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Hello to my beloved Blainreaders. I might have missed this June edition if someone had not come up to me last night at the Redwood Theatre to say "I get your newsletter!" Well that's all it took to get me back to this old keyboard – and I mean "old" (in computer terms, anyway). It's a 2012 MacBook and the letters are worn off half the keys. I tried different pens and sharpies to paint them back on, but they always wear off right away. This time I tried black nail polish – we'll see how that works out. I'm not a touch-typist so I have to see where I'm hitting. And now that I've got some black nail polish, I wonder if I should use it on my nails and go "goth". Maybe not…
My friend Richard Flohil, eminence grise of music scribes, had some advice for me over a plate of curry. "You need a bigger font!" and also that my header was a little "old fashioned". Well it is an "Old English" headline type. I'm going to see what happens if I make a bigger font but I'll leave the re-design for another day. I welcome all suggestions from the Blainreaders (yes, I know, it should be shorter).
We had a lovely Mother's Day Matinee at the Redwood with my guests Ken Whiteley and Rick Taylor (that's Rick tuning up in the header pic) – we did it "campfire-style" and I'm not going to say that was my last Campfire Jam but if it turns out that way, I can't think of any musicians I'd rather spend it with than these guys. Here's a little taste from the last set. https://youtu.be/XmW8FFob2Cw
It’s been a very low-key month of June – I've been under the weather for good part of it and even took my first Covid test and of course I don’t have Covid but I did have a nagging cough and when the doctor said all I needed was a lot of liquids and rest… well, you don’t have to tell Brian Blain twice that he needs more rest! So I’ve been resting but this week I went out to a couple of showsbut for me, no gigs to announce. But there is one bit of news…
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I see musos posting their latest guitar acquisitions on FaceBook all the time (some refer to this as "guitar porn") and since getting a new guitar is rather rare occasion for me (like once a decade!), I'll post this one. It's not a vintage or hand-made instrument but I think it will meet my needs. Many years ago I had the extended loan of a small Guild mahogany guitar (thank you Peter Toles) and I really loved that guitar and lately I've been feeling the need to have a small acoustic that would fit as I sit back in my easy chair. I played a couple of expensive parlour guitars at the Twefth Fret and Long & McQuade but I could never afford them. Then I dropped in to Tundra Music, because I remember they had a lot of Guild guitars. They are an old-school guitar store (the owner is a real "colourful character") but they are close by and I thought they might be willing to take one of my other guitars in trade. But they were not interested in either guitar that I was offering, a Johnson resophonic or a Hagstrum flat-top, because they were not "big names". But Ed the owner asked me to keep an eye out for any "vintage" instruments.
Well, when I got home I dug deep into the guitar closet and pulled out a couple of basically un-playable instruments that were from the 60s – one was the Kent electric bass with only 3 strings. Who knew it turns out to be some kind of "rare bird"? So I brought that and a broken-down old archtop and got what I thought was a decent discount on this modern version of a Guild "hog" (mahogany) with a De-Armond sound-hole pickup (a humbucker – a must when you live near the streetcar tracks like me). And since this was not a high-end instrument, I did not feel bad about sticking on a MIDI pick-up so I could use it with my MIDI configuration - I'm still tinkering around with Ableton Live to create an (artificially) intelligent looper - a virtual "jam buddy" since I haven't had any humans to jam with since the Great Confinement. It's really just a looper that doesn't just repeat what you played but actually analyzes what you've played and spits back something that makes musical sense(most of the time – at this stage it's kinda like jamming with an 11-year old).
Anyway the guitar didn't end up costing too much. I've never spent more than a thousand bucks on a guitar and I'm not going to start now. I have a couple of instruments that are worth a lot more but I either inherited them or bought them 50 years ago. Come to think of it, I've never spent more that 1k on a car either, and yet I've always had wheels - usually gifts or favours.
So here's my new Guild "Troubadour" and after a couple of trips to their set-up guy and playing around with the string gauges and the neck tension I've got it feeling comfortable to play and I swear even after just a couple of weeks of hard playing it's starting to open up a bit acoustically. I still would like to own a real quality parlour guitar before I die but this one will have to do for now. And I wouldn't be sticking all this hardware on an expensive hand-made instrument.
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The other day I got a notification that I was mentioned on a YouTube clip and when I read the description it said I was playing guitar on this tune called "Lonesome Waterloo." It's fun to watch this dashcam tour of the main street of my old stompin' grounds. In those days (mid-70s) I was playing in a rock band called Oliver Klaus and this is one of the tunes we recorded. Impressario Donald K. Donald said Oliver Klaus was the original D.I.Y. band in Quebec (We had our own studio and released on our own label, long before that was "de-rigeur"). We even had a few brushes with the big time. Maurice Singfield (aka Capt Moze) must have some time on his hands because it looks like he's having fun with some video editing software and has dug up some of those releases and created these YouTube videos. Here's another one that I co-wrote with him – "Forever"...
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Brad Wheeler, the Globe's music writer and frequent contributor to MapleBlues put up a poster from the 1969 Pop Festival in Toronto and asked for some recollections and here's mine: "What I remember like yesterday is getting a peek backstage in the afternoon and seeing stacks of Fender amps and speaker cabinets with "WINTER" stenciled in white on black tolex (that must have been the year that Fender switched from brown/beige tolex to black because I'd never seen black Fender amps). And I'm thinking "who the hell is Winter and why do they need so many amps?" Then when the sun was down, he made the most spectacular entrance I've ever seen. After the MC's introduction, the stage was dark and all you heard was a screaming slide guitar like I'd never heard (turns out he was playing slide on an electric 12-string, something I've never seen before or since). After more slide pyrotechnics, he finally strolled into the spotlight with his flowing white hair and black leather fringe outfit and the band kicked in and it was a mesmerizing moment. I was probably tripping so if somebody comes up and says I got it wrong, maybe I imagined some of it but it was surreal. Hearing the Band (for the first time) back-to-back with Al Kooper - both of them relying heavily on organ & piano interplay which to this day is my favourite sound. I seem to remember Procol Harum doing the same sort of thing but I don't see them on the poster so it must have been another day. I seem to remember Charlebois making quite an impression on me too. Like the Rock & Roll Revival around the same time, I skipped out before the end because I had to drive back to Hamilton so I missed Sly at this one (and the Doors at RRR)"
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Like I said I haven't been getting out at all, even though I've been invited to lots of cool events. But Tuesday night my boy was over for Taco Tuesday and he encouraged me to get out to the Redwood for the Bill King show and I did feel like I should make a bit of an effort to support my local music venue – and I'm glad I did. Here's a little clip https://youtu.be/H8hphFDzvio and there's more on my Facebook page – I did about 20 minutes on Facebook Live – Selena Evangeline, Michael Dunston – two of the best soul singers in this town!
Last Night was Blue Moon Marquee at the Jazz Festival – I might have tried for it, I love that band, but all this evening's outdoor jazzfest shows were cancelled due to the air quality of Toronto being "high risk". That was a pretty radical move – I wonder if any other outdoor events were cancelled?? I feel bad for BMM, they came a long way and they've yet to really crack the Toronto market despite making a big buzz across the country and making a big impression at the Maple Blues Awards last year. I met them the first time they played the Jazz Festival (maybe it was their first time in Toronto). We were waiting by the stage in Yorkville and they showed up very last-minute and explained that they had just driven non-stop from Saskatchewan – and then they hit that stage and put on a great set. Real road warriors. I got the feeling they would drive halfway across the country just to play for a new crowd. If you get a chance to see them, don't miss it
I missed the Toronto Blues Society Talent Search (for the first time ever!) but I did make it to the Birthday Party at the Redwood theatre which featured Sugar Brown and the Swinging Blackjacks – and lots of dancers. Here's a clip of Sugar Brown doing a Muddy Waters tune https://youtu.be/7G-kbq_pxbg that I have wrestled with for a while. It has a tricky change that I couldn't get and now I see how Sugar handled it – he just plays right through it. As Paul Reddick would say, "Just ride the One."
I had a show at the Redwood the week before the TBS Birthday Party and I had suggested maybe my "sit-down" Mother's Day show would be more appropriate for our age demographic but I was proven wrong and the dance floor was packed. I even did a bit of dancing, 'til I ran out of steam. When you look at the membership stats of our beloved blues society, it's mostly older folks – mostly old white men. And here is this bunch of old white men trying to promote and preserve this essential part of black culture but do you think we could get any black folk to join a blues society? Not too many. I was talking to Bill King about a great photo he took at the jazz festival last week – the huge audience for Haviah Mighty and Anshanti – all black, all young, thousands! And yet when I looked out to the crowd at the Buddy Guy show –arguably the biggest blues attraction these days – and it was pretty much all white, and not a lot of young people. So what can you do? Well, if you're a blues lover, you're not going to stop loving the blues. But if you don't love the blues, it's going to be a hard slog getting you out for a blues show, let alone getting you to join a blues society…Ooops, there I go ranting again! Well, I can't help myself….
Tonight I'm heading down the street to the Gerrard Art Space to hear rising star Jerry Leger and a combo of very adventurous musicians – Dave Clark, Jason Kenemy, Michael Herring and NYC guitarist Myk Freedman. Nice to have such great music spitting distance from my house. I shall brave a few blocks of toxic air to get there (first we had to wear masks indoors but outside was fine. Now you have to wear a mask outdoors and no problem indoors – the anti-maskers must be getting confused…)
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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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