What happened to November? Oh yes, I remember. Some of the boys grew those crazy moustaches, good on you Claude, Schwiggy and nephew Mike. My facial hair days are done, too bad I never raised a dime in my hirsute days. Sigh!
The Double Essence road show with my best friends and cohorts in Minds In Retreat, The RingTones, Scottmandu and Devlin Miles hit Kingston and Ottawa in October after a long-overdue return to Toronto’s C’est What, then took it bicoastal with a junket to Los Angeles and Orange County in early November.
I was also able to debut new material at a Hallowe’en show at Gabby’s on Bloor Street with The Baying Hounds, a supergroup comprised of once and future Scottmandu alumni Bob Binns and Claude Kent with bassist and vocalist extraordinaire Johnny Wright.
Sandwiched between these tour dates I was privileged to attend three fantastic concerts in Toronto in the space of two weeks.
My all-time guitar hero Jeff Beck was stunning at Massey Hall. Who else could or would end a show with instrumental versions of The Beatles’ A Day In The Life, Puccini’s Nessun Dorma (Jeff won a Grammy for his studio recording) and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance? This was not a rock show, but being in the presence of greatness knows no style boundaries.
I found out about Los Angeles’ Dawes from Bob Lefsetz, who, along with New York City blogger Holly Hughes, has become my favored trusted source of BS-free music news and passion. This may be old news by now (they have been on late-night television and have toured tirelessly for the last few years as well as backing up Jackson Browne from time to time) but Dawes are the real deal, and the show put on by brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith and their bandmates was riveting. Picture a 21st century version of a mid-thirties-aged Springsteen (Taylor’s lyrics, voice, guitar chops) teamed up with a Max Weinberg/ Dave Grohl clone brother (Griffin) who sings like an angel and looks like a teenager and you kind of get the drift.
Cool American west-coast indies Blitzen Trapper and Belle Brigade opened the show and took the packed house at the Opera House on a great trip along unexplored avenues.
I got a tip from old friend and former Nashville resident Cris Cuddy that the legendary and inimitable Malcolm Holcolmbe (whom Cris had befriended while living there) was to appear in Toronto at the Rivoli the night before I left for California. The show was a special treat in that I was able to reconnect with promoters The Garys who gave my early band the Fictions some of our first opportunities to find an audience. Malcolm has had a colorful and tempestuous career arc, not to mention some challenging personal issues, and his music is not for the faint of heart. A true bluesman with a God-given finger-picking ability, a bad haircut and the wrong end of a Crossroads deal, Malcolm was all spit, fire and anguish, Tom Waits meets John Lennon in his primal phase at Kurt Cobain’s place with Bert Jansch sitting in.
As if things couldn’t get better, November brought Prince to Canada and although work duties prevented me from catching his Toronto shows, the buzz drove me to the John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario where I went crazy like 1999 with about three thousand other fanatics, singing at the top of our lungs and clapping until our hands throbbed. His three female backup singers led by Shelby J opened the show with a killer version of one of my all-time favorite Bob Dylan songs, Make You Feel My Love, then His Royal Purpleness appeared out of a cloud of smoke with a triple shot of Gold, Purple Rain and When Doves Cry. House lights up, everyone on their feet singing along from the get-go. Worth the midnight drive back home in a snowstorm, and it got better after that!
My highlight of the annual TAXI Road Rally in Los Angeles was meeting Ravi, former guitarist and mentor for boy-band sensation Hanson in the 1990s. Since then he has reinvented himself as an inspirational speaker, endorsement guru and philanthropist.
His presentation was as smooth as silk, his message clear and simple. Find something you are passionate about, and become a champion for it. He has walked the talk, having had great success in this space with sponsors as diverse as Duracell, Sennheiser, Martin guitars, Ray-Ban and, most recently Voyage-Air travel guitars, which actually fold in half for stowing in the overhead bins of airplanes. Oh did I mention he is also an aviator? It turns out that the aviation profession in the U.S.A. Is awash with musicians, and he has founded an association of musical pilots who play at air shows and related events.
His latest efforts in concert with Shanti Bhavan, the Music For Life Alliance and his own organization Sunflowers in the Shade have brought life-altering changes to the poorest of the poor in India through the building of schools, infrastructure and communication channels.
What closed me was his opening mission statement, which dealt with the corporatiztion of America and the world, and the need for artists to stand and express the human values that live outside the financial, economic and consumerist agendas that seem increasingly to dominate business and government policy-making. He’s even converted his name to an acronym: Reaching Audiences with a Voice of Integrity™. I’ll let you be the judge, but I’ve been going to conferences for many decades and would go see this guy talk over and over again.
Jeff, Dawes, Malcolm, The Garys, Ravi and Prince.
What happened to November? Oh yes, I remember. Some of the boys grew those crazy moustaches, good on you Claude, Schwiggy and nephew Mike. My facial hair days are done, too bad I never raised a dime in my hirsute days. Sigh!
The Double Essence road show with my best friends and cohorts in Minds In Retreat, The RingTones, Scottmandu and Devlin Miles hit Kingston and Ottawa in October after a long-overdue return to Toronto’s C’est What, then took it bicoastal with a junket to Los Angeles and Orange County in early November.
I was also able to debut new material at a Hallowe’en show at Gabby’s on Bloor Street with The Baying Hounds, a supergroup comprised of once and future Scottmandu alumni Bob Binns and Claude Kent with bassist and vocalist extraordinaire Johnny Wright.
Sandwiched between these tour dates I was privileged to attend three fantastic concerts in Toronto in the space of two weeks.
My all-time guitar hero Jeff Beck was stunning at Massey Hall. Who else could or would end a show with instrumental versions of The Beatles’ A Day In The Life, Puccini’s Nessun Dorma (Jeff won a Grammy for his studio recording) and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance? This was not a rock show, but being in the presence of greatness knows no style boundaries.
I found out about Los Angeles’ Dawes from Bob Lefsetz, who, along with New York City blogger Holly Hughes, has become my favored trusted source of BS-free music news and passion. This may be old news by now (they have been on late-night television and have toured tirelessly for the last few years as well as backing up Jackson Browne from time to time) but Dawes are the real deal, and the show put on by brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith and their bandmates was riveting. Picture a 21st century version of a mid-thirties-aged Springsteen (Taylor’s lyrics, voice, guitar chops) teamed up with a Max Weinberg/ Dave Grohl clone brother (Griffin) who sings like an angel and looks like a teenager and you kind of get the drift.
Cool American west-coast indies Blitzen Trapper and Belle Brigade opened the show and took the packed house at the Opera House on a great trip along unexplored avenues.
I got a tip from old friend and former Nashville resident Cris Cuddy that the legendary and inimitable Malcolm Holcolmbe (whom Cris had befriended while living there) was to appear in Toronto at the Rivoli the night before I left for California. The show was a special treat in that I was able to reconnect with promoters The Garys who gave my early band the Fictions some of our first opportunities to find an audience. Malcolm has had a colorful and tempestuous career arc, not to mention some challenging personal issues, and his music is not for the faint of heart. A true bluesman with a God-given finger-picking ability, a bad haircut and the wrong end of a Crossroads deal, Malcolm was all spit, fire and anguish, Tom Waits meets John Lennon in his primal phase at Kurt Cobain’s place with Bert Jansch sitting in.
As if things couldn’t get better, November brought Prince to Canada and although work duties prevented me from catching his Toronto shows, the buzz drove me to the John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario where I went crazy like 1999 with about three thousand other fanatics, singing at the top of our lungs and clapping until our hands throbbed. His three female backup singers led by Shelby J opened the show with a killer version of one of my all-time favorite Bob Dylan songs, Make You Feel My Love, then His Royal Purpleness appeared out of a cloud of smoke with a triple shot of Gold, Purple Rain and When Doves Cry. House lights up, everyone on their feet singing along from the get-go. Worth the midnight drive back home in a snowstorm, and it got better after that!
My highlight of the annual TAXI Road Rally in Los Angeles was meeting Ravi, former guitarist and mentor for boy-band sensation Hanson in the 1990s. Since then he has reinvented himself as an inspirational speaker, endorsement guru and philanthropist.
His presentation was as smooth as silk, his message clear and simple. Find something you are passionate about, and become a champion for it. He has walked the talk, having had great success in this space with sponsors as diverse as Duracell, Sennheiser, Martin guitars, Ray-Ban and, most recently Voyage-Air travel guitars, which actually fold in half for stowing in the overhead bins of airplanes. Oh did I mention he is also an aviator? It turns out that the aviation profession in the U.S.A. Is awash with musicians, and he has founded an association of musical pilots who play at air shows and related events.
His latest efforts in concert with Shanti Bhavan, the Music For Life Alliance and his own organization Sunflowers in the Shade have brought life-altering changes to the poorest of the poor in India through the building of schools, infrastructure and communication channels.
What closed me was his opening mission statement, which dealt with the corporatiztion of America and the world, and the need for artists to stand and express the human values that live outside the financial, economic and consumerist agendas that seem increasingly to dominate business and government policy-making. He’s even converted his name to an acronym: Reaching Audiences with a Voice of Integrity™. I’ll let you be the judge, but I’ve been going to conferences for many decades and would go see this guy talk over and over again.