Guitar
Hello my dear readers. I apologize for the lack of any recent content, but the gap in posts happened for the best possible reason. You see, I blog because I don't necessarily get to play as much music as I would like to. When I'm fortunate enough to be busy, I don't feel the same need to spend my time obsessing about music in digital-print form- I'm too busy making music for real.
It has been a busy week; it was like it was pre-financial-meltdown times again. On the 15th and 16th of June I played with my good friend Dave Hoerl, in our blues duo. On Sunday the 17th Sandybone and I did a street performance at Vancouver's Commercial Drive Car Free Day. Tuesday the 19th Sandybone and I celebrated our 6th anniversary of hosting the End of the Line jam session at the Princeton Pub. Finally, yesterday (Thursday, June 21st) I performed with Huggybear (of Leonard and the Lab Rats) and Pat Darcus (bassist for many) at the Make Music Vancouver festival, and later hosted the Pat's Pub blues jam. I'll be back to work on Sunday, hosting another jam (the Pumphouse Pub in Richmond) with Huggybear.
The gig with Dave Hoerl took place at a one of the wackiest venues left in BC's lower mainland. The Brownsville Station Pub is located under the Patullo Bridge on the Surrey-side riverbank, and also serves as the head office for a sprawling trailer park that houses some of the more excellent examples of British Columbia's urban redneck. As a result the bar is an utter shit-show. Please don't get me wrong- I love the joint and it denizens. It's one of the last of it's kind. I'm not entirely sure why a harmonica and guitar blues duo does so well in that place, but people seem to dig what we do. On the Saturday night I managed to lure my brother Cary Dijkhuizen down with a small drumkit, so we played as a trio with both my brother and drummer Chip Hart (Twisters/Hooligans) sitting in. We had a hell of a lot of fun and ended with a spirited medley of CCR tunes, which knocks that crowd out (despite it being outside the strict definition of blues, per se), and gives Cary and I a thrill 'cause we grew up obsessing over the Credence. After we were done for the night and loading out, we heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire right close, down by the river. Sure enough we were stuck in a police dragnet for the better part of an hour, with helicopters chopping overhead and german shepherds on the ground. Never did hear what went down that night...
Sandybone invited me to join him performing on Commercial Drive for Car Free Day. The WISE Hall had a tent up on the strip and asked us to contribute. Unclear on how we were to get our gear to the site (it is a car free event) I opted to put my heavily strung (.14 to .56) Danelectro '63 reissue into standard tuning and tote my feather-weight Peavey Rage 158 amp for a light, easy ingress/egress. As it happened we took a car and got within a hundred yards of the performance site. I then spent the set praying the ridiculously over-taxed speaker in my cheapo practice amp wouldn't blow up, wrestling with cable-like strings on a guitar with little in the way of frets and "set-up-for-slide" action. My tone vacillated between ugly midrange skronk and razor-blade-to-the-eardrum high-end tweeze. My wife informed me that I played and sounded beautiful, a compliment I appreciated but had a hard time reconciling with the evil tone splattering out of my wildly underpowered rig. Still, it's always cool to play street festivals, especially when your two year old kid can dance out front.
Tuesday night saw the Bone and I celebrating six years worth of good jams and groceries in the fridge. The Princeton Pub has become a real home-away-from-home for us and we were delighted to see about 98% of our long-time regulars (musicians and punters, both) in the room, smiling and grooving. We did an hour long opening set featuring Dave Webb on piano, Pat Darcus on bass, Huggybear on harmonica, Martin Eade on drums and Sandybone and I on guitars. As the evening went on we heard (and partook in) performances from Barbara-Anne, Rachel Davis, Big Joe Burke, Witchita Trip, the Cow Jazz Billionaires (featuring Steven Drake on lap-steel and Pablo on guitar), as well as some tunes from lap-steel master Jimmy Roy. What a great night! I even made the last bus home, thus confounding my long-suffering wife, who had expected me to stumble in the door around 8am smelling of brewery. Psych!
Thursday night I was to join Huggybear and Pat Darcus in performing at a big street festival on Water Street in Vancouver's famous Gastown district. The scene was utter chaos- tents set up every thirty feet or so for four or five blocks, the numerous musical acts' efforts jumbling together in cacophony (not to say there wasn't good music happening; there was, it just hard to process it with crazy harmonic and rhythmic dischord all around you). As it happens, when we arrived at the venue we were to perform in front of (the Pourhouse), we were informed that we would be playing inside. This did not eliminate distracting cross-talk from the other performers, but did reduce it to a dullish roar. We played a pretty dynamite set, the boys got some food, then we were off to Pat's Pub to host Huggybear's weekly jam session. I've attended the jam before but this was the first time that Huggy brought me in as a guest. Once again, Pat Darcus was on bass, Martin Eade played drums, Huggybear blew harp and sang and I played guitar and sang a couple. We had a riot of a set, jumping from greasy North Mississippi-style raunch to Chicago harp blues to an extended boogaloo that I used as a vehicle for the first extended solo (like, nearly five minutes) I've done in some years. Later I played "Honeysuckle Rose" with an older gentleman (Stan, the piano man); a well-rounded evening! Dave Webb also lent his excellent piano playing to the session, as did many other talented and enthusiastic jammers. Several beers and some relaxing smokeables ended the night off on a mellow note.
Well, there you go; one week's worth of adventures! Just like the good old days! Thanks for reading, and for all of you who have complimented me on this thing, please remember to post comments- this was intended to be more of a conversation than a sermon!
- 2013 - A Year In Review
Wow. 2013 is all but over and I can't believe all the plot twists that developed and defined what was a landmark, watershed year for me. The biggest development was really the lack thereof: my wife and I had planned to move to...
- Weekend Update
There's been a few interesting developments in the world of D this last week, the first being a corporate gig I was hired to do in a swanky hotel downtown. Basically we had to provide audio wallpaper for a gang of municipal employees...
- Comfortably Numb
Into the great wide-open, a rebel without a clue... I had an interesting revelation last night: I played better (more dynamically and sensitively) when I had had no idea what was going on than when I did. As regular readers know, I host a...
- Counterparts
Those of you who follow this blog will know that I co-host a jam every Tuesday with my buddy Sandybone. Those of you who have attended will know what a unique and challenging night it usually is for me, backing up all and any who attend,...
- The End Of The Line Jam, Six Years In!
Our home away from home On June 19th my good buddy Sandybone and I will be celebrating our sixth anniversary of hosting the "End of the Line" jam session at Vancouver's Princeton Pub (1901 Powell St., 9pm-12, if you've never had the pleasure)....
Guitar
Very Normal Activity (ie. not normal at all)
Hello my dear readers. I apologize for the lack of any recent content, but the gap in posts happened for the best possible reason. You see, I blog because I don't necessarily get to play as much music as I would like to. When I'm fortunate enough to be busy, I don't feel the same need to spend my time obsessing about music in digital-print form- I'm too busy making music for real.
It has been a busy week; it was like it was pre-financial-meltdown times again. On the 15th and 16th of June I played with my good friend Dave Hoerl, in our blues duo. On Sunday the 17th Sandybone and I did a street performance at Vancouver's Commercial Drive Car Free Day. Tuesday the 19th Sandybone and I celebrated our 6th anniversary of hosting the End of the Line jam session at the Princeton Pub. Finally, yesterday (Thursday, June 21st) I performed with Huggybear (of Leonard and the Lab Rats) and Pat Darcus (bassist for many) at the Make Music Vancouver festival, and later hosted the Pat's Pub blues jam. I'll be back to work on Sunday, hosting another jam (the Pumphouse Pub in Richmond) with Huggybear.
The gig with Dave Hoerl took place at a one of the wackiest venues left in BC's lower mainland. The Brownsville Station Pub is located under the Patullo Bridge on the Surrey-side riverbank, and also serves as the head office for a sprawling trailer park that houses some of the more excellent examples of British Columbia's urban redneck. As a result the bar is an utter shit-show. Please don't get me wrong- I love the joint and it denizens. It's one of the last of it's kind. I'm not entirely sure why a harmonica and guitar blues duo does so well in that place, but people seem to dig what we do. On the Saturday night I managed to lure my brother Cary Dijkhuizen down with a small drumkit, so we played as a trio with both my brother and drummer Chip Hart (Twisters/Hooligans) sitting in. We had a hell of a lot of fun and ended with a spirited medley of CCR tunes, which knocks that crowd out (despite it being outside the strict definition of blues, per se), and gives Cary and I a thrill 'cause we grew up obsessing over the Credence. After we were done for the night and loading out, we heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire right close, down by the river. Sure enough we were stuck in a police dragnet for the better part of an hour, with helicopters chopping overhead and german shepherds on the ground. Never did hear what went down that night...
Sandybone invited me to join him performing on Commercial Drive for Car Free Day. The WISE Hall had a tent up on the strip and asked us to contribute. Unclear on how we were to get our gear to the site (it is a car free event) I opted to put my heavily strung (.14 to .56) Danelectro '63 reissue into standard tuning and tote my feather-weight Peavey Rage 158 amp for a light, easy ingress/egress. As it happened we took a car and got within a hundred yards of the performance site. I then spent the set praying the ridiculously over-taxed speaker in my cheapo practice amp wouldn't blow up, wrestling with cable-like strings on a guitar with little in the way of frets and "set-up-for-slide" action. My tone vacillated between ugly midrange skronk and razor-blade-to-the-eardrum high-end tweeze. My wife informed me that I played and sounded beautiful, a compliment I appreciated but had a hard time reconciling with the evil tone splattering out of my wildly underpowered rig. Still, it's always cool to play street festivals, especially when your two year old kid can dance out front.
Tuesday night saw the Bone and I celebrating six years worth of good jams and groceries in the fridge. The Princeton Pub has become a real home-away-from-home for us and we were delighted to see about 98% of our long-time regulars (musicians and punters, both) in the room, smiling and grooving. We did an hour long opening set featuring Dave Webb on piano, Pat Darcus on bass, Huggybear on harmonica, Martin Eade on drums and Sandybone and I on guitars. As the evening went on we heard (and partook in) performances from Barbara-Anne, Rachel Davis, Big Joe Burke, Witchita Trip, the Cow Jazz Billionaires (featuring Steven Drake on lap-steel and Pablo on guitar), as well as some tunes from lap-steel master Jimmy Roy. What a great night! I even made the last bus home, thus confounding my long-suffering wife, who had expected me to stumble in the door around 8am smelling of brewery. Psych!
Thursday night I was to join Huggybear and Pat Darcus in performing at a big street festival on Water Street in Vancouver's famous Gastown district. The scene was utter chaos- tents set up every thirty feet or so for four or five blocks, the numerous musical acts' efforts jumbling together in cacophony (not to say there wasn't good music happening; there was, it just hard to process it with crazy harmonic and rhythmic dischord all around you). As it happens, when we arrived at the venue we were to perform in front of (the Pourhouse), we were informed that we would be playing inside. This did not eliminate distracting cross-talk from the other performers, but did reduce it to a dullish roar. We played a pretty dynamite set, the boys got some food, then we were off to Pat's Pub to host Huggybear's weekly jam session. I've attended the jam before but this was the first time that Huggy brought me in as a guest. Once again, Pat Darcus was on bass, Martin Eade played drums, Huggybear blew harp and sang and I played guitar and sang a couple. We had a riot of a set, jumping from greasy North Mississippi-style raunch to Chicago harp blues to an extended boogaloo that I used as a vehicle for the first extended solo (like, nearly five minutes) I've done in some years. Later I played "Honeysuckle Rose" with an older gentleman (Stan, the piano man); a well-rounded evening! Dave Webb also lent his excellent piano playing to the session, as did many other talented and enthusiastic jammers. Several beers and some relaxing smokeables ended the night off on a mellow note.
Well, there you go; one week's worth of adventures! Just like the good old days! Thanks for reading, and for all of you who have complimented me on this thing, please remember to post comments- this was intended to be more of a conversation than a sermon!
- 2013 - A Year In Review
Wow. 2013 is all but over and I can't believe all the plot twists that developed and defined what was a landmark, watershed year for me. The biggest development was really the lack thereof: my wife and I had planned to move to...
- Weekend Update
There's been a few interesting developments in the world of D this last week, the first being a corporate gig I was hired to do in a swanky hotel downtown. Basically we had to provide audio wallpaper for a gang of municipal employees...
- Comfortably Numb
Into the great wide-open, a rebel without a clue... I had an interesting revelation last night: I played better (more dynamically and sensitively) when I had had no idea what was going on than when I did. As regular readers know, I host a...
- Counterparts
Those of you who follow this blog will know that I co-host a jam every Tuesday with my buddy Sandybone. Those of you who have attended will know what a unique and challenging night it usually is for me, backing up all and any who attend,...
- The End Of The Line Jam, Six Years In!
Our home away from home On June 19th my good buddy Sandybone and I will be celebrating our sixth anniversary of hosting the "End of the Line" jam session at Vancouver's Princeton Pub (1901 Powell St., 9pm-12, if you've never had the pleasure)....