Winnipeg was a an adventure-filled town - a lot happened - so I'm going to try to tell the short story of reggae circus clowns, getting my car towed, a run in with "Dr. Hook", learning how to attack horses, going to court, and dressing up as Stephen Harper in the middle of the city.
Firstly, I need to apologize to Kenora for the last blog - Marion Childs nicely pointed out that it has some quite beautiful spots - and it's certainly unfair to judge a city on one street and one hotel. I'll have to come back some time and give it a fair chance.
You don't expect to see a major geographical difference between provinces when you drive from one to the other. I expected a sign of some sort, but instead the entire landscape changes when you pass into Manitoba. It takes a km or two, but suddenly the trees recede, the road splits in two and the hills, mountains, and canadian shield rock monuments are obliterated by open prairie and a 360 degree sky.
I was concerned that I'd remember the prairies badly - everyone tells stories of utter boredom and car trips that last forever - but I remembered spectacular clouds, rolling golden crop fields, and horizons that never end... and that's exactly what I got. The prairies are stunning.
Winnipeg was also stunning. With my last google map I made it to the centre of town, a nice square which houses a couple restaurants, a park, the King's Head pub, where I was playing that night, and the Winnipeg folk festival store - a very cool folk store that I could have spent hours in. Finding the club was great, but I needed to figure out where I was staying and had lost Ava and Mitch's number. In order to find it, I parked my car across fromt eh pub, had to find an internet cafe, and then make several phone calls on a phone card that was quickly dying. Finally figured out, I relaxed back at the cafe, did some blogging, and then headed back to the car to go drop my stuff off.
But when I got there, my car wasn't there. Where had it gone? I was sure I'd parked it, but I am occasionally forgetful (feel free to comment on that...). Losing your car, especially a particularly un-losable bright yellow rent-a-wreck bug, is distressing, but losing EVERYTHING YOU OWN that's in the car is REALLY @#$!%@ DISTRESSING!
A guy across the street must have sensed my distress. "At first I thought you were just crazy!" he said. "Yellow beetle?" I nodded. "Yeah, they towed it."
@#$!%@!!!
The bar helped me find the info for Dr. Hook's towing service and I walked the mile or two to pay the $72 dollars to retrieve my car. Apparently you can't park anywhere in Winnipeg between 3:30 and 5:30. That's not me just being bitter - I tested it - there are VERY few places to park at that time. Anyway, there was also a parking ticket of $50. Now I was making $100 that night playing, and before singing a single note, I was already $22 in the hole.
I went over to Ava and Mitch Podolak's and explained why I was late. Mitch & Ava are amazing, passionate, jewish, pothead Trotsky Communists with the willpower to change the world and a fierce appreciation of folk music (and in Ava's case, Mark Knopler). It's a joy and an adventure just listening to them. I arrived (again coincidentally I swear) just in time for dinner and was fed extremely well. Afterwards, Mitch offered a smoke and played banjo for me, while telling me about himself.
Mitch and Ava started the Winnipeg folk festival (as well as others) and have been seminal parts of the folk movement throughout Canada. They know everyone from old folkies like Pete Seeger and Utah Philips to newcomers Dan Frechette and juno-awarded The Duhks (their son Leonard plays banjo with them). I'm convinced that Mitch is the personal storehouse of the folk history of North America - small bits of which he imparted to me. Mitch asked me what kind of music I played and I told him, "it's a bit of folk, rock, and country, but I tend to think of it as Canadian music." "This," he said, "has been my plan all along." Mitch is responsible for growing all of the music that I grew up on - at his festival, I saw Blue Rodeo, Spirit of the West, and many many others who had a huge influence on me. I can't categorize them any better than "Canadian", and that seemed to make Mitch happy.
I left late and arrived barely on time for the show. RJ Binge opened up (www.myspace.com/rjbinge) - he plays bass in a bunch of local punk bands, and his influences show in his fast and dirty songs - but his guitar work is great and he was a lot of fun (especially the Boogers & Poo song...). Then I played, probably a bit harder and faster than I normally would, but an alright show, erring on the side of rockers over ballads. One girl in front told me I need to learn Hotel California because I sounded like the Eagles - so maybe I wasn't THAT punked up. I dedicated "Running the red lights" to the nice people at Dr. Hook's. Following me was Scott Hinkson (www.scotthinkson.com), who sang some very nice acoustic pop rock - including some very pretty ballads that made me wish I'd done more. His collection of pedals and guitars added to his cool tunes and made me reconsider my Line6 delay pedal again... He ended (and made me promise to blog about it... like I wouldn't!) with using a violin bow on an electric for the aptly named "bow song" - very, very cool.
The next day I woke up late and headed out to a meeting at Winnipeg's Aviva office. I've got a couple of these built in, to help with the time taken off from my dayjob, but it's odd to go from "rockstar at the bar till 2" to "collared shirt brand manager" the next morning. Anyway, it went fine. Next I found the parking authority to fight the ticket, or at least plead for a lower fine - which it turns out you can't do at the parking authority - you have to go to court... so to court I went. Unfortunately, there's no where within 50 miles of the court that you can park (okay, there is... but it was still a pain!). I finally got in, waited in line, plead "guilty with explanation", worried a bit about my explanation (ummm... I'm a dumb musician who doesn't read parking signs?), had to get rent-a-wreck to fax a "although we own the car, David can deal with this ticket himself" letter, and then finally got my day in court. Now, this isn't law&order, this is a cubical in the parking court, but still, the signs reading "you are in court" freaked me out a bit. I plead guilty again and explained that I was a poor musician from out of town and had been confused by where I was playing/staying - and I mentioned the $100 payment and the $22 in the hole... and the judge gave me a reprimand and tore up the ticket! Hooray! I fought the law and the law lost! Okay, Dr. Hook's still won, but still!
I puttered around town - made phone calls from pay phones, got gas, did laundry in a laundromat and then stopped off at Mitch's office, where he'd invited me earlier. It's hard to describe everything Mitch does, but part of it is being an agency for a bunch of artists, one of which, Dan Frechette, Mitch realized I was opening for in Brandon tomorrow (I knew I knew that name from somewhere). Mitch described Dan as the 2nd coming of Pete Seeger, which intimidated me to no end. I'm not sure who I'd be the 2nd coming of (possibly Elvis or Bowie based on my birthday?).
Mitch and I hung around and talked for a long time - he told me about peace protests he'd organized. He told me about MANY bloody, horribly fist fights he'd been in - most over politics. Once he punched someone through a newspaper right in the face (the guy and his friends had attacked Mitch and a friend for being communists earlier). He told me how he and some friends once built a makeshift catapult to throw rocks at nazis. And he told me how to take down police horses (apparently jabbing them in the ass with a picket sign is the wrong method... ball bearings are preferred).
Which is not to say that Mitch is a violent man. Just very, very passionate. He says that when he goes, it won't be in a hospital bed - it'll be wired up to a bunch of C3. Mitch is a hard guy not to like.
I have the night off, so we head out for Chinese food and then I'm dropped off at the West End Cultural Center - one of the best places to play in town, and a building that Mitch and Ava essentially built. Nathan, the booker from the night before, had invited me out to another show - a reggae halloween bash.
Inside, a great band was bashing away and the crowd was hopping.... and everyone was dressed as circus clowns. I wondered if perhaps, I was hallucinating. Maybe this was some weird dream where my freudian subconscious fear of looking foolish on stage manifested itself. But no... it was a ton of clowns playing and dancing to reggae music. And they were awesome - wish I cold remember their name. I hung out, smoked and drank with some guys from the night before (Dr. Rage & The Uppercuts) and then watched another band (JFK & The Conspirators). The Uppercuts and Nathan and I talked about the Toronto scene - they'd gotten screwed at the Horseshoe before (not literally) by a terrible soundguy. On behalf of TO, I apologized (something I start to do more and more in the prairies... I also start using the phrase, "but I'm originally from Saskatoon" more and more). I eventually headed home, walking a ways and freezing my ass off.
The next day, I woke up at 7am (the middle of the night) to go shopping with Mitch. He'd promised to show me the town and I've got to admit,you get a unique perspective on a town touring the meat markets (jewish & german), grocery stores, and bakeries. Mitch showed me signs of the early Winnipeg labour movement - rooftops with labour slogans on them - still there and still relevant.
Finally we head home, grab some breakfast, and head out to a demonstration to get Canadian troops out of Afghanistan. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know enough about this, but from what I've read and heard and discussed, the situation there has been made worse from when the Taliban were in power. We've become supporters of another corrupt government (U.S. or Afghany) and getting the troops out may be the start of the solution (feel free to discuss...).
We originally weren't going to walk the whole demo, but then Mitch met up with old friends and I got nabbed to dress up as Stephen Harper, complete with a bloody glove and walking with a Bush look-a-like. The only problem was that my mask was of a grinning blonde guy and Harper is (A) not blonde and (B) rarely grins... so many people were confused exactly who Bush was walking with. To try to stem the confusion, I was given a black furry hat to wear over the mask to act as Harper's hair. Instead, I think I looked vaguely russian and my hair kept falling off. I'm not sure what message we were sending, but it probably wasn't the right one...
Anyway, from behind a tiny slit in Stephen Harper's nose I got to see Winnipeg - which somehow seems appropriate for the end of my bizarre but wonderful visit.
Next up is Brandon, my gig with Dan Frechette, and a run-in with Aphrodite, goddess of love.
