Saturday Night. First I head down to the Rivoli with Jacquie to see Taxi Chain - their CD release looked like a regular Taxi Chain gig - but a helluva show it was. The two-bagpipe thing is invaluable. I overheard more than one person asking at the door "This is the band with the bagpipes, isn't it???". That's good branding.
The guitar player was amazing, close to over-the-top. What you could call that "Kevin Breit" style of playing on the edge of a slippery slope. I meant to suggest to young Roxanne Potvin, who I saw later in the evening, that she should crank up the reverb too, and throw caution to the wind. Roxanne cut a fine figure on stage at the Silver Dollar. elegant black cocktail dress and high heel shoes. She played a lot of fine guitar too, digging in to the solos. Harrison Kennedy had a real "take charge" presence. He played after Roxanne and I like the way he just weaves a mood and just entices you into his space. Powerful.
A couple of days later I'm at a CD launch for Michael Kaeshammer, which must have cost 5000 times as much as Taxi Chain's (5000 times nothing!). This event was celebrating a new alliance - Alma Records and Universal. And Michael Kaeshammer is one of three new releases. Michael played a few tunes for the assembled media and "music industry" folk. I saw KD, a well-known music writer and recited to him the words of a song I wrote the night before:
"Hey Songwriter, are you talking to me
I missed that lyric, can you send a CD?
Sorry that I had to leave your party so soon
From one of those weasels, talking at the back of the room"
He said "The songwriters will get a kick out of it"...but maybe I'm alienating people that could help me advance my career! Oh well, I've been doing that all along.
Still trying to get a promo pak together - some festivals apparently don't want to visit websites to hear mp3's. I guess their computers got locked up one time too many, but now with faster connections and more powerful computers, it shouldn't be such a worry. Still, I've said it many times myself... there's no substitute for a hard copy.