Happy Canada Day!

June was good. I'm getting out more. July will be even better

Brian Blain

Jul 01, 2024

Transcript

Yesterday I had the honour of being one of the judges for the annual Toronto Blues Society Talent Search. The setting was the Yorkville stage at the Toronto Jazz Festival - the last day of the jazz festival and the only time I made it out - that’s a bit embarrassing considering I was the (barely)managing editor at ToJazz for 25+ years and used to be on site every waking hour of that 10-day music marathon. The video gives you a taste of the six finalists, The Imagine If, Richard Taylor Group, LateNite Drive, Paul Black, Jay Bleus Trio and Danny Boy Phelan. The winner was Jay Bleus and the runner-up was Paul Black. Congratulations to all the finalists!

June has been rather transformational for me, I've been getting the guitar out of the case more often (thanks to a lot of friendly nudges) and I don't know if it's the music helping my circulation but I've been getting out more and taking longer walks than I ever did in the past year or so. Still avoiding music venues where I have to stand, though.

No gigs to announce, but the set I did at the Winterfolk Spring Edition last month worked out well - it wasn’t a campfire jam like the old days - just me and a guest and they called it “Brian Blain Presents” and I like the sound of that so I plan to do more “Brian Blain Presents” …and I’ve got some victims in mind. I’ve got a video of my session with the very talented Jesse Greene, whose just moved to our town, and you can see it here.

I also spoke about having another MIDI jam with some of my electronica buddies but I put that off because I haven’t been working with the Ableton Live enough - still figuring out the latest version. But there will be another MIDI jam this summer. However I have been using the Ableton to assemble the tunes for the new musical which I spoke about in my last stack. I will be sending out an update to my Paid Subscribers (who I like to think of as my “investors”) with a preview of a couple of the songs I am (re)learning and a behind-the-scenes look at the process. If you’d like to support that worthy endeavour please click one of those buttons that invites you to upgrade your subscription and join the team.

And here's a first for me - I just got a copy of a new crime novel by my old boss at the ad agency I worked at in the 60s, John Reynolds (now one of the country's pre-eminent mystery writers) and he signed it "Thanks for the inspiration". Then right off in the first chapter, a woman is garrotted with a guitar string and the prime suspect is a blues musician called Buddy Blaine! I can hardly wait to see “who-dun-it”. The book is "Beach Blues" by John Lawrence Reynolds and I highly recommend it (even though I haven't finished reading it).

Out and About

After my judging duties, I skipped the complimentary dinner and raced down to Hugh’s Room to catch Lachy Doley. I've seen Lachy a couple of times though always at a considerable distance - got to chat with him once at Sauce, too. I've played a lot with his brother Clayton Doley and sure hope we'll have an opportunity to play together again - but Australia is a long ways from here. Here’s most of Lachy’s first set. As I arrived to a packed Hugh’s Room my friend Dr Ric said “I’ve got some good seats up front” but I didn’t realize it meant front row - not my usual preference but it worked out well for the video. Up close and personal, as they say:

The Redwood Theatre had an unusual event this month - it was 3 days of a kinda-conference/tradeshow called "Tesla's Medicine" I learned a lot about alternative healing, with sound waves (including music), lights, magnets and lots of other stuff - different ways to make water better and more. I laid on an electro-pulse mattress for 16 minutes but since I didn't have any particular issues/complaints, I don't know what I got out of it but I had a great encounter with a famous audio enginee, Rob Fraboni, who was very interested in all this stuff and who has created a way to "smooth out" digital recordings so that more closely resemble what you would get with an all-analog recording. He calls the process "RealFeel" and studios are bringing him in, particularly when they are remastering classic recordings for re-issue on vinyl. Many of the vinyl reissues we see these days were captured from a digital recording, which kinda defeats the purpose... Bill King did a great interview with this engineer, Rob Fabroni talking about the work he did with the Band with the Band. Fraboni was asked by Martin Scorsese to remix the Last Waltz so that the audio would more closely match the visuals - ie, if something was close, it would be louder. In the end, the film came out with a "flat" mix, as you would for an album. Rob screened The Last Waltz with his mix and also gave an interview with Bill King which you can see here:

At the end of the interview, you’ll see me asking a question about 432 vs 440 (if you know, you know). Also I had heard that everybody but Levon redid their parts on the Last Waltz but Rob says it was just Garth and that was because lights caused a buzz on the organ track. Another curiosity: when the Band went to A&R studios to record Big Pink, they insisted on recording live with no baffles or separation so the only microphones used on that album were RE-15’s because they had a tight pattern and rejected any sound leakage.

Speaking of analog audio… a new blues label has just surfaced, and they are going all-analog. Concord Records bought Rounder a few years back and have since purchased several small labels, many with some real blues treasures in their vaults. Now they have a huge catalogue of classic blues recordings and they’ve brought in former Rounder A&R Director Scott Billington (producer of many of our favourite blues albums and coincidentally, co-writer with me of a song called “One Way Ticket”). Scott is sifting through this treasure trove to curate a selection for release on 180-gram vinyl, with all-analog mastering and faithfully reproduced tip-on jackets. Scott’s first challenge was searching out the original master tapes, then making sure to get the best possible reproduction. The two initial releases are John Lee Hooker’s Burning Hell (originally released in 1964) and Skip James’ Today! (1966). The rollout will continue throughout the year, and beyond, with classic titles from Albert King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed and Blind Gary Davis, among others. In addition to releasing foundational blues titles from such legendary labels as Prestige, Vee-Jay, Riverside, Vanguard, Stax and Rounder, Bluesville Records will also seek “to elevate the legacies of the artists behind these albums, while honoring their immeasurable impact on modern music through a variety of initiatives, including curated playlists, in-depth editorial content, dedicated social media channels and much more”. For more information, visit www.bluesvillerecords.com

Alex Pangman played a backyard concert in Scarborough and it was a beautiful setting - I love hearing music outdoors and Alex mostly insists on playing outdoors because she is still extra cautious about COVID or any other bug that would wreak havoc with here diminished immune system (due to a double lung transplant). She was in high spirits and even gave me a shout-out and played a blues just for me.

Michael Jerome Browne passed through town on a southern Ontario tour with Mary Flower. Mary Flower is a master of Piedmont-style fingerpicking and was the darling of the folk festival circuit in its heyday and she's still got the chops although a bit of a grandmotherly demeanour these days. She's spent as much time studying and talking about different guitar techniques and she peppered her performance with some interesting factoids - Like Piedmont players refer to the "Thumb of God". I can dig it. MJB presented some great blues in an all-too-short set, shortened further by a guest appearance by a young fingerpicker called Yiki Wang who plays with Isaak Bonk (who many refer to as the second coming of Leon Redbone). I love listening to Michael on his 12-string with the tremolo cranked. That’s not what he’s playing here but it’s plenty “official.”