Showing posts with label folkies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label folkies. Show all posts
October 15, 2011

Niagara, Nowhere

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So I know I'm dropping the ball with my little corner of the interwebs over here, but admittedly I'm stretched a bit thin these days and the blog is suffering.

However! Luckily for any of you who still want some updates, I'm currently sharing a hotel room with my dear friend Shawna. And Shawna wants some goddamn updates. Who am I to deny her? Also, she's glaring at me right now.

Sorry, Shawna.

We're in Niagara Falls. My phone keeps trying to auto-correct "Niagara" to "nowhere." It's not entirely wrong. Strange place, this small-town-cum-Vegas-lookalike. What is up with this place? It's all confused. Natural beauty mixed with wax museums.



We're here for a folk festival conference. Honestly, it's worth being a folk musician just to attend these conferences with some legitimacy. They are the most fun thing... Ever. Worth the lengthy and expensive train ride. Worth the lack of sleep. Worth carting around a banjo on my back everywhere I go.

Because here? Magic happens. Magic like this impromptu jam session in the hallway of the hotel.


I counted one clarinet, two banjos, three accordions, three fiddles, one guitar, one upright bass, one small drum kit, one trombone.

This is just in the hallway. Impromptu jam. Over an hour long.

I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be in this scene.

Anyways, in other very cool news, I have a new album and it was released TODAY! People are already buying it and I'm totally fucking pumped. It's been a long time since the last one, and although it was good, this new recording makes me very proud.

I'm starting some media outreach, and the CD release party is in about a month.

You see why I haven't had time to blog? Life, she is crazy.


So it's 11pm and the parties are just starting up here. I went to bed at 4am last night and fully expect to do it again tonight. I have a set at 1am. Nutty, but so very fun.

See you on the flip side!

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October 19, 2009

$200 and counting

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Well darlings, the conference was great. I am wiped. WIPED. My body doesn't respond well to 4am bed time, but again. It was worth it.

I have so many pictures to share and so many great bands to talk about. I'll try and upload them tonight so you can get down with the funky music.

As for the aftermath... Well.... My throat is sore, and I've lost my beloved capo.* Not a bad haul, overall. HOWEVER.

That is the fifth capo I've lost since I started using, uh, expensive capos. They are $30 each. With tax, I've thrown away about $200 on clumsiness. Sad. Ironically, I had a leatherworker friend make me a custom guitar strap with a capo holder built in for just this situation.

I still lost the fucking thing.

Most unfortunately, I only noticed my capo was missing at 2:30am in the middle of a set. I had finished all my open songs, looked around, and realized that I was screwed. Luckily, when your audience is drunk, it's easy to pretend that you know what you are doing when your gear craps out.

I met one of my favourite songwriters this weekend, too. Turns out he's actually very funny. I'll tell you about my dorky conversation with him in the next post. I think I used to be a lot smoother when I met people I was crazy about. Those days are gone. It's like someone turned up my dork factor to maximum.

More later, but for now, I have to make sure I don't fall asleep in some random place before the day is done.

*A capo is a little thingy you put on your stringed instrument to change the key. It's very useful, and about 80% of my songs involve capo usage.

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