Bill's dubious's Open Salon Blog

Lanark County Concert Planner

Wed, 2 Feb 2011 10:02:16 -0500

A listing of upcoming concerts in Lanark County Ontario.

Canucks in New York (State): Watkins Glen Festival, 1973

Mon, 5 Jul 2010 20:07:22 -0400

Last year I started writing a memoir. In response to Scarlett's open call for Canucks In New York, here's an excerpt.

It was getting near the end of July, and I had a ticket for the big event of the summer of ’73: the Watkins Glen Summer Jam. Everywhere I’d been since school ended, the question everyone asked was “Are you going to Watkins Glen?” It was going to be the biggest thing ever (shorter than Woodstock but in fact, many more people attended), a one-day show featuring my three enduring favourite bands: The Grateful Dead, The Band and The Allman Brothers Band. I was a big Allmans fan and was just warming up to the other two.

I’d made a road friend earlier in the summer, a guy named Al whom I met in Montreal, then brought back to our house in Ottawa for a few days. Before he continued on his travels, which were also pointed towards this Holy Grail of 1973 scenes-to-make, Al suggested a rendezvous plan: we’d meet by the stage at sundown. This was a brilliantly simple, easily remembered notion, and it would work great at Blue Skies, or even the Winnipeg Folk Festival. But I never saw Al again, because although I did get to Watkins Glen and probably he did too, so did 600,000 other kids. I never got closer than, let’s say, 200 yards from the stage. That was one jam-packed field. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I guess I had the essentials for summer travel: a brown backpack with a comfortable internal frame, sleeping bag, poncho, and a bit of money. Watkins Glen is a speedway at the other end of New York State from Buffalo, so it took some time to get there. (Turns out if I had gone a day earlier, I would have taken in double the music; Wikipedia informs us that soundchecks turned into bonus concert sets for those who had arrived in time). Around dusk I hadn’t travelled very far, but then got lucky enough to get picked up by a friendly couple who were going to the very same show—not too surprising really. The guy asked me to spring for a tank of gas in exchange for the ride; it was a fair enough deal although it seemed like a lot of money at the time—about six bucks as I recall. Maybe eight. Pricey stuff. Wish I could get some of that expensive gas now.

I had one of these, but it turned out I didn't need it:

It was probably midnight when we arrived at the closest available parking spot to the festival site. It must have been a three-mile walk to the site, but I didn’t know that. Inexplicably, there was never a movie or a live album made of the Watkins Glen fest, so to picture the scene, you’ll have to review the “Woodstock” movie. Remember the interviews with uptight locals who were aghast at the hordes of unkempt strangers tramping through their formerly-bucolic neighbourhoods? It was that, and when we stopped at a store—Watkins Glen isn’t all that far from Woodstock, in fact--the comments locals made started to give me the idea that this wasn’t going to be a leisurely picnic. There were rumours spreading that the hippie vagabonds were killing and eating local livestock. This could get serious. I’d better plan to keep my wits about me, make sure I had food, water, and weather protection, and keep both hands on my gear. Well, that’s what I should have been thinking, but instead I did almost the dumbest thing imaginable (eating six hits of acid right about then would have been dumber, and no doubt attainable).

When we parked the car, I agreed with the folks who drove me, since we’d become friends of a sort, that I would hang with them. Since we were right there at the festival parking lot, I left my pack in their car while we went looking for a good spot to take in the show. After all, I didn’t want to be lugging that pack around all weekend, and could come get my stuff anytime…that was thirty-six years ago and I’ve done stupid things since then, but that was a personal high-water mark in pure naivety. We walked through the night, several miles, I soon lost my new friends in the streaming crowd, and I never saw them or my backpack again. Nor, of course, could I locate their car later. In the subsequent few years when hitchhiking was my main mode of transportation, I developed rules of thumb, and the first one was “hang onto your stuff at gargantuan rock festivals and also at all other times, DO NOT leave it in a stranger’s trunk.” In fact, when slightly older and wiser, I tried not to put my stuff in a trunk at all. If I had to, I memorized the licence plate number at the same time.

Daylight broke on an incredible mass of humanity inhabiting a huge rolling field. I don’t recall being uncomfortable or cold, I guess I must have at least kept my sleeping bag or poncho. Far in the distance I could see a little toy stage populated by tiny little dots…but there was pretty good sound, considering. (Wikipedia advises that this was due to the foresight of famed concert promoter Bill Graham, who had realized that there would be a huge crowd and made sure multiple speaker towers were dispersed enough through the area so that everyone could hear, if not see—this probably prevented mass crushing of spectators crowding the stage area.) This was before the days of giant-screen TV projectors, which would have been highly useful technology. The emcees advised us that because we were so numerous and crowded, we should not expect to find our friends. They wouldn’t make any announcements except for missing children and missing medication, or Summer Jam would have turned into Talk Radio—all friends looking for each other, all the time. “Stay where you are and make new friends”, they sensibly suggested, so I did. Around noon the tiny dots onstage became the Grateful Dead, who I had never seen before. They did lovely renditions of “Box of Rain”—still one of my favourites---“Brown-Eyed Women”, “Sugar Magnolia”, and a whole lot more, because they actually played for close to five hours including a break. I was busy making new if temporary friends, and had the good fortune to be next to a guy who handed me cold beer out of his cooler. In order to reciprocate, I bought a bag of weed and started rolling. I remember incredibly long lines for the portajohns, and I don’t have any recollection of what there was to eat.

Meanwhile, The Band took over the stage; they only played about three hours (Wikipedia says two, but what do they know?) but no band would ever want to match the Dead for marathon concerts. I hadn’t heard them that much, which seems strange now, and I dug their sound a lot. For years I thought it was them rather than the Dead who had played “Brown-Eyed Women”, and searched their albums for that tune in vain. Unlike the other two bands, The Band still had their original lineup: Helm, Robertson, Danko, Hudson and Manuel. The other two bands had already lost members to the fast lane: the Allmans had lost Duane Allman, my favourite guitarist of all time, and Berry Oakley in motorcycle accidents in ’71 and ’72 respectively, while Ron “Pigpen” McKernan had drunk himself to death in ‘72 at the age of 27, which made him the first on the list of the dead Deads. Subsequent decades would prove that the most dangerous gig in rock-n-roll was to play keyboards for the Dead, who killed off three of them over a twenty-year span, starting with McKernan. A few years later, Keith Godchaux, who was their piano player at Watkins Glen, had a fatal car accident shortly after leaving the band, and in the early 90’s his replacement Brent Mydland OD’ed on heroin. But it took the 1995 loss of brilliant but addicted guitarist Jerry Garcia to end the storied career of the Grateful Dead (some survivors still play together, officially called just The Dead now).

All these years later, the Allman Brothers are still touring under the same name, with a vastly different lineup that still includes Dicky Betts, Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks. The Band broke up, not just because of the deaths of Richard Manuel and later Rick Danko, but largely due to enmity between Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm. In 1984, I saw The Band and the Grateful Dead on a double bill once again, at Canada’s Wonderland. It was the last time I saw either band. But again I digress.

I had made this epic journey to see the Allman Brothers Band for the first time, and finally in late dusk they started their show. They opened with “Statesboro Blues” with its slashing slide guitar part, played by Betts, I believe. (Since the late 70’s they have continued to tour with two lead guitarists, as in their original lineup, but after their main man Duane had died, they decided to add piano player Chuck Leavell rather than a new guitarist who would be seen as trying to imitate the incomparable Duane.) Then “Done Somebody Wrong”. And “Jessica”, buoyed by Leavell’s sparkling piano work. Then I fell asleep.

Well, I’d been up all night hiking in, and then partying all day. My family will attest nowadays that it is unremarkable for me to hit the hay at 8 p.m, but it wasn’t really the plan in 1973. I had come all this way, endured hardships and made bad decisions in order to take in three songs from what was left of the Allman Brothers. (To be fair, with Chuck Leavell on piano they still had their mojo working—much better than the weak lineup I saw in 79 in Syracuse.)

I woke up just a moment later, as it seemed. Actually it was 3:30 a.m, and members of all three bands were just wrapping up an hour-long jam with “Johnny B. Goode”. Maybe it was raining, or maybe it had been raining when I fell asleep. Then Bill Graham took the mike and told us it was all over and good night. I was shaking my head and asking, “What happened? It can’t be over, they just started.”

The crowd was a little thinner but still huge. The lineups for the portajohns were much reduced though, although some were being toppled over and set on fire by less respectable but practical festival patrons who felt the need to generate some warmth. How do you set a portajohn on fire? They’re made of plastic. I guess they weren’t back then. Or maybe, despite the clarity of my recollection (as you can see), they were burning picnic tables and snow fences. And perhaps wooden portajohns. Ah yes, grasshopper. Plywood burns.

Getting home was another adventure, and a darker one, but that's another tale.

Early Mornin Rain, Part 2

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:03:06 -0400

(Cont'd from previous post)

After my first delivery, it's a whole new part of the day as I swoop around the north side of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), disposing of my cargo piece by piece. Almost every stop is another health food store, but they are all different. Some are small hole-in-the-wall places, some are brand-new corporate superstores, but don't be deceived--a small dingy-looking place may be a major outlet, while a lot of the big stores are just limping through the recession.

On this northern portion, an old, established but slightly worn-looking place takes six or seven boxes of our product every week, and sells it all. Meanwhile, a new superstore a short distance away is struggling with one box. This second store is part of a chain that recently undertook a major expansion around Canada, but unfortunately for them they did it just as the recession got underway. I believe their game plan was to position themselves ahead of Whole Foods, by using a lot of the same image-and-branding techniques, while WF's expansion has been temporarily stalled. You know the type: roomy, well lit stores in expensive locations, high-end products, lots of fancy signage everywhere. I'm not a fan of Whole Foods; when we sold to them it was a waste of time, money and product, since they insisted on sending back returns, and the volume was not impressive. I went to one downtown WF location for a year or two, then we fired them--it just wasn't working out. It wasn't us, WF, it was you.

Returns. Now there's a touchy subject. It's common in the bakery biz to entice retailers to carry your product by offering "guaranteed sales"--they can return for full credit any product unsold by the best-before date, which is only a week in the case of our preservative-free bread and pastries. We don't offer guaranteed sales, because having established our brand, it's unnecessary for us. Most places I go, there are our customers hanging around the store waiting to get it while it's fresh--and that's what got them into the store. Besides, guaranteed-sales leads to waste of good bread, because stores will over-order just to fill their shelves if there's no risk involved. Instead, we offer a quality guarantee, meaning that we will credit any bread that spoils before the due date, (MBDD=Mouldy Before Due Date in LittleStreamSpeak) or shows other quality issues: torn packaging, broken loaves, customer returns, etc.

I can often tell that a store is in trouble, because they will start trying to hustle inappropriate returns in order to save five bucks on their order. If they have two loaves with mould spots, they will throw in a couple more that are fine and want credit for all four. I have found that I have to draw the line on credit for invisible mould--seriously, this happens over and over--people pointing at a perfectly fine loaf claiming that it's mouldy. I don't enjoy saying "sorry", but most of them take it OK. "You can't blame a girl for trying," one woman remarked philosophically to me. The deli manager at the particular store that launched this tangent is the other kind, she gets agitated at me when I explain that the mould has to be visible today, not tomorrow. Nor can they get credit by putting it aside for a few weeks and then showing me that it's mouldy--that's why there's a best-before date! Oh well. This same chain was foolish enough to launch two big stores only two miles apart just as the recession got underway; no one was surprised when one of them closed its glass doors just before Christmas, while this one is still limping along. I guess their pockets are somewhat less deep than they used to be.

A couple of stores always have genuinely mouldy returns; I seriously believe at least one place hot-boxes the unsold bread for a day or two before I come, to ensure they will get credit. At least they play the game and don't scream at me like little babies to get their way. I hate that.

After my north-end stops along the 407 corridor (urban sprawl R us), it's down the 427 and onto the Gardiner, then I enter Toronto proper in the famous Polish-Canadian Roncesvalles Avenue neighbourhood. Lots of small stores in that area, doing steady business. My favourite is the least convenient to get to, a mile east on Dundas into the heart of Parkdale. Cathy the owner always greets me by name--that is relatively rare even at places I've been going to every week for six years--pays cash and doesn't hustle returns. A pleasant, hassle-free stop. Sometimes my employer asks me if it's worth the extra distance on my route, and I tell him yes, cause it's a good account that is growing nicely. See, it pays to be nice to your delivery guy, and not try to show him invisible mould.

After that, I ping-pong back west to Bloor West Village. This is a tricky one--the store is about ten feet wide and sixty deep, and I have to work my way into the front door and deposit three boxes on the cash counter, at the same time that they're serving customers. I feel like I'm getting in the way (because I am) but this is how they want it delivered. It's another small-store with big turnover, so it's worth the hassle. They double-count the cash payout and I am on my way, nodding to the street guy who is making up songs with tambourine accompaniment. He's not bad in a way; I'd tip him but my hands are full.

Up to The Junction, and the next few stores are a little easier to navigate, as I head into the heart of downtown residential Toronto, the leafy green Annex neighbourhood. There are four different stores just in the Annex--my boss doesn't believe in exclusive territories--and they are all different. Fiesta Farms is an independent supermarket with a great deli and organic selection; Karma, an actual 70's-style hippie food coop in a back alley--I actually rememer going there in the 70's (the staff there is now unionized!), one location of the local chain Noah's Natural Foods, and a small but bright, recently changed-hands and renoed spot on Bloor Street. I often see the former owner of the latter store around town; she now works for another distributor, and looks really happy not to be trying to keep up with the crushing overhead of a downtown Bloor Street location, one which has always had trouble keeping their account up to date.

Here's a bit of video from my tour of The Annex, from the fierce winter two years ago. This is the block where Jane Jacobs, the urban planning visionary who helped save the neighbourhood from destruction-by-expressway in the 70's, lived until her 2005 death. In her last book she complained about delivery drivers using her street as a shortcut so we don't have to wait for the lights at Bloor and Bathurst. Spot on, Jane. But we drive slowly due to the traffic-calming measures you fought for. In fact, a lot of the things that make The Annex a great neighbourhood are attributed to Jane Jacobs and the community groups that stopped the Spadina Expressway. They kept the area as low-rise, medium-density housing, with a diverse population, exceedingly pedestrian-friendly, all within easy walking distance of the Bloor Street commercial district, and with all those beautiful old trees everywhere.

(Yes, I know driving and videoing is a bad idea. It's illegal now so I don't do it much anymore.)

As my Star-of-David tour of Toronto continues, I enter the free-for-all 0f Kensington Market, where another small store does big business, enough that it's worth it to navigate this famous vehicular nightmare of a funky-chic market. Then it's farther east past Queens Park to the gay village (I think), a hop over the Danforth Viaduct to the Big Carrot, our largest retail outlet anywhere. They sell about twelve boxes of our bread per week. Amazing business success of a worker-owned co-op (one that's acting a little more corporate every year; thats the way the world goes).

After the Carrot, I cut back across the Don Valley via Pottery Road (a charming 19th century pothole sanctuary) and make my way to my last two stops, farther north on Yonge in the early rush-hour traffic that three o'clock brings. After my final drop, at yet another Noah's (my fourth of the day), my mission is to get the hell outta Dodge ahead of the traffic crush. No passengers today; other weeks I enjoy the company of various of my friends' kids, kids' friends, and sometimes my own kids as they catch a free ride to or from Toronto in the shotgun seat. Helps keeps me in touch with the younger generation who have left Lanark County for school or to seek their fortune in the Big Smoke. They keep me awake on the dreary return drive, and can help me load if there's a grain pickup for the bakery enroute.

After the traffic bottlenect on 401 east around Salem, I am clear of the city by 4:30, another three and a half hours and I'll be rolling home. Another fourteen-hour day done, twenty stores, 30-odd boxes of bread, and about four thousand dollars of business done. Sure enough, my employer calls me and instructs me to do a bank deposit, this business runs on cashflow. I'm not complaining.

That's a slice of the life of this delivery guy.

Early Mornin Rain: aka The Story Of My Life

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:03:32 -0400

4:23 a.m. the familiar sound of Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Mornin Rain" wakes me from a restless sleep on the living room couch. Couldn't have come up with a better alarm, since it is backed by actual rain noise from outside. The forecast was for freezing rain, and since I have to head out before the road crew will ever be here, I am relieved that it sounds like regular rain, which a brief outdoor reconnaissance confirms--it's still a couple of degrees above zero Fahrenheit.

It's Tuesday morning, so I am headed to Toronto with a van-load of organic sourdough bread. Two days a week, this is my life. I shower, make a thermos of tea and three kaiser sandwiches--kaisers are the easiest sandwich type to eat one-handed while driving, they don't fall apart--and check my e-mail and the Toronto weather forecast. Last night the forecast was dire enough that I parked my car down the hill beside the highway, but I needn't have bothered. About 6:15, with a bit of tea and toast in me, I arrive at the bakery, and a few seconds later Diane the office manager pulls in. "Was that the longest fuckin train ever?" I ask her rhetorically. Seems there's always a big train crossing Glen Tay Sideroad when I approach the lights at Highway 7, but this one went on forever. What can you do?

As Diane prepares the invoices, I load the van, about 30 banana boxes full of bread and treats, some of them damn heavy.

The Van is a 2003 Chev Express, essentially an airport-limo-style stretch van converted to cargo purposes, and to dual-fuel so it runs on natural gas when it feels like it. This vehicle has 590,000 kilometers on it, but at the moment is running like a top due to endless rounds of expensive maintenance.

A few minutes before 7 am, I collect the invoices, pick a treat from the retail table for my breakfast, and roll out onto Highway 7 West.

As I turn onto the highway, I pass the Ministry of Transport weigh station. Over thirty years ago, I had an ancient-then stepvan, a former bakery van, which bounced and screeched its last few yards under its own power into that very weigh station--after we had overheated and destroyed the dried-out differential (turns out they need fluid in them! and if it leaks out you must put more in). This was long before I lived in this area, when I was a suburban Ottawa teenager. After working all summer to fix it up, we got that van out of Ottawa but sure didn't make it to North Carolina. That's another story...(that's me in the patched pants, shirtless Dave died a couple of years ago, the others I haven't seen in decades)...as a van it made quite a good object to lean on....

but it's pretty ironic that a quarter-century later I ended up driving a bakery van for a living, spittin-distance from the very same spot.

Highway 7 West. I spend my life on this road. It is still raining but not freezing. I set the cruise control to 100 km/hr (can't afford any more tickets) and relax with a classic CD of Ian & Sylvia singing, "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon". They set the bar for a vocal duo and no one has improved on it since the 60's. You can quote me on that.

Highway 7 gets more desolate in the first hour out, as I pass Sharbot Lake, Arden, and the Kingdom of Kaladar.

Kaladar is an odd little highway junction consisting of one gas-station-store-restaurant, a small Ford truck dealership, on Ontario Provincial Police Station, and about ten other business premises, most of which are semi-deserted and have been repurposed, for residence or storage. One of them used to be the famous "hubcap ranch", a fabulous collection of old wheel-protectors and tail-light units, but only a few remain. Urban cleanup I guess. Kaladar would be a total ghost town except for its still somewhat strategic location at the corner of Hwy 41--a cottage and-park-country gateway--and 7. Highway 7 has a long tradition of failed businesses in the desolate eighty-mile stretch between Perth and Marmora--this is just the largest concentration of them. Once I actually tried to order a coffee at the now-closed Kaladar Hotel (you see it on the corner on the right), the lady was so startled to have customers she didn't know what to do. "I suppose I could make some," she offered.

If the road didn't freeze, and the rain didn't turn to snow, on this deserted stretch, that's a good sign. This area is a geological oddity known as the Frontenac Arch. It's the southernmost section of the the Canadian Shield--the granite formation that covers half the country--and is the ecological land bridge between Algonquin Park and the Adirondacks.

Rolling west, every little town has its peculiar character. Madoc was named after Prince Madoc, simply because someone was charmed by the legend of the 11th century Welsh Prince who supposedly left his wartorn country with a small fleet of ships and landed in the Mississippi Delta--look him up, you know how. Next is Marmora, where the Virgin Mary is said to appear now and then, then the railway town of Havelock. I have a grudge against Havelock, ironically enough it is responsible for destroying Ian Tyson's singing voice, which he has kept in great form since the long-ago Ian and Sylvia days! You see, they have a big ol' country music festival in this field just outside Havelock every year. Real country billboard too.

About three years ago, Tyson was singing there (why not, his life on the Alberta range has left him in better shape than any 72-year-old musician in the world!), didn't like the way they had his voice EQ'd, and strained his vocal cords trying to compensate. A few days later he caught a throat infection and the damage became permanent. Now he sounds like his age, with a lot of gravel that wasn't there before (that's not why the ;atest album is called "Songs From the Gravel Road" but still...) Damn you Havelock Jamboree!

I can't really hate Havelock though, because it has all these cool old railroad artifacts; they're trying to make the sidings a railroad museum For example, THIS is a snowplow:

Last town is Norwood. It was featured on the Rick Mercer show when he did a piece about odd small-town festivals--they park a car out on the pond ice and take bets about what date it will fall through (they used a Yugo so no harm done). I saw it parked there, but sorry, no pics. Exciting place, Norwood.

I'm waking up now, daylight arrives, and after a natural-gas fuel stop outside of Peterborough, we are speeding up on divided 35/115 down to the 401..Past the Darlington Nuclear Station, Oshawa, and Whitby, to my first delivery stop in Ajax.

I have an uneasy but cordial relationship with this store these days. Awhile back they banned me from using their washroom "unless you sit down"--I am not making this up. Well, men are from Mars, so screw that. I haven't used their washroom since, although they are my first official stop. After I dress in the dark and drive four hours, while drinking a whole thermos of tea or coffeee, I guess I am a bit of a troubling sight in the stark 10 a.m. light of suburban Toronto, and one that sure needs to pee. Whatever. I'm too proud to beg, or sit down. Now that we have a detente, the lady there acts like she never said that. They empty the box, check through their order and make out a cheque--I recover the empty box (boxes are expensive) and cheque and I'm on my way through the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).

To be continued.

Just another St Patrick's Day; only one gig

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:03:38 -0400

I'm just trying to get myself motivated to get ready for our pub gig this evening. My little Celtic band, The Skirmish, is always working on St Patrick's Day, but in recent years, the number and lucrativeness of gigs has declined. That's partly recession and general decline in pub culture talking, but largely it's a function of St Pat's Day cycling through the weekdays, advancing one day each year. Last year Tuesday. The year before, Monday. The Monday was better for us, at least we had two well-paid gigs at high-status Ottawa pubs. Last year, the Tuesday, we were down to one show in a little joint in Carleton Place. That was the nadir, I'd think, except that now it's a Wednesday, and we have another last-minute, small-town-small-room booking paying notably less than last year. (How much less? Trade secret. But we're making about a quarter of what we did from the two shows on the Monday two years ago.)

I started The Skirmish in 2006 with my friends Gary and Linda, with the intention of having a band that was employable rather than artistic. It's gone OK, and we settled on a permanent four-piece lineup a year later when Victor brought his fiddle into the mix. There are a lot of conceptions of what "Celtic" music is, a spectrum between "ethereal" (Enya) and "Raunchy" (The Pogues). We're somewheres in between, I prefer uptempo and rollicking--i.e. suitable for drinking audiences--to "achingly beautiful", cause a bit of that goes a long way.

Here's a clip of us in rehearsal playing "Fogarty's Cove"--can't go wrong with Stan Rogers, I always say.

I have a million things to do--gotta drag a few instruments out, and a lot of cables and microphones and stuff, and make sure I have it all, and in a perfect world I'd put some new strings on. Actually in a genuinely perfect world, I would have restrung all my instruments three days ago and not have to worry about them going out of tune as they are breaking in. But frankly, I have gotten exceedingly lazy about changing strings in my dotage, I pretty much change them when they break. Eventually, that is, after I have broken strings on all my spare instruments (not an inexhaustible collection). So my final offer is that I'll make sure I have extra strings for every instrument.

Later this afternoon I'm going to go pick up a new condenser mike--all the cool kids use them now but I've never had one--then it's off to Almonte to set everything up. After that, all we have to do is play. Oh, right, I have to finish editing the setlists. Details, details.

One thing I won't be doing tonight, much, is drinking. I pretty much give myself a two-beer limit on gig nights, maybe a third after the show if not driving. Start and end with ginger ale. Tonight I'm driving. It's a myth about Celtic musicians needing enormous quantities of libations to do their thing--it's quite the opposite, actually, although I would except the Pogues and their imitators from this. But generally, we have to keep our shit together and are too busy trying to play competently and safeguard a bunch of expensive instruments and sound equipment from those who are enjoying the full St Patrick's Day drunken staggers and jags...and there's always one who wants to mishandle a microphone and do his best Shane McGowan impersonation...this evening will eventually be fun, but honestly, I'll be glad when it's done, too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer that "playing music for a living is not a hard life. It's just weird. Coal mining is hard." Nuff said. Time I got to work on that setlist.