June is upon us and I’m now firing off Episode 2 of the new Toronto Blues Diary via Substack. For those just discovering me on Substack, this blog has been going since 1990 , when I arrived in Toronto and began chronicling my journey through the musical jungle of the big city. (You can visit the archives at www.torontobluesdiary.blogspot.com).I had already written a lot of songs, played in rock bands and folk trios, and had ultimately settled in the blues. And I’m still chronicling my adventures, sharing some new tunes, some backyard sessions and kitchen jams, as well as putting up clips of some of the shows I’ve been to.
Brian Blain Presents
Just when I thought my gigging days were over, a gig appears! Nice surprise. I contacted Winterfolk for a media pass and AD Brian Gladstone got back to me and said he had a workshop slot available if I wanted it. I have played Winterfolk many times and it's a great crowd (here's my solo set from last year). I also hosted many Campfire Jams at Winterfolk but this time, it’s not a full-blown Wintefolk. Following some serious health issues, Brian Gladstone postponed this year's festival but he's back in the saddle and he didn't wait till February for a make-good. This is a one-day event at the Redwood Theatre, just down the street from me, and it has a healthy blues component including Garnetta Cromwell, Gary Kendall, Donne Roberts, Isaak Bonk. There's less time and less $$ so it will just be me and a guest and we are calling it "Brian Blain Presents." I hope this is the beginning of a new series where I can get back on stage and have a guest or two and do a few tunes myself without trying to play three sets a night like the old days.
My guest for this inaugural "Presents" is a young gal from Ottawa who has just made the move to Toronto. Her name is Jesse Greene and you will be hearing from her to be sure. She is, as they say, the "real deal." Here's a clip of Jesse. We're on at 1PM on Saturday, June 8. It's at the Redwood Theatre, 1300 Gerrard St East. It's 12 hours of fine folk music, with a strong component of Blues (after all, blues is folk music :-)
Also another gig is taking shape - another backyard MIDI jam of bluesy ambient electronica with a couple of my Ableton buddies (with or without my son the DJ). It’s looking like Friday June 21 5pm and we will stream on twitch.tv like last time.
The old Epiphone has been getting out of the case for some kitchen parties and backyard jams and I even made the trek to Dundas to play at the legendary Dundas Music Club with my old bandmate Lily Sazz and my new musical pal, Don Oakie.
So now that there's gigs happening, I had to do something about my nails. Pre-Covid, I made regular visits to a nail salon to reinforce my flimsy nails (not enough Jello in my diet, I guess). When the gigs disappeared I gave the nails a break and got used to using a flatpick.
It was Katherine Wheatley who introduced me to her nail technician and shortly after that, I took Harry Manx over there when he was in town and needed some nail repair. Harry ended up learning how to do it himself and showed me but I never got the knack of it. It was a great luxury to get back to a nail salon and let an expert do my nails.
and now about that musical…
A few months back I went to see a play at Soulpepper Theatre that my long-time drummer Michelle Josef was in. It was written and directed by Raha Javanfar (aka Bad Luck Woman) and as we chatted over dinner I mentioned that I had written a play in my youth and had pretty well forgotten it but she encouraged me to dig it up so I have excavated it and I'm trying to reconstruct/relearn those 26 songs. It's a rock musical that I wrote 50 years ago. It was called the Curse of the Magic Pick and it was a spin off of THIS recording, "The Story of the Magic Pick". I had no record of this musical - I couldn't find the script because I went through my files and found many scraps of lyrics, and some dialogue but no complete script (I had given my only copy of the script (typewritten on an old Remmington) to Christina Connors, who directed a production at Earthstage in Lennoxville Quebec. So I had no script (and still don't). Meanwhile my son the DJ had just liberated several boxes of cassettes from my place and I was glad to get rid of them but then I asked him to keep an eye out for any tapes that had "Curse" written on them and he came back with several. I've dumped them into my Ableton software and have been slicing and dicing them, re-tuning and warping and the next stage is to start relearning those 26 songs. I will be posting them as I learn them and sharing my theatrical expedition here on Substack but this will be separate from the usual Toronto Blues Diary content and will be available only to paid subscribers. So a big thank-you-in-advance to any and all who are curious and would like to support this endeavour. Hey, how often do you get to say you’ve invested in a rock musical?
Out and About
It was great to see Ken Whiteley doing his Gospel Matinee at Hugh’s Room. It used to be the Gospel Brunch at Hugh’s Room but alas, there is no food at the new Hugh’s Room and no plans to offer any. Ken always gives an uplifting show and Nicki D and the Sisters of Thunder really raised the roof. They are a coming from the “sacred steel” tradition and must have felt right at home in a church - yes, there was some “testifying”
One of my favourite “bluesicians”, Morgan Davis came through Ontario and I got to see him at Hugh’s Room Live (I think he coined the phrase “bluesician”) He had a lot of new tunes, often with very relevant topics and always a steady dose of humour. Here’s one he wrote about divorce and alimony.
…and here’s a link to another 15 minutes of Morgan from my Facebook Live
Then I had my “jazz fix” at the Rex where Dave Young played an evening of Thad Jones music, using the original charts, and featuring Toronto’s top trumpeter, Kevin Turcotte to play Thad. Reminds me how Jim Galloway would do tributes to Duke Ellington also using the original charts. The other players in the Dave Young Quintet were top notch, John Johnson on sax, Brian Dickinson on piano and drum maestro Davide Direnzo, who I reminded that we had a mutual friend in Australia, Clayton Doley. Davide played with Clayton a few times - at the Orbit Room I think. And Clayton also did a lot of gigs with me before he moved back to Australia. He also added some wicked B3 organ tracks to my recent CD. Here’s a little Facebook Live video that I posted.
I saw Rex owner Bob Ross in the house and I knew he rarely gets down there anymore and I asked if it was odd that he was here and he replied “very odd”. His wife had some friends in town and they wanted to hear some jazz so he was showing them around. Kudos to the Rex for holding the line in the face of aggressive developers. Too bad that the Phoenix has announced the closing of their Sherbourne St. venue - I notice the press release says “Work Underway to Secure a New Downtown Location In Conjunction with The City of Toronto” Let’s hope the city can help, probably not $$$ but maybe in other ways…You’d be dreaming in colour if you thought you could get rich opening a music venue, or launching a record label, or even starting a band.
Lest we forget: Today is the 80th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion (hmmm, that’s a loaded word these days but I guess that time it was a good thing). And yesterday was Alexei Navalny’s birthday (R.I.P.)
Lastly there’s been a lot of accolades for David Farrell recently - and well deserved. It was before my time in Toronto when he was at the helm of The Record, Canada’s music industry trade mag, but when I did meet him I had just released a CD and gave him a copy, not knowing that he was some kind of music industry heavyweight. I have learned that you do not foist your CDs into the hands of big shots, but he graciously accepted it, then sent me a personal note praising it and included it as a “song of the week” on his new website which was called “New Canadian Music,” or something like that. It was a worthy venture that later morphed into FYI music and is now part of the Billboard conglomerate. He might be hanging with the suits but David Farell is all about the music. That in itself is a “lifetime achievement.”
PS: If you’re a member of the Toronto Blues Society, the Annual General Meeting is taking place on Saturday June 15 at RCM/Koerner Hall and will be available via Zoom for those who can’t make it in person. If you are a charter member, you will have received an information email with details and if you aren’t a member, there’s still time to join and be a part of revitalizing this worthy organization that has been supporting the blues in Toronto and beyond for almost 40 years. New blood and new ideas are welcome.
PPS: After seeing the official announcements of two Ontario folk festivals I was prompted to post a comment: “Two big folk festival announcements here today and not even a token blues artist included in either lineup. And it's not much better across the board. When did blues stop being folk music? Did I not get the memo...” Well, now Roots Music Canada wants me to write an “op-ed” piece so you can expect a long rant in my next Substack
Have a good week-end everybody. I’ll be hanging out at the Redwood Theatre, helping kick-off the Spring Edition of Winterfolk with a mini-campfire at 1PM on Saturday (with special guest Jesse Greene) and on Sunday afternoon for an all-star extravaganza fundraiser for beloved bassman Al Duffy.
You can listen to (or buy) my latest CD, “I’m Not Fifty Anymore” at http://brianblain.hearnow.com
See you out there, eventually
BrianB, aka Butch, Nappy, Shaker, Two-Lane Blain, Colorblind Brian, Stringbuster, Buddha of the Blues
Share this post