Sorry to be away from

October 21, 2003

Sorry to be away from my desk when you called looking for something interesting to read. I’ve been in Sudbury at the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals annual conference. It was a personal challenge for me because I’m not really used to just sitting down at the drop of a hat and commanding attention with a song. The folk world is all about that. All the performers there were so good at just getting up all alone and letting ‘er rip. Simon Kendall was describing his experiences at hotel folk conferences as climbing up around and through a tower of song. Its pretty appropriate. Every hotel room door is open and the invitation step inside the next and jam is unspoken. Often it is loudly spoken. It seemed the “showcases’” were happening from sun up to sun up. People playing on stages in conference rooms, in the lobby, by the bathroom, in hotel rooms, at half hour intervals. If you ran from one to the other you still missed half of what you wanted to see.
I had one of Doug Elliott’s out of body experiences for him when I took on bass duties for Arlene Bishop’s set. She absolutely nailed the songs and started the proverbial buzz zipping around the conference. I played the next night on my own at the Songwriter’s Association “pajama party”. I’m a little hard on myself so my version of how it went varies considerably from the views of people I talked to later. My own worst critic. Had the honour of being asked to play guitar the next day for a few songs with Liam Titcomb. He's very young in age but very mature in soul. We're trying to get a window of opportunity to write together. Home with a head cold and a pretty good afterglow. Leaving again in about 24 hours.