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I have just posted the first Blaincast of the year, which includes myself being interviewed by my son the DJ plus highlights from the "I'm Not 75 Anymore" Birthday Celebration with Paul Reddick, Steve Marriner, Raoul Bhaneja, George Koller, Michelle Josef, Son Roberts, Roberta Hunt, Lorraine Ingle, Ric Levenston, Terry Wilkins, Malcolm Gould and it winds down with 20-minutes of soothing ambient electronica that will relax your mind. Check it out on YouTube (and while you're there, hit the subscribe button)
And guess what? I've got a gig to announce. Two actually. That was the "raison d'etre" of the Blainletter – promoting gigs! The gigs went away for a while but things are looking up. I will be playing at Winterfolk February 25 & 26 so I look forward to seeing some of my beloved Blainreaders in person. If we haven't met in person please come up and say hello.
At Winterfolk I will be hosting a "Campfire" jam with some of the festival artists and doing a solo set as well. Besides myself, there's some great bluesicians playing Winterfolk including David Essig, Alfie Smith, Toney Springer, David Laronde, Tyler Ellis, Danny Marks, The Vaudevillian, Laura Hubert and Garnetta and DaGroovmasters. Festival wristbands are $30 for the Weekend Pass or a One-Day Pass for either Saturday, Feb. 25, or Sunday, Feb. 26, for $20. Winterfolk will feature “cashless doors,” meaning cash will not be accepted on entry. For more information, visit winterfolk.com
And did I mention that I'll be doing something special for Mother's Day. It's in the works.
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It seems that CBC has always had someone taking shots at them, even in their finest hour they had a target on their back. This week my friend John Gardiner wrote a long diatribe on Facebook and got a lot of comments and kudos. I was going to comment but thought maybe I'll just do it here – I know he reads the Blainletter.
Once upon a time I had a champion at the CBC. His name was Jurgen Gothe. Every time someone said they heard me on the CBC, it was his show. I never got to hear him play my music because I never listened to (what was then) Radio Two, which played mostly classical music. On the rest of the CBC, there was nary a spin for Brian Blain until last year when Saturday Night Blues spun me two weeks in a row (thank you, Holger!) My radio has always been locked to CBC. It still is except for the week-ends when I pull up CIUT for blues and Afrobeat shows, JAZZ.FM on Saturday night for Danny Marks and Radio Canada Ici-Musique on Fridays for "Blues Bar Café."
John wrote: "Take today, for example. My wife and I were driving to Windsor, so we turned on CBC for the trip….Tom Power on Q was interviewing this young woman, who, I guess, is a current music sensation and she has a new album coming out this week. So, they played a few of her songs during the interview and Tom Power kept repeating what a great voice she has. Problem was you couldn’t really hear her voice because it was so wildly distorted you couldn’t begin to tell whether it was good, bad or indifferent. Also, my wife is a huge words person – she really likes to listen to lyrics and pick up on the meaning of a song. You couldn’t, under any circumstances, understand any of this girl’s lyrics – they were just part of the mix – totally lost in there somewhere. It was sort of funny because good, old Tom kept telling her what a great producer she was as well – in my world, if you can’t hear the lyrics, it’s lousy production."
Come to think of it, I find myself straining to hear the lyrics as often as not when I'm listening to contemporary recordings. I think my diminished hearing has something to do with that but even in a live setting, with a great sound system, the music sounds just fine but you struggle to catch the lyrics and it's even harder to understand when the artist is speaking between songs (especially if the reverb has been cranked up). And then, if there's people in the audience chit-chatting…well, don't get me started.
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Thoughts on Mental Illness
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Today the media (at least Bell media) has been flooded with a mental health awareness campaign. And then I came upon a YouTube video with a scientific theory to explain the "human condition." Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith has a theory that human nature was very loving and selfless until human beings developed consciousness (which some would call a "fall from grace"). He refers to mental illness as a "psychologically upset condition." That's not as offensive as saying you're mentally ill. So many of the more aggressive, angry, selfish tendencies that we have attributed to our "animal instinct" are really not instinct, because they require some level of consciousness to manifest. He talks about the differrence between gene-based and nerve-based learning. "Genes can orientate but nerves need to understand".
Let's just say everybody is suffering from some degree of mental illness. I find it easy to explain hate, anger, aggressiveness, egotism and insecurity as a display of some level of mental illness. Maybe it's under the threshold that a mental health professional could measure
How do you explain why 75 million Americans thought that four years of Donald Trump was terrific and voted for more of the same. (I expect to hear back from my lone conservative Blainreader – talking to you, Jim). I am reminded of an anecdote that when Adlai Stevenson was running for president that a supporter said to him "…after that speech, sir, every thinking American will vote for you" and Stevenson replied, "Yes, but I need a majority."
I'm not saying that all those conservatives are crazy but some of the folks they elected are real nut jobs. When did "progressive" become a dirty word?
The anger and hatred that has surfaced in politics results in people voting against someone/something rather than for someone they agree with. It's a minor mass "hysteria," and I think it can be attributed to a "psychologically upset condition."
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That's old school cybertalk (Music On At The Moment). I think I picked that up from Sue Martinez. So, as it turns out, as I'm drafting this Blainletter, the International Blues Challenge is taking place and I've been jumping around Facebook and already caught 3 or 4 livestreams (and Brooke Blackburn was in two of them). Right now I'm watching a blues band from Korea and before them, a duo from France. Kudos to Adam Karch from Montreal who was selected as the best guitar player in the solo/duo category and takes home a cigar box guitar. Mathias Lattin from Texas was the big winner and when I went to his YouTube page, he had 23 subscribers and 46 views. I'll be checking in again to see how high his profile gets raised with this big win. Congrats to our local reps Brooke Blackburn, Garnetta and DaGroovmasters, Heather Luckhart and Frank Cosentino.
Speaking of Blues Awards, The Maple Blues Awards are happening Monday night – it was pretty much sold out but it's worth checking with the Harbourfront Centre box office if you're keen to spend a pleasant evening hearing some great blues and hob-nobbing with blues aficionados from across the country.
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Some family and friends have inquired about my Runes after I mentioned I had done a reading on the new year. I've been consulting my runes for 30+ years, 2 or 3 times a year on auspicious occasions and many times I've drawn a rune reversed but on New Year's Day it's the first time I ever drew a broken rune. It was the top half of "Laguz". I was trying to get an inkling of what awaited me in the new year and it was a more positive reading than most in the past - usually I'm told "plant the seed and wait for the harvest" or "now is not the time for...(whatever)." Laguz is the rune of water/flowing. So the obvious interpretation is that some flow has been broken.
I've been spreading the word on several worthy fundraising efforts for documentary films (and one to place a commemorative plaque in memory of Jackie Shane) and it encourages me to see if we could raise some $$ to make a Brian Blain documentary. If you watch the Blaincast you will see that I've got some great footage from my "I'm not 75 Anymore" birthday celebration with some great performances by a an all-star cast of musical friends and a bunch of songs of mine that tell my story. I'd love to see a proper documentary built around this. OK this is starting to sound a little narcissistic…but I just watched the Tom Wilson doc on TVO and a couple of days ago I saw "Hallelujah – the journey of Leonard Cohen." I was riveted by both – and as it turns out, I even have some connection with both protagonists.
So watch for a GoFundMe or some other virtual tip jar that might encourage a proper presentation of that great footage. And on the subject of $$, with the scarcity of gigs, I need to find ways to keep some cash flowing. Here's one for you: I will come into your home (via zoom) and spend an hour noodling on the guitar the way I do at the end of the Blaincast (with all my gadgetry). It's not a Brian Blain concert though I would accommodate some requests. It's just what I would do if we were having a little visit in my kitchen. Send me a note and preferred time and I'll send a zoom invite – zoom is now optimized for better sound and I'm working on a zoom-like platform where we could even play together. Since it's just instrumental, you can go about your day while I noodle in the background.
And let's not forget the first Friday of the month is Bandcamp Friday where they forgoe their share of all music sales and all the $$ goies to the artist. Visit www.brianblain.bandcamp.com and buy some music. It's been pretty quiet over there. I want to be sure it's still working.
Lastly, do you have any blank cassette tapes that you will never use? My son the DJ has fallen in love with that antiquated technology and is convinced there will be a revival of cassettes – at least in his world… Drop me a line if you can help the kid out. He's paying good money for shrunk-wrapped cassettes.
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Thanks for reading this far. I see that the Blainletter gets opened by hundreds of people but not sure how many read through it. But I always seem to hear from someone or other that they enjoyed it and that's what keeps me going.
If you are not subscribed to the Blainletter, go to my website, brianblain.com and click in the top right corner. Feel free to forward this to any friend you think might enjoy my occasional ramblings (and maybe my music, too). These bits and more are always available on my blog, www.torontobluesdiary.com.
See you out there, eventually...
BrianB, aka Butch, Nappy, Shaker, Two-Lane Blain, Colorblind Brian, Stringbuster, Buddha of the Blues
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