The Road

The tour is over. Half an hour ago we arrived home from our last show which was at the Fort Café in Victoria – an evening shared with our good friends, Steve, Leon and Kevin of The Steve Brockley Band, and the very talented James Lamb, who I finally had the pleasure of meeting, and his band.  I enjoyed listening to these people’s fantastic music very much. It was an honour to share the stage with all of them.

I find myself well adjusted to the road, after a fairly short stint on it. It is amazing how this happened. When we first set out on our annual or biannual tours, I often find myself nervous or just a little anxious heading into a gig. Whether it is the introduction to the venue manager, or the audience, or a lack of clarity or planning about where we will crash after the show, I am usually feeling a little uneasy heading off to the first few shows of the season. But right now, I’m feeling like a bit of a veteran. I’ve done it enough times now that I’m used to it.

For the whole of this tour, aside from the night we slept deep in the bush where the Grizzly bears live, I slept quite comfortably. (Although not long enough at times.) The spare rooms of friends, random campsites in city RV parks, the spare rooms of strangers (who all became friends) were all home to me. I even said to Oliver, “let’s go home” on several occasions, referring to whatever home we were lucky enough to occupy that night.

Getting in the car and heading off to the next town or city became an easy, relaxed journey (as long as both Oliver and my blood-sugar levels were in check) and walking in to a venue to say hello to the staff was not the chore is once seemed to be. I guess it’s gone well so many times now, I don’t expect it to go otherwise.

Oliver and I set up our sound system systematically. I set up the mics and stands, plug the cables in to the instruments and the mics, get them all set up while Oli puts the PA together and plugs the cables in on that end. I begin playing “You Were Always Mine” so Oli can check the sound, and then he joins in to check bass and harmony volumes. We take turns walking into the audience area while strumming or plucking our strings to form opinions about the levels. Then we hang up our guitars, put the system on stand by and go have some tea or maybe a beer for Oliver and a cider for myself.

It would benefit from some self-restraint in the eating area. I should not eat before a show, but often enough the venue provides a meal, or at least a discount, or if not that, a display case full or irresistible goodies, and I can’t help myself. I too often leave less than the desirable about of space in my stomach for my diaphragm to fully expand while singing. This is poor practice. But food is so good – especially when other people make it, and especially when they are trained to do so.

Since I last wrote we played a benefit concert in Vernon, a show in Kamloops, and shows on Denman and Victoria with the SB band. All of these went quite well. “Tunes For Teeth” in Vernon was held at The Powerhouse Theatre. It was a beautiful venue, very exciting to play on a great big stage with great big sound. The event, which I sort of helped plan and became part of in a funny way that can only really be explained in person, went very well as a fundraiser for Vernon’s Community Dental Access Centre, and was a fun opportunity to hear some music by some of Vernon’s local acts and make some connections.

In Kamloops we stayed with friends of Oliver’s family, Bruce and Ronalee, who were extremely sweet and pampered us as if we were royalty. We were very well cared for, and I think we have definitely found our number one fan of all time in Bruce, who has memorized the titles, most lyrics and the story behind almost every one of my tunes, and who has emailed every radio station in the district to recommend they play our music and has apparently begun emailing even higher powers than this. He set us up to play at the Kamloops Farmers Market the morning before our show, got the materials together to make us a temporary sandwich board to advertise the evening show, and talked us up to pretty much anyone within earshot as we performed our little street show.  We need more Bruces around – I bet we’d get a lot further a lot faster if we had a Bruce in every province.  Thank you Bruce and Ronalee!

On Denman and in Victoria we played for small but very attentive audiences. I felt pretty darn comfy on stage on my own island, performing for some of the greater Denman family. The best part about the show in Victoria was hanging out with the other performers. The crowd was small and sweet and we all left a little broker than when we arrived, but I’m glad we went.

At the start of our tour I was feeling like giving it all up. I was feeling pretty sad and frustrated.  Now at the end, I’m feeling scarily broke, but also determined to continue aiming for the dream after a lot of great feedback and encouragement. What is the dream? Well, that’s a question I keep asking myself. At the moment, the dream for me is to be able to keep touring part time and to figure out how we can get home from our tour at least a little bit in the green. The next tour needs to cover its own costs, including the advertising costs, the cost of eating on the road, and at least a bit of an hourly wage for our performances. I think it will be a huge challenge to achieve this, and I don’t think it is a reality for very many independent bands on the road, but it needs to happen. I will have to strategize and figure out a formula. Until I do, we will stay close and play as much as possible in the Comox Valley – which we have barely broken into at all.

Since leaving Vancouver Island for the Kootenays, we have covered the cost of our transportation with the money made from shows. All of our food costs and a couple nights of camping have put us in a bit of debt which we’ll have to pay off through other work here at home.

We do have a few shows on Vancouver Island over the course of the summer and I know they will be good ones already, so I am pretty worry free from here on out. In October we are on for another musical Via Rail expedition to Toronto. Some recordings are in the works and hopefully we’ll pick up the pace on that now that I’ll be spending less time organizing a tour.

I am so grateful to the CBC for playing our tunes, as well as Kootenay Coop Radio, mainly Bonnie Baker for interviewing us on her show and putting our tunes out there. It is exciting and encouraging to get support from media. It makes me feel like it is worth the energy to keep going.  Also CHLY who interviewed and promoted us before our Vancouver Island gigs.  I’m looking forward to a review that will soon come out at DNM online magazine, written by Charlotte who came to see us in Kamloops and asked some great interview questions.  Thanks thanks thanks!

Pictures to come. I’m so tired.

Tour... or is this a vacation?

Oh the Kootenays. Nothing like the Koots to lift my sunken spirits. We have made some wonderful new friends, caught up with some glorious old ones, played shows to packed rooms in Kaslo and Winlaw, and spent a good chunk of time in one of my favourite places on earth. And Winlaw! What a beautiful part of the world. I have had the pleasure of wasting time in Nelson and Kaslo several times before, (well, I lived in Nelson, so was also productive there sometimes) but I had not had the pleasure of spending any serious time in the Valley, other than working at my KSA teacher’s shop in Kristova. The valley is soooo beautiful. Old farms scattered across flat stretches of lush green land, with a river rushing through the low vein; an old railroad bed is maintained for bike riding, hiking and horseback and runs along side the river. Giant mountains jut upwards at the back edges of the open fields, begging to be climbed. There is something thrilling about being in the Kootenays, and much of BC’s interior. An adventure waits at every turn. You can walk out of whatever town or city to find yourself in, and in won’t take long before you’re deep in the thick of wilderness. It feels magical, dangerous and soooo exciting. I have missed it out here. The Kindness of Friends and Strangers (who soon become friends) For the first time ever, we are feeling healthy and well rested on tour! This is thanks to some very kind people who offered us rooms in their homes during our stays in their towns. Our friend Samara, who we met through, and who is a very good friend of Oli’s sister, Anna, billeted us in the home of her friends Crystal and Alida who gave us the spare room and free range of the house – most importantly the kitchen – so we could keep well fed and comfortable. Crystal set us up to stay with her parents after our show in Winlaw, and they were more than accommodating, feeding us delicious meals and lending us their bikes so we could take to the rail trail with Crystal and their extremely well-behaved dog, Rufus. After Winlaw we dropped in on Kevin, my blacksmithing teacher from my KSA days, and then we were invited to spend a few days with Julie, my old friend from school, and her family in their lovely new home in Blewitt. As luck would have it, I managed to run into three people over the course of our stay in the Koots, who I wanted to see and didn’t have time to coordinate with. So instead of running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to find a place to stay for cheap, and eat for cheap, and cooking hotdogs on sticks every night and feeling like crap, we got to visit and meet fabulous people, eat good food, hike, bike and wander the streets of great towns and cities, sleep in comfy beds (for free!) and have some wonderful, memorable times. I am afraid of Bears Last night we slept at Halfway Hot Springs, which is an undeveloped, fairly hidden hot springs 10 klicks down a logging road north of Nakusp. It was pretty cool, except for that I lied awake all night horrified at every snap of a twig or rustle in the bushes. It’s unfortunate, because I so love to explore, and camp, and spend time in the woods. I am a chicken. I spent $40 on a can of bear spray before we left Nelson. Very expensive for a can of Cayenne Pepper – although the can is designed to spray 30 feet if need be. I’m hoping I will never have to use it. (One of the people at a tourist information booth told me that some people (hilariously enough) spray the stuff all over their campsite to repel bears as if it works like bug spray, only to find that the bears are attracted to the smell of Cayenne Pepper.) It would be much cheaper to fill some water balloons with Ebeze Zozo hot sauce, but I have terrible aim with a water balloon. The only other people who were at Halfway were a 60-something couple who were sleeping a ways down the mountain from us, closer to the springs. They assured me that bears are really not a great danger unless they feel threatened. But they are big and have teeth and claws – so I don’t think I’m going to get over this heart-pounding fear. I almost had a heart attack when Oli let out his first snore of the night. Tonight we are at a campground in Nakusp, and though it is far from real camping (in fact, this is less like camping than our normal lives, as there is a shower just 100 metres away) I think I will get some sleep tonight. It was amusing how simple and every day was the task of setting up camp at Halfway. We quickly assembled the tent and laid out our beds, tasks which took less time than clearing off and making up our bed in the cabin. Then we made sandwiches, brushed our teeth in the bush, just as usual, and went to bed by the light of headlamps, just as we always do. The hot springs themselves consisted of a big puddle of very clear, very hot water that bubbled up from a crack at the base of a cliff, and a couple of man-made, wood-framed pools pieced together by whoever was willing to lug a few basic building supplies down a very steep trail to the side of the river. I think in this case, pictures will explain the scene better than I can with words. The unfortunate part was the amount of garbage lying around. It’s a pretty special thing to have access to this natural phenomenon and to be able to camp and soak deep in the woods, for free. Why are people so careless as to leave bits of garbage around the pools and in the camp sites? This place could have been a clean, pristine oasis, but instead their were grotesque signs of human greed and filth. Today we went to check out Nakusp Hot Springs, but we didn’t end up going in. It was a nice-looking tiled pool, but nice-looking tiled pools aren’t really what we go for. The hot springs lacked any evidence that they were actually coming from underground. We looked at photos of Halsien Hot Springs too, but it just looked like a resort with a bunch of fancy pools. The view looked fantastic, but the resort feel wasn’t what I was going for. It would be so awesome if there was a happy medium. Something clean and well-made, but just the bare minimum done to alter the land and create the pools. Anyway, I could go on forever. I think these blogs may only interest my parents, as I tend to yammer on about details and personal opinions for a little too long.

Quick update

Just wanted to say real quick that The Bluebelle in Kaslo and the Cedar Creek Cafe in Winlaw were packed and awesome. Things aren't all goobersome. I am so glad we ventured into these little villages for some great people and great food and very welcoming, musician-friendly atmospheres.

'Lil tour of gooders and goobers.

Oliver and I are settled into the guestroom bed at the home of our lovely Nelson hostesses, Alida and Crystal. We just played a show at John Ward Fine Coffee, a good-looking new coffee shop on Baker Street. I have learned many more lessons recently, and I am here to share my news and views, as usual. We had happy, fun, successful shows on Gabriola Island, and in Ucluelet. Successful for different reasons. On Gabriola we played a house concert to an attentive crowd of 17 who were appreciative and supportive. The coin-collection jar covered our expenses, and that is always good. In Ucluelet we played in the lounge/bar of an upscale resort. We were treated very well and got to stay in a very fancy suite. The resort’s payout covered our expenses for travel, and we had a fantastic time exploring Ucluelet and Coombs on the way home. We ate ice cream and bought strawberry plants and went on a hike. I picked up stuff for my smithy too. (ok, I’m going on a tangent now.) Those couple of shows were good. A couple of weeks ago we played in Victoria at a chain-style coffee shop on the outskirts of town. I’m not sure why the heck I booked this gig. I really wanted to play Victoria and I got to the point where I was trying to get anything I could. Anyway. Nobody was there. There were a few people clustered in the back corner of the oversized coffee shop, minding their own. They did volunteer their applause between songs, which was appreciated. But they did not put so much as a nickel in the tip jar. A couple wandered in off the street and bought a CD, despite my telling them they could get it all for free online. So that was nice. They wanted to support the music. They sat front and centre and listened attentively for almost the whole show. They gave us a reason to put a little effort in. So in the end, we impressed one young couple, made 10 bucks for a CD, which helped pay for the recording of the album and whatnot. Empty tip jar. Oliver had to pay for the brownie he ate. We got free tea. Oh ya, the coffee shop provided the venue free of charge. (I hate when venues say this, as if they deserve induction into sainthood for doing so.) About a week before Vic we played Vancouver. Also a let-down. We did stay with some great friends, and saw a handful of friends and family who turned out to say hello. I think we left with about $50 from the door – which means some of our expenses were covered by our friends. L The venue didn’t hang the posters I gave them or advertise our show on their facebook page. They mentioned it a few weeks before the show, but messed up my name badly enough that it would be impossible to search us out online. Anyway – expenses not covered. A very enthusiastic woman came in for the show, and proceeded to belt out Stan Rogers and Joan Baez songs over our performance. Her voice was a few decibels louder than the PA system. I have a very loud voice. Hers was very much louder. One of my friends went to the door where my friend Jaime (who is very shy and sweet) was working the tip jar, and asked her to tell the lady to take it down a notch. Poor Jaime. Obviously (if you know Jaime) this wasn’t about to happen. One of the venue staff ended up telling her to put a sock in it or something. Needless to say, I was feeling rather dreadful about leaving the coast and heading into the interior for a slew of shows with no guarantees. First stop was Kelowna. Once again, we stayed with some great old friends and the social catching-up part of the trip was great. Not a single person came to the show. Now – Nelson. Here, we did everything right, and as far as marketing goes, we lucked out as much as we could have given that I am our only promoter, and probably the worst self-promoter on the globe. We had posters hung around town by our friend Samara, and by the venue owner. We had a wonderful amount of support from Kootenay Coop Radio. (Thank you Bonnie Baker!) Bonnie pushed our show hard to the station’s audience, had us in for two interviews and played our stuff on the station repeatedly. Also, we got into the paper. I sent in a press release and they printed it, along with a coloured photo. If any concert was going to be a success, it would have to be this one. Ten people were there. I hugged 7 of them, because I knew them. Bonnie brought a couple of friends, six of our own friends were there (including all names above) and one man who came in off the street or who may have heard something on the radio or seen the advertising. He bought both of our albums – the one that is for sale in hard copy and the one that is not for sale, (only for free download) but he insisted that he needed it. These little things make my evening. We were well received by our huggers, who offered us many kind words. So, not a flop. But… what? After all of that success with promotion, only one dude who may or may not have been brought in by some of that promotion? Huh. So… I’m not sure what I’m going to do in the future. I really thought – if we only had some media support, things would go a lot better. But, I guess not… really. I’m just going to say this, even though it’s sort of a risky thing to say. It seems to be hard enough to get people we know to take a night off from their busy lives and give us a chance, let alone strangers. You have to start by impressing people you know, and if they don’t believe you’re going to be any good, they won’t come, and you have no seeds to start growing a career with. I am not the kind of person who busts out the guitar every time there is a lull in a conversation, or climbs on to a table at a party and belts out my best Shania Twain. I am not an extrovert. I don’t elicit a lot of attention from day to day. Oliver even less of an extrovert. I quietly ask “hey, if you’re around and you have nothing to do, and there’s nothing on TV and facebook isn’t very interesting, maybe you wanna come to our show?” This doesn’t work to my advantage. But dang it! I know we are actually good at what we do. I don’t know why I have to feel like a jerk saying so. A dentist would not feel like a jerk saying that s/he is good at what s/he does! I have to change my mindset on this. Because, people assume we suck, and they don’t come. Until they do come at which point they are surprised and happy that they did. But I honestly don’t think I have it in me to push hard enough to get even 10 more friends out to see us. (p.s. THANK YOU to our friends and acquaintances who have taken the time to come out. Even if what we do ain’t your thing – we really appreciate it.) Sigh. I need a new approach. I’m giving this touring thing a big long break. I can’t afford it anymore. I’m going to work on a kick-ass album for the next couple-few years and then try and do the whole marketing thing right; releasing one single at a time, as if each song is newsworthy and buzzworthy. I’ll see if I can promote the next album to death before it ever comes out – and then when it does – BAM! I’ll play a show on Denman Island for 200 people and in Vancouver for at least 12, and probably about 25 in Nelson. I know this is a lot of ranting. Sorry. I keep thinking I’ll just throw in the towel – but this is what I love, and it’s what I’m good at. And I don’t think I can just write songs and sing them to my family members at holidays. The tunes need to get out there. I have been told by many people outside of my circle of family and friends, including folks whose job it is to be critical, that I should keep at it, keep pushing it, that it’s worth it. And I know that in the past year we have gotten tighter and more creative and interesting as a duo. (Screw being humble for just a second.) I really don’t want to give up – I really, really don’t. But this shit’s hard and it keeps getting harder. I think I’ve tried everything I can afford to try. Schmargen. Anyway. Just being honest about the whole thing. I’m really not trying to whine here. I think people have a lot of ideas of what it’s like to be a touring singer/songwriter, and I just want to provide a little dose of reality. Also, for anyone else walking in very similar shoes. You aren’t alone out there! Please don’t feel like you have to leave encouraging comments. Perhaps instead, you yourself have a little bit of ranting to do. Are you an artist? Or someone trying to kick-start a small business? Let ‘em have it – right here on this comment form. After setting up in Kelowna, we ate a delicious meal provided by some very friendly gals, practiced a few tunes in front of our friends Dan and Anna, and packed the car back up. On a post-attempted-show walk we discovered we were competing with some kind of city party in the park.

whatever's coming, it's coming fast

For the first time in my life I have written a political/environmental song and I don't think it's cheesy. I have always been so afraid to try writing one, and when I've tried, I couldn't stand myself. But I did it. Yay!
Here is is:



And this one too. This is actually the first one that I wrote. I was intending it for a contest that asked for songs related to "ecology and the environment." I later discovered that they wanted positive massages and optimism. This song is neither, which is why I went on to write the other song - which is dark, but I think it's more appropriate.

Number two: Too sad for contests

Music Carreer - A push.

Oliver and I are in full-swing music mode once again. Back in recording studio (a real studio!) once a week, and I’m cooped up in the cabin working on booking a tour about 40 hours a week. I wish I could say that I’ve written a bunch of new material and that we are working out the kinks, but I haven’t had time to think about being creative. It’s amazing how much time and energy goes in to the office-work portion of a music career. It really is a full time job; The Balling Jacks were right. Writing emails to venue managers who mostly don’t get back to me, tweeting to successful people who really couldn’t care less (I’m going to quit twitter, I think it was a stupid idea.) Writing to radio stations is actually getting me somewhere for once. I’ve got four on my side in BC right now, which is sweet. CHLY in Nanaimo, CBC One in Victoria, Long Beach Radio in Tofino and Kootenay Coop Radio in Nelson. I love that. One must focus on the good things!

I’m not intending this to be a depressing blog post at all. It’s just going to be honest. I’ve learned a few things, or I guess maybe just had a few things confirmed lately. Path-changing things.

The other day a really awesome band came to play on Denman Island. They were a Juno-nominated quartet, whose name I won’t mention here because I’m not sure they want to be associated with my ramblings.  I got a short opportunity to talk to one of the members of the extremely talented, professional and well-rehearsed group, and we shared a few little tips about gigs and festivals and whatnot. It surprised me to learn that this band is going through the same struggle as I do to get venues, festivals, people to show up for shows, money to tour, time to tour, etc. It actually sounded like there was very little difference between their current battles and my own. Juno nominated, do you remember when I said that?  Learning this was two things: Reassuring, and depressing. I thought “I’ve sort of made it then haven’t I? I’m about as pro as I’m ever going to get. Good right?” and I also thought “I’ve got nowhere else to go. This is it. End of the road, it’s a giant struggle or I can just give up.” 

A couple years ago a friend of mine had gotten some radio play on the CBC and I was downright jealous. She totally deserved it – a very unique and talented singer/songwriter, but I figured she had it made and honestly, I was green with envy. Famous. Successful- Music-Career.

When I learned I was getting CBC play last month, I did a little happy dance in my chair, and continued sticking my CD envelopes together with my glue stick and licking envelopes and praying that more than one venue in the interior would offer me a gig, because I can’t afford to travel all the way to the interior for one gig, and praying that I’ll get paid for my odd-job work the next day so I can pay the $35 fee to book the Denman Hall for a concert in June. Yes, that’s how broke I am right now.

What do I want from life? I want to spend quality time with friends and family. I want to cook good food. I want to make things. Metal things and fibre things. I want to play a lot of music, and write songs.  I guess I want to share the songs I write. I suppose I feel they are incomplete until they are heard, and the more they are heard, the more complete they are. Sharing them gives them life, and I suppose I feel a strong desire to give them life. Some people say songs are like children. I think that’s kind of weird, but I guess I see sense in it. Some of my songs I never want heard though. They get stuffed in a drawer and never get to breathe again, so I don’t think it’s healthy to compare songs to children. No.

I’m wishing for more time for the garden. Time to make some money and build a home. Time to start blacksmithing, time to for friends, time to have kids one day, (if the conservatives ever get taken out and Elizabeth May becomes prime-minister.) Time for canning preserves and smelling the flowers and living life.  I guess I thought a music career would be a perfect life. But I seem to be constantly longing for something else. A life in the country. Wine. Laughter. Lazy days.

We have a two-year plan. To push push push this thing and see if it gets somewhere that satisfies me, then breathe again (because it likely won’t) and maybe get a barn cat. And a barn. 

I'm Rich and I'm Poor

"If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people's opinions, you will never be rich.

~ Seneca Quotes from Letters from a Stoic

I am poor. If we’re talking money, I am absolutely, most definitely poor. Way way way below the poverty line. Technically. But I’ve always been good at being poor, and I although it’s bragging, I’m proud to say that I find ways to donate a pretty good sum of dough to good causes every year, through fundraising concerts and selling stuff I make and whatnot. I have a really good life. I’m never hungry. I’m never bored. I never go without. I supposed if I wanted a big-screen TV right now, I’d be going without, but I’ve never wanted a big-screen TV. I actually think that term might be out of date – is it?  Ok ok, I actually go without warm, running water, and that’s a pain in the butt, but we have a big pot and a woodstove and most of the time we are happy with that, until one of us is in a rush and throws a fit. Luckily we have friends in civilization.

Sometimes I feel rich. When friends come over and we feed them woodstove pizza, I feel rich. When our garden is in full bloom, I feel rich. When it’s January and the garden is brown, but we are still eating its bounty, I feel rich. When I make a gift that would cost $200 to buy, I feel rich. Seedy Saturday on Denman Island last weekend made me feel rich. We traded our Pac-Choi and Buckwheat and Dill seeds for many other kinds of seeds, and this fall we will have several new vegetables to eat. When I finish a website that I am building for a friend with a nut and fruit tree nursery, we will have new fruit and nut trees. (Bartering is so cool. Bartering makes me feel rich.)

What up with money? Aside from having to pay property taxes, because our government fines us just for being alive, I think it may be possible to get along just fine without it. For all of us to live rich, prosperous, happy lives, without money – that would be something. I’m hoping to get there at some point.

When the tomatoes I canned sideways on a Coleman camping stove, in old glass-lid-jars, successfully preserved until mid-January, I felt rich. And very lucky. 

Wood Stove Pizza = Wood Fired Pizza.

 

I believe this was a November Watermelon.

No Coal Mine

Yesterday over 400 people from my community and folks from other west-coast communities gathered together in Buckley Bay (across from Denman Island) to stand up against the proposed (and apparently government supported) Raven Coal Mine, being planned to go in very close to our home.  There are so many devastating effects expected if the coal-mine goes ahead.  I am nervous because it most often seems like our voices are not being heard. Christy Clark, the premier of BC and Stephen Harper are both behind the project and seem unwilling to hear the cries of the people (Harper calls us “radicals”) who live in the area and will be most directly affected.

I am, however, hopeful because my community is not backing down for a moment, and proud of the fervour with which they/we are willing to fight this thing.

Last year there was a public hearing in Union Bay with representatives from Compliance Energy including the CEO, representatives from the provincial and federal government and many people from the community.  It was a very exciting event. The government-hired (frazzled, fuming and belittling) moderator had a very hard time keeping the room under tight control as so many people wanted to have their concerns and comments heard in full, without interruption, and were not willing to back down. The event began at 7 and went until after midnight. 

What was most amazing was the vast array of arguments from people in so many different kinds of expertise, generations, and investments in the land.  We heard the emotional pleadings from owners of Oyster Farms who knew their businesses and livelihoods would be destroyed in the wake of a coal mine.  Biologists stood up with scientific knowledge and advice, elderly citizens stood up and raged against the condescending reps on stage. Retired English professors and back-to-the-land anarchists, young children, worried parents, nature and sport enthusiasts… everyone had something different and important to say.  It was very touching. I don’t know how the Compliance Energy reps didn’t burst into tears and throw in the towel.  The CEO was so emotionless (the only thing close to feeling he showed was annoyance toward the end of the night) that I think it would be easy to label him a sociopath. 

It was great to see many more people out for the rally on Saturday; some great speakers who really knew their stuff and a lot of creative individuals with costumes and signs. 

Bad ass!

http://www.coalwatch.ca/solidarity-not-compliance-antil-coal-rally-brings-year-dragon-comox-valley - Coal Watch - About/Against the Raven Coal Mine

Garbage Land

A few weeks ago, in the spike of pre-Christmas shopping season I saw a transport truck accident at the side of the highway. The trailer was on its side and spewing from the back doors was a mountain of over-packaged, candy-coloured plastic dollar-store junk. There was something about it that made me shudder – for real, shudder. In the scheme of things, it’s not a huge deal – it won’t make any kind of headlines in the news or attract much concern from any safety or environmental groups. But it got me thinking. And blogging apparently.

Over the last ten years I have moved several times. And in the past two years I have spent a lot of time sorting through boxes of stuff trying to decide what to keep and what to toss as I slowly transfer the good stuff from my original home town, Bracebridge Ontario, to my new permanent (whatever that means) home on Denman Island in BC.  It’s a long and expensive road for my stuff. And I’ve been kicking myself over a lot of it.

When I was a kid I used to love dollar stores. I would march in with my bi-weekly allowance and buy up as many awesome trinkets as I could afford. I loved little boxes and bows and craft objects, small toys, hair accessories… pretty much all of it. I thought is wise to stock up for rainy days, or just in case I couldn’t get the stuff for so cheap later.  My mother begged me not to spend my money on these silly trinkets, but I ignored her. I was certain I would find a use for every little thing.

Now as I sort through boxes and boxes of stuff that I used once and forgot about, stuff that is too crappy for the second hand store, stuff that I spent my parents’ hard earned money on, (earned later by me as I complained my way through a counter full of dishes twice a week) I am so angry with myself for not listening, not caring, not seeing the big picture.

I didn’t think of the sweatshops, the greedy corporations, the enormous amount of waste and toxins produced to create and transport this stuff that was essentially more waste and toxins. I just wanted the toys.

That over-turned tractor trailer was a sad reminder of how disgusted I am with myself and my culture. It was a gleaming epitome of wastefulness. Forget the big expensive stuff – the cell phones and generations of digital devices, the tickle-me-Elmos and lava lamps and hair straightness. Those things make me fret, for sure, but the amount of one-time-use plastic crap, absolute 100% garbage that is shipped over land and sea to be unwrapped, used once and thrown out (or in my case, stored for ten years, panicked over and then thrown out) is… atrocious.

I would say that over the past two years, since moving to the island and living small, I have become what a lot of people would think of as extreme in my opinions about wastefulness. My good friend Krystal and I have had some lengthy ranting-duets about friends and acquaintances who see us as “oh no, you’re one of those…” total fun-killing freaks for caring – a lot – about our world. The fact that most of the population of North America (and there are a hell of a lot of people out there) thinks this way is really, really fucked up. That’s right, I’m not even going to sensor that.

If you’ve read any other blog entries, you know the way I live. It’s pretty much camping. My car is a bicycle. My hubster and I grow food and plant trees, and actually hug trees. We actually do. I admit, I feel like a weirdo doing it, and I’m going to go ahead and say that my husband usually starts the tree hugging on any given day and I join in with some reluctance, but ya. We do it.  And still, the fact that I have flown in an airplane more than five times in my life and usually forget my travel mug at home but buy hot chocolate anyway, and that I bought a pleather jacket last year, means I refuse to call myself an environmentalist. I have already, in my 28 years of life, used enough of the world’s resources that I’m sure my footprint is irreversible. Which makes me think there are actually very, very few environmentalists in the world and most of them are so poor they are almost dead.

I was listening to a radio interview on the CBC a while ago with a few panel members talking about the oil sands. Please forgive me, I won’t remember all of the details accurately, but I’ll try to get a point of some kind across here. There was a Calgary audience, who seemed to be mostly in cahoots with the environmentalist on the panel, but also sympathetic to the oil-sands representative, not so much when she claimed that Canadian oil was ethical oil, but when she stated that, let’s face it, our economy and thus world depends on oil. Without oil we’d all be poor and miserable and probably also dead. Canadian oil is way better than oil from the middle-east, and we need oil, there’s no way around it, so suck it up, the oil sands are good.

Blllaaaarrrrrgggg!!!!! I did not like that lady! We don’t need all of this stuff we have. Period. We don’t need it to be healthy, we don’t need it to be happy and we don’t need it to live. I swear we don’t. I have been living without a lot of it, and I’m pretty damn sure we don’t need it.

We need friends and family. We need skills, people who can make things out of what the earth provides, on a small scale so the earth has time to recover after we take a tree or move some soil. We need community cooperation and support. We need crafters and gardeners and people who know how to make medicine from herbs without processing them in to coloured pills and capsules and mixing them with poisons. We need to barter. We need pride and celebration. We don’t need S.U.V.’s in the city. We don’t need trips to Disney Land. We don’t need cheap plastic junk.

I’m going to stop ranting, because I’m going on a lot of tangents for one blog entry, and probably making someone angry. Please though, continue the conversation through comments. I’m interested in your opinion about all this kind of stuff.

And check out some Canadian artists and crafts people online. There’s a lot of high-quality, beautiful stuff to buy – purchases that really help the ecomony and don’t devastate the environment.

I’m being bossy. 

  

krystalspeck.com 

annaheywoodjones.com

Ampersand Quilts

 http://houseofhsueh.com/

 Yuck.

Contrasts

Hello again. It looks like I may not be capable of keeping my blog up-to-date, so I’m going to stop apologizing about it. At this point, it’s not very popular anyway.

That said – here I go with another one.

It’s December 28^th – just after Christmas. I am back in Ontario for the holidays. Oliver and I were lucky enough to take part in Via Rail’s On Board Entertainment program, which took us from Vancouver to Toronto and Montreal and then back to Kingston in trade for performing our music on board the train. We played a show in Montreal at Grumpy’s Bar as part of Brie Neilson’s Chick Pickin’ Mondays. Brie performed at the end of the night and was outrageously awesome and very inspiring. There was also a performance by Hanna Epperson who layered violin tracks on a loop pedal, sometimes adding vocals and the whole time rocking everyone’s world. It was a really fantastic evening – I love playing a short set and then getting to hear other people play too.

We also played at The Bohemian Café and Gallery in my hometown, Bracebridge. A mother and daughter operation, The Bohemian is a very good thing in a town that really needs a venue for art and music and young people and emerging craftspeople to do what they do. Tammy and Kristen are doing their best to keep it going in what I would say are challenging times and are really reaching out to the community with this venue. Thank you Tammy and Kristen.

I am a little sad to admit that it seems impossible to get anyone from my generation out to any shows in my hometown. Shit, was I really that unpopular in high school that my peers still don’t want to be seen associating with me or what?  My parents’ friends (who yes, are also my friends too) are always supportive, encouraging and most importantly present at these hometown concerts, but never a soul from my school days. Huh. Thank god for Amber and Scott (a fine Muskoka singer/songwriter himself) who I met at previous gigs and who show up to hear us almost every time. And for the slew of teenagers who wandered in to The Boho and stayed to listen. My love to you. 

Anyway, contrasts, contrasts… that’s what I called this post so…

While sitting in our private cabin (the largest cabin) on board the train, admiring our bunk beds, private toilet and sink and the little chocolates on our pillows, we started laughing about the incredible contrast between our regular life on Denman which includes chilly outdoor sponge baths from a five-gallon bucket, having to drag a battery in from the solar shed if we want to turn on a light or run a laptop, using a bucket full of straw and sawdust as our toilet, freezing our butts off in the morning if we don’t have time to light a fire, bicycling absolutely everywhere on the island, even in the most wretched weather, and getting our hands pretty dirty daily, to our life at some of these gigs. At the Roots & Blues festival this summer, the festival organizers put my whole family up in a really nice hotel room! They just threw it in when I mentioned I needed to find accommodations for my family. We got the big cabin on the train and nice meals in the dining car three times a day! In Tofino we got to stay in a nice room too, were well fed and well watered, and taken on the most awesome whale-watching tour ever! We get to do all this stuff that we could never, ever afford do if we weren’t touring musicians, but also could never afford to do because we are touring musicians.  It’s kind of great. We reaaalllyyy rough it from day to day, but then we get to live in style once in a while.

I think I’d originally planned to drag out the whole contrasts thing a little more, but that was back when I originally thought of this blog post, and when I should have written it.

Oh I thought of another tidbit. I used to enjoy shopping when I lived in the city, but today I tried to go shopping with my Oma and aunt and sister and it seems that I have become a huge fashion snob. Me – bucket girl – a fashion snob. So much so that I told my Oma that something she liked was tacky.  I wouldn’t let her try it on. I think it’s a good thing though, I think it’s driven by my friendships with some very good craftspeople who make extremely good quality work and a renewed, ever growing consciousness about where clothing is made, who makes it, how many people, animals and plants suffer for others to have nice (nice from a distance, poorly made from close up) things. I’m officially done with shopping malls, I think.  I was trying to hold on for nostalgia sake. Growing up in the country, I loved going down to the city and looking through the mountains of stuff and returning home with fists full of plastic shopping-bag handles. But I’ve grown out of it. The people watching isn’t even very fun anymore. I just end up feeling sorry for the boyfriends who are being dragged around, awkward and feigning (badly) enthusiasm by their girlfriends.  That must really suck. I’m glad Oliver hates shopping and comes right out with it. He knows how build all kinds of useful things. That’s better.

This really is a yammering blog. I hope it’s ok.

Until next time!

Happy New Year! 

Oli and Leo

Somewhere north.

Grumpy's Bar in Montreal

Hurricane: New EP, and it's free.

In 2011 Oliver and I moved the furniture around in our little rented cabin on Denman Island and set up our mics and computer to record the EP, Hurricane. We hadn’t released any music since The Things That Stay With Me in 2009, and I wanted to get some of my new songs recorded and out there.  Through trades, improvising and generosity, we were able to produce the EP for next to no cost and now we have released it for free download through my website: www.ashleajonesmith.com.  A handful of good friends assisted with these recordings – Ken Hatch, Cameron Walsh, Stephen Stepanic and of course my partner, Oliver Wives who puts as much creativity and hard work into my songs as I do while writing them.  

Get the New EP for free

Link to a video

Here's a video that was taken in Lillooet and posted on You Tube. I can't embed it, unfortunately, but I can link to it.

Thanks - fellow who made it on his ipad. I didn't get to meet you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUjRnhaHPvs

Tour Part Two – Mainland.

Ok, so I’ve completely broken my commitment to this blog page. Life had just become too busy to plug the computer in and sit in front of it for any period of time. I’m relying more and more on Oliver’s iPhone to get online these days – embarrassingly enough. The worst part is that I don’t know what’s going on in my friends’ lives anymore. I don’t like that.

So, as anticipated, the Salmon Arm Roots & Blues festival was absolutely fantastic. The festival runs like a well-oiled machine with some 900 volunteers, happy-looking festival staff and organizers who greet you pleasantly and take care of all of your needs as a musician, a wonderful festival grounds, very friendly patrons, GREAT sound people, delicious food, interesting vendors… man the list could go on and on.  Over 100 people showed up for our gig on the focus stage, which was better than we could have expected, as we were brand new to the Salmon Arm area. They were gracious and supportive in every imaginable way.

It’s so great to play music for people who have come to hear music; people who know what they want and come to get it, and then you give it to them and ya. It’s great.

After Salmon Arm and a side trip to Revelstoke where we camped and hung out with my visiting parents for a few days, we played a little venue called The Bike Shop Café in Kelowna. We stayed with some old friends in Summerland who it was very good to see. The Bike Shop Café was very sweet and a lovely place to play. It was a fairly quiet Thursday night, but we got to share the stage with Kelowna’s Leah West – which was a treat. Her set was beautiful. After the gig our friends took us on a tour of downtown Kelowna. Kelowna is actually a pretty cool place once you get to know it.

Our concert in Lillooet for the Music At the Miyazaki House concert series went very well. Another thing I really like is getting paid to play music for a bunch of people who 1. are there to hear you and 2. didn’t have to pay anything. The staff at the Miyazaki house were very kind to us and Lillooet is a lovely town. And what a drive it was to get there, and out of there. Beautiful scenery in both directions.  The mountains in the interior are so huge and majestic and wild. I had been needing a good dose of the interior.  On the way into town, the highway becomes a single-laner that edges along the mountainside like one of those crazy roads on the Roadrunner cartoons.

Our final stop was in Vancouver where we were taken by surprise by the number of Bracebridge, Ontario folks who came out for the night. It was a full house for most of the night, and a clapping audience, which is really all you can hope for at a restaurant gig. We had a good time.

We have learned a few things – some lessons that were hard to learn and some quite enjoyable.

First – Touring makes time slow down. Our lives seem to be racing by lately, especially as we work to build our home on Denman one little piece at a time. Months fly by, years fly by… but touring – seeing so many great places in a short amount of time, meeting new people and having new adventures every day – makes time slooooowwwww dowwwwnnnnn. Two weeks away felt like double that.  I suppose travelling of any kind would be similar – probably one of the reasons people enjoy it so much.

Second – There isn’t a lot of point playing anywhere unless you’ve got friends in the neighbourhood who are willing to get out and do some advertising and bring their friends out. That’s what went wrong at the beginning of the tour, and I don’t think we’ll be making that mistake again. It’s pointless. Even if the gig goes well, if you end up losing $100 on it, it’s just not sustainable.

Third – I should have gone with my gut and not booked any ticketed venues. Who the heck is going to pay a ticket price for a band they’ve never heard of?  I am all about pay-at-the-door, pay-what-you-can, and in towns where nobody knows us, that’s what I’m going to do from now on, or at least until we’re getting regular radio play of some kind… will that ever happen?

Four – Eating HEALTHY and taking our oil of Oregano is sooo important. And I think I’m going to start carrying hand sanitizer. We both got sick on this tour and that part really sucked.

We’re back home now. We’ve moved into a 10x10 cabin on the land where we have begun our quest for a farm of sorts. We’ll probably be living here for a few years. It’s nice to settle in to somewhere permanent. Move our stuff for the last time, make some cushions. We even bought a mattress – we are sleeping better than we have in years. The rainy season has begun and the West Coast is looking like a challenge for the winter. I’m getting back in to bathing with a five-gallon bucket of water and a wall of trees. Five-gallon buckets are pretty much everything around here.

Until next time

Ashlea. 

One of the views on the way from Lillooet to Vancouver

Tweener on the Main Stage at Roots & Blues

That view again, with Oliver in it.

This little cat crawled up a telephone pole and jumped onto the neighbouring balcony of our motel room, and then squeezed through the space under the privacy wall between balconies to come see us. He was super cute. He didn't want to leave when we needed to go to bed though.

Just outside of Lillooet

The road. 

Good stuff and bad stuff

I think I may have promised to write after every show.... but I’m living in a tent, as is my computer, so three gigs have passed since my Courtenay rant. Luckily, we just came home from a really great gig in Tofino, so this blog post won’t be a gigantic downer, as it may have been had I completed it earlier.

We played The Dockside Pub in Tofino.  Before we got there I was a little freaked out to be playing at a resort pub. Anyone else who grew up in a tourist town, and worked in the hospitality industry for a chunk of their life would probably understand why. There’s always something a little uncomfortable about it. A certain detachment between worker and patron.  But pretty much as soon as we got to the Weigh West Marine Resort – my fears started disappearing. The place was comfy, the people who worked there were incredibly friendly, helpful and down-to-earth – every single one of them – and the patrons of the pub, mostly locals we found, were receptive and complimentary and generous. (And the audience was, ehem, a CD buying crowd.) You could tell that the folks who worked at the pub and throughout the rest of the hotel actually liked their jobs and their co-workers. They were supportive of each other, kind to one another and wore genuine smiles. It was such a relief.

On top of it, they had everything we’d agreed on for the show all set up for us, and all of the usually uncomfortable money-talk went smoothly. Dawson and the other bar tenders and servers treated us well – too well – and Pipot, the captain for the resort’s whale-watching vessel, took us on a great adventure where we saw humpback whales, grey whales, sea lions and other ocean life up close.

It was really a dream gig. We’ll be back, and I’ll be happy if we’re only treated half as well.

On a side note – I also learned that surfers are really nice people – at least the ones in Tofino. I’m a little scared of snowboarders, wake boarders and even skaters, I have to say, but it turns out the stuff I’m put off by doesn’t extend to the surfing crowd.  Tofino is a really great, laid back kind of town. Next time we go we’ll rent boards and try the surfing thing out ourselves.

So – the bad news.

Nobody showed up for our Gabriola gig. Despite another pile of dough put into advertising – it didn’t happen for us. We were scheduled in at the Roxy, but when we got there Stephen B who owns and runs the place, sort of community-theatre style, broke the news to us that two tickets had sold. (To our friends who had put us up for the weekend.) We sat down with Stephen for an hour while we waited to see if there would be any walk ins and he told us how things had been going lately with music on Gabriola. It was becoming harder and harder to get people out for a show. Even fairly famous names weren’t getting any numbers in the audience.

I decided a few things after Gabriola. 1. We would not book any more ticketed shows, probably ever or until we became known, as in, played on the CBC.  2. We will only book gigs where we have friends in the town who will not only show up themselves, but help us get an audience together. 3. Festivals are where its at, and will definitely be a focus going forward. 4. We would way rather make no money and open for someone else than maybe make a few bucks but play for a nearly-empty room as a headliner. 5. Maybe we should just grow food and stop this silly music stuff.

Anyway, despite that, we did have a lovely time on Gabriola, roaming around as tourists. It had been a long time since Oli and I had found time to go for a walk and have a good conversation – so that part was nice. We had lovely hosts who fed us well and had a great home, and the trip was well worth it, despite the show not working out.

In Nannoose Bay we played a Sunday Afternoon show at a highway-side bar. Most of the patrons were bikers, it looked like. There were very few people there and the deal we’d originally made had not transferred through once the original booking person left, so there was some confusion. But the few people who sat down and listened were very very nice, as was the gal who worked the bar and took care of us.  Near the end of our show, there was an old man sitting at the bar talking to her, occasionally giving us the thumbs up. The bar tender later told us how much he liked us, and that he hasn’t had a nice thing to say about any other band that had come in, in fact he usually complained – but he liked us, and that was something.  She said she didn’t know what was up with the Sunday afternoon thing, and that we’d have to come back and play a Friday night. I would go back. I like highway-side biker bars.

A woman in the audience told me that people weren’t turning out for music like they used to. Ever since the recession.

Seems to be what everyone is thinking.

We’re back on the land now, in our tent, using our computers until they run out of batteries. It’s hard to live in a tent, work a day job and gig on weekends. It’s a tough adjustment going back to no electricity, plumbing, beds… or any kind of modern conveniences.  In Tofino Oliver and I were looking at some of the ramshackle houses that the first-nations people were living in, and feeling like they’d really been ripped off. But here we are living in a tent. I think we forgot that at the time.

The best compliment I’ve ever gotten is overhearing someone say quietly to himself “wow” at the end of playing a song.  It’s happened twice – both times from middle-aged men. I didn’t think middle-aged men would be my audience demographic, but they gave 90% of the compliments and bought the same percentage of CD’s at our Tofino show, and I have made a few of them cry. So… huh. I stand corrected.

Ok, that’s it for tonight.  I’m going to try and fall asleep on this thin Thermarest now.

Long Beach, Tofino

Nanoose Bay

Nanoose Bay

Oh here it comes, another bout with the music industry.

We played our first show of our BC mini-tour last night. After I finish writing about it, I’m deleting it from my performance memory bank. But first I’m going to have a little rant. It’s not because I’m disgruntled – the scene was rather humorous once I made the professional decision to see it that way. I’m going to blog about it because I think it’s a good and fair thing to do. In this industry the performer is constantly opening herself up to judgement, criticism and financial loss at the whims of reviewers, bar managers, booking agents and various inflated heads, and rarely do you hear what the performer has to say about the whole thing. Well, nobody’s writing about me yet, so I’m going to go for the first shot.

When Oliver and I toured out from Ontario, I made sure to write a short, upbeat blog entry after every show. I say upbeat because I was unwaveringly positive in my reviews of our journey. As a very small fish in a very big pond, I was afraid to speak my mind or say anything negative for fear of losing what few contacts I had, or pissing off the wrong people. I don’t believe I’m a noticeably bigger fish now, and the pond looks like it’s grown even, but I’m beginning to feel differently. There are a lot of fish. Good fish and bad fish. And I only want to be friends with the good fish.

A few months ago I booked this show at a Courtenay Bar. I thought it would be a good idea to start the tour in the closest city. Time passed after booking, I sent poster images to the venue owner who approved them, we compromised a ticket price (I’m always pushing for affordable, though some see it as unprofessional, I prefer to play for a big happy crowd, not a few people who are now worrying over their account balance) I put an ad in the paper, and we were set. I was under the impression that things were going as planned until last weekend when I checked to see if the venue was doing any advertising for our evening.

They indeed were. But it was for a different artist.

When I checked in and it was confirmed that the venue had indeed double booked us, I offered to open for the other group. Seeing as we were the forgotten band and the closest to our home base, it seemed smart. 

When we arrived at the venue, we heard the distressed story of how the double booking happened, and how they keep happening. We did our sound check and waited for a few bodies to fill the room.  In a separate oversight, the show had been advertised as “doors at 8:00,” so needless to say, there was nobody there at 7:30, which was the time that the venue owner had slotted us in. Unawares that the other band needed a prompt 8:30 start, and with no soundman in sight, we didn’t get on stage until 8:00 when the panic-stricken owner clambered out of the kitchen and shooed us onto the stage.

After five songs the owner returned and told us to wrap it up. I said “alright, we’ve got time for one more song,” to the small crowd, but the owner shook his head. He meant now. Really. They were breathing down his neck. Whoever they were.  So on that note, which was a C at the end of a slow song that we wouldn’t have chosen as our last, we abandoned the stage under orders.

As the other group played, I looked around the stage and at the booking agent and his ticket person at the door and wondered which of these five people was the neck breather.  This band was significantly more pop-y, the instruments ran through pedals that made them sound like electronic swells of sound, and the songs were contemporary, jazzy mantras that were, in a roundabout way, about being true to oneself, standing strong and loving life. Nothing wrong with that I guess, though I tend to like feeling a little more depressed (and for-real) when I listen to music.

The singer, who’s name the band played under, swooped and danced around the little stage, getting low on the floor, doing that spine bendy thing that dudes seem to like and swaying about as if completely hypnotized by her own carefully orchestrated sound. The crowd seemed pleased by it all.  I wondered, as I often find myself doing, if this was what is took to get people on your side and out to shows. Would I have to become this?

No furrrking way.

Adding up the number of people who were trying to make a dime off of this single performance by a relatively unknown but radio-friendly band in a small, somewhat poorly run venue sort of made me glad that I’m not eliciting the type of support this broad is fetching. I was glad the overdressed booking agent and his big-ticket taking side kick had nothing to do with me, and that at the end of the day, while I could have lent my ego to the whole fiasco by making a big fuss about the double booking and the money we put into advertising, I didn’t. I’m not that. This wasn’t my scene. After Oliver and I finished up a conversation about fishing and camping with a nice, rough-around-the-edges guy from inland, I took my free dinner and caught the next ferry out of town with my man.

Stuff's a Growin'!

Despite waking up with a hangover and a bad case of first-time hives, today was a pretty darn fantastic day.

Oliver and I have been working on a small, semi-temporary green house for our impatiently waiting tomato plants, (one of which bears a small tomato, though it’s only mid-May) and upon approaching the site, I found that Oliver had managed to clip on the tricky pieces of plastic stuff onto the frame and get the billowing house ready for its inhabitants. 

A further tour of the garden unveiled lots of greenery that has finally decided to show itself in a big way. Including (but not limited to) corn, which people have had limited success with here on Denman, or so I’ve been told.  The beans, peas potatoes, chard and lettuce are popping up everywhere.

Still fairly new to this, when I put a little seed in the ground, my thoughts are “heck, that will never grow. This little hard bead isn’t going to turn into a giant plant full of food.” But it does. Another thing that amazed me the other day was when I found three of my tomato seedlings flopped over on their sides, looking as good as dead. I carefully transplanted them into a bigger pot and gave them some water, and within minutes, voila, they began to spring back to life again, and are now looking as happy as the rest.

Outside of the magical garden, I got to work with some of the photos Ben took yesterday for Oliver and my promo shots.  I am a horrible subject, unable to keep a strait face, or find anything cleaver and natural to do with my arms – so Ben had his work cut out for him. I thought I’d botched every red dress shot we took, by standing like an ape, square to the camera with my arms hanging giant at my sides. But then I found hope in one photo, and after fooling with the colours for an hour or so, I got exactly what I wanted, and it seems to be getting great reviews so far.

Speaking of which – it actually amazed me how posting a photo of me looking all dolled up got me waaaay more attention than posting a new song, a call-for-help environmental message or something about anything real, and in my humble opinion, valuable. We (and I definitely include myself in this) hold appearances in such sickeningly high regard. It is very interesting, and I wonder if it is truly a natural and biological behaviour for humans and other animals to value appearances.  Hmmmm. It’s odd. But, now I know and I guess I’m going to use it.

Anyway, that sounds negative, but a bunch of compliments didn’t cast any kind of shadow upon my day at all.

Also got a free working toaster from the side of the road today. 

The ugly but functional greenhouse

Corn, slightly bug-munched.