The next day I sleep in and head out late back along the same road through Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie. The day before, my friend Allison pointed out Tamarck Trees - which are sadly green rather than their beautiful Fall yellow. Still, their green stands out from the other trees and I bliss out on tired tree thoughts.

I listen to newly bought CDs on the way up. Justin Rutledge's "No Never Alone" is a beautifully sad steel-string lullabye to drinking. I love his "Too sober to sleep, too drunk to cry" song. Oh Susanna's latest "Short Stories" is also great - dark little tales told in sweet country melodies.

The music sees me through to Sault Ste. Marie. I'm playing at Lop Lops - where I always play in the Sault - and one of my favourite bars - literally a constant work of art. I arrive early and almost drive by my hotel on the way in. Since I've got some time, I decide to check in. The woman at the front is sure that Lop Lops was phoning for me next week and repeats it enough until I'm paranoid that I've arrived a week late and that I won't have a show that night. But the bar isn't open until 7, so I eat dinner and worry.

Finally I get in - I am playing tonight - phew! I set up and hang out till 9:45ish when the bar is hopping. A friend from work has invited his mother who just moved to the Sault and she's brought a bunch of people. The front of the bar is filled with bodybuilders. Yes, bodybuilders. There was a big fitness/bodybuilding contest there earlier in the day - and one of the bartenders was in the contest...

Honestly, I think this show goes kind of badly. The body builders are all really loud and my voice cracks occasionally - 6.5 hours of singing on Wednesday finally catching up to me. I spend the show staring into space, wondering why I came to Sault Ste. Marie, and generally feeling tired. Still, I slip in a couple jokes which some of the audience seems to like. I finish up, hoping I'll sell one CD to Mario's mom.

But instead, I sell a bunch to people who I didn't realize were even listening. Gravy, the band I opened for, tell me it was a nice set and Bob, the owner's dad, gives me a thumbs up. Cool! Bizarre how sometimes your experience is the opposite of the audience's.

I'm played with Big Wheel & The Spokes before up in Sault Ste. Marie, and Gravy is composed of 2/3 of them. Jay and Frank switch off their big funk sound in Gravy though and opt for a folkier acoustic sound which gells better with me. They switch off instruments thoughout the set and share lead vocals - it's a relaxed, casual set full of nice tunes and amazing musicians.

On the way home the next day, I'm tired and want to get home. I'm doing a little over 100 in a hundred zone and am hungry. I suddenly enter a small town - defined apparently by a gas station and a convenience store. Busy looking for a restaurant, I fail to see the 70 speed limit sign... and the police car... pulled over, the guy cuts me a break and reduces it to 85 in a 70 zone... a $50 ticket, but much worse than the $250 & 4 demerit points.

Fine. Whatever. I'm tired and all I want to do is get home. 8 hours later (very carefully going the speed limit) I arrive, meet my wife, and pick up our cat. Northern Ontario is nice, but so is a black kitten who purrs when he sees you.

The next day I lounge at my hotel, getting hypnotized by cable tv and watching old 80's movies (anyone remember Enemy Mine? Awesome!). Eventually house keeping forces me out and I check out, relieved to find that my car hasn't been broken into.

I stop by the Starbucks on the way out, drop off some posters and hunt for CDs - I'm trying to bone up on some of the musicians that I'm playing with this Summer so I'm looking for Justin Rutledge, The Salads, Oh Susanna, etc. (I'm already pretty familiar with Sarah Harmer, Jim Cuddy, Sloan & The Trews... but am still ridiculously excited about playing at the same festival as them all). I also have brought no CDs with me on the trip and am looking at a couple 8 hour drives, which will kill me. Sadly Chapters has zero CD selection so I head for North Bay.

The road to North Bay is plagued with construction - sometimes we just stop, everyone hanging out on the road with their windows up because of the dust and their A/C on to prevent death by sweltering sun. Still, I get their quickly and meet up with Allison Green and some of her family/friends at a Moose-themed restaurant made of logs. I get their early and read some of Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods." I seem to always read Bill Bryson when on tour. Anyway, I read about getting attacked by bears for a while and then they arrive. We have dinner. I play with Allison's cousin's daughter, Tessa, who's pretty cute.

I head over to the bar, 100 Georges, where the sign on the front proudly proclaims that someone else is playing on Friday (it's Thursday). Inside they apologize and switch the sign over to say "TONIGHT. DAVID HEIN LIVE." which I'm sure will bring in hundreds of people.

100 Georges just went through a big renovation and is now very fancified. I'm wearing my figment dragon shirt and feel suddenly under-dressed - luckily I've brought 2 dress shirts for the Science North gig and switch into the clean one, which I realize, once I get under the stage lights, may be made of polyester. Whatever it is, it encourages sweating.

The show goes great and starts as a background music cover gig - with many requests - some of which I know (Barenaked Ladies, Dylan) and some of which I don't, but try valiently anyway (Don McLean, Tom Petty). A bunch of folks buy CDs - one strange man refuses to pay more than $10 for a CD saying that he's a pensioner (a pensioner who's on a golf/fishing trip up to North Bay with all his friends... hmmm). He tries to barter, saying he'll pay $15 if Allison's friend, Lisa, comes with the package. Ummmmm, no.

Eventually people trickle away - 100 Georges in its new fancified look is more restaurant than hopping bar (like it was last time I played there) and the crowd goes home after dinner. So the gig transitions into a nice intimate show for the small crowd left - I play some new ones and end on Grace - a song about drinking too much with the chorus "I wish that I weren't here." Allison says that that's a downer way to end a show, so I play Guilt Trip Song - an infinitely more negative way to end.

I crash at Allison's sister's place and hang out with her and her boyfriend, Ed for a bit. The next day I head to the mall (and find Justin Rutledge and Oh Susanna - awesome!), grab lunch in the food court and then sit there getting some graphic design done on my laptop. Then I realize I'm in a food court and take off to enjoy some sun.

Allison gets off work and we head to Sudbury to play at Starbucks. I've played here before, but never with my sound system. The place is relatively packed - there's a movie theatre near by and Pirates of the Carribean is opening - which apparently is big enough news to bring people from over 2 hours away.

I meet a nice guy who's mother recently passed away and who is trying to figure out an algorithm for early detection of seizures - he promised his mother that he'd name the algorithm after her. She also loved music and he requests some tunes, so I play Here Comes The Sun for him (another song I've never played before). Quickly it becomes all-request night at Starbucks - I play a bunch of Blue Rodeo, Dylan, and some others. The only requests I can't do are EVERY request that comes from the Starbucks staff (Come on! BYORK?!!!??). The show goes great though. A very cute 7 year old girl in the front row makes shy smiles at me the whole time.

I wrap up and with free Starbucks drinks in hand, we head back over to the Little Montreal Bar where I was maybe booked. Bev, the owner, said "yeah, come on over on Friday and we'll see what's happening."

Turns out, what was happening was there was an 80's duo playing and a small rat had escaped under a radiator. A girl had come in for Nachos and had brought her pet rat, who was apparently afraid of 80's power ballads and ran under the radiator. Bev was angry, the girl was hysterical, her boyfriend (?) was beligerant and the rat was not coming out. The atmosphere was tense. The beligerant boyfriend yelled at the 80's band. The girl cried. We sat with a new friend from the other night - the future owner of Sudbury's first Thai restaurant.

Eventually the 80's duo took a break and the rat came out. The girl left in tears apologizing for ruining the night. "Not the whole night," Bev said. She invited me back to play there and I was also invited possibly to play the opening of the Thai restaurant (which would be a first). Eventually we take off and drive through the darkness back to North Bay, 2 hours in the wrong direction from tomorrow's show in Sault Ste. Marie, but a free couch to crash on and company for the drive. Another well planned tour.

After a weekend drive down to New York (15 hours in Long weekend traffic) I'm a bit driven out... but no rest for the wicked. It's up to Sudbury for the start of my little Northern tour. I first did this trip 2 winters ago with some friends and am now doing it solo. Back then I was still figuring out the whole touring thing, but now it feels like old hat. Although I'm sick of driving, the Northern Ontario landscape is still one of my favourites. I've forgotten all my CDs, so I listen to long rambly CBC programs and chill out.

Sudbury comes soon enough and I head straight to Science North - a big Sudbury museum that looks vaguely church like - I've never been here before but my friend Alllison assures me that I'll love it. This is a corporate gig for my dayjob, Aviva Insurance. They've hired me up for a big convention they put on for their brokers, many of whom I know. I'm basically background music, doing a lot of covers with some of mine thrown in to keep me interested.

Science North is pretty cool inside - I head past some bizarre water drainage thing down countless corridors till I bury through a rock passage and into a cavern... where I'll be playing. How cool is that!! Giant rock walls and beautiful lighting make for one of the prettiest places to play. Plus the ambient echos are lovely. I bring my gear inside (my recently purchased PA System is finally starting to pay for itself) and set up quickly.

With 15 minutes before we start I go exploring. Wandering up a curving walkway I notice the tip of a huge skeleton... which goes on and on and on and then three stories up you realize, OHMYGOD - it's a whale! So cool!

Upstairs I find a nature exhibit - there's a mock beaver dam which I go to look at. Real water simulates how the beavers would move around and... then I see a stuffed beaver floating in the water, which I'm a little weirded out by, not being a huge taxidermy fan. I look closer, about 2 feet away, and suddenly... the stuffed beaver starts paddling. HOLY @#$@%!! IT'S A REAL BEAVER! TWO FEET AWAY FROM ME!!!

I love Science North.

After the beaver, I hung out with a porcupine and then ran through the lego mindworks section, past astronomy and back through the whale skeleton walkway into the cavern, just in time to jump on stage and start playing.

The show goes well - I play some pretty finger picking stuff for a bit and then switch to covers. Insurance brokers and co-workers give me thumbs up, but are mostly interested in talking with eachother. Which is fine by me - I practice my tunes, running through every song I know. By nin o'clock I've been playin for 3 hours and the night ends with one of the organizers (thanks, Tracy!) encouraging everyone to join me at The Little Montreal Bar in an hour. Yep... after playing for 3 hours, I've set up another show.

I pack like mad and motor over to The Little Montreal Bar. I'd booked this gig sight unseen, so was a bit wary of what the place was like - especially since it's on the same strip as the Townehouse Tavern - one of the coolest and, um, "full of character" venues ever. But the LM bar is lovely - upscale enough for insurance folks, but still kind of cool.

Turns out that I've miscommunicated with them though and they weren't sure I was showing up. Which means they haven't promoted the show and are worried that no one's going to come out on a Wednesday... luckilly I have a bunch of very cool insurance folks coming. I set up again and then change from my dress clothes into jeans and a cool t-shirt that I got last time I was in town from Deluxe Burgers, which reads "Sudbury is a one arch town!"

Soon the crowd poors in and everyone else has changed into jeans and t-shirts. Nice to know we al have alter egos and secret identities.

I'm kind of hoping that this will be more of a "performance" than a background music type show, but once I start playing it's clear that everyone wants to hang out and chat. Afterwards, a friend asks me if I worry that people aren't listening and I tell her that as long as they're staying, I figure you're enjoying yourselves, and I notice lots of people pausing to watch or sing along and tap their toes. Turns out a lot of the talk is based on "he's so good!" Nice folks.

On my break, a man approaches me from the HoJo, where I'm staying tonight. He says "David Hein? We almost cancelled your reservation because you hadn't checked it. But then I saw your poster and thought I'd come in to make sure." Bizarre. Thank god for posters.

Bev & Mark from the Little Montreal Bar are good folks. They offer drinks and introduce me also to their friend, who's bringing the first Thai restaurant to Sudbury - nice!

I play some more and then wind up with an encore of Brown Eyed Girl - which someone wants me to make "dirty" - apparently I'm too clean. Brown Eyed Girl is a relatively sweet song, but man, there are lots of references to "going down" "slipping and sliding" etc. which are easily turned into euphemisms...

Bev & Mark invite me back. Everyone buys CDs and I sign a poster or two. I finish up around 12:30 - having played, with breaks, for 6 and a half hours. That's enough.

I just finished touring up to Sudbury, North Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie - many adventures and bunch of good shows... including a stop at science north, a live beaver, an escaped rat, and a bodybuilding convention! Read my tour diary in the "blog" section above.

The Chapters tour keeps rolling - two weekends ago, it was Festival Hall (a name that no one knows except for Chapters employees) down by the Paramount movie theatre (no longer named the Paramount - now the Scotiabank movie theatre... bizarre) - and then a week later I was in the Eaton Centre and then up at Bayview Village.

Both downtown shows were sparse - not many people came out (although those who did are awesome for life). Many strangers stopped to listen for a while though which was nice... but only a couple CDs were sold (with a 30% Chapters cut take, I might add). Still, the shows were fun - I get a kick out of singing loudly in a bookstore - probably some sort of repressed frustration with library shushing. At each I made up some new tunes on the spot (I think "Tony Bennet Duets" was an okay one... although I still have no idea who Tony Bennet is or who he dueted with...).

The Bayview show, on the other hand, was SO GOOD! I had a ball - Much more people, Much more CDs sold, LOTS of kids running around. Two brothers danced for over 2 hours next to me. One explained:

"Know why I'm a good dancer?"
"Why?" I ask.
"God gave me dancing feet!"

One guy stood at the back with his arms crossed - but when I asked for requests he yelled "YOU ROCK!" Technically not a request, but still nice. I played a couple new tunes & new covers - including an old blue rodeo song that I haven't played in a while... which I got lost in and ended up in another of their songs - a medley!

Anyway, it was good. They invited me back. The starbucks staff liked me and gave me free drinks.

Next up is London on the 12th!