Gettin' Back Home

Well, this has never happened before... I've become a character in a song.

It's a good song, too.

Brenda Neiles wrote it, apparently inspired by a long and mostly quiet drive we took together from Ear Falls, to Winnipeg.

I can't put my feelings about this into words easily.

Just listen... and tell me what you think.

(Right-click on the link, choose "save target as" and download the MP3 to your desktop)

Run Britney Run

This past Saturday, after a "Songs of Canada" workshop at Troutfest, a lady came up to me and told me "Run Terry Run" really hit her. She said her stepdaughter was a Terry Fox cancer survivor. These days, kids diagnosed with the type of cancer he had have a very high rate of survival and a lot of people feel that Terry Fox has everything to do with that. I'd heard that fact before and I was really happy to hear it again in such a special context. It's a sweet moment that I won't forget.

But I wasn't prepared for what happened later. I had just done "Run Terry Run" on the mainstage as an impromptu tweener, and I was backstage putting my guitar away. A pretty teenage girl came up to and said she really liked the song. No, this is not a frequent occurrence, and I must have looked quizzical. Then she said her mom had met me earlier... I was speechless as I figured it out. She gave me a big hug while I was still standing there blinking and try to stammer out what a miracle all of it was.

We hung out a bit later in the afternoon, Britney and me, and her stepmom and her sister too. Everyone was in shorts and Britney didn't seem shy or concerned about the jagged zigzag down her right leg. It's a battle scar. I think she's even proud of it. She should be.

We both agreed it was a good thing to make sure and get the leg brace in this photo. It just seemed right.

Run Britney Run!

Distant early warnings

About a year ago, I capped off a journal entry about Troutfest in Ear Falls with a warning, because I felt like I had pushed myself much farther than I should have. Here's the warning:

"Take it easy out there buddy. Ear Falls was great, but getting there, while still maintaining everything else you do, (already too much) took you to the limit of what you can accomplish in a 2-day weekend. Don't push that limit. Play safe!"

I'm recapping all of this because I'm headed to Thunder Bay again tonight, and Winnipeg/Ear Falls again next weekend. I'm stating for the record that I'm living with a lot more discipline these days - no alcohol, plenty of sleep, good food, lots of exercise, and attention to the little things that keep my stress level down and my spirits up.

I've worked hard to make some dreams come true for myself, to establish myself as a worthy father for my daughter, to do right by the many people who depend on me and whom I depend on in turn. I have beauty all around me and everything a man should need to be happy. And last week, I was reborn on the stage at Hugh's Room as the musician and performer I've always believed I could be. It was a long time coming, and I won't forget the effort it took to get there.

Yeah, I'm going up north again. Yeah, it's still crazy to fly to two festivals in two weekends and work a demanding day job in between. But I want to state for the record that I'm not ignoring my own distant early warnings. I'm heeding them. And if I'm taking a ride into the danger zone, I swear I'm doing it as carefully as I can.

So here's another little note to myself:

Do what you need to do, but make sure you do it with a loving and an eager heart. Keep yourself healthy and thriving so you can be there to see it through. Everything you've accomplished to date is great, but the story doesn't end here. Wait til you see what you can do when you really get going!

Troutfest blues

Here's a little tidbit, courtesy of my buddy Mo' Kauffey. This is me playing Johnny Cash's "Give My Love to Rose" at the Trout Forest Festival in Ear Falls last summer.


It's only a clip - not the whole song - but it's a treat anyway. In the clip you can just make out (left to right): Colin Linden, Doc MacLean, me, Mo' Kauffey, David Cramer and Ken Hamm... yeah! Believe me, that was some pretty august company for me to be keeping. To my great pleasure, these fine fellows didn't boot me out for playing country tunes, busker style, with nary a blues bone in my body. Thanks gentlemen!


To play this clip with Windows Media, right-click on this link, save it to your desktop, and open it from there. To play with Quicktime, just double-click on the link.

Troutfest!

I've been wanting to say something about the Trout Forest Festival in Ear Falls, because it hardly seems fair that Red Rock, which was just the previous week, and only 500 km down the road, got such a poetic write-up. The truth is, I had a really good time in Ear Falls, despite or maybe because of being a late addition to the line-up there.

The problem was that by the time I got there, I was in some kind of zone I can barely describe. Considering I had spent the previous two weekends on the road in Nova Scotia, then Thunder Bay, with flights and two full weeks of my day job in between, that's perhaps understandable.

Then I got bumped off my flight from Toronto to Winnipeg. Then I got to Winnipeg without my luggage, including my guitar. Then I drove through the night with my old buddy Charles to get to the festival site at about 5.30 a.m. Then it was sooo foggy and weird around, it felt like we had beamed into some bizarre nether world.

Notwithstanding, it really was a great festival. The Saturday in particular was incredible- the fog lifted as the sun rose, and with a belly full of bannock and bacon, I managed to get 2 hours sleep before starting off the day of playing.

And what a day! I wound up in a blues workshop with Ken Hamm, Mo Kauffey, Doc MacLean and Colin Linden, much to my surprise. Even more surprising, it turned out great. Hooray. Later I got slotted into the New Voices workshop, which also went really well, although my voice is really not new... it's just that not so many people have heard it.

I could list thousands of highlights from that one brief weekend, but I'll just add one other: doing the Morning Coffee workshop with Ian Tamblyn, Rodney Brown, Marcel Desolets, Ben Sures and a bunch of other coffee-shop types.

I finally got to play the song I wrote that was inspired in part by Ian's pond, with Ian right there. He liked it alright except for my mentioning the Leafs. We had some pretty pointed banter about Leafs vs. Sens onstage. A great moment and a tremendous weekend.

I'm going to sum this all up, though, with a brief note to myself: Take it easy out there buddy. Ear Falls was great, but getting there, while still maintaining everything else you do, (already too much) took you to the limit of what you can accomplish in a 2-day weekend. Don't push that limit.

Play safe!