Stringbuster MIDI jam Sept 2023

Brian Blain (@thestringbuster), Gabriel Lavoie (@g.lavo.beats), Patrick Merner (@coolrichiemusicpatmakesmusic) and Joe Brand (JustJoe) jamming it up in the backyard. Joel Blain (aka Coi) at the board & hand puppet

Oliver Klaus - TheTerrace Inn

My old bandmate Maurice Singfield​ just posted this clip from a reunion concert of the band we had back in the 70s. We played a lakeside dance hall called the  Terrace-Inn​ every Thursday, Friday and Saturday all summer long (you don't see steady gigs like that anymore). This is a song I wrote about the Terrace and this morning I'm thinking about the cat who produced it, David Baxter​ who is in hospital and not doing well. Also remembering a couple of other producers, Paul "Eggs" Benedict and Frazier Mohawk​ (aka Barry Friedman) who have both passed on and, like David, exhibited great patience dealing with this old bluesician who was unproduceable, unmanageable and unpredictable.  Blainletter subscribers may have noted there was no October Blainletter - when there's no gigs to promote there's nothing but blather and scuttlebutt.  Watch for some changes in my "fan engagement".

Coco Montoya Toronto October 2023

Coco Montoya played the Revival in Toronto with his crack band. This was the last Hugh’s Room show at an alternate venue. They are now totally settled into their new digs at 296 Broadview. Coco’s organist/second guitarist Jeff Paris was a stand-out. His playing was kinda “out there” at the beginning of the show but then he settled down and dug in and provided some great organ flourishes but when he left the keyboard rig and picked up a guitar I was amazed at his prowess on slide, and all the other guitar stuff he did. He also provided some solid harmony vocals. A real utility guy. 

I first saw Coco when he was with John Mayall and considering the legendary guitarists that have passed through that band, he certainly lived up to the legacy. At the end of Mayall’s set, at the old rotating stage at Ontario Place, Coco was the hero of the night and I remember him walking off the stage tossing handfuls of guitar picks into the fans who had crowded the stage. He made a big impression and lived up to it with numerous appearances in Toronto. 

One of Coco's most amazing routines was when he would make the guitar "talk". He would come to the edge of the stage and using the volume control on the guitar, he was very good at shaping words and he would engage in a whole conversation that was surreal.  I guess he doesn't do that routine anymore. Too bad.

 Some of his earliest Toronto fans were gathered at a hi-top table in the middle of the Revival. The back of the room was not crowded, that room was nowhere near capacity and I was remembering a show he did at the room that became Jeff Healey’s Roadhouse, one of the few shows that Toronto Jazz put on outside of festival time. It wasn’t very well attended and I wondered how Coco would do at this one. He used to pack the Silver Dollar. 

The Hugh’s Room demographic was quite apparent as you looked about the room – an older exclusively white crowd that were mostly well-heeled (a $60 ticket would scare away a lot of Coco followers, though he doesn’t get to town very often). I think it got a little loud for some of those folks, too, and I saw a few slipping out. When Coco started the set he jumped right into the second tune with hardly a breath and that’s how I like it. But for the rest of the show he reverted to the usual blues stagecraft with little talk except to confer with the band members to decide the next song. So much for the “machine gun delivery.”