Journal

Oh my GOD, the Thundering Women Festival in Thunder Bay was fun. And mind blowing and rock my soul with that healing drum. Travelling via lake superior with the Barley Wik tour was encroyable. I love you all. Jen Metcalfe, artistic co-ordinate me any time baby! Best jams since Cleaveland on the way back from Nashville.

Hey, I'm charting numero uno on village 900 in Victoria, and how cool is it that I am going to play there at the end of the month! Many a syncronicity in this wild summer time.

Here's something I wrote about
my trip to Slovakia on tour with Anna Friz.

AbC

Yay spring! What's happening? I've been working on another lunatic soundscore for the New York coreographer Aviva Geismar, which premiere's at the West End Theatre in the big apple May 20 to 23. Making music for Aviva put into practice some of the eastern European influences that have been churning around since the Prayer Machine tour. There's a new direction happening in my solo stuff which I got to play around with vox/guitar/sampling-pedal style on Friday at the new Kick series being presented at the Mange Mes Pieds space here in Montreal. The new stuff seems to include some pretty experimental noise making along with some very cathartic singing. It's nice to sing loud once in a while. I'm looking forward to some fun shows coming up in Ottawa and Wakefield and Thunder Bay, and locally at Casa Del Popolo on June 2nd with Rae Spoon. In the meantime I'm highly distracted and in love with my garden, which is about a 24 by 24 space which I'm trying to turn into a magical haven as well as a source of food. I'm starting to feel vigerous from lugging rocks and turning soil, and the tulips are so lovely right now.

An article I wrote for Ascent Magazine is just coming out. It's all about our Prayer Machine tour as it meandered through the homeland, and some intense stuff that was going on at the same time. I'm glad to have finally discovered this magazine via writing for it. It's a beautiful quarterly, engaged, up to date, tuned in with real issues and good vibes alike. The staff I worked with were great.

Hellooo! I'm back!

Holy Cow, what a great trip it was. Yurrip rocks man. Anna was great to travel with. Among other things, her German skills came in way handy. And I can barely express to you how surreal and wonderful it was to see a glimpse of Slovakia, the land of my paternal heritage. We were in Prague for a few days and then went on to Slovakia for our last show. Both those places were extremely magical. So many great connections made, symbols witnessed... And so great to have everybody's prayers with us. You all left such an incredible diversity of stuff -- athiest prayers, agnostic prayers, prayers to the divine mother, buddhist and hindu mantras, blessings galore, and so much peace and compassion. It brought me higher, swept me right along, gave me some serious tools that came in handy during some hard times. And people really appreciated it. Anna and I are looking forward to doing some North American shows and are working on a recording to put out.

And tonight I'm at CatCall, back in the Plateau Pleasure Palacel, Pharmacie Esperanza, (corner St Viateur and St. Laurent) and I made up a new song and sang it pretty rough but for the first time in public just now on Venus at CKUT, so if ya wanna download a wee bootleg, Abigail of Catcall pointed out that this was possible, and she'd be doing it, so why not you? Sexy new song! Venus archives @ CKUT. We were on around 1 pm, and the show started noon.

Catch ya soon!

It's so cold my eyelashes were sticking together as I walked home.

In the exciting news, Anna Friz and I are in creation mode for our Automated Prayer Machine. We're going to perform it at media arts festivals Digitales in Brussels and Club Transmediale in Berlin, and at Kunstradio in Vienna, and we're also performing in Bratislava (Yipeee I get to see the homeland), and hopefully lots of other places as well. If you're interested in participating, please send us prayers. Any type. We will broadcast them in our soundscaping spinning way, an audio visual prayer wheel. You can call the Automated Prayer Machine Hotline to leave your prayers at (514) 270-3489, or email us something -- annabelle@it.ca.

Ahlalalalalala.... 'tis the season for side projects! Tomorrow night Lake of Stew of harmonious bluegrass bliss is playing with Petunia at the all new Aux Vivres, 4631 St. Laurent. The next night is pure pop rock joy at the Casa (4873 St. Laurent) with the LONG time coming CD release of Shine Like Stars coming out on Robosapien Recordings. I'll be doowopping in the back with Mike Moly and Brad Holy (of Holy Moly), and boogeying all night, cause this music's for shakin'. On Sunday the 21st I may drop in with my fiddle at the Casa because Amadou, Senegalese drummer extraordinaire invited me up for a jam. The following Sunday it's Jordi Rosen at the Casa, and of course I'll be backing the indie pop accordion queen of Montreal with ma geetar, and also Lake of Stew is opening up

And Not only that, there's another big ass side project in the works. Anna Friz and I are renewing our wacky electro/radio/video/musico duo and taking on the road to EUROPE in January. We're going with a crew curated by Studio XX, and we'll be performing in Berlin, and Brussels at two new media festivals, and Vienna with Kunstradio. Yippeee!!!!!!

On top of all this, formal welcome to Dave Cool, who has joined forces here at Massive Quantities of Good Vibes to help bring the world more of Moi, and to pick up on the flow of fabulous indy songwriters who exist in the spheres that I circulate through. We share a common goal of spreading the joy, so hopefully this collaboration will provide some jump off points for his own project, Stand Alone Records, which is evolving as a resource for indie musicians everywhere. We are re-creating the music industry with every grass-roots step we take.

Heya everybody. I just had the best mini tour with Mr. Rae Spoon and crew, vanning around the gorgeous west. Salt Spring we got off the ferry and into town and saw the biggest rainbow ever, so bright, full arc across the sky, echoing in triplets of colour. Rae said "That's the gayest thing I ever saw." Indeed it seemed a good omen. The show at Anise was lovely, and you gotta love the Inn concept. Play show, go upstairs and crawl in the sack, and a four star sack it was. Actually before hitting the sack Rae and I checked out the competition that evening -- hippy dance band from heaven, Wasabi Effect was playing down the road. Wack. Now there's a west coast experience if ever I had one. There was even a crystal alter in front of the stage. Not a bad idea mind you, though I usually discreetly keep my crystals in my pocket. I am a closet flake. Anyway, I like the west coast. Victoria was great too. You know, I never see people in Montreal dancing to folk music, except when it's foot tapping Québéc traditional music, which I got a good dose of this weekend at the Folk Alliance meeting here in town. Me and my posse of borderline hillbillies had a grand old time putting on a querrilla showcase in the hotel Whyndam. Rick made stew in honour of the Lake of Stew, though I shoulda stayed away from the whiskey too. Talk about headache. Jordi Rosen also joined in, as well as the Special Interest Group and Dante's Flaming Uterus. It was a party. Next up, back in town, December 13th at club ONE.

Hi everybody. New songs are stewing. Great weekend coming up. Tomorrow is Toronto with Strange sisters, I get to dress up and be suave in drag with the Damsels in Dress, then I zip back to hang out with the Sirens at Esperanza.

Here's a nice quote on the kind of Anarchy I relate to:

Enlightened Anarchy
"Political power, in my opinion, can not be our ultimate aim. It is one of
the means used by men for their all-around advancement. The power to
control national life through national representatives is called political
power. Representatives will become unnecessary if the national life
becomes so perfect and self-controlled. It will then be a state of
enlightened anarchy in which each person will become his own ruler. He
will conduct himself in such a way that his behavior will not hamper the
well-being of his neighbors. In an ideal State there will be no political
institution and therefore no political power. That is why Thoreau has said
in his classic statement that that government is the best which governs
the least." (January 1939) Gandhi

Woops. Summer. OVER! Splat. Highlights -- Doing a benefit for artefact and alterhéroes on July 30, and sharing the bill with none other than the fabulosso Veda Hille, uncompromising artist if ever I met one. So good. Also performing were Norman Nawrocki and the Lesbians on Ecstasy. Fun Fun. If yer a bent girl in Montreal, check out a fabulous new site. On the Water front, the mighty Barbara Lewis pointed out this great site -- water info chock full of first person accounts of water crisis, lots of facts and interactive ways of looking at stats.

And LOOKOUT! I am finally getting some Local distribution happening! And not only that, I'm playing a show for Pop Montreal at L'Alizé, September 26th, so come on out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, if you're in Halifax, I'm coming for Ladyfest, playing October 4th in Hell, and likely doing some kind of skill sharing workshop T.B.A.