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November 29th – Edmonton – Avenue Theatre

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The Avenue Theatre was a really neat show. It was in a theatre, whose stage had been extended in order to cover up some skateboard bowls for when it had been a skatepark. The entire show was held on the stage, as it was an intimate, acoustic style show. In fact, I was the loudest act of the night, an interesting change! I also made some really cool friends that play in hardcore bands and also run a screen printing shop out of one of the back offices. It’s really great to see people being passionate about all ages concert spaces.

I made Edmonton a temporary home for 3 days, where I visited with old and new friends. I met Greg a few years ago when he was playing in a band called Mapping The Escape, and had booked them in Thunder Bay a few times. He opened up his place for a few nights, where we watched Saw 6, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and waited for pizza for hours, only to receive it and be completely shocked at the size of their ‘medium’ pizzas. He’s in the process of putting together a new band, but in the meantime he does radio advertisements. I woke up one morning to the sounds of recording a new jingle for a funeral home. Pardon me. Funeral Homes. Connelly McKinley specifically. I wish I could link it, as it’s fantastic, super peppy with some jazz, and makes me laugh at it’s awesomeness every time.

Here’s a picture of me being the antonym of awesome.


After that, I went and visited my friend Andriko, who used to play in Fractal Pattern and was also working on his MA at Lakehead with me. We partied hard. We watched a documentary on fonts, and went to a vegan restaurant, where he got the owner to purchase a CD of mine, and we listened to it on the spot. Awesome! That, and he introduced me to my new favorite instrument, the harmonium:

November 24th – Kamloops – Pogue Mahone

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The roads through the mountains were not the best, and I encountered snow again.

In Kamloops I finally shared a stage with an artist similar to me. Devon (of DevonanKevin) was also a solo act, using an acoustic and a lap steel through an RC-2 loopstation. Pretty standard fare, except that he also had built a wooden box out of plywood and duct tape that he would mic up to create his own stomp box that truly mimiced a kick drum sound. Before the show I did an interview with Kyle for CFBX, and he asked about my sideburns: I suppose I have been growing them for a while! Last trimmed on September 22nd!

Pogue Mahone was a really nice bar, and the promoter.

Sean is one of those guys that really understands promotion and is also helping to foster music within the youth community of Kamloops. He put me up for the night, in his well setup basement meant for film watching. So I went to bed quite late after watching Jacob’s Ladder.

November 20 – Victoria – CHLY and Solstice Cafe

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The sun was seen briefly today! Very briefly.

Before heading to Victoria, I stopped in at CHLY and did a live to air interview and performance. Dylan the program director even joined me on two tracks playing saxophone. It was so good! Perhaps in the next while I’ll put up some of the tracks.


I drove to Victoria. In the rain. BC is not surprising me anymore. At least the show at the Solstice Cafe was awesome! Pauline Edwards did two awesome sets, accompanied by Hon on drums.

At one point, this one fellow came into the cafe, and started to talk, sing and yell throughout my second set. After about 4 songs, it got to be enough, and he was finally removed. At that point, I said to the audience “normally I don’t do this, but I’d like you all to give me a round of applause for having been able to play my songs while having someone yell counter rhythms and melodies into my left ear”. A solid round of applause. It was a really fun night, as I met up with Cassandra, who had come out to my St Catharines show at the Strega Cafe. Then, I spent the night at the Kelly residence. I met Alyson Kelly in Sackville, and then she told her parents that I’d be coming through Victoria, so that’s where I spent the night!

October 19th – Fredericton – CHSR 97.9fm and St Thomas University

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The next day I met up with Tom, the music director for CHSR in Fredericton, and I had an awesome experience. Not only did I do a recording which would go on air later, but I also managed to ‘convert’ him! When I called several weeks before to ask about my album’s radio play, he had said that he didn’t like the ‘over packaging’. Fair enough, there’s a lot of stuff, but I was skeptical. So when he and I did a little interview, I had a copy of the album in front of me and I explained every artistic nuance to the packaging, how it folded out, what everything meant symbolically, and how a listener was meant to interact with it. After that, there was definitely an “aaaaah” moment where he proceeded to ‘get’ the album, and fell in love with it on the spot (he had told me up front earlier that he liked the music, just not the packaging). So, chalk that one up on the board of achievements!

Also at the campus radio station, I found some local history on a door that was covered in stickers.


Zoom in closer and you’ll find this band from Thunder Bay. I had no idea they had done so much and reached this far!