CLIPS AND COMMENTARY FROM CANADA'S BEST KNOWN UNDISCOVERED OLD WHITE BLUESMAN

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Listening to the radio

Just finished my desktop publishing duties and got the January MapleBlues FTPd to the printer. Still trying to remember if I changed all the 2006s to 2007s.
I turn on iTunes to hear my favourite blues radio show on CKLN.FM and it’s not connecting. After putzing around for a while, I get 88.1 on the radio (usually very bad, if any, reception where I live) As I listened a bit, I was hearing an unfamiliar voice and it took a while before I figured out it was Gary Kendall subbing for Dr Feelgood. I started searching on my newly merged database for the direct line to the studio. I can’t find the number under David Barnard or Julie Hill , the regular DJs, but I find it with a long-gone blues DJ, Steve Gash (long gone to Universal-land).

Then I have to go to the other room because the battery on the cordless is dead…and I’m trying to hold that studio phone number in my head (I’m not good at that). I dial the number but when it doesn’t answer I’m thinking I got it wrong. I came back and listened on the radio for a bit then I heard Gary say on the air “Brian, call back” so we did get to chat and I made a call to the tech guy who checked and found that the server was down.

CKLN is back online and now I will sit back and enjoy Steve Pritchard’s Bluegrass show. Always a great selection of music. He says twin fiddles are all the rage in bluegrass these days. Or you could do what Drew Jurecka does and wrap the bow on both sides of the strings ..or whatever it is he does to get those “triple stops” (3 strings sounding at once - I heard him demonstrating the technique on Stuart McLean).

While listening to the bluegrass, I get an email from my friend Jacquie telling me to check out a link to iceberg.com where they have me listed (photo not available). It looks like they’re lnked to allmusic.com because it displays their review of my CD. It also say the release date was October 2005. Was it so long ago? Well my record company man just asked me if I had written any new songs so I think that’s the trigger for a long process that will culminate in another Brian Blain album. I think I heard a click. Is that the sound of a gun being held to my head? (sometimes I work best that way).