So today’s post comes from my buddy Joel’s village condo in Whistler. It’s one of the last big summer weekends in terms of the influx of ‘weekend warriors’ coming up from the city. Over 4 000 multicolored cyclists have just arrived in town in a race from Vancouver, so things look pretty packed. I was hoping to perform an ‘apres’ set on a patio at the finish line, but its cold and raining so we booked an indoor gig for tomorrow night instead and have taken the day to chill out and write some music.

Since the silver bullet met her fiery and untimely demise, things have been pretty stressful. We lost most of our gear in the fire. Losses were significant and included the entire rental PA, my carry-on flight bag where I store all my electronics, the Manfrotto tripod and some other camera equipment. The salt in the wound was that we had taken comprehensive insurance assuming that included fire and theft, but in the small-print we were only covered for theft so the deductible was around $5 000…lesson learnt.

In any case, we bounced back pretty quick, we have managed the financials and things are looking up. We only book gigs at venues with decent in-house sound systems now and a friend of Damon’s lent me his Boss RC-50 looping station, so the show can go on, which is the main thing.

Two nights ago I did a gig at a venue called Raw Canvas in Yaletown which is one of the classier areas in Vancouver. The concept of this restaurant is to inspire customers to release their inner artist. They have an art studio in the restaurant. After dinner you can buy a canvas of almost any size. The paint is all free, they give a you smock to wear and they have in-house instructor to give advice to anyone who needs. It’s by far the most interesting venue I’ve performed at in Vancouver, the vibe there is really mellowed out, it’s frequented by trendy open minded folk who have an interest in art and are there to blow off excess steam in a non-conventional way.

A video of the Raw Canvas venue and gig is coming soon, we are just waiting on the audio we recorded directly from the mixer, should sound epic.

Back to the ‘right now’: Joel’s place has a ‘barbecue’ and so we are gonna buy some fat fillet steaks and braai it up for the first time in Canada. Joel fancies himself as a bit of a chef and we have only just agreed on what the marinade will be. We’ll start her up with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, red wine, fresh garlic, diced onion, fresh basil…a little bit of Italian seasoning, paprika, soy sauce and some cracked salt and black pepper…I’m getting excited.