July 2001

It's been a whirlwind since my last entry, nothing new I suppose, I'm still seriously behind with studio work, and I've been out touring as well, I'm just taking this summer as it comes and working through it one piece at a time.

John Landry shows in July

Out west with John Landry this trip we managed to get a golf game in with young 15 year old Adam Gregory, I was doing more censoring of the mouths on John and soundman Bob, than actual golfing, and I had to plea with young Adam not to tell his parents the the boys in the band say that Bob has bitch tits, however I can see my journal entry going downhill from here, so I'll change topics. Perhaps there should be a password area of this site designed for stories of soundmen and crew??

I'd say other than a few great shows, the highlight of the trip had to be the apocalyptic scream from Shane Guse (Fiddle / Mandolin player for John) "PULL OVER.......STOP!!!!" after traveling on the Trans Canada Highway across the praries where the only sign of life, was witnessing a dog running away from home for 10 hours across the flat plains. Shane spotted a happy little restaurant called "The Jolly Bun-Filler" hungry only for a photo of such a place, we stopped briefly and had Bob take our picture.

Although I lost the camera in Edmonton and thought for sure I would have no evidence of such a place, I received the following in an e-mail from Phil Hall in Calgary (the bass player on the shows)

P.S. You left your camera in my van. I wasn't sure who's it was, so I had the film developed and there was your smiling face. Give me an address and I'll stick them in the mail.

And here it is.....the Jolly Bun-Filler photo, actual proof that such a place exists !

 

What's up with Bob????

Why is Bob in the front seat of the RV putting latex gloves on????

Well you see, it was our duty to sadly inform Bob, that as road manager, covered under the "take care of ALL travel arrangements" section of the job criteria of road manager, falls a small print clause to include vehicle maintenance, a much smaller print clause under that section includes what happens when a traveling road band eats in such places as The Jolly BunFiller for 9 days across the continent.

Although it took a little coaxing, we assured Bob that adding experience as a SH*T Distribution Engineer (SDE) to his resume, can only be an asset to his future in the music industry.

Click thumbnail to see Bob in Action

 

A week of reflections (without an F)

The week of reflection started by someone sending me the following article which the local Newspaper in my home town had published. It's of my Father and fellow band mates John Till, and Richard Manuel playing a gig in 1957, the title reads "RELECTIONS" I'm sure someone at the small town newspaper forgot an F on their desk at home.

Click Image for full view

While at the Edmonton Airport, touring with John Landry, my cell phone rang, and it turned out to be a member of the band I used to play bars with when I was 16, asking if I'd be around to play a club on the weekend. Although I had planned on returning to Nashville after the Landry tour, I was landing in Toronto, and decided to stick around for the weekend and play a club I hadn't seen in a decade.

Saturday night in Stratford turned out all kinds of old friends and guest appearances. All kinds of musicians from my past showed up, sat in with the band, and hung around all night. We all ended the evening with a campfire in the back yard of a local singer and close friend to us all, and sat around telling old road stories, about our days past, and a few John and Ken Stories of their days past, and even brought up Walter and Mary (My grandparents) who lived in this town, and who's house any night of the week was like Mardis Gras, you could hear the Dixieland Jazz music originating from their livingroom half way down Coburg st. Mary would be on the porch offering a martini to any friendly strangers that passed by, while the guests in their house would tell stories of their days past.

I can't deny that I have several generations of roots in this town, some day it will all just be a big ghost story.