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Ain't Too Proud To Beg

2009-05-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

Last week, some high school kids approached me about a project they were working on and wondered if I would answer some questions. I agreed and their first question was a huge, fascinating, and vague one: How do you feel about homelessness? I went on to answer a bunch of their questions and although I feel like I got my point across, it got me to thinking that I really should organize my thoughts on this matter.

First off, let's get clear on what does it mean to be homeless. I'm not talking about a buddy who's crashing for a week on your couch until his basement suite is available for him to move into, I'm talking about so called "rough sleepers". Now to be fair, I know little to nothing of the homeless plight; I mean, this side of seeing Curtis in front of Bar None begging for change. I really have never worked with them or know anything about their life other than what I see and read , although I'm not sure I need to.

It seems to me that there might be a conception of homeless people (even in their own mind or so they would have me believe) that they are down on their luck people that lost their job and had no other alternative than the street. From what I can tell, this isn't the case. From what I can see there are 3 types of rough sleepers: mentally ill, drug addicts, and 20 something kids who want to stick it to the man.

Many people (friends of mine included) have taken one of three approaches to the homeless and people begging for change: help them by giving them something (food, change, cigarrettes, etc.), not doing anything, or getting in their face about getting a job. I'm not sure that any of these three approaches are particularily effective although I understand the thinking behind each.

I'd like to start my thoughts here by changing the vocabulary a bit. "Homelessness" not only suggests that these individuals are without a home, it also presupposes that they want to have a home. How would you account for the paranoid schizophrenic guy in White Rock then that refuses shelter on the basis of that he thinks the government is trying to capture him and that he believes man should be with nature. Shouldn't this individual be free to pursue his values? He isn't harming anyone or anything. Calling him "homeless" would be missing the point/problem.

A capitalist society is truly an amazing thing. I would encourage everyone to read anything by Joseph Heath if you disagree with that statement. Imagine a group of people move into a house together (there was a time in my life where I lived with Jon Bentley, Brad Turner, Scott Tucker, Kelly Brown, Andrew Davies, Darren Radtke, and Sunny Blower all in the same house.....talk about a jazz fraternity!!!). Now most of you know how difficult it can be to manage household chores in a roommate situation. Even when you assign jobs to everyone, there is no guarantee that the other roomates will hold up their end or to the level of expectation that you'd like. The problem is incentive. If your livelihood depended on your ability and quality of doing your chores, things would turn around quite quickly. Also, if you could all divide up the chores to the those that you performed the best at and you found the most satisfying it would be even better. Also, if someone else said that they'd do your job even better than you, it would ensure quality. This is the greatest organizing principles of any society. This is why we enjoy the quality of life that we do. Now what do you do if one of the roommates becomes disadvantaged and can't perform their job. Well, this begs the question, what is his/her disadvantage?

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum compiled a list of what she considers to be categories of human functioning which if one doesn't have access to, constitutes a disadvantage. Here is that list:

1. Life - being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one's life is so reduced as to be not worth living.
2. Bodily health - being able to have good health; to be adequately nourished and sheltered.
3. Bodily integrity - being able to move from place to place freely having one's bodily boundaries treated as sovereign.
4. Sense, imagination, and thought - being able to express yourself and being able to have experiences.
5. Emotions - being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves. Not having emotional development slighted by fear, anxiety, abuse, or neglect.
6. Practical reason - being able to form a conception of the good and top engage in critical reflection about the planning of one's own life.
7. Affiliation - being able to associate, work, and engage in various forms of interaction with others.
8. Other species - being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature.
9. Play - being able to laugh, play, and enjoy recreational activities
10. Control over one's environment - being able to participate in political choices. Being able to hold property and employment.
11. Showing gratitude or doing good for others
12. Being able to live in a law abiding fashion
13. Understanding the law

The last three were added from Jonathan Wolff and Avner De-Shalit's wonderful book "Disadvantage". All of these disadvantages are based on two premises. Firstly, that these disadvantages are imposed involuntarily. For instance, if someone were to decide that they wanted to only watch Matlock reruns for all of their waking hours, they might make the argument that they are disadvantaged because they don't have any money, but of course that would be ridiculous. Secondly, these disadvantages are based on capability. A barista at Starbucks may think, I'd like to make the kind of money a doctor makes and cry disadvantage because they make a barista's salary, whereas if I were a woman in Saudi Arabia I actually couldn't become a doctor even if I wanted to.

So the question of the "homeless" is what is their disadvantage and is it involuntary? Do yourself a favor, go to the front of the Vogue theater one night and ask yourself if those kids out front of it are disadvantaged or do they just want to smoke pot all day? Then have a look a Curtis, who's frozen his feet a few times, has a serious crack habit, and is severely mentally ill.

Maybe a better word would be "unemployable". That brings the problem right into focus. These aren't people that could sustain a job. I don't think there is such thing as a functioning meth addict. So what do we do? If we give money to the "homeless" this may help some who are legit, but it also creates a free ride for those who want to not contribute to society's household chores. What about the ones who are legit, but don't want government help? Can or should the government force mentally ill to "stay on their meds"?

There is a value to society to help "unemployables". Less crime, less mentally ill, less poverty, and most importantly perhaps, more human compassion. I would like to see my tax dollars spent for the creation and upkeep of a modest facility that offers mental health and drug abuse assessment, medication, and treatment for rough sleepers....well I suppose for everyone. I wouldn't force anyone into my facility but I give them incentive to go to it. Dropping off blankets, offering housing, and food is all compassionate, but it's not providing an incentive to get back into life. There are real solutions now for the drug addicted and mentally ill and we should try to steer people towards that solution. It should sting a bit to be out in the streets and it should feel like the only solution should be to get help.

Always Fresh

2008-05-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry everybody. It's been busy. The marathon is Sunday and I'm going to take another shot at Boston. Things are busy with teaching, practicing, and gigs, so unfortunately blogging has taken a back seat. But now I find myself between soundcheck and gig in Coquitlam. I'm playing tonight for....uh....well, some big event at the Red Robinson show theater at the Coquitlam casino. I was getting lost in YouTube videos of Pat Martino (which will inevitably lead to Fainting Goats) when I realized my mom will be pissed if I don't blog soon (hi Mom). So I was trying to think of things that have been on mind lately....

Oh yeah....

Is nothing sacred? This was a question posed by a friend when confronted with the possibility of a Tim Horton's being opened on Commercial Drive here in Vancouver. For those of you not in the know, here are two givens: Tim Horton's is a doughnut chain here in Canada. Some feel it is as synonymous with Canada as beavers, beer, and hockey. Hell, Tim himself was a hockey player. Also for those of you not in the know, Commercial Drive is an area of Vancouver that's home to many artists of all different mediums and general funky types. Wal-mart haters in other words.

So, IS nothing sacred? Well, there are a couple deductions one can make from that statement. One is that, Commercial Drive is sacred. The other is that Tim Horton's will degrade the holy drive.

I often hear people refer to Commercial Drive as "THE DRIVE" (picture someone closing their eyes as they say "THE DRIVE") ala "The Village" in New York. This implies a certain smugness. "Where do you live?" "Oh, I live on THE DRIVE". They might as well say, "I'm totally hip, obviously retard." My response to "THE DRIVE" is "Oh, Marine Drive? That's near me! Howdy neighbour!" At which point, they give me this look of disgust that I'm so out of touch with what is cool that I don't even know what THE DRIVE that they are talking about.

Don't get me wrong, I like Commercial and my friends that live there. I just hate smugness. Most of the people are not saying THE DRIVE to be smug, I think it's just a phrase that's made it's way into the lexicon of Vancouver-speak that originates with smug asses. However, I think many of those people who are not being smug would also say that "they" shouldn't open a Tim Horton's on Commercial and that IS smug.

Let's take a look at 2 scenarios. First off, let's say that the predominant attitude on Commercial is not in favor of T-Ho's. Then, it would die a death because of lack of business from the locals. What about the non-locals? Well, in fact much of the business generated on Commercial Drive comes from the locals (in the 2001 transit strike, while other shopping districts reported a decrease in sales, Commercial reported an increase! That comes from thedrive.ca). In other words, economics 101 would suggest that if no one wants it, it will close. Hippies win. The other scenario, and more likely, is that T-Ho's will thrive. Good, tasty, healthy eats at a low price with quality assurance that Timmy himself puts his name on.

So what does it mean to be sacred? I would assume that my friend meant locally owned and operated businesses, not some big corporation, right? Like Cobs Bread? Busy Bee Dry Cleaners? How come no one considers these franchises to be sabotaging the holiness of Commercial.

I'll tell you why, because it's not fast food. Fast food is the new smoking. It's an easy target so that we can feel morally superior to others. We've hunted down McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King, now we're on to doughnuts.

People, leave it alone. Tim Horton's will not hurt your neighbourhood. Starbucks is on Commercial and yet Calabria, JJ Bean, and Turks thrive. Leave it to the consumer to make the choice, don't legislate it.

I remember reading about an old turn of the century Heinz ad that read something to the effect, "Protect yourself from your local Farmer, buy brand names. Buy Heinz."

i love the Java Jive and IT loves me

2008-01-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

I drink a lot of coffee. I love coffee; AND I love going for coffee. The president of Starbucks when asked what his vision for his company was, said that he saw it as the "third place". In other words: home, office, and Starbucks. Now, some might see that as a scary proposition and from a certain perspective it is (anti-trust, monopolization, corporate cannibalism, etc.). However, when I thought about his statement, it does ring true for me a bit. I have read literally hundreds of books, created a website, done taxes, created my business, kept in touch with friends, transcribed hundreds of songs, and drank TONS of coffee at my Starbucks.

I have also learned a lot about people.

I am (obviously) considered a "regular" and there are others of me. My brother is also a regular at my coffee shop although we hold different hours (the staff was floored to learn that we were brothers after serving both of us daily for years). Throughout the years, I've had the opportunity to eaves drop on many conversations.

Right now, I'm sitting beside a bible study group here at the coffee shop. Sorry this is not the coffee blog, it's the religion blog disguised as the coffee blog. Anyone easily offended should either tune in or tune out immediately. I've taken in many religious conversations in fact at my coffee shop. Some intriguing and some annoying. One annoying cliche is this one:

I'm spiritual but not religious.

(Oh Science, I hate that one)

Or the bumper sticker version:

Spiritual people enlighten me, Religious people frighten me.

(Jerome Iginla, that pisses me off!!!)

When I was young I began with the notion that there is no God and being a student of truth, I then searched for evidence. Well, I am now past the searching. I have accepted that there is no God and have quit the search altogether. This is in fact liberating. I've discovered that the world is enough for me. I don't need a heaven. I'm blown away by all of the things around me here on earth that I don't need to think beyond it. In fact, I'm more thoughtful of it. Also, I can't be forgiven by any higher power; I have to be forgiven for my wrong doings by the people around me, which makes me want to do the right thing right away. If this is the only life that there is, then I want to make the most of it and get it right. I have to develop a code of behaviour that is right, not because this book or that book says, but because it IS right. It also helps me to see everyone as equal, not us and them or the saved and heathens.

Although not everyone is like me. Some people need religion and a prescribed code of ethics and people to be around.

I once had a student, let's call him Mike. He had a very tough life. He got into drugs, crime, the underworld.....all while he was a police officer. He is now a born again Christian and he's doing great! He's got his life together and he's doing "good" things. I think there are people in organized religion that have had similar difficulties whether it be drugs or abuse and act out and religion was a way out. Like AA. Perhaps that's why sometimes we see the good church going individual be the sex offender or drug addict or the serial killer. Only 5% of people in AA actually quit drinking.

Now spiritual people. I guess this means that they believe that there is a God but don't want to associated with an organized religion. Does this mean that they believe in creationism? What about life after death? One God or many? Is there a code of ethics in spiritualism? What are the consequences of disobeying those codes? Hell? Heaven? Did Jesus exist? Was he the son of God? How about Buddha? Muhammed? I guess that would be getting to close to an organized religion to start answering those questions and chances are, if you ARE spiritual but not religious, you have never bothered to answer them anyways even though they are crucial to the idea of God.

Religious people frighten me.....so do spiritual people.....as does Steven Seagal.

Start of Something New

2007-11-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

Ok. I've been slacking. Not on life. On blogging. I have received three complaints in the last week so I decided to take that as a cue.

So what's new?

Well....lots. First off the St. George Marathon. I ran 3:22 at the St George Marathon in Utah on Oct and considering that my last marathon in Victoria a year earlier I ran 4:02, I felt pretty good about it. I was 11 minutes and 3 seconds away from qualifying for Boston though, so let that be the quest for this year. I guess it was a little too much to ask to take almost an hour off of my marathon time in a year. I'm going to keep up the running blog a little better too, so for more details about how I took 40 minutes off, tune in to robcanrun.blogspot.com otherwise I'll spare the rest of you the geek details.

Some other big news is that I have finally left the Neil Douglas Guitar Shop after 10 years of faithful teaching service. This job has played a pivotal role in my development as a teacher, a guitarist, and an artist. First of all, the students that I have taught in New West have been some of the most talented, committed, and respectful students I've ever had the pleasure of teaching, making it an especially hard decision to move on and at the same time an easy one as a result. The selfish part of me wanted to continue teaching these students, but I really felt as if my ever busy schedule as a professional musician was interfering in the most essential part of the learning process: consistency. Neil and my students have always understood that a big part of my life is playing the guitar professionally, which can be a nightmare sometimes for scheduling. It's recently got to the point where I've had to cut my days from originally when I started there at 6 days a week teaching all the way to 2 days and even with 2 days, I was having to sub out and reschedule a lot. I simply felt it was unfair to my students to continue being their teacher. As hard as it is to give them up, I would rather have them have a set, consistent time and teacher. That coupled with my own teaching studio at home taking off, the amount of gigs that I've been doing, and the right sub being available to take over my job at Neil's, made my final decision for me. The studio at home has been awesome though! The commute is obviously fantastic and being my own boss and controlling my own schedule makes things incredibly easier to accommodate the busy playing schedule. For more info on lessons, check out http://www.robhamilton.ca/lessons/

The Soulstream 10 year anniversary went off like gangbusters. Thanks to all that attended and took in the festivities. A special thanks to CBC for hanging out and recording it and I will keep all of you posted on when it will air. One little thorn in my side though was the obvious lack of advertising for the event. Don't get me wrong, the place was packed and any more people packed in there would've made the fire marshall raise an eyebrow, but in telling some people to come down and celebrate the 10 year with us was met more than once with the reply, "You guys are still playing there?" Uhh.....yeah. Every Monday and Tuesday for 10 years. In other words, some people even close to me were unaware that the gig was still happening, let alone the general public!! What does this say about "getting the word out"? Now, here's this 10th anniversary. A great way to invigorate this gig for another 10 years. Hell, considering the roster and accomplishments of the members of this band, I'm certain that the Georgia Straight, Westender, Terminal City......hell, the Globe and Mail might have done a story. Maybe even a front page. In my opinion this was a golden opportunity for free advertising. A gift really. Oh well. I guess people don't want to make money.

Some of you having been asking about the book, CD, and stuff....

It's all still happening. In fact, quitting Neil's has afforded me some "me" time to focus on the book and getting together some tunes for an album/gig. Randall is going to be doing a regular Thursday at the Yaletown brew pub and so maybe that'll be a great way to start introducing some of the new originals. In the meantime, I've purchased Quicktime Pro which essentially make the laptop into a video camera and I'll be posting some of my lessons on my website as soon as I figure out how to.

OH....and only one week left of High School Musical at Centennial Theater in North Van so make sure you check it out. Kids are losing their mind seeing this show. It sounds like the Beatles at Shea Stadium with all of the screaming. They bring signs and hold them up as if this was the Stanley Cup....they're just loving it. As they should, URP always does great shows and this one is no exception.

That Night in Toronto

2007-07-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

If Toronto is the certer of the universe, then I'm at the center of the center of the universe. I'm sitting on the corner of Queen street west and John street in Totonto, directly accross from Much Music. I've come out here to play a gig with Famous Players for the company, Flight Center. The gig was on Saturday night and went well, although the sound was as if we had a digereedoo player with us all night. They have put us up a a great hotel right down by the CN tower and I've taken an extra couple of days here to hang out and basically get some rest.

My good friend Tino lives here now. I have played with Tino for many years in such varied bands as Souldecision, Moka Only, and Retrofits and I'm pretty sure he is one of the funkiest bassists in the country. I remember him explaining that a lot of his practicing simply focused on grooving. He would literally just practice being funky.....and it shows!!!

I met up with him on Friday night at a place called The Drake Hotel. It seemed to me like a place to be seen. The kind of place that you have to stand in a line up for an hour just to get into one of the trendier rooms in the joint....which we did. Later that night, we met up with Coco's dad, John at the Rex and caught some of Mike Murley's set there. The next morning Tino flew off to Halifax to play with Ashley MacIssac, opening for the White Stripes (nice gig, eh??) which worked out well considering we had the Flight Center gig.

Yesterday, the band left and left me here to fend for myself. I decided that I wasn't gonna set my alarm, wake up when I want, and have zero agenda. I did a little exploring and ended up at the Hockey Hall of Fame. Really fascinating and what Canadian in their right mind wouldn't well up a little listening to stories of Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe, and the Great One.

Last night, Tino and I once again hit the road and checked out some local music. We went to a place called The Supermarket in Kensington which had some great, and not so great, singer songwriters doing an open mic. Then we headed over to the College St Bar and watched a funk band, whose repertoire was similar to Soulstream's. They were all great players and really nice.

Today.....we'll see. I might go see a movie. Maybe.

Forget All About That Macho Sh#t and Learn How to Play Guitar

2007-06-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

Alright, for those of you that aren't into serious guitar geekness, I would suggest you skip this blog. I recently have had my pedal board made for me and I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk a little about my gear, which I've been asked about a few times.

I've never really looked at myself as a guitarist. I just happen to play the guitar. There are many, many, many guys that can really PLAY THE GUITAR. I have just looked at someone who's participating in music through the guitar. It's only really been in the last 5 years that I think I've actually developed into a guitar player. I didn't even really understand tablature until about 2000. There lives a certain breed of guitarists who owns every video, book, magazine and seem to collect every vintage pedal, amp, and guitar and participate in all of the discussion groups, message boards, and forums concerning our 6 string obsession. I am not one those BUT I'M NOT KNOCKING THEM EITHER. My geeking lies in different areas; theory, music history, and my album collection! Now, that's not to say that I'm not interested in guitar sounds and tone, quite the opposite. I have spent countless hours and dollars trying to get a great sound and I'm thankful to the endless supply of information online to help me investigate these things. It's only recently that I've been nuturing my inner guitar geek.

First off, my guitars:

Washburn H335 semi-hollow body electric. This is one of my most special guitars. I won this guitar when I was 14 from the Lionel Hampton jazz festival for winning the "soloist" category. Basically, you play 2 tunes with a trio with you as the featured instrument. There were all types of instrumentalists competing in this category (saxophonists, bassists, trumpeters, etc.) and I'm guessing if one of them would have won, they would have been presented with an instrument they played. Mine happened to be this Washburn. This guitar was later stolen from me and I found it on EBay. It was about 6 months after the guitar was stolen from me, I was online one night. This was when Ebay was new and I'd heard about this online auction site. I decided to have a look and bingo, up came my guitar. It said it was located in Victoria. I called the police and they suggested I buy it and when I got the guy's email, they would get in touch with him and get the guitar back. Turns out that this guy bought it legitimately at a pawn shop in Vancouver, it just sort of slipped through the cracks. Anyways, I got it back. I have since replaced the electronics on the guitar with a Gibson Humbucker in the neck and a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck in the bridge. I've used this guitar on jazz gigs and Lee Aaron Metal Queen gigs and it rips. As a jazz guitarist, I've always played hollow bodies and they are the guitars that I'm the most comfortable with regardless of the style of music I'm playing. I always feel a bit like Alex Lifeson in the 70's playing all that great rock stuff on a hollow body.

Gibson ES 175. This is my baby. I love this guitar although it once suffered an injury and it has yet to get into the regular rotation. I was adjusting the truss rod and the screw/nut and the threaded end of rod that the screw is on snapped off. I replaced the entire rod, but the neck has yet to comfortable get back to 7 thousandth of a millimeter of relief at the 7th fret.

Gibson ES 135. This guy has been my workhorse through the last 5 years. One of my favorite guitarists is an Isreali guitarist named Ofer Ganor that I went to Berklee with. I hung out and played a couple of times with him and he played one of these guitars. He played it through a pignose and it was such a great sound!!! This is one of my main guitars with Soulstream.

Kinal Stratocaster. I decided that I wanted famed Vancouver guitar builder Mike Kinal to build me a guitar, but I hadn't decided what to get. My decision came from one of the most unlikely sources: Dr Dre. I have always loved those early NWA (Straight out of Compton) and Snoop Dogg (Doggystyle) albums and the session guitarist for those records had this great strat sound. Growing up, I was obsessed with Stevie Ray and Jimi Hendrix, so a strat was a sound that has always been in my head. Mike builds beautiful instruments and I'm lucky to have this guitar in my collection.

Fender Reissue Japanese Telecaster. I always thought that Andy Summers from the Police had the coolest guitar. In 98 when I saw that Fender had reissued that 50's sunburst tele with the binding around the edges, I had to have one. While playing Joseph and the Technical Dreamcoat, I met a friend after the show briefly and left the guitar in my car. Someone broke in and stole it along with my Roland Cube 60 amp. I was devastated. I did so much work to that guitar (Gibson Humbucker, Gotoh bridge, Tung Oiled Neck). I looked for years to replace the amp and guitar to no avail, scouring Ebay and Craigslist weekly. A year ago some guy walked into the guitar shop I was teaching at with one and I ended up replacing not only the guitar, but also the roland amp a few days later.

Ibanez RG 550. I bought this for the Cirque Pop show at the PNE that required me to play a Joe Satriani tune....plus it just feels so good!!! Everyone should own an Ibanez hockey stick shredder with a Floyd Rose, if for no other reason than fun!

Aria (Made in Spain) nylon string electric acoustic. I bought this at a time when I was just learning how to play classical and fingerstyle in general. When I worked on the cruise ships in 2000 I brought 3 guitars and ended up using this almost exclusively.

Amps:

Vox AC30 2xCCH with Alnico Blue celestion speakers and 2 x 12 extension speaker cabinet with Alnico Blues. The best thing I ever did was buy this amp. I first heard these amps live (aside from the obvious Beatles, U2, Queen, and Radiohead) when I opened for Heart with Lee Aaron. The guitarist had a row of these and his tone was buttery sweet. Then, I heard local guitarist Marc Wyld gushing about the one he just bought and I just happened to be in L&M one day and plugged one in. I just about died. I bought it the next day.

Fender Reissue Twin Reverb. This amp has played over 1000 gigs and sessions for me (think about that....that's a gig a day for almost 3 years straight!!!). It's actually literally fallen apart and put back together (thanks Richard at Backline!!) I think I need to make a plaque in its honor.

Roland Cube 60 (old white one). One of the best little amps ever. My old one was one of the orange ones and Darren Radtke installed a push button on/off switch on it when I needed to replace the old toggle type. We just thought it'd be funny. This replacement one that I have actually used to be Dave Sikula's although I bought it through a consignment at NJAMS through the guy HE sold it to.

Roland Jazz Chorus 120. This was the first real professional guitar amp I ever saw.....ever! When my cousin Gwen got married, the wedding band guitarist had one of these and I've held it on a pedestal ever since. I use this in my studio and for the occassional gig. It gets the cleanest clean of any amp.

Peavey Stereo Chorus 212. My second amp ever. The first being a Peavey backstage plus that I loved and kinda wished I still had. I've thought about selling this amp a few times, but nostaglia is good sometimes isn't it?

Pedals:

Because I play so wide a variety of music, including a few cover bands where "nailing the sound" is crucial, I found that I can pretty much cop any tone with these although the Clyde McCoy Vox Wah and the Lexicon LXP 1 are still on the wish list:

Boss TU 2 tuner.

Dunlop Hendrix Wah. Wah is obviously a big part of the funking that I do and I love the gnarlyness of this pedal although the throw takes a little getting used to.

Boss Compressor/Sustainer. I love John Frusciante's (Red Hot Chili Peppers) really compressed poppy sound on Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I pretty much leave this on always.

Boss Super Chorus. I bought this after the Police concert. No further explanation required.

Ibanez Tube Screamer TS 808. $250 worth of overdrive and worth every penny.

Marshall Guv'Nor. The best distortion and a total steal for $70 (helps ease the pain of the TS808).

MXR Zakk Wylde Overdrive. You can never have enough overdrive/distortion options.

Boss Mega Distortion. I NEVER run this pedal separately - on its own, this pedal sounds like ass but if I run the ZW before the Mega in the chain it totally browns the tone. I keep the settings of the ZW at about 3 for each knob and the only thing I turn up on the MD is the level to about 9 and the the tone and bass I keep at 7. If I want it to feed, I turn the drive on the ZW to 8.

Boss EQ pedal for boost and/tone tweaks for the room or backline amp provided. I can pretty much get "my sound" out of any amp with a few tweaks of this pedal.

MXR Phase 90. I don't use this too much but it's good to have on board for things like some of the disco stuff like Car Wash or rock stuff like the 2nd solo in Hotel California or Unchained by Van Halen. Also if there's a flanger part I need to cop like Are You Gonna Go My Way, the phaser doesn't usually create any disappointing looks from the band leader and saves me from having to have yet another pedal.

Ernie Ball volume pedal....obvious, but this is probably the most important pedal in the chain. I ride it at 80% for almost everything, 90% to bring out a specific part and 100% for solos. I'll kick the EQ boost if I need to go any more, but I usually set the amp pretty loud.

Boss DD - 20 giga delay....this thing's pretty awesome. I MUST have a tap tempo delay unit and this thing is one of the best that I've found although I've heard great things about the Line 6 one. I keep it on the analog delay patch for everything but I preprogram all of the settings for different rhythms, effect level, and feedback. I run this AFTER the volume so I can do swells and still have it go eniff-eniff-eniff.....but I'm sure you're all down with the eniff-eniffs. This baby comes in real handy for the obligitory producer request of ".....hey, for this section I was thinking of a U2ish/Coldplay kinda thing here, do you got that type of thing????....."

Roland GR-33 guitar synth. This is fun for screwing around and inputing stuff into Siballius on my laptop.

I still have my old Boss GT-5 and used it for years and listening to it now, I'm also embarrassed I ever used one. There's something about those stompboxes that are irreplaceable live.

Lastly is my newly aquired Lexicon LXP - 5. I'm still figuring this out, but essentially it's a reverb/delay/harmonizer. I really want an LXP-1 if anybody knows where I might get one, lemme know!!!!

So that's it. Rock on.

Cream, Sh-Boogie Bop

2007-04-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

First off....OK, we got creamed. There was nothing pretty about the Calgary/Detroit game last night. Detroit made Calgary look like the Charlestown Chiefs without the hitting. I still firmly believe that Calgary is the better team and just need to settle into it. Let's leave this topic for now.

I would like to extend my hellos to my Scandinavian readers. It seems that a significant portion of the hits to my blog here come from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; partly because of my travels there and journals about it and partly because the Hamar music festival has a link to this site on their homepage (http://www.musicfest.no). I guess they read about some of my time there with Soulstream last summer and included me on their site. So hei to everyone in Norway.

In music news, I been having fun with a few books lately. One of my favorites for harmony and chord scale theory is The Chord Scale Theory by Barrie Nettles. Barrie wrote a lot of the harmony and theory textbooks while I was at Berklee and I loved the way he organized things. I have obsessed over chord scales all of my life and I'm sure for any non-geek, this would be the driest book in the universe, but I love this stuff and Barrie has left no stone unturned. Another book that I've been enjoying is Up The Neck by Janet Davis, which is a banjo book that explores doing "breaks" and improvising up the neck. Banjo has always been a fun hobby and this book is revealing a little of the mystery of the second chorus in bluegrass playing. Beware though, banjo will take points off of your IQ and make you attracted to family members. I'm also going nuts with the Kurt Rosenwinkel book and my transcription book of the Pat Metheny Trio Live album.

Speaking of which....

I saw Metheny live two weeks ago with Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenedier, and Jeff Ballard at the Orpheum. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews from people about this show. First of all, I thought it was awesome. Everyone played their asses off and it was cool to hear Metheny outside of the Pat Metheny Group. You could tell it was still early in the tour as it seemed like the soundman was still working out some bugs in the volume of the instruments, but eventually everything settled in. Brad Mehldau really played the snot out of the piano in a situation that would have been easy for Metheny to railroad him a bit. Pat is such a strong force that even though it was Brad's working trio, it was definitely Metheny's show. There was a point in a blues of Pat's that I'm convinced that the whole band was lost during Brad's solo.....except Brad. And he just egged them on, going deeper and deeper into rhythmic abyss with absolute confidence and at the end threw them all a bone so that they could find their place with him. Pretty sweet.

I have also recently bought "Fearless Leader: John Coltrane on Prestige 1957 - 1958". 6 discs of Coltrane's albums as a leader in the period after those classic Miles Quintet albums (Workin', Cookin', Steamin', etc) and before things like Kind of Blue, Blue Train, and Giant Steps. I love these albums like I love those Miles albums. They played such a part in my formative years. They essentially taught me what jazz is: how to play standards, tone, etiquette, swing, etc. Listening to these albums I now realize what a crucial part of my development that they were. Red Garland, Arthur Taylor, and Paul Chambers were such an amazing team of musicians and provided such a great backdrop to what Coltrane was doing. These sessions were so cool too because they were more based on quantity rather than quality. I think Trane pumped out 8 albums of standards on Prestige in a year. That's unheard of now and although the playing and intros and ending could have probably been more polished, it's fun to hear them "wing it".

I also recently aquired a bunch of the Paul Motian Electric Bebop albums which I totally digging. Some with Kurt, Brad Schoeppach, Ben Monder, and/or Steve Cardenas. These are so much fun. I'm now waiting on Amazon to deliver me Mark Turner's Yam Yam and Joe Pass' classic Intercontinental. Both are huge classics that I've been looking for forever.

The pedal board is now under construction and perhaps the next blog will be for geeks only and I'll discuss all of my gear. I'm almost genuinely happy about my set up now that I have the Vox AC-30 and I'm finally satisfied with my distortion sound. Boy that took a long time....I think the last piece of the tone puzzle is a Lexicon LXP-1 reverb and a Vox Clyde McCoy wah. If anybody is looking to unload either/or, let me know.

OK I'll shut up with the geek talk for now.

The Landslide Will Bring it Down

2007-02-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

All Is Quiet On New Year's Day

2007-01-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEARS folks. It's 2007....as if you didn't know. Today is the last day of "holidays" for me. It's sometimes strange for me to have time off because (as most musicians will attest) my job never really stops. Ever. It's not like there's a clock that we punch and go home at the end of the day. Music, like a young child, demands constant attention. I have forever a list of things that must get done: technique, tunes, transcriptions, my book, lesson preperation, composition, listening, etc.....so why the hell are you spending time blogging?????? Good question but that too is music related too in a round about way. I think I have a good ethic when it comes to practicing and time management, so I don't mind throwing a little blog up once and while.

This "holiday" was in fact the closest thing I've had to down time in a while. My regular Sunday (Republic with Retrofit), Monday, and Tuesday (Bar None with Soulstream) fell on holidays (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day) so there was really NO GIGS! Trust me I'm not trying to brag here, but I work quite a bit and not to have a gig in 12 days has never really happened before.

This allowed me some great down time and a chance to catch up on writing my instructional book. A while back somehow, the introduction and Chapter 1 mysteriously disappeared from my hard drive. I went out the next day and bought a back up drive. Luckily, I had a printed version of it. I figured I could scan it in and maybe there was a program that could convert PDF files into word documents. After much searching, I found one. I bought it and then realized it was only for PC. No problem, I emailed the PDFs to myself and I opened them on my brother's PC....it didn't work. So I ended up back at square one. The good news however was that I figured out how to import the music graphics from the program that I use (Syballius' G7 program) into word. This was an amazing discovery because it means that I can do all of the musical graphics and examples for my book myself! So I've now gone back through everything and started putting the musical examples that I had in mind when originally writing the text; this has made rewriting the intro and Chapter 1 a little more endurable.

I have also been able to find my running legs again after a long recovery from the marathon. Don't get me wrong, I've been running regularly but just not the distances that I was doing with ease pre-marathon. I never knew how much of a toll a marathon would have on your body. It's only recently that I've been able to break the 2 hour mark again and to do that weekly is almost impossible. The goal this year is 3:15 and qualify for Boston. Seriously. I think I'm going to skip the spring marathon and only do the Scotiabank half marathon and focus on a fast fall/winter marathon....maybe Las Vegas. This means an intense amount of training between now and then. I finished my first marathon (Victoria) in 4 hours albeit injured. In top shape I could've shaved 15 or 20 minutes, but certainly not 45. That's the goal between now and fall. If I do qualify for Boston it would mark my first return there since I lived there.

I have also included a little snowboarding in the holidays. I did a warm-up at Cypress on Wednesday night and then I was in Whistler Thursday and Friday playing the Chateau Whistler's staff party. They gave us a special room rate and I brought the board and went on Friday. There was a blizzard but it was fun nonetheless. I think I've raised my snowboarding status from "OK" to "Not Bad".

A last little item of note is the Christmas gift to myself of a Vox AC-30. This is the same amp used by the Beatles and The Edge. I had read great things about their tone and when I opened for Heart, their guitar player had a row of them. While in Tom Lee, I tried one and melted immediately. I had a gig at the Commodore the next day and decided to see if Long and McQuade would rent me one...."Uh, yeah. We don't rent THOSE, but we have a 30 day money back guarantee if you don't like it." Hmmm. OK. It's pretty sweet. I am having one little issue with it however. A high whistle occassionally, maybe a microphonic tube or something. So, I'm gonna bring it back and have them look at it. Otherwise, it's great!

Alright. Lots to do, I AM on holidays after all.

I Read The (North Shore) News Today, Oh Boy

2006-11-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

Bill and I got a little mention in the press for Godspell that was kinda nice...

"...And if you choose to consider the production on its musical and entertainment value alone, there's good value here. I'd almost pay Uncle Randy's not inconsiderable ticket price to hear guitarists Rob Hamilton and Bill Runge by themselves..."

(in the voice of Butters from South Park) Aww aww aww shucks.

Read the whole review heeore:

http://www.nsnews.com/issues06/w111906/114106/pulse/113306pu6.html

It's My Birthday Too, Yeah

2006-11-26T17:47:00.000-08:00

Well, the birthday weekend is fast coming to a close. First, thanks to all peeps who took in the birthday celebrations whether it was the north Burnaby Pub Crawl, Ginger 62 gig, Monk McQueens, Starbucks snow walk, or simply dropping me an email, text, phone call, or smoke signal. Awesome. Also special props to Lauren for doing almost all of the above, organizing a birthday party for me, AND buying me a Mr PotatoHead Stormtrooper that comes with his own masher ("freeze or I'll mash you!"); pretty much the best ex-girlfriend ever.

This truly is THE week of birthdays though. I think everyone I know has a birthday this week. This weekend also marks the first snowfall this year which is also exciting although I doubt I'll be as excited about snow after the trips to Whitehorse and Calgary over the next couple weeks. Speaking of Calgary, I'm starting to make some big moves in the hockey pool. Shout outs to Mikka and Jerome.

Current Neil Douglas Guitar Shop Hockey Pool standings:

1 Jeff Beaudoin
2 James Dunn
3 Jeff Pauze
4 John Dunn
5 Kris Schulz
6 Alexis Nery
7 Steph Boudreau
8 Jim Rickbiel
9 Peter Mussenden
Rob Hamilton
Nathan Heidecke
10 Jared Mumford
11 Chris Roy
12 Metzy Turnbull
13 Neil Douglas
14 Rob Smyth
15 Phil Coelho
16 Kris Joss
17 Matthew Mussenden
18 John Spindler
19 Stephen Bruyneel
20 Brent Dumont
21 Adrian Laszkiewicz
22 Ryan Langevin
23 Lucas Gander
24 Dustin Rilcof
25 Christine Bourne
26 Todd Mumford
Kyle Wagner
27 Kelly Brown
28 Chet Kemp
29 Kevin Sage
Meghan Schulz
30 Cole Schmidt
31 Aaron Joyce

For Whom The Bell Tolls

2006-11-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back playing Godspell again after 8 years. This is truly the show that wouldn't die; it just seems to keep getting resurrected.....hmmmm.....sorry.... I must say though, it's been so much fun doing this show again. First of all, I love playing musical theater. Secondly, I really like THIS show. The music's great, the band's great, the cast is great, and we get to eat chips the entire show. Seriously.

The history of me and this musical goes back to 1998. I had done Evita previously with Uncle Randy productions in North Vancouver while still at Cap. I guess they liked my guitar playing because I was asked to come back and do their next show, Godspell, which was slated to run for 2 weeks at the Centennial theater, not unlike the run that I'm doing right now. The show ended up being a success and as it was winding down and we were starting to get sentimental and say our goodbyes, they held it over. Cool. So the show finally came to a close and we wrapped it up. Had the cast party, got sentimental, and said our goodbyes. I'm not sure how long it was after the show closed, but I got a call from Courtenay the musical director asking if I was available to do the show again at the Vogue. Sweet, do the show downtown!!! Of course I'll do it. It ran and was a critical success.....i think we got held over there too, but I can't remember. So anyways, the show closed and we got even MORE sentimental after a second run and once again we said our goodbyes. THEN, Courtenay called AGAIN asking if I was available for a tour. Of course. Well we took it on the road. It was so much fun and obviously everyone REALLY bonded. It really is a show that relies on the comraderie of everyone involved and thankfully we had exactly that. In fact, so much so that 2 of the cast members ended up marrying and now have a little boy. Well after that run, we decided not to get sentimental and say our goodbyes because we never knew....

So here we go again. 3 of the cast are the same and 2 of the band are (Courtenay and I), but Bill Runge (who played the show in 1974!!!) and Sam Cartwright are of course kicking so much ass! In fact, the whole cast, although much of it is EXACTLY the same, are bringing their own unique take on it. It really is great and I'm having a blast. I closed the book tonight and I'm playing it totally by memory now, even though I probably could have done the same on opening night. Please come check it out.

The other thing I needed to mention is Metallica. Yes Metallica. Nice transition, eh? Anyways, I have always hated Metallica. Yes it's true. I've never really been much of a fan of their music and this compounded with everything that comes out of Lars Ulrich's mouth makes me hate them more. BUT....I try never to influence the opinions of my students and try to remain objective in lessons. I have taught the tune "Fade to Black" for a while now and it's a good one for the Aeolian mode and for any kid that's into heavier stuff. I kept forgetting my CD of it at home since I cleaned out the studio in the summer, so I was without a reference recording while teaching it recently. I had my laptop right there in the lesson and decided that I would download it from the itunes music store (downloading music illegally is a pretty sensitive issue with me and I like for my younger students to see that if they want a song that they should pay for it). Turns out that there is NO METALLICA IN THE ITUNES MUSICSTORE......wtf? Lars, I can understand your beef with file sharing and Napster and all that stuff, but I WANT TO GIVE YOU MONEY FOR YOUR MUSIC AND YOU'RE NOT LETTING ME!!!!! This made me hate Metallica more. Not only was I teaching a song to a potential fan of theirs against my own personal preferences further widening their prospective market, but now they won't even allow to give them the proper payment for their crap!

That was a month ago. Last week I decided to check in with the itunes store and see if Lars and the boys had worked something out.....they had. It seems that the whole catalouge is now available. My friend Kelly Brown knows full well of my hatred but has always insisted that I should check out Master of Puppets, my friend Kris even went so far as to call this album the "Kind of Blue" of metal. OK. 10 bucks is 10 bucks. I finally loaded it in my ipod on last monday and decided I would take a listen in my car on my way to Neils to teach and see what all of the fuss was about.

Well I checked it out and I want to make no mistake about this statement: I loved this album. It's unbelievable. And what's worse is that I wanted to hate this album. It would've taken a miracle to make me change my mind on Metallica and a miracle it was. Maybe this is the only true way to listen to an artist seriously: to come from a place of hate. Hmmm....

It tolls for thee....

Old Friends

2006-10-31T15:16:00.000-08:00

So my Mom has now reminded me that it has been a month since my last blog.....sounds a bit Catholic doesn't it?

Well, a month is not entirely true. My last one was actually in the running section of the blog site and concerned itself with the marathon, but no I haven't done one since. So first off, the marathon. It was....long. Between mile 21 and 25 was about the hardest moment in my life. It rained like crazy and I got soaked pretty good. About 20 minutes into it, my calf injury reared its ugly face. It was painful but it wasn't enough to stop me from running this race. I stamped it as my pain threshold and decided that if it didn't get any worse, I could run the entire marathon with it. Thankfully it didn't get any worse and I managed to finish 4:03. I probably could have shaved 15 or 20 minutes off in peak condition, but this was my first marathon, I was injured, and I didn't want to push myself too hard. I really did enjoy myself though. I thought about how fun it is to run and what an amazing feat it is to run this far; I felt grateful.

Recently I seem to be reconnecting with old friends here and there. I literally ran into my old friends from high school Jeff and Dale in the marathon. It was great to see them and after I get through the next couple weeks with the musical Godspell and all, I hope to hook up with them again. Dale still keeps in touch with another old friend of mine Steve, and I guess he mentioned that he had seen me at the marathon and so Steve got in touch with me through the webite (I'm sure all of this is fascinating, but it is gonna get interesting trust me!!!). My point is that I haven't seen or heard from these guys who I used to spend all my waking hours with in years and now everybody's saying hello all at once!

But it didn't stop there. I then got an email from my friend Dave from Berklee. Dave suffered an accident when he was a kid that limited his ability to turn his neck and when he needed to talk to you it would mean that he'd have to shift his entire torso hence our nickname for him, No-Neck Dave. Dave had always sort of been the secretary of the "5th Floor Posse" (werd) and kept track of the goings ons of the crew. Most everyone had a nickname, some of whom we didn't even know their REAL name: Shutza, Dirty Whore, Fuzzy, Lingle, Shaegan, the Monarch, Possum, Milton, JB Suckafoot, Old Man Jim, Paddy, Angry Phil, and me - the Canadian Nightmare. Everybody seems to be doing really well. Turns out JB Suckafoot now plays drums with Prince. Old Man Jim is playing in Edie Brickell's band and teaching Paul Simon's son. But the greatest one is Possum - just this crazy, funny dude we used to hang with who insisted to me that he was part Canadian because he lived in Toronto for a while.

http://www.jonathanrotem.com/main.htm

Hmmmm.....maybe I should've stayed at Berklee????

No....I'm really happy with things so far and as far as I'm concerned, I get to play with some of the best musicians on the planet everyday.

Right now, I'm just killing some time between soundcheck and the show at the Commodore with Famous Players. The band's theme tonight is pirates. I'm not as excited about this theme as I have been of our past themes. Star Wars was indeed a favorite, but the 80's hair rock band was good and of course the scary movie theme where I played the most diabolical of all villians; none other than Bruce, the antagonist of the greatest movie of all time, Jaws. I still have my photo in Bruce's head the next day at Starbucks getting a coffee in the pics section of the website, a picture that I often get asked about. Me as Bruce apparently can be seen in a film called Masters of the Sea. I won't go into details until I see it myself but it's pretty funny as I understand it.

At any rate, it should be a fun show as always at the Commodore and the new tunes are pretty fun. It is a little bittersweet though as once again I'm missing out on another Bar None Halloween with my boys and girls in Soulstream. Ah well, bring on another old friend, the Commodore.

My Old Flame(s)

2006-09-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

Flames 1 Canucks 2...1st period...Flames Power Play....

Let's call this the hodge-podge blog, like the potpourri category on Jeopardy (one day, one day....see below). First off, it's hockey season again, which of course, kicks ass. It kicks even more ass when your team is the Calgary Flames. There are no more excuses for the Flames. I'm sick of people saying that the Flames are a defensive team or they're nothing without Kippersoff or they have no goal scorers; well, have a look at your 2006/07 Calgary Flames ladies and gentlemen. On paper, they're ready for the Cup run.

Noam Chomsky once said:

"Sports is another crucial example of the indoctrination system . . . It offers people something to pay attention to that is of no importance . . . It keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have an idea of something about . . . People have the most exotic information and understanding about all sorts of arcane issues . . . It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements, in fact its training in irrational jingoism . . . That's why energy is devoted to supporting them . . . and advertisers are willing to pay for them."

True. But Noam ain't Canadian. Hahaha.

First period's over...Canucks still leading 2 - 1....

In other sporting news. I'm injured. With 9 days till the marathon. Awesome. See the running blog for more details; I realize I've been neglecting it lately but I'll try to chronicle my journey over the next 9 days.

AND in other other sporting news, I bought some skates today with plans to play some drop in hockey at my local rink on Monday mornings. I played from age 5 in Calgary (you could be fined as a parent in Calgary if your son under 16 DIDN'T play hockey!!!) till high school. My brothers were both superstars in hockey and still light it up to this day in their leagues, but I was always more interested in music. I was pretty good and even grabbed a few best defenseman awards growing up, but after I broke my leg in grade 8, I couldn't seem to get back into the swing of things and music eventually took over as I got involved in the jazz band.
I have recently been feeling the bug to play again; probably the result of getting serious about running, working out, and health. My body is now capable of things I've always dreamed of. In fact, I'm an athlete. That felt weird. I've always been mildly athletic, but at 200 plus pounds and smoking a pack and a half a day, there is only so much the body is capable of. The active part of me is now rearing it's head. It really is an addiction and like most addictions, the body requires it's fix and will get it any way it knows. I also think that I've involved myself so much in individual sports (snowboarding, golf, running) that it would be nice to get involved in a team sport and get out in my community.

Second period...still 2 -1 Canucks...

Scratch that, 2 - 2 thanks to Andrei Zuyzin...

Playing hockey (along with being a contestant on Jeopardy) is "on the list". A lot of people talk about "a list" which I assume is a figure of speech of things that they want to do. About a year ago, I actually created a list. It has stupid and totally banal things that I've never done and it also has very serious life altering changes or goals that I want to achieve. My ex, Lauren encouraged me to do this and I didn't screw around with this list. I took it very seriously in the last year. It has really CHANGED MY LIFE. Here it is:

1
Have a lesson with Kurt Rosenwinkel

2
See a Great White Shark

3
Own a house in Vancouver

4
Win a Juno

5
Teach at a College/University
(In talking to my friends currently teaching at a university, I'm starting to rethink this one)

6
Play in NYC

7
Own a muscle car

8
Get a master's degree

9
Write a book

10
Go to Scotland

11
Go to Japan

12
Go to India

13
Go to Russia

14
Go on a road trip through the southern states

15
Go to Northern Canada
(Completed Dec 2 2006)

16
Own a Gibson L-5

17
Have kids

18
Get married

19
Record my CD
(Spring 2008)

20 Ride a horse

22
Write a hit song

23
Be debt free

24
Pay off Student Loan
2009

25
Pay off Lawyers
2010

26
Pay off car
2009

27
Learn how to fix an engine

28
Learn to fly-fish

29
Own a boat

30
Learn how to play crib

31
Be a contestant on Jeopardy

32
Be someone's phone a friend

33
Own a "real" piece of art

34
Start a rock band

36
Run a Marathon
Oct 8 2006

37
Run a half marathon
Completed

38
Do the Grouse Grind

39
Got to the Stanley Theater
Completed

40
Go to a gay bar

41
Read all the books in my collection as of Oct 10 2005

42
Break 170 Llbs
Completed

43
Break 160 Llbs
Completed

44
Get Abs
Completed

45
Play hockey (on ice)

46
Join a softball team

47
Organize a Soulstream vs Famous Players softball match

48
Break 80 in Golf

49
Hole in one

50
300 yard drive

51
Snowboard the Alps

52
Make 6 figures in one year

53
Open a teaching studio
Completed

54
Find out who killed JFK

55
Do an IQ test

56
Buy a laptop
Completed

57
Make a website
Completed

58
Visit the Grand Canyon

59
See the Vienna Opera House

60
Go to the Village Vanguard

61
Ride a gondola in Venice

62
Get a Tattoo

63
Write an instructional book
In Progress

64
Go to every starbucks in Vancouver
In Progress

65
Go to a Stanley Cup finals game

66
Go to the World Series

67
Go to Wimbledon

68
Go to the Masters

69
Learn another language

70
Own a vacation home

71
Get a GST number

72
Pay off my taxes
In Progress

73
Pay back my RRSPs
In Progress

74
Get my chipped tooth fixed

75
Get a season's pass to Cypress

76
Shoot a gun

77
Go to my niece and nephew's grad

78
Change the world
In Progress

79
Get a cat

80
Reconnect with high school friends
Completed

81
Learn how to make indian food

82
learn how to make sushi

83
Finish 10 Kurt Rosenwinkel transcriptions
In Progress

84
Play the Aria from the Goldberg Variations on the piano

85
Go to Cuba

86
Include Hal Crook and Chord work into practice schedule

87
Format transcriptions into the laptop
In Progress

88
Put FP tunes into laptop
In progress

89
Put SS tunes into laptop
In Progress

90
Put misc tunes into laptop

91
Go to a personal trainer

92
Get an STD test
Completed

93
Organize Philosophy
In Progress

94
Do Degree paperwork

95
Sing lead with a band
Completed

96
Quit Smoking
Completed

97
Backpack around Europe (Scandinavia)
Completed Aug 24 2006

98
Spend a month in mainland Europe

99
Live in NYC for 3 months

100
Write a big band chart

101
Tour my band and book
Fall 2008

102 Cross off at least 10 things a year from the list

So, big things like quitting smoking, having a website, and running a marathon have been huge milestones that I had no intention of being able to do a year ago. This list has really propelled my life and had nothing but positive impacts (I suppose going to every Starbucks in Vancouver isn't that great of an achievement, but as I mentioned, some are these are for pure fun).

3rd period....still 2 - 2

The Soulstream 9th anniversary was so much fun. The strings were so awesome. The place was packed both nights and we want to thank all of you who continue to support our crazy band week after week and year after year. Everyone played so well and there were a few extra special moments: the trumpet off between Vince Mai, Brad Turner, and (out of nowhere came) John Korsrud, Dave Say on his own riser and his battle with Karen Graves, Alvaro Rojas - the only person in the room to recognize Natural Science by Rush, and Russ Klyne and Kia Kadiri - playing and rapping faster than any human beings alive (they're truly a match made in shred heaven). Pictures of the anniversary can be found at clubzone.com on the home page for Vancouver clubs.

I'm gonna continue putting all these tunes into the laptop here and hopefully get closer to crossing that off the list. Friday nights are so much fun...

People People! We Got to Get Over, Before We Go Under

2006-09-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Things that sound good.

Don't drink Diet Pepsi. Smokers should pay more for health care. Don't buy SUV's. Eat organic. Knowing the name of the farmer who grew your vegetables will make them taste better. I don't listen to her cause she lipsyncs and doesn't write her own music. Buy nothing day. Capitalism is destyoing the world.

Hmmm...

Diet Pepsi. Has aspartame. That's bad, right??....is he really gonna defend aspartame? Well, I read a story recently that because diet pepsi is so hideously evil, a teacher crusaded for all of the aspertame related drinks pulled from the vending machine at a high school. The kids ended up drinking the non-aspertame drinks that had huge caloric content and the kids started to become obese. Haha.

"Two approved sugar substitutes, saccharin and aspartame, have been the subject of ongoing controversy that, in the case of saccharin, dates back more than 20 years.
Aspartame has come under fire in recent years from individuals who have used the Internet in an attempt to link the sweetener to brain tumors and other serious disorders. But FDA stands behind its original approval of aspartame, and subsequent evaluations have shown that the product is safe. A tiny segment of the population is sensitive to one of the sweetener's byproducts and should restrict intake. However, the agency continually monitors safety information on food ingredients such as aspartame and may take action to protect public health if it receives credible scientific evidence indicating a safety problem.
Other organizations give aspartame and the other approved sugar substitutes a thumbs up. For example, the American Heart Association endorses their use by diabetics and those on weight-loss diets. The American Diabetes Association calls sugar substitutes "free foods" because they make food taste sweet, but they have essentially no calories and do not raise blood sugar levels."

That's the FDA yo.

So either be fat or go against what the good doctors of the FDA and every other drug administration around the world say. I myself stay away from the pop altogether. Just thought it was another cause and effect thing that people get WAY too emotional about. F#cking drink diet pepsi people, it's fine.

Smokers should pay more for health care. Agreed. So should people who eat fatty foods. Heart disease is the number 2 killer. So my idea is a "fat tax" that goes on all fatty foods or if people eat meals higher than 1000 calories per sitting....that is IF we charge smokers more.

Don't drive SUV's. Oh my god, he isn't really is he??? Yup. What has more of a tax on the environment, a hummer or a toyota prius? If you said Prius you're right!!!! At this point anyways. Maybe in the future, we'll be able to manufacture hybrids and recycle them the same way we do with other cars (the hummer) that has less of a toll on the environment. I think we should all be on the bus, personally.

Eat organic. What's wrong with organic, Rob? It tastes better; I don't want any Franken-foods....what? Like corn? (one of the first franken-foods actually and a damn tasty one at that!!!). I don't want pesticides in my food Rob. What, even totally natural ones that are perfectly safe for you and because you don't want them it creates more wasted food and an ever increasing parasite problem for farmers so that it can be "certified organic"? Why did we invent pesticides in the first place, people? Now farmers throw away much of the yield because of infestation and charge my ass $5 for some bananas because of your elitist ass. Nice.

I saw this one on my starbucks cup (yes, my starbucks cup):

"I guarantee your fruits and vegetables will taste better when you know the farmer's name that grew them"

His name is Sandeep Bains. His family grows strawberries in a field off of 40th ave in Surrey. That did nothing for me and my strawberries. I'll take the Pepsi challenge with Sandeep's versus someone I don't know and I'm sure I wouldn't be able to tell.

She lipsyncs. Yeah that sucks, but the fact is that most bands have prerecorded tracks in concert. In fact, let's just say ALL OF THEM DO. Well, most anyway. Chances are you've seen your favorite band and they had pre roll tracks, but you probably didn't know. Most bands don't even play their own stuff in the studio. Hell, not even the Beatles did.

Buy nothing day. Let's say you get a cheque on the day before buy nothing day. You put it in the bank. Then you bought nothing the next day. Or did you? Well the fact is, I used your cheque when I took my loan out for my new car that day. The only true way buy nothing day could actually work is to have earn nothing day, but something tells me that wouldn't go over as well.

Capitalism is destroying the world. Hmm. Capitalism is not the problem people. The problem is the market. We are learning how to deal. Capitalism is the only system that truly provides checks and balances and reflects a true democracy. The problem (Enron, etc.) happens when the market is exploited and without regulation. Capitalism is young and we're learning how to set precedents as the problems arise. More regulation is key not less. The free hand is not the answer. Even Joel Bakan, author of the Corporation, admits that the problem doesn't lie in the system, but in the lack of regulation.

Think about this. A man moves to Canada from India. The rednecks scream "He's gonna take a job away from a Canadian!!!" Capitalism doesn't allow that. He himself is a consumer, so he's actually is creating jobs for others (the people who cloth him, feed him, educate him)....only capitalism has this balance. Why has this become such a bad word as of late. It's like saying freedom is a bad word. I suppose freedom can also be bad without regulation.

People I am a pinko, left wing, hippie but I try not to get caught up in emotional leftist rhetoric that's so easy to buy into. I do believe in the social safety net and paying my taxes and all of that awesome leftist stuff, but come on!!! Why do you think we are losing to people like Bush and Harper? We're so f#cking busy worrying about what level of f#cking organicness our vegetables are that THEY HAVE TAKEN OUR COUNTRY FROM US!!!!!!

The good people of Montreal are in my thoughts today. My heart goes out to all of you.

Norweigan Wood (This bird has flown)

2006-09-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the comforts of the 'bucks at 64th and Granville today after getting back last night at 11 from a 23 hour transit from Hamar. I have now sworn to avoid any and all american airlines if I can help it. We flew United last night and it was the stinkiest, rudest, and most apathetic service I've ever experienced. Now, mind you we had been flying most of the day and we would've been grumpy in the best of circumstances, this was horrific. Anyways, let's back up....

I left Stockholm and made my way back to Copenhagen for another stay at the Danhostel Copenhagen City Hostel, where I'd been frowned on last time for my disregard of the check out policies and the check in girl reiterated the 9am check out and I assured her I was privy. I came into the room to find a 50 something American guy who introduced himself as Phil. Phil was from Modesto, CA and had basically been traveling for a couple years. He was a photographer who had sold the house and all and had been traveling all over the world. He explained that he was starting to run out of his money, so he was thinking about going back home and working again and he expounded this elaborate scheme of how he was going to make a half million.....OK dude. I'm sure there are people who do that all the time, but I just think, work your ass off and make money. If there is a get rich quick scheme, I don't want any part of it. I want to feel as if I've EARNED my money. That's why I never play the lottery....enough about Phil.

I had an early night in Copenhagen and woke up the next morning and made my way to the airport for my flight to Oslo. I arrived in Oslo and the airport is about 60 km from town, so hopped on the train and 40 minutes later I was there. Norway struck me as a little less english friendly. There wasn't as many fluently english speaking people it seemed and the Norwegian language was a little less accessible than Swedish or Danish. This was the first time I had to bail and ask for help when it came to transportation to the hostel. I had the vague instructions from my Lonely Planet book and the Oslo Haraldsheim hostel itself and I realized that I could take a tram, train, or bus, but I couldn't figure out where to start. I ended up at the tourist information desk (I had to take a number, which was refreshing to know that I wasn't the only one with Oslo negotiation problems) and they instructed me to take bus 31 to Synsenstressett. OK....So then I walk away figuring that I've ascertained all of the info that I need. But then things start occurring to me and I then go through a series of quests to answer them....here's how the next half an hour in my head went:

How much does the bus cost? A ticket. How much does a ticket cost? 20 Kr. Where do I buy the ticket? A ticket machine Where's the machine? Over there. Do they take visa? No. So now where can I buy a ticket with a visa? 7 - 11. Has my bus now left since I've figuring all of this out? Yes. When does the next bus come? Every 15 minutes. Do I buy a 24 hr ticket or just one? 24 hour, the hostel isn't downtown. Do I show the driver the ticket? No. What are all those people doing? Validating their ticket in the machine on the bus. Should I do the same? Yes. Did I stamp it in the right place? Hopefully. The next station is Synsen, is this my stop? No, Synsenstressett is. Which way is north? Guess....that way.....nope that way....nope.....that way......wow Norway is sure hilly....is this Haraldsheim street.....nope.....is this a street.....yup.....where IS this place.....oh jesus, thank god.....I'm here.

Oh to be a traveller.

Oslo is an amazing city and it would take me a week to try and see everything. It was way more spread out than Copenhagen and even Stockholm. It is also THE MOST EXPENSIVE CITY IN THE WORLD!!!!! More than Tokyo or Dubai or London. A coffee is $7 Canadian. I was already on a budget so I had to be super savvy. I found a little pocketbook called Streetwise, which was basically a backpackers guide to Oslo and it literally saved my ass in this town. It got me cheap food, drinks, and attractions, the highlight being seeing all of the amazing works of Edvard Munch including The Scream. I was aware of the Scream but his other works are so amazing and I promised myself to add some Munch to my collection when I got home.

The next day I went back to the airport in Oslo, this time catching a train that only took 19 minutes and was super nice. When I got off the train and showed the trainmaster my Scanrail pass, he told me that the Scanrail didn't work for this train and that I had to pay. How much??? 160 Kr.....basically $30 Canadian to essentially take the skytrain.....AWESOME!

I met "Jaan" from the Hamar festival at the airport and we waited for the Soustreamers to arrive. They never showed on the Copenhagen flight they were supposed to. We waited for the next one. Nothing. Jaan suggested that we leave and that they could catch the train to Hamar. I assured him that they would rather get on a flight and go home if there was no one here for them. We waited a little longer. Sure enough, they showed. I was so excited to see them. I had been basically alone for a week without really seeing anyone I knew, so it was great. I think I also was now ready to experience Scandinavia with others and especially my musical brothers and sisters. They were obviously pretty beat and didn't quite share my enthusiasm, but I think they were happy.....if only not to have to get on another airplane.

Norway and especially where we were going looks a lot like BC. In fact it looks IDENTICAL to the interior. The landscapes basically dictate the industries, similar to here in BC: forestry, mining, and agriculture. We showed up at the hotel in Hamar which was about 6 km from the city center. The hotel was really nice, even by European standards, but any hotel was pretty much the Four Seasons for me after spending a week "roughing it" in the hostels. I decided to immediately go for a run into town. I figured that 6km there and 6 km back was the perfect afternoon jog. I left the hotel on the road to town with an immediate ascent for about 2 km. Then it started descending with no trace of the town in site. So, I just kept on.....and on....and further descending.....and descending.....and descending.....there was still no trace of the town in sight, although I figured I hadn't really hit 6 km yet, but I started to think, "jeez, I'm gonna have to go all this way back! And ascending!!!!" It seemed as if the town would never appear and at one point I thought of turning back. The machoness in me however would not let me turn around without being able to give the boys a description, no matter how brief, of the town. In other words, I couldn't go back with my tail between my legs; I said I was going into town and sure as hell, I WAS GOING INTO TOWN!!! I did and eventually made it back up the treacherous hills to the hotel. It was actually not too bad and I felt that it helped with the training (countdown to marathon....4 weeks).

The town of Hamar is a quaint beach community built into the side of a hill (refer to last paragraph). That's how the tourist info description began and it's pretty accurate. It's on the edge of lake Mjyosk?? I think, which is the largest lake in Norway. After my run, we organized and went into town to watch the DIO (yes, Ronnie James Dio of Black Sabbath fame) and Norwegian black metal band Satyricon. When we got there, Satyricon refused to go on because they weren't able to fly their banner because Dio's stuff was too far forward. Dio refused to move their stuff. Satyricon went home. I was expecting the crowd to go a little ballistic but they were surprisingly well behaved. There was a little electricity in the air though. This IS the home of Black Metal, which is probably the closest thing that one can get to Satanism. Norwegian bands like Mayhem are doing jail time for murder and mutilation of their fellow band members, although willing participants in these "sacrifices". Timmy and Darren did notice a weird "vibe" though and everyone kinda watched each others back a bit. Don't get me wrong, Oslo is a very multicultural place, but like most small towns, there is a bit of a hillbilly element...especially at a metal show.

We ended up at a little pub after and it was a great hang, even meeting some of the local musicians. We were then told that there was a concert going on over at the festival headquarters on the second floor that's worth checking out. We walked in a saw these guys in ties and suits playing weird keyboards and laptops and punk pick bass and drums and thought, "okay eurotrash whatever music".....but then we listened and these guys were GREAT! They were a Norwegian band called Wibutti. Turns out that Brad actually remembered that he owned a album of theirs that Dylan V. S. recommended.

The next day we had to play a corporate thing at the hotel at night, but otherwise, we had the day off. I went into Hamar and explored the town a bit. As usual, I went for a coffee. Now, my coffee is a Vanilla Americano with cream. Hard to find in Europe, so I usually settle for a Latte and sometimes I can get vanilla for it. I walked into this coffee shop in Hamar and I knew I was in the right place. Don't get me wrong, the coffee in Europe is amazing, but the barista skills are generally poor; not this place. When I got to the counter, this cute tattoo covered girl asks what I would like:

Vanilla Americano, Large, Take Away, extra hot water but with room for cream.

She looked at me as if to say, "Thank God, finally someone who's a fu^&in coffee drinker!!!"

She explained that she had lived in Anacortes, Washington for 7 years and knew by my order that I was not a Norwegian man. We hit it off instantly and I made a new friend thanks to a coffee order.

We played the corporate thing that night and it was funny. I guess this company had been getting a traditional Norwegian band for all of their past years conferences and Thomerik (the man) explained that we were the first modern band to ever play for them. Well, like I said, it was funny because they proceeded to polka dance to songs like Black Market and Sex Machine....classic.

We also met a couple of the Tower of Power guys, as they were playing the festival that night. Brad even knew the trumpet who was once a student of his while he was at North Texas State. They were really great and friendly as most great musicians are.

The next day was the festival gig. After my coffee at my favorite place, we had to play at 1 o clock and 6 o clock and although the crowds were not that great, the band was on FIRE!!!! Everyone came to cut these Norwegians a new....well, you get the picture. Not to brag, but it was awesome and those who were there will be talking about our performance for a while I suspect.

We were then brought out to a very old.....16th century.....maybe earlier.....house and ruins on the lake and served a candlelight dinner. It was so beautiful and so much fun hanging with my friends and colleagues. Darren even got naked and jumped in the lake. Seriously.

After that we went back to the festival and the little pub. When I got back to the hotel, I realized that this had been one of the best days of my life. It was perfect ending to my trip and the proper "exhale" of the last 4 years that I needed. I now realize the things I will do in this the next chapter of my life. I will always look back at these 10 days as an important part of my life. Okay, now I'm officially broke and I have to start paying down the visa. Off to the PNE.....

Dear Old Stockholm

2006-08-29T02:47:00.000-07:00

Words cannot express Stockholm's beauty. If we had one of the buildings that they had here, we'd feel a sense of pride, but the fact is that almost every building is steeped in beauty and history is intense.

My hostel was quite a ways from the Central Station and in retrospect I could have taken the subway, but I decided to walk and it ended up being a good thing. Armed with my Lonely Planet - Scandinavia book, I exited the station and guessed at which way I should go. It turned out to be right. I was immediately struck by how the Swede's have catered to the pedestrian. You know how on the seawall, there's like the pathway for rollerbladers, bicyclists, and pedestrians? Well, that's the way it is here, everywhere! Just simply replace the rollerbladers with car lanes.

Stockholm is essentially a series of islands. My hostel is in the sort of Commercial Drive district of town called Soldermalm. It's full of students and artists. Pretty cool and laid back in other words. I spent much of Sunday night exploring Soldermalm and the next day woke up and went for a run through a great deal of Stockholm to plan my day of adventuring. I started in Soldermalm then to Gamla Stan (the old town of Stockholm), then around the Royal Palace and National Museum, then to Djurgardan (Stockholm's Stanley Park), then Ostermalm (the upscale part), and then downtown Stockholm (the Addidas store was very tempting, but I have not the budget or space in my pack for the 14 pairs I wanted).

It's dawned on me (and in my last travels through Europe as well), that Europeans generally eat horribly. Everything is greasy, with fries, and they seem to live for fast food the likes of McDonald's and Burger King and totally unabashfully as well! Everyone smokes like chimneys and they are constantly drinking. The weird thing is that no one seems outwardly obese. My theory is that they just simply walk or bike everywhere. I think that alone allows them a freedom with their diet. Back home, I've never seen a man in a three piece suit or a woman in high heels on a bike , but here they're everywhere. In Denmark especially. You actually have to be careful that you aren't hit by a bike, there are so many.

Alright, a few observations on the Swedes and I guess Scandinavia in general. I've become pretty capable with translation. Similar to my other short cuts from previous travels (instant Italian is to simply add an "o" to all french words ie vin - vino, bonjour - bonjourno....etc), Swedish is a snap. All you have to do is phonetically sound things out and it's simply English. Valkommen - welcome, alkohol - alcohol, kaffe - coffee, koncerthal - concert hall, museet - museum, choklad - chocolate.....see? easy. The thing that confuses me is why they have to have such long names for the streets? Like, I'm talking 15 - 20 letter words. Can we get it across in 5 - 6 letters? OK now I'm starting to sound American.

EVERYWHERE serves espresso coffees, which is great! Like everywhere! I can get an americano literally anywhere I go.....that's maybe a bit dangerous.

I was at an outdoor patio bar last night and the bartender put on some music.....he chose NWA. I don't think that would ever happen back home.

Swedish cuisine is sort of based on how many regular everyday foods can you bizarrely make into a kind of hot dog (korv or kork - depending on whether it's grilled or boiled). For instance, hot dog (with bun) with mashed potatoes and relish with pickled beets.....rolled into a wrap. Don't be mistaken, the hot dog, not the meatball, is really the basis for all meals here.

Went to a Swedish music store today. Lot's of Hagstroms and Hofners, but the guy at the store just basically handed me over this Gibson L-5 when I asked him about it. For those of you not in the know, this is the $10 000 guitar that they have in the glass case at Long and McQuade and this guy's response to me was, "take it, it wants to be played." Not asking me to remove my belt or watch it, just basically here..... play it!

Alright, I'm now on the train back to Copenhagen and you know what really grinds my gears? This Scanrail pass. No....the pass is great, but no has told me jack about how it works. So, today I totally went by the book. I went to the SJ (Swedish train company....like Via Rail) reservation/ticketing place at the station, made a reservation, paid the 60 SEK because it's a special X2000 train (which apparently is built by Jesus himself and should be respected), and thought I'd done everything right as opposed to when I came to Stockholm, I just jumped on one of these bad boys with no seat assignment as is what every other train is like. So, the ticket is in Swedish and unfortunately my Swedish-by-phonetics method of translation isn't really working. I saw that it said "vagn 6" and "plats 6" amoung other numbers and words. I got a little worried that I didn't know what the seating assignment was, but I figued there would be a friendly train attendant that could help me similar to my last x2000 experience. I got on Vagn 6 (train car 6...this became obvious when the train rolled up) and so I naturally figured that plats meant seat. It turned out I was right but in my nervousness to do things correctly, I sat in seat 9. A nice woman pointed out the difference and as I got up to change, I was mowed down by a woman who was obviously pissed with my incompetence and shouted, "get out of the way!!!" I did and things got even more frustrating when I sat down in 6 and when the train attendant approached, I showed her my ticket (me proud I was doing things right) and she proceeded to chastise me for what I think was not having the right ticket and when I showed her my scanrail pass, further chastised me for not filling in the day I was travelling on (not that that is even my responsibilty!!!!). I'm sure I've confused most of you with this story and it will probably only make sense when you travel in Sweden by train on the holy x2000, but I needed to vent.

So now back to Copenhagen. I've been trying to live on a budget because things are pretty expensive in Scandinavia and I'm told Norway's worse. I might head back to the jazz house tonight, but again I might save some cash.

Picasso's Last Words/Crazy Train

2006-08-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

Scandinavia.....awesome. Let's start with today and work backwards. Today I'm in Gothenburg and I'm going to be heading to Stockholm pretty soon. I'm having lunch at an Irish Pub (The Auld Dubliner) after just seeing some ORIGINAL PICASSO's at the museum here. The weather hasn't been entirely cooperating, but I've managed to get in a couple runs out of the rain. Running has really been the best way to see the cities and understand the geography a bit. It's also been helping plan my days. My back pack has been a bit of a pain (maybe it's not sitting right or maybe I'm just a wimp) so I store it where I can or do things that don't involve a lot of walking. But all in all, it's been fine.

Let's back up now to Copenhagen. What a great city. I arrived at the airport, which is outside the city center and I took the train downtown. The hostel was pretty nice with about six beds/bunks and a bathroom. When I arrived, there were two people in the room. Travis and Mia....from Vancouver! I don't know if they plan these things or what; it would definitely be strange if they didn't. Anyways, Travis and Mia live like blocks away from me back home and they were really nice. To start, I went for a run around Copenhagen to get a "feel" for it and figure out where everything is. Hang on, food's here; I'm gonna eat.

Sorry...I'm back and now on a train to Stockholm. This train has wireless internet and instead of looking out the window at the beautiful countryside, I'm geeking out on my laptop. I don't really understand how this Scanrail thing works yet. The travel agent, Georgia, basically told me to just get on the trains and so far, that hasn't been a problem but, this train has assigned seating. I asked one of the workers on board what I should do and she kindly found a seat that wasn't booked, although since she found this seat we picked up some more passengers and the woman now sitting beside I think is pissed off because I think I'm actually in HER seat. It's obvious that I don't speak any Swedish and I don't think she wants to approach the subject in English, so I'm just staying put.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Copenhagen.

I ran around Copenhagen and checked out where I should go later. My Lonely Planet book and a Lee Aaron fan from Sweden, Johan (who got in touch with me through my website as I guess Lee has a link to mine), suggested the Copenhagen Jazz House. I had hung out and had some dinner (meatballs, red cabbage, and potatoes....I thought I'd be authentic) on a patio in the city square before heading to the jazz bar. Everywhere in Europe has a patio, in fact, I took a picture of a 7-11 today that had a patio! Anyways, the jazz club was really awesome. Two levels: a bar upstairs and then a cabaret downstairs where they held the concerts. The concert was....OK. Nothing earth shattering. Not actually a lot of improvising. But whatever. The interesting thing was that A) the joint was packed! B) Beautiful Danish girls dig jazz! and C) They cleared the stage away and the place became a great night club after the show where I hung out until the very wee hours .

I arrived back at the hostel in the wee hours, managed to get a few hours asleep and was promptly awoken from my slumber by an angry hostel manager who informed me that I was way past check out time. After giving me a little hostel-ity, he didn't charge me an extra day, but saw that I was returning to the same hostel on the 30th and that I should be a little more aware. Fair enough.

So I left Copenhagen and took a train to Helsingor (not to be confused with Helsingborg which is my next stop) to check out the famed Elsinore castle, where Shakespeare's Hamlet takes place. This was my first castle experience and it was pretty sweet. Although, inside was kinda strange cause it was basically a Danish maritime museum. I thought it would be a little more....kingly? or even Shakespearey....but whateva. Maybe I expected people to be avenging their father everywhere. It was still pretty cool.

I then took a ferry from Helsingor to Helsingborg, Sweden. They're right across from each other and I'm not sure why the names are so similar. You would think it might make things confusing, "Hey where you going?" "Helsing..r..." "Wha?" "Helsing..r..." "Wha?"

From Helsingborg I caught the train to Gothenburg. This was the only stay at a hotel. I really didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be really nice. The Hotel Opera and was really close to the train station so I didn't have to lug the backpack too far.

My impressions so far of Scandinavia? Pretty cool. The fact that most people speak English has been a bonus, but I've been trying to learn a little of the languages. People kind of know somehow that I'm english speaking before I say a word though. Perhaps it's the dark hair or something. Maybe I'm unescapably Canadian.

Being on my own has been fun too. I guess the only drag is that I won't be in any of my pics.

More to come....

I'm on a Plane, I can't complain

2006-08-25T03:42:00.000-07:00

I'm on the plane. And typing in my online journal....ok "blogging" (why is that word so hard to come to terms with?). I'm over Scotland (the motherland!!!!) and if you ever get the chance, fly Scandinavian air! You know how Westjet has the TV's and the satellite imagery of plane. Well, this plane has that AND cameras on the exterior of the plane that you can actually look down and forward without having a window seat! Plus, obviously, they have wireless and plug ins for laptops, so I can geek out even more! Why can't we put this peanut butter and chocolate together on the airplanes back home?

In other news, I met Tom Jones' band at the Chicago airport. They were on their way to Niece but their gig got cancelled. Naturally, I found them at the bar.

Chicago, Chicago, that wonderful town

2006-08-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

Crazy. I come off the airplane ready for my 8 hour layover here at O'Hare and I run into Vancouver trumpet player extraodinaire, Bria Skonberg. I thought I was in for some travel; she was in France and Holland for the last 2 weeks, flew back to Van yesterday and was at the airport with me early at 5 am (although we never ran into each other until Chicago) to fly on to Virginia for a Jazz Party. She's pretty heavily involved in the Trad Jazz scene and by the sounds of it, kicking ass.

I must say that it felt good knowing that Vancouver jazz musicians are travelling the world, entertaining the masses. Vancouver has some of what I consider the greatest talent on earth musically and I'm proud of my musical brothers and sisters. Seeing Bria in Chicago and knowing that 7 other Soulstreamers were invited over to Europe is a great testament to our scene.

Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin' Man

2006-08-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, it seems that the philosophy blogs are proving to be quite the undertaking. I have been contemplating "The Good Life" a lot and I have drafted an essay sized blog so far on the subject; however, it's not ready for public consumption yet (I haven't been on a blog hiatus, I've just been deep in thought!!! My mom's even chimed in on my blog absence....hi mom!). My point is, the philosophy will be up soon but not yet.....we have bigger fish to fry today.

Today, I'm on vacation. Yes, I've taken a few little trips here and there over the last 2 years, but nothing major. The last year and a half has been probably the most significant in my life. I have undergone huge changes emotionally, mentally, and physically. More over, the last 4 years have been the most tragic and challenging ever. This trip is kind of an exhale of all of that STUFF.

I'm currently at the Vancouver Airport awaiting my flight to Chicago which then connects to Copenhagen, Denmark. With the time change, I arrive in Copenhagen tomorrow local time 1:20 pm. I'll spend the day and night there staying at a hostel (my first hosteling experience). Massive Attack and The Cardigans are in town and I might check that out as well as some of the many jazz clubs (hear that Vancouver??? MANY JAZZ CLUBS!!!). The next day the plan is to head to Hilerod to see Hamlet's Castle, then a ferry over to Helsingborg, Sweden and I'll improvise a little here, maybe down to Malmo or something, but eventually I end up in Sweden's second largest city Goteborg (also pronounced Gothenburg). The next day I'm off to Stockholm for a couple days, back to Copenhagen for another night, and on to Oslo for a night before meeting up with Soulstream to head to Hamar.

I'm sure I'll be reporting back more today as things occur to me like.....how come I'm layed over in Chicago for 8 hours???!!!!!

Bye everyone (and mom)

Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box

2006-07-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

I've recently been reading a book by Ayn Rand (weird, eh?) called "Philosophy: Who needs it?". One of my students gave it to me and she knows the way to my heart; don't bring the teach' an apple, bring him philosophy books....

Although, I do love apples.

In the first few pages Ayn maps out the reasons why we should all take Philosophy a lot more seriously:

"...You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational conviction — or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.

But the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously) may clash with or contradict one another; they, too, have to be integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define you philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown..."

Recently (before I read this book anyway), I'd been thinking of sitting down and trying to map out "My Philosophy". One thing that I've enjoyed about this blogging thing so far is that it's given me an opportunity to iron out some of my thoughts that were a bit rough or not well thought out. There's something to be said for putting information out there even if no one reads it. Similar to writing in a journal, I would think that most people would want to make their opinions and ideas sound and certainly making that journal public would solidify that idea. Maybe I'm just a freak.

So, I'm going to devote the next 6ish blogs to establishing "My Philosophy" (this being the declaration). I really want to make this a spirited QUEST FOR THE TRUTH and a community of inquiry and discourse. PLEASE comment and email me (rob@robhamilton.ca) for some debate and all with the idea of getting as close to the truth as we can. In other words, there are going to be controversial topics and ideas discussed and I'm hoping we put my philosophy to the test. The test of course being similar to the scientific method of inquiry that scientists use, some idea or opinion will be put up as simply a theory and we will try to disprove it and replace it or see if it "holds" or is "sound", all with intent of getting closer to truth.

I did an earlier blog called "Cause and Effect" that didn't stir any of the controversy that I thought it might. Perhaps it was sound.....perhaps.

And a donut with no hole is a Danish

2006-07-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

Alright it looks as if I'll be bumming around Europe soon trying to "find myself". I've got 6 days of no agenda and I'm confident that that's all it will take. I guess I'm not too lost.

SO...

I'm being dropped off in Copenhagen, Denmark. My next and only requirement is that I be back at the Copenhagen airport on the morning of Aug 30th to fly to Oslo for my gig with Soulstream. So I'm trying to figure out what I should do. Go south and run around the mainland like a chicken with my head cut off being a power tourist. OR take advantage of the fact that I'm in Scandinavia and save the mainland adventures for next time. It seems that Scandinavia is often neglected because of it's geography, and seeing as my tour drops me knee deep in it, I'm leaning towards concentrating on the north.

Next issue....

Train or car. Train is nice 'cause I don't have to pay the ridiculous gas prices ($7 a gallon....yes, $7 dollars a gallon), but a car affords me some freedom. I'm leaning train, so I can stare out the window and write blogs. Getting a rail pass is roughly the same as renting a car, but no gas.

Next issue....

Can anyone recommend anything to see and/or do?

On the Road Again/We are Family

2006-07-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've been living out of a suitcase for a couple of weeks now and there is still no end in sight to it. Last night marked the 7th Whistler gig in a couple weeks and couple that with a family renunion in Quebec and a trip to Ontario this week, that adds up to a lotta road livin. I love the road. I love travelling. Even in the most remote areas and reaches of our country (Mattawa, Ont. for instance this week). My job has allowed me to travel the world free of charge. Now, with running through all of the cities and towns that I go to, I feel as if I'm really "seeing" them.

My family reunion was so awesome. It was so great to see the whole family although there were key members missing. First of which being the loss of my Dad, Uncle Bruce, and Uncle John. Cancer and death has hit my family hard since the last family reunion and it was a weird adjustment for everyone, even though our pining was tacit. Quebec is always amazing and fascinating and I had a ball with the staff of my hotel, the St Christophe, even when the barrier of language got in the way.

The initial 10 minutes of any family renuion is always the hardest. There's that uncomfortable feeling of "hey, I should totally know who you are but I don't. I'm such a horrible relative for not keeping in touch. I'm certainly gonna change that after this reunion." Then you discover that that guilt is a two way street, which makes things a whole lot easier. 20 minutes later you're shaking hands guilt free and re-introducing yourself to everyone that you don't recognize anymore. This was especially true of me. Not for nothing, but I'm basically a new person physically and it took even some my closest relatives a minute or two to adjust I think.

All in all. Tons of fun. Now for a big week of re-hair rocking and my first steady teaching week in a while.

Brown, Parker, Mister Bigglesworth, Gonzo, Katie, Kayla, Zoe

2006-07-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Up here at Whistler playing for the Oracle software company. The public library, which is currently under renovation, is just outside of the hotel and I have to pass by it to go anywhere. In order to dress up the construction, they've hung up the art pictures that the kids from the local elementary school have done. I'm totally mesmerized by this cat for some reason. It's an original Katie.

Cats have played a significant role throughout my life and my cats have always marked certain periods of my life. The problem though is that my cats, for one reason or another, have always been taken away from me for circumstances beyond my control. Maybe it's me I don't know, but I can never seem to hang on to a cat. That sounds bad....like I don't take care of them. I do. They just get taken. Girlfriends, sisters, friends, etc. seem to take my cats. Hmmm....

Wow, wha wha wha what a great odience

2006-07-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

Wow. Had a great gig last night at our new residence, The Republic on Granville between Nelson and Smithe. Sundays with Retrofit, which includes Randall, Timmy Fuller, Tino, Courtenay/Tilden, and me. The place was jam packed last night and we were definitely well received. We played a mish mash of R&B, Funk, 80's, and rock. I've got to sub out a couple of dates this month but I'll be there next week for sure, so if anyone wants to check out THE cool new club in town this is it. For me it's cool to play some new tunes and do a lot of singing.

Breathe, breathe in the air

2006-06-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

I can breathe again.....sort of.

What a crazy few weeks. Between the gigs (Lee Aaron, FP, and the Ham/Mak Proj), the half marathon, and "other things", I haven't had a chance to breathe lately. Until now. I feel as if summer can officially start (like it really needs my sanctioning....arrogant ass; perhaps too many Ayn Rand books).

Jazz fest was/is good. Played with the Quartet yesterday. Everyone sounded great with one rehearsal although I had a moment of complete meltdown. The stage at Georgia and Granville is notoriously the windiest stage in the jazz fest. The backdrop of Pacific Center creates nothing short of a wind tunnel on a NASA-training like scale. I was prepared however with my industrial strength clips. The tunes are almost all 3 hole punched and any loose papers I tucked into the back of my binder and clipped open any of the tunes that we were doing. We were playing on a tune of Chad's called Non-Fiction and of course it's the hardest tune we play and in 5/4 no less, when my binder gets blown to the last page and all the loose pages go everywhere. One thought comes to mind: the show must go on. I eared my way through this and "tried" to hack out a solo, but.....

Anyways.

I was happy to hear a few of my originals that had never been played before. Halfway to the album. This time next year.

The Thunder Bay show was amazing. Got a chance to hang with Nancy Wilson although Anne was a little more reclusive. Nancy is so cool and so beautiful and can totally ROCK!!!! Lee's showed kicked ass as well. People totally freaked at all of her hits. It was great to totally rock out for a change. So much power (musically and spiritually) in an E chord through a Mesa Boogie and a Marshall stack.

Totally scored at HMV tonight: Chris Potter Vertigo which I've been trying to find for a while. But cooler than that was the very rare and totally unbelievable For Django by Joe Pass. If I can find Intercontinantal, I will have crossed off all the rare Joe albums from the list.

Oh yeah. I played the NHL awards after party at the Commodore and just before we went on. I looked off to the wings on the other side of the stage.....

Oh my God! It's the freaking Stanley Cup!

So I had to get a pic. My be my last chance to get a pic before it resides in Calgary next year. Go Tanguay! Darryl Sutter has officially declared war.

Check the running blog soon for my half-marathon thoughts. I'm done.

Hands On

2006-06-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Thunder Bay. It reminds me in some ways of Calgary. The same 60's type tract houses. Soundcheck's in an hour and I'm gonna do my damndest to corner the Wilson sisters from Heart for autographs. They're soundchecking right before us. Brad said he'd be my wingman.

I am definitely IN CANADA right now. The accent, the look, the attitude....totally cliche Canadian and in a very great way. Everybody kinda reminds me of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys; I mean that as the highest compliment too. Salt of the earth and friendly people here. My cabbie this morning was awesome. Could barely get through a sentence because of the emphysema, but that didn't stop him from trying to make conversation.

OK gonna run these tunes one more time.....whatcha do to my body, body

My music at work

2006-06-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read the running blog yet, I bought an ipod. So awesome. I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1200 CDs, many of which I have now converted to MP3 on my computer (I'm sure Kaaza, Limewire, and all the other looters would love to share my hard drive). I went and bought the 60 GB ipod which is the big kahuna in order to accomodate my collection. It's so great having my collection in the palm of my hand....in fact, this is really one of my life's dreams realized. Seriously. I have loved collecting albums since I was 4 and to finally have them organized so that I can instantly access any of it almost brings a tear to my eye.

I bought a Tele yesterday...again. I probably shouldn't have, but this one was special and I got a hell of a deal. A few years ago, I had a sunburst Japanese re-issue Fender Telecaster with the white binding around the body, ala Andy Summers of the Police fame. I "pimped" it out with a Gibson humbucker, Gotoh bridge and machine heads, and removed the finish from the neck and replaced it with a tung oil finish for a more natural wood feel. This guitar was the envy of many a Vancouver guitarist and it sounded and played great.....until it was stolen. SO, the other day this guy comes in with the exact guitar minus the "pimping" and I couldn't say no when Neil put it aside for me. I'm going begin the pimping process again when I get back from Thunder Bay next week; so excited to hear and possibly meet Heart. Currently re-doing my Washburn 335 with a Gibson Humbucker in the neck and a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck Trembucker in the bridge, that is if Neil ever finishes it.

I call it, ’Olga Waits;
The Cloud That Entertains
The Dim Possibility of
Showing Some Restraint.’
The rain came down berserk.
My music at work.
My music at work.

Just enough and too much

2006-05-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

How many tunes must I learn? It seems that everybody needs me to learn their tunes these days. Famous Players (10 tunes), Fundalicious (4 new tunes and lots of review), Bittersweet (5 tunes), Ginette (4 tunes), Soulsisters gig (10 tunes), Cellar gig (10 tunes), Lee Aaron Tour (15 tunes), and tunes for students (3 tunes). That's this week!!!!

Alright it's a lot of work, but I'm not complaining. I love the work and the DIVERSITY! Everything from "What You Do To My Body" by Lee Aaron to original jazz tunes by a New York trumpet player.

Sicamous, South Park, Putz's, and Prog

2006-05-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Ok. This blog will cover a few things here. Essentially Wednesday to Sunday.....and album reviews.....and Phil Collins, the putz.

First of all...

Wednesday at the Cellar. Quite a few new tunes for us in Crash and even though it was a little slow this week, I always look forward to playing with that band. Recently, we've had my hip-attached childhood-friend Scott Sanft playing keys. I have known Scott for years and years and we have played in dozens of bands together. One of which is the Famous Players band, which is sort of the ultimate cover band. We do everything from Frank Sinatra to Franz Ferdinand and literally everything in between. All of the players are incredible in that band and I'm fortunate to play with these guys and although occassionally we're forced to play some "questionable" material, it's still enjoyable and we take comfort in the fact that we're all in it together. We don't really get to "blow" the way we normally do with that band which, by the way, is fine; that band is not about jazz odysseys, but my point is that it's great to hear Scott really play with Crash because I don't get to hear it often enough. Most of you that know Scott, know that he's a monster on the keys, but you should all hear him on saxophone!!!!! He claims that no one will ever hear it, but I suspect otherwise. Sorry buddy.

Next...

Thursday at the Cellar. Not gigging, listening. I had the double fortune of having the night off and Oliver Gannon playing with his Quartet at the Cellar. Man oh man, what a great battery recharger. Ollie is so musical and he's such a great guy. I owe him everything. Thank you Ollie.

Next...

This may be my last weekend off for awhile so I wanted to get away. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and go visit my mom at her modular home (fancy word for trailer.....honestly it's a really nice resort!!!) in Sicamous and be a good son for the Mother's Day weekend. I LOVE the road! Maybe I'm weird but I really enjoy being by myself and driving. Perhaps that's a bit anti-social, but I love being alone with my car, music, thoughts, and scenery.

Now as I was preparing for the trip, I had to sort out the most important thing: driving tunes. I decided there was some important albums that I had never checked out that I needed to. So, next step was CD shopping for some new things. I should mention that on the previous night, I picked up the Oliver Gannon box set which included 3 of his CD's live at the Cellar, so in addition to those for the trip, my intentions were to pick up 8:30 by Weather Report and Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie and whatever caught my eye. The A&B in Langley provided the WR but sadly let me down with the Death Cab. I DID end up with some kick ass albums for the most part:

Oliver Gannon - That's What

I realize now how much influence Ollie had on my playing. It's also cool/strange to hear him now that I'm.....well....a professional and no longer a student. I mean, don't get me wrong, I will always be a student of music.....you know what I mean. Ollie deserves all of the success he has achieved for himself.

Genesis - Trick of the Tail

When I was in high school, there were two types of music: jazz and progressive rock. I loved the prog band bands of the 70's but I always seemed to skip over Genesis. I mean the Peter Gabriel days of Genesis. I did own The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and last year I bought Foxtrot, but I haven't given either of those a fair chance. Brad Turner was listening to Trick of the Tail the other day and it caught my ear. It was cheap at A&B, as was all of the Genesis so I picked up a whole whack of it (as you'll see). I didn't realize Trick doesn't have Peter Gabriel on it, but regardless it was good. One thought that I had while listening to this album, which obviously features Phil Collins, is this fear that I have. The fear is that one becomes a total putz as they get older. When you're listening to this album and listening to Phil kick ass in 13/8 and the sound of his drums and the band, it's hard not to think of how much of a putz he has become now. Think of that classic South Park episode "Timmy 2000" and how true their version of Phil is. Funny enough, Matt Stone from South Park is good friends with Neil Peart: the drummer from the other prog band that at the time of Trick of the Tail, was doing equally experimental and cool stuff. Bottom line is that you can become either cool (Neil) or a putz (Phil) if you're the drummer of a prog rock band in the 70's; there is a third category however of ultra-cool reserved for Bill Bruford.

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Visions of the Emerald Beyond

WOW!!! Exactly what I wanted out of a M.O. album: organic chop-fest!!! Not too slick like Black Sabbath, but with blistering chops. I can only take so much of this stuff at a time, but man is it ever fun every now and then. The band on this album has totally changed from what I'm normally accustomed to (no Billy Cobham, etc) and usually this would've scared me, but I was still kicking ass. AND he's added vocals, horns, and strings and never does it take away.

(At this point in the trip, there was a blizzard while I was driving. Nice. Snowing. May 12. Lac Le Jeune.)

Weather Report - 8:30

One of those guilty albums that I should've owned but don't....until now. Unbelievable. That's all I can say. So great and obviously this band is a huge influence on Soulstream. Point of interest: the last tune on this album "Sightseeing" sounds a lot like a tune on the first Bloomdaddies record. I shouldn't complain, I've got tunes that sound exactly like Bloomdaddies tunes.

Genesis - Genesis

A return to my childhood. I almost wore this tape out when I was a kid. It so good to hear this again and I can't believe how much this album influenced me throughout my life and never realized till now. I could sing every part on this album as if nothing had changed.

Oliver Gannon & Bill Coon - Two much guitar

My old teachers going at it. Once again, although I still have a lot to learn, it's cool to listen to these guys as a...peer? I love both of their musicality, how it's always motif to motif to motif. They're also both masters of ornaments. Those little saxophone "turns" which, on the guitar, are tricky.

Genesis - Selling England by the Pound

My favorite so far of all the Gabriel era Genesis. More melody in the tunes. Definitely gonna listen to this one a few more times and explore it.

(At this point in the trip I just passed a Native Indian protest banner that said: Fighting Terrorism since 1492)

Pat Martino - Think Tank

A little disappointing. He's just too Pat Martino on the whole thing. I think Pat should only play like Pat for like 10 seconds on every tune. The band seems not too into it either even though it's an unbelievable band (Joe Lovano, Lewis Nash, Christian McBride, and Gonzaldo Rubalcada). I also didn't dig Pat's tone, seemed a bit thin. I want to find the ultimate Martino album, if anyone can suggest one please do. I really want to be a fan of his. He almost gets me with each solo he takes....almost.

Genesis - Trespass

The last one I promise. Why has half the band changed for this album???? Phil's not even there. Anyways, I dug it. I need to listen to it some more, but on the surface I liked it.

Oliver Gannon - Live at the Cellar

Awesome again. Lots of Ollie's originals, which is really cool. One of my favorite originals of his is a tune called Warm that's based on Body and Soul with the Coltrane subs. *note to self - add Warm to trio book.

I can't believe I made it through all those albums! My weekend was fun with Mom and I got some much needed work done. Talk to y'all soon.

Misc.

2006-05-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

Back in town now. Soulstream was fun this week. Randall was on the road with Tom Cochrane in Phoenix (always liked Phoenix) so we had the young and incredible Tim Proznick. When Randall goes away, I step in as leader of the band which my control-freak personality kinda likes although it's a little bit more stress with organizing tunes, people, and keeping egos, musically or otherwise, in check.

Back teaching as well after a week hiatus. Teaching is a very important part of my musical world, financially and spiritually. I love teaching and I think in the same way that I'm growing as a musician, I'm growing as a teacher as well. I'm really trying to challenge my students more now, rather than give them the answer. I see them getting a little frustrated, but I think it's because I've been babying them a bit. I'm discovering that they need to figure out most things in music on their own and on their own terms.

One of my students got into the VCC music program this semester. I usually have one or two students doing college entrance auditions each year, but this year I only have one. He's a great player, person, and musician and he should do well up there.

I'm going to Sicamous this weekend to visit mom and get some "work" done. Me, mom, my guitar, 4 books, Roger the laptop, and the Shuswap...

Cumberland and Duncan

2006-05-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

Upon pulling into Cumberland, only one word came to mind: White Trash. I guess that's two words isn't it? Appliances, broken cars, and sleeping dogs replaced the usual flowers and garden gnomes for front yard adornment. The gig however, looked super cool. It was at an old converted church that they now call The Abbey. It's run by a bunch of hippies and they have concerts, movies, and an ongoing art gallery in there. There of course was the obligatory tension between band and soundman; this time only a little coming from Randall, the brunt suprisingly coming from Brad. And as usual, the soundman shut the f$*# up when he heard us play.

I was totally wrong about the white trashness of the town and we sold out the Abbey and got a huge standing ovation. People loved it and frankly, they should of. The band played their asses off.

That brings us here to Duncan. Brad left us to go and do a concert with his childhood idol/teacher Donny Clark. Fortunately, we had a sub of equal stature, the incredible Phil Dwyer. I've heard probably a thousand stories about Phil Dwyer but never met him. The legend in my mind had been built up beyond belief although I have no idea what this guy even looked like! I guess he did end up looking like I had imagined him, but I could not have prepared myself for what he was going to sound like. Not only did he know all of the tunes, within seconds he understood where each of us were coming from musically and supported us and made us all sound better. Randall was the only other guy besides me that had never met Phil before and the two of them got off on the craziest cuban rhythmic stuff all night.

After the show, Phil told a story about how he once almost got in a fight in a bar in Duncan. His family has been in Duncan since the 1800's and one night while at a bar with his grandfather, a redneck called Phil a commie because of the Chinese Workers hat he had been wearing and challenged Phil to a fight. Phil's grandfather got up and in this guy's face and said:

"You don't fuck with a Dwyer in Duncan!!!!!"

We found that out first hand last night.

Victoria

2006-05-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

Well, with the exception of the intro to Amoroso (uggggh....I gotta play Jesse Zubot's violin part on guitar. Not hard, just a bit weird), the gig went smashingly. The crowd however left a little something to be desired. It seemed that the gig was promoted well enough as there were posters literally everywhere here in Victoria, but Victoria just didn't make it out. That is with the exception of team Shoichet and her fan club. So maybe 25 people. But those who were there enjoyed it which is the best we can do I guess.

They say the ratio of women to men in Victoria is 3 to 1...I really like Victoria! It's also summer (spring really, but it seems like summer) and that means the sun and the girls are out in full force.

Today, we go to Cumberland. I'm thinking the smaller town will be better as they probably don't get much in the way of great jazz concerts. Also, with it being a Friday, more people are more inclined to go out and check out a band that they've never heard of before.

From the road!!

2006-05-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

12% battery

Had a kickass show last night in Nanaimo and it was only our first night of the tour. The band, the sound, and the bar were great. The only problem was what happened an hour before we played.....and frankly the 3 hours that preceded that. I'm speaking of course about my Flames.

10% battery

What can I say. The Ducks played great and kicked their ass. End of story. I wish I had some magic and insightful thing to say, but I don't. The other team played way better than my team. No penalty whining. No injury whining. Nothing...

8% battery

We're in Victoria tonight and I've always loved this city. The soundman was a bit of a prick and Randall almost pulled a Jerome Iginla on his ass (that's our goblin!!!), but unfortunately it never came to that. I'm so fortunate to be playing original music with these guys and girl and tba (brad turner, andre lachance, pepe danza, randall stoll, bill runge, and rebecca shoichet w/child).

7% battery

Bye for now....

Check out the running blog too!!!

Old Man Stream

2006-04-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

Little update here. I have officially "launched" the website now, meaning I sent emails to my friends and told them I had a website. Perhaps you are one of them peeps! I did however, forget to mention in my "Gigs" section, that Soulstream did not play Bar None last night and I had a bunch of people calling and asking about getting on the guest list and seeing the band. So, sorry to all who went down expecting the band.

The club has been doing special events once every couple months on OUR nights, which is kinda nice to have the night off, but it occurs to me how inconsistancy can be a bad thing. I think people have come to expect that we'll be there every week, which we usually are....for 9 years. The was some rumour that Soulstream and the new owners were having a little tiff at one point and there was mention of us quitting/getting fired; it might be easy to think we were no longer there should someone come down, not see us there, and with those rumours floating, put two and two together on their own....

The new ownership celebrated their first anniversary this week and with the exception of a bumpy start, we've all been getting along. Hell, Jeff Donnelly himself was dancing right up front the other night. I think they now understand that we're all about being fair. Fair to them and of course, fair to us. We aren't out to screw anybody, nor are we out to get screwed.

Mondays and Tuesday at Bar None are special. Anyone who's been there knows it. It IS a money making night. If the club is losing money on these nights, it ain't cause the party isn't happening.

We don't have and maybe we'll never have the same relationship that we had with the old owners/managers (Ryan, although a conservative with no concept of PA, is a great guy and good friend), but things are good at the old Bar None and the mighty Stream still flows.

Cause and Effect

2006-04-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

Thinking about cause and effect especially in these times of the Canucks, war, and the thousands of other problems that plague us. Why did the Canucks not make the play-offs? Who's to blame for the Hurricane Katrina screw up? Why do I have a cold? Why are boys shooting up their schools? Why are girls sexualizing themselves at such an early age? Why is George Bush doing what he is doing? Why did David Emerson cross the floor? Why does my calf hurt after a run? Why did the government of Alberta send out prosperity cheques?

These are all great questions that involve a process known as cause and effect. In other words here's the effect, now what are the causes? It's very easy to point to causes; fun in fact! But beware, a cause could literally be anything that precedes the effect eg. The TV picture is fuzzy. I go and hit the TV. It comes back to normal. Therefore, hitting my TV fixes it, right???? Wrong!!!! I wore my lucky hat and the Flames won. Therefore, wearing my lucky hat makes the Flames win, right??? Wrong!!! I took echinacea tea yesterday and I'm not sick today. Therefore, echinacea tea prevents sickness, right??? Wrong!!!

This is known in the philosophical community as a Post Hoc fallacy, one of the 10 common fallacies that people are prone to.

"A Post Hoc is a fallacy with the following form:

A occurs before B.
Therefore A is the cause of B.

The Post Hoc fallacy derives its name from the Latin phrase "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc." This has been traditionally interpreted as "After this, therefore because of this." This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that one event causes another simply because the proposed cause occurred before the proposed effect. More formally, the fallacy involves concluding that A causes or caused B because A occurs before B and there is not sufficient evidence to actually warrant such a claim.

It is evident in many cases that the mere fact that A occurs before B in no way indicates a causal relationship. For example, suppose Jill, who is in London, sneezed at the exact same time an earthquake started in California. It would clearly be irrational to arrest Jill for starting a natural disaster, since there is no reason to suspect any causal connection between the two events. While such cases are quite obvious, the Post Hoc fallacy is fairly common because there are cases in which there might be some connection between the events. For example, a person who has her computer crash after she installs a new piece of software would probably suspect that the software was to blame. If she simply concluded that the software caused the crash because it was installed before the crash she would be committing the Post Hoc fallacy. In such cases the fallacy would be committed because the evidence provided fails to justify acceptance of the causal claim. It is even theoretically possible for the fallacy to be committed when A really does cause B, provided that the "evidence" given consists only of the claim that A occured before B. The key to the Post Hoc fallacy is not that there is no causal connection between A and B. It is that adequate evidence has not been provided for a claim that A causes B. Thus, Post Hoc resembles a Hasty Generalization in that it involves making a leap to an unwarranted conclusion. In the case of the Post Hoc fallacy, that leap is to a causal claim instead of a general proposition.

Not surprisingly, many superstitions are probably based on Post Hoc reasoning. For example, suppose a person buys a good luck charm, does well on his exam, and then concludes that the good luck charm caused him to do well. This person would have fallen victim to the Post Hoc fallacy. This is not to say that all "superstitions" have no basis at all. For example, some "folk cures" have actually been found to work.

Post Hoc fallacies are typically committed because people are simply not careful enough when they reason. Leaping to a causal conclusion is always easier and faster than actually investigating the phenomenon. However, such leaps tend to land far from the truth of the matter. Because Post Hoc fallacies are committed by drawing an unjustified causal conclusion, the key to avoiding them is careful investigation. While it is true that causes proceed effects (outside of Star Trek, anyways), it is not true that precedence makes something a cause of something else. Because of this, a causal investigation should begin with finding what occurs before the effect in question, but it should not end there."

Some people are more guilty than others for this. I really hate it when people offer advice for colds and sickness (you know those people). Health advice is really the biggest of all post hoc fallacies. There are so many "X-factors" at work in your body, it's incredibly difficult (and arrogant frankly) to say, "Do X and you'll get Y" or "you're Y because of X." Chances are you're Y not just because of X but because of ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW and X. Controversial subjects like gun control, 2nd hand smoke, global warming, video game violence, Christina Aguliera music videos, and foreign policy are all victims of post hoc. Post hoc is everywhere in our lives from the Canucks to Iraq to why I break strings on my guitar.

So next time we start speculating on Canuck cause and effect. Think about it. It's totally fun to do and important to do if you want to figure out what the hell happened, but don't accept your theories as the end all. One should try to figure out causes of the problems in our world but understand that causes are generally more complexed than we would like.