January 25, 2004

 

Subject: tour is going well

 

Just a little update for yall, we're in Canmore, our home away from home, at the famous (or infamous) HO, yes that's right, the Canmore Hotel.  Once again we played to a mixture of hippies and drunken locals, conversed with hecklers from the stage, Shadi (our current merch guy) plugged the toilet and flooded the bathroom, which leaked into the bar.  The shows have been going well, we're rocking them harder than ever, I've noticed a lot of improvement with each show in my own playing at least.           

 

So now we're back to Banff to play a show at Wild Bill's!  I love that bar, the sound system is stellar, and the manager Scotty takes really good care of us (Rich and I went to school with him).

 

There's something about Canmore: last night looking at the rock walls of the three sisters rising into the mist and clouds, frozen rivers of ice and snow tracing paths down from their peaks, just above the centre peak a crescent moon shining through the clouds in the darkening sky, and a single star, or perhaps Venus, right beside it there in the blue-grey, I felt the way I feel playing music sometimes, that sense of the inexpressable, that sublime beauty that we can only experience and not explain.................  What did those people who lived in this valley thousands of years ago think of that site? They surely saw it the same as I did, only they didn't

have to look around street lamps and over buildings.  What magic did they experience without the blinders of modern science to cloud their vision.

 

Anyway, all shows are being recorded, and will be available whenever we get around to mastering them (sometime in Feb).

 

Have fun everyone and I'll talk to you soon, everyone.

 

Scott

 

January 28, 2004

 

Subject: a truly Canadian tour

 

This tour is truly the Canadian rock and roll tour.  The crowds are good, it is freezing cold (-45 with wind chill yesterday), and we play after the hockey game in every bar we hit.  But today the truly Canadian nature of this tour hit hard.  Walking out of the Wild Bill's band house this morning we ran face to face with this Canadian nature in the form of a huge 16 point caribou eating the bushes lining our pathway.  He held us up for about an hour until he walked away about 3 houses, and then we could load the van and be off.

 

What a truly magnificent beast: huge, with big black eyes and the most spectacular antlers, they must have been almost two metres across.  They trailed beards of light green moss and he used them to knock food out of the trees and eat them at his leisure.     

 

We've seen this particular caribou several times this week (we've been in Banff twice this tour for a total of 3 days maybe).  For a whole day he ate the bushes in someones front yard just up the road.  Jeff and Shadi saw him charging down the road waving his antlers back and forth the other night, sending shopping carts flying making a noise like thunder when his hoofs hit the ground.  They said they could feel his galloping inside the van as he ran.

 

Anyway, that's it for this update.

 

Scott