fbpx
X
X
<span id="back-to-top-inner"></span>

new brunswick

John Adam Ian – Elastic

In January of 2014, a friend of mine from New Brunswick asked me to be a part of a long distance collaboration project. Jai Sadler (aka John Adam Ian) used to play in the metal band We, The Undersigned (great band name), but has since moved on and now lives in Montreal. He had written an instrumental and wanted me to try singing on it. Well, about a year and 9 months later I finally got around to contributing my part. Along with some melodic input from his former bandmate and fellow friend Andy Stevens, I wrote some words, sang them, and then took Jai’s stem tracks and mixed, edited and tweaked some things before sending it back. So, it’s with pleasure that I present to you a project that took way too long for me to finally participate in, but I’m glad I did. Who knows… there might be more on the way!

March 30 – Fredericton, NB

Stage at the Capital in Fredericton, NB

I’ve played in Fredericton several times now, but only once before at the Capital. I forgot how friggin’ loud it is in there! It was just myself and Judicom (a disco/house DJ duo) that night, so we each did several sets throughout the evening. After my first set, Judicom kicked things up a notch by taking the party into the ‘dance’ direction. I was stuck. I had to bring the party. So I did a whole lot of improv interspersed with my written tunes, and had people dancing, clapping along, and even a punk rock inspired ‘oi’-style chant.

Then something bad happened. I started to lose my voice. It was probably the chanting, but it was on it’s way out. Luckily, a black fellow missing a tooth leaned over the railing on the stage and yelled out, “Yo man, can I spit some rhymes?”

“Hells yeah, do it!”

This whole thing could have gone in either direction: deadly hip hop, or random drunk guy mumbling into a mic. Thankfully it was the first option! Apparently it was Ceeb, one of the few hip hop MC’s in Fredericton, and notorious for jumping up on stage with random artists.

My friend Greg (who is working on a remix on one of my tracks) even caught the jam session on video. Check it out!

March 22nd/23rd – Sackville, Moncton and St Andrews, NB

What started off as a night off ended up as a double header!

I started off with a set at the Open mic at the Bridge Street Cafe in Sackville, followed immediately by a brisk drive to Moncton for another set at Plan B. We spent the night with some new friends, like Jay and Brock from The Divorcees (who will hopefully be bringing their country sound to Thunder Bay in the summer).

Live at Plan B - Moncton, NB

The next day we made our way to St Andrews for the first time. I had a great set at the Red Herring, with a whole bunch of people starting up the dance floor during my third set.

Salty Towers - St Andrews, NB

But the best part of the town was staying at a place called Salty Towers. I was really hoping it’d be connected to Fawlty Towers somehow, but apparently no such claim or admittance has ever been made. Either way, it’s a massive house with dozens of rooms, and when we were shown to our rooms (via a note on the door), we knew it was one of the quirkiest, yet coolest places we’d stay on this tour.

Salty Towers door - St Andrews, NB
Salty Towers room #2 - St Andrews, NB

March 20th/21st – Sackville, Moncton and Hopewell Rocks, NB

We made it to New Brunswick, but considering the size of the province, we had a lot of time to spend. One of the downsides of touring is that there’s a lot of waiting. And doing tourist-y things costs money – which generally keeps most musicians sitting in dark bars and venues hours before a gig. Thankfully, places like the Bridge Street Cafe in Sackville and Plan B in Moncton are also restaurants and very nice places to be in during the day!

Still, we yearned for something more with our day, so we took a drive to visit two interesting NB spots.

MAGNETIC HILL

Magnetic Hill, NB
Strolling - Magnetic Hill, NB

I was actually nervous at first because if for some reason there was a large deposit of magnetic metals, I didn’t want to damage any of my equipment. We looked it up, and it’s just an optical illusion (read more here). Since the attraction was closed we couldn’t drive it, but we walked, and weren’t ready to believe the hype. Apparently it’s very cool if you’re in a car, but since we were on foot, we’re glad we didn’t have to spend $5.

HOPEWELL ROCKS

Lookout point - Hopewell Rocks, NB
Closed - Hopewell Rocks, NB
Medium tide - Hopewell Rocks, NB

Once again, all the attractions are closed for the season, but we could still look out at the flowerpot pillars at Hopewell Rocks. Dangerous walks weren’t possible, but I’d love to come back so that I could explore some of the caves during low tide.