Well…… I survived yesterday with more or less all of my faculties intact.

We played two gigs -afternoon at the Rex, and evening at Chicago's in Oshawa. I'm feeling pretty beat up and stiff today from wearing that damned banjo for six sets.

The night before, I didn't sleep too much (too excited) so I was thinking that I was gonna be fucked by the time we hit the stage at Chicago's.

Surprisingly, I felt fine. I guess it's the excitement of playing that makes me reach into the extra reserves for that sustaining energy.

Add to that, I didn't eat anything all day. I just forgot all about it. That either makes me a cheap drunk, or a moron. Both I guess……… I didn't realize this until after our last set at Chicago's, when the ol' belly started complaining.

I'm constantly surprised at how many people come up to me saying things like 'I never knew I liked this kind of music until I saw you guys.

I suspect that a lot of people are 'conditioned' to think that old-time music and the like, are just for old timers! Gives me a good feeling when people tell me stuff like that. Makes me think that I might be on the right track!

A little political rant fo those that are in the mood.

We've been inundated here in Toronto with the news of the melee that transpired after the FIFA Under 20 World Cup game a couple of nights ago between Chile and Argentina.

All hell broke loose after the game when a few Chilean players got into it with a couple of Toronto's finest.

Now, I wasn't there, so I can't be certain of how the events unfolded, but judging by how things are playing out in the press, I'm starting to get a semi-visible picture of the heightened stupidity unfolding before my very eyes.

It seems that the Chilean government -who obviously weren't there either- are demanding an apology, along with lodging a formal complaint with the (my) Canadian government.

Apparently, the incident stemmed from what the Chilean team perceived to be poor refereeing. More specifically, they went on record as saying 'The German referee did not officiate the game the way that officials do in our country.'

Then they had the temerity to say that the Toronto police did not act like the Chilean police.

WELL……….. GUESS WHAT ASS HATS?!?!

YOU'RE NOT IN FUCKING CHILE!!!

You're in Canada now ASSHOLES.

Let me give you a couple of pointers (unfortunately, obviously too late) that might help you see things a little clearer: OBEY THE FUCKING COPS!!! You might not agree with them, but you found out the hard way that they have the tasers, the night sticks, and the steel toed boots. You, on the other hand are armoured in soccer shorts, and Nike sneakers. Good luck!

Secondly, you knew who the referee was going to be before the match even started. Don't you think it might have been prudent, maybe even strategical, to play a game that suited his refereeing style? You might have actually won the game had you been able to use your brains instead of letting your emotions get the better of you.

Sure, there was a couple of bad calls, but that's the nature of sport. Referees are human. They make mistakes. Take your fucking lumps with a stiff upper lip, and get on with the game.  Show some fucking sportsmanship.

Of course, it's a little late for that. You took your lumps alright…….. unfortunately it was in the parking lot after the game.

Somebody call the WHAAAAA-M-BULANCE. You're a bunch of fucking pussies.

GO ARGENTINA!!!

This saturday (July 21/07) we'll be playing from 3:30 'till 7:00 p.m. at The Rex Hotel here in Toronto, and then hauling our asses down the highway to Oshawa for a gig at Chicago's that night from 9:30 'till 1 a.m.

I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be a fairly contradictory post. Well, what do you expect? I spent the whole day on the couch with nothing but a hangover for company….

As I've mentioned before, I work in a live music bar. What does that make me (besides a bartender)? JADED; that's what. I did a little calculating, and figured that I probably see about 250-300 bands a year. Yes, that's a lot of noise.

To be brutally frank with you, most of them are fucking gawd-awful. Never the less, it's my job, and I like to think that my skin (and ear drums) are thick enough to handle it.

I like my job. Maybe once a year, I'll hear a band that really blows me away.

I'm not talking about the big touring bands that I see quite regularly, I mean the local kids.

You know, -the ones that rehearse in their parents basement while their mother is upstairs stomping on the floor, and howling for them to 'shut the fuck up' because she's trying to watch Gilligan's Island re-runs, and can't hear what Thursten Howell the Third is whining about over the racket that's wafting up from the floor below.

Once, or twice a year, I'll see a band that really smokes my ass. Four kids from Etobicoke, Markham, or some other god-forsaken suburb, who've decided to put together a band, so they can get girls.

Four little snot nosed punks (nice use of a complementary diminutive, huh?) crash the stage, and blast out some high volume ear poison, that somehow works. There's nobody in the house, and their playing like it's the charge of the fucking light brigade!

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Stop sending me fucking emails telling me that my spelling, punctuation, and grammar is occasionally incorrect!

I'm not fucking perfect -my grade nine level education sometimes fails me.

Besides, let me see YOU post shit when you're half in the bag!!!

Wow! What a weekend. Twenty-four hours of concerts circling the globe! A veritable who's who of rock star 'B' listers, two billion citizens of the earth tuning in……. Now THAT'S what I'd call Global Awareness!™

What exactly were we made aware of? Let's recap:

-Global warming is bad

-Madonna has a new song out

-Al Gore has been replicated in holographic form, and will therefore live forever

-Spinal Tap had (in my estimation) perhaps as many as thirty bassists on stage simultaneously playing the riff to 'Big Bottoms', and quite possibly setting a worlds record in doing so.

-The most popular bands on the planet stayed away in droves.

Where were The Rolling Stones, U2, Prince, Britney Spears, 50 Cent? Oops……… Did someone forget to invite them? Or did they all just take a pass to avoid the FUCKING HYPOCRISY OF IT ALL!?!?!?

Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders had some surprisingly insightful comments concerning his groups decision not to play

Mr. Helders is twenty-one. He is part of the age group that these concerts are trying to appeal to. He has obviously heard about global warming, as has just about every young person in world with access to a television, radio, or the internet.

Kids know about environmental issues. They know a lot more than we give them credit for. I may be going out on a limb here, but I'd venture to guess that the little buggers do less to destroy the environment than us older idiots.

It's not the kids who need to learn, it's the adults. It's us who need to be re-programmed.

-Who has the disposable income to fill up the SUV's tank with $100. worth of gas each week?

-Who can afford to leave the lights on, and have the air conditioning blasting 24/7?

-What age group does the most air travel?

……..take a look in the mirror. That's who.

Playing a lot of bluesrass banjo lately.

Getting myself into that headspace to really grasp, or understand the music means doing a lot of thinking about it, reading up on where the music came from, and trying to understand what was going on in the heads of the people that popularized this music.

In doing so, I'm reminded of my quest to understand and learn how to play the blues on the electric guitar.

Both styles -bluegrass and blues- started out as simple down home music, which evolved into the genres that we know today. Both come with their respective set of 'rules' that dictate how the music should be played.

Although both forms started off as the music of simple folks trying to express themselves as best as they could, they've both become become something rigid and 'tight' with rules that must be followed.

With bluegrass, it's all about playing the melody. When musicians take 'breaks' or solos, they are expected to offer their interpretation of the melody

With the blues, an instrumentalist is expected to emotionally express him/herself as much as possible with regards as to what the song is about.

Both styles have their purists, who gripe, about, or even refuse to listen to anything that they deem to be impure.

Blues purists, or as I've heard them called 'The Blues Nazis', turn up their noses at anything that sounds slightly different than what their used to hearing. No #9th chords, no whole tone scales, very little chromaticism. (Sorry about the digression into musical terminology. Lets just say that the musical examples that I've cited create feelings that blues purists don't have, or don't want to feel.)

Tuning optional.

Then there are those purists who believe that you have to be black to play the blues. Don't tell this to Jimmie Vaughan, or R.L. Burnsides 'adopted son' Kenny Brown.

Bluegrass purists have their own set of annoyances that cause them fits.

First, and probably foremost, is NO DRUMS.

A couple of years ago, I was talking to a singer in a touring bluegrass band, and she told me that recently, they had performed a bunch of festivals in the American south. Everything was going great at one of the shows, until she picked up a tamborine to shake along while the banjo player took a solo. A roaring cascade of boos erupted from the crowd. 'How dare she play something percussive, with a tightened skin on it?!!!'

The other biggie, is NO AMPLIFIERS! Ideally, bluegrass is played with a bunch of musicians hovering around one mic, using their proximities to it to increase or decrease volume levels as needed.

Tuning optional.

Now, in my mind, I've never really been too much of a purist. I love both styles of music in it's purest forms, but I also like to screw around with things a bit.

I sort of look at playing music, -specifically 'interpreting' someone elses songs to be analogous to comparing reality to a photograph. No matter how hard you work at aping someone elses style, it's never going to be exactly like their version, for the simple reason that you're not them.

No matter how good a picture it is, it's not reality. You look at a picture, but you experience reality.

That's why I've never really interested myself too much in copying someone elses style. My secret is that I'd much rather rip-off little bits and pieces throw 'em all into a big bag, shake it all up, and then dump it out to see what you get.

Hmmmmmm……    I started this post off attempting to describe the differences between two styles of music. I thought I'd ramble on about the pros and cons of both (turns out that I just ended up complaining of 'the purists' -not a bad thing!) but the reality of is, is that in my world, it's all good. Good music is just that: Good music.

Here's the reason Scotland is still around. Centuries of English attacks, wars, and occupation couldn't defeat them, and it appears as though they've lost absolutely none of their tenacity!

Cabbie kicks BURNING terrorist in the nuts so hard he pulls a tendon!

Who needs psychological profiling, high tech weaponry, or psy-ops, when a good old fashioned boot to the nut-sack (is 'nut-sack' supposed to be hyphenated? I'll have to look it up) still works wonders!

 Time to get back to music, which is something I'm occasionally obligated to do to keep up appearances……

Musicians are a funny breed when it comes to instruments. We're constantly searching for that elusive tone. Most of us will seek out instruments that were manufactured during the period of the music we're playing or are influenced by.

To a certain extent, I tend to follow that philosophy. My guitar -a Martin D-28, has remained relatively unchanged since the thirties. My banjo -a Gibson Earl Scruggs Standard, is basically a modern version of Earl's old Granada also from the thirties.

In both cases, I could have bought more modern instruments that would have given me a brighter, and clearer sound, but I chose not to, because I thought that the sound of both the guitar and banjo that I ultimately purchased would 'fit' the style of music that I like to play.

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