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My First Gig in a Long Time
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Greetings to my faithful Blainreaders. I hope everybody is doing OK as we cautiously enter a "recovery" from this ordeal we're all going through. Thank you to all who have continued to follow the Blainletter even though I had no gigs to promote and not much to say. Well, guess what? This time I'VE GOT A GIG!
Sunday afternoon 2-5pm I'm playing a set at a preview/fundraising concert for the Winterfolk festival which will take place in February. I'm on at 2:35. The preview concert is at the Black Swan with a live audience (can you dig it?) and a livestream produced by part-time singer-songwriter David Storey, who shook up the Canadian TV market when he created the "Corner Gas" franchise.
I will be sharing the stage with Chris Whiteley and Diana Braithwaite (who will be hosting), Mike McKenna and Jay Moonah and Ken Whiteley. This will be my first time setting foot in a club (or any large gathering, for that matter), but this seemed like an appropriate time to make the leap. An offer I could not refuse.
Coincidentally, Ken was my guest at the final Campfire Jam at the Old Mill. It was March 14th - I remember so well. I got there and looked at the blackboard where they listed all the upcoming shows and everything after my name had been erased but you could still see the faded names of many of the leading lights of the Toronto jazz scene and a note that said "All further shows have been cancelled due to…."
I was the last band to play that bar (and I don't think there's been another one since). Julian Fauth was supposed to play with us that night but he called me in the afternoon to say he was having some symptoms of a cold and we were all so spooked by this virus, that he didn't want to risk infecting anybody and he left it to me if he should come anyway but I said stay home and go to bed (no, he didn't have Covid).
Just a couple of days ago I got a lovely email from a gentleman inquiring if I was going to get my Blues Campfire going again and telling me how much he and his wife loved coming out for it. Make my day!
I wonder if this will be Ken's first time in front of a live audience as well? Actually, he's been playing to a live audience from his front porch every week since somebody started a bit of a "movement" encouraging people to go out on the street (or their balconies) every Tuesday at 7pm singing or banging pots and pans to show appreciation for the front-line workers. I doubt that Ken missed any Tuesdays and a lot of people on his street joined in. I don't think anybody ever expected it to go on this long!
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A kitchen reno like no other
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My best ex, Linda, has taken up residence at Woodfield Road and set up her studio in the back room and has been going nuts stenciling every wall in the kitchen. Her work adorns hundreds of walls in the homes and offices of Cape Cod. It's a marvel to see and we're thinking of offering guided tours! Here's a little video tour of my kitchen.
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Happy American Thanksgiving
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Speaking of Cape Cod, it was while visiting Provincetown that I got to meet a genuine "icon" of the 60's, Alice Brock (the Alice of "Alice's Restaurant"), a great artist in her own right and a larger-than-life persona. She's still going strong and every year at American Thanksgiving, media folks descend on her to get a story and folk DJs across the country will be playing Arlo Guthrie's song. One summer a few years back, I sat down with her at her ocean-side pad and had a nice chat that I recorded on my (first) iPhone. I think that might have been my first "Blaincast." Check it out
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Speaking of the Blaincast...
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We're about to get a major upgrade! When I'm wearing my "computer guru" hat, I'm often telling clients that if their computer is more than five years old, they better get a new one – yet here I am still running on a 2012 Macbook (but I've got to say it's still serves me well – even though half the letters are worn off the keyboard).
I just got one of those ring lights and I'm hoping we'll be doing the next Blaincast on my brand-new Macbook, which is on order and due to arrive any day. No doubt it will be a challenge getting all my programs running on a new operating system but the main reason for this upgrade is to accommodate my (lifetime) project, trying to design a hyper-looper that uses artificial intelligence and rudimentary machine learning to provide me with a "jam-buddy" over these last couple of years of isolation. Unfortunately, my eyes were bigger than my stomach (as my mother used to say) and with the old computer it was constantly blowing up and I could only play in one key, on one channel and it could never manage triplets. Not much "intelligence" – it was like jamming with a five-year-old! But I have not been deterred and you can look forward to hearing some amazing sounds coming out of the basement once we get everything up to speed.
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See you out there (eventually)
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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. 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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