A busy February winding yup with a fun week-end at the Folk Alliance Conference in Montreal. Day One included my showcase at the "Beaver Suite" which was pretty weird because the beaver suitre is actually two rooms, one with the performance area then a separate room where theyt had the beer and a video monitor showing what was going on on the performance side. When I started up my set there wre only four or five people in the performance room and god knows how many on the other side - all I know is they were making a racket and I asked that the door be closed. Then I made what was probably a classic carreer-suicide move and opened with my song called "One More Weasel" (talking at the back of the room) which is about a CD launch where all the music industry typed were not listening to the music but talking amongst themselves.
Anyway, I think just about everyone that took in at least part of the showcase had very nice things to say - once couple was all the way from Virginia (??) - they were called "No Evil" - must try to catch a set of theirs.
But here's where the conference is great - after the showcases were winding down, I got out my guitar and jammed with a few people in the hallway then settled in to David Jacob-Strain's room where I found myself jamming with Dan Frechette, a great multi-instrumentalist from Manitoba, Bill Bourne a music legend who I had never met or heard live before and a friend of his called Lan who was in Montreal playing with her (Juno-nominated) group, Orchid Ensemble. I was jamming with an erhu (two string chinese violin thang) and we were rockin'. That was the only expectation I had of this conference - to meet and play with some new musicians. Oh yeah, I was hoping to find some representation in New England. There's still two days left...
The rest of the month was pretty musically active and I hope it keeps up. I got a return engagement at the Shalom Village in Hamilton - but this time I didn't do "Chicken Cordon Blues" and wasn't going to play "Sta James Infirmary"...till I got a request. Played this one with Lily on piano (a very out-of-tune piano) but Lily couldn't do then next date with me a Chicago's East, so I called upon Roberta Hunt who I had only played with one timne before and she was great!
There was lots of other stuff going on this month - the JUNO announcement of nominees and I am pleased to note that five of the folks playing on my CD wre among the nominees. One of them, Harry Manx, invited me to open for him on the southern Ontario leg of of his tour. That was a blast - great, attentive audiences. Harry was playing with Southside Steve Marinner on harp and that's a great fit - though I always though Harry was a prettty fine harp player himself. Steve and I went to the local campus radio station and did a live interview and even played a couple of tunes.
Hope I can keep up the music momentum for March. I'll post more on my folk alliance adventures later - right now I have to run to a lunch get-together with an old friend.