The Landslide Will Bring it Down

What a crazy couple of weeks. I "officially" opened the Hamilton Music Studio two weeks ago. I'm renting a section of my brother's place that's isolated from the rest of the house and has a separate entrance and bathroom. I looks GREAT and it's kind of a dream come true. Another thing to cross of the list. I've started advertising and already picked up some new students. This AND my regular teaching/gigging schedule has kept things a little crazy but check THIS week out:

Last week I was in Whistler with Soulstream playing our regular set and backing up one of the finalists for Rockstar INXS, Suzie McNeil, for Bell Canada's annual party. The next day I was gonna snowboard, but I had a ton of tunes to learn for a theater show in West Van on the 11th (see below) and needed to get back to Van. The gig was at the Chateau and they put us up there but when I went to check out, the girl at the desk looks at me:

"Have you.....made arrangements to get home then?"

"Uh....no. I'm gonna drive home."

"Oh. The long way then. Lillioet"

"Uh....no. Why? Should I?"

"Well, the highway's closed. There was a rockslide and it won't be cleared for at 10 - 48hrs."

"48 hours???"

"Bell has offered to put you guys up for another night."

Hmm....I need to get home. I have a billion songs to learn and I have a gig tonight with Retrofit at Republic, which 4 of the 5 members of, are currently stranded with me in Whistler. I WOULD love to stay. It's Super Bowl Sunday and I'd love to watch the game. Perhaps, this is karma at work telling me I need a day off. Also, the thought of driving to Kamloops and then home on the Coquihalla was not my idea of a fun afternoon.

"I'll stay."

"Very good, Mr Hamilton."

I looked forward to the prospect of a day off and another stay at the Chateau. I went into town and bought some new running shoes and went for a run before coming back and watching the football game. Then word came in that they opened the highways but none of my subs for Republic were calling me back, so I decided to head back to make the gig. But this rockslide set me a day behind on a massive tune learning project for this one show.

The show I was freaking about was one that I had to be Music Director at a theater in West Van last Sunday for 10 singers doing 2 songs each and an ensemble number with a full band. So not only did I have to learn all the guitar stuff, but EVERYBODY's part as well to run the one rehearsal the day of the gig and conduct the show. To put into more tangible terms, for 2 weeks I have listened to nothing but this CD for this show and the 20 songs involved in it. It takes a lot of discipline to listen to music as homework in order to saturate your ears (some of the tunes include a Josh Groban/Celine Dion duet. I'm sure my mom would've loved it!!!).

I also had a Famous Players gig on the Friday previous to the West Van gig that involved playing the solos from Hotel California note for note along with the other guitarist in the band, Dave. This was another bit of prep along with the already overloaded tune learning schedule. I went to bed late on Thursday and up early on Friday to make sure things were spic and span. This was for a Wells Fargo Bank annual conference at the Convention Center. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this event, they hired James Taylor and his band to play the night before us and Liza Minnelli on the opening night; the stage we played was U2's old stage. The gig went well except one of my pedals totally went down on the Hotel Cali solo and Dave had to cover both parts. It couldn't have gone on any other tune, it had to be the one that I had practiced and prepared for and needed me the most on. C'est la vie.

Then the big theater gig on Sunday. Saturday was spent crossing the T's and dotting the I's on all of the 20 tunes. Then on Sunday I was up at 7am for final preps and then soundcheck in West Van at 10am, rehearsal at 1 - 6, show at 7:30 - 10pm and then drive over to Republic to play till 3am!! And then today I woke up ready to take on the world again only to realize that I have NO gigs this week until next Sunday. Even Bar None is closed for renovations. Talk about one extreme to the next.

In other news, it's Valentine's Day. For the singles of the world, it's just another day I suppose....which is fine by me.

I plan on running the St George Marathon in St George, Utah Oct 6th. I have to enter a lottery to register as it's a pretty popular race. 3:15 here I come.

OH!!!!! Almost forgot....update on the Neil Douglas Guitar Shop Hockey Pool:

1 Jeff Beaudoin 1044
2 John Dunn 991
3 Rob Hamilton 964
4 Jeff Pauze 957
5 Nathan Heidecke 945
6 James Dunn 941
7 Peter Mussenden 929
8 Jim Rickbiel 923
9 Kris Schulz 916
10 Matthew Mussenden 908
11 Stephen Bruyneel 905
12 Neil Douglas 899
13 Alexis Nery 897
14 Chris Roy 895
15 Phil Coelho 887
Kelly Brown 887
17 Jared Mumford 886
18 Ryan Langevin 882
19 Chet Kemp 881
20 John Spindler 866
21 Metzy Turnbull 864
22 Lucas Gander 861
23 Steph Boudreau 857
24 Adrian Laszkiewicz 852
25 Brent Dumont 847
26 Kevin Sage 833
27 Rob Smyth 829
26 Kris Joss 817
27 Aaron Joyce 812
28 Dustin Rilcof 807
29 Kyle Wagner 802
30 Christine Bourne 799
31 Meghan Schulz 796
32 Todd Mumford 775
33 Cole Schmidt 710

GO FLAMES, GO!!!!