Hellooooooooooooooooo

That is me yelling hello out in the country. It is echoing into all the empty space out here. The screech owls can hear it and, at night, they reply; they say "hello, yourself". And then they go back to sitting peacefully on branches. I am sitting, semi-peacefully, at my little desk in my temporary studio here at Ross Creek Centre. Out my window there are birds on wires (starlings) and barren trees and a pond from which all the geese and ducks have fled. It's cold now, it's the colour of winter minus the snow. I am writing in my blog because it is a welcome break from staring blankly at looseleaf. See, I am supposed to be working on my project. I am supposed to be writing a solo show that I will someday perform, in theory. It is all theoretical right now because mostly what I have is notes. The fragments of some poems. It is proving tricky.

So, bloggity-blog, here is my update: project block! That is kind of like writer's block except bigger and more discouraging. Also, I am eating a lot of amarenth and honey. Not at the same time. Also, I am currently addicted to the tv show 'Lost'. On DVD. Every night. obsessive. And it is not even that well written. The characters do dumb things like go into the haunted jungle BY THEMSELVES to gather fruit. C'mon, writers, obviously they would employ the buddy system. So, me and my great new friend Gem watch episodes on end while drinking honey-laden tea and objecting to every second move the dumb people make. "Jack, would you stop being so agro!" "Oh, right, Shannon, go and chase the spirit into the jungle, alone, at night... great idea!". Things like this. Very silly. Did I mention that Gem and I are alone on a lot of acres of land. At night there are only stars and shadows.

Gem Salsberg is a wonderful person and artist and you should check her out. We eat our meals together and take turns using the space heater and more or less stay focused on the task at hand. Work. Work is the task at hand. That said, I will return to that task right now. Wish me luck...

Tanya

A few days ago I was in Memphis, now I am back in Halifax - music is like that. I flew to Tennessee for the North American Folk Alliance Conference. There were 2000 some odd people staying and playing at the same hotel. Hundreds of mini concerts going on at a time in hotel rooms where beds had miraculously disappeared only to be replaced with fold out chairs and party favours in bowls for sharing. The good rooms also offered cold beer and mood lighting.

I saw a bunch of amazing new artists as well as some of my favorite American ones. I also saw Memphis, saw the Mississippi river, saw old wooden trolleys and lots of bbq'd foods. And I saw Al Green. Not only is he one of the best soul singers around, he also passionately leads a congregation in a gospel church. He waves his hands in speech and the amazing band to his left swells and quiets to meet him. The organist takes beautiful finger walks up and down the keys, the bassist plays lines that get hips swaying, whether or not that was originally intended. I think it was. Or that it should be. Worshipping as celebration, as soul. To quote Al Green, as he said mere days ago, "This here is a git down church!". Yes! This here is my new favorite way to spend a Sunday morning.

As it stands now, I am back in Halifax, so no more Al Green. But, there are hints of spring (songbirds!), new songs underway (birdsongs!), and an array of things that make me happy, from pancake parties to dancing opportunities to friends and love.

More tours coming up soon. My best friend, the extremely talented and lovely Catherine MacLellan is releasing her next record this week. I am very excited. If you don't know her music you should stop reading my little bloggity blog and go google her.

Until soon,
td

It is 9:30pm and I am not on tour so i am in my pj's waiting until the 10's so i can respectfully go to bed. Well, actually, maybe i would be going to bed right now but i am waiting for my laundry to finish washing so i can switch it over to the dryer. There are other tasks as fun as this also on tonight's agenda: take out the compost, clean the litter box, tidy the pile of receipts on my desk...
I do these tasks with gratitude, because it is a winter wednesday and i am at home, with my cats and a speedy internet connection.

But, it has been a mini whirlwind of a winter and I have enjoyed little trips here and there, looking forward to the ones to come.

Just finished the In the Dead of Winter Festival here in Halifax and then, less than a week later, In the Dead of Winter at the Black Sheep Inn in beautiful Wakefield Quebec. Halifax's was not too long ago but already my head is fuzzy with the amount of life that happens in a week and a half. At in the dead of winter Halifax i played a very fun show at Palooka's Boxing Gym, opening up for Buck 65 and an emerging Toronto artist named Dinah Thorpe. I wrote a poem that was sort of about boxing but not really. At in the dead of winter in Wakefield I hung out with good music friends and ate german food and french food and cookies. Also took some lovely walks and marvelled the slow pace of such a little place.

Soon I will go to Memphis for North American Folk Alliance conference. There are wonderful things in Memphis like the Mississippi River and the Stacks Recording Museum and the Civil Rights Museum and the church where Al Green preaches. I think it must be a sad beautiful town and I look forward to meeting it.

I am awaiting the release of the new K'Naan record in a couple of weeks. He is one of my favorite poet rappers. I am also awaiting the return of spring when there is moisture in the air again. Oh, and my laundry, which is almost done. And then it will be 10pm and then I can go to bed. It is a very rocknroll lifestyle, yes?

Oh, but the rising sun is worth it.

Oh, I meant to update my bloggity blog as soon as I wrapped up the tour but suddenly I was at a wine and cheese party and then it was time to go to PEI for the 2nd annual Mittentime Revue. What a blast! Last year I pulled a bunch of my talented musical friends from PEI together to mark the solstice with a riotous cabaret at The Guild in Charlottetown. Well, we did it again this year, with a few extra touches, like mini christmas trees complete with presents underneath (isabel didn't even notice they were missing from her tree at home!) and costume changes.  My talented PEI friends who sang and made people laugh at the sold out Mittentime Revue this year: Catherine MacLellan , Jenn Grant , Rose Cousins , Daniel ledwell , and Patrick Ledwell . Also, the magnificent Kinley Dowling, violin and viola player extraordinaire, graced us all with her strings. I was very lucky to perform alongside all of these people.

Then there was a snowstorm! We had oysters on rice crackers at the Best Western and some mini chocolate bars.

To backtrack a touch, the tour finished up well and I left Toronto right at rush hour on a thursday afternoon. Perfect. I decided to drive until I was tired. I pulled up with some big trucks at a Quebec rest stop (thank you Quebec), covered my windows with blankets and jackets and crawled in my sleeping bag to nap. It was cold. And the cold allowed me to nap lightly and then feel invigorated enough to drive again, sleepiness cured!

End of tour highlights:

Sudden snowstorm in Toronto that made me do a banana peel-esque slip on the steps of Not my Dog, so dramatic sounding that everybody in the bar was silent when I got off my bum and came in. "Yes, I am ok, though I appreciate the whole room's concern" (and I really did, nice to feel cared for..).

Cute show there at Not my Dog with an appreciative crowd and Evalyn parry with a full and awesome band.

Breakfast in Toronto the day of leaving with my old friend Krisztina and the comforting knowledge that we have both come into similiar interests over the last year, although independently. it is a neat mark of long friendship when you don't keep in touch much between meetings but still have similar things to discuss over the once-a-year breakfast.

In January I will be in Halifax preparing for the 2009 In the Dead of Winter Festival. The lineup is great. Check it out online and get yourself some tickets. Everybody needs music in the dead of winter.

Happy Holiday Season

td

Night off!

It is 9pm and I am waiting for my food to be delivered. I am at my friend Stuart's house with Jenn and her brother and we are having a fire and watching xmas things on cable tv and generally making ourselves at home. The tour has been lovely. Great house concert in Guelph last night on aberdeen street. My friend David Celia wowed the room full of people will his songs and charm. He is lovely. Today I did the rounds of internet cafes and submitted many proposals for funding via the world wide web. After 2, the number of proposals submitted in one day becomes "many".

I also ate my fair share of cookies!

I keep forgetting things on this tour. laptops in bars, cameras in music stores, ukuleles in friends houses. weird. i didn't fully lose anything yet though.

Played at The Knit Cafe on saturday night with a wonderful songwriter named Andrew Vincent. You should go listen to him. He's super. He bought me a beer later at a hip club on queen west with old hip hop music that I might have danced to had i not felt so sleepy.

We're watching the menu channel on tv right now. the tv guide channel. we are apathetic about this free cable access. we are waiting for indian food.  Maybe mickey's christmas carol will come on soon. Or that ralphie movie with the b b gun and the tongue sticking to the pole. that is a good one. There is a movie listed on the tv guide channel about mistletoe. Does anybody actually put up mistletoe these days? Or is that just a legend? I don't go to many christmas parties but maybe there will be mistletoe at one of them. Or at least good chip dip.

I've been playing new songs this tour. I haven't eaten any chip dip thus far.
Happy december everybody.

Tour! What's really awesome is driving through snowstorms. Well, the awesome parts of it are those Canadian moments.. like "wow, this is so pretty and we are all managing, on these bizarre slippery roads, to not bump into each other. Go Canada". The not awesome parts are the sore backs that happen from sitting on the edge of one's seat, all tense and ready to brake or swerve. And how much longer the drive is from Ottawa to Toronto when a snowstorm is invovled. And when the snow turns to rain... not awesome.

But, now I am in Toronto, all safe and sound with my car parked in a little green P parking lot and with nothing to blog about except the good food and wine i had for dinner. Days off are to ensue! Which means wireless internet and coffee. And streetcars! (they don't have streetcars in Halifax...)

If anybody reading this is in Ottawa and wants to have beer for dinner (always an interesting treat) then there is a place in the market called vineyards where the beer list is so long it will take you 15 minutes to read it.

Today, when i was driving in the snowstorm, i thought "wow, i hope i don't have an accident" and "my nan would not like this" and " i want to write a song from the perspective of an inanimate object" and  "wouldn't it be nice if someone was in this car with me right now". But, no one was. So i listened to the CBC and cried (like every alone car ride i am ever invovled in) and made plans in my head and ate vegan cookies and rice milk chocolate bars. but, then the rice milk chocolate bar proved to be very subpar so at my gas fill-up stop i bought some milk chocolatey goodness like every diligent vocalist shouldn't and ate it with smiles.

It is raining in toronto and i had salmon and quinoa for dinner. Go, tour, go!

Tour! It is being a good one. I rented a car and, although it is a fairly uncomfotable 2-door with no power anything, i still like it. Because it is MY rental. and i have all of my little things in their places. CD's on the passenger seat, water bottle in the cup holder, rice chips within reach, homeade first aid kit between the seats (two tours ago i learned the lesson called "bring echinacae and goldenseal always, vitamin c and tea tree oil is also essential"). So, in this well-packed rental car i set out.

Sackille welcomed me like a hug, as always. The show at Struts was great (thanks, Paul). There was beautiful art on the walls and i packed a lot of veggie sushi from the art opening reception in a napkin and put it in the fridge for my car-ride breakfast. But then i forgot it in the fridge. Thank you to the people who gave it to me and sorry for abandoning it like that.  After the show I got to sleep in the cutest room ever, in a cozy sacvkille apartment. so cozy, in fact, that i wanted to sit up and read or knit or something (but i don't actually knit), while gazing up occasionally to look around at the cute poster art on the walls.

But, sleep was scarce enough and so I went to bed to prepare for long solo drive to montreal. It was a good drive. I have named my car bette. just now i did, from this coffee shop in ottawa. so, me and bette stopped in fredericton for an espresso coffee because i just didn't want a mediocre cup of drip from a gas station. we went in town, got the coffee. well, bette waited outside actually. in the coffee shop i talked to a man about sugar. because he didn't want to buy this natural gum because it has sugar in it and he only eats splenda and aspartame in his pop. i suggested he look into sugar of all sorts, take the sugar challenge.

Bette and i then proceeded to montreal. en route, i saw many flocks of geese. and they brought tears to my eye. So beautiful in their formation. i think geese invented the letter V. at one point, I witnessed a flock flying the wrong way! Where are you going, little gooses? It is almost winter and south is the other way! (maybe they forgot something).

Other moments of crying alone in cars:
Listening to new CD's (thanks, Emma), gorgeous cello part, oohs and aahs as i ascended a hill in quebec, that view of the ridge lined with windmills.. sunny day, windmills turning for energy and humanity both. It was a good moment.

Actually, i just tear up in cars a lot when i am alone. something about the music and the thinking...

Great show in Montreal with Mark Berube and Dan Mangan. And then i went across the road to a dance party at La Salla Rosa where there was good music and a lot of females. I put my head down and danced the day out of me, danced the car ride away, didn't think about anything, just moved. Glorious..

At the Blacksheep Inn in Wakefield Quebec I opened for the excellent and entertaining Jim Bryson. What a great show.
And now i am a day and a half off in Ottawa. It is so cold here that my nose hairs stick together. Holy moly. It reminds me of when i once lived here and walked home really early one january morning after an extended weekend that involved illicit substances. I had stayed indoors recovering from said illicit substances for 24 hours and then i went outside and my body exclaimed "Welcome back! It is winter here, the drugs are gone, life remains!"

That is chapter one. Tonight i might go to a movie. I head to Toronto this week for shows in the area. My blog entries get longer and longer. Maybe this time it is because i have grants to write and blogs are more fun.

Until next time,
td

Hello!

I am home from one tour, getting ready to go out again on the next one. I am also trying to soak up the good of being home by doing things like:
making cookies
going to bed in the 10's
going to the farmers market for root vegetables
sweeping up the dust (bunnies)
patting my cats on their cute little heads
meeting a lot of people for coffee
going to watch my friend john beale in a play called "the girl in the    goldfish bowl" (so good) and then sobbing at the reception
reading books about stories (Thomas King)

also, there are things like:
writing proposals to convince people my projects are worthy of funding
booking winter shows and tours
putting receipts into their appropriate places
these things are perhaps less "fun" but no less satisfying.
i once read a book about productivity only to learn that i was perhaps obsessive. and that obsession and productivity are not the same thing.
i have a song about productivity on my first record AND my second record. hhmmm...

november tour highlights!:
being on the road with Paper Beat Scissors
the generosity of both friends and strangers with their houses, their showers, their kitchens, their arms, their hearts
the streets of montreal
the food of montreal
being serenaded by a 5 year old on my ukulele (thanks tevia... row, row, row your boat is one of my favorite songs!)
seeing Ivan E Coyote read on a night off in Ottawa
watching my first snowfall, alone, through a cafe window on a nice morning after a nice night in guelph

there were, of course, some mishaps. mostly a pulled back, a hot water bottle incident that led to an unfortunate burn on my arm, a snowstorm with a British fellow (thus, not a canadian, thus not a seasoned winter driver) behind the wheel that led to one missing hubcap. Of course, maybe my good friend Catherine MacLellan never had that 4th hubcap on there anyway (thanks for lending us your car..).

I have a special art gallery show on Thursday December 4th at the Khyber Art Gallery  in Halifax (first, at 7pm on the same night you can go see the art opening of the talented Jimmie Sepulis at Venus Envy. She did the artwork for my album and my website and other great things. She is amazing.

The next day I leave for Ontario for a couple of weeks. Shows in Sackville, Montreal and Wakefield en route. Playing with lots of great friends and people on this tour, including Evalyn Parry, David Celia, Andrew Vincent, Mark Berube, Jim Bryson...

Shows at knit cafes, lesbian bars, artist run galleries, record stores...

Check out my tour dates for details.

I hope some of you may get fresh-baked cookies sometime soon.
I hope your houses are warm enough.
I hope you have a good book (movie, podcast, window to look out of...).

td