsal in, before Sam comes home from work and we have to try and look presentable. Of course, there's always PhotoShop! :-)

Alright, folks, my work is cut out for me now -- better go!

Musically,

Alyssa

B.S., Bellevue and Belles Vues

2011-08-23T17:42:00.002-04:00

Typing this on Highway 17 as Don drives. Will probably have to upload it at a later time, since -- wonder of wonders -- we aren't getting any signal.

Dare I tell you about my fun experience with Rogers this week? (This would be the B.S. portion of the post.)

It started when we returned from Red Rock. I sent a request to Customer Service, saying I hadn't been able to get any signal for the cell phone or internet stick all that week, despite the Rogers map clearly showing that there was signal to be had. I had heard rumour of updated codes to download and/or buying a new SIM card that would recognize the recently-installed towers, but needed to know how to go about it, before returning to the area this month. I was, of course, told there was probably something wrong with my phone, or I was just stupid and didn't know how to use it properly (not their exact words, of course, just the general gist of the tone). I then informed him that we had been travelling with quite a large group of musicians, and that NONE of the Rogers customers had been able to get service (unlike those with other cell providers). I was then told that the only way to diagnose the problem was for me to call them from the problem phone in the problem area. Um... you folks are with me, right? HOW CAN I PHONE FROM AN AREA WHERE I'M GETTING NO PHONE SERVICE?!?!

Long story short, four e-mail responses later and Customer Service (term used loosely) was still trying to convince me that the area was full of service, I should contact them again when I was actually having problems, and by the way, there were a few areas to the north of my route that didn't claim to have service.

I tried to be nice. Believe me, I tried really hard to be nice. But... yes, folks, I was forced to go Air Canada on their arses.

The last e-mail I got before we left internet signal land was that perhaps they had been undergoing maintenance on the day (day??? WEEK!) I couldn't get service, but was assured that all the areas depicted on the Rogers coverage map were, indeed, areas that got coverage, and no, they would never tell a lie. I must just be stupid... and perhaps have some anger-management issues. :-)

I'LL GIVE YOU ANGER MANAGEMENT ISSUES!!!...

But I'm skipping ahead. Back to Monday evening.

After a nice dinner at Casey's in Sault Ste. Marie, we headed up the road to Goulais River. I had just finished calling back the folks at The Haven (where the "Spirit in the Song" workshop will be taking place in the first week of September), when we lost signal. Oops... did I mention the Rogers Customer Service guy promised signal and insisted I didn't know how to use a cell phone?

Let it go, Lyssy...

Driving into Bellevue Valley Lodge, we first saw their big, beautiful garden (with sunflowers, my favourite!) and were greeted by two big, beautiful, golden dogs, who obviously hadn't seen human company in at least thirty seconds. Oh, how I love dog welcomes! Their humans, Robin and Enn, came out to great us as well, though with perhaps a little less drool involved. They led us back to show us our "room" -- what a room! It's too bad we only had about 12 hours to enjoy it, but we'll definitely have to come back when we have a bit more time. We were on the second floor of the cabin (built by Robin and Enn, using mostly wood from their property, including a big tree that fell several years ago and inspired the new build), which was in fact a two-bedroom apartment, complete with kitchen. The main floor is also used for guests, but with the furniture cleared out is their house concert venue and occasional recording studio. Don, of course, was jealous as heck.

We headed back to the main house for tea and a visit, complete with the dogs and a very friendly cat. Then we all headed out with the flashlights to give the dogs a last walk down the road, and give ourselves a bit of a stretch, too. The hills around there are lovely -- probably even better by daylight. The lodge is apparently busiest in winter, as they've got lots of ski trails connected to the property. It was nice and chilly, the perfect August night, and we headed back to the cabin to check on e-mail (Bellevue has wireless, yay!), read a couple of chapters, then collapse into one of the best sleeps either of us has had for a very long time. We love Bellevue Valley Lodge!

A chilly "music camp morning", but we were brave and headed down to the house for breakfast. Yes, Mom, I ate breakfast. Fruit, muffins, and hot oatmeal with wild cherries. Our kind of road food!

And so, we've spent the day meandering up Highway 17, poking in and out of small towns and beautiful vistas. And we just passed the turn off for Red Rock, which means...

We are currently driving further west than I've ever driven before. Everything from here on in is brand new.

Which means I'm signing off, folks -- gotta go "oooh" and "ahhh" a little. :-)

Musically,

Alyssa

Beginnings and endings

2011-08-22T13:42:00.007-04:00

And so begins the tour... One of the least disorganized beginnings we've had. Laundry was finished well before midnight, and the packing completed not much after. I spoke with my mother earlier in the day, when I still had four loads of laundry to go, and think I probably shortened her lifespan by a few months -- she's already started packing for her trip that begins mid-September. I obviously didn't inherit that gene, but hey, it gave me the extra bonus of driving my mother mad, which is something to which we can all aspire.

OK, sorry Mom. Let me make it up to you by assuring you that we were all packed and organized well before dawn, for the first time in our touring lives. So you must have had some influence, at least. It felt very strange to not have to stay up doing just a few more hours of PR while hoping the laundry timer was lying. Refreshing, yet strange. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a little voice is screaming "we must have forgotten something very important!" If we have, it's well forgotten.

That little voice also woke me up at 7:30, pretending we had overslept and it was already Tuesday. I really dislike that voice. Cookie, the grey cat, was firmly plastered to my leg -- one of the downsides of being packed the night before -- and I actually feel the beginnings of a bruise there. She was breaking my heart, so I let her stay there as I tossed and turned the upper half of my body, hoping to salvage a bit more sleep. No luck. Cat guilt prevailed.

And so, with little homebody me pondering the sadness of good-byes, the radio alarm clicked on just in time for the beginning of CBC news. Jack Layton died this morning. How is that possible? Such a vibrant scrapper should live to be 100, he should be strong enough to live to 150. Hmmm... so people who do die before 150 simply haven't tried hard enough? No, I guess not. There are no certainties, even for people who seem so certain. Life is fleeting, you never know when or if you'll see anyone again, what life will bring.

I extricate myself from cat number one, and find Bomber Joe, the newly diabetic kitty, has had the strength to walk up the stairs today, to try and talk me into an early breakfast. Scrapper. Well, not much of one anymore, but back when he was a kitten he could sure put up a fight. Will this bedraggled kitty be here when we return? Extra cuddles today. You never know.

The roofers arrive and start setting up. They've only been a part of our lives for a week, and they're usually up the ladders drilling and hammering, but... I somehow have the urge to give them big good-bye hugs. No, Lyssy, that would be strange. Time to pack the car and go. Yes, really.

How did such a homebody become a touring musician? Life has such strange twists...

Car packed, kitties cuddled, roofers not cuddled. We leave a LOT of post-it notes for the cat- and house-sitter (you know, in case she's never done laundry or used a can opener before), close the door, and go.

Highway, sunshine, CBC Radio One, with tributes pouring in for Jack. Goodbye house, goodbye cats, goodbye Jack, goodbye radio signal...

Hello, new Amelia Curran CD, hello passenger-seat office, hello black coffee in our sippy cups and toasted sesame bagels with plain cream cheese. The tour has begun. We have so many adventures ahead, so many loved ones to visit, so many new friends to meet.

I remember watching one of those nature shows a few years ago, where a mountain lion killed a grazing fawn. The mother looked distressed, forlorn, and after a short period of mourning, turns and heads for the shelter of the forest -- "she has already forgotten," claims the voice-over. "Don't be stupid!" I screamed at the television, "she hasn't forgotten, there's just nothing she can do anymore, and she has to move on to protect herself from the same fate."

And so, despite the sadness of loss, of good-byes, of uncertainty... we move on. Not just to protect ourselves from death, but to... well, to live. The sadness doesn't disappear, it just weaves into the tapestry of present. We move forward. We drive a gazillion kilometres (give or take) to bring our hearts to others, to become a part of their tapestry, and weave them into ours. So they'll never really leave us, and we won't really leave them.

Don wrote a poem several tours ago that began "Moonlight over glass, this car holds everything I need." And so it does. My sweetie, our music, coffee and bagels, the books and snacks our friend Paul brought over last night, a gorgeous view, the credit card if my voice remembers what we forgot... and the promise of love and adventure.

This will be my first time driving west. I'm so very much looking forward to seeing all there is to see along the route -- yes, even the prairies. Especially the prairies, I think, because this body has never set foot in either Manitoba or Saskatchewan, and that's a crying shame.

In the radio tributes, someone mentioned how Jack Layton had hitch-hiked across Canada as a young man. I'm travelling with quite a bit more than a backpack, but I'm eager to see it all. It's a beautiful country. Sunlight over glass, this car holds everything I need.

Today's just a travel day. We'll be staying at the Bellevue Valley Lodge, run by a music-world friend, woven into our lives over the years and via other musical friends. Hopefully we'll have a chance for a bit of a visit, to get to know a bit more about the person we usually only see at conferences or via e-mail. There are a lot of people in this country I only know by pixels, and will be lucky enough to meet many of them in person over the next little while. And so, the threads get stronger.

This is why introverted homebody ole me is a touring musician. To strengthen the threads. To learn new patterns. To be a part of it all. Whatever "it" the day might bring.

Please pardon me as I shut down the passenger-seat office. There's landscape to adore.

Musically,
Alyssa

Folking in Red Rock

2011-08-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

Hello, folks and folkettes!

Day two of the Live From the Rock, and we've been having a great time. With a bit of a sunburn (that would be Alyssa), and the bugs driving us... well, buggy, we're back home at our billet, sitting around with our other laptop-armed friends, and have a chance to give a wee report. The house is just a couple of blocks from the festival site, though, so the concert is coming easily through the living room windows.

After a lovely cottage visit with our friends Paul and Deb in Algoma Mills, we woke up bright and early (well, early anyhow... 6am, if you can believe it!) and drove the 9-1/2 hours to Red Rock, unloaded our bags and instruments into Liz's house, had an ever-so-needed shower (you're welcome, citizens), and then headed out to the welcome dinner hosted by hospitality co-ordinator Kathy and her husband Tim. What a lovely party they gave us -- especially considering all the work they must have been having to do this week! We got a chance to meet some of the volunteers and other artists, say hi to a few old friends, and enjoy some good home-cooked food. Back at the house, our "co-billets" arrived from Winnipeg, Sam Baardman and Susan Israel. Don already knew them both, but I was meeting them for the first time. I think it's safe to say we've gotten along quite famously. :-) Despite vowing to go to bed early, we had a great jam and conversation, and got to bed... well, at least not TOO late!

Friday, we got a shuttle to the site with all our gear, had our first breakfast in the Fish and Game room (hmmm... stuffed animals watching the vegetarian eat...), set up the CDs at the merch tent, and all those other oh-so-glamorous things we travelling musicians do.

Then the fun stuff!

Our first workshop was "Double Trouble" -- three duos let loose on the stage. We we the hosts, with my old "The Als" bandmate Allison Brown and her partner-in-crime "Uncle" Dan Henshaw, plus two musicians new to us from the Ottawa region, Amanda Rheaume and Marc Charron. Amanda and Marc are touring out west and back right now -- check out www.amandarheaume.com and www.marccharronmusic.com for tour dates, they're a great combo! (Plus it was kind of fun to have TWO other people playing foot percussion with me.)

Second was "Old, New, Borrowed & Blue" with our house-mates Sam and Susan (www.myspace.com/baardman), plus The Laws (www.thelaws.ca). TONS of fun!!! Much jamming ensued. :-) We've heard many great comments about that workshop, so it appears the audience might have had as much fun as we did!

A delicious dinner, courtesy of St. Mary's Anglican Church, and then we had to get ourselves in gear for our mainstage concert. Maria Dunn (www.mariadunn.com) was onstage before us, so we got a birds-eye-listen of her set. (Our FridayFolk people will remember her from her recent concert with Jon Wort Hannam -- lovely person and a terrific songwriter)

I have to say, the folks working backstage are incredible -- very efficient, running a tight ship, incredibly friendly and helpful. Thanks so much, ladies!!! They got us set up so fast, we actually ended up getting a couple more songs in than expected. Unfortunately, the sun had just dipped under the edge of the stage roof, and was blaring in at us -- at one point, I was sweating so much, all the sunscreen on my forehead had run into my eyes, oy! It was a hot, hot day... But we soldiered on, and the audience was terrific -- we felt so welcomed.

Then we got to sit back for the rest of the evening and just listen. The young band (geez, how old am I that I'm calling people young? well, they all just turned 19, which means I could easily be their mother...) Harlan Pepper (www.harlanpepper.com) followed us on -- they're a hoot, and I just want to pinch their cheeks, do check them out! Next up, the incredible artist and guitarist Kevin Breit (www.kevinbreit.com), and one of the most creative musicians around. Oh yeah, and he might just be able to play guitar pretty darned good. ;-) We had a wee sip of beer for the Connie Kaldor set, then headed back to the house to listen to Jack de Keyzer and the Alaska Army Band from the living room -- Sam and Susan were already back, and Jen Ives joined us later for a tasty beverage or two before nap time.

Today (Saturday, for a few more minutes), we started the day as solo artists. I was host of the "No Guitars, Please!" workshop (four strings good, six strings bad, baybeee!) -- and what a workshop! Connie Kaldor on keyboards, moi on cello, Maria Dunn on accordion, Jaron Freeman-Fox and John Williams (www.theoppositeofeverything.com) on electronically-processed violin and clarinet, and Shane Philip (www.shanephilip.com) on didgeridu, ukulele and percussion -- talk about an eclectic line-up! It was tons of fun, most notably because most of the people on stage were seasoned jammers -- everyone joined in on all the songs, with great sensitivity and musicality. My highlight as a participant so far!

I rushed from that workshop to catch the rest of Don's "Wood and Wire: Guitars on Fire" workshop, which he hosted along with the aforementioned Kevin Breit and John Law. Both Michelle (Law) and I joked that they were all just wanking (it's a wife's role, apparently), but they really did a kick-ass job. And it's not just a proud Lyssy saying this -- Don had a guy bow down at his feet later, and while we were walking to get a snack with Kevin, they had a couple of people come up and say how much they loved it.

We had a bit of a break, then headed to the Fish & Game stage for an interview and concert with host Jen Metcalfe from LU Radio (www.luradio.ca). The young guy (there I go again!) doing sound was fabulous.

Some more tasty dinner from St. Mary's, and then we got to enjoy the night as audience members. Starting off the night were Allison Brown, The Laws, and Amanda Rheaume, followed by Rob Lutes (www.roblutes.com), who's been on heavy rotation in our CD player -- an incredible songwriter with one of the sexiest voices in showbiz (OK, that's my take, don't tell Don...). We walked back to the house listening to Shane Philip, and did the living-room listen to Shy-Anne Hovorka, Jaron Freeman-Fox & The Opposite of Everything, and now the final act, Dr. Buck & the Bluesbangers. I am the only one awake in the house, though -- think I might have to go have a wee nap, myself. Plus the laptop battery is in the red and Don just took the charger upstairs... Better sign off!

I will say, though, that we're having a great time with Sam and Susan, and are looking forward to seeing them again in a couple of weeks as we travel through Winnipeg!

Feeling the love... and the need for a snooze, so we can have another incredible day tomorrow.

Musically,
Alyssa

Last weekend on the island

2011-03-22T20:27:00.000-04:00

Saturday, we were naughty and slept in -- the excitement of the week and Friday night's adventure without power had done us in. Plus it seemed kind of scandalous to check out of a hotel room mere hours after we'd checked in. :-)

We checked out of the hotel and headed back to Patricia's for a quick visit and good-bye -- and to pick up the gear we'd left at her neighbour's, since we couldn't see it all the night before! Unfortunately, the power and heat issue was not any more resolvable by daylight -- hopefully it has been figured out since. We bid adieu to Patricia and her beautiful Golden Retriever (this was the tour of the loveable Retriever, I tell ya -- everywhere we turned!), got back in the Jeep and headed back to Sandra and Landon's (and Amber, the other loveable Retriever) in Victoria.

It was a slightly overcast day, although the views were still magnificent -- I tried taking some photos from the car, but they didn't do anything justice, of course. Instead, I got wrapped up in writing my own blog on the laptop (don't worry, Don was driving!) about the workshop. Which I managed to finish just before the battery died -- our luck with power seemed to be improving!

When we got "home" to Victoria, we were greeted by a very excited Amber, a chipper Sandra, and... a very sick Landon. Uh-oh... Saturday was going to be our night to take them out on the town as a thank-you for putting up with us for so long, but in Landon's current state, that didn't seem to be something either he would appreciate, nor would the tables around us! Plus, they had to go to a meeting on the mainland the next day, and were planning to drive up to stay with her mother that night so they didn't have to get up so early the next morning.

So... PLAN B! We'd do an early dinner at the house, and just do take out from the restaurant we were planning to go to. Called them in the afternoon to make sure that was a possibility, then spent the afternoon chatting with Sandra while Landon took some meds and tried to sleep it off. Don spent the afternoon visiting Neil Russell, the maker of his baritone slide, at Celtic Cross instruments, plus haunting chapters to buy Victor Wooten's "The Music Lesson" and a few CDs for the rest of the tour.

He woke up feeling quite a bit better, and wondering why we were all sitting in the same places he'd left us, doing nothing but chatting, nibbling and drinking?

And so, ready for more chatting, nibbling and drinking to begin, we gave the restaurant a call. Ack! They just had a huge party show up, their kitchen is swamped, and there's no way they can prepare take-out.

So... PLAN C! A few more calls around town to a few more very busy restaurants, and we found one that COULD make us take-out, as long as we didn't order anything too complicated. Phew! Turned out to be a great choice, even if we didn't make it ourselves -- Cafe Mexico. The menu was incredible, it was hard to choose, but we each got something different and shared -- well, except with Landon, because we didn't want to get sick on tour!

And so, dinner done, Sandra and Landon packed up (see, Mom? I'm not the only one who packs last-minute) and headed out, leaving us to dog-sit Amber for a couple of days. She moped around for a little bit, but then made herself comfortable on Don's feet, as we got some planning and work done for the rest of the trip. When it was time for bed, she stared pitifully at us... and stared some more as one paw gently came to rest on the foot of the bed... and stared some more... Yes, we're dog sucks, we ended up sleeping three in the bed -- although Amber is pretty good about not hogging room, considering what a large breed she is!

We awoke Sunday, nicely rested and smelling of dog -- ah, dog! Spent the earlier part of the day entertaining Amber, and then headed out mid-afternoon to visit with my old friend Ruth (well, she's not that old, but you know what I mean...), and later head to the weekly Victoria Folk Music Society meeting. Juliana and Douglas had told us about it when we'd played at Pondside the week before, and encouraged us to introduce ourselves to more people at the open stage -- since we didn't have another gig on the island that night, we figured it couldn't hurt!

But first... visiting Ruth. The last time I saw Ruth was when she brought her then-toddler, Courtenay, to visit her Toronto friends. Courtenay is now living with her boyfriend and couldn't come visit with us because she was working -- boy, do I feel ancient now!!! So, it's been... uh... one or two years.

Some kids playing in the courtyard showed Don and I which door belonged to Ruth... eager anticipation... ring bell... more eager anticipation... door opened... and... geez, she hadn't changed a bit! It was so lovely to just fall back into that old familiarity -- Don having to catch up a bit, having never met her before, but we had a bit of time with just the three of us. Then Courtenay's "little" sister, Phoenix -- who I'd never met -- dropped in. And what a lovely woman! (I was going to call her a girl, but... as I said, it's been one or two years, so I don't think she qualifies as a kid any more, or has for a long while!)

Some more visiting, and then Ruth's new husband (well, new to me, not so much to her!) Brian came in with their eldest, Aidan -- who, fortunately for my sense of ancient-ness, still qualifies as a girl. Aidan's looks are pure Ruth, and I'm guessing her personality comes much from Brian -- very calm, sweet and soft-spoken (of course, I've only met either of them once -- they might both be totally wild once you get to know them!) She seems to carefully contemplate everything she says -- when asked a question, she'll ponder for a while, then speak slowly, as if she hasn't quite finished thinking it through and wants to make sure she hasn't left anything out.

Contrast this with Gabbie, who later EXPLODED in from the playground and didn't sit still or stay quiet for more than ten-second bursts. Gabbie is a force to be reckoned with. A great source of entertainment and joy, but holy cow I hope she calms down before she becomes a teenager, or her parents are going to have to invest in some heavy-duty restraints. :-)

The seven of us had a lovely fish dinner together, lots of stories and laughs. Then it was time for the girls to finish up their valentines for school the next day -- both had procrastinated, oops. Don and I had to head out early to make sure we got a spot at the open stage, and Ruth and Phoenix were going to join us there later. Phoenix had practically grown up at the Folk Society, so they were really looking forward to going back, as it had been a while. And we were looking forward to spending a bit more time with them, and getting to know Phoenix a bit more back in grown-up land (not that Don had any trouble joining in the knock-knock jokes at dinner -- he finally had a new audience for his old classics!).

We headed over to Norway house to sign ourselves up for the open stage -- and good thing we got there early, because it was a full house that night! One of their long-term volunteers was moving away, so they were having a bit of a celebration that night, and everyone wanted to be there -- turned out, there were about 180 there that night! Juliana and Douglas arrived, plus Neil Russell, and we were introduced to a number of new folkies.

The first part of each week's gathering is an open jam at the back of the hall, for anyone who feels so inclined. The group was quite welcoming of these two newcomers, so we joined right in!

Next is the open stage -- their policy is that each act signed up gets 10 minutes or two songs, priority going to out-of-town visitors, people new to the VFMS, then members who haven't played in at least a month. We were among the furthest out of town (we were beat by a woman from the Maritimes!) and had never played before, so we were put in the second slot.

You could see the eyebrows raise as I brought up my cajon... "that ain't folk music!" But as we finished the final scats of "A Good Day", the crowd went completely nuts (uh, in a good way...). Went a bit more mellow with the second one, playing "Live Love Dream", but got the same whoops at the end. Only two songs, but we sold 14 CDs that night, introduced ourselves to over 180 Victoria folkies, and got an invitation back to play as a feature the next time we're out. One of the most lucrative non-gigs we've ever had! (And far better than our next "real" gig, but I'm getting ahead of myself...) At intermission, we were also approached by a number of other bookers, and chatted away with some new-found admirers.

Now that the "must impress" part of the evening was over, we were able to sit back with Ruth and Phoenix and enjoy being entertained for the rest of the evening! The feature act that night was Greg Madill, in a trio that included his son, Jevan. Nice energy and some good songs. Greg was gracious enough to have Jevan play a couple of his originals too -- would love to hear more someday, because I really enjoyed what he was doing!

The night over much too soon, we gave Ruth and Phoenix huge hugs good-bye, promised to be back, and headed home to let a very patient Amber finally go outside. Oh yeah, and we stole some of Landon's beer to toast a job well done. :-)

Musically,
Alyssa

Last day of the workshop, first day of the rest of the tour

2011-03-17T18:53:00.000-04:00

In my quest to keep the "Thursday" blog short-ish, I completely missed out on a couple of things. I shall remedy this now!

First of all -- and I think this might have actually happened on Wednesday, but my memory is failing me... -- the incredible full-group improv! The only "rules" were that we all had to stand up. The first person would improvise something -- no boundaries, no time limits, just do whatever the moment inspires -- then as they were coming to the end of their bit, they'd walk over to another (standing) person and hand it off, then sit down. Other than that, it was "anything goes"! So as the Music travelled through the group, we ended up with human beat-boxes, spoken word, scat-singing, melodies, percussion, complete silence, primal screams and animal noises (OK, those might have been me...). It was so much fun to see everybody's personalities come out and interact with each other, and to see how the sound travelled throughout the group!

Thursday, we were left with a few questions to ponder:

1. What would make me truly happy?
2. What can I do to make the world a better place?

Once the answers to these two questions are the same, you know you've found your purpose.

And:

If the whole world were to follow you today... where would you lead them?

Also on Thursday, in our explorations of fear, a very brave Pierre volunteered for a very "Haven-eque" exercise. As with most of the examples, he was first asked to play a solo. Then to talk about how he felt about his performance, the thoughts that were getting in his way at the moment, the thoughts he had about his life and music in general, etc. And then every little nagging doubt or thought was given a physical prop. You didn't pursue music professionally because you were worried about money? Big, heavy purse hung on the neck of your bass. Family holding you back? Big chains wrapped around your arms. Worried your joint pain will flare up? Hockey mitts. And so, Pierre had prop after prop piled on top of him, young Rory yelling at him, and the whole group shouting boos and hisses -- and he had to play his solo again.

As you can probably imagine, it wasn't terribly good. All the same, the world did not end. We still liked him and respected him (and were grateful he was the guinea pig and not us!). He survived it all just fine. And then got a chance to do it again, without all that weight holding him down. Guess what?

In life and in music, there are so many stories we tell ourselves that get in our way. The way we think affects the way we do. If you don't like what you're doing, change your thinking!

And so, on to Friday:

Victor's float plane off the island was leaving earlier than originally thought, so our final morning session was held in the dining room, right after breakfast. As can be expected, much of it was a recap of the week's themes, a discussion of the concert the night before and all the lessons learned (by him, too!), plus covering a couple of points he'd missed but wanted to put out there.

He introduced the idea of four stages or rooms (borrowed from someone else, I believe, but I didn't write it down). These rooms don't have any firm walls, so it's possible to flit in and out, depending on the circumstance, and there are benefits to each.

Unconscious Unknowing
- this is where most beginners are -- innocent, ignorant, having fun and enjoying the wonder of it all

Conscious Unknowing
- this is where most amateurs are -- they know what they don't know, and are trying to learn it

Conscious Knowing
- this is where most professionals are -- they've reached high levels of proficiency, and are still working hard to keep getting better at their craft

Unconscious Knowing
- this is where the true artists are -- the magical, blissful stage of the Music High, where your proficiency in the craft meets the innocent having fun and enjoying the wonder of it all

That's the stage we tapped in to the night before, the Music High, where we weren't bogged down by what we know, but took that cosmic leap into the unknown -- what we knew held us up, what we didn't know made us fly.

We often get trapped in the Conscious Knowing stage, because we think we've arrived, and spend our time perfecting what we know rather than exploring what we don't know. And not just in music. We all get stuck in ruts in every aspect of our lives, simply because we've stayed in our comfort zone and haven't bothered exploring the alternatives.

What we know can stop us from learning more.

Staying safe can stop us from learning more.

The Music High from the night before didn't come because we were all showing off how good we were, or cramming all our knowledge into those few moments of performance. The Music High came from the leap of faith.

This is where he singled out Tina and I. Tina is nominated for her second Juno award this year, she's not only an excellent trumpeter and singer, she's a multi-instrumentalist and composer, with probably more awards and experience than anyone on that stage, save Victor. But she didn't jump to centre stage or try to hog the spotlight, she sang back-up to Juhli's lead -- and a very sparse backup at that, not using any of the incredible vocal power we'd heard during the week, or the vocal acrobatics she's certainly capable of. He referred to the piece he'd heard me play on Tuesday, said he'd almost asked me to play that solo on stage because he found it so amazing (dropped the "virtuoso" quote!) and wanted to share it with the audience... but was glad he didn't. He told the group I could have probably gone into some fingers-blazing technical solo that would have made the bass players cry, but had instead chosen "one blissful harmonic" for almost the first full minute of the piece, because that's what suited the music. Because we were all tapped in to the Music.

By letting go of what you know, you can know the unknowable.

Amen.

And so, Victor made a dash for the seaplane, leaving us with a list of exercises and ideas to keep us all busy for years to come.

We all packed up our gear and said our good-byes and slowly trickled off the property. Our new friend Harry, who had a large van, offered to take us across the ferry, so we could avoid the sore backs and crankiness of Monday. He had bought the CD version of Victor's book "The Music Lesson", so we got to listen to the opening chapters en route. Once we got to Nanaimo, he realized that our car rental place was directly on his route home, so offered to drive us there, saving us yet even more hassle.

The second rental was not as nice as that lovely Subaru we had before the workshop -- it was a big Jeep, completely uncomfortable with lousy cargo space, but we figured it would get us through the mountains in a snow storm, so what the heck...

We were off Gabriola much earlier than expected, but with our first gig that night in Qualicum Beach, we decided to drive straight to town and make sure we could find everything. Much quicker drive than expected, too! We gave our host for the evening a call, but she wasn't home, so we got ourselves a quick bite in town. Patricia called back just after we'd finished, and gave us a couple of "touristy" suggestions of how to spend our afternoon of leisure.

The first was to head towards Port Alberni and visit Cathedral Grove -- a place Harry had also mentioned, but we'd been afraid it would be too far away. Not at all, so we headed to this beautiful reserve of massive ancient cedars -- many of which are at least 800 years old. Some have fallen in wind storms (they apparently have very shallow root systems, so there are warnings posted all over the reserve that if you hear a big wind starting, you'd better run out of there fast!!!), some have suffered death at the hands of vandals, but the majority are beautiful old things, covered in all sorts of mosses and lichens, with many a story to tell. It was a bit chilly and rainy, but there's much overhead cover, and the paths are woven so that if you need to cut your exploration short (wind, for instance) you can get back to your car pretty quickly -- it's a beautiful spot, well worth the short trek, and fully accessible.

The next touristy destination was "Goats on the Roof". Where... yes... you can see goats on the roof. Although it was cold and raining, so the goats had obviously chosen less exposed places to nap. But it's a restaurant / gift shop / tourist trap sort of place with a grass roof... and goats that keep it mowed.

So, no goats... we drove around the countryside for a while, checked out a Buddhist Temple in the middle of a most unlikely field, and meandered our way through the scenic route back to Qualicum Beach to meet our host for a light dinner at Qualicum Foods, just around the corner from the hall we were playing.

The Rotary Hall was a cheery little venue with surprisingly lovely acoustics. Patricia had set up the tables cabaret-style earlier, so she set up the refreshments in back as we set up our gear at the front. There was a lovely quarter-page article about us in the local paper, so we had a bit of a "buzz" happening -- though there was much in town that weekend, so she was a bit nervous about ticket sales. Never mind, we said, it's our first time performing in the area, we don't know a soul here, any audience is a good audience!

That just barely out of our mouths, our first audience member arrived, strode up to us to say hello... I was in the middle of thinking "gee, folks are sure friendly around here!" when he said "I used to come to all your shows in Toronto!" Blank stare from yours truly... (I don't know anyone in Qualicum Beach, remember?) trying desperately to remember all my shows in Toronto... "Dianne told me you were playing tonight" Dianne... oh, OK, Dianne... ohsweetgeez... Bernie! I had been caught completely out of context, and my poor little brain hadn't known what to do -- but Bernie DID indeed come out all the time, back when I was playing with Tim Harrison, and was part of the group of friends in that circle -- along with Dianne, of course. Dianne had seen my concert listing on FaceBook and remembered that Bernie had moved to Qualicum Beach, and there you go! I shall stop cursing FaceBook for a couple of days... but just a couple. :-) Never would I have thought I'd run into an old friend in Qualicum Beach!

Despite Patricia's worries, we had a nice little audience that night -- and a very appreciative one! (A couple of fun troublemakers, too, which helps us out greatly.) While our programme was identical to the gigs pre-workshop, we were definitely noticing a difference in our performance -- despite the fact we hadn't rehearsed since the week before, we were much more relaxed, much more together, much more into the songs. A good thing, indeed!

Patricia had arranged for us to sleep at her neighbour's that night, but when we got there, all the power was out, and the place was freezing! We examined the circuit breakers, the master switch, fiddled with a bunch of things, and got the power back on. We decided to head over to Patricia's for a visit while the neighbour's heated up again, and had a nice evening chatting away. Time for bed, we loaded our stuff from the Jeep into the neighbour's, said our thank-yous and good-nights, and -- POOF! The power went off again. This time, it could not be revived. Uh-oh...

So, Don and I enjoyed our one and only hotel stay of the entire tour at the Travelodge up the street. Where it was nice and warm -- in fact, we jacked up the thermostat. :-)

Musically,
Alyssa

Thursday's Workshop -- and CONCERT!

2011-03-16T15:30:00.000-04:00

Thursday's theme was FEAR. All morning. :-)

"Fear is proof that what you fear hasn't happened yet!" (Gavin deBecker, "The Gift of Fear")

F.E.A.R. = False Experiences Appearing Real

Fear is, of course, totally legitimate, and an incredibly useful tool. It does get in the way, however, when we don't actually have anything concrete to be afraid of. When we're allowing ourselves to be controlled by our fear of a completely imaginary situation, created by our own subconscious.

Being afraid when some guy charges at you with a knife is a good thing -- fight or flight is a useful phenomenon! Being constantly afraid that someone MIGHT charge at you with a knife rapidly wears down your quality of life, not to mention desensitizes your reflexes should the incident ever actually occur.

Similarly, constantly being afraid of screwing up in music will inevitably cause you to screw up the Music.

When we practise, we're usually practising how to do it right, in order to avoid screwing up. We rarely practise doing it wrong. We have this image of perfection, will accept nothing short of it... yet, inevitably, things aren't always going to be perfect. And when we fail to meet our impossible standards, all hell can break loose!

So... practise doing it wrong. See what happens. Notice that the world doesn't end. And if your mind is clear of what's SUPPOSED to happen, you have room to manoeuvre and make Music.

Practise a passage, giving yourself permission to play the wrong notes. Concentrate instead on the phrasing, the expression, anything but the notes. Chances are, your audience is not going to notice every single wrong note -- unless you make a face or let it throw off your groove. If you've got "two through ten" in place, they'll be right with you.

Meditate five minutes on what you fear would be the worst-case scenario. Feel the adrenaline, etc., as you visualize going through it to the other side. What do you feel like after it's done? Remember that feeling.

We don't learn anything by being coddled or wrapped in bubble-wrap. We learn from the scraped knees, the heartache, the mistakes. Making mistakes is the only way to learn, to grow, to improve. As it is in life, so it is in music -- you won't become a better musician if you don't take risks and allow yourself to make mistakes.

One image Victor often went back to was the high-wire act at a circus. If all the person did was walk easily from one end of the wire to the other, it wouldn't be a show. So... the perfectly capable high-wire artist will instead get part-way down the wire, then put in a little wobble to make the audience gasp and wonder how (s)he's gonna pull it off. And then they're all pulling for the artist for the rest of the journey, and burst into great applause at the end.

Similarly, the audience doesn't want to hear you play C-major scales for an hour, or any of the other stuff you could do in your sleep. They want to hear you push the boundaries. They want to hear things get slightly out of control and then travel with you as you find a way to bring it all back. They don't want perfection, they want some tension in there, to make the release all the sweeter. And they won't get that if you don't allow yourself a wobble or two.

Falling flat on your face is not great in either situation, obviously. But think of how we catch ourselves when we fall off balance -- it isn't by getting stiff and rigid, it's by being flexible and fluid, melting into the momentum and pulling ourselves out.

You do the Math = Music.

And instead of stiffening up, getting rigid and pushing AGAINST the fear, EMBRACE IT. That's what makes the magic happen.

In music, what are we usually the most afraid of? Playing the wrong notes. OK, fair enough. Victor lays down a pretty basic bass line into his looper, C major. What are the "wrong" notes in C major? Anything sharp or flat (the black notes, as he pointed out, tongue-in-cheek). So... over the white-note-only C major loop, he played us a solo, using only the black notes. And it was an awesome solo, indeed. Why? Because he used two through ten. Skipped one, concentrated on two through ten. Never even resolved to a white note, stayed on black notes the whole time. Awesome. (There's a seventies saying I will spare you, but... you get the picture!)

One thing Victor said that really caught my attention: We all say we want to be a light in the world. But a little candle doesn't do much in a bright space. So, in order to grant our wish, the world has to get dark. But then we curse the darkness, even though we just got exactly what we asked for!

Don't push against it unless you want it to push back. To stop it pushing back, embrace it.

Music = Life = Love = God = Everything = Music

Victor took us through a bunch of technical exercises to practise "wrong", rhythmic challenges, meditations, confidence-builders -- tons of stuff that will hopefully be part of our practise for many years to come! I'm looking back at my notes from the workshop and am amazed we managed to squeeze this all into just one morning...

As Victor was performing a public show at the Phoenix Auditorium that night, our afternoon session was cancelled (so they could set up the room -- which was the same place most of our sessions took place) and we had several hours free to do... whatever we felt like! We all got complimentary tickets to the show as part of our workshop fee, yippeee!

The two of us had booked massages with Elfie, who works on-site out of a building at the top of the hill. One hour each of blissful massage. :-) While working on Don, she mentioned she and her husband were thinking of someday taking a sabbatical, but would need someone to look after their house on Gabriola, if we were interested. Oooh... TEMPTATION!!! It's such a gorgeous place. (We're guessing, though, that it wouldn't be replete with cello students, and we'd be a bit too ferry-dependent for gigs... Still, very tempting, should we some day win the lottery!)

And then... dinner time! I later regretted taking the second helping (yes, the girl who rarely finishes her first helping went for seconds -- the food at The Haven is THAT good!!!), as, just after I finished my last gluttonous swallow, Victor came up and asked if I would sit in on a tune with him in the concert.

Uh... retain cool composure... well... uh... sure... ??? Why yes, that would be lovely. (What to wear, what to wear?) The brief synopsis was that Juhli was going to sing a song, and he'd like me, Tom (piano), Toby (oboe) and Tina (trumpet) to join him in accompanying her. She'd picked "Stand By Me", but wasn't sure what key she wanted to do it in yet (initial thought -- boring song, lame choice... boy, was I mistaken!) The instrumentalists would do a couple minutes of improv, then he'd start into the famous bass line and the song would begin. (Keep this plan in mind, folks, there's going to be a test!)

Remaining cool and composed, I dragged Don back to our room, where I could finally break out into The Happy Dance. Thank goodness I didn't hurt myself...

Back to cool, calm and collected, we headed up a bit early to the auditorium, so I could set up my cello and talk to the sound tech about my pick-up, etc. Then we took our seats in an area that, while not specifically cordoned off for this purpose, had become populated with workshop attendees. The auditorium started filling up (almost 200 in attendance that night), and I started praying that the second helping would behave itself for the next couple of hours (it did).

(Just a little aside here -- I actually blogged about the concert already on my personal blog, which you might like to visit at http://alyssawright.blogspot.com/2011/02/life-and-living.html )

Victor took the stage, and... what a concert! That man is an oozing bundle of Music and creativity, just magic. While he was definitely putting on a concert for the general public, he also had this way of inserting things into his chatting and his performance that were obviously intended as "teachables" for us -- you could see the eyebrows raise and the heads nod as we all got the message. I was completely carried away in it, until...

OUR TURN!

If you thought my invitation to play just after dinner was last-minute... Tina hadn't even been told she was invited to play, so hadn't brought her trumpet! Never mind, she was happy to sing back-up to Juhli, what the heck... We set up, and prepared to execute The Plan (remember The Plan?)

Victor started some atmospheric bass lines, I snuck in on some harmonics, Toby and Tom started adding little licks which we handed back and forth, building and fading, moving in and out... preparing the way for Victor to start the song's bass line... but...

HUH!?? Juhli's already started the song! Looking back at the photos, you can see the idea to break away from The Plan pop into her head, then see Victor's look of surprise and glee as he realizes she's not following instructions, and all of our heads have popped her way to figure out where the heck she's going to take us.

She took us in some very cool directions, indeed. This was NOT going to be a repetitive three-chord moment of boredom! First of all, she'd come in on a chord that didn't sound anything remotely like a root... that atmospheric improv was continuing through the song. OK, we're rolling with it, Victor is figuring out a new bass line for us to anchor to... although he's throwing in some interesting minors and other strange deviations, just to keep us all on our toes. Tear-inducing piano solo, cello and oboe duet, build to final chorus, fade, fade, last half-chorus, and... scene.

Whoops of applause, we're all laughing and beaming and -- MUSIC HIGH!!! The first one many of us have had in ages. My goodness, how I've missed that feeling!

That music high did NOT come because I'd practised hard, we'd rehearsed it to perfection and pulled it off to plan. That music high came because none of us had a freakin' clue what we were doing, we were all (including Victor) flying completely by the seat of our pants -- wobbling our way through completely uncharted (literally!) territory. We were on stage in front of 200 paying audience members, not knowing what we were doing or where we were going -- which forced us to listen, connect with each other, become a six-part living organic being that was also interacting with the audience and the space. AND WE DID IT.

Had we rehearsed, had everything gone perfectly to plan, it would have been a nice tune and people would have probably clapped politely. But we wobbled, we flowed, we took a leap of faith into uncharted territory, kicked some dragons' sorry arses and brought it back home to a ticker-tape parade.

Risk, connection, peripheral awareness of the ripples coming our way, internal awareness of the ripples we were sending out... THAT's what gave us the music high. AND... that's how we unwittingly became -- and learned -- another great lesson from the week's workshop. We weren't the only ones with a music high. Our workshop-mates had it too, because they felt what was going on, understood it, absorbed it, will hopefully never forget it -- not our performance, but The Music, The Music High.

And, to be honest, while I'm still practising meditation each day, I find myself wondering if I wouldn't be better spending my time flinging myself off of musical tall buildings instead -- that instant connection of Music = Life = Love = God = Everything = Music was so big, powerful and overwhelmingly true... I'm definitely questioning whether the best path for me is really sitting quietly and danger-free in my living room. Maybe my path should be more like the Norse god Odin, who pierced himself with his own spear and hung himself from a tree for nine days and nights, in order to gain wisdom... enlightenment... the Music High. (Don't worry, I've had enough of hospitals in the last couple of months, so I'm just talking musical spears and hangings!) For me, that does seem to return more direct, immediate results...

Ahem, but back to the concert. Believe it or not, it wasn't just about me! :-)

Victor invited Jason, his workshop assistant, to come on stage and play one of his compositions -- and provided us all with yet another unplanned, serendipitous lesson. You see, Jason is also a bass player, Jason's composition also employs a loop pedal. So... rather than worry about a complicated set-up and switch-over for the stage and sound tech, Victor let Jason use his equipment for the piece.

And so, Jason starts into a bit of improv, which leads into a funky groove line that is obviously going to be the bed of the next section of his piece. His foot hits the pedal to start recording, the lick sounds great, he's happy, foot hits the other pedal to complete the recording and start the loop. But... uh... there's no loop. Hmm... well, try again -- pedal one, play funky groove line, hit pedal two, and HOLY CRAP!!! That's not the line he just recorded -- it's something else from the box's memory!!!

Does Jason freeze like a deer in the headlights? Nope. He laughs, shrugs, says "that's not what's supposed to happen!" and keeps going. Keeps trying to get the loop in -- never does, but the audience sure enjoys the wobbles and is totally pulling for him. And Jason just plays through, not missing a beat, probably sweating a little, but with a smile on his face and groove in his boots. We ALL know that the technology failed him, but we don't care, because he's just working with it, staying on his feet, making Music.

Afterwards, Victor publicly apologizes, as he'd forgotten to turn off one of the programs on the loop pedal before handing it over. But nobody really minds... Music was made, even if it wasn't the music planned.

A couple more pieces by Victor, including his famous arrangement of "Amazing Grace", and he leaves the stage -- leaving a spellbound audience on their feet, clamouring for an encore.

He graciously consents.

And summarizes our entire week in one kick-ass encore NOBODY in that room will ever forget -- ESPECIALLY not the workshop members, who all realized, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this encore was directed to all of us, Musical proof that what he'd been talking about all week was True.

It started out innocently enough -- the familiar tones of "Norwegian Wood" ringing out in harmonics, variations on a theme, the improvisation gradually building in complexity, taking on rhythmic drive, exploding into a beautiful barrage of tapping and groove, totally ignoring the notes but still somehow keeping the song in our heads, getting wilder and wilder and... somehow not missing a beat of all this percussive two-handed groove, one hand flies up and detunes his lowest string, until it's so loose it's just flopping around, making drunken whale noises as the note-tapping continues... then, another hand flies up and detunes the next string... more wild sound effects and rhythmic extravaganza... and now every single string is flying around like a kid's jump-rope and he's playing this awe-inspiring kick-ass bass solo with absolutely no notes whatsoever, yet it's still somehow melodic and, holy crap, how's he... oh yeah...

"TWO THROUGH TEN!!!" Mark is shouting from the audience, "TWO THROUGH TEN!!!", and the entire workshop crew is laughing so hard we're crying, while the rest of the audience stands mesmerized and totally oblivious to just how crazy we must seem, because Victor's caught them in that drunken whale-net of a bass solo, and everyone's trying to follow his hands and figure out if he's got someone hiding behind him or if he's using his toes or...

OH MY GOD... one hand just flew up and started tightening a string! There's no way... no... of course not... the barrage of percussion and whale song is still going completely nuts, but... there it flies up again... well maybe he just wanted help with that last swoopy sound, and... here he goes, building and building and building and building to the obvious climax of rhythmic whale cries...

... 2-second pause for effect

Sweet, perfectly-tuned harmonics -- "I... once had a girl..."

We are no longer laughing, crying and shouting. We are all standing, dumbfounded, unable to move or make a sound. Don literally couldn't move again until about three minutes after the applause was finished.

Music High

Yes, it's incredibly, technically astounding that he could have brought his bass back to perfect pitch without having even a split-second to listen to the tuning, as he brought us all through his high-energy world of sound. But the music high doesn't come from us understanding the technical difficultues of what he did to make that happen. The Music High comes because he dragged us all into uncharted, whale-infested waters, pushed us all beyond our boundaries and known horizons, so we had not a clue where we were or how we were going to get back -- and then he brought us home, safe and sound.

And dumbfounded.

And... over a month later, still moved to tears as I type this, because it was such a moment of sheer joy and beauty and Music = Life = Love = God = Everything = Music (Ahn, for those of you who knew me when...), that it will never leave me -- and I don't really want it to. :-)

The concert was over, but... for the 200 in the room, it will never be over.

Sleep wasn't going to come any time soon, though, so after some celebratory group photos, the majority of the workshoppees headed down to the Lodge for some tasty beverages and even tastier conversation. I think it's safe to say, we closed the place. :-)

Musically (with all the respect that word holds),
Alyssa

The Workshop - Wednesday

2011-03-15T14:38:00.000-04:00

Wednesday morning, we were told to get our coats and boots, because the morning session was going to be outside. And it was pretty darned chilly that day!

And so, the group huddled in a clearing, learning about peripheral vision and peripheral hearing, how to keep our awareness wide-angle and our footprint (or "splash") tiny. It's all vibrations... concentric rings of influence from and upon us. We learned how to fox-run, use our coyote ears, know the various alarms in the woods, how to know a mountain lion is present before you actually sense it... We learned how to embrace hypothermia (that lesson was lost on me, I think!), and spent the last hour tracking deer (and a dog or two).

All in the name of music.

Because Music is Life is Love is God is Everything is Music. And it's all vibrations, and concentric rings of influence.

It's impossible to undo a vibration you've sent out, but you CAN send out a new one that can alter the first. And if somebody or something sends a vibration your way, you need to know how to recognize it and deal with it -- whether to join in with the merry chirping or run away from the yet-unseen mountain lion.

If you look at the concentric rings formed by a splash, you will note that the vibration isn't a whole lot of something -- it's the alternation between something and nothing something and nothing something and nothing... the valleys are just as important as the peaks, the emptiness takes as much space as the fullness. In music, we tend to take notice of the fullness -- most of us don't spend time practicing the emptiness, paying attention to the space.

After drowning our hypothermia in ginger tea and fireside chat, we all headed back up to the auditorium to apply our fox-running and coyote-ears to our playing. But wait, we aren't doing group work? Nope, it's all solos. How the heck can we practise listening if we're playing by ourselves?

By not listening to ourselves as we play.

By listening to the space.

By listening to the audience.

And brave volunteer after brave volunteer proved this over and over again. You could see heads pop up in the group whenever the performer started listening to themselves and losing the music -- and then the eyes light up when the performer started listening to the space and letting the music blossom and thrive. It was truly magic!

And then more magic. Victor invited that handsome, fashionably-clad man who'd been lurking in the back all afternoon to come up front and say hello -- and introduced us all to Eric Bibb. Eric will be leading a songwriting workshop in September (we're going!), and had done some recording on the island, so was just in visiting for the day. Victor asked him to sing a couple of tunes for us -- alas, Eric didn't have his guitar with him. So Victor asked Don if Eric could use his new Gord Barry guitar.

Uh, YES!

So Eric talked to the group and played two beautiful new songs for us... on Don's guitar. We're hoping some of his joy and spirit has imbued itself into the wood.

More ginger tea and awe-struck fireside conversation, and then we were back, this time for some more jamming -- not just with the room, but with each other. A fairly large group of us got up to do a version of "Summertime", including the beautifully-sensitive-why-isn't-he-world-famous pianist Tom, sassy-and-classy-Juno-nominee trumpeter Tina, scat-singer-extraordinaire Juhli, tone-to-weep-to oboist Toby, some-bass-dude Victor, a handful of other singers and instrumentalists, and myself (Alyssa) on cello. I realize now that it was probably a test, although I'm not sure if it was a conscious or purposeful one on Victor's part.

But I have to say, we passed it. :-) The messages were sinking in, we were catching ourselves in our assumptions and rolling with the waves. For instance, I heard Tina was going to take the lead in one of the instrumental breaks, and figured I'd try noodling some harmonies around her part as accompaniment. Well, she heard me put in a bit of a crescendo and decided to back out of the way for me to take the lead. So there I was, having started what I thought was going to be harmony, and ended up doing a lead that I probably wouldn't have naturally chosen to do, but since I had already started with that figure, I just kept going with it -- accompanied by Tina. And then Toby was soaring on the oboe, Tom had the most exquisite piano... ah, gorgeous, and everyone giving each other space and listening and being.

Yum.

After dinner, Victor had promised the bass players (over half of the group) a question-and-answer period just for them, since some of the earlier classes had gotten a bit bogged down in bass-specific stuff that didn't really apply to the rest of us. We ended up dropping in on that as well, because even though it was bass-specific, there's still much to be learned. And, of course, Don always enjoys tech talk about looping pedals, etc. :-)

It was in this session that he dished out the most important info any bass player -- or side musician in general -- oughta know. YOUR JOB IS TO NOT BE NOTICED. Your job is to support the music and the lead singer/player. You are the foundation of the building, not the stained-glass window. If you're cracked, the whole thing will fall apart. If you're wonderful, nobody will notice. If you're given a solo, take it, but make sure you're in service of the music. If it's not your solo, and somebody notices you're there, you've done something wrong.

This was the night the jam session stopped being cranked up to eleven. It probably wasn't even cranked up to four. The bass players were no longer trying to impress each other (and Victor) with how many notes they could play in a riff, or how kick-ass they were. They were now trying to impress the world with how little they played, how quietly they played, how much they listened, how much space they gave.

This was the night we could actually stick around for the jam session, without needing earplugs.

An awesome night, indeed.

Musically,
Alyssa

The Workshop - Tuesday

2011-03-14T15:20:00.001-04:00

Hi folks,

(Geeeessshhhh! We've been really bad about blogging this tour... a month behind?!? Sorry, it's been kind of nuts!)

So... the Victor Wooten workshop at The Haven. How to do it ANY justice? Well, the first step is accepting that we can't -- but we believe he's doing it again next winter, so we'd heartily encourage everyone to go, as it's so very much worth the time and money. If you don't have the time or the money, then at least buy his book, "The Music Lesson -- A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music", also available as a CD set.

Major premise number one is Music is Life is Love is God is Everything is Music. Simple enough, right?

More-easily-notated major premise number two is that Music is made up of ten equal and interactive parts:

   1. Notes
   2. Space
   3. Dynamics
   4. Rhythm / Tempo
   5. Articulation
   6. Feel / Emotion
   7. Technique
   8. Phrasing
   9. Listening
   10. Tone Colour

The notes are the part that many of us obsess over and freak out about, but if numbers two through ten (the "groove") are all right, the notes can be completely wrong ("wrong", of course, being a completely subjective and self-subjected concept).

Which leads into the next premise (and conclusion) -- there are no wrong notes. There can be wrong groove, if you're only thinking of the notes, and lack of groove makes the music suck for everyone (OK, he didn't actually use the word "suck", but you know what I mean).

And so we listened and discussed and experimented on many different variations on the theme during the course of this week.

Oh yes, and he also tortured us regularly with some physically nasty warm-up exercises that just got worse as the week progressed. But don't let that stop you from going. :-)

Much of the experimentation came from putting people on the spot -- solo or in groups -- seeing what happened, discussing it in terms of "two through ten" and what our own brains did to get in the way of our performance, then doing it again in a different way.

One of the first volunteers (actually, she was "voluntold"!) was a wheelchair-bound woman who had never played an instrument but really wanted to explore her musical side. Victor brought her up and gave her a bass to play, jamming with a couple of other musicians. Although the instrument was physically difficult for her to play (her husband had to come up and help her hold it), she ended up playing a pretty kick-ass solo -- and the pure joy on her face was breathtaking! So... if someone who's never played the instrument before, and doesn't even know where the notes are can jam with a group... why the heck can't a trained musician? (Yup, that was a rhetorical question...) Two through ten, baybee, two through ten.

Don was one of the early volunteers Tuesday morning, playing "I Will Never Forget", that sweet song about his first slow dance -- as always, it made the ladies swoon and got the men all nostalgic (this is obviously Alyssa writing...), and he pulled off a really good performance of the song. Victor and the group were all impressed with his guitar playing, voice and the song. So... where to go from there? Ah, don't you worry, our fearless leader had plans. :-) He told Don to turn the song off, forget about the lyrics completely, forget about the intricate finger-picking, forget about the song structure, forget everything. Close his eyes and think about that dance, about Dorothy, about the room, about how he felt, just immerse himself in that moment of the dance and all the feelings and emotions it evoked. Then play. Not the song, not what he knows, just play the pictures. Yes, the man who claims not to be able to improvise was going to play a two-minute improvisation on his first dance.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that improv had everyone practically in tears. As beautiful and well-crafted his song is, when he tapped into his heart and gut and played the emotions and pictures... and invited us to share his emotions and pictures. Well... WOW pretty much sums it up. (And I have to say that, later in the tour, when he played that song again in concert, those emotions and pictures were coming through in the song as well, to a much greater extent than I've heard before.)

Later that day, Alyssa got pulled up for a group improvisation. Two of us who were seasoned jammers, one who was a trained musician but no experience with jamming, one who used to play a bit as a kid but had limited confidence in her current abilities. And... one-two-three START! Oooh... that kind of sucked. And NOT because of the inexperienced ones -- the two of us who thought we knew what we were doing just learned a BIG lesson about listening -- not for what we expected to hear, but for what's actually happening. Ouch. We were so used to working within a certain structure, and all the non-verbal cues we give each other to work within said structure, that we completely failed at working without it.

Pretty darned humbling.

Major premise number four -- making Music is a conversation. Don't assume you know what the other has to say. Listen to what's actually being said. Don't talk over, or try to bulldoze the conversation into just what you want to talk about.

Oh geez, how many times have I said this about the belligerent twits in the world... and now *I'm* the belligerent twit?!? Did I mention the word "humbling"?

So... take two, forget what you know, find the groove. Yeah, that's it. Ahh... conversation! We redeemed ourselves... with much to ponder and explore.

Tuesday's night-time jam session was still cranked up to eleven, so a bunch of us sensitive acoustic types (dare we say 'old'?) sought out our own space in another building, for a jam session where we could actually hear each other. While we shared our... er... maturity and sensitivities, our genres were all over the map, which made for some interesting moments. A couple of guitars (including a quiet classical nylon-string), Don's slide, cello, oboe, saxophone. Classical, jazz, folk, bluegrass... some very interesting moments, as we tried to navigate the differences.

Later in the evening, as is his wont, Don insisted I play my solo cello arrangement of "Both Sides Now". I protested it wasn't a jam song, but everyone wanted to hear it, so I reluctantly agreed -- figuring it would be a good chance to practise working on digging more into the emotion. So I tried to put away any idea of "performance" or worrying about what people thought, and just dig deep. Did the introduction and got partway through the first verse when I saw Jay (the sax player) waving excitedly -- thinking he was just happy he'd figured out the tune, I decided that I'd better close my eyes and stop paying attention to people's reactions. Finished the piece (Don says it was one of the best renditions he's heard me do) and opened my eyes, only to see a beaming, laughing Victor Wooten hiding behind the door, applauding, nodding, giving me thanks.

Oh, so THAT's why Jay was waving. SOOOO glad I didn't figure it out, or I would have probably been a total mess. Victor, of course, knew that, which was why he was hiding behind the door the whole time, just in case I opened my eyes. He headed back to his room that night, but later, to the group, he said he had been trying to get back to his room to do some work before he went to sleep, but as he was walking by the building we were in, he heard my cello and "that sound just grabbed me!" He'd wanted to stay hidden from EVERYONE in the room, but heard that I was bowing chords and plucking at the same time, and really wanted to figure out how the heck I was doing that (geez, he's stealing my tricks?), so had to pop his head around and look. "She's a virtuoso!"

OK, so much for humbled -- although he was good enough to wait until our last day to say those things, so I wasn't totally freaked out. At least until then... Guess whose quote is going at the top of my bio?

Ahem, back to humbled.

After a few more songs, the group decided it was time to disband and try for some shut-eye. Still totally buzzed from the applause and approval of The Man (yeah, I'm field-dependent, so sue me!), I knew I wasn't going to sleep any time soon. So we headed to the Lodge for a tasty beverage... or two... with host Roxanne and a couple of other workshop attendees, talking about all we'd learned in just a day and a half, and anticipating what the next days were going to bring.

Musically,
Alyssa

Heading to Island life...

2011-02-28T14:04:00.000-05:00

And so, Monday morning (well, musicians' morning!), we bid adieu to our hosts in Victoria and headed back up Vancouver Island towards Nanaimo. Yet another beautiful day for driving! Don had bought the new Lynn Miles CD over the weekend, and that was our soundtrack for the journey.

The Downtown/Ferry rental car drop-off was not exactly at the ferry -- or even, frankly, downtown -- which was a bit of a surprise, especially with an SUV full of gear! But we managed to clear off one of the back seats, so the staff member could fit in and drive us and all our stuff to the ferry terminal.

Ah, the fine art of tour packing!

Alyssa = cello as backpack, purse and carry-on bag over one shoulder, Don's Hawaiian King over the other shoulder.

Don = backpack, satchel slung across chest, guitar over shoulder, both of our (oversized) suitcases strapped together and wheeling behind.

Yup, we managed to carry all our tour and travel stuff between the two of us!

At least, while we were upright... Down at the docks, it was INCREDIBLY windy, and we each had a lot of surface area to blow around! Good thing there were rails up, because we could have easily ended up in the freezing cold straight with a couple of those gusts.

Foot passengers are allowed on first, then they fill the centre part of the ship with cars. Unfortunately, the cabins for the foot passengers all have giant steps into them -- we left our suitcases on deck, and felt great sympathy for the wheelchair-bound man who was left on deck with the cars in the now-wind-and-rain. BC Ferries might wish to examine their accessibility one of these days!

Foot passengers are also allowed to get off first -- however, neither the man in the wheelchair nor us with our instruments could fit around the cars waiting to get off! So we had to wait until the cars had cleared, then make our lonely way over the gangplank (and try to not get run over by the eager folks getting on in Gabriola!). By the time we made our way to the parking lot, the shuttle bus to The Haven had figured all foot passengers were off, so we had to call them and get them to come back for us. Not such a bad thing, since there probably wouldn't have been room for anyone else on it, what with all our gear!

And so, we arrived at The Haven in our "private limo", slightly cranky and sore. This mood wore off pretty darned quickly, though, as we chatted with the receptionist, Roxanne, and took in the gorgeous surroundings (FaceBook users can see some photos on our Page -- we're going to try and upload pics to our website soon, just having trouble catching up!). The Haven is right on the water in a little bay, surrounded by woods. The main lodge has the dining room, a small bar and lounge. Guest rooms, meeting rooms, and a theatre are spread throughout the property.

We did a bit of wandering to get our bearings, and then headed into the Lodge for dinner. OH MY GOODNESS!!! The meals there are incredible -- locally sourced food wherever possible, served buffet-style with tons of options for vegetarians like Alyssa. In case you get thirsty or nibble-y at any time they aren't serving food, there's always a big pot of ginger tea or coffee available, plus bread and spreads out for you to make a sandwich (neither one of us got hungry between meals, but the ginger tea was certainly delicious!). Looking around at our fellow diners, we saw quite a mix of young and old, Haven "alumni" and newcomers, with people enrolled from as far away as Texas and even Germany.

After dinner, we all headed up the hill to our first session with Victor Wooten -- kind of an introduction of what we could expect in the week, his ways of thinking about music and life, and him getting a feel of what the group was like, where we were at, and what we were hoping to get out of the workshop.

We were asked to write down (both for ourselves and for him) what we hoped to accomplish or learn in the week. Like many, I (Alyssa), mentioned feeling stuck in a rut or plateau and wanting to find ways to break out of it. His response was well worth the entire week's tuition for me, and allowed me to let go of my frustrations with myself almost instantly: a roadblock or plateau is just the world giving you an ENFORCED resting period.

Gulp.

Yes, it seems the world has been trying to give me MANY of those recently. Maybe I should stop being mad at myself and just enjoy the rest? Yeah, Maybe! Baby steps...

Also introduced this evening was the concept of music and nature being the same thing, really. Not just birdsong and banging on sticks (although those are important too), but the ways in which we react to / walk amidst both, and what is expected from us if we wish to support / be supported by either.

Musically, naturally. Music-ally. Nature-ally. We're all in this together, and need to be allies if anything good is going to come of it.

Evening session over, the floor opened up to a jam session. Well, that's what they called it... but the number of eager young bass players cranked up to eleven and hoping to impress Victor and each other with how many notes and how much noise they could cram in to every bit of space they could... a little cacophonous for us. Kudos to Victor for sticking around and using it as another teaching opportunity -- the jam sessions in subsequent days got progressively more quiet and musical, so the lessons obviously started to sink in, eventually. This first night, though, our poor ears couldn't take the din, so we opted to head back to our room for some wine (forgot to write it down, sorry! -- a nice BC one, though) and our beauty sleep. After all, we had to be at breakfast for 8:00 the next morning, and we're not used to being up that early! :-) Even from the first couple of hours of the workshop, though, we already had lots to talk about and much to ponder and percolate.

And this was just the beginning...

Musically,
Alyssa

Home safe!

2011-02-21T21:24:00.002-05:00

We made it home... and are pooped. Our no-longer-chronological tour blog will resume when we're no longer comatose.

In the meantime, however: we LOVE Mike and Ruth! Wonderful, wonderful people, who we hope to see again very soon.

Just wanted them to know they were appreciated.

And now... the coma. :-)

Grand Forks -- GRAAANNNDDD Forks!

2011-02-19T03:09:00.000-05:00

Hello, folks and folkettes,

We interrupt our (Alyssa's) anally-retentive chronological order to report -- WE LOVE GRAND FORKS!!!

What a spectacular evening we've just had! The drive here was absolutely beautiful, if you ignore the deer massacre we witnessed en route. (We're still very sad about that one...)

2nd Street Studio B is an incredibly gorgeous venue, and Brigitte is an incredibly gorgeous host. There seems to be a great community here, and Brigitte and her new venue are only going to make it stronger.

We arrived mid-afternoon, gave her a call, and she was at the studio in minutes, full of apologies for not cooking us a full dinner -- are you kidding us?!?!? Instead, we had to endure a wide array of cheeses and olives and pickles -- poor us. :-( How we suffer for our art...

The room sounded so good, we decided to forego the P.A. It's part of the old Gazette building -- the community paper -- with bare brick walls and wood beams and old wood floors and a beautiful loft, where we'll be sleeping tonight. The acoustics were incredible, and the "feel" is warm and supportive. A flick of the clicker, and a beautiful light display illuminated the wall behind the stage, and the rest of the room was warmed with hand-crafted iron floor lamps made by her friend Angel.

Angel and her partner Mireille looked after the door and CD sales, and they were such wonderful people, we wanted to take them on the road with us! Angel joked she wanted to be our bouncer, but the audience was so friendly, there was no need. What a fabulous community they have in Grand Forks!

This was the very first concert in Brigitte's new studio, and our first time anywhere near the town. Definitely not the last. It was an incredible honour to be part of this evening. The amount of love that has gone into this space is tangible and humbling.

Brigitte was worried there wouldn't be enough people, but ended up having to put out extra chairs. What a nice problem to have! We even had a couple of tiny people in the audience, both of whom behaved way better than many grown-ups we've encountered. A bunch of folks stayed after the show for a wee visit, and we will definitely be seeing them again in September -- it's been a great evening!

But, on that note, it might be time for some shut-eye... must drive back to Kelowna in the morning! But any of you in the Grand Forks area HAVE to visit Brigitte's open house on Feb.26 here at 2nd Street Studio B. Beautiful place, beautiful people!

Musically,
Alyssa & Don

Working our way up the Island

2011-02-17T15:29:00.000-05:00

Hello, folks and folkettes!

We're currently driving from Vancouver to Kelowna, so I'm racing my laptop battery, but thought we'd better get a little further caught up, before the brain hits "reset"!

A nice relaxing Sunday (Feb.6, aiyaiyai, I'm the Queen of "behind"!) at Sandra and Landon's house. By Sunday, we had mastered their son's cappuccino maker (day one was a little less successful), so life was good. Landon had to work once again, but the three humans and Amber spent most of the day chatting and puttering away at various chores and work. Once Landon got home, we headed up early to our gig in Duncan.

Did I mention we were born in the wrong province??? The drive was absolutely gorgeous, despite the fog and rain that prevented us from viewing the scenery in all its glory. Probably a good thing, or there may have been a call put in to our real estate agent... Ocean, mountain and rainforest... followed by ocean, mountain and rainforest... followed by ocean, mountain and rainforest. Do people who live here ever get blase about such beauty?

Sandra's mom lives in Duncan, so the four of us met up with her for dinner at... oy, this is why I should blog every day on tour -- I've completely forgotten the name of the pub!!! So much for my restaurant report... It was a lovely place, though, with a bunch of local brews on tap -- unfortunately, we couldn't partake as we still had to work that night! I had a delicious vegetarian / mediterranean pizza (or rather, half of it -- the other half was taken home for lunch the next day), and Don had the BBQ chicken pizza (we had to take off early for sound check, but the other three had a much more leisurely meal).

Then we were off to the Duncan Garage Showroom. What a beautiful little theatre it is -- nice and cosy, with great art all over the walls, and an eclectic collection of... well, collections! From an old dentist's sink to a sculpture of the proprietor, Longevity John. John and Georgia are such warm and generous hosts, we felt welcome immediately. Georgia looks after the wee cafe, John looks after the music.

The venue has been put together with great care -- John says it was all done for his friend, Willie P. Bennett. Quite the labour of love -- Willie P. would be happy to have inspired such a place. When we arrived and started setting up, Don (being the technical geek) was practically drooling over all the equipment in the hall. And John sure knows what he's doing on the board -- got our sounds up and sounding great in no time!

Did we mention that one of the most common comments we've heard on this tour was "I wish there were more people here to enjoy you"? Well, this night was kind of the pinnacle of that one -- we'd have heard it a hundred times, if there had been a hundred people there. Unfortunately, as we realized on our beautiful drive up, it was SuperBowl Sunday... AND there was a big dance happening right next door. So our audience was... well, rather tiny. Very enthusiastic, but... tiny. Oh well, we had a fun evening, anyhow, and John and Georgia have given us a bunch of contacts for the next time we come out -- and we made a few new fans in the area, too. We also got some fantastic quotes from John, so... we may not have made thousands of dollars at this gig, but we certainly would consider it a success.

The evening was videotaped as well, so as soon as we get home we'll transfer some of it on to our website so you can see us in all our lonely glory. :-)

OK, the battery is getting low, and we still need to do a couple o' things, so we shall cover our Monday trip to Gabriola after some laptop rechargins.

Musically,
Alyssa (and Don, who's busy driving right now, and keeping an eye out for coffee shops!)

Catching up on the BC backlog

2011-02-15T21:38:00.000-05:00

Hello, folks and folkettes -- we've had the wonderful problem of having too many people to visit on our BC tour, so have been pretty terrible at blogging thus far. Our apologies, we aren't lost in the Rockies, just swimming in socialness. :-)

Take a quick peek at Alyssa's blog post at http://alyssawright.blogspot.com/2011/02/life-and-living.html for a toe-dip into our time at the Victor Wooten workshop at The Haven -- there will be much more to come from that week, we're sure!

In the meantime, to keep Alyssa's obsessively chronological side happy, we'll try to get back to where we left off -- essentially, the beginning!

Spent a lovely first day in Victoria with our host Sandra and dog Amber (unfortunately, Landon was hard at work, so we had to wait for a visit with him). We got a lovely tour of the city and discovered a tasty bakery in Oak Bay (mmm... fresh bread!) before heading back to the house for a light supper before our show. Then it was off to Pondside!

Pondside Music is a house concert series hosted by Juliana and Douglas McCorison -- a lovely home, nestled between the ocean and a large Koi pond. This was our first time meeting them in person, although Alyssa had played on her CD (with Don recording) several years ago. What a delight to finally meet in real life!

We were greeted by a melange of dogs and cats, all super-friendly. The white cat (whose name I forget, now that it's a week and a half later) attempted to set up shop inside our cajon -- fortunately she was caught in time, or she (and we) would have had quite a surprise once the concert started!

The jet-lag did have a bit of an effect on our energy, but we still had a fun time, and didn't forget TOO many lyrics. We received many comments at break and after the show about how much fun we seemed to have playing together, so we obviously weren't as dazed as we thought we were. :-)

"From the moment you two started to play, I could just feel the joy coming from you and filling us all. It's so great to watch, and be a part of!" [Douglas McCorison, our host at Pondside Music]

It seemed that almost half the audience that night were musicians themselves, so we had a great time at the break chatting with everyone and trading road stories. We have definitely gotten the impression that not many people in Victoria (or on Vancouver Island, for that matter) are local -- we've met many Ontario transplants on our travels here!

And so, our first concert in BC went very well, and we met a bunch of new friends. Another comment which we've gotten used to on this trip has been "I just wish there were more people here to enjoy you!" -- well, we're ever-so-likely to be back in September, so tell all your friends, and there will be! :-)

Juliana and Douglas suggested we check out the Victoria Folk Music Society, which we did the following week... but once again, we're getting ahead of ourselves. More later, we've got a lot to catch up on and not much internet time!

Musically,
Alyssa & Don

Kicking off our first BC tour... and getting kicked back

2011-02-08T17:33:00.000-05:00

Hello, folks and folkettes!

Yes, we are well into our first tour of the "left coast", but this is the first time we've had a spare moment to chat.

The adventure began last Monday, a few days before our Friday departure, when we discovered that, under new guidelines, my cello is now too big to be considered oversize luggage -- i.e., the airlines won't take it AT ALL. Not that Big Blue has put on any weight, mind you, just that the rules have changed. Surprise! OK, nevermind, we can send it cargo. EXCEPT... oh yeah, the cargo office closes at 5pm on Friday and our flight doesn't arrive until 9:30pm. How be we pick it up Saturday instead? No, the office won't open again until Monday morning. But Monday we're supposed to be on Gabriola Island after having played two gigs with aforementioned cello. Sorry, nothing we can do.

Hmm...

Call the friendly FedEx people. If we can get the cello in to the Barrie depot by 4pm, they can have it at our friend's house in Victoria by Friday afternoon. Although... if the truck hits bad weather at some point along its route (geez, what are the odds of a truck hitting bad weather at some point along the route in a Canadian February?), it might not get there 'til Monday... Ship by air? Yes, of course we can do that... FOR $986 PLUS TAX AND INSURANCE!!!

I will not panic, I will not cry, I will not panic, I will not cry...

A few tears and panic attacks and phone calls later, we finally get it organized. We CAN ship the cello via an earlier WestJet flight, and get our dear, darling, angelic friend Sandra to pick it up earlier in the day. PHEW!!! This necessitates a drive to the airport the day before, but what the heck, the cello will get there!

So... Big Blue made her first solo flight on Thursday, Sandra had some quality time with her Friday, and we joined them both Friday evening. Don's guitars also made it with us, safe and sound, despite one of the worst landings we've ever experienced (during the stopover in Calgary, where a mighty wind was blowing), and the clearly-marked "fragile" stickers being ignored as the cases got tossed on the conveyor belt with all the other luggage.

The joys of touring... ah, the glamour!

But we're fine, the instruments are fine, neither one of us forgot anything important (well, Don forgot his deodorant, but as all you avid listeners know, "I don't like my men too clean", so that's actually a GOOD thing...)

Picked up our rental car at National, where the guy at the counter was an incredibly nice guy (honey, this ain't the Toronto airport!) who -- after chatting us up for half an hour -- handed us the keys to a nice Subaru Outback. Nice vehicle -- at least to ride in, Don didn't hand over the driver's seat even once, but he says it drove like a charm. :-)

And so we got to Sandra and Landon's, and were greeted by the big, beautiful Amber (golden retriever). We can't tell you how much we've missed having a dog lean into us, or rest their head on our feet. Yes, even the slobber and loose hair have been making us very happy people, indeed! Oh yeah, and Sandra and Landon are great too. :-) Better than great, they were lovely, generous hosts all weekend, and we're looking forward to another weekend with them once our workshop is finished.

Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself... Must get back to class right now, but will fill you in on our Saturday and BC debut at Pondside Music later on.

Musically,
Alyssa