McFlies are hatching!

We now have a seven-person ensemble of eighties specialists... including Expo, Gizmo, Velcro and the whole rest of the McFlies extended family.

Instrumentation includes six and twelve-string guitars, accordion, harmonium, harmonica, melodica, ukulele, upright bass, mandolin, penny whistle, percussion. Vocal treatments range from camp to campfire, and from gospel to Gregorian. Arrangements... heavy-metal reggae, country-lounge, bluegrass new wave... I'm not kidding. This band is going to ROCK in every genre.

We're making our open mic debut on Valentine's Day at both the Gladstone and the Old Nick.

Probable debut set:
Sunglasses at Night (Corey Hart)
Faith (George Michael)
Stuck on You (Lionel Richie)
Karma Chameleon (Culture Club)

Actively working on: Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams)
Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
Try (Blue Rodeo)
Time After Time (Cindy Lauper)

Just learning:
Freeze Frame (J. Giels Band)
For the Longest Time (Billy Joel)
When Doves Cry (Prince)
The Tide is High (Blondie)
The Land Down Under (Men At Work)

Falling from favour:
Cuts Like a Knife (Bryan Adams)

Don't say I didn't keep you posted...

Expo McFly.

What Su and Will said

This email from a couple friends of mine was in my inbox when I got home from seeing Springsteen last night and I was so tickled, I asked if I could share it here. Sorry for stroking my own ego, but that is why I have a website, after all...

Hey there, I HAD to write.

Funny thing happened yesterday. I was at work when 20 minutes into my day a participant called. She had 2 boxed seats to the Springsteen concert at the Corel centre for last night - did I want them? Uh, I sat and quickly went over any ethical stipulations that may deter me from accepting these tickets/gift from a participant, when a gush of "Shit Su, its The Boss" came over me and I brushed aside all aspects of ethics and said "Yes!" I booked a babysitter, then called Will and told him he couldn't work tonight (wed) cuz we were going out.

Well, turns out it was a "Solo, Aucoustic Tour" and we got there to find no opening act but simply Bruce on stage with a piano and a few guitars. Now, I have always like his music that I've heard on the radio, never bought an album, but I never changed the station when he came on either. Thing is, I never really "listened" to his music. When 15, 000 people are motionless through every song - you can't help but listen to his lyrics. It was an evening of rock music with Folk lyrics. The occasional folk song with rock lyrics but nonetheless, it was amazing.

3 songs in Will turns to me and says: "it's Dave Newland." And yeah, man, he sounds like you. I could say that you obviously have some Springsteen influence but the fact of the matter is, chronologically, your music entered my life before Springsteen so the black and white fact remains that in our world, Bruce Springsteen has some Dave Newland in him.

Just thought I'd pass on our new realization from Wed. July 13th, 2005.

Thanks for the music. Thanks for the lyrics. Thanks for the journey.

Su

Bringing it all Back Home

After lack of sleep, constant driving, mental distraction, poor eating habits, too much time in bars, and failure to focus on getting a haircut... the biggest bummer about my semi-career as a singer-songwriter is that it's all about me.

True, I believe I am doing good by "sharing my gift," and true, I sometimes get the feeling that it all matters on some larger level than my sorry ego could occupy. But still, I spend one hell of a lot of time singing my words, booking my shows, drawing attention to myself. It can drive you nuts after a while.

So it's been a tremendous pleasure over the last 6 months or so to be involved with a band that isn't about me at all. We're just about tunes for tunes' sake. I spend half of my time playing the ukulele. How much of an ego boost could that be?

In this band - I think we've settled on calling ourselves The ZimmerBoyZ - we have just a couple of rules: The only songs we play are Dylan songs, and the only reason we play is to have fun. And it's been a pleasant surprise, how much fun we really do have as a result.

We've been jamming in a former Catholic girl's school in The Annex in Toronto. Uh, yeah. Anyway, they're converting it to condos, so we're losing our space. Too bad- we had a very inspiring, 400 seat theatre to ourselves for about half a year there.

We figured the least we could do was a fond farewell. And on Sunday, we did just that: we held a geurilla gathering of dilettante disciples of Dylan, and we Brought it All Back Home.

Tunes for tunes' sake. Here's to that!