2 nights in a row at La Sala Rossa. I love home.
Last night I sat in with Penny Lang and Ken Whitely, did a little mini set in between these two icons of Canadian folk, got to do some very fun harmonizing and fiddling with Ken, then rolled with the moments through Pennys set with George Koller on bass and Ken on mando and guitar... I played fiddle, mando, sang. We didn't rehearse. It was just listening and responding. Like Jazz said Penny, come on when you feel it. Like a workshop stage at a folk festival she said, just listen and join in when you've got something to do, and if you don't feel it, don't do anything. Felt really amazing. Penny was at the end of a long tour. She's magic even when she's beat.
And now I just got back from seeing Lhasa De Sela backed by a great bunch of musicians who float around the scene here. They had certainly rehearsed. I've seen a couple of them in other contexts, Sarah Pagé on harp and Joe Grass on slidey country things, but it's amazing what a being like Lhasa can do to bring out the magic of music in people. Gosh she's powerful. Creates huge swaths of warm liquid space to dwell in, to contemplate. Grounding. Just what I needed. She was trying out a bunch of new tunes, so it was a very special show.
It's funny, I was talking to George last night about the strangeness of the music business. You know, we live on energy, we channel something good. And then there is struggle to survive, there are egos, and there are formulas that encapsulate something special but within that things are lost. They function, but they stagnate. And there is business to support the demand for the formula. I've learned some things about business in the last several years, coming from this place of naive, but useful I guess, dedication to my practice and my ideals... I've learned how I don't want to run my business, and now I take my hammer and nails and go at building something that works for me within this commitment to the practice of music. But, so George says it's like everybody is a molecule trying to attach itself to more powerful molecules. And yeah. That's how it is. But then I go see Lhasa. And instead of that being a sinister thing based on ego, the idea transforms itself into something beautiful. Lhasa has a purity and a dedication and an uncompromising truth that she so kindly and sweetly shares with us. And holy cow, is that ever powerful in the best possible way. And she gives all these people around her a huge opportunity to create a transformative space together, and they all shine as individuals as they do it.