Three Wax Mannequin Shows and Two Festivals

Aug13: ROBSON VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL

Aug16: Jack of Clubs Pub w/Wax Mannequin, Wells BC

Aug17: CJ’s w/Wax Mannequin, Williams Lake BC

Aug18: Westwood Pub w/Wax Mannequin, Prince George BC

Aug20: MUSIC ON THE MOUNTAIN, Fort St.James BC **

I got one ridiculous week ahead of me.  It starts with travelling to Dunster BC all for the chance to stand on a big stage that faces gorgeous mountains and sing to the marvellous folks that are going to ROBSON VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL.  We’re all happy because it’s a 7pm set, the only time all summer we are scheduled to play early.  There will be kids there so don’t expect us to play that stupid fucking Andrew Neville song haha.

Then next week starts off by playing a set of three shows with one of my favorite performers, Wax Mannequin.  I met him at my first Artswells, to put that in perspective this past one was my 11th.  Already then I loved what he did, there’s no one else like him.  No one else writes songs like he does or commands the stage in such an epic yet silly manner.  Wax Mannequin is as good as it gets!!  I’m glad he’s my friend and I’m glad we’ve been able to work together so much over the years despite living 4000km away.

Then it all winds up for me at MUSIC ON THE MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL in Fort St.James BC.  It’s the lastival for nearly all of us, although I do have the Barkerville Cowboy Festival coming up in September.  We have the extreme honor of sharing the stage with the legendary punk band DOA!!  I mean come on folks, this is a big frickin deal.  We go 1-2 on the mainstage that Saturday night and it is sure to be a highlight of my year.

Then things slow down before I go on the warpath to promote NO MORE TROUBLE IN THE PEACE, our band new ass kicking album.  See you on the trail folks.

NO MORE TROUBLE IN THE PEACE: Online Release July 29

ANNOUNCING ONLINE RELEASE ON CD BABY and BANDCAMP: July 29th!!

Doing this to try and raise more capital for the project.  You can also donate at our GoFundMe page.

Also coming soon: official music video for NO MORE TROUBLE IN THE PEACE.  In editting and production right now, hopefully ready by July 29th as well.

Also coming up…official album launch…NO TROUBLE TOUR DATES including October 1st at the Prince George Legion, October 9th at Vancouver’s WISE Hall and October 15th at the Occidental in Quesnel!

Join us on facebook!!

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“NO TROUBLE IN THE PEACE” – Album

ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Canadiana  outlaw country virtuoso and folk singer Joey Only and his band of Outlaws are hot out of the gates and ready to share their latest recordings. Fresh back from the Transgression Trail, Joey Only has a brand new full lenth LP, “No More Trouble in the Peace”. This album is about trouble and redemption with explicitly Canadian content.  The songs you will hear on this album speak about the restlessness of the heart, finding family, lost loved ones and overcoming unimagineable struggles.  Anyone who has heard the demo cuts already agrees, this record will be the best product Joey Only has ever created.

ABOUT THE ALBUM
The title track ‘No More Trouble in the Peace’ is a joke song about the oil and gas companies trying to take over my friends ranch up in the Peace District here in British Columbia.

‘Beer League’ is a hockey song telling the story of the Big Dog Plumbing Team down in Nanton Alberta.  The last team unfortunate enough to have Joey Only staking down the wing.

‘North of Number Seven’ waltzes eloquently about the loss of the old rural ways.  It’s a lament about how things just never stay the same.

‘Walker Rock’ encourages survivalists to hit the bush when the shit hits the fan.  Live in the shadows, think like an animal…you will do what it takes in those life or death days.

‘Noble Cause of the Cowboy Soldier’ is mostly based on the true story of a fallen friend and his family.  The Alberta born young man went to Afghanistan and didn’t last a month there, the family didn’t want him to go but he believed he was doing the right thing.

‘Tempest Wind’ is the true story of our friend Tempest Grace Gales murder on Hornby Island BC, November 16th 2009.

I become widely known as a Stompin Tom Connors impersonator.  So I rewrote the words to Tom’s tune ‘the Don Messer Story’ and relabled it ‘the Stompin Tom Story’ and now open my Stompin Tom Tribute shows with this number.

‘Cold Wooden Box’ is an epic waltzing ballad that reminds us to not take life for granted because it is so short.  The only success I hope for is to have my songs remembered when I am gone.

Outlaw Band June Newsletter

We just played our first gig in seven months as a band.  If you recall bassist Ed Hanrahan had double knee surgery and has been on the disabled list since last year.  But we got to Sweetwater 905 Festival outside Rolla BC and hit the stage at midnight firing wildly in all directions.  Ed was so happy to be back.  We were so happy to have him back.  We were so happy to be back.  The crowd exploded with joy and so did we.  So we’re back!! 

That same weekend we also recorded 3.5 hours of footage for a 3.5 minute long music video that’s in production.  No More Trouble In the Peace will be the first official music video of this album – and with any luck it’ll be public midsummer.  Josh Trotter Wanner did the filming with us in locations such as the Sweetwater Festival, the Rolla Pub, the Peace River and more.

The album No More Trouble in the Peace is now mastered and the artwork layout has begun.  The album will be released in mid-September and we are currently booking the release shows which I ambitiously hope will take place in many towns across the BC.  More on that later.

We are still raising money for the record and desperately need support…all the money we raised so far has already been spent on production.  Please go to: https://www.gofundme.com/joeyonlyoutlawbandand give us your childrens college fund.  In return we’ll say a healing prayer for you or something

Upcoming shows!!  You can find us at the Haney in Maple Ridge on July 8th and the next night (July 9)  in Vancouver at the Rickshaw Theatre with a slew of great bands such as Devil in the Woodshack.  It’ll be a legendary show, all the bands involved are noteworthy!

There’s a rumour we’ll be opening for a famous Canadian classic rock band in July as well but no confirmation on that yet.

Then I’ll be in Bonnyville Alberta on July 23rd for Malcolm Maclean and Jeny Soucy’s wedding with Edmonton’s best outlaw band the Give Em Hellboys.  The rodeo is in town there that weekend so I’ll be playing a show there as well as another in Red Deer (which will be announced in two weeks time).

The end of July brings Artswells which I will play at for the 11th consecutive time.  I have now played more Artswells Festivals than any other singer songwriter. The line-up looks great again this year.

The next weekend I attend once again an annual private party called Camballah  before we get to Robson Valley Music Fest the next weekend on August 13th.  August 20th we’ll be at Music On the Mountain in Fort St.James opening up for the legendary punk band DOA.  My summer season always ends with Barkerville Cowboy Festival on September 10th.

From that point forward we start our CD release shows…details on that will come out next month!  Already I can tell you we’ll be at the WISE Hall in Vancouver on October 9th!!  This is gonna be a fun summer…but I’m already looking forward to the fall and our album launch.

Original Six Outlaws…#2: Rick McCallion on Bass

March 3rd 2016 will mark 10 years since the first Outlaw Band pilot show at Spartacus Books in Vancouver BC.  Today’s blog is about how Rick came to be our bassist for the first 2.5 years.

 

MEETING RICHMOND RICK

For a couple years Rick was the most dedicated and most important member of the band.  We generally rehearsed at his place, he updated web pages, made sure other members had cheat sheets and owned the fleet of Dodge Caravans that we ran into the ground.  Like everyone else involved it seems to me a real coincidence I got to know Rick so well while its an unlikelyhood that he would have become a bass player in our band.  After all, he wasn’t even a musician when I first met him.

It was during a long rainy spell in February 2003 that I ended up down

Rowan and Rick in Fernie BC, November 2007.

in Richmond BC to see about this house sitting gig.  I had only been in Vancouver a few months at this point but had already been through a lot settling into life on the coast.  I had been a homeless squatter with pnuemonia, a member of the legendary Woodwards occupation and had basically couched surfed/house sat through three different places afterward.  By this point I was actually sleeping on a bed made of my own clothes in a heatless appartment my friend had which was only made more bearable by my -20 rated down sleeping bag.

I had no idea what I was going to do with myself, or where I was going to go in life so depression was quickly taking over my thoughts.  The weather was so dreary and the dampness seemed colder than I ever could have imagined.  My health wasn’t well and I barely had a dollar to my name.  I had dreams that I felt I was impossibly far away from.  I was still organizing with the Anti-Poverty Committee in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside but I found myself missing the Tenant Action Group comrades back in Belleville Ontario.  I didn’t feel like I had any friends on the coast and in some ways I can say those feelings were justified.

However there were people who I seemed to have affinity with.  One of them was this sorta strange and gentle character I can only describe as a modern day monk.  His name was Sean and he sported a bald head and a long beard.  He was then and still is a perceptive character with very convincing ideas about the nature of government.  I met Sean at Woodsquat and then other left wing events I happened to be at in the city, he was keen to get involved with things as he could.

One way or another Sean knew I had nowhere to go, and was suffering for it, so he told me he might be able to help.  His housemate Rick was going to go to Gautemala for a project that involved computers, coffee and chocolate so the house would have no one in it for several months.  Sean didn’t actually live in the house as he and another fella named Bob lived in vans parked around the property.

I went out and met Rick one night and we instantly got along.  Without

Zippy on cello, Rick on bass. Robson Valley Music Festival August 2008, our last show together as the original lineup.

further adieu I was able to stay at Rick’s through most of the spring of 2003.  The property was on the edge of a forested section outside of Richmond directly under the flight path of the big jets coming into YVR which would often rattle the windows on their way overhead.

The living room was great for songwriting and I made good use of it those months I was there.  I’m not sure how many songs I wrote there, or which ones, but I do recall making some progress on my fledgling act.  Rick also had an amazing collection of original 1970’s psychadelic rock albums which I spent a lot of time listening to and learning about.  At one point I made sure to record all my favorite records he had on to cassette tapes for further study, in some ways these bands are still a big influence on me.  Knowing what kind of music Rick was into as well played a role in the Outlaws becoming a band that pushed our shows to a psychadelic level.  All this seems fitting seeing as Rick’s living room would become the place where the band became the band just three years later.

Once Rick came back from South America I moved into a Strathcona single room occupancy place called the Bad Manors – which is famous for how many down and out or upcoming musicians had lived there.  My stay there was but a few months before moving around to a number of other places and going through a few years of relative stability in Vancouver.  Besides all that moving around I did Rick and I still kept in touch.

 

TREE SITS AND WILDERNESS TRIPS

Rick is a genuine environmentalist which is something we held in common.  We had a number of adventures together in the years leading up to the formation of the band.  One July weekend we went up to the Elaho Valley, camped out and hiked around while Rick recounted many of the stories from the big forest protests he had been a part of there.  We ended that weekend by roping up and scaling down a cliff to get my cat Buddy who had decided to sleep on a ledge below our picnic site that seemed to have enough sunlight for him.  That’s right, my cat came camping.

On another occasion in August 2003 we drove out to the Anderson River somewhere outside of Boston Bar and took bicycles over to where Cattermole Timber Company planned to cut an old growth forest stand known to have spotted owls in it.  We biked more than 20km to get to the lookout and biked back spending a great deal of the return trip flying down steep switchbacks and never having to pedal.  For all our efforts we found his car to be sabotaged when we got back to it making our journey back to the city interesting to say the least.

Later in 2003 word got around that Cattermole Timber out of Chilliwack had been granted permission to log an old growth stand on Elk Mountain just outside of Chilliwack.  The next few months became very interesting as we got involved in the only forest action I was ever part of.  First we made friends with native allies from Cheam First Nation such as June and Fred Quipp and later became active in the protest camp itself as supporters.  We brought up provisions and often would go out just to visit, play songs and raise morale.

The cover of an informational zine I made for the Elk Creek Tree Sit. (2003)

One day late in December Rick and I roped up and climbed to the platform at the top of a very large tree.  Swaying around in this giant tree was an amazing experience leaving me feeling so alive afterward.  However that very next day loggers wisely used a distraction tactic to make the activists think they were going to take a new road in, when the activists went there to intercept some other fallers came in and ended the tree sit camp once and for all.  They fell the very tree were in the day before.

As a last ditch effort to stop the logging operation one of the youth at the camp anonymously claimed the trees were spiked.  Although it was never proven to be true, and I have no knowledge that they actually did do this, it didn’t stop Joe Foy and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee from offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the tree spikers.  I never forgave Joe Foy for this personally, most of the kids at the camp were barely over 20.  Another spotted owl habitat was destroyed as was my remaining faith in liberal environmentalist movements.

So as the next two years passed Rick and I stayed buddies, one whom I knew I could trust.  Everything I had seen and experienced at the Elk Creek forest defence camp was because I was there with Rick.

 

RICK JOINS THE BAND

This brings me to February 2006, that month leading up to the formation of the band.  I had returned from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, fresh from my experience of having a real band playing behind me and decided I was going to build my own once and for all.  I’m not entirely sure how it all came about but somehow or another Rick and I got to jamming at his place semi-regularly.  Our friend Luka also joined us frequently and we were starting to visualize the possibilities of a band.

Zippy, Kenan, Rowan and Rick behind the Royal Hotel in Fernie BC…February 2007

I had set up the Outlaw Band pilot show at Spartacus Books which would happen on March 3rd.  I already had the services of a professional double bass player handy to me in the name of James Forrest.  When it came time to do the gig I did one set with Rick and two with James backing me up.  Rick had only just started to play bass and quite limited with what he could do, being new to music he especially struggled with song structure which he compensated for by having detailed cheat sheets.

However it was pretty obvious after this first show that James Forrest is the kind of bass player every aspiring country-folk singer would want to have behind him.  I also knew that bass players like him in Vancouver aren’t all that loyal to one particular band, they are hired ringers and if the gig pays well they will be there.  Of course our Spartacus gig paid squat but James was keen to make a try-out of it.  Of course having to commit to a bass player who is a professional and is busy with a number of other acts would make touring as a unit nearly impossible.

Knowing that Rick was going to be more willing I quickly started to think that maybe he was the way to go.  Up to that point I don’t think Rick expected that he had the chops to keep up with the project but I knew something about the electric bass guitar.  When I was a 15 and got my first bass Mike Rose and I immediately started working towards starting a punk band, in six months I went from having no skill on the instrument to being pretty good on the thing.  Maybe Rick wasn’t all that great in March 2006 but I correctly assumed he would be a lot better by the time March 2007 rolled around.

Rick at Book and Company in Prince George for the Artswells Fundraiser. June 2007.

He made some immense improvements over the next year becoming a reliable ‘hold the fort’ bass player.  Picking a player who would be dedicated to the concept of a band…a family…a crew…was one of those smart things I did.  I wanted a democratic band of willing participants invested in our success, not hired musicians that you couldn’t rely on from week to week.

Not only did having our own bass player allow us to tour western Canada but I’m not sure we ever could have done so much of that without Rick’s driving efforts.  He also had a handy hippy living on his property named Bob who could fix just about anything wrong with our tour vans.  Rick really brought a lot to the table and is one of the biggest reasons the Outlaws had our first string of successes.

Rick waterproofs the leaky trailer that Todd Serious/Rebel Spell gave us.

So in the weeks after the very first Outlaw pilot show I knew that I would somehow try to work with Rick while I had this amazing cello player named Zippy Zaenker who I also knew without a doubt I was going to work with.  I wasn’t sure how to mesh the two sounds together of a bass and a cello.  At this point I figured I was actually building two seperate bands and would figure out how to reconcile this problem later.  What I was doing with Zippy was essentially a continuation of the folk-punk act I had been doing the last few years…whereas what I wanted to do with Rick more represented the direction I wanted to take my music.

I wanted to be a real deal outlaw country singer.

If anyone has ever heard the Joey Only Outlaw Band EP (2006) they will understand what I mean by having two distinct sounds…part of that recording is the trio of Rowan Lipkovits, Zippy and I…while part of it is an example of what the Outlaw Band was going to try to do.  Often I would play one gig with one lineup and another gig with the other lineup depending on what made more sense for the room…and sometimes I’d play with both at the same time.  But by the time 2006 ended both lineups were integrated into one giant band and it pretty much stayed that way for the next two years.

So now I had a cello player…and a dedicated bassist.  I needed someone who could play with a cellist and I needed a drummer to play with the bassist.  I was in luck, a month later (April 2006) I met accordionist Rowan Lipkovits and drummer Kenan Sungur.  Almost all of the principle players would soon be involved.  When all the peices came together we were able to put together an ass-kicking road troupe that never backed down from a chance to go hard….but that’s a blog for another day.

Rick fixes a picnic after fixing the trailer during a breakdown outside Drumheller Alberta, June 21st, 2007 on our way to Saskatoon.

—

Rick played gigs in four provinces with us during multiple tours until the end of the summer of 2008.  I believe he most likely was on stage with me for somewhere around 150-200 shows.  Rick became one of the principle people who helped me get through my recovery from tuberculosis.  He was our tech expert

We worked him hard through stressful trips and if we weren’t getting along at the end his time in the band it didn’t take long for us to admit our parts and stay friends (as we are to this day).  After surviving a few health scares and moving out of the city Rick continues to play music with a number of friends where he now resides on the coast. 

Thank you Rick for helping make the band happen…happy anniversary old friend.

The Original Six Outlaws – #1. Zippy Zaenker

The original six at the Ashcroft Opera House (2007)

March 3rd 2016 will mark 10 years since the first Outlaw Band pilot show at Spartacus Books in Vancouver BC.  Today’s blog is about how the first of the original six members joined the band in 2006.  Even to this day members of the original six have been known to occasionaly back me up for a show.  Some of them have played more than 300 shows in the Outlaw Band.  I owe them much thanks…

 

MEMBER #1: CHRISTINA ZIPPY ZAENKER:

Meeting Zippy was one of those life changing flukes that seem so ordinary at the time.  But 10 years later you realize that everything about your life began to change because of this one or two things that innocently came together.  Zippy helped form the vision of the band, helped introduce me to my hometown of Wells BC and even helped me survive a terrible disease that would like to have beaten me.

Nanton Auditorium Hotel with Zippy Zaenker, 2007

For all these things to happen I first had to become friends with Zippy Zaenker.  In order to befriend Zippy I had to unknowingly set myself up for the occasion by making a series of choices that seemed inconsequential at the time.  A number of things could have happened differently which may have led to us never meeting and never becoming friends at all.  Thankfully things played out how they did because Zippy is still an important friend in my life.

 

SMELLS LIKE QUESNEL

In the summer of 2005 there was this 18 year old named Jesse Matthies who decided to throw some punk shows in his hometown of Quesnel BC.  He invited me up to play with no gaurantee of success but because I had never been to the Cariboo Region I decided it was worth the gamble.  At the very least it would give me another opportunity to road trip to a part of the province I hadn’t seen.  Jesse and I had already met in Vancouver the winter before but it was during this trip Quesnel where Jesse and I became lifelong friends.

Buds On Broadway, Saskatoon, summer 2007

Hanging out in his parents basement one night we started jamming on a country standard when somewhere out of the blue I started improvising some words with my sore and broken voice.  The two of us were almost laying down because we were so baked and playing our guitars very passively, somehow from this innocent moment a new pathway in my life opened up.

“Hey you know, that’s funny, we should write a song out of this right now.  Ever co-write a song?”

So right then and there we jotted some words down together collaboratively constructing the framework of the song in a matter of 20 minutes.  The song we wrote was called Smells Like Quesnel’s Teen Spirit…but was later shortened to Smells Like Quesnel, was reworked, hooks and solo’s added and then later finalized.

As the evening wore on I said something to the effect of, “it’s a good song, we should do something with it.  I kinda got an idea for half an album already and some tracks recorded, we should do a split record with your band.”

Snowboot Ball, The Alpenhorn, Smithers BC, Nov 2007

Jesse thought it was a great idea, before the night was over we had an agreement for a basic framework for the production.  I went back down to Vancouver to get a bunch of gear while Jesse organized another punk show in Quesnel with the intention of helping pay for my trip back to the Cariboo.  That show became the legendary drunkfest of 2005 as swarms of teenagers converged on the Elks Hall to see the Effigy, the Hippiecritz, the Tups and the Taberfucks.

Zippy and Mike Zinger, the Royal Hotel, Fernie BC, 2007

With a weeks work we threw together the album QUESNEL COUNTY COUNTRY PUNK CONSPIRACY at Effigy member David McKillicans house…it just so happened that 15 year old David was already a sensational drummer and his father owned a useful music studio.  Although David’s dad Barry took great care to not get involved and let us figure the whole thing out for ourselves he was still real supportive in other ways.  This was how I first became friends with Quesnel’s infamous music family the McKillicans.

This was my second recording I had released and it wasn’t really selling all that well compared to Radical Folk.  There were also some issues with the sound quality having too much bass due to our lack of understanding on mixing and mastering.  After hearing the final product I thought maybe we should have asked Barry to help us with the recording.  Then there was the fact that a lot of my folk music fans weren’t all that interested in the punk band at the end of the record.

Despite all those draw backs somehow or another Christina Zippy Zaenkers attention was drawn to the song Smells Like Quesnel.  I still don’t know how she first heard it.  It so conveniently happened that she was on the board of directors of a fledgling festival near Quesnel called Artswells Festival of All Things Art.  Zippy thought it was a hilarious song, without being too disrespectful, and showed it to the other members of Artswells board.

 

Quesnel smells like the pulp and paper mills,

the smog lays low between the rolling hills,

you might get brain cancer here, oh well,

we’re alright here in Quesnel, we’re alright here in Quesnel.

 

I guess the other board of directors liked it too because one day out of the blue I got a myspace message from this Zippy Zaenker saying how much they liked the song.  I guess this is a good reason to be a Canadiana folk singer as opposed to singing those Nashville songs…quite often I’ve opened doors just by singing about this town or that town.  After having been to Wells for a mountain hike the summer before I instantly accepted the festivals offer which would one day lead to the opening of many more doors.

The first two Outlaw Band members Zippy Zaenker and Rick McCallion at Robson Valley Music Festival 2008.

(EDITORS NOTE: Zippy tells me she saw a poster for a show I did with Leela Gilday at the Railway Club and looked up my myspace where she first heard the song).

Of course I said I’d be interested in playing the festival.  I loved it up in the Cariboo and would relish any chance to get back up there again to see the friends I had made.  Through all this correspondence I somehow learned that Zippy played cello rather professionally.  She in turn soon learned how I was thinking of starting some sort of really original country-folk concept band.  One thing led to another and soon enough we got together and started jamming as a duo mostly at David Roy Parsons place.

(In some ways seeing Corbin and Naomi currently playing in Prince George under the name Power Duo reminds me of these times playing with Zippy).

Zippy and I playing Books and Company in Prince George 2007.

On March 3rd the first show of the fledgling Joey Only Outlaw Band took place.  It was a pilot show in the sense that this wasn’t the band yet I was going to build and I fully knew that. What I was looking for was try different players out to see what was possible, to see how the audience would respond and to see where I could possibly take these new ideas.  It was a fruitful venture to say the least, I crossed some ideas off the board soon had a direction.

Before the band fully existed the artwork style, logo, name and concept of the wild west anarchist-bank robbin-outlaws was cemented.  The show featured a bit of a haphazard line-up of acoustic players that I wasn’t sure how I could fit into one project.  But there were one thing that worked through that pilot show which affirmed that this was worth the work.  That was the sound and feel of playing with Zippy.

Zippy and Kenan during breakfast in Saskatchewan.

Through this show I found that Zippy added a lot of feeling to those songs and sonically suggested an entirely different direction from what I had in mind.   At this point I deconstructed whatever model I’d imagined for this band and decided that we would play as a duo until I figured out how to build this band.  At this point I couldn’t see how a bassist or a drummer could fit in with an acoustic duo of a folk singer and cellist.  At least for now I had one solid and talented player who could both follow my music with ease, remember all the parts and could sing excellent back ups.  For the next week after the show I went back to the drawing board.

There were some other people who played that first show including future bassist Rick McCallion.  I give Christina credit as the first Outlaw for a number of reasons which I will make more clear when my next blog (about Rick) is ready.  Rick played bass in the first set that night and James Forrest played most of the rest of the night.  After the show I had to make some decisions on how to proceed as I believe bass is the most important part of the band, for reasons I’ll explain later I eventually decided to roll with Rick.  There were other people who played in the group that night including T.Nile, Andy Mason, David Parsons and Luka but none of them ever became members.

The Lamplighter, Vancouver BC

By a stroke of luck I chose a really good person to start building the foundations of the band with.  By the time June rolled around I was becoming sick with a potentially life threatening disease with neither the family or finances to care for myself properly.  If it weren’t for the kindness of friends like Zippy I don’t know how I would have got through that very scary and difficult time.  Not only that but my first trip to Artswells that summer also started me on a journey that ultimately led to me living here and starting a family…but those are stories waiting for another day to be published.

Zippy and I played a variety of my most thought provoking original songs at the time such as Learn’in To Live, I Dreamed I Saw Dudley George and No Glamrock Country Stars.  We also played some songs that I never published and sometimes wish I had of such as Cooper Road Drunk Drivers, It Rains But It Pours, These Plains and A Vision Of the One.

Canmore Hotel, Alberta.

I was soon to add Rick McCallion to the list of potential members and in a short time meet both Rowan Lipkovits and Kenan Sungur.  The original line-up was about to come together in a very natural way.  Collectively we were about to carve out a new sound, a new shtick and a new attitude towards folk and country music.

But that’s also a story for another day…

What I can tell you without giving away the plot of future blog posts is that Zippy played nearly every show we did from spring 2006 till the end of 2007 when she started to step back.  She still joined us for a lot of shows in 2008 but by then the band was getting louder, faster and crazier.  We were stepping on her parts and making it hard for her bass-mid frequency instrument to be found in the mix.  Our volume caused constant feedback problems for her gear as well.  I doubt it would be a stretch to suggest that Zippy probably played 150-200 shows in my band, no small feat.

But there were no hard feelings when Zippy announced she was going to start stepping back.  Even after Zippy’s time of formally playing on our travelling road show she made appearances on the next two recordings we produced…which were the Fire On Anarchist Mountain (2008) and Transgression Trail (2010) albums.  She’s sat in with me on shows a number of other times and still remains a highly trusted and respected friend….and will always be the very first Outlaw Band, unless you count Rick or myself.  I guess realistically I am actually the first…but I’ll give it to Zippy anyway.

 

…NEXT CHAPTER…BASSIST RICK McCALION

Why I Largely Stopped Playing Left-Wing Freebie Shows

First of all I never intended to be a band leader, a folk singer, a songwriter or anything like that.  It all began back in the summer of 2001 when I decided to drop out of University and moved back north of Madoc to live in the old Dudgeon farmhouse.  I had already had a lot of experience in music up to that 21st year of my life.  I had played bass in punk metal bands like the Persecuted, Fart Bomb Appartment and Notwithstanding AE.  I was the music pastor of a small church in Hamilton Ontario for the better part of two years while in University but mostly played drums come service time.  I had experience singing and I was fine with doing it, let’s just say it wasn’t something I felt like I was real strong at despite having vocal control.  I had been the singer in my high school jazz band, did some guest appearances with Clifton David (Kirk Broadbridge) in Belleville and was the singer of a punk band for two years called Bloodthirst.

Despite all that, my heart and soul yearned to start another punk band so I could play bass.  However north of Hwy 7 sittin at the old farmhouse it became apparent I would be waiting a lot of years to get a fully operational band together again.  It also dawned on me that once civilization collapsed and the lights went out there would be no metal bands.  The lure of the acoustic called me once again and I started writing my own punky style of folk and country music believing someday I could tell those stories anywhere and anytime there were six strings on my guitar.

That whole summer of 2001 I had no job.  I made all my money by busking in Belleville.  As it was a 75km hitch hike to get there my chosen method to busk was to yell poetry at people on the street.  Belleville had never seen this before and I raked it in alright every week, taking time away to go back to the farmhouse or to go camping on some epic adventure in Algonquin Park.

When I decided to come west my identity was Joey Streetpoet.  I played and sang some but my inclination was that no one was gonna like my songs in and of themselves, that the songs had to have a purpose.  As a young politically motivated anarchist I sang ‘radical folk’ songs.  It was October 2002 when I finally landed in Vancouver and got the nickname Joey Only because of a misunderstanding with a reporter who liked my speech at the Woodwards Squat.  Soon I was playing the odd show as Joey Only and I became known as ‘the radical folk singer’.

So there I was in Vancouver, busking to get by every day.  Not because I thought I was gonna be a star but because I was poor and the idea of sitting in my 45square foot appartment playing my songs to myself disturbed me greatly.  I didn’t see myself properly yet.  I had no confidence in my material.  I truly believed nobody wanted to hear a song that was about ME, so I sang political ditties and old fashioned folk-country tunes.  I would go to the Drive and make $30, buy a gram of weed, buy a chocolate soy milk and sit alone at night with few friends to talk to.  Truly 2003 were dark times for Joey Only as a stage persona was yet but a newborn.

I used these talents and these old songs to bolster picket lines, play legal defence benefits and chime in at protests.  Pretty soon 2004 came about and David Parsons set me up to make my first album ‘Radical Folk of the Great North’.  I should add that before I had a recording my show had next to no value, the album was the first thing that made my show worth something.  For a little while sales were good while lots of opportunity presented itself and I used whatever money I made to fight a series of criminal charges I was facing.  It was May 15th of that year I found myself in a Montreal jail cell for what would be the start of a two year court battle.

In that way the government truly borned Joey Only for good…for until that legal battle in Montreal came up I never put much effort into getting paying gigs.  This was when I began to tour Canada just to afford to get to court.

It was also around this time though that I started getting disillusioned with my role in the community.  For the first while I was bitter at the Montreal organizers of the Westmount protest, I wrongly felt like I had been hung out to dry.  This began a time of travelling back and forth to Montreal, a time where I had to ask for some money to play my show just so I could get east and defend myself in court.  At this same time I started feeling like I wasn’t being appreciated properly in Vancouver as well.  I was getting disillusioned by the left on the whole due to infighting and inner struggles within the Vancouver protest scene.

Over the course of the next two years there were many times I was asked to come play at events put on by the Vancouver left.  However many times I felt like I came and did what was expected of me but wasn’t even thanked or paid…or in some cases offered a free beer for my services.  I got the impression the left wing community was willing to use my talents but didn’t take them all that seriously.  I remember after one show at the Alf House feeling very disturbed by how selfish the other acts were, I ended up leaving without playing a note or recieving any appreciation whatsoever.  I was bitter.  I felt like quitting that night forever.  I knew how depressed moments like that made me and I was scared that I couldn’t take that sort of humiliation.  I was pretty crazy at the time and I struggled to have meaningful friendships.

There were small examples of this dynamic not being true as the Palestinian refugee’s loved my song No One Is Illegal.  They had me play at a number of events where I was the only white guy, they treated me with dignity and respect.  But many times I played for the protest crowds and did not feel so warm afterward.

Still, time passed.  I felt like it was important to turn down more and more shows that didn’t pay to protect myself from depression.  At first it wasn’t about the money although I needed that.  It was more about the appreciation and I realized that if asked for a price, they might say no, and that would be fine cause they I didn’t really want me anyway.

Then in Dec 2005-Jan 2006 I landed in Whitehorse.  Soon the local musicians gave me shit for not charging the bars enough.  They explained politely how in doing so I was driving the wages down for all the local musicians in town.  I accepted this though when I made my own band still found it very difficult to set a price.  But we got better and better and more in demand and the price became a mechanism to turn down shows that would deplete my energy and my bands morale.

In creating the Outlaw Band in the spring of 2006 there was a noticeable change in my material and my show.  The show became less political and less directed to the left wing.  The concept of the Outlaw Band was to use wild western imagery to speak to the idea of freedom and revolution is our own era.  However I didn’t try to blatantly promote the revolution in the way I had before.  The Outlaw Band was not going to play coffee-houses, talent nights, protests or anything like that…we were gonna become a working band and we were gonna make bar owners want us.

I also knew by this time that left wing folk singers have an uphill battle to survive.  When professional political folk singer David Rovics asked for $500 for a show we did in Ottawa people were incensed, even though David was American and had a fairly arduous travel schedule just to attend the show.  They interpretted that as David not being for the cause, that he was in some way a representation of capitalism for having a bottom dollar.  Personally I had done alright playing union events but after I was blacklisted by Jim Sinclair and the BC Fed I only got the odd union gig for CUPW in places like Halifax or Calgary.  Playing the political folk music was not a good career choice if I couldn’t do it in my own province.

Part of this was my disillusionment with my role in the left and part of it was my desire to make music my living.  But another part of my changing was  a desire to speak to the working class of Canada on a greater level and not be some left wing freak show preaching to the already converted.  By speaking the common language I believed someday they would have a better understanding of why I am an anarchist and that my far flung ideas could be indeed normalized through tireless performances.  It largely worked.  I sang cowboy songs to the Albertans until they liked me and then by the nights end I sang a few tunes such as “Stephen Harper is a Nazi Douchebag and I Hate Him So Much” and the Albertans laughed and laughed at me.  It didn’t matter if they agreed with my politics, they liked me because I was one of them.  I liked them because they paid better than BC did.

I got better at setting a bottom dollar..however I wasn’t good enough.  Truly one of the main things that costed my that first Outlaw Band lineup of members, who did 200-450 shows with me, was how far and how long we travelled for how little we got in return sometimes.  There were blow ups on the road regarding money when band members found themselves too broke to eat properly or pay their rent once we got home.  Eventually a few of my members were picked off by Fred Eaglesmith, a professional, who could afford to pay them a gaurantee every night of the week.

The one thing that became apparent over the course of those 450 shows was that when we kicked it into high gear the bars sold a lot of beers.  Routinely we would outsell other bands, even if we played on a Wednesday.  Selling more than $3000 in beer was becoming common and we knew that the bars were raking it on off of our backs.  Still at that time we were struggling to build an audience and build our connections, we would play for less before we’d risk losing a show.  We demanded better and slowly starting getting it more and more often.  We were living in poverty despite playing so many amazing shows, we couldn’t do it like that forever.

When a promoter once told me that playing his show would be good for exposure I retorted, ‘I’m dying from exposure!’

Soon I quit music due to personal disillusionment, moved to Wells took it easy, started a family and soon got a brand new ass kicking band together.  Each member of the band now is a family person.  It can be very inconvenient for us to all get together.  Nowadays we require a lot more than I did 10 years when I was just getting started.  But the product we have to offer is a lot better now too.  I am 10 years more experienced as a band leader and when we come we come to rock it.  With families and things to do in life it is a lot of work for us to put on the show we do for you.

But now you know.  It’s often our job to sell beer and we know what that’s worth.  We know now that it’s okay to say NO to shows that will stretch your bands morale or make life harder for my players and their families.  Now I know that I don’t have to play every small town bar for next to nothing because we laid the ground work out.  Now I know that if it’s a fundraiser, or a show for a good cause, it has to be well promoted and we must be well appreciated for giving our time and energy.

The one thing I never want to feel again is anger leaving a show…or that feeling of despair because I tried so hard but people really didn’t seem to get it.  Now I know that low paying and poorly organized shows can tear a band apart quicker than any personal dynamic can.  Now I know that when bands play for next to nothing they drive wages for artists down across the board.  Artists need to be appreciated and they need to be treated nicely because most of what we do to prepare for our performance pays nothing.  So many amazing performers ran out of steam and quit altogether because it was not worth it for them to keep going.  Think of the talent we’ve lost simple because musicians were sick of being taken advantage of, sick of the futility of going nowhere and getting nothing in return.

I beg of you…if you have a band and you are willing to play for less than $100 a person, all you are doing is making it harder for professional quality bands to get what we deserve.  You are stealing our work like scabs and making it harder for us to survive.  We put in our time, we paid our dues…don’t undermine us.  Don’t allow venue owners to pocket thousands off of our backs, the relationship needs to go both ways.  Also, if your band isn’t ready to play a bar for a night keep practicing, put on house shows, get hot before you come play for free.  We put that effort in so we want you to do that as well.  Don’t drive down the quality of performance out there, when a crowd goes and sees a poorly rehearsed and shitty band they are less likely to take a chance on seeing us the next weekend…much less pay for it.

See yourselves as having value for the countless hours of writing, practicing, planning, travelling, setting up, playing, tearing down and travelling home.  That is what professionalism looks like.

I’d like to finish by saying that my disillusionment with the left and with my former role as ‘the radical folk singer’ is no one’s fault.  Although there are real critiques I could make of situations that affected my withdrawal from that role part of it was also a personal battle to find value in myself.  It’s taken me that long to truly love myself, believe in what I bring to the table and to see my role in the community for what it really is.

I demand more now so I play less.  But I get better gigs than I ever did before.  I created value for myself.  I try to balance that by behaving professionally, working hard, having a good attitude and giving what I can of myself without selling my players out.  If it only lasts a few years I’ll enjoy it, I’m in my hayday right now.

Vancouver Show A Success, Busy January Ahead

A personal review of our Vanouver concert at the WISE Hall.  Plus details of my upcoming shows with Malcolm Maclean, Troll Telemark Festival and Canada Winter Games:

Thurs.Jan22: MALCOLM MACLEAN BAND with Joey Only, Rileys Pub, Prince George BC.

Fri.Jan23: MALCOM MACLEAN BAND – ROBBIE BURNS DAY, The Legion, Fort St.James

Sat.Jan24: MALCOLM MACLEAN, the Occidental, Quesnel BC

Sun.Jan25: MALCOLM MACLEAN, the Hotel Pub, Wells BC

Sat.Jan31: TROLL TELEMARK FESTIVAL, with the Joey Only Outlaw Band, Troll Ski Resort, Quesnel BC.

Sun.Feb22: CANADA WINTER GAMES, Mainstage/Civic Centre, Prince George BC

 

So the Vancouver show was a success.  The best part for me was a lot about who I got to play with while so many old friends were able to come and say howdy.  We partied like bastards at the WISE Hall and the crowd danced like time was short.  My friend and mentor David Roy Parsons opened the show with top notch guitarist Paul Doherty and steel guitarist Steven Drake playing behind him.  Steve Drake produced some pretty big albums including a few stints working with the likes of the Tragically Hip.  Now figure that was just the opening act.

From there on in it was all a mish mash of the same players who would later make up the Outlaw Band that night.  First Jeff Andrew played a wicked 30 minute set backed by Brin and Kenan.  Then the Party On High Street kicked into action with 45 minutes of kickin hard funk.  Because it was all the same players in the three final acts there was nothing to move on stage, everything changed over very quickly and the crowd was always engaged.

Next thing you knew the Outlaw Band was up with Mike Zinger, Kenan Sungur, Brin Porter, Travis Charuk, Adam Farnsworth, Jeff Andrew, Steve Drake, Leah Martin, Rowan Lipkovits and myself.  Talk about an ensemble of mandolins, accordions, steel guitars, stratocasters, drum kits, keyboards, fiddles, tambourines and me.  We played for more than 90 minutes and kept our shit together though the drinking was trying to interfere.  What a pleasure to play with so many players who have all given their skills to my band in the past.

We had Chris Leuchte, who I think is one of the best stage managers I ever seen, running the show so he pulled the plug at last call, made sure we had beers, made sure the change overs were smooth and kept us all laughing.  Mean while the best emcee in BC, Doug the Hug Koyama, did all the talking for us between sets.  This was how we were able to keep the show running so smoothly.  There were so many old friends in the WISE Hall that night.  It was a real overwhelming musical homecoming of sorts!

Just as an example of what kind of week it was…At one point I was sitting in the dressing room talking with Donny Ducharme who plays bass with Buffy St.Marie and has his own band Whisky Jane.  Next to Donny and his girlfriend Mardine is Travis Challord from the Rebel Spell, a band who has played with many of the greatest punk bands on earth.  On my right was Steve Drake while Mike Zinger walked by just back from four years of working for Fred Eaglesmith.  That was just one example of the amazing people in the music game we got to spend some time with that week.  Even our soundman that night was Brian Else who himself has produced many of the best albums DOA, Hanson Brothers, Nomeanso and Dayglo Abortions did.

The after party was even crazier than the show!

It was a star studded week like that which included chit chats with folks like Gerry Useless, CR Avery and Chris Walter while witnessing Joe Keithley, John Wright, Jon Card, Mike Graham and more perform.  That all took place at another special night we attended which I am hesitate to say to much about as it was a memorial for a fallen comrade.  It was a real special night for us all though to say the least as we came together to remember Brian Goble.

We ate top quality sushi and got to party on a yacht with my semi-famous gold mining friend.  I did two radio shows, rehearsed in the WISE Hall all night, caught up with a friend who works at the Safe Injection Site and head a whole bunch of his stories over numerous drinks.  I got to see so many special friends and was even able to go to lunches and dinners with so many of them.  I’d call that an interesting trip.

Fortunately the bad weather didn’t kill us on our trip to the city…and the speeding ticket on the way back won’t set us back too far.  One thing that helped was the visits with our friends in Tax Free Liqour and Genghis Ghandis to break up the long drive to Vancouver.  The weather was so terrible that driving for more than a couple hours at a time was very stressful and dangerous.  We felt lucky to have safe havens to weather the storm at.

After all that travelling there’s hardly a moment to pause cause up next is a trip around the BC interior with my good friend Malcolm Maclean.  We spent a few months up in the Peace Region building fences and doing cowboy sorta things together, it turned out he’s a real good songwriter.  So we’re finally gonna get him some recognition in BC by bringing him down through Prince George, Fort St.James, Quesnel and Wells…with the chance that we’ll add some more shows to the trip.  I’ll be his drummer and we’ll have a good old time of it, people in BC will be shocked to see I’m not the only outlaw out there.  I can’t say enough about the kind of person he is, he’s a real deal Alberta cowboy who knows how to put a show on too.

The month ends with a party at my favorite place to snowboard on earth, Troll Ski Resort for the annual Troll Telemark Festival.  Details can be found online at http://www.trollskiresort.com.  We’ll probably start playing shortly after 4pm, so come ski for a day and then dance your snowboots silly.

As soon as we’re done playing at Troll the band is gonna have one thing in mind, getting ready for our big show at the Canada Winter Games.

Historic Account of Outlaw Band Happenings in Quesnel

Truthfully there wasn’t that many shows and the first ones still rank highest on my list.  I came north one summer to do a couple shows Jesse Mathies had been working on with his band The Effigy.  Arriving in Quesnel we spent the next few weeks hanging around town, going to all the scenic places and even came out to Wells and hiked to the top of Mount Murray.  In a sense the story of my first show in Quesnel is the story of how I came to live in Wells though I could never have guessed that first time here standing on top of Mount Murray that I would call the plateau before me home.  What I was thinking of was the red and dead trees from the pine beetle, as far as I could see.

This amazing summer of adventure, based out of Jesse’s parents basement, culminated in an amazing show and secondly in a split album people are still fond of.  That album was basically created in Barry McKillicans studio and it would forever be known as the Quesnel County Country Punk Conspiracy.  That’s when we recorded Smells Like Quesnel for the first time.  It was that song that got me an invitation to play at Artswells Festival which I have now been a part of for a decade…those events way back then set the stage for my life here today.

I have no recollection of the first show I did in Quesnel back then, so it must’ve been awesome…but for some reason I don’t think so.  It must’ve been just fun enough that I stayed around for the big show. The big show was on July 23rd 2005 and besides Under the Volcano Festival was really the highlight of my summer.

The Elks Hall lay host to this ridiculous assortment of bands such as The Tups, Four Horns, The Hippiecritz, Joey Only and the Effigy!!  There were too many drunk teenagers to count and somehow we managed to survive what was essentially an illegal alcoholicaust with no one bearing any responsibility for the occasion.  It’s these sort of all ages DIY punk bashes in rental halls that have become a thing of history…perhaps it was because the way we all behaved, punk across North America being teenage assholes.  It was sure fun.  I probably played 40 shows like that in my life…and that was actually the last one.

Teenagers were vommiting as quick as they could between RCMP visits to the site…that sorta thing.  My memory is vague of the occasion but I know I paid for it dearly.  I have grown up considerably since then.  I don’t really party with teenagers much anymore but at 25 it was a little less weird.  They think I’m weird now.  That’s the difference ten years will make in your life.

The next show we did was in the very same hall.  We were already a little bit older and wiser.  There were no teenagers puking over the backside of a Ford Tempo.  It was with Murray Boal and his excellent band.  The show was well attended, largely by a more adult crowd.  No one was drunk in public, though I might have been close to the line.  The payout helped our band get up here to do some recording with Barry who was also playing bass with Murray at the time. After a week or so at Barry’s I took a Greyhound bus back to Nanton Alberta where I was living and working for the winter.

That was in 2008.  I still believed back then that it was possible that I could become a success in the music industry despite not being all that great at music in general.  Not long after my youthful idealism was largely crushed, and not by any one thing which is unfortunate cause there’s no real story to tell.  Nonetheless, with no end in sight to the ‘small time’ as Corin Raymond would put it, I kept playing shows and having a lot of fun doing it.

I can’t exactly say the Hallis Lake Halloween party was inside the borders of what is commonly agreed on as being Quesnel.  Perhaps it’s just better that I have a good excuse to not talk about the debaucherous things that I participated in that night.  If I started telling those stories I’d have to talk about Bobb Inn and Artswells and Troll Ski Resort and every show we ever did in Wells and while we’re at it might as well write a paragraph about Williams Lake.  NO WAY!  Only shows that happened inside the town boundary of Quesnel can be discussed in this blog entry mostly so that the government will never know what really happened at Hallis Lake that night.

Since then we bought a monstrosity and moved to Wells to spend the rest of our lives fixing it.  We have been in the area for a while but we still haven’t made too much of a habit of trying to play in Quesnel.  I think that’s a shame and I know part of it is that until recently there’s been very little live music culture in Quesnel, a lot of people are just learning now how to go to shows of original live bands…they’ve never done it before.

Nonetheless…We have played two Billy Barker Days.  We really enjoyed playing at the Cariboo Hotel and hope we get to do that again sometime, we did two shows there and they were really well attended.  The Cancer For Life people got us on board there in 2013 and I’ve played no less than four times at the Quesnel Farmers Market.  I also did some work with Shaw Cable in Quesnel all about music in the Cariboo.

Then the Occidental happened and it became an innevitability that we would start putting on some Outlaw Band shows.  We just never did, but that didn’t mean that we didn’t want to.  I know how awfull you all must feel about me sharing my gifts so rarely with the local townsfolk.  Wells is so close, but really it’s a long ways away.  Time to change that trend for a little while.  I hope we keep motivated to keep coming to town and playing for you, it would be because you all kept coming to see the only outlaw country band in northern BC.

So, without further adieu, see you at the Occidental on Saturday November 29th.  The band is ready.  Then on December 19th I’m gonna do my Stompin Tom Tribute at the Quesnel Legion, consider that one a Christmas gift from me to the city.

Lotsa Thoughts I Gots

STOMPIN TOM TRIBUTE SHOW TIME AGAIN

Click the link for all the details on my upcoming show in Prince George.  Once again I’m roped into doing the Stompin Tom tribute thing, but it keeps getting easier and more fun all the time.  This show is a fundraiser for CFIS Radio, it’s been promoted well and looks to be a really great evening.  I try to be sensitive to the memory of Stompin Tom in doing this, I don’t want to do a poor job and I want there to be a greater meaning behind it than simply my own financial gain…which don’t get me wrong is often real important for the sake of our family.  More than anything I wanna keep Stompin Tom’s songs alive and burn them into the memory of a whole new generation if possible.  I’d like to see upcoming alt-country bands cover less American songs and start learning the stories and traditions of the north.  I’m not sure I’m nearly as patriotic as Stompin Tom was, but I know I love the north and we don’t need another peoples songs.

MAMAGUROOVE HALLOWEEN SHOW WITH TAX FREE LIQOUR

There is some speculation that Mamaguroove might’ve just played their last show at the Occidental there in Quesnel this past Hallowee night…of course there could be a Robson Valley Festival reunion during the summer but it’s gonna be pretty hard for them to really gig as a band anymore.  Just the logistics alone determines that…Dave M is in Quesnel, the other Dave is in PG, Chris is in Edmonton and Seth and Shara live in the Robson Valley.  I guess Chris has five other bands in Edmonton he’s playing in too while working full time.  Still, that’s a real shame they didn’t keep writing more music.  When MG was really rockin they put on a totally far and cosmic show, heavy, crazy, trippy, dancy…they were like a hippified Mr.Bungle.

The show was fabulous, Barry wanted them to play his bar for Halloween and it paid off cause people were lined up out the door to get in.  Costumes were creative…except for mine cause I just wore a toque and carried a hockey stick.  I was a hoser.  But my apparent costume was part of a plan innitiated by Tax Free Liqour.  During their set they brought out a Steven Harper pinata and I used that carbon fibre composite hockey stick to drill his body off.

Astrid says ‘you were supposed to knock his head off’

And I says to the crowd ‘I like to torture them for a minute first’

Whammo, off came Harpers head exploding forth with such goodies as band stickers and condoms.  The crowd loved it scrambling for all the good things the Harper pinata had given them.

Tax Free Liqour is a pretty fun band, pretty far out themselves.  Definately punk influenced and they have been improving remarkably since I first seen them Halloween 2013.  They’ve switched some players around and people are playing the songs now like they own them.  Hopefully this will be a phenomenon in the Cariboo Regional District for a while to come.

So the party was hardy, I admit, I woke up at 3:30 the following afternoon.  Haven’t had a bender like that in a while…but it’s my favorite holiday and no family to be responsible with for one night.

Footnote, there were some big Halloween costume winners that took home tickets to a Canucks game.  Was glad to see our friends from Wells win, wasn’t crazy abou the Gene Simmons costume winning though.  I guess the guy wears it every year, and no one has bothered to explain to him that Gene Simmons is real piece of shit.

THE REBEL SPELL

Speaking of punk rock bands…have you gone to see the Rebel Spell on their tour across Canada.  Their latest album Last Run is so goddamned good I can’t stop listening to it.  I can’t even tell you anything yet, I have too many things to say about that record, I could write 1000 words!  Trust me, it’s good, if you like punk go get one on line today.  Google it, won’t be hard to find.

JIAN

He’s a goof, get it folks!  If you don’t believe 10 women don’t tell me you would have believed 1 if she’s come forward all those years ago.  That’s totally unfair.  There’s a lot of people in showbizz, politics, positions of power, sports teams etc who are parasites and vampires.  They spend most of the time trying to live out their crazy desires…they don’t care about anyone else but themselves.  You think Jian Gomeshi is an anomaly then you are sadly mistaken.  Republican House members are found guilty of rape, RCMP officers are found guilty of rape, Rob Ford is a douchebag, Justin Beiber is a spoiled fucking brat.  Oh yeah, turns out Bill Cosby is probably a rapist too, must be that brain damage he never quite recovered from…he seemed to insinuate only children had this condition but it was obvious when he opposed the Simpsons back in 1991 that he suffered from a condition much worse.  Gene Simmons thinks the poor owe him a debt of grattitude, he’s obviously a douchebag…him and Ted Nugent have been competing for the title of Biggest Piece of Shit in Rock and Roll History for a long friggin time.

….I mean, what, do you really think all them stars you love on TV are as nice as the characters they portray.

News flash!!!

Despite the overwhelming ability of vampires to suck up everything around them in the process of stepping on others to launch themselves to the top…there are some people who just through sheer intelligence and charm arrive where they belong and live successful lives and rewarding careers.  When I think of the artists I like I remember how magical Buffy St.Marie was to be around all weekend, or Geoff Berners righteous and scathing criticism of the insanity that surrounds us.  I think of Tanya Tagak and the positive role she plays in our country.  I have met many lovely famous people…but there are some real vultures circling around looking for whatever they can grab.

A List of My Prefered Gear In Case You Want to Know What I Like

My gear list in case you were ever interested to know what I prefer to use.  You could consider this a review and a stamp of approval as this gear has suited me for a long time now.

When I play electric I use the Fender Bluesmaster Deluxe 40Watt re-issued-classic design tube amp. I think the blues players tended to like this amp more than country guys, but it has enough reverb for my taste and it’s crazy loud amp.  I rarely have it above 1 when I play a show with it.  It has the sharp clickety clack clean tone I like as does the guitar I play.

I have the classic re-issue tele with all the vintage hardware circa 1950’s. It’s actually a Mexican tele but it’s the most expensive tele the Mexican factory makes which when I bought it new was $1300. Truthfully I went to L&M in Saskatoon intending to buy an American tele and was prepared to spend around that kind of money.  What was crazy was that after playing 10 different American tele’s none of them seemed quite so nice in my hands as that Mexi…and none of them quite had the same sound.  Perhaps it’s a fundamentally solid tele…or sometimes you just get one that’s better than all the other ones the company makes.  Basically you can’t play a telecaster through an amp Fender didn’t make unless you get something special…the PigsNose amp was pretty nice, but not the power of the bluesmaster.

I rarely use pedals but I do have a pedal board which features generally the Blues Driver and Crybaby Wah-wah…I switch up pedals when I use them, but those two are always on the board. My pedal board is a home-made jobie and I have a crazy selection of pedals which I ironically never seem to use.  A lot of shows I just pick a nice clean tone and stick with it all night.  Sometimes I been known to use a volume pedal for solos.  Lately I been playing the accoustic more and have brought on some different people to play country leads.  I find it allows me to focus on singing nicer and being more of a showman, looking at the audience more than jamming out psychadelic country looks facing my bandmates.

Accoustic…I just bought a black Tacamime this summer, it was the cheapest of all the accoustic guitars I surveyed, but I was sold on it’s composite body as coming to and from the mountains to the drier low country affects guitars after varrying lengths of time. The composite body shouldn’t warp so easily.  If you are looking for a good first guitar there’s no reason to cheap out, the Tak’s are nice…however my first accoustic was a Yamaha 310, mom used to run the Madoc Music store and she always liked selling them cheap Yammy’s to first time buyers.  Good price, good instrument…pretty basic.  Mine was stolen…the next one I had after that was an Art and Lutherie, it’s gone across Canada so many times it’s beyond tuneable.

I also got a Fishman acoustic guitar amp, they are nice, they work like a DI and a monitor!  I find it usually allows me to not have the acoustic guitar coming out of the monitor…which creates a seperation sonically and allows me to sing a little nicer..there’s less coming at my face I guess, not sure how to explain that but it works.

I also have a vintage Marlin pedal steel, Nashville set up.  A 5 string fender bass guitar.  A Yorkville bass cab with a 250W Fender Bass head.  Drum workshop double kick pedals on my drums, the drums themselves are shit but with a good tuning and good heads they play nice…plus a bad-ass snare whose name escapes me.  More accoustics, 2 more out of service electric guitars, piano, home-made mando, harps, ukes, 5 more guitars…you name it.  Collected a lot of shit.