It is 12:44PM and we are on a Ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver. This Ferry is set up slightly different. There are huge windows that allow us to see everything in front of us and around us. It’s like being in the front seat like the ship’s captain. I still cannot get over how beautiful and how peaceful this experience is.
Right now Proveli is getting some rest a few seats down from me. Sonny and Travis went to grab something to eat. Gritie and Bigga are MIA somewhere on the boat. DL is somewhere on the boat. And Tech is working on a t-shirt design for a new DL shirt. He has this program that allows him to design the shirt’s layout. Their T’s have been selling fairly well – the green more than the grey. Our T’s are selling, but not as fast as our CDs. I think it’s the lack of option people have. Our shirts are grey, and it is a color people are gonna really like or not really like. But we’ve made plans to do some different colors of the same design fairly soon. We also have some new shirts we will be designing in support of the new Politic Live album and to help promote JALI.
We actually just made the Ferry. Our cars were the third last in. Bigga forgot his wallet back at the Denny’s we ate at yesterday morning, so they drove back this morning. Unfortunately it was an hour and half drive there and the same amount of time back. The hotel in Nanaimo we stayed at was 5 minutes away from a Ferry that would take us fairly close to where we are staying in Vancouver. Had we all drove back to Victoria and left from there then it would have been a longer trip and we’d have to drive around Vancouver just to get to where our hotel would be.
Bigga’s wallet unfortunately came back a little lighter than he left it - $100 lighter. But what can you do. Whomever took the money saw an opportunity and took it – regardless of whom it would affect. It’s crazy that someone can do that, but it happens so I am not surprised. Who stole the money, we will never know and it not fair to accuse the people at Denny’s as they at least told us they found it when we called to check and see. Shit happens I guess.
But yesterday just seemed like a bad day all around. As far as turnouts it was the slowest night of the tour by far. I think it was a result of poor promotion. According to many of last night’s patrons posters for the event just went up this week. Talking with a lot of people, they said they just found out about the event. So imagine how many others didn’t know and still don’t know.
Adding insult to injury, the soundman got drunk before the show began and so the sound had to be run by the venue’s owner – who struggled throughout the night to make things work. We didn’t even have our monitors turned on for the show and our microphones were so low that I don’t know if the crowd heard us half the time. It was embarrassing, frustrating and impossible to find our groove. Our first time in Nanaimo and our show was horrible. I don’t think any of the performers were pleased and there were four on the bill in total – biggups to Scale Breakers!
But here’s the kicker. We’ve been to shows were the opening act gets horrible sound and then the headlining act gets good sound. This was not the case. But DL is literally such a laid back person that he rocked the show nonetheless and didn’t really stress it. You could tell he was upset – as was Tech, Craig, and Tony and our camp, but the venue’s owner did what he could to salvage the night and DL acknowledged that. Plus there were some diehard DL fans in the audience that he wasn’t about to let down. Irony of the whole thing – this is Nanaimo’s premier performance venue. Lady luck obviously was not on our side last night as it relates to the show.
Lady Luck was however on our side as it relates to campus radio support. I am not sure if you recall but in an early tour blog I mention that we were supposed to do an interview at Nanaimo’s campus radio station CHLY 101.7. By the time we got to the station we ended up doing two – one pre-recorded and one that was live. Much respect to the hosts of these shows as they came prepared with their questions. After the interviews we ended up doing some Station Ids and artist drops. Props to Craig and Tony for hooking these interviews up.
One of the radio hosts was a guy who knew IBO. For those of you who don’t know IBO... you should. He is the heart of Alberta Reggae. He is also the producer of Souljah Fyah’s Juno Nominated sophomore release Truth Will Reveal. His music is legendary and his vibe is so positive that you would be hard pressed to find someone in Western Canada’s reggae scene that doesn’t know him or know of him.
The host of the reggae show, which is called Rebel Music, whose name slips my memory right now, said the first show he ever promoted was for IBO and since then he has promoted 25 shows. So essentially IBO put him on the path to promoting shows and helping grow Nanaimo’s reggae scene – which is good considering they have 3 reggae shows on CHLY if I am not mistaken.
This guy was fairly familiar with a lot acts coming out of Edmonton – he knew of us, Souljah Fyah People’s Poets, and a few others. He asked me if People’s Poets had a CD out, which is funny because they just got their debut CD in the other day and will be doing mail outs in the next little while. You can tell this guy was passionate about reggae music and music as a whole. Some of the reggae acts we talked about showed that he wasn’t just a service level reggae fan and but knew his stuff... he reminded me of a young Mick Sleeper.
The host of the other show, Sandeep, played “What’s It Gonna Take” after our interview. Dope track, but it was last one we would have expected him to play. Sandeep had done a lot of research on us via PoliticLive.com. Which sucked because much of the information on our site is outdated. We have been trying to update our site for quite sometime. I even tried redirecting the site to our MySpace.com/PoliticLive but its still processing. But much respect to Sandeep as his questions were real good.
One of the guys who worked at the station took a tonne of photos during both interviews. We’re hoping to connect with them online in order to get some of the photos and the interviews so we can post them online via Facebook and MySpace.
The radio station for CHLY was located in the basement of the Queen’s. Genius if you ask me. Think about it, beneath the city’s premier music venue a radio station!!! They must get a lot of good interviews.
The hotel we stayed at last night was probably the worst hotel of the trip so far. The water valve for the shower was backwards – the hot water started on the right and cold water ended on the left. At first I thought there was no hot water. We were also by a train station so from time to time we’d hear the train and feel movement. It was also the smallest hotel and the heater didn’t seem like it worked.
We’re probably 20 minutes away from reaching Vancouver. In the time I have spent blogging some interesting things have occurred. I have come to the realization that Travis and I have very different tastes. He bought some Sweet Potato Fries and Chipotle Mayo and offered me some. DISGUSTING!!! I can’t believe he can eat that.
It is presently 4:15PM. We checked into the hotel not too long ago. We are at the same Ramada Inn on Granville street that we stayed last time during our day off. One of the rooms we are staying in is really small, where as the other one is huge. I’ll be crashing by my boy’s Bim’s place tonight so we won’t be crammed in like sardines.
My blogging aboard the Ferry was interrupted when we were introduced to a singer/songwriter named Nicky. She was on the deck playing her acoustic guitar and Gritie introduced himself to her and let her know who we were. She later came down and by “coincidence” her and her family were sitting in the aisle right in front of us. I say coincidence in quotations because what happened next was interesting. Nicky introduced us to her family – which included her Mother and Brother.
After our introductions and hello’s we went back to doing our thing. But with me coughing up a storm, Nicky’s Mom, Magdalena, requested that I come and talk with her. As I sat down beside her she began to ask me how long I had this congestion in my chest that she equated to bronchitis. So I told her how I struggled with the flu prior to leaving on tour, but could not shake it due to lack of sleep. She then let me know she was a therapist and me being me, I made a joke comparing our environment to being in session – to which she laughed and said not to worry she wasn’t going to charge me.
In a twenty minute conversation she talked to me about things I could do to prevent getting sick and how to take care of myself while on our tour. She was very mothering and her concern was genuine. I mean, here is this woman who would normally charge for this, but out of mere concern for my health she began to consult me and recommend many things that I should try, the amount I should use and the duration I should employ this practice. I really appreciated that.
Arlo