I spent the day in Starbucks - apparently if you buy a starbucks card in a tiny mitten, you get 2 hours of free internet everyday. Plus, they have awesome hot chocolate. A good deal in my books.

Finally, I head out of town - although this show is listed as Calgary, it's technically on the outskirts in a beautiful log cabin home - the dream home of Karen and Bill, who meet me and welcome me to their lovely home. They're Ontarians and theatre folk, so we're instantly related - Karen's a director and teaches high school theatre, while being totally involved with the Canadian improv scene. Bill's a technician who has built, run, flown, and teched every aspect of theatre shows. They moved out to Alberta a while back and, since they were building their dream home, decided to construct a full black box theatre in the basement. Seriously, who knew?! There's a booth, a grid, a green room, and theatre seating - it's pretty cool!

We eat dinner and I get introduced to their lovely cats - Gizmo, who likes to hug people and chew on buttons is my favourite.

Karen and Bill have been doing house concerts in the theatre for a while - I decide to continue with the acoustic route and forego the sound system, since the acoustics in the space are beautiful. People arrive and I meet some of them - this house concert is a bit more formal or professional than the others, possibly because of their theatre experience, not to mention their theatre! Everyone troops down to the basement, Karen gives an intro and I come out from backstage. With the stage lights on, I can't see the audience and it all feels a bit bizarre compared to the living rooms I've been playing in the past couple days. But the audience is lovely and even if I can't see them, I can hear them laughing and clapping along.

On my 2nd song, one of my strings breaks. I hate this. It generally throws off my whole show. I get rid of the string while telling a story - I can't change the string since all my gear is backstage, so I play the rest of the set on 5 strings which constantly go out of tune. I'm sure no one cares, but I feel a bit off balance.

The 2nd set though, once restrung, is excellent and intimate. The crowd asks me Muppet and touring questions and it feels like a great dialogue rather than a one-way show.

After everyone leaves, Karen, Bill and I sip wine outside on their deck with a fire blazing. We share theatre stories and they tell me that deer frequently come up to their house. I stare into the darkness hoping to see one, but none come. Eventually, wined out, I head to bed.

The next day, Karen and Bill leave me the keys and I hang out, using the internet, playing with Gizmo and eating delicious home made bread. Way better than Starbucks.

[where adventure begins... and where I get drunk on wine and play songs way too fast]

Contrary to popular belief - or at least MY belief - Rocky Mountain House is a city, not a house. Apparently it's the place where the Hudson's Bay Company started and people regularly revisit famous Canadian voyageur routes from here in giant canoes and sled dogs. It's motto is "where adventure begins" and I wish I could stay long enough to play. Travelling north, I pass buffaloes, lamas, and cows in golden fields glinting with snow - it's very pretty. I also pass a small town called Caroline - I roll the windows down and sing my song "Caroline" to them. No one seems particularly impressed, but I'm happy.

Sadly again, even though I have an address, I get lost - the house is brand new and my GPS doesn't think it exists. I drive through a game of ball hockey twice before my host, Cheri, comes to my rescue. She and her husband, Doug's place is beautiful - all wood and stone and set against a backdrop of trees and mountains. This is their first house concert and they've gone all out, borrowing a popcorn maker and stocking up on wine.

After another great home cooked meal (okay, I'll stop talking about them now - but Mom, I'm being very well fed), I take ANOTHER steam shower and, freshly cleaned, I set up as Cheri and Doug's friends arrive. It's always interesting to see where people come from for shows - this crowd is filled with Doug's Shell co-workers, Cheri's swimming coach, and teaching friends - all very sweet.

The show is a lot of fun. Doug puts a cowboy hat on my head for Caroline and a fight breaks out between Calgary and Edmonton football fans. Everyone sings along and heckles me happily. I sell a LOT of CDs. Again, I improv up a verse for Victoria:

Well they said that it was far out
They said 3 hours out of town
But they never told me how much fun I'd be having
At Rocky Mountain House

Afterwards, after everyone left, I play cover tunes with Doug, Cheri and a couple of their friends as we drink wine. I babble my way through one-week and end of the world as we know it, realizing that I haven't really drank much recently and am suddenly a super cheap date.

The next morning, after another steam shower (where have these things been all my life?), I eat breakfast with Cheri and she tells me that there's routinely moose, cougars, and deer outside their house. Luckily I don't see any cougars, but Rocky is definitely where adventure begins.

[in which, I wear a cowboy-shirt for the first time, rock out acoustically and virtually, and it snows...]

For the first time on tour, I don't get lost - I actually have an address and my GPS guides me neatly past a stadium packed with people to Allison and Paul's place. It's a beautiful house with an AMAZING shower downstairs (more on that later) and a nice dog named Mocha. Allison is a doctor, and we bond talking about standardized patient tests. Paul, her husband and another doctor, comes back with their son Evan from a Stampeders game - the Stamps have won and are heading to Montreal for the Grey Cup - pretty exciting. I should mention how nice all my hosts have been so far - house concert hosts are great people. They make you lasagna and welcome you into their home as if you were family.

After a brilliant lasagna dinner, we set up for the show and people start to arrive. Dave, a friend of theirs arrives early, apologizing for not being able to make it due to a wedding, but dropping off flowers and $20. Dave rocks.

The crowd spans a fair age range, from 20's to 70's - I meet a bunch of them and tell Paul that his friends are all nice - he replies that he has "no idea who half these people are." I love house concerts.

The show, I think, goes flawlessly. My voice is a back and feels great. Plus, what a great crowd - the biggest yet on this tour - and happy to sing along or get really quiet when I whisper. One man asks nicely before hand if he can put a microphone for his hearing aid up close to me - it's amazing that he came out to this and I hope he enjoyed it. Mocha wanders through the crowd getting petted - I should bring a nice golden retriever to all my shows. I introduce the show as the first I've ever played in Calgary and the first I've ever played in a cowboy shirt - everyone seems to approve of the shirt except for one woman afterwards who is convinced that I'm colour-blind and have no fashion sense.

Again, I improvise a verse for "Victoria" which goes:

They say Calgary's a wild one
And she'll take you for a ride
But I think I'm going to like her
And I hear that the Stampeders won tonight

The crowd goes wild.

I even get an encore, ending the show with Guilt Trip Song, which (thank god) goes well. I've played it once or twice to completely silent audiences who all suddenly think that I'm a psychopath.

Afterwards everyone's very nice, buying CDs and chatting - there are lots of Canada and world travellers in the crowd and we bond over cities we've seen. Finally the crowd dribbles away and Allison, Paul, Evan and I rock out downstairs on Rock Band. I'm okay on guitar and vocals, but kind of suck at drums. Finally I head to bed, but at 1am, Dave shows up again to apologize again for missing the show and to buy a set of CDs. Did I mention that Dave rocks?

The next morning, I wake up to a thick blanket of snow outside. Oh god. I was hoping for snow to start much later - if at all - this does not bode well for my little Suzuki Swift's trip through the mountains.

On the plus side though, I get to use Allison's infamous shower - which is a steam shower with a rain/overhead showerhead plus a normal showerhead, PLUS has 3 little side jets that I have no idea what are for except to really clean your stomach and back well. There are about 14 knobs to control it all. I stay in it for about half an hour.

Paul makes me amazing raspberry crepes. He also gives me a Stampeders hat, which is pretty close to "white hatting" - a tradition where Calgarians give newcomers a white hat. I'm a pretty happy touring musician.

I head out and am halfway down to Medicine Hat when Allison phones to tell me that I've left my itinerary there - I've now played 3 shows and have forgotten things at 2 of them.

I spend a day down in Medicine Hat visiting with my Dad, his wife, and their two cats. Thankfully all the snow melts away as I head south. I wash clothes. We go out for dinner and watch football, while I make more CDs. A nice day off from my grueling travels, playing guitar, taking steam showers and getting fed crepes.

[in which I meet a tailless pig, play in an old school hall for a mennonite family and an internet show at the same time, meet the queen of the smurfs, and buy a cowboy shirt at "midnight madness"]

I roll into Olds around 5, employing my normal arrival style of driving past the house several times before finally pulling into the correct driveway. This is partly due to the fact that I keep arriving after dark and directions like "look for the big shiny barn" don't do much for you with any shininess.

I'm greeted by a nice, old dog and am welcomed into Sharyl and Warren's farmhouse - somewhat newly rebuilt after a horrific hail storm earlier this year. Sharyl and Warren are awesome folks and we take to each other immediately - their two kids, Joshy and Ryan are totally cute, showing me their bloody halloween costume and plastic katanas and throwing stars during an excellent home-cooked dinner. Sharyl was actually just in Toronto - she came out for the Tina Turner concert and threatens me with bodily harm if I don't go when she comes back to Toronto in December. The dog who met me at the door is Stanley Firetruck Cosco - named by Ryan, I think. Sharyl & Warren have been missing two other dogs for a couple days and they're worried that coyotes may have got them. Coyotes are apparently a regular problem out here - a while ago their basset hound got chased for miles by a pack of coyotes and recently their pet pig, Beulah, (yes, they have a pet pig and yes, she has a Jewish name) had her tail and a chunk of flank bitten off by them (she's okay). Warren wasn't sure if he was coming to show, but we get along so well that he's agrees.

The show is being held in an old school house/community centre-esque place. It's fantastic - paint peeling and old wood - one of the most memorable places I've played - and inside, the piano and the wood chairs bring to mind Little House on the Prairie. Inside, a friendly guy named dave is setting up a camera for OldsTV.com - apparently the place to go for all your Olds info needs (who knew?) - and theoretically my show should be posted up there soon.

I get the kitchen as my warm-up room where I can go if I need to "get all zen" as Sheryl puts it. I tune up and play a bit with Josh and the uber-adorable 2-year old Annabelle on piano. Soon enough, a crowd comes in made up of friends, family and neighbours. Sheryl claims she didn't do much advertising, but apparently a poster on a local post box goes a long way. One mennonite family brings in 7 children. It's a pretty good crowd, considering I have competition - it's "Midnight Madness" in Olds - where all the stores stay open till midnight and there are sales and free hotdogs outside the bank.

For the first time, I get to see the package that was sent to the concert organizers - it includes a quick bio on all the artists - mine is mostly lifted from my website but mysteriously has the added line, "David looks normal enough, but beware - he has a creative mind and that makes him dangerous." I love it and make Sheryl say it in my introduction.

The show goes well - my voice is still a bit rough, but it's getting better - I try out a new tune called Victoria - a love song to Canadian cities - which features an improvised 3rd verse - tonight it goes:

Well, they say Calgary's a cool one
But it's nothing compared to Olds
It's just a little North and I'm sorry folks
But your city rhymes with "cold"

The kids get antsy quickly - Josh and Ryan run around a bit till Sheryl shoos them outside - but the 7 kids on the side bench sit nicely and listen, even though I can tell a couple are bored. Otherwise, it's a great show - people laugh in all the right places and sing along. I end the set with Dear Aunty Emm and immediately feel bad for Warren when I sing the song "I'm taking your little dog too" - but he seems alright when I apologize afterwards. I sell some CDs at and meet everyone - including Sheryl's boss, the local MLA and the mennonite family - who are totally nice. After the show all the kids amuse themselves by jumping out at people and screaming - I do it right back to them, which I think buys me more cred than any of my songs. I try to take a picture of them, but it ends up looking totally creepy - like something out of children of the corn.

Sheryl takes me into town for Midnight Madness - which is a little less "madness" than I expected - but maybe it's the cold. We stop into a cowboy store (I don't know what these are called, but they sell cowboy things...). I pick out a bunch of cowboy shirts and find a nice little green number - clearly this will make me fit into Alberta crowds as if I was born here. We check out cowboy boots as well, but I'm not quite ready for that level of cowboy lifestyle - plus, who knew they came in all shapes and sizes - Sheryl sports some pretty funky pink ones.

On the way home, we narrowly miss hitting a gigantic porcupine - Sheryl informs me sagely that "they can flip your car" and I believe her since she's had experience hitting animals - a while back she and her family hit a moose and survived thanks to being in a gigantic vehicle. My little Suzuki Swift seems very small all of a sudden.

The next morning, I give a quick guitar lesson to Joshy (who's the most musical kid I've met). We make up some songs and he plays ukelele - admittedly not well, but I'm confident he'll pick it up.

Sheryl, her boys and I go for a walk in a "coulee" which, to those of you not in the know, is a "valley." I've never heard this term because I grew up in Saskatchewan - where a "hoody" is called "bunny hug." True story. This land has been with Sheryl's family for over 100 years - beautiful land, with well-worn paths, patches of trees, and deer running across the plains. We meet a pack of their family's horses who trot over happily to get their noses rubbed. Sheryl gives me a tour of local natural disasters - where the trees were all blown down, where the hail destroyed house and house. We stop at "the sand pit" and I try to teach Josh about geology and why there are striations in the rocks, but my 5th grade geography is showing. Sheryl says it's fine: "making up stuff is what you do when you're a parent."

We head back for lunch, and take one more trip to Sheryl's parents place to see her fine smurf collection. We also have a smurf collection at home, but Sheryl's is clearly superior - she has every smurf from Ugly Smurfette to the masked super-smurf. Apparently she had a cousin who worked at a toy store and only found out much later that many of her smurfs, um, followed her cousin home. Awesome.

I say goodbye to the the everyone and head out of the farm, past Buella the pig, the fields of horses, and the woods filled with coyotes towards the big city of Calgary.

[In which my plane gets delayed, I get lost, lose my voice, smash up my already smashed up knee, and forget my guitar... wow. GREAT START TO A TOUR! On the good side though, the show was great, the people were excellent and I met some horses]

Here it is - the start of my West of Wherever tour and things are already going badly. I try to do too much at home to prep, too much at work, and get sick which leads to a last minute stop for antibiotics at a walk-in clinic. My throats hurts, I'm losing my voice, and I have to sing for 2 hours in 24.

I've been looking forward to this tour since I got booked on it a couple months back - the Home Routes house concert part of the trip is a tour of living room shows booked by Mitch Podolak's company. Mitch founded many of the folk festivals across Canada and has put me up at his house several times, telling me crazy stories and feeding me very well. I wanted to get on a Home Routes tour, but he didn't book me until he heard from "his spies" at the Brandon Folk Fest that I put on a pretty good show. The premise of the tour is pretty good - I get booked for house concerts across Alberta - which means (A) I get to play in my socks, (B) I usually get fed dinner and breakfast - usually REALLY good dinner and breakfast, and (C) I sleep where I play. All very efficient. Plus all the proceeds from house concerts go to the artists, so I actually make an okay living singing songs. Crazy talk.

The other reason I'm psyched for this is that I'm touring through Medicine Hat and my dad and his wife are coming out to one of my shows - and he's never seen me play a show. Very cool.

But as I currently have no voice, it may be a short tour experience - David Hein Mimes His Way Through Alberta. It just gets worse when I get to the airport. I check in for my 10am flight and find out that it's been cancelled and they were expecting me to board the 6am flight... and the next flight they can get me on is at 2pm, which gets me in for 4:30, which gets me to my 7pm concert at... 7:30pm.

Frantic phone calls and emails ensue.

Then I wait around the airport for a long time.

The plane trip goes fast. I should sleep, but my achilles heel on plane rides is superhero movies and the Hulk is on. Then I sleep.

I wake up to sunlight streaming in the plane's window overtop of purple mountains in the distance. Back in the prairies, where I was born and raised. Flatness, yellow fields and straight lines. Calgary.

I stress out in the airport waiting for my fragile bags of CDs and computers and gifts to arrive in the fragile section. They don't. They come crashing out of the baggage chute. I grab them and run to cab and we speed to the Enterprise Car Rental. I get a tiny red Suzuki Swift - possibly the smallest car in Alberta, land of gigantic trucks, but also the most fuel-efficient! I'm thinking of naming her Ruby.

The Enterprise guys look doubtful that I will get to Ponoka in 2 hours. "What are you driving?" one asks. "A Swift" the other answers. Both give me looks that say, "your little toy car will not be doing you any favours tonight..."

I drive up highway 2 hitting 140 most of the way. My GPS that I bought for this trip is kind of useless since most of the dates are at addresses like "the red house past the church" which is hard to program in to my Garmin. Which is why I get a little lost. I take a turnoff too early - make about 8 u-turns, and eventually figure my way out. My instructions are to look for the "beige house on the right" but it is pitch black and I pick the house with all the trucks outside it - if it's not my party, at least it's A party, right?

I throw everything I think I need in a bag, run past the buffalo skull outside the house, and dash up the stairs. Inside I see a lot of people. They see me - then I disappear suddenly because I slip on the stairs and come crashing down with a huge noise that only a frantic musician and his guitar can make when hitting a wooden porch. Loyal listeners who know that I hurt my knee earlier this year will recognize that landing on my right knee was the wrong instinct.

I limp inside - my hosts Dale and Barb welcome me and I joke a bit with the audience. I assure them that I'll just tune up and start and Barb says, don't worry - you're right on time - It's 7pm.

Phew.

I pass out comics, warm up in the bathroom and then tune up. Barb and Dale have a lovely open-concept living room, perfect for shows. With no voice, I was worried about no amplification - but it's fine. The songs come out and everyone seems pretty happy. With two full sets to play, I pull out a bunch of songs from my last album which I don't play regularly - and find a newfound respect for them - sometimes I forgot how much I used to love these songs. Maybe we just needed some time apart.

The funny thing about Home Routes is that most of the people attending were at the last house concert in Ponoka - and you invariably get compared to that last person playing, who it turns out was Washboard Hank. Who is apparently a laugh riot, has invented his own instruments and is super crazy entertaining. Now I generally think of myself as a pretty funny guy with goofy songs about jetpacks and Lesbian-Jewish-Wiccan Weddings, but somehow compared to Hank, I come off as a poetic troubador.

Still, the crowd seems to like the songs and the angry Air Canada rants. My voice is a bit rough, but I work thorugh it. Afterwards I sell some CDs and meet everyone. Barb & Dale are sweet folks who raise horses and go on horse vacations, riding them through the Rocky mountains. Barb is a nurse and Dale works at the Ponoka mental institution - the same jobs as my dad and his wife. Most of the guests work with one of them.

Apparently I missed an Alberta steak dinner with seafood pasta - $#@#$^@#$^ Air Canada.

I go to sleep and sleep a looooong time. The next morning Dale makes me the best eggs and bacon ever. Then we head outside and meet his lovely horses, Tiffany, Dandy and their little guy, Mac, who's only a couple months old. The horses wander up for nose scratches and pats. Mac is a little wary of strangers, but once he realizes I'm nice, he nuzzles into my armpit. I want to take him home, but he won't fit in the car.

I take off with goodbyes and handshakes - I make it half an hour away, just past Red Deer when my phone rings. It's Dale. "It's going to be a pretty quiet tour the rest of the way," he says, "you forgot a pretty important part back here."

We meet halfway and Dale hands me my guitar. I'm an idiot.

Still, despite it all, I'm optimistic - apparently I'm booked in a hall tonight in Olds. And this time, I'll be on time.

I'm heading out West to tour from Nov. 13 to Dec. 7 - while I'm starting out in Alberta, as part of the Home Routes house concerts tour, I'll be hitting Manitoba, Saskatchewan and BC. Here's why I'm thrilled about this tour. (1) If you haven't heard of home routes, it's an amazing institution set up by Mitch Podolak and sponsored by CBC, so it's an honour to be part of it. (2) I'm hitting some of my favourite places to play and seeing some awesome, old friends. And finally (3) I'm gigging through Medicine Hat and my Dad will get to hear me play for the first time. How cool is that? Please check out my shows and tell everyone all your Western friends! AND READ ALONG IN MY BLOG SECTION ABOVE.

Apologies to all the Brandonites who've been waiting on a blog entry - but I've got LOTS of excuses: I just tore my ACL ligament in my knee - but also got nominated for a Toronto Independent Music Award and am in the Canadian finals for another thing, so I've been busy... anyway, here it is - hope to see you all soon!

THURSDAY & FRIDAY (in which I play no music and get no sleep, but do get to fly first class)

It's my second year playing out in Brandon, Manitoba at their amazing folk fest and my third time playing Brandon at all. I love Brandon. It's this nice little city halfway between Winnipeg and Regina and I would've never known about it if it wasn't for a guy named Matt.

Matt Duboff is the Artistic Director of the folk festival - he is calmly organized, always seems to be enjoying a private joke, and somehow finds time to organize an entire folk fest while being one of the best drummers I've ever seen.

I don't know how I first got invited out to Brandon, but Matt found me somehow and we had a great show after which I got invited to a Halloween party where I got accosted by a women dressed as Aphrodite. To make up for this, Matt invited me back to his folk fest and last year, Brandon took a hankering to my song "Jet Pack" which I had to play non stop - at my tweener set, at the fire late into Saturday night (during which I apparently decided I was an amazing upright bass player...) and at every workshop regardless of the theme ("Unrequited Love songs... for a jetpack"). Anyway, Brandon holds a special place in my heart, so I was pretty pleased when Matt invited me back.

Of course getting there is always a problem. Thunder Bay, I always maintain, is the point of no return where if you're touring by car from Toronto, you may as well keep going to Victoria. But for some reason I couldn't pull together a tour and ended up back at square one with Aeroplan points - an indie musician's last resort. Another complication was that I had finagled a mainstage spot by suggesting to Matt that I could rig a band together in Brandon with musicians I had never played with... something I had never done.

I booked Lyall McDermid, a drummer who I'd stayed with last year and who was putting me up again, and on Matt's recommendation, Jesse Dietsche, a bass player from Brandon's Nu Phunk Orchestra. Both good guys - now the only issue was that Jesse could only rehearse Thursday night, when I was flying in - or right before the show...

Planning is not my strong suit and this particular plan was particularly complex and stupid. After several other crazy shows and mad prepping and packing and very little sleep for days, here is what I had come up with: I was going to fly to Winnipeg Thursday, sleeping the whole way, get in at 10:30, somehow find my way to the bus station, take an 11:45 greyhound to Brandon, get picked up at 2:30 am (3:30 my time) and then have a band practice.... and we still had no real idea how I was getting back to Winnipeg for my 6am flight on Monday.

What could possibly go wrong?!

Here's what went right: instead of a psychotic 3 am rehearsal, Jesse wisely agreed to an early Friday rehearsal (although this means that I don't get to rehearse with the full band until right before the show) and Stacey May - another amazing fest organizer - saved the day by offering to pick me up at the airport.

Here's what went wrong: my plane got delayed and I had no phone number for Stacey. They finally decided to switch me onto another plane ("for mechanical reasons" - an excellent reason in my books) and as I boarded I found out that I was in first class... I'd never been in first class... I didn't know what to do - clearly there had been a mistake. But no - I got royally treated the whole way there - which meant I didn't sleep, being finely dined, declining wine, and watching most of Batman Begins.

I show up in Brandon at midnight to find Stacey, patiently waiting. I once crashed on Stacey's floor for a night and later he saved me from Aphrodite, so he's extra awesome in my books. We talk tennis (Stacey plays - I used to) and music and whatever for over 2 hours, stopping only to appreciate that Winnipeg's gas stations offer SLURPEES WITH ICE CREAM. Ontario, get it together - Winnipeg is beating us severely in the frozen treat category.

We get in around 2:30 or 3. By this point I am realizing that Batman Begins and first class dinner was probably not worth falling asleep for the entire weekend. Plus I now have to pee. This is all made worse when we get to Lyall and Brenda's place where I'm staying and the door is locked (they'd fallen asleep)... Stacey checks the side and I run around the back, jump a fence, try the door, then jump over the fence and pee in an alleyway. Ah the life of a rockstar. Again, I crash on Stacey's couch and am out for a glorious 5 hours of sleep.

The next day, Lyall shows up to wisk me off to the Brandon Noon Show - which Matt has booked me on and which turns out to be a TV show where I'm being interviewed and playing a tune. I am completely out of it and have no idea what happened there - something about describing my music as "Canadian" - and since my voice has dropped an octave without sleep, Brandon is treated to a special Leonard Cohen version of Jetpack.

Next we head back to Lyall's - Lyall goes to work - and Jesse shows up to rehearse quickly. We breeze through the songs and I'm starting to thing that this whole crazy plan might just work. Jesse takes off and Brenda and Lyall get back from work. Since I last crashed with them, they've got hitched in Jamaica and are now expecting (Congrats you two!) - way more than I got done last year.

Aside from a baby, Brenda is also working on a "secret project" in the garage which Lyall isn't allowed to look at and neither am I. It somehow involves her nephew and a can a spray paint.

We saddle up and head out to the folk fest. I'm not playing tonight, which is AWESOME - it means I can dance, hang out in a hammock, hand out comics, eat amazing backstage food and see some old friends. I see Stacey and we talk about playing some tennis one of these mornings. Dave Barnes who always has a big folk fest party, tells me he's glad I'm back because I bring a descriptive eye for watching the festival - he says he's looking forward to reading my 2008 fest blog (no pressure!).

Backstage I say hi to some friends from last year, Char, Paul, etc. Funny how facebook makes it feel like we've actually kept in touch... I also meet the Outspoken Wordsmiths - spoken word anarchists who tell me about roadkill they found on the way to the festival.

Onstage, I catch some good tunes - including local Torontonian Sarah Burton, who I introduce myself to after. I always meet the best Toronto musicians outside of Toronto - I guess we're all too busy touring to hang out back home...

Lyall and I still haven't rehearsed, so we regretfully skip Deep Dark Woods' set and head back home to get in some rehearsing.

Lyall is a big rock drummer. He likes hitting the drums very hard to classic, big, awesome rock. I, on the other hand, play very pretty, sensitive, acoustic folk tunes where you should really hear the lyrics. Neither of these are bad things - but in combination they are not exactly chocolate and peanut butter. So rehearsing, while fun, is not easy and there is a lot of finding common ground and figuring out compromises. We skip a couple songs and head back in time to catch the Dusty Roads Band's set - I am, to be honest, a leeeetle nervous about the whole thing - but Lyall assures me it'll all work out once we're all together.

Matt finds me and mysteriously hands me a slip of paper for my Sunday workshop - "Songwriter's Sweatshop" - where we have to make up a new song for the festival. The challenge apparently is to work in a line that the audience has voted on: "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier"... thanks a lot, audience.

I collapse into a hammock. I doze to some good bluesy rock by Dusty Roads and a nice tweener by Serena Postel. But eventually I get restless. JFK & The Conspirators are good reggae, but I'm feeling far from home and I head out to the main road to find a pay phone. I sing to myself about not being a soldier, but don't come up with much.

Outside by a Burger King I find the "hang out and show off your car" crowd, but no pay phone. A couple blocks away I find the "dress up to get drunk and puke in the bushes" crowd. Neither has any idea that there's an amazing folk festival going on a couple blocks away.

I phone home and then head back and am tooooo tired for fire dancing - I know, I know - but I've been up a looong time - so I head back home and pass out.

SATURDAY (in which I break a string, break a sweat, break out my dance moves, get drunk, and don't remember much else)

I get up early to be a keener and write my "soul/soldier" song - I come up with 2 tunes - one about a guy I met down in Maryland (a soldier from Iraq who wanted to become a folk singer) and a goofy one about being a lover not a fighter.

Brenda, Lyall's wife and I hang out the rest of the morning. She makes fresh baked muffins and I make fresh made CDs and comics. The CDs are demos recorded in my living room featuring all my funny tunes - and especially Jetpack, since I thought people might riot if I didn't record it (I'm working on it! hold yer horses...). Brenda finishes muffins and leaves to continue work on her secret project - very mysterious... I eat a lot of muffins.

I head in for my workshop at one o'clock - "Songs I Wouldn't Sing to My Mother." I have a confession to make: I actually phoned my mother to ask her which songs I should play for this, since she's heard all of them. I opt for "Guilt Trip Song" (which I edit slightly for the youngin's) "Subway Sparrow" and "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding" (although this is her favourite song). Joining me onstage is CR Avery, who does awesome-possum spoken word beatbox while playing keys, harmonica, and smoking 2 packs in an hour. He is the festival hit and jams with everyone. He also has matching sunglasses and ties - and, according to some of the ladies, very tight pants. CR loves "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding."

After the workshop, I hang out with another old friend, Marni - then Lyall and I head back to rehearse with Jesse - but Jesse is delayed playing a show down south. Lyall and I keep wittling away the tunes, then head back to the festival, only to turn around once we get a call from Jesse. It's 6pm. We're playing at 8pm. We haven't played the songs together. I am quietly stressed out.

But like Lyall predicted, it all falls into place real nice. We get through all the songs, cutting one or two and it's all going swimmingly until... I break a string. @#%Q^$. I borrow Lyle's black acoustic and we head over in rockstar style in Lyall's $200 Fiat - getting in with tons of time to hand out more comics and to stress out a bit.

Marti Sabit opens for us with a tweener - last year we became myspace friends. Remembering my tweener last year, I try to set up quietly behind her.

8pm is one of the nicest sets in Brandon - the sun is setting behind us and even though some people have to squint, it is the sweetest atmosphere. Dave Barnes gives me a huge and very generous introduction. I start out with an inside joke, saying "there's been a lost item: has anyone seen a jetpack?" and then we kick into Jetpack. People dance - and from the back, Brenda comes out with her nephew - both wearing homemade jetpacks with "JETPACK - DAVID HEIN CO." written on them. Made out of old backpacks, with pop bottles and ribbons for flames, they are amazing and make me totally laugh mid-song. BEST SECRET PROJECT EVER. (Have I mentioned how great Lyall & Brenda are? Homemade muffins, drumming, jetpacks, snacks, alchohol, and awesomeness - and next year Brenda plans to make little jetpacks for all the kids at the festival. Best hosts ever.)

The set goes quick - the crowd is lovely and I'm pretty all around happy. Everyone sings along to Jetpack and seems to love My Mother's L.J.W.W. I make fake angry faces at Lyle during Guilt Trip Song. For the last song, Dear Aunty Emm, I somehow assemble a TON of other singers, non-singers and friends for an impromptu back-up singing session from the Brandon Tabernackle Choir - I think I taught about 5 people the part right before the show and yet somehow twice that showed up onstage - some completely confused about what they were doing. Awesome, awesome impromptu folk fun. Thanks to Jesse & Lyle for coming together to backup a completely unnecessarily-stressed lead singer.

Afterwards, I'm told later, there is a swarm on the CD tent and one nice couple runs up to me to get me to sign it. Apparently they really enjoyed my blog from last year (again, no pressure... =).

And the rest is gravy. Jacob & Lilly do a sweet set followed by Janksta! featuring the amazing Matt Duboff on drums and Brandon legend, Jan Ek writing cool dancey reggae-inspired political tunes - featuring the only song I know to feature prominently the word "vomit."

I dance a lot.

Afterwards, I hang out with Brenda waiting for Lyle and the crew to strike. Then we head out to Dave Barnes place for a traditional saturday night party - Lyle and Brenda give me a bottle of wine and I make my way through 3/4 of it (with some help) while jamming and slowly forgetting how to play guitar. At some point, Lyall loses me, but hears jetpack being requested and played across the firepit... Later - WAY later - we decide to go, but Dave first takes us down to the River quickly - one of my favourite views in Brandon: mist and cool blue moonlight reflected out of the darkness.... But we're late! A cab is waiting - so we tear through the darkness, really, really drunk and really, really lucky we don't kill ourselves...

SUNDAY & MONDAY (in which I play a brand new song and find my way home)

How did my feet get this dirty? I don't remember my feet getting this dirty last time...

We wake up LATE. We get some breakfast. We hit the festival with some time to hang out before my workshop. I catch Sarah Burton and Ory No'Man at the kids tent - nice new Toronto friends and good songsters. Serena Postal also does a sweet set.

I still have no idea how I'm getting back to Winnipeg - the plan right now is that I'm crashing with Mitch Podolak, founder of the Winnipeg folk festival, and then leaving at 4 in the morning to fly back. No rest for the wicked. But I still need a lift.... two rides have fallen through, but I've learned that stressing is not necessary in Brandon - it'll all work out somehow, I'm sure.

I head backstage with my new songs and hang out with Jan, Sarah, and everyone else - all prepping for our sweatshop. I bully Marti into writing a song on the spot and ask Matt if we can bring our lyrics onstage with us. "Well it's up to you if you want to look professional," he says.

There are a lot of us, so we only get one song, which is fine. I host by making stupid jokes inbetween each act. What's great about workshops like this is that they're specific to THIS festival - they're immediate - and they're pretty cool - each of us comes up with a totally different interpretation of "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier." Jan, is my favourite - he comes onstage with about 80 sheets of papers and lays them out at his feet and launches into a rap about how everyone fights for something and is therefore a soldier - he fights discrimination as a gay man in Brandon - but it's this fighting that gives us our soul. VERY cool.

Me, I go with a goofy song "for all the lovely ladies in Brandon." Sarah calls me a suck-up and a I agree. Here's the tune:

I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I've bot bowls, but I'm a terrible bowler
I'm a gentlemen, but not a gentlemen caller
I'm coming to Brandon, so lock up your daughters

Cause I-I-I, I was not made for fighting
Just occasional biting, baby, maybe you and I
were made for making babies
Why-y-y, why don't you spend the ni-i-ight?
Cause sometimes a singer can make a hot husband
I'm not made for fighting, no ladies, I'm just made for loving

I've got bags, but I don't have baggage
I take cabs, but I don't like cabbage
I've got all kinds of patience, but I'm not a doctor
I heard all of the girls in Brandon like rockstars

I-I-I, I was not made for fighting
Just occasional biting, baby, maybe you and I
were made for making babies
Why-y-y, why don't you spend the ni-i-ight?
Cause sometimes a singer can make a hot husband
I'm not made for fighting, no ladies, I'm just made for loving

I've got hands, but baby that don't mean I'm handsome
I'm stealing your heart, gonna hold it for randsome
My heart's on my sleeve, or maybe on my pants
and I'm looking for more, but let's start with a dance

I'm a man, but I've still got manners
but I've been banned from some bands for my banter
I've heard some ladies questioning which guy is best for them
Tell them the answer is playing in front of them

I-I-I, I was not made for fighting
Just occasional biting, baby, maybe you and I
were made for making babies
Why-y-y, why don't you spend the ni-i-ight?
Cause sometimes a singer can make a hot husband
I'm not made for fighting, no ladies, I'm just made for loving

Afterwards, I buy a souvenir for my cat - a little yarn ball thing - and cash out at the merch tent - doing okay too, thank you very much. I trade a couple CDs with other musicians and then chill out with Brenda and Lyall.

Finally Matt hooks me up with Jacob & Lilly for a lift. Jacob and Lilly are actually Karla and Caleb... and they're not together... it's confusing... but they are amazing musicians who have been kicking ass and taking names across the country.

We head out and talk music, fast food, and yackity yack until Winnipeg. They're great, great folks who I hope will end up being good friends. Karla's all motherly and they give me some great music advice. Nice!

I get to Mitch's at around 10 and hang out with his family, talking babies with his son and Nazis with Mitch (you have to know him to understand...). Mitch tells me that he wants to book me for a series of house concerts - apparently, he had "spies" in Brandon who told him I was good. I go to bed for about 3 hours pretty darn happy with the whole weekend.

4 in the morning is very early, but riding first-class makes it better. I should really be sleeping - but Iron Man is playing....

Last weekend I performed as a Canadian finalist in the Mountain Stage New Song Contest - which is cool for many reasons - the first is that one of my favourite cassettes as a kid was a Mountain Stage "Canadian" live recording featuring Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies, Moxy Fruvous, Cowboy Junkies, Bruce Cockburn, and more. Second, I got to play at the Ottawa Folk Fest with the likes of Broken Social Scene, Sarah harmer, Rufus Wainwright and more. And third, I shared the stage with some amazing other songwriters from across Canada like Andy Sheppard, Linda M, Mary Knickle, Lynne Hanson, Hannah and her Sisters, Tanya Davis, Daniel Casavant, Steve Brockley and Koko Bonaparte. I didn't win, but was in very good company and won some excellent friends - please give it up for Tanya Davis, who'll be representing us canucks down south.

Last Wednesday, 3 GUYS FROM THE PRAIRIES TOOK OVER THE FRINGE at the Cameron House. For those of you not in the know, 3 GUYS are Jeff Straker, Grant Tilly and I doing probably my favourite night of singer/songwriter-ness ever. We were celebrating Grant and my musicals in the Toronto fringe festival - and Jeff just released a CD and opened for Mel C from the Spice girls - so we were all pretty happy.

And pretty exhausted. Well deserved though - Grant's THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISER IN DAYTON, TENNESSEE got 4 NNNN's from Now and a "Highly Recommended" from the Toronto Star and mine, DEATH TO DATING got 4 STARS - Eye. And Jeff opened for Mel C in the middle of Pride. Which meant we hadn't slept a lot. Which meant a crazy fun show where we all felt a little rough - Jeff decided randomly to out Grant on stage in front of his father (which was stranger because Grant is pretty darn straight) and there were a couple of non-sequitur moments (Jeff, I'm looking at you for the pizza story =).

I'd decided we needed a video of us playing and thanks to Landed Entertainment's awesome posse we had a 3 camera shoot. But thanks to part of the set, apparently I was out of my light the whole time... still, we'll get some video up soon and you can all decide for yourself how sleepy we were.

More charity show fun and more strangeness - this time at the Smiling Buddha for bikers (the pedalling kind) who are taking part in the Ride to End Cancer. They and their friends rounded up a bunch of great performers... including Miss Tease and the Bitter Blondes who ended the night. Miss Tease does dance music... really explicitly sexual dance music... Her "bitter blondes" are two girls in blonde wigs that back her up. Their final song was called "Jizz" and featured some really, um, clever lyrics...

All in all, lots of bizarre fun.

So I got booked to play a charity event at a Goodlife Fitness in Kitchener - raising money for their Kids Foundation, which promotes healthy living and exercise to kids. I wasn't sure what to expect - but something like other acts maybe, and presenters, and a crowd - maybe hors d'oeuvres if I was lucky.

Instead, it was me busking next to the treadmills for 2 hours. Literally, for 2 hours, people were running away from me and my guitar.

But we raised a little bit of money and it's for the kids - and I can now say that I've played in the middle of a gym...

HERE'S THE QUICK VERSION: I played in NY, PA, and MD, blew out my back playing football with a dog, met a bunch of great people, including a fair number of lesbian jewish-wiccan couples (who for some reason, really liked my song, "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish-Wiccan Wedding") and won first place in the Susquehanna Music and Arts Fest (SMAF) songwriting contest! And I did a somewhat drunken interview for acousticmusicscene.com. Then I came home.

HERE'S THE LONGER VERSION:

Last week I toured down into the States. I'd won my way into the finals of a songwriting contest at the Susquehanna Music & Arts Festival. 10 finalists would be attending, each performing 2 songs for 10 minutes - the winner would win a cash prize and a spot on the mainstage the next night. But honestly, I wasn't sure how worth it this was - it's an 9 hour drive for a 10 minute show... anyway, I decided in order to make it worth it, I'd set up a tour through NY, PA and MD - nothing major, but enough that I could cover gas and not feel like an idiot if I didn't win and just had to turn around.

This would be a nice tour - I was hitting Binghamton, NY - where my wife's cousins and their families lived - and then Lancaster, PA - where my aunt and uncle lived. Lots of family time - but unfortunately Irene couldn't come with me because she's a ridiculously busy actress.

NEW YORK

The drive to Binghamton was uneventful - my dual citizenship greases me through customs and it's only 5-6 hours away - we should really visit more. Especially since it's immediatley warmer and greener south of the border. I've done this drive a million times but still almost drive around Buffalo twice. I crossover the Susquehanna river, which I'll be playing along in 2 days, and realize that my US geography is sadly lacking...

In Binghamton, I head to Joe & Becki's place - they have 3 adorable kids, Devon, Hanna and Gabe, a cute cat, and a gigantic slobber machine name Boogy. They have dinner ready and afterwards we play football out back. It's super nice, except for the part where I almost killing myself avoiding Boogy and jumping for a pass.

We head out to bar. I literally picked a bar a random on the web to apply to - so I have no idea what the "Cyber Cafe West" will look like. But it's amazing! It's a maze of little rooms and huge one with a stage in the back. Packed with videogames, a chess group in the back, and pool tables upstairs, it's a pretty sweet little venue. Plus there are enough regulars on a Wednesday to make it feel like a good show. I play for two hours, playing a bunch of Canadian covers (6 hours south of the border no one knows who Blue Rodeo or the Tragically Hip are - and they've heard of the Barenaked Ladies, but have never heard One Week... it's like an alternate universe where the music I grew up on never happened). Anyway, the show is great. The chess club calls out requests from the back and everyone seems to enjoy it.

Jeff, who runs the place, says it sounds great. I thank him for booking me on such short notice and he says something like, "I knew you'd be good. You're Canadian. All Canadians sound good."

After I play, Joe & Becki and I explore around - apparently, the bar was recently doing work out back and accidentally broke through into an old prohibition still - still filled with old moonshine equipment. Very cool. I sell a couple CD's (one to thess club) and then we take off.

Back at home, Joe & Becki break out the karaoke machine and sing me country songs that I've never heard, as I chill out. Then we play pool and Joe, who is an ex-navy marksmen, kicks my ass all over the place.

The next morning, we head out for breakfast to Denny's - Joe and I are stupidly excited about Denny's and we have a coupon from his bowling magazine. Joe gets bowling magazines because Joe runs a bowling alley (coolest job ever!). Later, Joe takes me for a quick tour of the bowling alley (coolest bowling alley ever!). Sadly, I have to get going...

PENNSYLVANIA

There is something wrong with me and Pennsylvania, because I get lost a LOT finding my way to Lancaster. Even though my uncle and aunt, Ken & Judi sent me pretty specific googlemaps, I am still stupidly lost. I weave back and forth across the Susquehanna - at least I'm going in the right general direction!

Finally, I make it though and end up at their place, which is plastered with Obama signs all over the front lawn. Ken & Judi are, as far as I can tell, the special ops of the Lancaster, PA democratic movement and have done an amazing job of promoting Obama in a relatively Republican town. They're also wonderful family members - I don't see them enough, so it's nice to get to spend a couple days with them.

There wasn't enough time to book a show in Lancaster, but Judi's found me some open mics, and I'm hoping they'll be alright. We finally find parking at the Alley Kat bar only to be told that the open mic that they advertise on their website isn't actually happening... so instead we head to the neighbouring town and roll up to a tiny pub way off the beaten path, next to rail line.

Inside, there's a band setting up for an open jam - I rarely do these, but like them well enough. We sit up front, a little hesitantly since it could easily end up being a painful, loud night. Because it's "killer beef night" I order the "killer beef" which sounds scarier than a roast beef dip ought to.

The band plays a short set and is fantastic - I love finding pockets of awesome blues musicians in the strangest of places - these guys are killer players, but just play at this funny little pub - and are totally happy there.

I'm first up and get a solo set to warm up - I play some upbeat tunes - Jetpack, Caroline and One Week (bringing the Canadian content wherever I go) and then the band joins me for some tunes - Magic Carpet Ride and Brown Eyed Girl. Ken & Judi sit happily up front tapping along. Everyone applauds - I sell a couple CD's and give out comics - and the drummer from the band tells me I'm going to make it big.

Afterwards, Judi says, "we haven't been out to see live music in years." "Decades!" Ken says. And they had a great time - it's a real treat to be able to drag them along on my little rock'n'roll adventure.

MARYLAND

The next day, I head out to the festival. Ken asks me if I'm nervous, and I'm not, but I get more and more stressed heading down into Maryland. My back, which I hurt playing football, gets worse and worse from stress and so much driving.

The festival is just across the Susquehanna dam - a huge expanse of water on your right and a trickle on the left. Past the bridge you turn onto unpaved, country roads and follow bright, beautiful cardinals through the trees until you get to a summer camp in the woods.

I unpack, check in my merch, and join the other songwriting competition folks in front of the stage. Sherry walks us through the competition. There are 10 of us - we each get 10 minutes to play 2 songs. The judges will judge us on originality, lyrics, whether the music suits the lyrics, and whether they want to hear the song again. We all draw numbers and I get lucky number 6.

I scope out the competition - it's a good looking professional bunch and I'm a bit nervous. But we all introduce ourselves and everyone's so nice that the fact that we're competing kind of disappears. I thought I'd be the one coming from farthest away but Emily is from Alaska and Mark is from the West coast.

We've got some time to kill, so I wander around - it's a big beautiful summer campground with a barn, pool, tennis courts, cabins, etc. Unfortunately, it's drizzly and cold, but on a warm day, the fest will be amazing. I cross my fingers for tomorrow and rub my hands together to keep warm.

Finally we go up - the crowd is pretty good considering it's rainy - I get the feeling that the songwriting competition is considered a fun time and the hosts, from the band We Are About 9 are totally fun. I honestly don't remember the order we played in, but everyone was great. I got totally intimidated by some amazing numbers crossing over folk, country, politics, and singer/songwriter-ness. We all agree that we should make a compilation album later. If you're interested, I totally recommend checking them all out. Here's their websites:

Friction Farm
Lara Herscovitch
Jenny Goodspeed
Janet Bates
Emily Kurn
Hungrytown
Mark Ward
Alicia Keister
The Milroys

My back is killing me by this point. I wish I'd brought painkillers, but there's nothing to do but stretch and move around. I finally get to play - I sing Subway Sparrow and Where's My Jetpack? It's kind of a quiet crowd, so I have no idea how these go over. Subway Sparrow is folky enough for a folk festival, but Jetpack is probably the biggest rock song of the night so far, and really, it's about me wanting a jetpack - it's not exactly shakespeare - so I quickly convince myself that I've lost. After that, I enjoy myself a lot more, hanging out with new friends and wandering around.

We finish playing at 7:30 and they don't announce the winner until 9:30. A couple people have come up to me and said they liked my tunes, so I start to feel better. And one guy comes up to talk to me about Jetpacks! Don, a military pilot, apparently always wanted to build one. He just got back from Iraq too where he was "flying a desk." So if he couldn't fly there, he decided to turn to another love, music. So while in Iraq, he enrolled himself in some Berkely internet music courses, shipped a piano over, learned to play, and started a band.

Don mentions some of the anti-war songs that have been played and, since this is his first folk festival, he wonders if he's welcome. I suggest that the people here can differentiate between the war and the soldiers.

Suddenly in the middle of our conversation, they announce the winners. I honestly missed who got 3rd (Hungrytown) and 2nd (Emily) or forgot, since my mind apparently blew up when they announced that I won first place. Don had to say "hey! That's you!" and push me forward. I wound up onstage accepting a cheque and stumbled back down to get congratulated by the other performers. Although I'm thrilled, I'm kind of stunned and feel bad for everyone else and haven't thought of what to say. But they're all amazing sports and pat me on the back. I buy a couple other contestants beers, since my tour suddenly went from being in-the-hole to being in-the-black. Suddenly my back feels much better.

Lots of people come up to congratulate me. I meet a ton of nice folks from the folk scene who all say they were rooting for me and some of the judges introduce themselves. Nice! One of the organizers asks tentatively, "umm.... you're okay to play a half hour set, right?" I still have mixed feelings afterwards - everyone was great and totally deserved to win, so I sit by myself and listen to the music.

After a terrific set by SONiA and Disappear Fear, we all wander over to "The Barn" (built in 1876 - 100 years before me!) and have a songwriting circle. I am fall asleep at my guitar, but play Lost Together by Blue Rodeo - and surprisingly a bunch of people know it here.

I get lost coming back in the middle of the night, but get a thorough tour of Lancaster.

PENNSYLVANIA & MARYLAND - PART 2!

The next day, Ken & Judi show me the sites of Lancaster - which is a gorgeous city - a "tree city" as apparently it's known - filled with green streets of old victorian building. Built in 1718, its claim to fame is that it's the birthplace of the worst President in the history of the US, James Buchanan (apparently worse than Dubya). It was also the capital of the country for a brief period.

We head to a giant garage sale that Ken & Judi are taking part in (they sell 4 tires) - then Ken and I drive over to the market in the center of town - filled with Lancaster Amish delicasies of which I try (A) a red beet egg (basically a hard boiled egg, soaked in beet juice - yummier than it sounds), (B) wet-bottom shoo-fly pie, which is sort of like pecan pie, without the pecans (which basically leaves pie crust and liquid sugar) and (C) something called "chow-chow" which is a sweet relish of vegetables.

This time, I'm don't get lost heading back to the festival. And I realize that my back feels excellent - must have been the stress of everything yesterday. I arrive in time to a harmony workshop - featuring some amazing artists - and then see a fellow Toronto-ite, Lenore, perform as part of the "Country to Country" workshop, which features artists from other countries (including Texas, for some reason...). Unfortunately, there isn't a huge crowd, but they still play amazingly.

I wander a bit and eventually end up back at the mainstage, where I get to play that night. Judi & Ken have arrived and we watch some excellent folksy acts.

I'm not really nervous about the show that night, but there is a certain amount of pressure to be more than just a 2-song trick pony. But it all goes great - the crowd is very receptive and laugh in all the right spots. I dedicate My Eyes Wide to Ken & Judi, who have been dating since high school and have never broken up with anyone!! "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish-Wiccan Wedding" goes over like a house on fire - afterwards, at least 5 people come up to tell me that they have either been in, or attended a lesbian jewish-wiccan wedding - and one person told me that they attended a lesbian jewish-buddhist wedding. We all decided we should start a group of some sort.

Anyway, my set finishes nicely with Dear Aunty Emm - everyone sings along and I'm pretty happy leaving the stage. Lee, the stage manager, invites me to play in her house concert series (May 2009). She says, "you know why I think you won? Apart from having good songs and performing them well, of course. All of your songs sound different and original - each one sounds new." I've never thought of it that way before - probably kind of a double-edge knife, but it's nice to hear. Terry, the producer of the whole shebang, comes up and invites me back to the festival for 2009 (also in May). And a lot of people buy CD's, which I sign happily - and some new friends take me out to their car, where I get rum & coke from their trunk.

Afterwards, I do a interview with Michael Kornfield, from acousticmusicscene.com - I am, as many of you know, a cheap date and am a bit buzzed, but we have a nice conversation about how you define music (folk/rock/guy with acoustic guitar...) and Michael's a great guy who I hope to run into again. I also meet Paul Mischler and Gordon Nash, who are part of the Budgiedome (hard to explain - kind of a meeting place/performance spot at the Falcon Ridge Folk Fest - and run by big time Moxy Fruvous fans - who knew??).

And that's that - I sell some CDs, hang out with Ken & Judi. We watch a bunch of great performers. Dylan Visvikis, a teenage up-n-comer, Anne Feeney's great political folk tunes, Dan Warner's Australian rock, and Tret Fure's beautifully powerful songs. My favourite though was the closer, We're About 9 who do incredible harmonies and quirky offbeat songs like my new favourite, Nobody Flying This Plane. All worth checking out.

Afterwards, I trade CD's with everyone and then I head back to Ken & Judi's. Once again, I get lost and circle Lancaster, but I finally make it home and pull into their driveway, just in time to see a deer in their backyard.

BACK HOME

The next morning, Ken & Judi suprise me by offering to buy me a GPS system - apparently they couldn't take me getting lost anymore. =)

I head back home - listening to all my newfound CDs - breaking record time to get back to Toronto in 8 hours - just in time for Mother's day. I have 5 mothers, so this is a day filled with dinners and phone calls. And this time, I have so nice news and stories to tell them.

I just got back from a short tour through NY, PA and MD - the highlight of which was winning the Susquehanna Music & Arts Festival (SMAF!) Songwriting Contest and playing on the mainstage. And I've been invited back to play there again next year! Thank you all for your crossed fingers - it worked! You can read the whole story in my blog section above.

Also, check out the article that was written about me in Acousticmusicscene.com - I was technically a little drunk during this interview - but it's nice all the same.

Yesterday, I played solo at the Toronto Independent Music Awards "best live" Showcase at Healey's Roadhouse bar. I got down there a bit early and hung around outside, while a nice homeless guy struck up a conversation about Jeff Healey and how sad he was that he had died.

I played my last CD release at Healey's last bar, so was glad to get to check out the new one. Maybe it's my nostalgia, but I miss the coziness of the old one - the new one is massive and great, I'm sure, for sales - not to mention capitalizing on Second City audiences etc., but I liked the old place, nestled in the corner of seedy Queen & Bathurst.

The Toronto Independent Music Awards are run by a pretty amazing lady named Daniella - in order to choose "best song" "best band" "best act" etc. she sets up showcases throughout the Summer and has industry folks rates the bands. I'm usually anti-battle of the bands since Emergenza (which we did quite well in - at the expense of my friends' money ($20 a ticket???!)), but the TIMA's don't feel like a scam - except that the acts don't get paid for playing - but there's lots of show like that in Toronto and you make it up in CD sales.

Anyway, because the TIMA's cover many genres, the showcases can sometimes be pretty eclectic (although there are some solid singer/songwriter nights). This night, I was playing after Shawna Cassidy, a great solo acoustic wunderkind, and before a bunch of GIANT ROCK BANDS.

Shawna started her set to almost no one, but the place started to fill up quickly - mostly with people eager to watch the metal bands after us - but with some people who were into our folkiness - so a bizarre audience that only assembles for eclectic battle-of-the-bands type shows. Shawna's set was amazing - she has a beautiful voice, a gigantic guitar, and really sweet songs - plus someone told me that she looked like Angelina Jolie - which can never be a bad thing.

My set flew by - mostly to baffled looks from the audience at songs like "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding" - but enough people bopping along made me feel good. Afterwards Daniella told me I was hilarious, which hopefully means there's a "most hilarious toronto musician" award...

We went out for Indian food and made it back in time to see DAME do some HUGE cool metal music - not really my thing, but I'm pretty proud of Katie Lee, who used to be little sister to the Nick Lee Band, who I used to play with frequently. Now she rocks out in her own band, has cat tattoos on her chest and is totally badass.

The TIMA showcases continue all Summer building up the big awards show - so go out and support folk musicians and metalheads alike.

I've now played two of my favourite shows ever with the same two guys at the same club... so something good must be going on. It was another Wednesday at Bread & Circus down in Kensington Market with Jeff Straker and Grant Tilly. Although we'd done a night a month or two before, this was our first "3 GUYS FROM THE PRAIRIES" show. We'd designed a logo, we'd thought up Prairie stories and got the whole shebang catered by THE GIRL catering (featuring perogies, prairie-dogs-in-blankets and prairie wedding cake (or something - Jeff said it was a prairie must-have, but apparently I never went to any wedding in Saskatchewan...). We'd also rehearsed (and I use the term loosely) a couple of eachother's tunes and a big finale, which I couldn't seem to remember the words to.

Here's why I love Jeff & Grant's music: because on our own, we are kind of quirky guys who do some theatrical stuff in our sets, like people to sing and clap along - and in the indie rock world are generally a little quirky (or dorky, depending). But put us in a room together and suddenly it's an awesome statement about bringing ENTERTAINMENT back to live music. The audience laughs their asses off - sometimes at our funny songs and sometimes at us being being idiots - and we laugh back too. It's this great feedback loop of laughing and singing and fun. Seriously, the next time we do one of these shows, you have to come.

The show was great. Grant debuted a couple new tunes (one of which my wife said was "sexy" - my wife isn't allowed back at these shows anymore...) and I debuted a new song called "High School Geography" which referenced Regina... Grant also played nose flute on my new song, "My mother's lesbian jewish wiccan wedding." Jeff and I had actually rehearsed him playing piano for my tune, "Subway Sparrow" but I'd completely forgotten, so, despite rehearsing, it looked totally improvised. One of my favourite moments, was forgetting the words to Dear Aunty Emm and having the entire audience shout suggestions for what they thought ought to be next - hilarious!

And then we got to the finale. Appropos of being from the Prairies, we had settled on sharing the lyrics to "Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys. "Together... we will find out way... together... we will leave someday... " And together we all knew the lyrics, but I swear I never knew what was happening throughout. A glorious, hilarious train wreck of an ending. Afterwards, the guys at Bread & Circus pumped the 80's tunes and everyone stuck around and danced.

And did I mention the perogies?

BEST... SHOW... EVER.