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Getting started

January 26, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Start by <a href="http://www.nyphotographic.com/">Nick Youngson</a> <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC BY-SA 3.0</a> <a href="http://pix4free.org/">Pix4free</a>If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.

Drew Houston

In these recent posts – ‘Adjusting the Sails‘, ‘One and One and One is Three‘ and ‘The World of Work‘ – I sought to bring the gentle reader gently up to date with how things had come to rest for The Girl and I at the culmination of a particularly – er – ‘eventful’ year (though aren’t they all nowadays!). What I have not yet done is to peep out from underneath the metaphorical duvet – to see if I can detect good news anywhere betwixt where we are now and the distant horizon of 2025.

So – this is what we know currently about what 2024 has in store for us…

In terms of travel 2023 was – for us – a complete shocker. Without incessantly ploughing the same furrow it is worth reminding ourselves that there was a point last year when we seriously thought that our travelling days were over. Not so – you will be happy to hear. We are already well advanced with the planning for another expedition for April/May this year.

“Which exotic part of the globe will you be visiting?” – I hear you cry. Well – I’m sure we all have our own definitions of ‘exotic’. This is one of ours.

The Girl and I have for a considerable while now felt drawn to visit the mystical realm of Scotland. Even casual viewers of these witterings will be aware of my love for – and great pride in – the home of my ancestors (the which I inherited from my father). My family travelled many times to the highlands for holidays just as soon as we were old enough. My father was a great hill walker and he and I (and sometimes my younger brother) climbed many a peak in different parts of the land. I have regularly over the years visited both Edinburgh and Glasgow for work and – with my theatrical hat on – ventured to the Edinburgh Fringe on more occasions than I can now enumerate.

The Girl has toured parts of Scotland just once before – with a good guide and great friend – but she and I have not been there together and we feel a very strong urge so to do.

Anyway – more on that trip as it unfolds…

In ‘The World of Work‘ I wrote:

“During the autumn just past The Girl reached the conclusion that her eight years at the volunteer service was enough. As it happens the service was undergoing some restructuring and she was able to do a deal whereby she would hand over the reigns to a full-time replacement, with a negotiated package that would enable her to take some time to figure out what – if anything – she wanted to do next. She is thus once again retired (for now!)“.

Following what might just be the shortest retirement ever… The Girl has just this week started an exiting new venture, about which I can currently reveal nothing at all, but concerning which I suspect a great deal will be said in the months to come. Watch – as they say – this space!

I have already dropped huge hints about creative developments in the musical department. We are firmly expecting a new album to put in an appearance at some point this year – and if we could play live somewhere to welcome it, then that would be splendid.

As ever at this time of the year there are many other exciting prospects bubbling under and – though there are also many very good reasons to feel nervous about 2024 – I like to approach the year under an umbrella of optimism. (Google assures me that – somewhat to my surprise – I am not the first to coin that particular euphemism. Oh well!).

Very best wishes to you all for 2024.

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One and one and one is three

December 27, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“He roller-coaster, he got early warnin’
He got muddy water, he one mojo filter
He say, “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good-lookin’, ’cause he’s so hard to see”

John Lennon – ‘Come together’

It is – as I have repeated many times before – my habit at around the turn of the year to look back and ponder on the twelve months that have recently ended, before turning my thoughts toward the nascent year just arriving, there to surmise what might be expected in each of the most important areas of our lives. At around this time last year my wits were full of the then recently taken (and, as it proved, fateful!) decision to mount a trip-of-a-lifetime safari to Botswana. My meanderings concluded thus:

“Such is the mental magnitude of the undertaking that we don’t have much space left in our imaginations at this juncture to conjure up other aims and ambitions for the year – with the exception of a musical ambition on my part. The Chanteuse and I have decreed that this year we should prepare ourselves to perform live. Even should we not manage so to do before the year’s end – we will be ready and raring to go immediately thereafter. More on this also – later in the year”.

So – how did we get on?

Well – we haven’t played live… yet!

These things are complex and take time. Our music is emotional and cinematic and not easily transcribed to a single acoustic guitar and a washboard (neither of which either of us plays). The whole business clearly required careful consideration and not a little experimentation.

What we did first was to release a couple of singles – ‘Perfect‘ and ‘The Journey Home‘ – with the idea of keeping our music in the public eye. Through these releases we achieved a number of firsts:

  • We got our first playlistings
  • We had our first reviews
  • We had the first articles written about us in online blogs
  • We appeared on several compilation releases courtesy of the wonderful Aldora Britain Records
  • We made our first video to accompany one of our recordings

We also had enjoyed another first… but more of that later.

The trouble with playing complex music live is that there are basically two different ways of achieving it: one can work with a lot of technology – or with a whole bunch of people (musicians!).

Finding the right musicians is difficult. One is asking folk to voluntarily give up a lot of their time and expertise to do something for which the rewards could be precious but nebulous. When one is young finding musicians is easy and in my chequered past I have done so many times. Young people have energy and ideas and want to get involved. They don’t much care about being rewarded and they tend to be only partly formed – which makes it easier for them to adapt and to meld themselves to their chosen project.

Older people tend to be more set in their ways – more cynical – more particular about what they want to do and what they won’t do – and also about whether or not they expect to get paid for it.

In short – putting a band together when you are young happens almost without effort. When one is older – it don’t!…

…hence the interest in the technology. Using all this wonderful gear is very much the thing of now – but it does have down-sides. It is expensive and complex to do well – and it is difficult to get a truly human result unless one is very good at it. We spent a chunk of the year playing around with various setups trying to see if we could get things to work as a duo, but the truth is that our music properly requires real people, playing together.

So – our other first… the first time we played with another musician – the fiddle player who provided a session for one of our singles (thank you)…

…which led ultimately to this year’s really big news: we now have a new member! – who shall, for the purposes of this blog, be awarded the sobriquet – The Jongleur.

This exciting development brings us a most important second voice – the which will be essential for playing live and one which miraculously blends beautifully with The Chanteuse.

Welcome! Welcome!!

Of course, this won’t just affect playing live. The other looking-forward news item is that we are writing furiously and have already compiled more than half the material needed for a new album – the which we anticipate appearing in public sometime around the middle of the year.

So – much excitement – much to look forward to.

Find us here:

 

 

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A metaphor for endings

December 15, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings”.

Henry Cloud

Those who are anything but the most casual of visitors to this digital bailiwick will be aware that this has been a particularly trying year for The Girl and I. The implications of our various travails will inevitably rumble on for some time yet to come, but I will do my very best not to bore on about them too much here.

However, as the prepended Henry Cloud quote aptly reminds us, we are approaching the ending of the year and the changing of the seasons. Things can and do change constantly (of which there is nothing to be afraid) and we must needs indeed carry out some regular pruning, so that the blossoms may flourish anew in the years to come.

Those here for the long haul will already be aware of my habit of looking both forward and back (Janus-like) at this juncture of the year and will be unsurprised to find me taking full advantage of that annual ritual to update the gentle reader on a variety of present topics over the festive season.

These subjects I will certainly address:

  • The fallout from our aborted ‘trip of a lifetime’ to Botswana back in May/June. Progress on the recovery of our disbursements is glacial – but just consider what those gargantuan ice-flows are capable of inflicting upon a landscape. It may be a grind but ‘justice’ must eventually be done.
  • The Girl has decided that it is time for some major changes in her life. Old doors will be closed but new ones almost certainly opened. Stay tuned for the full details.
  • This time last year The Chanteuse and I proposed some loftily ambitious extensions to our musical project. Whereas things are taking longer to realise than we might have hoped, we are making good progress. There is exciting news to report – the which will be the subject of a post very soon.
  • Each year I ask myself afresh if I wish to continue with my periodic teaching at the College. Now, I have a big birthday coming up shortly (I do not really celebrate the lesser ones) so the question is particularly pertinent. I find to my surprise that the playing field has altered somewhat since last I gave the matter my consideration.

These – and other pressing subjects – will have lights shone bright upon them in the interests of illumination.

For now – I am writing this at 10 o’clock of the evening in the arrivals hall at Victoria International airport – awaiting The Girl’s timely return from Mexico. As I am considerably less than half the chap that I can be whenever she is not around, this is not a moment too soon.

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Peter Gabriel

October 30, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I promised gentle readers a couple of posts back that I would write something on the subject of Peter Gabriel’s recent concert appearance in Vancouver – a step along the way on the North American leg of his ‘i/o’ tour – the which is in support of his eagerly anticipated but as yet unreleased new album.

Actually, ‘unreleased‘ is somewhat misleading. Mr. Gabriel has been releasing tracks from the up-coming album on a monthly basis – coinciding with the full moon – since the start of the year… Should one be a subscriber (as, you will be unsurprised to hear – I am) then one gets all of the tracks in a variety of different edits, plus the full collection upon release. What a brilliant notion!

I first wrote about the excellent Mr G. in these jottings back in 2013 on the occasion of our first experience in London (of two!) of the ‘So‘ album’s twenty fifth anniversary tour. That post contained just the first of many PG references to feature within these ephemera and included the following testimonial:

“I do not believe that I have ever been – or could ever be – a party to a serious relationship with anyone who was not an admirer of the most excellent Mr Peter Gabriel. Those with whom I have shared such accord will undoubtedly testify to my continuing enthusiasm for the man and his works over an extended period.

The Kickass Canada Girl and I – naturally – established early on that we were mutual admirers, the chief difference between us being that whereas I have genuinely lost count of the number of times that I have seen Mr G perform live in the flesh, she had not – to the point at which we met – had that opportunity at all.

So it was – back in the summer of 2007 – that the Girl and I found ourselves huddled close together under the pouring rain in the grounds of a stately home in Norfolk. We had trekked all the way up there to catch one of a small number of dates that Gabriel was playing as a warm-up to that year’s WOMAD festival.”

I still can’t accurately recall all of the times that I have seen the estimable Mr. Gabriel, but I believe that the first time I did so was in 1978 or 1979. I am not aware of having missed a tour since then, several times seeing the great man at both the start and end of world tours.

This year’s show was a wonderful mixture of old and new material – and of art and music. Peter’s songwriting is, if anything, stronger than ever – the lengthy genesis of this new album certainly paying off. His voice has maybe lost a note or two in range but is stronger and more emotive than ever. At the age of 73 he is still in extraordinarily good voice.

For more about these excellent shows (the which have, as expected, been exceedingly well received and have gone down a treat in both Europe and North America) here are reviews from The Guardian and the Vancouver Sun.

By the way – I have given up worrying each time I see Mr.Gabriel that it may be the last. I see no reason why we should not be gathering together well into the next decade and more.

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City of Glass

October 11, 2023 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidTo Vancouver for the weekend – to see Peter Gabriel at the Rogers Arena. More on that in the next post – but first, some images of what Douglas Coupland quite understandably calls the ‘City of Glass’. Vancouver has that ‘big city’ feel – much more imposing than quaint little old Victoria.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Visitors always want to know why Victoria is the provincial capital of British Columbia and not Vancouver. Not much to be said there – except that it is what it is. Personally – eager as I am to absorb the big city vibes for a while, I am always much happier when we get back to the island.

But then – I do come from island people…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

 

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On the town

September 27, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

As trailed in this recent post the autumn (or fall) season that has suddenly announced itself here in BC (to the great relief of fire-fighters and gardeners alike) gets underway for The Girl and I in a haze of cultural events. I thought I would just briefly report back on a few of them…

Having enjoyed one of the season-closing concerts at Butchart Gardens which featured soul/blues stalwart Miss Emily (”An angelic voice with just a hint of sultry devilishness. This gal is a rocket ready to take-off!” – The Tragically Hip) we were more than ready to be splendidly entertained by the wonderful Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria at the start of September. The Girl introduced me to Bonnie back in the UK in around 2007 – at the New Theatre in Oxford as I recall – and I rapidly became a fan. Ms. Raitt is 73! Sorry – I shouldn’t have mentioned that, but if I look half as good, perform with a quarter of the energy and have but a fraction of her vocal talents and guitar chops when I reach that age… I too would probably still be earning standing ovations from 1500 seat theatres some fifty years into my career.

Kudos!

I reported back in May this year the manner in which The Belfry theatre’s closing show for the 2022/2023 season – “Old Stock – A Refugee Love Story” – had gone a long way to restoring our faith in Canadian theatre. I described the production thus: “It is witty but sensitive, riotously risque but touching, beautifully performed by musicians and actor/musicians alike and splendidly directed and staged.”

We have just been to see the opening production of the new 2023/2024 season (the which I will not name to protect the innocent!). I fear that our faith in the theatre is now right back somewhere adjacent to where it was before. This was an odd production which seemed to us not really to know what it was trying to accomplish. It certainly tried hard in so doing; way too hard, some might say. I was unimpressed by the writing (advertised as funny… not funny!) – the direction or the performances. To be fair, the material did not give any of those involved much of a chance. On the journey home The Girl and I found ourselves trying to recall as many as possible of the productions by which we had been impressed in a decade of theatre-going in London before we headed to Canada. It was a goodly list!

Now – something that was funny – a riotous evening in the company of the very excellent Dara O’Briain – also at the Royal Theatre. Dara – for those who have never had the huge pleasure of watching him at work (examples easily found on YouTube should you care to look… you lucky people!) – is perhaps our favourite comedian. He has the great advantage (for a comedian) of being massively intelligent and extremely quick on his feet. He is also, of course, Irish – which gives him a huge advantage.

It makes me very happy when it proves possible to see musicians, comedians and (very occasionally) actors that we know and love from over the water – here on the far west coast of Canada. It makes me even more happy that we get to see Peter Gabriel in Vancouver in about a week and a half’s time.

Can’t wait!

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Robbie Robertson

August 10, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Robbie Robertson

1943 – 2023

RIP


It has been a sad year for those who are involved with… or who have an interest in… or who are passionate about… the business of music. Yet another of our creative giants has succumbed to age and/or illness. Canadians, naturally, need little encouragement to celebrate one of their own greats; in this case the inimitable Robbie Robertson, who sadly passed away yesterday at the age of 80.

We were, last night, at this year’s penultimate Music in the Park in Brentwood Bay and the evening’s act – local cover band, ‘Shaky Ground’ – were moved to knock out a slightly chaotic (and definitely un-rehearsed!) rendition of ‘The Weight‘ as a tribute. It seemed  apposite in its sincerity (much as did the version of “Imagine” unexpectedly rendered by Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen at Wembley Arena in London all those years ago the night after John Lennon was shot in New York).

I posted to this blog back in 2016 a piece entitled “The Boy(s) in the Band“ – having attended an audience with Robertson at the Farquhar Auditorium at the University of Victoria on the occasion of the publication of the first volume of his autobiography – ‘Testimony‘. If you should not be Canadian – and perhaps thus less likely to know the detail of Robertson’s background – that piece might offer a useful starting point. I also strongly recommend Daniel Roher’s excellent documentary – “Once Were Brothers” – which can be found on one or more of the usual streaming services.

In another of my earlier posts – from even longer ago, back in 2013 – I made reference to Robbie’s wonderful album – “Music for the Native Americans“, the which draws on his First Nations heritage. This I also strongly recommend.

Rest in peace.

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Upcoming events

August 6, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Good grief! ‘Tis well into August already. Where is this year going and how come the months have been slipping away so dashed rapidly?

As regular followers will know, the year has not – thus far – exactly gone to plan. I am about to tempt the fates by looking at some of the things that are in the calendar for the next few months, in the firm expectation that our ill-fortune is now behind us and that I will have only positive things to report.

Fingers… etc, etc… firmly crossed!

Disregarding completely the year’s previous disappointments we are once again leaving the island later this month. We will not – however – be venturing abroad, but traveling instead to the interior of British Columbia.

We have been aware for some time that we have perhaps been neglecting family and friends who do not live on the island. For a period COVID gave us good reason (or perhaps excuse) for this omission, but as we have now apparently joined with much of the rest of the world in deciding that the pandemic is over (or at the very least not worth bothering about) we figure that it is time to get some skin back in the game.

The trigger for this excursion has been an ‘engagement’ in Kelowna (in the Okanagan) organised by The Girl’s First Nation. Using those three days as a core we have planned a trip to Kelowna, Peachland and Kamloops on the mainland, followed by a visit further north on the island to Courteney – a place to which I, at least, have yet to go. We are looking forward to the trip and I will be posting updates, images etc as we progress.

There is a fair bit of music in our immediate future as well. There are still several weeks to go in the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park season and we are also in the coming week going to be attending one of the Butchart Gardens concerts.

Come September we will be seeing Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria – and at the start of October we are going to Vancouver for a few days to see… wait for it… Peter Gabriel! You might recall that The Girl and I saw him the year after we moved to Canada – in Edmonton – on the Rock, Paper, Scissors tour that he did with Sting. I really thought that this time he had retired from the road, but here he is – back again and with a new album about to drop as well. Being a subscriber to Gabriel’s Real World studio I have been in receipt of pre-release tracks from the album at each new moon (it’s a Peter Gabriel thing!) and I can report that it is going to be a good one.

We also get to see one of our favourite comedians – Dara O’Briain – in September here in Victoria, so there is much to which to look forward.

We can’t wait…!

 

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Sinead O’Connor

July 29, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Sinead O’Connor

1966 – 2023

RIP

There is something particularly touching about the considerable flood of obituaries, epitaphs and opinion pieces that have followed the news of the extremely sad passing of Sinead O’Connor. There is also a touch of irony in the fact that – for much of her career – she gave the strong impression that she would be only too happy should the spotlight not be upon her. She was clearly most uncomfortable with the whole fame and recognition side of the business, professing not unreasonably that she was a protest singer rather a ‘pop star’ (whatever that may be taken to be).

In pondering the obvious strength of feeling concerning this most talented Irish singer one should perhaps look a little beyond her huge gift and wonder why it was that we are so attracted to someone who so clearly struggled with elements of her life. Could it be that – fascinated as many are at the whole ‘celebrity’ aspect of the ‘business of show’ – even more of us are drawn to those who struggle with the messiness of their own existences. Mayhap they – in some way – speak to and for us all in their obvious distress?

I need say no more. The press and the InterWebNet are full of the loving eulogies of those who really knew her.

Like many other ‘average Joes’ I came to Sinead’s work through the sublime “No-one Compares 2 U” and the excellent album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”. If my memory can be relied upon (!) I saw her perform just once – when she was briefly a part of Peter Gabriel’s “Secret World” tour back in 1992 (or thereabouts). I am very glad that I did so.

Rest in peace.

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That’s logic

July 18, 2023 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Contrariwise . . . if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”

Lewis Carroll

We are – it should be self-evident – now truly into the depths (or heights, according to your preferences) of summer.

Further – should you not have been aware of the fact – 2023 is an El Nino year. This regular but unwanted visitor – when added to the already serious effects of climate change – results in the sort of world-wide craziness that we have not encountered in my lifetime. Climate records are being broken daily – whether that be in terms of the world-wide wildfire season or of the equally world-wide highest recorded temperatures. These over-heated events seem to alternate with with vicious storms which cause flash flooding.

On the west coast of Canada it has been dry and sunny, but we have been blessed thus far in avoiding such unpleasant phenomena as ‘heat domes’ and ‘atmospheric rivers’. The wildfire smoke too is – for now at least – blowing in the other direction. I gather that it is raining in parts of the UK, though the southern European nations are currently broiling.

It is somewhat difficult, therefore, not to feel guilty when one is seated in comfort, with one’s supper, surrounded by good and friendly folk, listening to the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park of a summer evening. The crew of Victoria luminaries pictured above are last week’s offering – the long running local Steely Dan tribute act – the ‘Pretzel Logic Orchestra’. Their number includes excellent musicians who turn out for various different ensembles and they are all seasoned pros.

Don – The guitarist in the centre of the attached image – can more frequently be found running the sound at Pioneer Park, for other visiting acts. I had a quick word with him after the show this week to congratulate him on his lead guitar work – and in particular on the note perfect rendering of the Larry Carlton guitar solo from ‘Kid Charlemagne‘ (perhaps my favourite ever guitar solo).

In return he told me about the time that he met Larry Carlton!…

Dude!

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