Journal

Wow. A lot is going on. A LOT!!!!!!
Okay, I'm heading to Mission this weekend, I'm so excited to be out there for a bit, back in the flow. I'm full into production on the record, it started last week. It is going to be a luxurious process of discovery and I have 2 fantastic cohorts to ride out the journey with. I'm so pleased to announce that I'm working with Roma Baran and Vivian Stoll. Roma is connected to a wonderful Montreal lineage of acoustic music (Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Penny Lang), but she's probably best known for co-producing a grand bunch of records with Laurie Anderson, including Big Science, of that brilliantly emotive vocoder tune, Oh Superman. So Roma's got the acoustic connection, and the crazy artsy experimental thing down as well. And Vivian is totally solid in the studio, and not only that toured as a drummer in ground breaking rock and punk/new wave bands like Isis and Unknown Gender since the late 70's and throughout the 80's, so she has that whole background set up and ready to go. She has also mastered an insane variety of world music, so her ears are tuned to the multiple frequencies. I like that they respond to my creative whims with a terrific amount of energy and knowledge, plus they have barrels of their own great ideas to shoot right back at me, and of course, studio skill galore. And... AND... second day in the studio we recorded with a brilliant surprise guest and I'll tell you later who it is. ROCK my world.

Bridge
I played my first ever barn show in the first ever barn show at the newly animal free Owl's Barn, hosted by the incredibly talented Band of Owls and their extended crew of wonderful people. When the sixty folks crammed into the hay loft some wondered about structural support, but I figure there'd been a lot of heavy hay up there, so we were good. Paul had built stairs to get up there, Heather hosed the shit out of the lower level and burned a lot of incense, moms and sisters made baked goods, Jen and M-c kept on top of the details, everybody hauled stuff, I got some sweet red mud on my city slicker boots and sat there singin' and feeling the love as the frogs chorused along.

Thanks y'all.

Firecracker, the record I made with the Wailin' Jennys, was nominated for a Juno! AND we lost. But I had fun in SaskatoonSaskatoon, and my awesome buddy Leela Gilday won for best aboriginal, so I got my thrills that way. Patrick Watson kicked it playing the big stadium for the telecast. Hurrah for Montreal artsy's goin' rawk!!

Catcall! Just played such a FUN SHOW at Divan Orange. Abigail Lapell has been on it with the catcall organization for a long time now, and GOSH it was sweet. Jordi Rosen was magical, Marni and Melissa were great, Jeremy Jones was great on the bass, sound was good, food was good, lovely crowd, je suis contente.

I am in a beautiful state of soaking in an incredible flood of culture as I settle at home in Montreal for a sweet time of creation. Nuit Blanche this past weekend was just incredible – an all night event of massive cultural proportions. Where else in the world can you sit in a transformed cathedral at 4 in the morning listening to contemporary pipe organ music whilst people draw murals and a rigged challice oozing frankincense dances in figure eights before your eyes?

The Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis was wonderful, and some beautiful connections were made. I'll let you know as they solidify. It was surreal... I walked into the awards ceremony after getting off the plane and fixing myself up a bit... and Firecracker was announced as the winner of the best contemporary folk album of the year. I nearly fainted! You know when your ears start buzzing and everything goes white? I had this spastic moment of "should I go up there?" but Ellen and Eric from Redhouse Records did a fine job accepting the award. We celebrated afterwards at a downtown barbecue joint.

Bilbao, beautiful Bilbao...Essa proxima cancion...

Sunday night we played the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall with such an incredible line-up of people coming together in musical collaboration. It was the Transatlantic session for the closing night of the Celtic Connections festival... it was us as the Jennys, all on stage with Jerry Douglas, Aly Bain, Donald Shaw, Phil Cunningham, Russ Barenberg, Bruce Molsky, Karen Matheson etc... We ended the show with an absolutely crazy rendition of The Devils Paintbrush Road, complete with a madly paced fiddle tune flowing out of Nicky's harmonica solo, and Jerry Douglas's wild and roaring hot licks throughout, bringing it all home. What a ridiculous honour. Aaah the crowd, the excited crowd. Then we went out to sing an encore with Roseanne Cash -- 40 shades of green... we were sharing a dressing room with her, all smelling of roses. Got a good, deep look into those Cash legacy eyes of hers as we were running through the chorus together at the break. Split seconds shared. I do feel touched. 2500 people packed in to witness us all connect. I had tears in my eyes on every second song. The Champagne flowed when we got off the stage.

This is a good way to move on. Thank you everyone, thank you universe. Ready for the next steps on this sweet wild road.