……..just looking for my little stack of money……….just remembered that I spent it all on violins……..

July 30th, 2005    Kenora, ON    Harbourfest

…….7pm, Scott picks me up for an early ferry trip. I go in and out of road mode. Am I neither here nor where? Let’s settle for permanent summer camp mode. 6:30 am shuttle to airport, exact same flight to Winnipeg as we did a few days ago. Life is a circle, and I am a square.  We drove in a van over airport runways, parts of the Vancouver airport I have never seen, all very strange.

Kenora-rain tent extravaganza. That is all my scribble notes say. Nothing about the big black security dude who was really nice to us, was rough with the fans, and works professionally as a cage fighter. Nothing in my notes about the HUGE circus tent we played in with bits of water dripping onto the stage. There is NO WAY to keep that amount of rain out. The opening act was playing Hocus Pocus when we arrived, with a heavily flanged guitar. I loved it. Trailer backstage, food, huge screaming audience; the perfect gig. We have played this one before, or one quite like it. Like it? Love it!

The BC Ferry back home crashed into a dock, and I watch it on CNN, Gives me something to rant about in the van. If I crashed out into the dock, I would be unpopular.

August 5th, 2005    Big Trout Lake, ON    Kitch Nuhmay Koosib Inninuwug Arena

OK, here is a trip up to a Native Reserve town. This event has a $50 000 bingo prize, money dropped from an airplane, Trooper, and square dancing to top off the night.

Our little airplane ride was like a space bubble over the lakes. The landing strip was right at the edge of a lake. Imagine flying down towards a lake and magically landing between a strip on the ground between some trees. Miles upon miles of forever land of little trees. The young pilot guys were excellent and became our friends through the day and night. (as I write this, I find he, Logan, this pilot has sent me an Email from Panama!)  A school bus with a German-accented Englishman school teacher arrived and speed-drove over the craziest bumps into the village. Everything was damaged on this bus, every seat with open upholstery, and it was a wonder that this bus survived that driving style at all. We all had great laughs at this insane carnival ride. Huge old beat school bus jumping in and out of HUGE pot holes at wild speeds. HOLD ON BOYS!!!!!! The potholes were so huge that you would bounce right into the air.

We landed at a big strange house-like building with 15 little bedrooms around two communal bathrooms, and a common room with oddly placed old furniture, kitchen and table where food was immediately set up for us. Pork chops, previously frozen vegetables and macaroni spam salad, and I had some corn flakes, and peanut butter toast as well. Excellent. Everything has to be flown into these remote villages, you know, even the spam for the salad. A couple of really nice native men were there to be sure we were taken care of, and the band had just enough time to get changed in one of the bizarrely arranged washrooms (the place was set-up to accommodate lots of people with shared bathrooms). The crew was at the arena madly untwandleing (I made that word up) a PA system, that also had to be flown up.  The crazy bus took us to the extremely dusty arena where about 200 cans of pop awaited us backstage in the hockey change room. The leftover dinner was brought backstage as well, and Craig was happy about the pork chops.

There was a HUGE buzz through the PA, which concerned the promoter greatly, and our soundman, who is an amazing tech, fixed the system, displayed a few different emotions, as we sat backstage looking at all the pop. The crew had gone straight from the airplane to the gig to set it all up, skipping the dinner portion of the evening. I was blessed with excellent stage sound, saw a really shy crowd huddled in the darkness of the back of the room. Ra invited everyone to walk their chairs up to the front of the stage, and slowly I could see people appear towards us.

I walked around the arena afterwards, speaking with locals and amazing myself at the idea that nobody was driven to sweep the place out. We then crammed into trucks and all gathered in the truest of all dark middle-of-nowheres, at a gravel runway, while the small plane was being loaded with our stage gear and minor bits of luggage that we needed to get through the day. The chief and a few other friendly natives said their good-byes, and we flew back into Winnipeg after the gig, a surreal trip where the pilots turned down the lights so we could experience the completely psychedelic universe of Northern lights that we were engulfed in. I could see the odd bits of lights from remote villages below, but Northern Manitoba is pretty sparsely populated. Are you feeling this magical and just slightly over-the-top bizarre summer vibe from the air above Northern Manitoba?

At the Winnipeg airport, late into the night, we lounged in a far corner of a complex, in a lounge with wild red and blue ceiling lights and mega-boring magazines about nothing in particular, NO food, and we waited, and waited for a truck to arrive. We were there for quite a long time. The blue and red lights making me feel like a space ship was going to take off, and we were all going with it. This was the longest part of this rather long day. Very strange waiting room, great reclining chairs. A completely different run-down van took us to a hotel where the front desk girl was YELLING over the karaoke in the bar. A Chinese girl was singing quite insanely, and lots of people looked like they were ready to fight. I got up to the hotel room and made some soup (knor vegetable) in the coffee maker. There was NO other food anywhere. Thank GOD for packaged soups and coffee makers. The rock and roll cookbook comes in handy.

I know I lost some notes. At some point, the pilots, Logan and his buddies, visited us at another arena gig, had a great time, went to an after party, and Logan, who is a proper, nice-looking young pilot got sucker punched and his tooth went through his lip. Craig had to pound on the bastard that hit his new friend. This story bummed me out, and the pilot emailed us later saying he had a great time none the less, and will never forget it. He has become a real Trooper brother.

Personally, I do NOT go to late night parties in small towns, never did, and this notion has served me well. I will go out late on reserves, big cities, or vacation resorts, but not where goofs think that you are trying for their underage girlfriend’s affections (or whatever stupid shit they dream up).

August 6th, 2005    Ignace, ON    Ignace Recreation Centre

Flew to Thunder Bay the next day. Quite a marvel of routing and flight bookings this summer! Good job, guys! Drove 3 hours in a black mini van to a really cool old hotel. Fun and lively front desk woman gave Scott free pizza, so Scott and I filled our ‘fridge and had a little hotel party. YAYYYYYYYY! The gig had thousands of 20-year-olds, about 40 of the girls onstage with hugs that don’t let go. The smoke machine was so intense that you couldn’t see exactly how many girls were on the stage, but you got a FEELING about it. And some of the girls got a FEELING about us as well.  Greg, the cameraman, was running around like it was a war zone. Is this the gig where I kicked a cardboard box across the stage, leftover from Frankie’s drum solo and hit Greg right in the pants? Yes I do remember that. What a face he made. I kicked a box right from one side of the stage and nailed him in the crotch. I did apologize. Didn’t mean to. Our soundman was not having fun, as far as I could tell, and I have a note about a $6000 paint job that was really important at the time, whatever the hell that means now, I dunno. Confused, yes I am, thank you.

In the morning, I banged on every hotel room door that had any association with this glorious rock band of ours, (ours, meaning Canada’s) to tell all that The Shuffle Deamons were on TV. I went crazy, had all the doors open, the TVs cranked up and me dancing from room to room. I like The Shuffle Deamons quite a bit, I found out. I saw them in Nanaimo once and they had the whole crowd outside dancing in the street with 3 saxophones. Wonderful stuff. That is how MY town shows itself at night! Brag brag.

Craig forgot his underwear (thunder-wear!) in the hotel, and the front desk girl delivered them to the band, so we had no choice other than to put them on our van antennae, and Lord knows where they are today. I imagine this is one of those things that the Lord don’t wanna know. We had a pit stop at a groovy old general store that was more like a museum of pop culture antiques, toys and food packaging, and I bought an ice cream cone from the funny little chubby girl. Great Canadian moment with the giant long train rumbling by outside. Living inside of a postcard, I always say.

Ok, at the airport I finally gave into a certain BIG massively popular coffee and doughnut chain that is popping up everywhere and littering our great nation with paper cups. I avoid the place like the devil, cos I don’t believe that it exists, but man, you gotta eat something besides ice cream. And this is one of the restaurants that monopolizes some airport food scenes, so what are you gonna do? I may LOOK and act like Gandhi, but I gotta eat too. While waiting for an airplane, I sit there all day just looking at the stupid place, so I figure why stand in the big line-up for 15 minutes, see what all the fuss is about, and when I get to the till and the girl behind it says, “this till is closed.” I was the last guy there and I think she just didn’t like me. Some people do, she didn’t, poor little thing. There was no other till open, so the idea at the time, established by Miss Don’t-Like-Gogo was that I stand there until someone decides to talk to me. I told her that it would have been kinder to have mentioned that idea 15 minutes ago. She basically told me to F-off. What does she care? One minute you are getting hugged and screamed at, the next you’re told to eat it. What a life.

You know, when these big companies dry up the last of the Mom and Pop outfits that rely on their little bits of the food service markets, this is what we all have to look forward to. Employees who DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. I don’t drink coffee (dirt juice) and could never go to another one in my life and never know the difference, so what do I care, other than to look out for my fellow man. I really shouldn’t be writing this stuff, should I? Ah what the hell, I didn’t name names.

Ok fly home, rush for the ferry, 3 teas, back to camping and boating…………..where EVERYONE loves me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 12th, 2005    Campbell River, BC    Saratoga Speedway (all ages)

Summer is in full-swing now, has been for a while. Everyone I know here is all excited about the 2 big, well-advertised shows that we are playing on Vancouver Island. Rick (Tracy’s Mom’s husband, Tracy’s step-dad, I guess) cool guy, great old greaser, shows up having driven from Alberta in a 22′ long white 1971 Pontiac. So I guess I am going to Saratoga in grand style. HOT HOT HOT summer day out. No time to jump in the river that day, what a waste. Life can be cruel.  I have one other car in my private entourage. Ra and Scott traveled together in a big black Yukon, Smitty was already on the Island with his truck, and I don’t know how Frankie or the crew got around. I was on my own, with a big mob of Island friends. So my private mob of people who love me enter the festival gates with Sweeny Todd playing and I recognize some rock musicians from my Vancouver days over 10 years ago. Rock and roll reunion time, also with Blaine Smith, the Trooper keyboard player I replaced, about as long ago as well. Somehow all the beer disappeared from backstage, and there was really no night-time lighting or snacks, so Ra mentioned this to the promoter. A band called Will, which is a singer guy with acoustic guitar and Pat Steward on drums, howled away, about 4500 people raged at our show, and I sat at Peter Freddett’s feet as Kim Mitchell played all we are. I call this a good summer vibe, a bit of a greaser-fest. Rick, the biggest old great greaser of them all, and my also step-father-in-law nodded a leave time near the end of the Kim Mitchell set and we, the people who still love me, glided back down the Island highway.

A concert like this can be the highlight of many people’s rock and roll careers. It was perfect. Yet, the next day was to be my favorite gig of the summer, perhaps of my entire association with Trooper.

August 13th, 2005    Duncan, BC    Sunfest, Avalon Acres (all ages)

Oh please Lord, it is too late into the report for another epic. Lemme get another  bowl of soup before I write this out………..

I was told that the two Island shows are charity gigs, so please keep guest list at a minimum. Ya. Ok, so I took my gang in with me through the back gate. No big secret. The promoter greeted us there, gave us passes, and was quite a gentleman about it, which I quite appreciated.

When I say my Gang, I am talking about Aunty Laura, Uncle Greg, Robert, Tacouchi and his fans, Mr. Chriss, Paige and Barry, Tanya, Jay, Logan, Johnny, David, Jeff, the Bradburrys, Dodie, Tracy-Lyn, of course, Olena………who else, dunno. I am the pied piper of the Island summer fun trip scene. Andy Warhol never had such a grand, and good-looking entourage.

My entourage got huger as the day went on. We met friends on the highway, had a motorhome with kids, a huge white cadillac, and by the time we stopped at the market beside the Cassidy airport, playing acoustic guitars and singing, our friend Paige, fresh back from the Queen Charlotte Islands (The Haida Guai!) appeared in her mini van. With her was Casey, ……..THAT is who is missing from the list!………..and as soon as he heard the acoustic guitar I strummed, he JUMPED out of the van and danced the wildest dance I have ever seen, getting really close to me, backing away, quickly…………this was the wildest dance I have ever seen. In all my years at dance class, watching a million plays and watching well over a thousand crowds at rock shows, and hippy festivals, Casey is the wildest dancer. Right in the parking lot of the market on the side of the highway.

Casey is about 55 years-old, has a cabin on a river at the Queen Charlottes Islands, has raised his family, dresses in nondescript grey hippy cottons, has teeth that need work, but only noticeable because he never stops smiling. In fact he looks like one of those great old paintings of the sun. To say he is a hippy is far too simplistic. He makes your standard hippy look like a banker. And can he dance! Every redneck behind the windshield of every truck in the parking lot was smiling. I am as shallow as the next clod in this society, and I half think, wow, I hope he doesn’t do anything too crazy and EMBARRASS me in front of the band tonight ! And I quickly trade the thought for a hope of the same. So I ask him what he is all about.

Casey explains that there is no balance; no good and evil; no black and white, no yin and yang. “IT IS ALL PEACE AND LOVE.” He is riding on a wave of love. No resistance. I got back into the Cadillac, back onto the highway, still strumming away, with Olena playing violin (as we did all camping season), and it struck me how remarkably DEEP that philosophy is. He is right you, know, IF YOU WANT HIM TO BE.

Ok, I have been a student of Peace and Love for quite a few years here, and I am committed to lifetime study of the subject. There are millions of people who can say IT IS ALL CRAP, and live it accordingly. Easy. But can you really say that IT IS ALL PEACE AND LOVE, and live up to it? You couldn’t even be pissed off at traffic without compromising your philosophy. Would it be a hard life? Would it be a breeze? Well, Casey just got into town and is on his way to a huge rock show for free. You tell me.

So with the huge white cadillac leading, my entourage winds around the field, down a wrong way dirt road through the woods, turns around somehow, back onto a field, and everyone parks, grabs their coolers, guitars and violins, and the promoter smiles us up and down. Wonderful! Even Aunty Laura is there, and Dodie (my MOM) and little Bobby with a GOGO RULES! T-Shirt, and Mr. Chriss, with several boxes of picnic food. He had ice cream, pies, HUGE tupperwares of the finest variety of fresh salads. Mr. Chriss is a beautiful guy. Same age as me, have known him my whole life, total enthusiast about everything, big bald glasses, laughs and gets excited about everything all the time. Is SO excited! EVERYTHING is an EVENT (as I write this he knocked on my studio door on his way to church cos it IS ASH WEDNESDAY!!!!!!  YAAAAA!!!!!!)

WILL strums away on stage, with Pat Steward on Drums, and I find that my gang is totally self-sufficient. I don’t need to do anything. Everyone set up Mexican blankets, sat in a circle, passed around Mr. Chriss’ gourmet salads, and pies…….yum…the sun burning like crazy, and Casey dancing in front of the stage to the crowds delight. There was a bungee chord acting as security between the back stage and front of house, and I ventured out to listen to the mix, watch Casey dance with a mob of ladies who have also decided that it IS all peace and love. Casey takes a spill on his ass and recovers laughing his head off. Everyone loves him.

Trooper decided to limit the guests in the motorhome (our backstage) to give ourselves some quiet space, which was a great and well-respected idea. Yes, seriously great idea, thank you. I went back there to cool off a few times, and to store the acoustic instruments that I carry around with me all summer.

I used to go to what I called Hippy Fairs when I was a kid in the ’70s, have great laughs and try to profit by selling watermelon slices to the stoners. I invested and doubled my paper route money that way. This was a modern version of the same ideal, with modern people, in more of rock and roll, less crafty flair. This time I got to play keyboards rather than listen to fat hippies complain that my watermelon slices were too small. Everyone was smiling all day. My gang arrived about 4 hours before we were to play, and one by one the rest of the Troopers showed up, and I introduced them to everyone I could find, and discussed Casey’s idea about LIFE with Ra and Smitty.

I was told that a radio station on the island had a phone-in show later with the topic of exactly how severely the show was Trooper’s show, and their finest moment at that. I am still hearing people talk about this gig. My little nephews went right up front, and my proudest moment was seeing them rock out and look at me like “THAT is what Uncle does!!!!!” The sun set as we played, and I sat at Kim Mitchell’s feet that night for all we are. The guitar tech allowed it, groovy guy that he is, but I detected a look from Kim that he wasn’t quite so thrilled with me sitting there. Kim is not Casey. The Moog Taurus pedals shook the place nonetheless.

I met about half the crowd at the T-Shirt booth. These are my people. I later told Kim Mitchell that I LOVE YOU. He laughed and said “right on.” I figured that words are not to be wasted. I have met Kim many times, and I don’t need to say hey I like all we are…………

Love was in the air. Love is always in the air. The only real twist to the vibe was in watching the big promoter dude throwing kids off of the stage. Kids were landing on each other and one boy got a bit caught up in the barricade. This is exactly how people get hurt. I was informed later that the promoter is also the local sports coach, and those were all his team players. I never would have suspected that. Even so, it put a bit of a spook onto the crowd. The promoter is also a famous player from the NHL (National hockey league), and I have to say, I quite like the man. He introduced me to two other famous NHL players outside the dressing room, both big guys, total music enthusiasts. Scott could tell you all about them, but I apologize for not being good with names. (Gary Nilan?) Big-time hockey players in Canada are SERIOUSLY famous and well respected people. I often meet National Hockey League players at gigs, but I admit that I do not know who is who, but Scott sure does!

All of my guests behaved quite well, only one guy yelling at Smitty that he wasn’t loud enough, and when I got everyone back into the Cadillac to try to navigate the field, a friend of mine fell down, onto the ground and disappeared. It all happened quite quickly, cos he is a bit on the heavy side, and I figured that he fell down a hill, and that it was a good thing that I saw it happen. So I sprint the 20′ back to the Cadillac and tell everyone that he fell down a ravine, and that splash splash I hear water. Casey yells “HE’S IN THE WATER MAN!?!?!?!?’ and he jumps out of the Cadillac, glides down the ravine and somehow, in the pitch dark, finds the guy in an instant and says “GRAB MY ARM” so we can form a human chain and haul the guy up. We get him on his feet, I donate my swimming towel to wipe the mud off of his bald head, he strips down to his guanch and gets in the car repeating ‘WHAT HAPPENED.?!?!?!?”

Bad moment for my friend.

So, it was Casey, Mr. Peace and Love, that basically saved the guy’s life. I drove everyone home, quite tired, and I asked Casey about his life. He hadn’t been drinking or getting stoned, was totally sharp, told me about his sailing adventures, about his family, his hardships, his community work, his decisions in life, and his quest and success and finding happiness. If anyone had the impression back at the market that this cat was flakey, we all may be enlightened to see that there is a solid life behind the revolutionary philosophy.

I wish I had a photo of Casey to show you. He really looks like the wrinkled old sun. I often think of Casey, in fact, while visiting the band Nazareth, and philosophizing with their singer Dan McCafferty, (a really great friend), I saw great traces of the Casey spirit in him.

I wanted to take Casey to Protection Island the next day, but he had already left to continue on his journey…………….what did he say about riding a wave of love? He goes to a rock show for free, eats the best foods, is well respected, and off he goes down highway………..does that beat working a job you hate your life? Who knows.

So we take a little Trooper tour break, and the day after the outdoor Duncan Sunfest, I push forward a family picnic on Protection Island that has a line of 25 of us GOGOs mooning the sailboat race at the lighthouse. All the sailboats were deadlocked with no summer breeze to push them back towards the pub. The kids got to see the beach that their grandpa built with his bulldozer in 1960, and we got 17 people in the back of a pick-up truck, me driving, slowly. All the bicycles from my fab collection got used, zipped around on, and I sang campfire songs with 3 of my brothers, the first time we had all sung together since our rock band GRAPHICS split up 20 years ago. First time I had sang with my brother in 20 years. We had a professional singing group together back then and broke up on bad terms.

By 2am I was shuttling people back to town, across the glass-smooth Nanaimo Harbour, purple lights of the city reflecting on the flat sea, warm breeze gently whispering, in the Zodiac. This, I enjoy. Lots of people decided to camp out on our Protection Island lot, on the fresh new summer lawn, and Mr. Chriss’ leftover salads were a dream. In fact there was enough food to feed half of the Island, so I invited half the Island over. And this is why our lawn is stomped to death.

Into the river, into the sea. I didn’t get  a whole lot of actual work done this summer.

I later heard that Casey paid his way through the summer by washing people windows. He would bless the water, so for the price of clean windows you also get your house blessed. Can’t get THAT out of the yellow pages.

What a guy.

July 13th, 2005    Brampton, ON    Hype
July 14th, 2005    Cornwall, ON    Lamoureux Park
July 16th, 2005    Hearst, ON    Hearst Moose Festival
July 17th, 2005    Thunder Bay, ON    Port Arthur Provista

So I get to swim in a great variety of hotel pools, some late-night after the gig when nobody is around, run on tread mills, and draw funny pictures in tiny comic books for gifts to Tracy back home. I made comic books for some close friends as well, including the one with a fantastic shower scene from the all-women’s rugby team. I met a decent couple in a hotel lobby who ended up at several of our shows, and Ra got some kids up onstage to play drums. All-out loving audiences. A terribly popular French Canadian band from the ’70s opened the show at one arena, and the main guy was unbelievably rude to our crew. Pompous; I heard all about it backstage before the sweet-mother-of-the -earth lady filled the stinky hockey change room with delicious home made food. There was a shower cap on one dish, which Ra thought was funny. We had discussed (in the van) a few years ago if shower caps make good leftover lids.

All the drives were between 300 and 600kms, and one featured a 4-hour traffic near-standstill. Gave me plenty of time to draw cartoons. It was all caused by people slowing down to see an accident. This one was quite spectacular and gruesome, as it appears that a big boat fell off of a trailer and crushed a car. Almost made us late for the gig. I still think about that crash scene.

The town of Timmins has a nice billboard of local Shania Twain as soon as you get there, and absolutely no soy products in the grocery store. I have been tracing the spread of tofu hot dogs across this great land of ours, and very few big grocery stores snub the movement toward bean dogs, in this point of history. We drove through a town called MOONBEAM, and Scott removed himself from his crazy spiritual manual to take a look at store signs that would verify the name of the town. Great name, hey!?!?!?!? A semi truck dumped boxes of tomatoes on the highway, and I marveled at the wonderful lakes, the true beauty of Northern Ontario in the summer.

July 18th, 2005 Fort Hope, ON Joseph Jacob Nate Memorial Arena

Native reserves always take the most space on my note pages, cos they are sooooo interesting. We took another small plane up North, landed on a runway that sometimes has kids running all over it, and, as I wrote here: “husky who goes to meet her mother”, whatever that means. Here we are at Eabamet Lake, at Eabametoong, a shortened version of a town with a very long name. The first thing I noticed (besides the swarms of back flies) is that my name, Gogo, translates to GRANDMA in Ojibway. Funny at first, but after a couple of days, enough of GRANDMA, please. Got a hell of a lot of laughs, I tell you. Smitty on the other hand enjoyed the word CHOOMISH, being a true Grandpa at this point in his life.

Alex, our host, set Ra and Smitty into rooms upstairs in a decent house and offered to take me on a tour of the village. Scott crashed out on a bare mattress and tried to eat some sardines that he had brought for the trip. I accepted Alex’s offer and videoed some great scenes of kids in the back of pickup trucks, swarms of flies, wild depressing graffiti, and I stood around chatting with about 100 locals at the band office. At first I felt a bit out-of-place, until I realized that it was a big pancake breakfast. I was the only white boy there, and I didn’t know what everyone else was doing there. Everyone was really nice to me. Alex drove around and gathered towels and sleeping bags from a few homes, and showed me a wonderfully run-down house where Frankie and I could stay. We figured that it would be a much better house for the crew to enjoy, being that it had 3 bedrooms!!!!!!!! Frankie and I were shown a suite on the end of 3 houses stuck together across the dirt road, with DONUT ENTER written on one of the 3 doors that enters the seriously sparsely furnished pad. I had brought some toilet paper, and some towels to use as pillows, unrolled the fresh sleeping bag and cheerfully set up my comic book studio on the desk.

I do not in any way want to appear ungrateful of the hospitality here, but I must relate that these remote communities cannot offer our regular standard for fine accommodation. The crew figured out how to get their hot water working, and our place was so haunted that you could make a fascinating documentary right there. Again, I am being respectful here. After this tour, I came home and told stories of this magical place, and I felt that a spirit had followed me home, and had quite disapproved of the way I was telling the story, so I am NOT mocking here, OK? Tracy, Olena, and Dodie and I all held hands around the kitchen table at home to wish the spirit away. I do not want to disturb spirits and cause grief in my, or anyone else’s life. OK?

You know there are TV shows about haunted places, and everyone always looks at old English villages, cos I guess TV documentary producers figure the public only wants to hear about English ghosts. Well, attention all paranormal enthusiasts: buy a bear-skin airlines ticket up North if you wanna hang out with sprits. My personal spiritual journey is a search for the connection to the central mass intelligence of the universe, also known as GOD, rather than an attempt to unveil any particular spirit or being. I don’t think that I am any closer to the spirit world than anyone else. Anyone could have slept in this room and had a hard time with all the noise. Doors slammed all night. LOUD footsteps outside the door. Good luck sleeping.

So Alex (an Ontario Police officer) and I listen to FOOTLOOSE on the radio and some more Ojibway chatter (Smitty does the best impersonation of these radio stations, adding bits about the canoes have arrived………..), saw the reversing of the river flow, was presented with the Eabametoong flag for the Protection Island poles, got a bug bite in my ear, hung around with a kid who had been up for 3 days singing and dancing at the pow-wow. It was arranged that Smitty and I could go for a boat ride. This was a celebration commemorating the 100th(?) anniversary of some type of European communication, and there were great flags and canoes in the lake (looks amazing on my home movie) and we motor-boated to a little island where people were walking around an old graveyard. “That is where I am going,” said our host, pointing at a grave, and we visited 2 derelict churches, no windows, no doors, open to the wind, carved alter falling apart, painted ceiling falling down. I have never seen such a funky old little dead wooden church. My Mom is a Roman Catholic church organist, and I have seen A LOT of churches, but nothing quite this spooky. The only other white folks around were 2 seriously 16th century-long Hutterites with scarves on their heads.

So I decide to go for a swim. My home movie has a couple funny shots where I put the camera on the ground, drop my drawers, and jump into a lake. “What are you doing?” asks our host.” I tell him I am going to swim, so I will be alone for a bit and catch up to him in a few minutes. “You might not want to”, he suggests. “Leaches. Big long ones like string, and when they get in there they really start going.”

Ok. No swim today.

We played 2 shows at the arena in the constant company of the local natives, experienced almost every possible weather formation from hot to stormy, walked back to the little red houses all stuck together and had to turn a light on to use the washroom at night, cos I actually got a bit unnerved. The presence in the house was way too strong. There were doors slamming all night and loud footsteps stomping outside my bedroom door. This went on ALL NIGHT. In the morning, not having discussed this with Frankie at all, he said “Ya I had a shitty sleep. This place is so haunted it’s ridiculous.” That morning, I sat alone on the bare couch in the living room, and some local (real live) guy just walks into the room, no knock, just “OH, you’re still here?” as I wait for Alex to take us back to the airport. The guy in the house is quiet, we both just listen to all the kitchen cupboards rattling. “Oh, the phantom’s trying to get in, ay!” he says. Again, I am NOT being disrespectful, OK? Seriously.

Alex, my friend, arrives with the truck, I thank him for being a great host and storyteller, and for single-handedly taking care of us, and off to the gravel runway we go, me with video camera in hand “HEY GRANDMA,” people yell at me, again, Frankie walking into the outhouse, FUK U spray painted on the wall beside the chain-link fence. Total vibe.

A few hours later, in a different town, I am listening to country music WAY too loud in the can at a Tim Hortons in the nearest city. Ever stop at Tim Hortons? See all the people in line, see that there are about 2 urinals and one toilet for all of them? I don’t get it.

July 21st, 2005 London, ON Harris Park – Rock the Park

Was this the ZZ TOP gig? Please Lord, don’t make me write an epic. Tracy’s dad being a grand old greaser, loves ZZ TOP, and anything rock and roll, and doubly so if they have hot rod cars in their promo shots, so he asks if I can bring him a t-shirt or anything signed. Well, I failed, cos unlike any other group we have ever played with, the ZZ TOP security was impenetrable. Their road manager, a cool Mexican-looking guy, friendly as any guy you would want to meet, simply doesn’t do autographs, and the chain of people I talked to led me to placing my stuff to be signed next to some other stuff that never got signed. The ZZ TOP guys themselves were all on their own separate campers, beside the convoy of tour buses, and the bass player (he’s really short!) didn’t go anywhere without the road manager accompanying him. In fact, the area had to be cleared when any ZZ TOP guy left his trailer, and I saw the singer from Bad Company get pushed aside, when all he was trying to do was go into the porta potti.

It got to the point where you had the Trooper guys, Randy Bachman and his band, and the Bad Company guys all standing around, looking towards the ZZ TOP trailers, and all being asked to stand back. BTO toured with ZZ TOP years ago, so I am told, and I thought Randy Bachman may be a bit more ‘in there’, like he was at the Neil Young gig last year, but this was something quite different indeed. He stood outside the convoy of campers like everyone else who had backstage passes and was interested in seeing the ZZ Top people when they are not on TV. Speaking of which, my video camera was strictly forbidden on site, ANYWHERE on site, and after the road manager let me know that, I didn’t DARE even think about taking any pictures after he told me so!

GOD it was hot that day. We had gigantic technical problems on stage like you have never seen, and managed to get the massive outdoor festival crowd going without perspiring to death, until Randy Bachman and his band of Vancouver musos hit the stage, and I hit the catering tent. The Bachman guys are all our great friends, and we spent some great time hanging out, but I will be super honest with my personal opinion and say that I was not delighted with the renditions of some of the songs I love so dearly.

Bachman himself didn’t hang out a whole lot, commenting briefly to Smitty about how dark it was at night by the trailers. The Bad Company singer and his band of American rock dudes were up next; amazing great singer, swore at the crowd a lot, and got a bit nasty verbally, cos I think someone threw a bottle of pee on the stage (this was a full-out huge outdoor summer crowd in a big city). We Trooper cats walked across the huge field, down a walkway with the crowd on both sides, slapped hands the whole way, waved at the big elevated platform with the wheelchair people, signed stuff, walked back, and at that point my status as a celebrity seemed to diminish by the minute, along with every other musician that played that stage that day.

By the time the ZZ TOP people arrived, I just stood back and gave space as their military precision crew, all with hard hats, snapped the stage together. I watched the long-bearded masters leave their trailer, hats and sunglasses, MTV video-famous jackets, walk to the stage, stop, have their in-ear monitors put on for them, and walk up to face the crowd mashed against a really strong metal barricade. I saw Scott perched under the barricade, joined by Frankie, and then me, and we squatted there right up front with the full ultra-Vegas splendour of ZZ Top right there! Billy Gibbons ring, silver shiny curtain, light props, loud HUGE HUGE HUGE sound, backing tracks, until the road manager pointed at us and motioned for us to get the heck out of there. I guess It was an insurance risk. If the barricade had been pushed forward or collapsed, we would have been crushed, I guess.

So I walked around the festival site and listened to what a $100 000 show sounds like (HUGE). Ra was totally inspired, Smitty loved the guitar player and wanted to get a big ring as well. Everyone stayed until the end, and I stuck around, cos it wasn’t long to walk to the hotel, and I was still quite fascinated by the grand scale of the spectacle. I saw about 30 pizzas arrive, was banned from the catering area as it became a place for about 150 contest winners to meet the band. Billy Gibbons, still in hat and glasses, and what looked to me like really fine Pajamas, and the bass player, with time sunglasses and ball cap, and the drummer, with the road manager entered the catering area and Billy Gibbons put his hands in the air to get a rise out of the portly moustache-wearing people. I stood back, watched to see if my stuff got signed, and after about 1/4 of the people were greeted, ZZ retreated, and I followed about 10 security guys out the back gate and walked the streets back to the Armory fortress hotel thinking about how bizarre and diverse the last few days have been, (and coming up with new ideas for comic books.)

I was the only guy in Trooper who wasn’t totally inspired by the ZZ TOP thing, and I didn’t say so at the time, cos what does it matter? I liked it, a lot, but have seen that stuff soooooo much on MTV, and I am not quite so nostalgic for the ’80s, and that is my association. I have never searched out and pursued that music. It was always THERE at every night club gig I ever did in the ’80s. Not music that I ever CHOSE to listen to. Ra and Smitty have a far deeper appreciation, as does Scott as well, and I was happy to see them so happy, you know. Don’t get me wrong. It was an $80 ticket, or whatever, and I loved the inside look at the thing, and the Bad Company guys were wonderful dining partners, and I had a great time. Great experience.

Scott slept the the next day, and I got up early and went into the hotel hallway, sat by a huge window overlooking the city and drew my cartoons. I guess the chamber maid wondered what the fak and called security, so a nice guy came up and chatted about ZZ TOP saying, “You didn’t meet them? They were here all week. There were everywhere I looked.” As I write this, I remember that Tracy’s dad still hasn’t heard these stories.

July 22nd, 2005 Fergus, ON Fergus Truck Show

I LOVE the Fergus truck show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love any auto show and attend hot rod and classic car shows whenever I can. I am planning on putting our wild quad bicycle and some mustang bikes into local shows this year, in fact, as well as the parades. So do you think I would dig a gig that has hundreds of the continent’s finest semi trucks on display! WOW!!!!!!!!!! Cool!

When we drove near the festival site, there were trucks for mile on the roads. You have never seen so many trucks. Frankie and I have a lot of bathroom humour and are still laughing about the possible deeper meanings of a truck show. My camera had a bad tape I guess, and was ejecting the tape, so I missed some good footage of great trucks. We got onsite, Scott didn’t want to leave the van and read his book, our soundman was mad, and I saw some big new shiny trucks. I talked to a promoter who told me about million dollar paint jobs, about THE BEAST and told me that if we showed up a bit early for the show, he could tour us around a bit. I had no problem convincing the band of this, so we hit the hotel, came back, met with my guests Derrick and his family and Paul, and we all sat in the back of a pick up truck and toured a bit the site. I really enjoy this. There was nowhere near enough time to see the whole million or so acres of trucks, or THE BEAST, and the promoter rattles off some statistics that I felt that I really should be writing down, if I wasn’t fiddling with my expensive and problematic video camera the whole time. We were told exactly how much booze was consumed per hour, how much money spent, how many acres of truck….every statistic except for what Frankie and I speculated on, which is how much waste is removed from the site.

I didn’t mention that when we first hit the site, the band DRY COUNTRY was playing some of the coolest country rock I have heard. I don’t know if it was just the perfect setting for this, or what, but I got the best Southern Rock musical experience walking into that crowd. Great guys in the band, had laughs a plenty backstage, stunned them by politely refusing a beer, and I tried to provide a website link here, but all I am finding is BON JOVI tribute pages, for whatever reason. I will look at the CD they gave me for a website address……………..here it is www.drycountryband.com….shite, doesn’t work………..drag……nice guys, great band……..

July 23rd, 2005 Mattawa, ON Voyageur Days 420km drive
July 23rd, 2005 Kirkland Lake, ON Community Complex

YA! 2 shows in one day! Beautiful part of the country. Nice drives, wonderful moment of downtime at a motel before the Mattawa gig. Great community, streets full of festival people. Motel owners gave us a day room for free (community spirit) and showed me their mint Bricklin sports car. I ate a can of tuna, band guys sat in the sun and talked on the phone, had showers, I didn’t unravel my recording machine as I had been doing every other day. I spent a lot of the summer with headphones on, mixing and editing music.

We drove down the people-lined street towards the outdoor stage, and I got out early cos I saw a van all covered in flags. I bought a full-size US flag with a peace sign where the stars normally go. Everyone I show it to loves it. It is TOTALLY out of an early ’70s MAD magazine. The band MOXY was playing, and I knew that it was something special. Sounded wild! Great! I met Greg Goddovich, or however spelt, from the band GODDO, really nice guy, other great band people, toured the museum backstage, left a funny note on a paper plate for Chilliwack, who were to be there the next day. Smitty wrote outrageous stuff on the note, and Ra got a bit mad at him. I think they were having a rare moment, dunno. Smitty plugged in a kettle or something in the dank basement and made an electrical stench. Our soundman wasn’t happy, and I couldn’t imagine NOT having a great time. I felt that we owned the place, and I played the show smiling away, videotaping people and zooming up on the 3 huge wooden crosses up on the mountainside above the lake. I made my 16th mini comic book, and the brand new monitor board that we carry around fell over on its face (knob side down….) Off to Kirkland Lake arena to do it all again, buzzed out on life……………

445 km Drive to Toronto airport, going as fast as we can in the van, phoning ahead to arrange check in, Dave intercepting rental return van, getting shuttled into a special airport room full of computers and band promo shots. Special room for late bands. Somehow, we made the plane……………..rush to catch the ferry, 3 cups of orange tea…………time for the camping trips that I blabbled about at the beginning of this report. Who wouldn’t love the Gulf Islands of British Columbia……………..rumour has it big-time USA government people are buying big homes in my area as a safe place to be, or run to. Everyone is copying me.

peace + love, to be continued:

love gogo

ARGUING WITH RA…..

My advice to anyone wishing to argue with Ra : don’t.

I took him on a few times in the van when I first joined the group. Issues that I really don’t know too much about, and stuff that doesn’t really even effect me. Native issues and stuff. Ra will nail you on this stuff. He will let you speak your bit, counter, and then ask you details of stuff you had said early into your presentation, asking for context, and as you try to remember what you said, justify it, he is killing you with more points, until you can’t breathe. He is that good. So don’t even try.

These days Ra and I don’t talk much. We are too busy laughing. I love the guy.

where were we…………….

NORTHERN  BRITISH  COLUMBIA    !!!!!!

The big bus rolls along and everyone appears awestruck by the massive ocean inlet, and mountain/gravel road twisty up and around experience. It’s either that, or watch Spaceballs and share in some movie laughs.  Bill Henderson sat across from me, and we managed to do both, and discuss West Coast life. You gotta see this from my point of view. Bill is a guy at the top of his game, (singing and writing music) and I am genuinely interested in his perspective, and I get to go on a 2-day holiday with him, and his band. It is a fortunate and timely experience, similar to hanging out with the Nazareth singer, or Ra McGuire. It is really great to hear how these cats see the world.  They are icon songwriters to more than one single generation of fans, and certainly amongst the greatest singers on earth.

Crab fest! That is where we were all heading. Imagine fresh crabs from just below the Alaska panhandle. I joked with Bill Henderson about going for sushi when we got there, and all he could say was “CRAB!!!!”
Well, we were both right. The bus pulled into the rainy village, dropped Chilliwack off into the basement of the bed and breakfast (where Trooper stayed). Chilliwack changed guitar stings, got ready to play, and we all walked the muddy road to the town hall for a feast. A local had taken a culinary arts course, and created salads, crab, sushi, potatoes; it all rolled out. A room full of people in festive foodland.

Although a doctor would have recommended some sleep, I chose to walk around the village and listen to Chilliwack’s set. I watched some natives fishing in a river while Bill and Ed Henderson rocked out the twin guitar leads for TRIAL BY FIRE. Let’s face it, the town still looked like a reserve, meaning no manicured lawns. People from other towns claim that this is a very rich group of people, but you wouldn’t see a grand di$play of wealth.  I am not to judge, but I would say that this is about the most together reserve I have been to (I didn’t have to touch the food stash I had brought along with me, that is for sure). We lived inside a Northern Postcard for a couple of days.

I decided that an hour of sleep would be a good idea, and by the time I got near the bed and breakfast, I had a mob of kids behind me. I became the pied piper of fun, I guess. Everyone was offering to take me fishing and sight seeing. You have to love these people! I did get one hour of sleep. When I awoke, the ladies who ran the house had pies for us, and we gathered in the town square, where EVERYONE joined us (the place was jammed packed), our crew sorted out technical problems, we went onstage, and the band visited a neighbor’s living room during my keyboard solo.

I swear that every person there had a digital camera. I have never had so many pictures taken (per capita) ….my gig bag got locked in a room  backstage (where a window got kicked in)…the chief sent out a request to meet with us…..more digital pictures……the muddy streets FULL of people…..and it was 4am.!!!!!!!!!!! Like a mardi gras in this village. Do these people ever sleep? I walked back the few blocks to the Bed and Breakfast, looked at the pie, chatted with Ra about some ridiculous technical problem I had onstage (like he needs to hear THAT BS after a beautiful show!) had some cheese and crackers, had a few hours nap and woke up to the house full of people with plates and plates full of pancakes, eggs, bacon…back into the bus with Chilliwack and company, someone put in a live U2 DVD which got shouted down by band people who would enjoy a quiet moment (they were yelling and swearing, quite funny!) No stopping at the waterfall, we make the flight in Terrace, back to Vancouver, bye bye to Chilliwack, Scott, Dave and I split a cab to the ferry, and drive up to the Colleiry Dam park for an evening swim..SUMMER! HOME! YA! This time I have way too many stories to tell my friends, so we just hang out and make new laughs.

FEW DAYS OFF AT HOME!!!!!!!!

So we circumnavigate Newcastle Island Provincial Marine Park in the Zodiac and stop for a swim at Kanaka Bay, the best white sandy beach for miles around, and there is nobody there, cos the tiny clouds scare people away. I really have fun with different water qualities and smells of nature. You bet that the river smells and feels different than a lake, or ocean, and don’t be thinking that all lakes smell the same either. So again we stomped our baby new Protection Island lawn to death with a 30-person bar-b-que and sushi freak-out, rescued 2 vintage mustang bicycle frames from another collector, and caught the 7pm ferry with Scott and Dave so we could snooze at an airport hotel by midnight.
I sure have noticed a lot less BIG campers on the ferry with USA license plates this summer.
4:30 am  shuttle to Vancouver airport, fresh apples at hotel desk, onto Ontario, Toronto, drive to Smith Falls:

July 9th, 2005  Augusta, ON  Augusta Summer Jam  –360km drive

This is, of course, the chocolate capital of Canada, so as soon as I got checked into the hotel, I borrowed the van and drove straight to the Hershy factory. WOW could you smell the fresh chocolate in the air. I brought my video camera for this part of the tour, so I have some nice shots of the locked factory doors, and of the security guard with the huge handful of fresh (and dated) chocolate bars that he gave me for being such an enthusiast.

—-TIME OUT

Up until this point, you probably thought that I was a decent enough guy. You didn’t know how out-of-it and socially irresponsible I really am. Just took a break from typing this up (and music practicing, of course!) , drove to Ladysmith, up the Island highway, to buy 2 violins form an antique store (one looks and sounds like it just fell out of a haunted house!) I love it! So a cop pulls me over for a seatbelt check, and asks if I have insurance for the TOYOTA star car. I figure YA, and he asks if I would sit in the back of the cop car and talk to him. Ok, I am flabbergasted when he tells me that my insurance has run out in July (this is October) and says that he would have to tow the car and give me a fine. I DO realize that it is pretty irresponsible and dangerous to have no insurance, sure I don’t drive much, whatever, but I never noticed, and I guess it expired when I was on the road. The cop said that he missed the Duncan Trooper show, and that I can walk up the street to get insurance, so he doesn’t have to tow me, and then he showed me a book that had all the fines in it, from $800 to $109, so he gave me the cheaper one and said that I could save $25 if I pay it right away. Cheaper than the insurance would have cost. I probably shouldn’t tell this story, but it was an HONEST MISTAKE! OK!!!!!!!!!!

…………..back to the chocolate factory the next day after the Augusta gig…(a long drive down deserted country roads, Frankie performed a huge and explosive plastic bucket solo, speaking of dangerous, had some free chicken that was marinated for 3 days, had a different soundman, had an outdoor stage, had some huge plastic containers of veggies that I brought back to the hotel ‘fridge),had a great night ……I continued the home video with Scott, Dave and Craig, back to the HERSHY factory. This time, we toured the plant and bought (well, I did anyway) big heavy bags of a variety of almond bars, pieces (mini M and Ms) and junk that I must keep cool all summer if I want to bring all it home as gifts). So there I start the tour with a duffle bag HEAVY with chocolate. I don’t plan on the bag being lighter, and me heavier by the end of the tour, either!  I also walked around the Rideux locks with the video camera and started my home movie in a historical and boring touristy-narrated fashion.

Next up: two days off in Kinston Ontario during the greatest heat wave they have hosted in 100 years. The hotel we stayed at was quite a bit older than that. My goal was to borrow the van again and drive up to Sharbott Lake and stay with my cousins family at their lake-front cottage, (or retreat center, as I see it.) I invited all, and the same gang that accompanied me to the chocolate factory joined in on the fast boating adventure of Sharbott Lake. The first thing my cousin Billly said was, “Are you ready to go boating?” I brought the wild assortment of veggies from the last backstage deli scene; more than twice what we needed for the outdoor campfire stir-fry, and the lake water was actually warm, warmest lake I have ever swam in, in fact, so I probably spent more time in the water than out. I was assigned my own little cabin, but I didn’t check the window screen, and the mosquitoes drove me insane all night. Not normally like that at Sharbott Lake, but these things cycle, you know. The highlight of the trip, besides visiting family, was the traditional midnight 30mph sea-doo boat glide across the lake to see the stars at night, while listening to the loons. This is cottage country living at its finest!

The next day we drove back into Kingston and I walked around shopping, trying to find the frilly leather cowboy jacket that forever escapes me. Ridiculous trying on jackets in over 40o heat! We stopped into our favorite army surplus shop and I got into misty mountain pants, and some great red cotton hospital trousers. Perfect for the beach, or if you have to get institutionalized, you are already dressed for it. Dave got a great cowboy stage shirt for his drumming at MEGALICIOUS gigs, (which I poo-pooed and later reneged) and I found white and black tilly hats that I seem to think look like pirate hats. I also bought a ton of beautiful nectarines on sale.

The big day was to follow. I had phoned the HAWKINS CHEEZIE factory the previous day and enquired about factory tours. I was told that they don’t do that type of thing, so I continued the conversation with some Trooper talk, and we set a time when I could drop in and say hi. I was all alone on this pilgrimage to the holy land. My travel buddies were all junk-food-factoried-out, so I once again borrowed the van keys at 11 am, got a map and hit the highway. Up to Belleville to fulfill my lifetime dream. The trip to thee holy land!

The CHEEZIE factory is a long white building, about the size of a high school gym, smells a bit like cheese(!), has a typical old office with friendly people, (where they printed Trooper stuff for me to sign for their kids). I didn’t actually get to walk the factory floor. I could see inside when the doors opened, and there were people with net hats, crazy big machines and stacks of huge bags of what I think is cornmeal. A nice lady gave me the last CHEEZIES T-Shirt and hat that they had in stock, and I was presented with a box of 36 bags of FREAH cheezies, and to be honest, they tasted a whole lot like the ones you get off of a shelf, owing to the efficiency of their distribution.

I learned that this product is the ONLY snack food made with real cheese, so it is quite expensive to make, is only sold in Canada and generates about $20 million per year. Most of the staff is seasonal, cos they sell more in July than they do in January. Fascinating, and now I have a box of cheezies to stuff inside the duffle bag, to bring home to the good folks of Protection Island. I also learned that the word CHEEZIE is now in THE  dictionary, and that we can all be proud that our national snack food (my title) is run by some really fun and friendly people. I got some great video footage on that ungodly hot afternoon. The president, and son of the founder, Mr. Hawkins himself, was JUST in the office, I just missed him, so I left him a decent fan letter.

I jogged that night in the serious summer heat, past the great stone mansions of Kingston, Ra talked to a book publisher, Tracy-Lyn’s Grandmother died back home, and I figured that I would still be on the road during the funeral season. I really enjoyed our visits to Port Alberni to see Grandma Sask. Sad, but not unexpected, as these things can be. Four people also died in Ontario from the heat, and power consumption was at an all-time-high. I tried to talk Scott into turning the air conditioner OFF, cos I love those nights when it is too hot to sleep, but he is the ICE KING, and he overheats and can’t breath if it is anything less than freezing. Other than that, we are quite compatible room mates. He gets the air conditioner (ice furnace) and I get the TV. I NEVER watch TV at home, but on the road it is the only person who truly understands me.

July 1st, 2005    Grande Prairie, AB    Spilchen Country Fever Music Festival   420km

The small plane was totally full of our stage gear. Shuttle to hotel, nap, Scott had terrible nachos, the other guys had cream soups and fish and chips in a really boring restaurant. I always thought it funny to go to the prairies to have fish and chips (especially when you just left Halifax!). I remember being in the middle of  nowhere in particular and asking about getting to the festival, which was considerably far away, and it looking like I was not going to see (or hear) THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND.  The afternoon got a bit boring, everyone doing their own thing. I jogged the sunny highway. Cowboy hats are everywhere. My fancy cowboy shirt and hat are not so unusual anymore. Big muddy trucks everywhere. The landscape has changes over that last day.

Finally, we get a shuttle to the gig, a big empty arena. I met a nice guy who was driving a stretch golf cart and chatted about Bathtub weekend (he knew his stuff) as I got a personal tour of the site ending up at the outdoor stage where I climbed the side of the stage to be with the others grooving to THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND! Talk about perfect timing, and what a cooooool group. Violin! YAAAA! I met a couple of the guys afterwards and they were gracious. Great band, great sound.

One local suggested to me that we should expect about half of the crowd that I saw for the Dirt Band (about 1200). I had a nice little laugh to myself about that. I knew that people would fall from the sky. One other guy said “you look like John Denver.” Exactly the kinda thing that actually really bugs me, but for some reason didn’t this time. I am trying to be a little bit more like my hero Frank Ney, our ex-mayor, who was UNFLAPPABLE. Who cares if someone thinks I look like John Denver?

So I chatted up THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND banjo player, super friendly grey bearded guy. Anyone who walks around with a grey beard playing banjo is alright by me. Took the big neat-o golf cart back to our arena venue, had some horrible sandwiches a cement room with 5 metal chairs. Horrible sandwiches. There was a door to the outside where nobody was, so you could take a pee there in private, I guess. It was a woodsy area, like a race track outside of a town.

The crowd arrived and the arena overflowed with people, and LIFE. The best crowd that you could ever want, except for the big buffoon who almost broke my fingers with a handshake. So I go onstage for the encore thinking, man, I have a whole tour to play and this guy almost puts me out of work. That is why I hand slap people so much. I don’t care if this sounds wimpy. This is my GIG, and my LIFE.

The sun never did go down, being quite North as we were, and everyone sang THE GIRL FROM EMPANITA or whatever the hell it is called. Frankie says that he always plays that at home in the kitchen when he is cooking. Back to the hotel, bit of a drive, 1 1/2 hours sleep, and I had no serious nap that day cos I was too excited to jog around, look at dirty trucks and figure out what songs THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND plays.

So, 5am leave. My duffle bag is getting heavy, at least down all those stairs at that hour. Shuttle to airport, travel trip: bananas don’t last long in duffle bags in the summer. Good news from home; Tracy cut the lawn that we just planted 2 months ago on Protection Island. Didn’t know at this point that as soon as I get home we are going to have all the locals stomp it back to death. The section under the hammock doesn’t stand a chance. All the kids go CRAZY. Oh well…………..

June 15th, 2005    Oshawa, ON    The Big Sexy    60km
June 16th, 2005    Acton, ON    Manny’s Roadhouse   115km
June 17th, 2005    Ottawa, ON    Lonestar Cafe       460km
June 18th, 2005    Innisfil, ON    Summerfest           430km
June 22nd, 2005    Cambridge, ON    Little Big Horn        151km

I think we flew here again. And my notes say “embarassing anon cement”. Unless I figure out what that means by the time we post this, I will leave it like that, cos I can not think of what could possibly be embarrassing.

Oh, I know, the announcer at the airport made an “embarrassing announcement” inviting members of Trooper to breeze past everyone else. People were Ok with it, and we took some photos and signed things at security. A lady told me all about how cheezies are made, so I made a friend out of the deal.

We hoteled beside the GM car plants, a metal magazine asked us about DEEP PURPLE, I wish I knew more (you gotta ask NAZARETH that one!)

Some of these gigs have already melded together for me. We played a wild old airplane hanger, turned night club, with a rounded metal roof, and an owner who has a great history with the unique building. Our soundman said he had a hard time with the sound, and I detected that he wasn’t completely happy with the tour in general. Just my feeling, dunno. We drove 20 minutes from one town to another, stayed, played, ate a stack of fried sandwiches upstairs in a house next to the wild airplane dome club. We signed some butts, and the pictures that ended up in the big 2-page GLOBE AND MAIL article were taken at this gig, the least attended of the entire summer, ironically enough.  The GLOBE photographer came out for the show and we all had some laughs and songs at the hotel Karaoke bar afterwards. Great brotherhood.

We did another outdoor show where the Canadian great singer, Keith Hampshire showed up with his daughter, also a friend of ours. I hope I properly expressed my respect to this dynamite singer. He is the DAYTIME- NIGHTTIME guy, (walking  down the street everyone I meet says she’s fine….) and I think he caught me singing it to the cop outside the dressing room door. Ya, I think he knows I am a fan. My notes say “cops/handcuffs/hold/Scott beer/ Golf car smash/ girls arguing yelling”…. meaning I gotta keep better notes. I do remember girls yelling and generally berating some poor shmucks, and I also recall trying to smash a golf car into a wall, which I quite enjoy. A couple of years ago, a promoter mentioned that that was not a good sport, but I have fun with it. The gig was also a smash.

We stayed somewhere in a hotel that had 2 swimming pools, the outdoor one not yet inspected, so Scott and Smitty were not allowed to sit next to it. I spent a lot of time in the indoor pool, walking around and playing with my little hotel room studio. This was the first day of summer, and I am getting a bit nostalgic here thinking about it. I love summer, love being on  the road, love life. There was a restaurant here that I avoided. Everyone told me that there was every type of food available at a buffet, which I don’t need. I walked illegally under an bridge to get to a grocery store, tried to read a really stupid, boring and irritating book about KEITH MOON, had a 4-day juice fast, and was verbally bull-shitted to at a bike store when I tried to talk about 1970s mustang bikes. Some clown told me that I will never find one, and that he sold his for $8 000 each. As I write this, I have 8 of them under restoration, 4 running. Must be worth a FORTUNE! WOW! Why are guys at bicycle stores so weird to me? This happens a lot (guys being weird to me in bike shops). Maybe I am not high-tech enough.

We all brainstormed and made the ultimate campfire song list in the van one day, I wrote it all down put the paper with the road report notes and lost some pages, including the ultimate campfire song list. I later recreated the list of 50 songs at home from memory (I DO remember SOME things!) and printed booklets to play on a 6-string banjo around a fake light bulb campfire for special needs people in my hometown.

Frankie ripped the crotch out of his stage pants, and gaffed-taped them back together, and it being summer, when a lot of guys don’t wear underwear, he had a hard time getting undressed. In fact he skinned his nuts. Poor guy. He zipped his dick on the last tour, I do recall. My notes also say ‘Scott pee picture/ Lebanese food guy/ met the road hammers/ long-time fans/4th day juice fast”  These notes are never as bad as they sound. Oh ya, Scott took a pee outside of a dressing room door and a girl tried to take picture of him. Don’t know how the picture turned out, probably didn’t cos it was night time. We have noticed some people at gigs who have been to well over 100 of our shows, and my juice fast made me feel alive, not hungry or angry. I decided to cut the fast short cos I AM on the road, and I shouldn’t be experimenting with crazy spiritual diets when I have shows to play.

June 23rd, 2005    Toronto, ON    Hard Rock Cafe

Broke my juice fast with a wonderful veggie burger while sitting on the sidewalk cafe portion of the hard rock cafe downtown Toronto. I couldn’t resist that, and it doesn’t burn a hole in my magical aura either. Lots of ketchup. Ate on the street listening to Kim Mitchell spin old Max Webster songs on site in a glass booth on Young Street from his radio DJ gig. I had a salad as well. Delicious. I paid my Visa bill off in town, and went shopping with Scott. Ra saw everyone in the band during his walk around town, which is remarkable for a huge city like that. I guess we all go to the same type of places. This is where I bought the ultra-cool black cowboy shirt. I tried 3 different frilly leather jackets (all brown) but nothing really fit. Kinda hot out to be looking for the ultimate cool jacket, but the search continues year in and out.) Frankie saw a mob of neo-hippy people all walk into a park and pee into the fountain at the same time, protesting something, until the cops chased them away. Frankie said that it was bizarre and not good dinner entertainment.

Our hotel was right downtown, overlooking Saint Michaels music academy and school. I went to see the Saint Michaels Choir when I was a kid and dreamed about going to a school like that. I had a piano teacher once who went to that school, and he happened to be the greatest musician I have ever met. I stood in the hotel hallway looking out a window overlooking the uniformed music students playing basketball, thinking how strange, varied and wonderful life is. There were beggars outside of the hotel door, and here we are being treated like kings in that city.

My fave Canadian comedian friend Harry Doupe was backstage at the Hard Rock Cafe gig, as was the woman (Shauna MacDonald) who plays Erica Miller, Julian’s cop girlfriend on The Trailer Park Boys. She has been recording CBC radio stuff with Ra, and is a totally talented and genuinely nice person. Her friends were also a gas backstage, and I didn’t have the nerve to be a shmoe and ask her for a photo of me being arrested, as Julian was at the end of the (3rd) TPB season. Every so often I try to be cool. I have seen every episode of TPB several times. I think it is really funny, and original.

We had a smashing gig, a total excellent city crowd at the t-shirt booth, and as divine luck would prevail, Erica Miller asked me if I would like to have me picture taken being arrested. Neat hey? Peter Cheney had finished his assigned tour with the band and took his wife to this gig, we got him up to sing, and we kept them up near 5am, Trooper style.  Toronto is a great party town.

I got up early enough the next day to find one of those hot dog cats with the big veggie dogs that I love so much, and stood around waiting for Ukrainian Dancers to dance, but had to go before I got to see that part of the ethnic food festival (and tupperware!) that I cruised. I walked up and down Young Street and donated $ to a big black man in a beautiful suit who was handing out a 4-page booklet  listing invention by black people, celebrating black month. The idea being to create more understanding. Later in the van, while Smitty kept up with the WILD Toronto highway traffic, I read the list in the van and we all delighted at the booklet. All inventions: Keyboard stand, kitchen table, folding kitchen table, motor……….The cool stuff you find traveling! Meanwhile I am making peace signs at kids in school buses. They go crazy for that, you know.

June 24th, 2005    Trenton, ON    Ride for Sight  430km

1000 motorbikes, big huge guy backstage. The PA snake was patched wrong and we found this out right before we went on. Big outdoor stage. I remember this one very well. We were delayed going on while that OA problem was fixed. Frankie discovered it. It was actually a bit of a bad vibe. The gig went well, people were great, but too far back from the stage. Before we left, Ra had a talk with the crew, and I talked to a guy who said that he bought a bike at walmart, had one little bump with the thing and the forks are all bent to hell. I say get a REALLY good new one, or an old one and restore it. Better yet, restore a bunch of them. What the hell. I can sure change subjects well, can’t I?

Somewhere about this time we had a day off and had a family bar-b-que at Peter Cheney’s house, which turned into a late-night fun party. They live in a quiet neighborhood right downtown Toronto, where kids can leave their bikes at the park overnight. Peter bar-b-ques peppers and asparagus, which we all do at home now, telling each other that we had a Cheney Bar-B-Que. He also has the lightest and fastest bicycle I have ever tried.

June 25th, 2005    Lucknow, ON    Strawberry Summerfest   386km

I slept all day. Don’t know what was so tired. Lots and lots of going up and down these huge Toronto highways. There is nowhere to pull over sometimes, and although this is a bit personal, I came as close as I ever plan to peeing my pants. Actually this is quite serious. We spend HOURS in these vans. If we are at a stop, and I think I even may have to go at all, I will. Go when you can, not always when you need to. I drink a TON of water on the road. It keeps me awake healthy and in good spirits.

We played a packed-out sports complex, and the ZOMBIE fan club arrived with a big sign. (ZOMBIE is a set of 2 purple push mowers I restored last year.)  I wanna post the picture of these guys, if I can get Craig to send it to me in time. Craig has THOUSANDS of pictures on file. This crowd was like a huge theatre crowd, meaning that they really LISTEN, making me play better, I know that much. Our new road manager is ready to quit the tour, I feel.

We had more than our share of laughs in the van, and went 3am shopping at an all-night grocery store. I got cans of peas, salmon cream cheese, asparagus and stoned wheat crackers. Ra got the hugest bag of fake cheezies that I have ever seen. Really funny. The people at the front desk didn’t want any fake cheezies. They were more like cheese puffs, really.

Tracy phoned me at 5am, telling me that my brother Tommy fell off a ladder, needs shoulder and hand surgery, not good for a fabulous musician. He can play any instrument, but has taken up big man work lately, I guess. He had to play one hand gigs for a while. The doctors did an amazing job. I have have always been really careful on ladders (other than 4 years ago when KEVIN and I tried to winterize my mountain house, and my ladder fell over while he dropped a big piece of plywood ). My brother and I were brought up to be in the performing art more than so than the industrial arts. I CAN build things, but slowly with no power tools or ladders. Funny that I should have a massive collection of aluminum ladders. Comes with having several cabins, I guess………

ANYWAY……………….Ra is really good at naming and putting years to cars on the highway, like “hey, 1963 Pontiac.” I believe he has a brother who builds hot rods. When I was a kid I could name every car. Not so much these days.

June 28th, 2005    Moncton, NB    Rockin’ Rodeo   245km

I think this was the one where a ton of teenagers surrounded our van outside. Wow, what a great crowd in Glace Bay, wild theatre crowd, always a delight to meet these folks at the T-shirt booth, different from any others in the country. Genuine! We stay at a luxury waterfront hotel in Sydney. I space out watching the boats at sea, and always jog the wooden walkway along the waterfront. I also check house prices at the local real estate office. Wow. $25 000 big houses. Wacky. A bit cheaper than Vancouver.

June 30th, 2005    Halifax, NS    Casino Nova Scotia485km

Smallest washroom I have ever seen on the airplane. Went to the maritimes, hung out with Jim Clench, APRIL WINE bass player, at the historic Halifax waterfront. I run into him quite a bit these days in different towns, including my hometown where he put my friends on a guest list at the Cowichan Theatre. I am the dink that yells FREEBIRD when the quiet moment happens. Jim is a nice guy, gentle soul.

I have a nice collection of canned food with me at this point. Swam all day at an outdoor pool in Moncton. Smitty had the WORST mexican food. Had a nice turkey buffet at the casino in Halifax. A bit of a seniors, cruise ship type menu. The cast of the Trailer Park Boys were out of town shooting their movie, so no run ins there, stayed at the finest waterfront hotel in Halifax, walked the waterfront, listened to ALBERTA BOUND performed by a real live maritime band.  I love it.  Love Halifax, always have. Occasional smell of bad sewer from the harbour. I read about someone who dove in to save a tourist who fell into the sea and had to be treated for possible infections after being in the water. Come on you guys. I swim in the Nanaimo harbour every day in the summer, just dive off the zodiac, it is beautiful, and natural, cos we have a state-of-the-art sewer processing plant. Cost a huge $$$$$$$, but we did it., and so can others, including VICTORIA British Columbia. Ok there is my rant.

Played a packed-out full house gig right on the Halifax waterfront (Loverboy the next day) and Ra said something funny to the kids who sat on a hill overlooking the stage. 6am leave. Don’t think our crew got to see much of Halifax. Both flights 1st class that day. Quieter engine noise up there, better magazines, and great food! A special vegi lunch was made on the spot for Dave.  People in the cheap seats eat pretzels. One more flight to Grande Prairie Alberta on a small prop plane. Must be why we left so early.

OK! I have a cold, it is fall, raining, just spent 2 days (mornings) hanging out with our Scottish brothers, the band NAZARETH, on Vancouver Island, listened to great stories, (the one about the frozen corpses of derelicts in Russia being loaded into carts on the street was good), we all said good-bye after they discovered that someone had entered their tour bus, stolen their passports, personal items, and beer. So the visit ended on a bummer note, and I managed to rescue a guy who was laying on the road, all beat to crap by strangers on the way back home. I think it was a fairly greasy town they were playing. I pick up lots of hitchhikers in my time, but rarely ones that are bleeding and laying in the middle of the road.

Here is a chance to do some typing. I have a cold, so I can’t think straight enough to drill on the old classical piano trip. Hey, got pulled over by the cop for having no car insurance today. It ran out quite awhile ago, I didn’t know. Ran out last summer when we were on tour, actually. There can be a $800 fine for that, you know, and they tow your car. I DO realize that it is massively irresponsible to have no insurance, sure I don’t drive much, whatever, but that is no excuse.  If I had hit someone, they would have no recourse to protect themselves with. My insurance normally covers the maximum for other people, (cos I DO care!) but nothing for me. I don’t worry about my car being stolen or damaged.  The cop was very understanding (he missed our Duncan gig!) and ironically, my fine was actually a lot less than the in$urance that I didn’t pay. I should donate the difference to some relevant charity. I could also pay more attention to important things other than music and West Coast adventures, I guess. I had just consumed my mind with a local gig, playing with the band THE THIEVES at a benefit for Pierre and Sonia’s baby, who is battling cancer. Beautiful little guy. He is going to be fine, I just know it.

Pierre is the sax player I record with, and also a real great and popular guy. The show was sold waaaaaay out around the block, 15 turkeys were cooked up, 9 bands played, and I did the entire show with the headliners, all unrehearsed on my part, except for the couple of my songs that they did. The next night I played their full show, and showed them 2 more of my songs during the break. It gets pretty crazy with all the megaphone yelling, theramin soloing and audience spazzing. Real fun. No wonder I never noticed my car insurance running out last summer.

And, the only driving I do on the road is back from the gig with my madly laughing bandmates beside me, and NEVER in my car, of course. Ok road report:

LETS START THE SUMMER TOUR!!!!!!!!!

You know when your parents had really good friends that you would call UNCLE or AUNTY, even though you know you are not related? My Uncle Ted turned 80 just before we left for tour, so I wrote a bouncy song about him (based on the Mr. Chris song, who happens to be Uncle Ted’s son). Being that my Dad is not around to represent himself anymore, I recreated the 3-piece singing group that my Dad had in 1947 with Uncle Ted. I learned and made a medley of the stuff from their 78, threw the UNCLE TED song into the set, and headlined a huge birthday party. I became the big party-goof with the microphone for most of it, and surprised myself with the fact that I AM turning into my dad. Happens.

Tracy and I found wrought iron fence panels, with great metal leaves and vines,  all assembled beside a dumpster, cleaned and painted it all, and I cemented that stuff vertically into the top of big rock wall, creating the Japanese Sushi garden (and clematis trellis). Another of my Gulf Island dreams. I make 20 big sushi rolls for every party we have, (under the hanging purple flowers) and only once did I ever bring sushi back back to town (cos it got too dark to see where anything was).

Tracy got really good at driving the zodiac, I got good at laying around and looking at the clouds during the saluvrious Nanaimo harbour crossings. Scott Brown, Dave Hampshire (now Trooper Tour Manager) and I put together a working rock band MEGALICIOUS, and we gigged as a 3-piece (Dave on drums, Scott and I singing), and as a 4-piece with a singing guitar player, and as a 5-piece, with a singer and a guitar player. All EXCELLENT players, all FUN gig$. We stomped every other club act that played the big music venue 3-blocks from my studio, and had an all-night piano party afterwards. Nice to have success in the world of fun.

My purple-star ebay site got hacked into, and a guy sold thousands of $ in undelivered good to people, using my good name, and I managed to clear that up, which is a pain in the time clock, and I built a bike stand to hold the increasing bike collection. We got  a couple of nice orders for my dinosaur sculptures, and we made a light-weight carry-on case for my 16-track audio studio recorder. I woke up at 5am and caught the ferry to go on the Trooper summer tour. My Mom offered to get up early and drive me to the ferry (where I met Scott and Dave) just like the old days. She said that she is proud of me and also I love you, which is nice.

CALGARY………..TROOPER IS ON THE ROAD!!!!!!!!!

June 9th, 2005    Calgary, AB    Q107 Studio Q

I am not yet in road mode. Not at all actually. Even says so in my scribble notes. We set ourselves into a downtown hotel, took a van to a radio station and rehearsed and sound checked for a live on-air TROOPER performance. Fun hanging out in a decent recording studio, laughing with the totally cool people who work there, drinking tea, listening to the guys play their stuff. Smitty is a great improv rock player. I have never met anyone who can play like that. Experimental and greasy. Excellent. The rehearsal went perfectly, and the next day I say the performance went as equally well. The big recording room was FULL of radio station listeners, and there was enough pizza for everyone, including our stage manager Craig, who was eating the whole time, which I thought was fascinating. Our promotions manager, Heather and her husband, Brian, were on hand to joke with, and the red light went on, we played to the sit down crowd, song after song, and who knows what happens with that tape. Someone, I dunno.

Neat way to start a tour actually. A few of the band guys walked around town through a total rainstorm on one of those days, I bought new sandals, browsed at the Mountain Equipment Co-op store where my friend Myles works ( so he can’t stand around and chat about Gabriola Island all day), and I got totally soaked in the early summer rain. Had a day off after the radioQ show, set up my hotel room audio studio, as would be my project for the summer, mixed some bass and drum stuff, went grocery shopping for nice soups, and according to these notes, fields of green. OK, ya, during the drives, fields of green, lots of them.

June 11th, 2005    Vulcan, AB    Spock Days

Ok, I may claim to be clever, but don’t believe it. I had the worst stage sound ever at the Spock days festival. Never had a stage sound so bad, like a distorted grinding howling tunnel of noise, and it wasn’t until after the show that I figured out why. We were presented with SPOCK ears before the show; actual genuine rubber VULCAN ears that fit right over your natural EARTH ears, and I was bent on wearing them all night. I adjusted them every few minutes, not thinking for a second that that is what was making the band all sound weird and distorted in my head. Had a gas with the gig and the people, of course and loved the town, and all its sci-fi buildings. Loved the people all done up trekky as well, especially the biker with the Star Trek 2 outfit and make-up.

Cool town. Like it!

June 12th, 2005    Thunder Bay, ON    Fort Williams Historical Park

Fly to Thunder Bay. My audio recorder case is of shiny black cloth with Scull and Cross bones painted on it (I used the stencil from the flags I make for the rock wall poles). Funny thing, I NEVER got asked to open this dangerous-looking case while going through airport security. I thought they would take me for a real pirate for sure. Man, I don’t fool anyone!

Met Darby Mills (The HEADPINS singer) at an airport and she told us that there are 30 000 people at the big rock festival. I saw 20 000 for sure, when we arrived at the site, and was told that there were way more people behind the hill. Scott and I cramped into the back of a rock and roll van and we entered a huge fair site, greeted with the PRISM guys, listened to a bit of their set, ate a bit of the food backstage (pitas, nuts, chips and salsa, apples), and our road manager was surprised that we would all take off and go back to the hotel, “you don’t have enough time!” We do manage to do a lot in a short stretch of time, it is wild, funny and true.

We met with Peter Cheney, the reporter with Canada’s National Newspaper THE GLOBE AND MAIL. Together we would all travel for 4 or 5 day, all becoming very great friend. I totally liked Peter right away. Was he at this gig? Sure he was. We headlined this huge festival in Thunder Bay, where we are always very well received. Great people. Excellent way to start the tour, in fact. People everywhere, a laugh a minute. Frank Baretta, and Greg Malo, (and Paul Jokelanen) took amazing pictures, people crowd-surfed, a guy got his head cut when he fell down and the airline stewardesses showed up, so we gave them a ride back to their hotel in the bus provided for us. This was the beginning of the laughing session that went on all summer.

Frankie did a wonderfully funny airline-style SEAT BELT demonstration at the front of the bus, narrated by one of the flight attendant girls, and the bus turned around to shine lights on the people who had to pee outside, total rock and roll laugh stuff. We are all quite elated after a gig like that. The vibe is electric. A good high to start the tour rolling.

Scott was interviewed by someone from a fitness magazine. I don’t know why they didn’t talk to me. Scott probably exercised.

June 13th, 2005    Atikokan, ON    Celebration Centre 205km drive

I went to the venue (a big hall) early because it was a part of a golf course, and I love driving golf carts all over the place. I went over a wooden bridge, over a river, and up a crazy dirt road, and decided not to flip the thing. Amazing what those little cars can do. I have to practice to keep up to Protection Island traffic you know.

This town was full of terrific people, very accommodating. Peter and I golf-carted around, he telling me silly stories of his war reporting, the Shiites in Iraq, (“it was like woodstock. Fields covered in people, I helped a man burry his dead mother”) Afghanistan……….. You would love Peter. He has seriously been around the world, races bicycles (by himself) and has a wonderful family life. He became part of the band always asking questions.

Smitty fixed his in-ear monitors, Scott golfed, I slapped mosquitoes,  and our new friend Patricia, drove us around and told stories of her film projects. This gig was particularly special by the accommodations provided. Ok, Patricia then drives out to a resort, a compound by a lake and we sign into our own rooms, totally quiet, no TVs, no BS. It is a total spiritual retreat centre, or conference facility, if you like. PERFECT place for a religious cult. Reminds me of what I read about Maharishi MeshYogi’s Ashram in Rikadesh where the Beatles studied with Donovan a Mia Farrow after summer of love. I walked by the lake, didn’t swim cos the mosquitoes threatened to finish me off, found an empty log cabin, went back to the hotel did some audio studio mixing, decided the silence was much better and had the clearest meditation of the entire summer.

Ra asked the security people at the gig to move the stage barricade over so that the kids could get up to the stage (it was a divided and licenced venue) and the kids loved him for the consideration, (they also loved when Scott threw his beer bottles too!) and we went to the upstairs backstage for a long piano sing-along with the locals, the whole thing peaking with SWEET CAROLINE. All I remember is HANDS REACHING out. Dozens of them above my head. A moment that you could never recreate or fake. It was here on the piano bench when I was informed that Michael Jackson got off on all the charges. I knew a guy who ran our local boys club like that. A story for another day, or not.

Oh ya! It was Ra’s birthday!!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder we got so festive!!!!!! There was a ton of food, 2 cakes, one with Ra’s photo printed onto it. He was gifted with a magnificent handmade paddle, significant of the significant local canoe culture, and we sang a million significant songs, and Mike, the new road manager was happy and loving. We helped him back to the retreat later, and several of our gang stayed up with Peter until the sun came up and the birds decided to start singing to us.

We had an early leave the next morning, so we all gathered for a huge breakfast and marveled at how much bacon Craig can eat. Peter said it was remarkable how I am so up-and-ready and chipper after so little sleep. Designated drivers are like that, I guess. I was a bit tired, but the vibe of the retreat, and the meditating did energize me. The sing-along mass freak-out was a wee bit electrifying as well. So you don’t know whether to be tired or all buzzed out.

Late September 2005
Frankie said that he would die in a year if he worked at a chocolate factory. That is the first scribble on my 6 pages of summer scribbles, and I believe it.

Wow, am I behind in these road reports! Ya Ya. I get up extra early these early fall days to spend the mornings practicing piano, and a couple other instruments that I am experimenting with, for fun. Gotta get yer kicks. I can think way sharper in the morning. At night I am junk. Is everyone like that?

So I start to type this out, and already, there is someone at the studio door. Tap Tap, and then a guy’s voice, great, won’t go away no matter how long I let him tap tap. And now a visitor. Yap Yap Yap. Problem with having a studio at home. When you have your own schedule, people think you have no schedule. On road trips, and during summer, time happily does not exist. When autumn sets in, days are subdivided into hours. Time to get stuff done. And now a visitor. How lovely, back in a flash. Oh yes, I know that piece, I’ll play it, ya Bach, nutty………….fumble………..

Ok, back again, I won’t yet write about the Chilliwack concert in Nanaimo tomorrow, and the following trip that we are making to Protection Island with Bill Henderson, cos that hasn’t happened yet. How about I start on these horrible, old, shaky, van-written road notes?:

NOTES ON THE PLANE……

Ok, 7am flight, Air Canada Vancouver – Winnipeg. Scott Brown, Dave Hampshire, Gogo, truck, ferry to Vancouver, tea, sleep, shuttle from funny Swiss-Country Hotel (with free apples) to Vancouver International airport. Long security line, big bag of lunch, corny music, sit down with a copy of ELLE pinched from the 1st class magazine stash as I walk by. I always store my carry on bag near the front of the plane as well, easier to depart that way. Nice orange-shirted gramma beside me. Always disappointed when I ask real life questions to elderly people and get “oh we had a TV!” answers. I wanna hear how people were amazed at the inception of abstract expressionism in this country, not, “Oh, we made do.” Baby crying behind me. Craig (stage manager) is looking sleepy with his new short hair-do. I could use a plane trip. I love when the thing drives really fast on the ground. People still getting seated, Frankie, formally, “Gogo,” and sticks his butt in my face. Last flight he playfully humped the top of Scott’s seat. This was his mild, mild entrance.

Frankie is not shy. Oh Man can he read drum charts. When I get to sit next to him on planes, he sight-reads drum music charts in real-time. Total city boy. When he was a kid, he would go into Vancouver with a tape deck, record the traffic and city noise. He played it at home as background music. I had the same fascination with hardcore MUZAK for a while when I was a kid. I wanted to UNDERSTAND muzak, so I cranked it up all day, which is the first mistake. (All they do is play vocal melodies on piano bass notes and dick with the phrasing.) Our poor mothers.

What a gas! Out for 3 Trooper shows in 2 days. Going to a reserve town up North.  A 9-seat plane  for us and all of the gear. Gotta leave some stuff behind, I am told. All I need is stage clothes, keyboard, snacks, and packaged food, cos you never know what you are gonna run into when you don’t know where you are going.

“No thanks” to the newspaper being offered, I am organizing the road notes and scribbles that I have saved so far. Front desk hotel guy this morning gave me a stack of beautiful white paper. I am excited about folding it all into little books for drawing cartoons. That is why I never get anything done. According to my notes, I do not carry a computer on the road. I bring the odd acoustic instrument, or electronic video or audio recording machine with me, but no typing machine, ever. My studio time at home gets eaten with music (imagine that!) and my typing skills are slow and sloppy at best. And my vocabulary is abysmal. (I just started my conversation with Grandma Orange by asking her what movie from the ’30s I saw her in, and what rock band she plays for, she is laughing, har har).

Scott passes me a huge stack of promo Trooper shots to sign and I do each one with a different hat and funny ears. Silly, but  what the heck. People around me on the plane are telling Trooper stories. Everyone knows this band, even Grandma-Orange. She asks if I have another job as well, and I tell her that I have never had a conventional job, except for splitting firewood with my dad years ago, and she assures me that what I do is very important, and that musicians DO work hard. Super nice. Truth is, our road crew works hard. Splitting and delivering firewood is hard work. I tell her about the set of 1920s encyclopedias I just inherited from my grandma. The artwork is awesome and so ripp-off-able. Nice idea: talk to an old lady about my Grandma dying.

I think all my Grandparents died as millionaires (in assets anyway) and so far I inherited a hankie (handy if I ever get another cold.) And some wisdom, right?

WEST COAST SUMMER HOLIDAY ADVENTURES………….

Scott Brown is reading about music theory, and I am telling funny camping stories on the plane……….. blab……. Everyone likes the one about my trip to Hornby Island.  Lucianno Pavarotti has a summer place there. Would love to camp next to him and decide to learn the violin, and drive him nuts.) We (Tracy-Lyn, our friend Olena´and her 5-year old son) had a night time summer bar-b-que on the huge beach at Tribune Bay. I was playing bongos when were asked to join in with 40 teenagers at a beach fire. I was surrounded by these cats and got them all singing HAPPY TOGETHER, with me on acoustic guitar. They had no other music. Not a maracca between all of them. Looked like rich kids too. All perfect teeth and happy. I played some songs (they didn’t know HONEY TONK MAN), and I then handed the guitar to another guy (Mr. Angry Boy) who played: “GET DRUNK GET DRUNK TONIGHT” and also his own composition: “GET FUCKED GET FUCKED TONIGHT.” I don’t like to use such language in this family-oriented road report, but at the same time, I can not compromise MR. Angry Boy’s artistic vision.

We made our graceful exit from the teenage beach party, and I heard a teen tell his teen girlfriend: “That guy with the guitar and bongos was COOL!”, when we walked out. I like being cool. Hadn’t rocked out at a teenage beach party for years. Absolutely perfect white sandy beach there, warm water. Like a ’50s beach movie, today-style.

There was also a clothing-optional beach next to that one. I had never been to a nude beach before, never really thought about it. I thought every beach was a nude beach. This one had 2 old men standing in the water up to their knees, with arms folded, like old Roman guards, with their old wieners pointing at the people they stared at. Stupid old men.  A bunch of young people showed up and the stupid old men left. I don’t wear glasses while trying to go swimming, so I can just assume that this was the action on the big nude beach that day. I would rather go where nobody’s around. Any day.

I also told my fellow airplane passengers the story about the 10-year-old girl at Horne Lake Provincial Park who was too prissy, (or stupid) to use the nice clean pit toilets, so she decided to try to take a poo right beside the road. Feet on the ground, hands on the ground, back arched up in the air. We drove right by her when we left, and of course you have to look at something so weird, and she was Ok with that. Not even embarrassed. If this is the future of the entertainment industry, I will have to pass on attending live shows.

We have earned this summer season of fun fun. All winter, Tracy and I managed to sift, seed, fertilize and grow some grass on the ex-jungle lot on Protection Island. Ever wonder how many big bags of grass seed it takes to make a lawn? A lot. Tricky thing about building anything on an Island is the huge obstacle of having to bring everything over, of course. Thank God I have a 5 acre park next door to steal dirt from. Ever wonder how much dirt it takes to make a lawn? We set a deadline of Bathtub Weekend (Nanaimo’s Summer Marine festival) as the date to have our amazing 100′-long sandstone wall finished. (I will save you scanning the report; we made the deadline!) If I had charged myself $ for all of the work I’m doing on this Protection Island lot, I’d be rich. I also built a wooden platform for a nice little outdoor inflatable swimming pool, a steam sauna and an outdoor shower stall. Last year I hung a solar water bag from a big old fir tree. That was the spa; a water bag hanging from a tree. Tracy said that I really should set up a shower stall cos some people are shy about showering outdoors. Who’s looking? The Lord? The birds?

Everyone is telling me that we bought West Coast property just at the right time. Cool. Land values went nuts on our little Island. I always thought that it was all seriously under-valued. Mr. scientist-dude who bought same time as us, 2 lots away, just sold. Tripled his dough. He has lots of money for science now. I could sell our place now and hire a vegi-hot-dog cart to follow me around this summer.

BIKES AND BAR-B-QUES…………..

It is the middle of summer as I write this (I will backtrack) and we just had 4 days off from the Trooper Ontario tour. My buddy Jim Survis (and his wife Cheryl), former Trooper roadie (now with Cheap Trick and Aerosmith), hosted a bar-b-que in his fancy corner of Nanaimo. A cool old dude from across the street (Howie James!) played every acoustic guitar song ever written, while Jim did rock lead with a tiny amp in the back yard. I walked into the back garden, Howie was sitting, strumming, and Jim was rocking out with bald head, signed GRETSCH electric and sunglasses. I played acoustic dulcimer and space-jammed all evening, sat on the summer lawn in my seafaring day outfit and made experimental music with all the bar-b-que people. There was a headband guy there who didn’t like me, and some other wonderful salads at this jam and I deal with the last overcooked vegi-burgers.

On these little summer tour breaks I don’t even bother falling out of road mode. I stay psychologically silly. I just act as if Frankie is still around.

The next day, same deal is swung (outdoor party) on the other side of town where my 17 year-old nephew Jacob has a send-off (moving to Vancouver) where I ate chips and made a fool of myself on a trampoline. Another 17 year-old rock guy played semi-hacky acoustic guitar, (and almost died in a car crash a couple weeks later  -  drunk driver hit his car). Jacob never did move to Vancouver this year. As I type, Tracy is re-upholstering some chairs for his new ghetto apartment, 2 blocks from here. (Maybe he can help eat some of the salmon in our freezer over the winter.)

I am trying to get Tracy to re-upholster the black banana seat for a ’70s mustang bike. I am collecting and restoring old bikes this summer, as a new hobby.

So I finally got freed-up from the summer lawn parties enough to take a couple friends on a camping adventure to Horne Lake. With the 12′ Zodiac on the roof of the Toyota, we drove down the Island highway, tent set up on a sandy beach, warm lake, nobody around, good food, lots of swimming. I was actually a bit sore from swimming so much. That is A LOT of swimming. It is the peak of summer, hot, festive.  Watched the sunrise over the lake. Magical. Stand on the side of the Zodiac and dive in. Quite a contrast from the screaming rock shows a few days ago.

Our white cedar-shingle studio in Nanaimo stays cool in the hot summer, and I am barely there. Not much piano practising. Wow, it is HOT out. I LOVE IT. Zodiac goes on the ocean, I stand on the edge and dive right into the harbour. Doesn’t matter who I am taking over to Protection Island, I always stop and dive in, and I’m not the only one. Can’t believe how warm the sea is this year.

Ate too much curry, though.

I spent the summer Trooper tour looking for old mustang banana-seat bikes in very town. No finds. You know the ones with the sissy bars that everyone grew up with, grew out of and sent to the dumps all across this great land. Guys in bike shops laugh at me when I ask if there are any still around. Quite rude. I have been looking for over 10 years, finally I decide to ask a local guy I know who restores old motorbikes. He has a few acres of  ”take what you want” and I found the EXACT type of frame that I had when I was a kid.  AMAZING.  Choked me up. I have wept at Van Gough’s Irises, but never at a rusty old bike frame, so I didn’t. The thing was seized right up, and bit-by-bit I get it loose. At that point, suddenly, in my life, bikes started to appear, and the Protection Collection started to grow. Have 9 banana bikes now.  Am currently working on mountain bikes. There is a local bike tech who does the real re$toration, and I just tinker and paint bikes for fun. We had more people than bikes (as guests) on Protection Island this year, so I need more bikes yet. Everyone forms a bike gang and goes to the lighthouse. This is my dream. Simple dreams of Gulf Island fun. The bikes are very clean and colourful when I am finished with them. Groovy bikes, oh ya!

I CAN’T STOP THIS SUMMER HOLIDAY TALK……………….

You know, a person could spend their whole life exploring the west coast of Canada and not see it all. I am starting with Islands and Provincial Parks. The Provincial Parks all have decent outhouses and are always at spectacular locations. All of the best beaches on the coast are at Provincial Parks (other than White Rock and Parksville, I guess). All this stuff is so accessible if you are into exploring it. I am totally into this. There was an era when I would hippy-out (to the best of my ability), go to remote places all summer, never pay camping fees and hope that the raccoons don’t eat the cheezies. One summer, when I was 14, I decided to learn the French Horn by going camping with one. I made Moose noises and am lucky that it didn’t attract a mate. These days, I put them in a plastic cooler, (the cheezies), pay the fees, drive the car, drive the boat. Easy and just as much fun, and equally private (just go to popular spots on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). We have camping down to a system now. Little bar-b-que, lights, dry soups, kava kava to get high on. This is a way of life in the summer. I love it.

So, we take mini-trips, alternating between the ocean and fresh water. Island, lake, Island, river…….Go to a different place each time. These are summer road trips to take a break from the Trooper summer road trips. A holiday inside a holiday. I just buy food for the carcasses, gas for the car and 2-hp Honda 4-stroke, the odd ferry boat fee, and sunscreen. Lay around, swim, eat, tell stories. Road stories.

Where did the last road report end?

You know I have never gone back and read any of the old ones. I just assume they are excellent, and I look at the pictures. Had we played Sunshine Village in Banff yet? Had our tour manager of 7 years (Mike Pacholuk) left yet? He went off on tour with Willy Nelson, and we negotiated another Mike to replace him. The new guy, Mike Sutcliffe, is also from Vancouver Island, and an excellent sound man. From one Mike to the next, Huge boots to fill. Hope he has FUN.

Banff had the BEST gourmet deli food back stage, and a nice guy brought more when it ran low. We had luxury hotel rooms both in Banff and up the ski hill as well, I recall. We played twice right? The second show was a bit delayed because some instruments got left behind, or something, and the gondola takes 20 minutes to breeze its way up the mountain. I had more backstage time than I needed and I ate accordingly. There was a set of Troopette girls ready to sing onstage, and I had new polarized sunglasses from Scott (my birthday present). Do not play a ski hill without sunglasses.

I spent the previous day in Nanaimo, a whole day, filling over sixty 5-gallon buckets with navy-jac. Shovel to bucket, lifting buckets onto a truck, driving to the wharf, carrying the buckets down the dock, onto a barge, over to Protection, up the dock, onto a truck, into the lot. Each bucket weighs 50 to 75 pounds. It took me ALL DAY. All by  myself. This is going to be one excellent rock wall !!!!!!   I got to drive the totally overloaded barge. That was the most fun I had all week (until the Sunshine Village ski gig, of course!)  The skipper told me (Gilligan) to start throwing buckets off if the sea starts to get choppy. If you ever get to drive a barge, go for it. FUN! Especially small aluminium ones with decent motors! They GLIDE! Wow! Bottom line was that I was waaaaaaaaay too sore to ski at the Banff gig.

Smitty and Dave (new lighting guy) and I took the big alpine chair-lift to the top, on the morning of gig day, and my body was junk. I could barely stand. Is it just me, or are the green runs REALLY steep? Muscles were rubber. I fell down right away, rolled around and down the hill a bit, and told the guys to go on ahead. I slooowly walked back up the ski hill to the chair-lift (refused a skidoo ride) and spent the rest of the beautiful morning zenning-out on the chair-lifts. I had to BS the operators each time, cos you are really supposed to be out skiing, not just zoning in on the scenery. But what’s wrong with just riding chair-lifts and looking at the beautiful mountains? THE HILLS ARE ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know, Frankie is an adrenaline person. I’m not. He won’t ski on tour cos he goes too crazy, and he knows it. He could get seriously injured. He will drive for 2 days to try a new roller coaster, and that is Ok cos that is during his time off. I like slow stuff. I like to meditate on warm beaches in the raw all summer with water on my toes. Herbal tea is also quite nice. Being bound-up in plastic boots flying down a cold mountain is too scary for me. I CAN ski, just isn’t my thing, I guess.

That is all I can tell you about Banff.
The gigs were solid, too many beautiful people to count. Didn’t look like a welfare crowd. The hippest lids and whitest teeth in the land.

Every town we play is so different from the next. Some towns have all bad teeth. God Bless ‘em. Banff has people from all over the world, of course. I think rich people marry classically good-looking people and have beautiful kids, and after awhile it is all too beautiful. There is a scientific fact here. We played on an elevated stage, with a concrete overhang which I banged my head on, despite the warnings. People gracefully snowboarded down the hill and stopped by the stage. Like colourful birds landing in a fountain. Hundreds of people gather at the stage at the bottom of the ski hill. What a gas. I met people from wild countries, talked about old and new synthesizers.

That is all I remember. Let me guess, long drive back to Vancouver and Scott (and DAVE) and I race to catch the ferry home. I have 3 big cups of orange tea and the guys have squash curry soup and I rave about being back on the West Coast. I look around the Ferry-boat crowd to see if anyone is playing an acoustic guitar and check the pamphlet rack to see if any of the Island have new promo maps for me.

We then played a few more shows, and I lost all my notes.
This is what I remember:

April 7th 2005 REDCLIFF, AB

Tons of fried food backstage. 2 trays before the show, 2 after the show. Made new friends, talked at the T-Shirt booth, avoiding the second round of fried everythings. Played in a super old hotel, old restaurant used as dressing room with 2 nice old gals cooking fried food for the patrons. Old carpets going up old stairways to a backstage hotel room upstairs. I really like this, reminds me of the places I always played in small towns in the ’80s. We stayed that day at a decent hotel in Medicine Hat, down the road. A hot water hose was running into the pool. I sprayed hot water everywhere. Nobody there, had a sauna, sat around, swam all day. Read books. Didn’t work too hard.

April 8th,9th  2005    Regina, SK    Casino Regina

I wear a long green trench coat everywhere. I think it is cool, don’t know what anyone else thinks.  I forgot it at the casino where we were playing for 2 days. Asked the crew to try to find it, they couldn’t find it. I walked the skywalk link from the luxury hotel to the casino. The green trench coat was on a chair on the stage. Only thing on the stage. Trooper is using new in-ear monitors. I can hear everything, but organ is too loud, trying to get new Mike to show me how to adjust this. Working on this detail. Mike puts Smitty’s speaker cabinet backstage. Ra asks him to put it back onstage. There is a bad vibe, Mike gets mad. I listened to the drum solo up front. The staff were all saying how LOUD it is. I thought it was really quiet, cos I could hear them all talking about how LOUD it is. Rained for 2 days. I walked around Regina, bought some nice celtic knot patches for my BC Ferries jacket. Had visions of pirate jackets that I still haven’t acted on.

April 10th, 2005    Moose Jaw, SK    Cultural Centre

Totally cool theatre, right? Talked to piano student, long drive there and back……….

April 22nd, 2005    Yorkton, SK    Parkland Agriplex

Told everyone that my Grandmother played Church organ here in the 1920s, but as always, nobody cares…………..

April 23rd, 2005    Dauphin, MB    D.M.C.C. Arena

Talked about seeing Dwight Yokum last time we were there………….day before my birthday, made it home the next day and had a nice midnight dinner.

May 5th, 2005    Penticton, BC    Blue Mule

Ra took everyone to a wonderful seafood restaurant before the show. SALTYS.  Had coconut lime soup. Talked about Gilligan’s Island. Big funny picture of Chilliwack posed with a big blue mule backstage. Little sandwiches. Told the story about the staircase that someone left a beer bottle on when I played there in 1987, and I slid and landed at the bottom and went onstage in shock. Played with a big black drummer then, Vietnam vet, who got hopelessly hammered on beer and threw his sticks into the crowd. Someone must have been injured by that. I didn’t stick around to find out. RAN home from the gig. It was a bad vibe. That drummer scared me after a few days of him ranting, not sleeping. He ended every song the same way, big show ending da da da da da da da da da da da da!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 6th, 2005    Black Diamond, AB    Black Diamond Hotel

Packed, packed dance hall, loud crowd. Stayed in a modern hotel in Okotoks. However you spell it. Tracy’s Mom lives there. Had a nice hang out, a few good laughs. Heather, our Promotions lady was also at the gig, and I played Amazing Grace poorly on the harmonica for her. Girls were barfing their brains out in the can. Constantly, or so I am told. Could be that way at every gig for all I know. Long drives, ……………

WHEW!
LET’S START THE SUMMER TOUR!!!!!!!!!

LAST PART OF THE REPORT

It is now 7am, and we are driving back home; 1135kms from Rimbey Alberta to the coast. The idea is that we get to Smitty’s house by 7pm, enough time for Scott and I to make the 9pm sailing to the Island. Smitty is driving the first shift, Ra is reading, Scott is looking at a map and Frankie is having a rare quiet moment where he is not making us all laugh. I just had a morning shower and used some honey scented shampoo to try to get the smell of the tar shampoo off of my head. I think that I still smell like tar, oh well. I got the smoke from last night’s gig washed away, for sure. Not much I can do about my bedsores.

I think about Lance a lot. For those who just joined us, Lance was drummer before Frankie, who joined the same time that I did, way back in 1996 or whenever. We always update each other whenever one of us talks to him, emails or visits. Lance’s humour is as constant as Frankie’s, but a different brand. Lance is the King of understatement, like making a funny quiet vocal where a yell might be, which has great impact from such a big dude, and is totally as funny as anything. The understatement trait never enters into his music, however. His drum solos shook every stage. Thousands of people think of him quite often, I bet.

So I have Smitty’s wonderful Powerbook cramped onto my lap with the cable plugged into the main truck battery, so lots of time here. I drove the truck back from the gig last night. We did 2 nights in Rimbey, at the Grand Hotel. Frankie drove the 46kms back the first night to the resort community of Sylvan Lake, reaching 140kms, I got up to 130 and slowed down to my regular 90. Right away I just can not drive fast. I offered to do this long drive today, guaranteeing that we would get back in less than a week, in time to go out on tour again. We have about 7 days at home coming up. There are so many things that I want to do, and a few that I really ought to, like taxes, cos it has been a couple of years now, and the man is starting to bark at me.

I was surprised to see the Motel parking lot empty at 7am. When we got back from the gig a few hours ago, the parking lot was full of big-man trucks and I had to park between a couple of huge pick-ups. I felt very industrial and modern. People really get up that early hey? WILD.

I HAD A DREAM THAT MY DAD ORDERED 2 HUGE TRAINS  (I hate that stupid caps lock thing) full of concrete to fix the back alley and pathway. It was totally unnecessary and going to cost $10 000. I had no idea how to stop the trains and had no idea how to pay for it, cos he was unable to get out of bed. He just ordered horrible things over the phone by his bed. Totally out of control. Kinda sad that this is the kinda junk buried in my mind. I wish I could dream about stuff like one of the two times it was just my Dad and I walking around through the woods by the river.  He said “hey look, there is a bear in a cave!” I looked over and it was my Mom in an outhouse, smiling and waving. Uncle Eddy’s outhouse had no door.

Where did we leave off……………….oh ya, my shopping spree at the Mountain Equipment Co-op. We just looked through their catalogue again here in the truck. You wouldn’t believe how much luggage I have now, and I fit it all into the back of this truck. I don’t think that anyone else believed that it all would fit. Perhaps I am a jerk for hogging so much space again. Oh well. I now have one bag just full of different soups from around the world.

Ok, backtrack……March 25 2005, Good Friday, Holiest day of the year, next to Easter Sunday, in my opinion….we drove 580 kms from Airdrie Alberta to North Battleford Saskatchewan to play the Golden Eagle Casino. The hotel had huge waterslides, as many big Sask hotels do, but I spent the time with headphones on, working up the drum mix for Long-Haired Funky Friends of Jesus. The Hotel was totally full of Natives, which I dig, cos they are always so friendly.

The gig was a smoke-fest. We are not used to all the smoke these days. The place was packed. Looked to me like a huge bingo hall with people right to the back. Everyone went nuts, it was awesome.

Scott, Ra and I went for a walk across the street to the mall that day. It was Smitty’s birthday and we were looking for fun presents to have at a little party for him. Ra and Smitty are always quite generous with each other, which is so cool, and Scott is a master gift giver as well. At the first store, Scott found a DVD of the movie Open Plain. Smitty had tried to watch Ra’s copy of that movie on his computer and for whatever reason, it wouldn’t play past half way. Ra found movies and books, Frankie found Peter Seller’s The Party, and I found a stack of fine chocolates, or at least the best ones I could find, which I figured were quite fine indeed. Mike went out and got a big cake, which was delivered to Smitty onstage along with a bottle of champagne, which he shared with the crowd.

Smitty actually watched the cowboy movie at night, which would freak me out. I have to watch really funny stuff at night, if anything at all, and no ghost stuff.

All this stuff may have happened the next day, 145kms away in Lloydminster. Yes in fact it did. March 26 2005, There was some controversy whether to put Smitty’s guitar cabinet backstage at the Golden Eagle Casino, because we are all using in-ear monitors now anyway, but we figured that it is good to have the guitar speakers onstage anyway, so we are not all sterile-sounding, with no air movement. You can feel the guitar and bass on your feet if you still use the big cabinets, which is nice. There was all Native art backstage there, and great sandwiches.

Some guys came backstage after the show and one told me that Streetheart had kicked him out of their dressing room. I thought that was unlike them and asked him what he did to bring that on. He said that he lit-up a reefer and they kicked him out. Imagine that! A detail of the story that he missed. I can think of only one time when someone sparked up a rocket backstage at one of our shows, and yes he was also ejected. Nobody needs management on their alert about that. Also, nobody in this band or crew smokes grass. In the past, we have had lots of pot smokers in the crew, guys would burn a log here or there, but I don’t think I know any musicians who woft a fattie these days, other than jazz guys (of course) and some local guys at home. Makes you lazy, or so I hear. Also could turn you into a jazz guy. Either way, you get a chance to use some new beatnik terminology.

Lloydminster was where Smitty’s birthday party was, and we stayed around the venue quite late that night. Sure nice people there. I don’t think that I ever get to sleep before 4am these days, and then get up at 9 or 10. I used to sleep waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than I do these days. Dunno.

245km drive to Edmonton, for a day off. Actually it wasn’t a day off because Dr. Brad Basaraba hired us to perform at his promotional party for his new private chiropractor office. He gave away a ton of tickets to potential clients, assured use of a night club, and our crew set the stage up. The venue was called the Starlight Room. WOW is Edmonton set for awesome venues. This one has a total art deco brick face, a gorgeous 1925 building, originally a Salvation Army, then a church, hence the sloped wooden dance floor. Extremely cool building. Great staircases, backstage passages, big stage, big open room, great sound. I would LOVE to go hear a group there. Man, did we make friends that night.

Scott, Frankie and I accepted an invitation to join Dr. Brad Basaraba and his family for Easter Dinner at the Edmonton Petroleum club. This is the same person I had mentioned earlier, ex-college football player, Clark Kent look, and up to this point quite serious. Hard to get him to laugh. I didn’t really quite get what he all about at first. He is serious, cos he is a doctor, and he in fact is quite a gas to hang out with, and yes you can get him laughing.

So Scott, Frankie and I drove about 20 minutes to a private rich person’s club for dinner. There were families all dressed up, with kids in suits and ties. We didn’t exactly bring formal wear on this road trip. I often consider us to be quite regular conservative people, but these situations always remind me that we are rockers, and in this case we looked like rockers, despite my best Jesus pants and yellow long-sleeve shirt. In fact we were starting to feel a bit out-of-place, until the front reception girls showed that they were delighted to have us aboard, and the waitress got us laughing like the fools that we are. We realize that this is a special thing for these proper families, and we don’t want to spoil it for them in any way, you know, show them some respect, so we behaved. Well, Scott dumped my glass of water all over my Jesus outfit, and the Mexican fabric is see-through when it gets wet, cos it is light cotton and dries in the sun quickly, but who’s looking, right?

These people at the Petroleum Club all own professional sports teams, run law firms and stuff. Some of these cats are very rich, or so I hear. We held down our regular ridiculous behavior out of respect for the fact that it is their club, and also it is Easter.

The food was all set up: a table covered in high-end fancy deserts, and another long one with roasts, turkey, Halibut, baked and steamed veggies, and every salad you would ever want. No Miso soup, but what yu gonna do? We waited for a while for Doctor Brad and his entourage to show up, and Scott figured that we should go ahead and start to eat NOW, so we can also go to the hotel and get a nap before the show, which was actually a really good idea. Loaded up on this amazing yam salad, and turkey dinner (no, I am not a vegetarian, if you can’t have turkey, you are just waaaay too serious).

Dr. Brad arrived with his family and some friends, set half of them up at another table. He was a bit nervous about the show, detail, and also about the private practice he was having set up, drywall and stuff. He was happy that we had dug into the growlies, and we all had a great time telling little stories and having a laugh. IT was the BEST meal of the tour, way too much food of course. I was really glad that we attended. I figure that any eccentric doctor who invited a rock band to his old-boys club can’t be all bad. We get invited to a lot of nice things, and it was wonderful to actually have the time to attend one. Dr. Brad is cool.

So it turns out that we were not out of place with that crowd in the end, despite our earlier peaking out of the awkward meter. . Corporate folks love rock and rollers, and we were kinda-like special guests in that way. We left early, went to the venue for Frankie to check his drums (he is obsessed,) back to the hotel where I fell into the deepest sleep of the year. I can’t believe that I actually managed to wake up at all.

I really wanted the gig to be a smash, well, we all did, cos we were warming up to Dr. Brad, who had set his chiropractor table up for us backstage at a couple of shows previously, and was become a bit of a favorite guy with us. We all want him to do well, of course.

Photo by Steve Barr

Turns out, the venue was totally packed, and the place was definitely ready for a show. There were 3 skeletons set up on the stage, and it was a party, not a concert, and we had agreed to treat it as such, so we played about twice as long as normally do. There was an entourage of ladies with silver glittery Trooper T-shirts who sang back-up vocals, and we had a great jam session that included several Doobie Brother’s songs. Scott and Ra sang Sweet Caroline and I sang Billy Jean with our lighting guy, Dave Hampshire on drums. What a gas. By the end of the night, I had 3 girls with me singing into my mike. They all had wild tattoos. One girl had total chest tattoos, and the girls were pushing theirs boobs up onto each other. Wild stuff, if you don’t see that all the time, and I don’t either, actually. Really nice people, totally fun.

The vibe at that gig was right through the roof. 96 beer got opened backstage. Everyone there was your best friend. The security guys were so cool, total arm tattoo guys that would normally intimidate people in bank line-ups, unintentionally. You gotta hand it to Dr. Brad for hosting such a great evening. He got up and sang a tune and everyone had hugs for everyone. This is the total flip-side of the theatre gig. This is a total party. I sure wish that some of my friends back home could see this type of event, so they know the spectrum of what it is that we do out here on the road.

Ok, 160kms drive to Rimbey Alberta. Lots of short drives, which is unusual for a Western Tour. Ra printed out the CBC top 50 songs, we were all happy to see Raise A Little Hell on it, and Ra played some of the ones that I didn’t know on his Powerbook. I made a little list of songs that I feel should have been included, for fun. These are my essential Canadian songs that were not on the list:

• After The Goldrush ………. Neil Young
• If You Could Read My Mind ………. Lightfoot
• All We Are ………. Kim Mitchell
• Wild Eyes ………. Stampeders
• Fly At Night ………. Chilliwack
• I Just Wanna Stop ………. Gino Vinelli
• I Did It My Way ………. Paul Anka

I left my soy milk, huge chunk of tofu, orange juice and some hot and sour soup in a hotel fridge, which bummed me out a bit. Scott said that you can be happy all the time. He read a few more books, one really good one about vibrating at a higher frequency all the time. Scott said that what you FEEL matters, not what you think, and the yearning focuses on the negative. Being generous is good if it makes you FEEL good, and therefore vibrate at a higher frequency.

In fact, you can even be a jerk and have the universe go your way, if you FEEL good about everything. This is a breakthrough concept for me, and explains several people that I know, who are total pricks, yet never have karma bite their asses off.

I hope that the person who cleaned out the hotel room fridge didn’t throw out the snacks, and had a decent one dish meal out of it. I hate to see good food wasted. I wonder what became of the leftovers from that big fancy club Dr. Brad dinner. There was a ton of gourmet food there. He got some wrapped up for us to go as well, which was very thoughtful, including some more yam salad.

HEY! We just stopped at a doughnut shop, and Smitty is here with dough gods for everyone. I just talked to Tracy for a couple of hours and she is having fun planting more grass on Protection Island. She has to sift a lot of soil to do this. Morgan, our total gay friend is visiting, and he like to help out with the landscaping, so I asked if she was taking the fairy on the ferry, which I thought was really stupid, but she thought was really funny. Silly girl.

We talk about house design a lot, when I am not being super funny (apparently), and I have some decent drawings to show her now. She says that she also has a design, but she hasn’t drawn it out. Oh oh.

So we were to stay in a resort at the next gig, but changed to a different hotel cos it wasn’t so groovy, so we stayed at the Raccoon Lodge, which had no raccoons cos they are bad. Tracy thought that was funny too. I may be funnier than I think, or perhaps I just have a good audience.

For some reason I thought I would be swimming in this lake, because this is a famous resort town (Sylvan Lake), seriously, that was my big plan. I guess I didn’t notice that everything is still frozen, including this huge lake. There was a truck way out there, and Smitty saw people jump skidoos, but I didn’t see any of that because I decided that it would be healthy to get some sleep. I could hear the ATVs outside buzzing around. I went to a grocery store for more crazy soups, worked on audio mixes in the hotel. Flipped around TV channels.

We were there for 2 nights, and the first morning I was raunched out by construction guys renovating rooms downstairs. This was a 3-story motel, and the sound traveled quite well. I heard every song on their radio, including Wheels in The Sky Keep On Turning and Cuts Like a Knife.

I am sure that these are delightful recordings, but I would prefer to hear them at my leisure, and not at 9am with a saw going wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee over top of it when I am trying to get some damn sleep. So, I phoned the hotel front desk to ask when they are going to take a break. I was told “I informed the gentleman who booked the rooms about the renovations.”  So, I responded, “So it’s HIS fault then? The guy who booked the rooms? Don’t you think it would be nice to put up a sign or in some way warn guests about this type of thing?” I thought I was being a jerk, cos you can now, you know, according to Scott’s book, and still have the universe go your way.

Scott said that I was way too polite.

So we were asked to stay for one more night at that gig, and couldn’t cos guys gotta get home for what short time off that we have, so Scott and I changed rooms anyway, to a big suite with a kitchen, so I could make soup on the stove, rather than microwave. We had 2 TVs in separate rooms, and Frankie next door had by far the loudest of the 3 TVs.

Scott arranged the room change as a trade off for the rights to watch golf all day.

This gig (Rimbey Alberta, March 28-29 2005), had the best egg salad sandwiched that Ra has ever had, which is saying a lot, cos that is his thing, you know. There were some nice smelly candles backstage that I took with me, in case the manager is wondering, and the place sold out for 2 nights.

Old, old hotel, rooms starting at $19.99. We didn’t stay there, (thank you LORD) but got some nice memories of the ‘80s by hanging out upstairs in the hotel room that served as a backstage. The sandwiches were all individually wrapped and labeled, which I thought was really excellent, genius in fact. Makes for an excellent gig. Great audience, super enthusiastic. Some pretty raunchy girls at the T-Shirt booth, kinda bossy, no big deal, but funny how different towns have their own character. Some really nice quiet people as well, of course, and a cool back-up band, some great gang photos taken.

Should I wrap this up? Smitty and Frankie are eating the crazy doughnuts, Scott is reading his book about how to be a spiritually excellent jerk (if it FEELS good), Frankie is reading a similar one, I am running low on notes scribbled with my pencil, dulled from house design. Ra knows how to sharpen a pencil with a knife, but I don’t know if anyone has one. Ra’s dad was an artist who never used a conventional pencil sharpener.

You know, this tour zipped by, so says everyone. No chamber maids woke me up at crazy hours, which is nice, and I didn’t jog even once. In fact, this is the least exercise I have gotten in years. Years! Ra says that I should roll over once in a while, or get Scott to help me, so that I don’t get bed sores.

This tour’s also had the most free hotel breakfasts that I have ever seen. Quite often we wake up and check out after they have shut down, and the nice front desk lady opens it up again for us. One hotel had all band and crew cooking waffles into the afternoon. Great hotel breakfast parties. I love it. Great rock and roll moments, like when everyone is in one public washroom. Only on the road.

This tour also had the most tattoos that I have ever seen on ladies, ever. Into Saskatchewan it was wild! Also the most boob (bra) signing per capita that I have ever been a part of. Sometimes a girl’s bare chest had such wild tattoo action that the band signatures didn’t really stick out like they normally do.  And no butt signing to write about. I am not a boob man, at all, really, but gimme a good butt to sign any day.

Some people get so shy about getting their butts signed, but are totally into signing their boobs. Why? Figure that one out if you will. Good rock and roll mind test.

We got to phone our ex-road manager Mike Pacholuk a couple of times from backstage and all get to have a few laughs with him. We all miss Mike of course. He is doing really well.

New Mike is really good as well, excellent soundman, and total master technician. He rebuilt 4 PAs on this tour, not that that is his job, but it sure makes us sound good.

Scott is saying that he has had dreams where he dies, and now he is asking Frankie about his will. Wow, slow down guys! I never think about that shite. Scott wants to take the titanium out of Frankie’s face and make a golf club out of it. All Scott wants to do is watch golf on TV, most exciting thing he has ever seen. Frankie has so much metal in his body that he makes the detectors go off at the airport.

I should make a will, or so my Mom says. She thinks about that shite a lot because she is an organist that plays at a lot of church funerals. She is also the queen of the funeral deli tray and always brings all the sandwiches back home. Big surprise that my parents are both musician food freaks hey.

Scott died his hair yellow on this tour, then black, and then something that looks like gray hair. He likes the grey one, hated the others, didn’t want to scare his daughter. I think I am going grey, or hopefully white, like my dad, so I can be Santa someday.

It went from way freezing for the bulk of the tour, to plus 5 recently, and now we are in the truck, hitting BC, and it is suddenly 11 degrees again. YAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Snow is gone. I don’t see much of the Rockies this time, cos I am typing out this babble.

I will turn this computer off, and predict that :

1) Scott and I WILL catch the 9pm ferry
2) Tracy’s house design is the same as mine
3) Frankie will stop for ONE more Dairy Queen rampage
4) Heather will make it all the way through this report and post it someday with corrections……
5) I will have 3 big cups of peach tea on the ferry
6) I will plant ivy behind the rock wall and burn myself out on physical labour tomorrow, get my taxes done, computer fixed, mountain taxes paid, Pierre to record on the 3 songs I just edited, get a motor on the Zodiac…………

So, thank you to all who attended these shows, all 10 000kms worth of shows. That’s a lot of people, and a lot of white and yellow lines painted on blacktop. Is it all worth it? To drive around like this and have so much fun?

Photo by Brian Smith

Ya.

Hope to see everyone else over the summer.

Life is grand, and I think my dandruff has gone away………

Love Gogo

———————————–
P.S. What Frankie ate on the ride back home:

(1) Muffin
(1) Coffee
(1) Blueberry bagel (buttered)
(3) croissants deep glazed
(1) Cheeseburger
(1) Onion Rings
(1) Large Coke
(1) creamy turkey soup
(1) brownie
(1) blueberry fritter
(1) coffee
———————————–

March 17.2005…Grande Prairie is a serious town, I find. I have opportunity to clown with strangers all the time, and Grand Prairie provided no such opportunity. In Calgary, I walked along the street downtown next to a guy who commented on my hat, I told him that my Dad was a hat collector, and we both laughed and laughed. I like laughing with people I have never met. I got to hang out after the gig at Grande Prairie, meet some cool cats and I stayed until I got some good laughs out of them. I think this is the financial hub of the north Prairie scene, and people are there to work, and that is serious stuff.

Best, cleanest, warmest swimming pool of the year at the hotel. No shitty music, no ugly décor, no screaming people, no scum. That pool was worth the trip in itself.

In fact, nobody has cheesed-me-off on this whole tour. Everyone has been really nice. I don’t know if this is too gross to talk about, but I got really bad dandruff over the later part of the winter, and NIZEROL shampoo didn’t work, so I went to a drug store and got some heavy duty tar shampoo. You could fix yer roof with this stuff. It is so dry here, that lord knows how long it will take to work. I will keep you posted on this. YAY! GREAT!

455km drive to Edmonton. Not sleeping a whole lot on this tour. Thinking about house design a lot. I start small, and the thing just gets grander with each feature, until it is huge, and I start thinking small again. I am thinking of what components to use from my ill-fated Gogo Mountain house to build the Protection Island place. Perhaps, or not. This takes a great deal of planning and drawing. My family politics stomped my mountain house concept into the history books. That is why I don’t live in the house that I built, and that is why I bought the Protection Island place. I put 5-years and tens of thousands of $ into a beautiful custom post and beam home and never did get to stay even one night in it. Sad but true.

I have to consider the expense of disassembling that house to remove the lumber in order to start building again. Or not. Meanwhile Tracy and I are living in a 20’ by 20’ studio. Oh to have such problems. The good news is that we are having a good time, and I may have a knack for residential architecture. I have always been a design freak. I have drawn cabin and house designs as long as I can remember. So, this is taking a great deal of my limited mind space of this trip.

Edmonton was cooooooooooooooooold. We went to the venue (REDS in the West Edmonton Mall), had a fun soundcheck, ordered a salad, veggie burger, and I slipped off to the Chinese grocery store. The PING PING music was really loud this time, and I bought bags of powdered Miso soup to add with boiling water in the van on the long drives.

I had plans to buy a new HONDA 2hp 4-stroke outboard for the Zodiac boat on this trip, but decided to relax a bit rather than run all around town talking about such lovely stuff. Lots of time for that. Sleep is good too. Scott tells me that I left some sushi ingredients and miso soup stuff in his truck after the Vancouver gig, and that is also a happy thought. I had thought I lost that, or ate it or something. I only want happy stuff.

There was a manager of a country singer at the Edmonton soundcheck who suggested that the artist sing a Trooper song for Ra. Ra asked the dude (big boy in beautiful black suit and acoustic guitar), to play it with us at soundcheck (The Last of the Gypsies) and then asked the man to perform it with us at the show. It was our largest attendance to date, and the song went really well. Steve Kay has the smoothest voice in country music and has a brilliant career ahead of him, I am sure. I am a fan already.

There was a huge metal barricade being set up in front of the stage when we were soundchecking, and Ra politely asked if it could be disassembled again and put back in storage. Glass Tiger requested it for their show, (as I am told), and there is a bylaw against crowd surfing in Edmonton, so Ra asked the crowd to relax on the surfing, and people were once again able to get right up to the stage. That is much more fun for us. One cute young blonde girl banged an empty beer bottle on the stage vaguely in time with the music until her friend took it away from her. She found another one, and I was amazed that she didn’t break the bottle. I have had wine bottles explode in my suitcase with very little persuasion. Her skinny little arm was just pounding the thing. I thought there was going to be a bad accident. She nailed the stage hundreds of times, and the bottle never broke. Amazing. Wild crowd. Everywhere you look there is something interesting going on.

The opening act was fun, all covers, with a girl singer and a girl keyboard player. They were dressed semi-goth, and I wanted to tell them to be more insane, but never did. It was loud when I chatted with them, and they were so nice. I asked the name of the band, and the singer said SIN. I thought she said SING, and raved about what a wonderful name! Like YES, a real joyous name. I don’t like SIN at all, really. Talk about me not knowing what I am talking about.

My bass-playing friend Jolene was at the gig and she updated me on her rock and roll stuff, and about breaking up with her guitar man. There was a bit of a mad house scene at the T-shirt booth, being that it was our strongest Edmonton gig ever (so says the manager of the venue) and I got away for long enough to hear this gal’s stories backstage when it was quiet for a few moments.

So what is with me hanging out with all these girls on this tour? Poor souls have to hear my boat engine, house design, miso soup talk. I hang out with girls at home as well. I do have male friends, tons in fact, but spend most time with artsy dudes, be they in construction or whatever. I want to hear about production of original works no matter what the medium. What I don’t enjoy is hanging out with guys listening to big man bragging and macho innuendo crap. Like I am expected to compete. “Ya, I lifted a heavy thing, oh ya, I make big $, oh you need a big boat engine, big this, big that.”

That is probably why I have always enjoyed hanging out with girls. They generally don’t talk like they have a bunch of BS to prove. Girls are also more caring, I find, and usually have a gentler approach to life. I also think that they are generally smarted than boys, or at least more sensible.

I don’t have anything to prove, you know. I wanna have fun now, want insightful chatter, and I manage to live that way. The only thing that I can’t stand is when Tracy’s friends drop by and all talk at the same time when I am recording. It is like being in a bird cage.

There are some girls that bug me too, of course. Some girls demand so much attention and act like I am expected to be one of the guys competing. Example: I did tons and tons of gigs in the old days where there were always stripper girls backstage. I hate to generalize here, but many of them either acted low IQ, or were not acting at all, and I felt that their scene was more tragic than celebratory. (whew, nice snob talk there dude!) It is as if they didn’t know that chill is the key to good vibe. I wasn’t trying to get any action from them, or dope, or free housing, (unlike SOME people), just hang out like any regular person (being that they were in MY backstage room), and the conversations were always about stupid shit or sad circumstance. Like, “I told my Mom that I was a peeler, and she thinks that I peel bananas at, like, a restaurant!”

I have heard that some strippers earned university degrees and raised their kids with the $ they made, although I have never seen much of that side of it. I have a couple of ex-stripper friends these days who are great people, so what do I know, other than the ones I met on the road were crazy, into dope, and that I had an old guitar player had a fine time living off of them. Anyway…………………..

I don’t ask much of people that I meet; just to have a good vibe and be treated with the same respect that I hand out. Who would be any different than that? The Trooper band has friends these days that are girls, like Tazia in Edmonton, who is just a good vibe. A good buddy. I think it’s great. In fact, she is talking about moving to the Island, has an aunt on Protection Island and is offering to hang out and help on fun work days over there. Now that is a cool chick! It is so easy to get along in this world, and some of my macho male friends suffer loneliness due to their competitiveness.

Anyway, my new green, stage long jacket wasn’t cutting the –5c situation outside, so I had to wear the yuppy marine stuff that I brought as back up. Cold out.

240kms to Trochu. Excellent! Best deli tray of the tour. The crew was treated to soup and pie as soon as they arrived. We had a table covered in chilled prawns, all sandwich ingredients, spinach dip, and yes, apple pie. There were real security dressed-up people, including a smiling one backstage, Ra gave an interview and we goofed around in the dance studio that served as a dressing room at the community centre. If I could do it all again, you know, I would be a dancer in a dance troupe. Modern dance, like the one my big sister did when I was a kid, all dressed like purple blobs with coloured lights, trippy music, slowly rolling around on the stage passing grapes around. I thought it was the BEST psychedelic performance art I had ever seen. Just totally abstract. Years later I asked my sister and she said that the dancers were supposed to be grapes, and that the dance wasn’t really that cool. I think it was the coolest, in fact, and since when do grapes eat other grapes?

The Trochu gig was excellent, and everyone was in great spirits. Great looking crowd. I don’t know what they expect when they go see a classic rock band like this, but I just may modestly suggest that we exceed preconceptions, because everyone in the place goes nuts, and that is a very good thing for any community. What a gas!

This is because we CARE. And, we are also having as much fan as the crowd. I have seen plenty of bands that don’t care (like Gordon Lightfoot in Victoria BC, in my opinion), and I think I can tell the difference by now. If we were not having fun, we would all be doing something else. Believe me. In my lifetime, so far, I have turned down 5 different offers to go to Hawaii with bands that I didn’t like.

We are averaging 13mpg with this amazing new truck. Not very good. I didn’t know that there were vehicles like that still built. We gotta take Rick Mercer’s 1 ton challenge.

230km drive to Canmore, in the beautiful snowy Rocky Mountains for a day off, and a well-deserved one at that. We are going full out on this tour, not a lot of time wasted. This town has Vancouver-priced real estate (oh, hold that thought Dairy Queen…………….) and happy young people with skis going here and there. Scott likes cold air, leaves the hotel window open, and I freeze a bit, let him know, and this time we were beside a busy street, so there was a bit of traffic noise. No big deal other than I was editing digital audio and freezing the whole time I was there. I have a new version of The Butterfly Song, and also I am ready for Scott’s bass track on Old Ladies in Outer Space. It takes a whole lot of EQ to get everything up, and I can only listen for a couple of hours before I need a break, walk around the village and get into some spicy veggie sausage rolls.

We stayed at this Villa for 2 nights, the second being a 25km drive to Banff (famous ski town) for a sound check, dinner and gig. This time it was the crowd that exceeded my expectations. Total happy young people freak out. I think they are all rich. Or at least plenty off them. Kinda luxury town to be out going for it on a school night. Lots of girls lifting their shirts up in front of the stage. This band is so chill that we go backstage, have a laugh, a snack, a high-5 and nobody even says “Hey, what about the girl with the pierced ones?” It is all part of the scene. Hey, now I have something to brag about with my macho buddies back home about. Ya, next time I have a competitive macho conversation. Ya, not.

In my opinion (oh not that again!), the human body is a beautiful part of nature. Like a tree, or a duck on the pond. If a girl wants to flash her boobs at a rock band, that is an excellent compliment to the band. I am not just being a big pig here. If she didn’t like the band she wouldn’t do that. She would probably not even be there. A person can clap, cheer, express themselves in many ways. It’s all good. This is cultural stuff at this point, it is a rock show. Where else can this happen today? At the mall? No. Let’s live in a liberated age (as in liberty) and have a good time with it. I don’t want any arguments on this one.

Guys show their appreciation to the band as well you know. Guys have their own ways of expressing joy. One guy got up in the air some how, fell, and Ra could feel the guy’s jaw hit the stage through the vibrations. The guy got up again like nothing happened. At other gigs, guys get onstage, jump onto the crown, fall all over the place. I like this stuff as well, but you can see why I like to hang out with girls. They are less dangerous. (oh, here is the Dairy Queen for real………)

I must have told you about the girls I knew in High School who worked at the Diary Queen. That is the fattest that I ever got, just before I went on the road and lost 50 pounds in a few months. The Dairy Queen girls gave all the food away to anyone they knew, or knew people that they knew. The place actually was not making a lot of dough and the manager freaked out, (poor bastard, shoulda been there more often), but the girls never got busted. He drove up in his Corvette once and walked in right when we were being handed bags of stuff. He never figured it out. I tried all kinds of things there, different dips and stuff, and even made my own cone, and the twirl was really tricky. I have a friend who tried 5 patties on one burger. The girls would also supply bar-b-que parties. I had so many novelties once, that I had to give them away to people on the street before they all melted. After their shift, I would peddle our bikes up to the lake for a midnight swim. Fun days! (kinda like now, too!)

My favourite part of the Banff gig was the ride back to the hotel. We stopped at a train crossing and let a huge, great long train go by. The sound was so thick and dynamic. It was the most wonderful sounding train I have ever heard. I thought that the other guys would have spaced out on the train music as well, but it was just another big train. Ra says that he gets big trains at home all the time. I only get a weird 1950s single car dayliner twice a day. All horn and no rumble. Ruins some vocal takes in fact. Frankie says that he has never hopped a train. I did. Once, in North Vancouver, just to say that I did. The train hopping fit the mood of the day back then.

(mmmmmmmmmmmmm excellent Dairy Queen stop, ice cream sandwich, Frankie has a peanut buster parfait.) In this lifetime, the Dairy Queen will never break even on the damage I have caused to their books.

We stopped in to visit the family of Heather, or promotions Goddess, and I tried to get her son Corbin (the mini scientist) going on a rant, but he didn’t say quite as much funny stuff this time. He is the total-professor who usually has lots to say. Heather gave the band and crew lots of cookies and muffins, helped us out with laundry, and joined us in the drive to Airdrie (30kms outside of Calgary) for 2 show over the next 2 days. This was a smaller venue with everyone in the place up and going for it. Talk about a community freak out. Excellent.

We stayed for 3 days at the Sandman HOTEL, DOWNTOWN CALGARY. (OOPS  CAP LOCK ON). Transit is free downtown, and I saw Frankie miss a train that I was on. We all did banking, I walked to a mall, enjoyed the Devonian Indoor Gardens, and braved the freeeeezing weather outside. You had to put your hands up your sleeves. I took a chance and walked into a store called Mountain Equipment Co-Op. WOW! Blew my mind! I want EVERYTHING in that store. I spent an hour the first day and 2 hours the second day looking at everything. Wheels for a canoe, trailer for a bicycle, wet suits…………..by the end of the second day, our lighting guy Dave Hampshire joined me in an actual shopping trip. I had to wait for him while he was interviewed by CBC radio and the Province newspaper in regards to Mount Washington Ski Hill news. That is Ok. Scott and I had an upper floor corner suite to hang out in for the 3 days. We commuted from Calgary to the gigs. Dave bought lexan wine glasses (no more hotel cups for the boys) and I hope Tracy is thrilled with my selections as well. (all camping stuff).

One of my early dates with Tracy was a trip to a private spot at the Nanaimo River, where I cooked a Chinese dinner in a portable WOK over a small camp stove. We stayed in my tent, and the next day, the place was so full of people that there were yuppies pretty much leaning on my tent. Like they couldn’t go somewhere else, like 50 feet away, perhaps?

(a biker just ran across the road………)

Since then we have collected camping stuff, but mostly used and heavy cooking stuff. And, cheap Zellers crud, like an air mattress that deflates right away. I still like Zellers, cos the lowest price is the law (and the quality, perhaps.) Am I gonna get sued for saying this?

I have a vision of a totally portable camp set up. All good, strong light weight stuff. So I bought all the pots that fit together, tiny puff-up pillows, tiny tea pot, hatchet…and a couple of big rubber dry bags to put everything in. If all the stuff fits into 2 bags, and the bags fit into the Zodiac boat, we can go anywhere, any beach, cook anything and even camp out. Since the Protection Island thing has taken over our lives so much, we haven’t explored the other local Islands as much. We also have friends with boats, mostly more powerful ones, and likely will have some gang cook-outs and camp-outs this summer.

If you are around, gimme an email this summer!

Photo by Ra McGuire

This big black YUKON truck has not a whole lot of baggage space, so I end up having bags of stuff in the crew truck. I ran into an old school friend from Gabriola Island at the Co Op equipment store, and I gave him a Gabriola pamphlet that I just happened to have in with my house plans. (sadly he told me that his Mom sold their huge Gabriola place), I spent 3 days in Calgary drawing pages of house design, with each change having to change the consecutive drawings, being that it is a 3-stage construction project.

Scott laid down the bass riffs for Old Ladies In Outer Space, and I guess I should work on the final mix of that today (when we get finished this 580km drive to North Battleford Sask. We just stopped beside a super long old barn with tons of graffiti on it. Ra is out taking pictures of it.) We got enough mud under the truck to go rattatatatat under the truck for the next few kms of flat highway. It took Ra 20 minutes to clean the mud off of his shoes later.

Frankie went to Science World with Heather and Corbin (the mini scientist,) had a laugh and quite successfully got Corbin going (got him to spazz out righteously). Craig went as well, got a nice basket of fried food. Frankie got over 4g on a bike that goes in an overhead circle.

Hey, we have been invited to play at a private function (invitation only), hosted by a chiropractor who is setting up a private practice in Edmonton. This fellow has been backstage at a couple of our gigs, with a table, ready to set anyone up who needs that type of work. He is a big ex-football player, looks like Clark Kent, is inviting us to a private dinner club for dinner (Easter with his Family), and is also going to make us orthodics. I am looking forward to that! I have never been able to make him laugh, and have not quite yet figured out his trip. I like him.

At this point of the tour, every parking lot is covered in ice. Ra slipped getting out of the truck one day and went down pretty hard, which is not funny at all. Happened to me a while ago too. You gotta be so careful all the time.

2 shows into the year, and about 60 shows booked ahead of us…….here we go!

Photo by Ra McGuire

Scott went to Vancouver several days early to visit family and record a song with his sister. I came over by myself on the ferry, met our neighbor from 2 doors away that I really like but never visit, had 3 berry teas, saw loads of beautiful huge dimensional fir lumber leave the Island on trucks, along with a dead logging truck, and a dead Porsche car, all on big truck trailers. (as I write this, we pull over at a closed gas station/Antique store with a septic tank pumpkin on the roof, ton of junk, boxes of books,  and a little black boy screen printed to a green piece of tin, the size of a door. Scott is looking though Ra’s DVDs, ready to watch a movie.)

Anyway, I had some fresh midnight cookies from Tracy, my audio recorder, and bag of clothes on the ferry baggage service, met my old friend Andy Harding at the depot where he works doing maintenance (although in real life the dude can build ANYTHING and is massively over qualified). When I walk off of the ferry, Scott is waiting, with my recorder case and big hockey bag (he insisted on carrying my bags), we drive to Smitty’s place and play some cool guitars. Ra showed up in a  (as I write this, it is a week later and we are going rather fast over a patchy prairie road, and I may get ill looking at this screen as I write.)

Is this where I left off? The tour hasn’t even started yet! Ra drove up to Smitty’s house in a black YUKON XL cop-looking truck with tinted windows. There is some new law that prohibits up from using the huge vans with the sleeping benches, now we have the giant luxury truck with the 8-million gallon gas tank. You can go almost 900kms on one fill-up. The seats are heated, everything is button this and that. And it GOES! This thing can jump curbs (as Scott is soon to show us downtown Calgary) and is also amazing in the snow, which is nice cos we are driving into the winter freeze of it all. Best vehicle we have used yet. Amazing.

Up to Sun Peaks Village (320kms) where we eat fine food and perform for a crowd of ski hill people. The ski hills always have good-looking crowds of folks that I guess are quite wealthy. Do rich people generally marry good-looking people? Great people, great food, awesome hotel with pool that goes through a heavy plastic sheet to the outdoors, where you can see the steam of the pool dissipate.

(520kms) to the city of Prince George the next day. I have played this town many, many times over the years, and have never really had a great impression of it, being that all I would see is the raunchy rock clubs, fights and a wee bit of despair in the air. And, in earlier day completely disgusting band houses. I heard that the horrible old guy that used to hire rock bands in this town, and profit hugely from his nightclubs is now dead. I bet his hell is one of his own band houses, complete with crabs.

Photo by Ra McGuire

This time we stop at a brand new casino hotel. The TYVEK is still on the exterior walls and the parking lot unpaved, but the hotel, restaurant and new casino is full of people. Wow, do they know how to hire staff there. Everyone is young and totally magazine cover worthy. And, these cats are really nice, friendly and funny as well. One dude, security guy, hung out with us backstage for the 2 day stay-and-play, and I bet he had enough laughs to last a month.

The food was wonderful (great salads), in fact there was no limit to anything from the canteen, restaurant or breakfast buffet, any time. The chef came to us after each show and asked if there was anything special that we wished for. I got some top-notch salads this way, and I even had one wrapped up to go in the end. Great gig all around. Totally enthusiastic crowd, and casino crowds can be a little more sit-downish than others at times. This was a rock concert. Total.

I met a girl (Amber) at the T-shirt booth that I knew when I was 18, playing up North. My band was all totally starved-out, and this gal (and her 2 friends) made us a turkey dinner one day, just for fun. She dropped by (this time) in the day time and we went for a trip into town to see the pawn shops. One old guy behind a counter was upset because a 17-year-old just peed into his doorway, and some really scary looking dudes drove old trucks around the block. I would not clown with those clowns. So, I bought a couple of novels, the best one being the inspirational life story of Helen Keller.

Amber likely got a kick out my mild antics, and we made it back to the casino hotel in time for a sound check. The Trooper band had invested heavily in a new, complete set of in-ear monitors, mixing board and cases for this trip, and we had several daytime sound checks to adjust personal stage sound volume levels. The new sound system is a dream. Guaranteed perfect stage sound every show! I believe that we are all playing and singing better as result (meaning that now we can all hear each other.)

Scott, meanwhile was staying with his family at relatives home close by, and almost everyone had a flu. The kids were barfing. Scott was not quite yet in road mode. I had the hotel room to myself, so I spent a lot of time with headphones on, editing mixes of new tunes I had recorded over the winter.

(we just launched and got air time on a highway bump.)

720km drive back to the coast, this time the city of Prince Rupert BC, for a day off. Talk about a scenic drive!

Mountains. Huge. I used to do this drive with 5 band guys in a 1974 Ford Pinto in the old days. I used to play Rupert quite a bit when I was 18, and I feel a real affinity with the place. When we got into town, (this time) and checked into the best hotel in town, our gang met in the restaurant, and I went out, walked all around the streets and relived some old feelings and bridged them to the present. (Wow! Church talk!) I walked the lobby of the hotel where I used to stay, and realized that there really isn’t anyone around from that early-days era that I can share the old stories with. Amber, who I hung out with in PG was there back then, and I guess she shared the same nostalgic vibe, cos she left a beautiful fruit basket at the hotel for me, which I thought was really kind, and a great feast for the morning. Funny thing, there was absolutely no sign of any decay in any piece of the fruit. It was perfectly fresh. Quite amazing, being up North in the winter with fresh fruit from all over the world.

The next day I walked all around town again. This part of the country is famous as having some of the least sunshine on earth, (for real), but funny thing, it has always been sunny when I was there. This time, the clouds were all there, the tide was low, the cruise ship pier empty, the sky drizzly, the people friendly, happy, and I bought 4 BC Ferry jackets at the Salvation Army thrift store for $2 each. They are totally hip, and I am going to paint them up with pirate stuff, I guess.

I have made 3 templates for Jolly Rogers, bought tons of black fabric and am ready to make flags at home as well.

We went to the community theatre to sound check, and what a great modern facility! Taffy-coloured floors, seats, excellent acoustics. I love theatres, be they new or old. I LOVE  playing theatres. Every one has a good sight line, and I really play like it is a concert, not a beer bash. My childhood was spent in theatre performance situations, so I am quite comfortable with it.

The gig was all ages. Everyone was there. The front of the stage had rows of little kids, all excited, and I hoped that they would all join us, which they did, covered the stage, danced around, all sang into the mics (Scott lowered his stand and kneeled down to accommodate) and it sounded wonderful, in fact. If you were there, and you were not touched by this, then you are made of ice. Talk about bringing all generations of the community together to celebrate!

I chatted-up the stoner rocker kids after the show, and they were so nice, listened to my BS and took me quite seriously, not like I am some old buffoon that is out of touch (not that I am old, a buffoon or out of touch.)

I got a note backstage from some friends who happened to be in town, with a phone number of where to reach them. Wendy, her daughter Paige, and granddaughter Jodi. They are some of my favorite people. The dad, who is at home, is a bit of a guru to me. Talk about Mr. Relaxation. I couldn’t believe this guy when I met him. Like NOTHING bothers him. This is Tracy’s extended family, and they now live in the Queen Charlotte Islands. This 3-generation girl gang just took the 7-hour boat ride from that mysterious part of the earth to do some town shopping. They missed the wonderful theatre show, which bummed me out, but I did phone Paige, and she was able to drop by, hang out backstage, tour the theatre and BS in the hotel lobby with me until 4am.

The next day, the girl gang drove to Terrace (145kms) where we were also to perform, and they managed to attend our sound check at the local town hall (about 800 people at this show, like the last theatre one.) The new monitors were working beautifully, for me anyway, and Smitty required a million adjustments. He has EVERYTHING running into them, and I kept mine simple. Keyboards and vocals. That’s it. Everything else I catch as ambient bleed through the ear plugs, you know. (OK, we just stopped for a 6” tuna on honey oat bread…mmm).

Photo by Craig Jager

Back in the van (truck) now, Smitty said that was the slowest Subway he has ever been in. They are going to shut that one down for a couple of hours, because they are running out of food. They had to cut all the vegetables as they went, the garbage cans are all full, and ants are getting in.

Terrace. Right. Frankie told the story about the guy he saw in Rupert at the laundromat who looked exactly like Chris Farly, and had to crawl across the dryers to get stuff working. Frankie was howling. I saw Frankie on the street there and he had 3 big bags of laundry. I have some used shirts, socks, gaunch. That is it. Frankie perspires so much onstage. He is soaked 2 songs into the night. Poor Scott has to put his arm around him to do the bow at the end. If I bump into Frankie onstage, I have to rub the sweat off on Smitty’s shirt.

The Terrace gig was a total town-hall smash. I would love to go to a show like that; you know, a full-out rock freak out in a small town.

Smitty always asks the band if we could not hang out at the venue too late after the gig when there is a long drive the next day, but nobody ever listens.

More hotel audio mixing. We had a 7am leave, and 980kms to drive the next day to Dawson Creek B.C. (which we did in 10 hours). This truck is wild. People slow down in front of us, likely thinking that we are the cops. This is the town where I met Ra and Smitty in 1985. I went backstage and sang a Simon and Garfunkle song with Ra. We became friends right away.

135 kms the next day to Grande Prairie. Both towns I used to play when I was a teenager, both still excellent rock and roll show towns. We played like monsters, I believe. These were my best keyboard solos, to my taste. Total improv, lots of pounding.

Frankie asked Ra to play some 1980s pop songs in the van for the drives. Ra also had some ‘70s disco, which is always fun. Frankie is the KING of the ‘80s. It took me a while to figure this out, but he knows every ‘80s song, and loves every moment of it. Kinda neat. I am a ‘70s God, I guess. My Mom still thinks that it is the ‘30s. I had a piano teacher once who was trapped in the 17th century. I try to live in the moment, you know, and use that as an excuse for never knowing what day it is.

Photo by Brian Smith

At some point, Scott, Frankie and I watched the movie Open Plain which has the best gun fight ever. I have never seen or heard anything like it, and it quite freaked me out. For the next week I was concerned that I too would get shot, and kept the curtains closed in the hotel rooms. I also didn’t want to have my back to a lot of people, which is difficult because we are dealing with thousands of people. I really doubt if anyone really wants to shoot me these days, (I hope) because the people I have met are all quite nice. No fun being paranoid, nonetheless. (Smitty just stopped at THE LAST SPIKE…GOTTA GET OUT…) Ok, in 1885 the nebulous dream of a ribbon of steel nearly 3000 miles became a reality…………………..

Also at some point, Smitty hit the brakes hard, and an entire serving of noodles hit the floor of the truck…………