The Stills 12/22/07, Going Home...

It's always hard to get up in the morning when the clock still has single digits for the hour, but I forced my way through it and headed downstairs to hail a cab. First one I got decided he didn't want to go to the airport and drove away, and right after that, to add insult to injury, a car drove through a puddle of slush right in front of me and I got covered in it, head to toe. I had no choice but to run back into the hotel to change and try and get another cab. I soon got one that was willing to actually drive to the airport and all was good.

The weather was kind of crappy in Vancouver and in Toronto, and every flight between the 2 cities that morning was cancelled. Except mine. It even left sort of on time. Bonus. The plane was kind of lame though. No tv's in the seatback ahead of you. Kind of rough on a 5 hour flight. Then, on my 1 hour flight to Ottawa after, the plane was equipped with a full-on entertainment explosion. Go figure... Gotta love Air Canada...

Anyways, after no drama in the skies and having successfully cheated death by air yet again, I made it home for Christmas. Talk about your storybook endings. I'll be here for a few days, then I'll go back to Brooklyn for a bit and try and make my phone ring... Looks like it could be a month or so, but we'll see... Things have a way of popping up when you least expect them to...

The Stills 12/21/07, Vancouver, BC

We had a fair bit of time to kill before we had to work today, so when we got up around 11am (which really felt like 2pm to us...) a couple of us met local friends for breakfast and coffee, and walked around window shopping for a couple hours. Time flew by pretty quickly and before we knew it, it was time to soundcheck. After a couple hours of that, I was able to meet my cousin and her husband for dinner. We never see each other, due partly to the fact we live in cities on opposite ends of the continent, but also due to my traveling, so it was good to catch up a bit. They came to the show too, and we went out after for a couple more drinks and some surprisingly good late-night pizza.

The Biltmore Cabaret is a brand new club and we were pretty much the first real show. It's a cool place, it'll probably do well. The crowd was ok in size, but kind of quiet, but the show was good. It was the last show of the year for us and it felt like it was over before it started.

After it was done, we had a few year-end drinks together at the club, and then those of us that still had energy went out with my cousin, as I mentioned earlier. Didn't stay out too late though; early flight back home tomorrow...

The Stills 12/20/07, Going to Vancouver....

I woke up this morning in the beautiful, sunny and warm borough of Brooklyn, NY. I drove by landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, etc... as the sun shone brightly and made them all look majestic. I arrived early at La Guardia, was able to move up to earlier flights that left on time, things looked good. I even passed Donald Trump's private jet on the runway. The plane took off, the clouds looked incredible and the sun continued to shine. And about 1.5 hrs later, we descended through the clouds into the dark, gray, messy, snow covered hole that is Toronto and I said goodbye to good weather for the year. It hurt.

If nothing else, the flight from Toronto to Vancouver was pretty painless and I was pretty happy I got the earlier flights. As soon as we all met at the airport, we headed to the hotel to drop off our bags. We moved as fast as possible because we had dinner reservations at the best steakhouse in Canada, Saltlik. We've been waiting for weeks to get to this restaurant. They have locations in Banff (best steak I've ever had) and Calgary (top 5 steak), and as soon as we realized there was one in Vancouver, that alone made the trek worthwhile.

We sat down, ordered, and 3 of us got a great bottle of wine. After each of us had a glass poured, the waitress poured the rest in a decanter and we relaxed for a great meal. One of the guys, who was not in on the wine, wanted to read the label on the bottle (which was now empty), so he picked it up. Unfortunately, he picked it up by the cap that had not been fully screwed on to the bottle. The bottle slipped out of his hand and smashed the decanter. 3 of us almost lost our appetites. The bottle went through the decanter like a spear. I've never seen anything like it. Our nice bottle of wine just became 3 very expensive glasses of wine. We got over it after a while, not wanting to let it ruin our meal, and when the food came it was amazing. I could've gone home after that.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, but stopped at the club on the way - it was only 2 doors down the street, just to check out what we'd have tomorrow. We stuck around for a drink, and after staying up as late as possible to try and adjust to the time zone, we crashed.

The Hidden Cameras Day 12, Drive, drive, drive...

This time we got off the ferry at the more respectable hour of 8:30am. Not great, but better than 6. And so we started driving. and driving, and driving... We were doing really good time until we hit Riviere-du-loup, where they had thoughtfully saved some snow for us, because why should we have a drive without snow? The goal was to get to Ottawa by 1am, but that put a slight kink in the plans. The rest of the way the roads were pretty messy and there was a mix of snow and rain, so by the time we got in to Ottawa, it was around 4am. And I was so happy to get out of that van. The thing I may not have mentioned the last few days is that I did every minute of every drive since we left Kingston. That's a lot of driving. That's 35 hrs of driving in the last two days alone, and I don't plan on doing that ever again, but it got us where we needed to be and I got to go home tonight, so all is not lost.

Overall things went pretty well over the last few days, save for some weather, and we had a pretty good time. Now, just like everyone else I work with, the band is taking some time off, so we'll see what happens down the line. I'm sure we'll do more together, just a question of when.

I have a few days off now so I can recover from the last couple days, then one show in Vancouver with The Stills and I'm done for the year. I'll have to start making phone calls again and see what pops up next...

The Hidden Cameras Day 11. Let the drive begin.

We got up mid-morning, had a bite to eat and left St. John's around 12:30pm. It looked like it was a good day for a drive, and things were going really smoothly.

Then we got to Corner Brook and hit a storm. And it was bad. There was one point where there were no tracks on the road, everything was white and all I could see was snowflakes. I couldn't even tell if we were moving, and that was only at 20km/h. In fact, I thought we had started sliding backwards down a hill towards the bridge we had just crossed. It was pretty scary to say the least. Finally after about 30 seconds, we passed a sign, so at least we knew we were moving forward. That whole episode probably didn't last more than a minute but it felt like a year. It didn't get a whole lot better the rest of the way, but at least we could see things. It felt pretty amazing to get on the ferry that night. Only took 12 hrs to get there...

The Hidden Cameras Day 10, St. John's, NL

We were supposed to start the drive home today, but everyone was having so much fun in town that the band decided they wanted to stay an extra day. It did feel pretty good to finally have a full day off after all the driving hell of the last week. We spent most of the day just wandering, checking stuff out, no hurry to do anything.

We had dinner at a place called Ches's, which is apparently legendary, then we attended a type of awards show for the local "Best of 2007", spent some time playing pool at a local watering hole, and eventually ended the night at a bar where my buddy (see yesterday) was hosting a blues jam. At that point I thought I was leaving, but I ended up getting dragged to another one of those late night kitchen party things. No complaints though, it was fun. I didn't stay too long though because the long drive home starts for real tomorrow...

The Hidden Cameras Day 9, St. John's, NL

After driving 8+ hrs in the snow and rain, we pulled up to The Rock House on George St. in St. John's. Things were great from the moment we walked in. The promoter got the band a full rider and a good dinner, the venue guys were really cool, all the gear worked and they even brought in a bunch of extra toys for me. It looked like a good night.

After the checks, I met up with a friend of mine down the street who I toured with for Sam Roberts. We had a couple drinks, then I had to go back to my show, which was sold out and went really well. Afterwards, I hooked up with my buddy again as I was supposed to get screeched in. The guy who was the master screecher had left his bar early though, so we weren't able to do it. We ended up going to someone's house and waking them up at 3am for a good old kitchen party, and at some point much later, we all went back to the hotel and crashed. Ended up being a pretty good night, and the town definitely lived up to all I've heard about it...

The Hidden Cameras Day 8, Corner Brook, NL

We were woken up by an announcement on the ferry saying we had 30 minutes to go. That hurt a little. So, we dragged ourselves back down to the van and started the day. It was kind of demoralizing that it was still dark out when we started driving...

Only supposed to be a 2hr drive to Corner Brook, but the weather didn't really cooperate. It was kind of wild, but at least there was some visibility. It ended up taking about 3hrs, and when we got there, I crashed right away. I ended up sleeping for most of the day. Around 3:30, I got up and went down to the hotel pub for lunch, and then we made our way over to The Vertigo Club.

It was more of a dance club, but there was a stage and 2 speakers, so all was not lost... Everyone was really cool when we got there, I think we had drinks in our hands within 2 minutes. I spent most of the soundcheck time fixing the club gear to use for the show, but eventually everything was all sorted out.

It ended up being a little bit of a funny night. When I started the show's intro music, the venue's night manager asked me to stop playing it because she said it was bad for business. Then after the show, she wanted the band to play for another hour (they obviously have never dealt with touring bands before), then all their audio died when they switched over to the dj for the rest of the night. They asked me to fix it because they didn't have a house tech, so I said I'd look quickly because we were on our way out, fortunately it was just something that got unplugged. Then, after feeding us drinks all night and telling us we could have whatever we needed, they turned around and stuck us with the bill on the way out. Classy.

So that was Corner Brook. Tomorrow we have an 8 hr drive to St. John's, where things will hopefully make more sense...

The Hidden Cameras Day 7, Drive to Newfoundland

There wasn't any major rush to get anywhere today; we just had to be at the ferry by 10:30pm. We took our time leaving Halifax, got food, coffee, walked around a little and left around 3pm for a 5hr drive.

Overall it was pretty smooth. There was some sketchy weather, but nothing we haven't seen before. We got to the ferry on time, checked in to our cabins, bought some seriously overpriced food and drinks and crashed. Tomorrow will be pretty early. The ferry docks at 6:30am and we have a 2hr drive to Corner Brook...

The Hidden Cameras Day 6, Halifax, NS

We got up around 11am and met at a diner for breakfast before leaving town. Today looked like it would be fairly painless, and it actually was. There was a little bit of snow, but nothing anywhere near what the last two days have been. We made it to Halifax on time and thrilled by the complete lack of driving drama.

After soundchecks and hotel check-ins, a few of us went for dinner at a pretty good Indian place called Curry Village. I like the spicy stuff, and the Indians make some powerful dishes, but I've learned how to eat it in order to maximize flavour and minimize burn. Joel, the singer in the band, has not. He asked to try some of the sauce on my chicken, I said sure, and he scooped up a massive amount on a piece of naan bread. I told him it would burn, long and slow, but he took it all. He seemed fine for a few seconds, but then the look that came across his face was priceless. The man was in pain. He couldn't drink water fast enough. It was sort of funny, maybe not for him, but the rest of us got a kick out of it.

After dinner, we headed back to the Attic for the show, and again it turned out pretty well. There was a good number of people there and they were loving it. Only annoying thing was that there was a dance club below us, and it was pretty loud. It was kind of disturbing, but what can you do... All in all it went well and tonight I can head to bed for a good sleep. Don't have to be out of the hotel til noon tomorrow.

The Hidden Cameras Day 5, Drive to Sackville ctd...

So today we're going to Sackville. For sure. There's a show, we have to be there. We left Riviere-du-loup around 10am and started out. The weather was decent, but we decided to allow for extra time, just in case.

It started out pretty well, the first few hours flew by no problem. Then we got to Moncton. Talk about a disaster zone. Highways 100% snow covered, no cars on the road, semis in the ditch, major blowing snow, heavy snowfall. Not good. For some stupid reason I kept driving. We were so close, didn't want to stop 60km from the show. So, I knocked back the speed to about 40kmh, and crept along the highway. At least there were snowbanks on each side, so I could tell where the road ended, but it wasn't good. The whole drive ended up taking about 9hrs, which in good weather would've been no more than 5.

But we made it, still no damage on any level. I never thought pulling up to a place called George's Roadhouse would bring such a feeling of relief. And to top it off, we only got there 30 mins late! Only took us 19hrs...

We never thought anyone would come out to the show in that weather, but maybe 80 people showed, and they were really in to it. It was pretty crazy. It actually ended up being a really cool show.

We decided to leave the van at the venue overnight and we went to crash at various houses. There are no hotels in Sackville. I ended up in an old house, maybe 80-100 yrs old, plaster walls, no insulation, etc... but it was actually a nice place. And the owner had a pretty cool cat too. I didn't stay up too long, being totally burnt from the 19hrs of driving (of which I personally drove 100%), so I crashed pretty hard. Another top 5 worst drive ever, maybe even top 2, but it was finally over. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. Whatever...

The Hidden Cameras Day 4, Drive to Sackville...

Or so we thought. No way that was going to happen today. when we got up in Montreal, the entire city was covered in some 20+cm of snow. It was really incredible. The van had to get dug out, it was totally buried.

After we picked up our gear at the club, we slowly started making our way out of town, and it quickly became obvious that it was going to be a long day. Nothing was moving. The weather was brutal. At one point, the road we needed to take to get to the highway was closed, so I had to make a hairpin turn around a construction barrier to go down a hill. Once I got the front end around, I was face to face with a line of 6 cars, and the van wasn't stopping. It looked like we were going to slide right in to the line and take everyone down the hill with us. Somehow the brakes kicked in at the last possible second, so I held it there and for the next few seconds I thought up every single driving trick I knew to try and get us down the hill. Somehow a combination of brake pumping and erratic steering did the trick. If only that were the wildest part of the day...

There was no other feeling of impending doom, but the highways were about 80% covered in snow, on average, and in some parts visibility was about 10 feet. It was pretty sketchy. I don't think I pushed it past 70kph at any point. After 5 hours, we finally got to Quebec City, and we stopped near there for food and to evaluate our situation. It was still kind of early, and we were in snow driving mode, so we decided to press on. After another few hours, we stopped for the night in Riviere-du-loup. 10 hr total drive time for a route that usually takes about 4.5 hrs. It was pretty crazy, and it felt extraordinary to get out of the van at the end of the day. It was easily a top 5 worst drive ever, but we survived and everyone and everything was still undamaged. Hopefully tomorrow won't be so bad...

The Hidden Cameras Day 3, Montreal, QC

We got in to Montreal with enough time before load in for me to head up to Cafe Olympico, my favourite coffee shop in town. And it was great. After taking care of that, we loaded in at La Sala Rossa, soundchecked and had some good tapas for dinner at their restaurant downstairs.

The show tonight was the best that I've done with them so far. Great crowd, sounded good,everything worked out.

After the show, I met up with a few of the guys from The Stills for some drinks and the rest of the night just flew by. Before we knew it, everything was shut down and it was time to call it. Maybe not a bad thing, I do have a long drive tomorrow...

Hidden Cameras Day 2, Kingston, ON

We met at Barrymore's this morning, quickly got our gear out from last night, convinced a frozen trailer lock that it wanted to open, and made the quick drive to Kingston.

I've done a lot of shows in Kingston, and I was pretty sure I remembered Grad Hall, but I was so wrong. I thought it was one of the bigger rooms, kind of like a cafeteria with a blacony. It was in fact a living room in a frat house. Solid. It turned out all right. There wasn't really a stage so everyone was kind of mixed in to the crowd and it just turned out to be a great big house party.

Didn't hang out too long after, have to get up in the morning to grab the gear and head to Montreal, and apparently the weather is disastrous... I'm starting to remember how amazing it is to tour Canada in the winter...

Hidden Cameras Day 1, Ottawa, ON

It always feels good to get the first day out of the way. I haven't worked with this band before, have only listened to the tunes for about a week now and didn't know much about the show. Fortunately, everything went fairly well, but it could have been a bit smoother.

One of the problems was that the band was coming in from Toronto and they got caught in some nasty weather on the 401. They made it in one piece, but by the time everything was set to go, we only had 20 minutes for a soundcheck. Everything pretty much worked on the first try, so we didn't really have to waste any time.

I was already in Ottawa, so I didn't have to deal with the weather, but I somehow managed to pop off a spring holding a wiper in place on my car while cleaning ice of the windshield. I couldn't fix it on my own, so on my way in, I stopped at Belanger Pontiac Buick who, in their attempt to re-attach the spring on the otherwise great condition wiper, broke the wiper arm permanently. In front of me. And then the prick tried to charge me for a new one!! His logic was that since it was broken it had to be fixed. No shit. Thanks for pointing that out. I hate going to dealerships for repairs and this is why. I don't know, I figured they broke it, they should fix it for free... So before I exploded I just turned around, got in the car and left, guaranteed never to return... So I called the amazing people at McConville's Garage and they took care of me right away no questions asked. I highly recommend them for all your auto needs.

Anyways. The show was at Barrymore's tonight, which helped me out (I worked there for 5 years back in the day), so I enjoyed the comfort factor. The club was pretty full and the show went well, which is always good for a first night with new people.

So, all irrelevant drama aside, it ended up being a good day and tomorrow we do it all over again in Kingston.