Kaslo and Nelson.
I thought it would be eerily nostalgic driving into Nelson, but it wasn’t really. Maybe I’d imagined what it would be like so much that the real deal was no deal. It was pretty cool, but no wave of emotion ran over me.
We were in Nelson almost a week before we played. We managed to get together with some old friends and acquaintances. It was pretty neat to meet up with people. Nobody had changed much in 4 years. I saw some classmates from KSA. I went out for breakfast with an old friend and had a quick catch-up. I ran into another old buddy in the art gallery, just where she belonged. I saw another at the Organic grocery store – The Kootenay Co-op. A couple old classmates came to Anna and Ben’s while we were there. Pretty neat to see everyone. I wish I had had more time to hang out with these people. I missed a friend, Julie, who I wanted to see. Our timing didn’t work out at all. But hopefully I’ll see her soon. And Davis, I couldn’t get a hold of Davis at all.
We stayed with Anna (Oli’s sister) and her partner Ben. They gave us a room and let us live in their house for a week as if we were paying rent. It was really nice to have a home base for a little while. Anna cooked some awesome meals while we were there. She also organized a games night and an evening of bowling. I’m an awful bowler. They were wonderfully hospitable.
A few days in I started to remember why I was pretty antsy to get out of Nelson by the end of my last life there. It’s such a drop-out culture. Many people are there for the lifestyle, which is, smoking a lot of pot, partying, snowboarding/skiing, hanging out at the coffee shop, and working some lame job just enough to keep one’s head above water. I noticed that some of the people I knew before had changed very little, except they were more perma-fried. One guy who was in my metal class at KSA (two year program) forgot my name, and forgot that I was in his class. There were only 6 people in our class, and I’d hung out with him after class quite a few times. He remembered that I went to his school, but he thought I took jewelery. I’m sort of glad he forgot though, because I got very mad at him once (for being a huge slacker and a safety-hazard stoner) and told him that I though he should fail the class… in front of the teacher and a couple other students. Yikes. I was pretty pissed off and stressed out at that time. But anyway, it might be a blessing that he’d fried that memory.
And then, a couple days after that I went to Oso Negro. Oso is the coolest coffee shop in the Kootenays. It’s beautiful, and it pretty much made out of art work. It’s cooler than Starbucks could ever be… but instead of being full of suited business people and city-hipsters, it’s full of hippies. Nelson’s cool community. And as much as I am sometimes seen as a hippy or a flower child, I don’t have anything on these people.
These hippies seem to sit in that coffee shop and try to out hippie each other. They talk about politics and yoga and health food and they seem to want to one-up each other with their knowledge and adoption of this Nelson-culture. Is seems pretentious and scary and I don’t really want to be a part of it. I like the values, but not the competition. I didn’t want to be part of the conversations that were going on. It made me not want to live in Nelson.
But the next day we went out to Kristova, which is about 20 minutes outside of Nelson. I could live there. I would live there and only go into Nelson once a week. That would be pretty sweet. My blacksmithing teacher lives there, and we hung out with him for a bit. He’s a crazy but awesome person. Very easy going and fun.
We played our show in Kaslo, at The Blue Belle Bistro on Friday night, the 22nd. It was a small audience, as usual, but a great venue, with really great food and super-nice staff. The owner, Christa, gave us her house for the night and went and stayed with a friend. We resisted at first, but she said it was really no problem and that she did it all the time. So that was sweet of her. We made $30.00, which we spent on breakfast at the same restaurant in the morning. The breakfast was amazing, and well worth our hard earned cash. We wished the server from the night before had been working that morning, cause she probably would have given us breakfast free. But the server who was there told us a lot about life in Kaslo, which was great.
Nelson’s show was at The Royal. We used to spend a lot of time at The Royal. They were in the process of renovating while we were in Nelson. Painting. The stage has been moved and everything was much nicer. The staff were making an effort to create a classy atmosphere, which was sort of strange, because the Royal we remembered was a pretty big dive. (A dive we liked) The guy who took care of our business was very good to us. I’m pretty sure that he threw in some extra money on top of what we made at the door. Anna and Ben came with a posse. I was pretty nervous playing for a bunch of people that I’d come to know that week, but it only took on drink after the first set to get over the nervousness for the second one.
Kalika, a classmate from KSA was there with her partner Bradley, also a KSA-mate, but from a different year so I didn’t know him well. They invited us over for dinner the next night, which was scrumptious. They’re company and stories made the idea of Nelson as a hometown more likely.
Doug, and old friend of my family was also there, and was happy he caught the show, and excited about the music. I met him and his wife Sally the next morning for a warm beverage and a long conversation.
Kalika and Doug both flattered me with their kind words about the music, so that was really nice.
It was a pretty good experience, but I wouldn’t play there again without a little publicity (which Doug has offered through his radio program, which I was unaware of beforehand) and an opening act. Or I would be the opening act.
Kelowna
Just played the Kelowna gig. The restaurant was very pretty and the food was good. The crowd was lame, other than our lovely friends, Michelle, Destany, Dan and Anna who came out to see us. It was wonderful to re-connect with old friends.
I think we played and sang well… everything was good.
Except the end, when we thought we’d get paid and didn’t. I shouldn’t complain, because this is the first time it’s happened, it it’s my own fault for not clarifying. I was under the impression we were going to get $5.oo a head or a mimimum of $100. As it ended up, we were to get $5 for every person after they made $100 at the door. So we walked away with nothing. We DID get accommodations and a meal, and Oli got a couple drinks, so that’s not bad really… but we thought we were getting some cash.
OH WELL!
Anyway, aside from that… it was pretty standard. Didn’t connect with the venue staff as much as some other shows.
It’s funny, because somewhere like The Mistrel Café is probably a good place to play our kind of music. It’s set up for acoustic roots music. The sound was good, if there were a bigger audience, they would be the right kind of audience. (The handful people there did seem to enjoy the music) The two-hour time slot was really good for us. Nice place, nice atmosphere. …. But I like playing big dark bars. I just like it better… I feel more at home. I like a drinking audience. I don’t think bar crowds appreciate my ballads much, but there’s something easy and right about a bar audience… when there is an audience. I don’t know. I was a little more nervous tonight… I think because of the fanciness. When you get to a restaurant, and the feeling is a little uppity, and the staff is dressed in suits… it feels a little sterile. I feel like I need to be a jazz musician in a fancy tux.
The Bluebelle Bistro was perfect really. The same setup and time slot, without the pretension. Much more casual.
The last few days we spent in Summerland BC with our good friends Dan and Anna and their two kids, Hassin, 2 ½ years and Oona, 6 months. Sooo cute. Sooo busy. I don’t know if I could do it... parenting. Not that they were more of a handful than regular kids. They were good kids, absolutely. But you’ve got to have talent to parent. Holy moly. Talent and generosity, selflessness and flexibility. I have these things, but not enough yet I don’t think. Anyway, it was really fun to hang out with the kids. I like other people’s kids, A LOT! Hassin has learned to speak in sentences, but not to annunciate, so it was pretty funny trying to figure out what he was saying. He kept referring to Oli as “that guy” and “the big guy.” He would forget our names most of the time, and randomly remember sometimes. Oona is a bouncy, happy, pretty quiet baby. She’s adorable, could be in a commercial. The liked to teeth on my fingers… her gums felt really weird. When she cried it was at a low volume and quite bearable.
We wandered around their property and drove around the neighbourhood. Dan and Anna live pretty far out in the country on Dan’s family’s land. They have a nice little apartment on the main floor of a little house. There were lots of broken down trucks and tractors, and work-mobbiles. (Cement mixer, front-end-loader and the such) One of Dan’s relatives collect the junk with plans for a scrap-metal business. Oli and Dan had a lot of fun using the junkyard as a giant percussion setup. (We all had fun doing it, but the drummers has the most fun.)
Dan’s brother is into moto-cross racing… ? I don’t even know what that is really, but we saw the track. When we got there Dan was just getting back from being a moto-cross model. I guess he posed with really fancy gear and a fancy bike and there were a few of those slutty bikini girls there to make the bike look sexier. (Anna just LOVED that) Anyway, not my world. There were also antlers mounted on things and a dear head outside. Anna said that the Gibbs boys had skinned a deer right outside her window. Freaky. And they ate some dear meat for dinner. The word they called it starts with V. All I can think of is vixen. I think it was deer meat. Oli ate it too. He didn’t get sick.
Ahhh, venison. Oli told me.
Anyway. I would love to live close to Dan and Anna, but I don’t think we could live in The Okanagan. I just didn’t feel like it was right for us… at all. I didn’t really see much of a “green shift” happening there. The people were different. Mannerisms, habits, sense of humour, lifestyle, behaviour… it was all different there. I don’t know if I could adapt to it.
I’m sort of hoping we settle on the main land so our BC friends who want to visit us don’t have to pay $150 for ferry rides every time they do. Cause our BC friends are about as wealthy as we are… which means not at all. But the island is pretty inviting right now. Warm weather, lush forests (in winter), peaceful people.
Kelowna is the last of the 9 travelling gigs I booked. I really didn’t feel like the first gig would ever come, and it did, and it passed and now we’ve played the last. It’s pretty crazy. It’s definitely been a learning experience. I know what I’ll look for from now on. We’ll hopefully find more places like The Bluebelle in Kaslo and the house concert in Marathon. I’ll definitely play at The Apollo again because they were such great people and I liked the vibe, but other than that I won’t be going for many 3-hour bar gigs. It’s too much. It turns us into a lame cover duo instead of a singer/songwriter duo.
We do have a show in Vancouver tomorrow night. Oli’s cousin Christine put it together. Her and her husband mark are members/organizers for the United Church in North Vancouver, so Christine organized a benefit concert for the Haiti relief fund. So that’s great. I’ve wanted to help out, but we’re not able to give much money. So now we can give our time and music and it’s easy and fun and it will make a little difference.
Then we’ll be on Denman. Music wise, I want to focus on songwriting, and trying to get a little bit of radio play/publicity. I’ve got to hound the CBC… if anyone want to send them an email and request me… that would help a lot. We’ll play some shows on the island I hope, and perhaps tour up to Northern BC in the summer.
Sometimes I don’t know if I should be doing music. I love writing songs, and I love making good recordings, and I love playing shows when we have an attentive audience. But have I loved touring? Mmmmm…. I don’t think I’d say love. There were a couple shows I loved, and a couple more I really liked. But there were a few where I felt really out of place, and wondered if I might actually suck quite a lot. Maybe people are just too nice to tell me that I suck, you know? I really don’t love asking for money. I especially didn’t love tonight when I asked for money and was turned down… =) ?
I don’t love walking blindly into venues and being nervous about who we’ll have to deal with and weather we will be well received.
It’s been an excellent way to travel though, and we’ve reconnected with so many friends. That has been excellent!
Anyway, I’m also quite sick of my songs. I can’t wait to have some new material.
I’ll have a much better idea of what kind of gigs to book for next time, and venues will probably be more consistently appropriate. And we’ll know the folks that run some of them, so it’ll be much easier walking in.
Looking very forward to seeing Oli’s extended family tomorrow, and getting to Vancouver. The home stretch.
Love you all.
Ashlea.
P.s. I'm soooo not going to reread this to spell/error check. It's late. So, leave a comment if you find anything unbearable.
Photos will come later.
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