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Winterfolk is On! At 3pm Saturday at St. Stephen's Church, Bellevue & College, I'm hosting the first Campfire since the pre-pandemic and I'm trying something completely different. This one will have a theme: "Songs I wrote about other musicians" Alfie Smith and Darcy Wickham are on board and I'm inviting any other Winterfolk artists who have a song about a musician to show up and sing their song (time permitting).
I will also be doing a solo set on Sunday at 2pm in the back room at Taco Taco, 319 Augusta Ave.
Of course the reason for the "songs I wrote about other musicians" theme is that I've got a whole wack of them. Most of them I never play in a show but after watching an interview with producer/guru Rick Rubin he was saying you need to make music for yourself first, not for "an audience" and I realized that's what I've been doing all along. Writing these little ditties to amuse myself and at this stage in the game, I might as well put them out there.
Ever since my first solo recording, "The Story of the Magic Pick" I've been writing about musicians and the music business. I even wrote a song about my record label! My tune "Blues is Hurting" was included on a Toronto Blues Society compilation CD.
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We had a "Family Day" Blaincast and Joel came by to jam with his new invention, a "wand" with a tape head at the end of it and he had strips of audio tape that he had stretched across a bristol board and he would brush the head against the tape to create a "scratching" sound similar to what the DJs do with vinyl. You can see for yourself and stick around for me running through some of the songs I'll be playing at the Campfire
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Ah, the things we realize after this many decades on the planet. I never "just" went for a walk. Not on my own, anyway. Sometimes I would be invited for a walk and I would be glad to oblige. But on my own, I never went for a walk unless there was a destination. Likewise, I've travelled to 20 or 30 states, every province and half a dozen countries but it was always to play a gig. I never really went anywhere just for the hell of it (and never went fishing just for the halibut :-) But now it's come to haunt me and these old legs are not happy if I have to go more than a block so for the last week I've been going out in the morning for a walk – with no destination just trying to build up my tolerance. Some will say I need to get a dog but I can't even keep an aloe plant alive over here!
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Remembering Joe Mendelson
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I did not know musician/painter Joe Mendelson except for a brief period in the early seventies but when he passed away last month, I put up a picture from a recording session we worked on together and it "got a lot of likes" (as they say) so I'm sharing it here.
The time was January 1972, the studio was Manta Sound in Toronto and the players were: top row: Mendelson Joe, Lowell "Tuck" Fox played guitar was also a fine visual artist, Cal Hand, pedal steel player who worked with Leo Kottke a good bit in the '70s, Asst Engineer Rick Capreol who arranged for the Toronto band Simon Caine to parachute in (more story in the comments), Pat Godfrey (SC piano). Middle row: Engineer Lee De Carlo (went on to record Lennon's Double Fantasy), Daisy DeBolt, Allan Fraser, John Savage (SC drums). Front row: moi, Dennis Pendrith (SC bass) and Joe Ferguson, a sax player from the states.
I came up from the Eastern Townships for a recording session with Fraser & DeBolt at the spanking new Manta Sound (I think we were the first paying customer). This photo was taken that day and at the end of the session Joe said he had to leave because he was auditioning bass players for his band. I said I'd like to try out but I didn't have a bass. He said come along and he'd get me a bass. The rehearsal hall had half a dozen bass players anxiously awaiting Joe but you can imagine no one was very anxious to lend their bass to a potential "rival." One of them, Ted Purdy, did offer his bass (a Rickenbacker as I recall - my least favourite bass) and I always thought it was some kind of karmic retribution that it was Ted that got the gig. He was a true gentleman and I never forgot his generosity or Joe's openness in giving this kid from Quebec a shot at the big time. These are the things we remember - not the accolades or after-parties.
Peter Donato commented that it looked like the members of a Toronto band called Simon Caine and indeed it was Simon Caine who saved the day. The back story is we came to Toronto with some musicians from the Townships who were "not ready for prime time" and after a couple of sessions I was about to call the CBS A&R guy in NY and tell him it was not working out and we were going home (Jesse Winchester, who was co-producing with me had already gone home). Then the tape jockey (remember when there were tape jockeys?) Rick Capreol said "I know some guys here that can walk in and nail it" and we said "let's give 'er a try"...and the rest is history (albeit obscure Canadian music history).
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I grew up in a theocracy - Quebec in the 50s - and in those days nothing happened without the blessing of the Monseigneur. Monseigneur Moisan was the man in Sherbrooke. We had an archbishop too, but his flock was mostly the French Canadians. Us English catholics were a minority – we had one church, St Patrick's, but there were many Catholic churchs for the French Faithful. It was a little opressive at times and I can see why some folks might have been turned off organized religion but I had plenty of respect for the priests and brothers and sometimes even more respect for the lay devotees who were just as devoted (sometimes more so) than the priests.
My Buddhist practice talks a lot about Mentor and Disciple and it got me thinking about my first mentor, Father Brault, the chemistry teacher who encouraged my music, made me the editor of the yearbook, taught me photography and gave me the keys to the school so I could use the darkroom during the summer break. Many years later when I told him I had discovered Buddhism, he did not take it well. It's not good to go against your mentor.
My new mentor is Daisaku Ikeda, a man who has dedicated his life to promoting world peace and convicing everyone that every human being has a buddha nature within him (as well as a little devilish nature). I chant everyday just to give my brain a little break – some folks do it with meditation or yoga but we all need a moment in the day where we can just empty our mind and feel that there is a little more to life than we experience on the surface.
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"Prayer without action is just wishful thinking"
- Daisaku Ikeda
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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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