Life continues in Lunenburg

Hi again. It's been a while. I've been MIA for the last couple of months and I'm finally resurfacing.

As soon as I arrived home safe and sound from the Ontario tour, we started doing some renovations around the house. Among other things, we pulled down a chimney that ran right up the middle of the house in order to make some badly needed room in a closet and the basement. Let me tell you how long fingernails last when you're chiselling bricks out and tossing them into the dumpster. Not long - think nanoseconds. The whole project lastedmany weeks and in that time, the guitars stayed mostly in their cases and I hadn't been playing much at all. At the end of a hard day, I had virtually no energy left to play.

The good news is that the reno is complete and the only outstanding task is painting. The previous owners painted every room white so we're adding colour to the place. My nails are almost back to their pre-reno length and playing is a pleasure.

For the last few weeks, I've been playing in a song circle at my friend Art's. It's a fun group - some guitars, some fiddles, some flute, some keyboards all making for an eclectic mix on a Wednesday evening.

Coming up in the near future, I have a fun evening ahead tonight. One of the local inns, The Rum Runner, has a kitchen party on Friday nights. It's run by one of Lunenburg's many amateur musicians (who is also a town councillor and a local business owner) and he invites three or four others to play with him in a workshop/song circle type of environment.

It's probably not held in the kitchen but I'm finding out that East Coast kitchen parties are a big thing. Parties start in the kitchen (probably cause that's where the fridge is) and music usually breaks out and a good time is had by all.

Another event coming up that should be fun is the Bridgewater Growing Green Festival on August 21st. There will be a farmer's market, music, local book readings, art displays, food & drink, kid & family activities, community group booths, skills demonstrations and workshops. I'm not sure of the schedule yet but I'll be busking for part of the time and playing a set on the farmer's market stage.

In between, I'll be joining my erstwhile partner in rhyme, Jives, to head back up to Northwestern Ontario for the 8th Annual Live From The Rock festival. If you're up in that part of the world August 6/7/8, don't miss it. Red Rock is a great little town and LFTR is one of my favourite festivals. I'll be part of the sound crew again this year, running the Fish and Game Stage, hosting the Open Mic, and hosting Thursday night's campfire.

And finally, news on what's been going on with the website. I discovered an error in the pull-down menus that omitted a link to the Live at The Rose and Kettle page. The menus have been fixed so you can now get to the page from the Music/Lyrics menu. Also, I've added a new video page. While I was in Ontario, I had the good fortune to be asked to record a segment for the Hamilton Community program Hamilton Life on Shaw Cable 14. They sent me a DVD of the segment and I've put it up on the website for those of outside of Shaw's Hamilton feed. It's under the Music/Lyrics menu on the website.

Cheers, Bob

On the road

Hi from the road, everyone. I've been having fun catching up with old friends, playing for new ones, generally having fun while Julia is at home having work done around the house and rediscovering that the life of a travelling musician isn't all the glamour of the show itself.

I'm through the GTA portion of the tour, looking forward to the show on Saturday on the shores of beautiful Georgian Bay at the Zen Waffle Inn in Waubaushene. Then on Monday, I'm off to Northern Ontario. It will be an interesting change to get up there in April instead of August when the long-suffering Jives and I head off to Red Rock for the Live From The Rock Festival. The CBC weather report is calling for freezing rain and snow up there in the next couple of days so I'm hoping it's all blown itself away by the weekend so I don't get snowbound. Sure makes a change from last weekend when I was in Toronto and it was 25 degrees.

Unfortunately, we had a scheduling conflict and we've had to cancel the house concert in Marathon on April 17. We've moved the Wawa performance to the 17th and moved it to the Legion. There are compensations though. I've added a show in Sackville, NB on the 24th which should be fun. Some friends have played there and the two brothers who run the Hamilton Guitar Association are originally from there and they've told me all about Sackville so I'm looking forward to that one.

One of the unfortunate side effects of being on the road is that I've missed Lunenburg Sessions. Last Tuesday we had Dusty Keleher in and I was sorry to miss that one. If you haven't heard of him and you like traditional Irish music, you should check him out. He's on Facebook and Myspace and worth a look.

Coming up on May's Sessions, for which I will be home, we're having my friend (and recently-arrived CFA) Manitoba Hal Brolund who is now Nova Scotia Hal having moved to Shelburne, just along the South Shore from Lunenburg.

Today it's time to help my mother buy a new computer. Her old one is as slow as a snail and I'm going to look for something new and fast for her. The only concern I have is that she's used to Windows XP and we're most likely to end up with a system that has Windows 7. I'm not convinced I like it. I have it on my netbook (that came with me on the road) and it wouldn't have been my choice if I could have found one with XP. There's probably a song somewhere in my brain about Microsoft and it wouldn't be very complementary.

So that's it for now. Stay well and I hope to see you at a show sometime soon.

Cheers, Bob

Feeling ill in beautiful weather

DRAT! This wasn't supposed to happen. I came back from vacation with a cold - I think I picked it up in Toronto either in the hotel or on the plane back to Halifax. Either way, it's taken hold and isn't letting go. I am feeling better than at the beginning of the week but it still means I had to postpone the CD Release concert and the House Concert at Frank's Place.

Thanks to everyone who sent me get well wishes. At least it's sunny and warm on the South Shore and the feeling of spring is in the air.

Big news - after years of resisting, I finally signed up to Facebook. It's insidious the amount of time you can spend (dare I say "waste"? he he he) watching what the rest of the world is doing. I sorta rationalize it at the moment cause I'm feeling unwell and don't have the energy to do much of anything other than sit at my computer but I will have to change my habits once I'm back to full strength. Can you get Facebook Addiction and is there a 12-step program for it?

That's all for now. Cheers, Bob

Well, goodness me, where did the time go? It was late January when I was last in here with any news and now here it is March already.

Preparations are well under way for the CD release party. We've been having a ton of fun working out set lists, rehearsing, and generally getting ready for the big night. If you haven't been to the Lunenburg Academy theatre, you're in for a treat. The acoustics are great and the room is cosy and intimate so I'm really looking forward to a fantastic evening.

I've added a few new dates on the tour in Northwestern Ontario - a house concert in the Soo, a house concert in Wawa, and a cafe in Thunder Bay. Check the In Performance page on the website for more details.

That's it for the moment - thanks for stopping by.

Cheers, Bob

Hi again, everyone.

First of all, thanks to everyone who's been in to look at the new website and thank you for all your positive comments about the new look and the new songs. I'm spiralling in on having it static for a while and I've made a few more changes.

The first big news is that I've set the date for the official launch of Come From Away. It will be held at the Lunenburg Academy on Friday March 19th. I'm looking forward to it and I've asked several local musicians to join me on stage, including Eilidh Campbell, Chip Veinotte, Brian Tanner, and Barb Morris. I'm still working on a couple of ideas and may have a few surprises. I'll keep you posted.

Second big news is that Come From Away is available on-line through CD Baby. There's a link on the Come From Away page or you can link from right here. Click here to pop open a link to the CD Baby page. You can buy a copy of the CD or download the whole CD or individual songs.

Finally, there are a few changes to the site that you might be interested in:

The main addition is that I've added a link to For The Sake Of The Song under the About Bob menu. My friend Sean McGaughey of Midland, Ontario is a singer/songwriter himself and an avid fan of the genre. He interviews songwriters about music and podcasts them from his website. He was kind enough to include me in his podcast some time ago and our conversation is now on-line here. There's also a link to Sean's site so you can listen to his other conversations.

I've also changed the Guestbook a bit. The original version had no spam trap in it and I was being deluged with junk entries. I eventually turned off the "Add a comment" feature inside the Guestbook but for the benefit of the spammers who went directly to the "Add" file, I put in a redirection to the YouTube video of the Monty Python "SPAM" sketch. It's one of my favourites and seemed appropriate. Now the Guestbook has a Captcha screen in it that asks you to enter a randomly generated string and click on an "I am Human" button before proceeding. I hope this works to keep the spam at bay.

Finally, the Press Kit menu has a link to my SonicBids EPK (which will probably interest you only if you're a booking agent).

Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to send me an e-mail, sign the guestbook, add a comment to the blogosphere here.

Cheers, Bob

Hi again from Lunenburg. The storm blew itself out after a couple of days leaving us to clear the driveway and ponder how many people have heart attacks while shovelling snow.

The exciting news is that the new CDs (and download cards) have arrived from the manufacturer so we're now live with the newly designed website. If you're a return visitor to the site, the looks are different but much of the old content is still here along with some new features.

The big feature is the new CD, called Come From Away. which has its own page. There's a sound player that lets you listen to clips of song on the album and you can read the lyrics there as well.

The history of the new CD and its title is quite simple really. Nova Scotians divide the world into two parts: Nova Scotia and everywhere else, which they call "Away." The term "Come From Away" refers to someone who has moved here from somewhere else. I wrote quite a few of the songs on the CD while I was in the process of moving down east from Ontario. Once I was settled I started exploring some of the history of the place, which started the muses working as well. There are a couple of relationship songs, one of which is a co-write with my erstwhile partner in rhyme, Jennifer Ives. Of course, it wouldn't be a Bob CD without a guitar instrumental or two.

Much of the recording was done in Lunenburg in a week in July, 2009 then later in the summer we added some of the other musicians in various places in Ontario. I am honoured to have such fine players who contributed their time and inspirations to the music. In alphabetical order the other players were Don Bray, Eilidh Campbell, Wendell Ferguson, Jennifer Ives, Tom Leighton, Mark Mariash, Barb Morris, Chip Veinotte and Alyssa Wright.

Along with the new CD, I have a live recording that's available only on download card. Yep, Bob goes digital. (About time, come the murmurings from the audience. *grin*) The download cards will be available at live shows while supplies last. The performance was recorded at the Harbour Folk Kitchen Party on July 18, 2009 at the Rose and Kettle Tea Room in Cole Harbour, NS.

Don Bray gets a big mention for both recordings because he brought a shedload of gear to Lunenburg for the studio recording, then dragged it all down to Dartmouth and back, setting it up and tearing it down several times during the week before taking it back home. Not only that, he plays mandolin and slide Hawaiian King guitar and sings some backup vocals.

I had the greatest of intentions of having everything completed at one go, only to discover I hadn't checked the size of some PDF files I'd created. They were far too big to fit in the website space and would have taken far to long even for the most dedicated follower to download. So it's back to the drawing board to shrink the files to a manageable size.

I've added some gigs to the listing - coming up next on January 23rd is the Carleton's Sing For Your Supper Songwriters Circle hosted by Kev Corbett. Kev and I will be joined by a couple of other singer/songwriters in a workshop setting. Come on down and enjoy the music - and the food too. The Carleton's a good place to eat as well as to listen to good music. Check the In Performance page for details

So now I'm off to try and shrink some PDFs. Hope you like what you see and hear. If you do, please sign the Guestbook or drop me an e-mail.

Cheers, Bob

Hello from the South Shore

Ah, it's a chilly snowy New Year's Day in Lunenburg. The snow is falling, the sky is grey and the foghorn is sounding its mournful cry across the front harbour.

Here we are into 2010 already. It didn't seem all that long ago that Don Bray was here and we were almost taking root in the attic/studio laying down the tracks for Come From Away. I'm told that the CDs will be in my hot little hands on Wednesday and the official release can begin. It's been a long fun trip getting this project complete and there's more to come.

There's a new design to the website coming along with the new CD. Much of the information is the same as in the old site and we've added some new links, changed things around to make it easy to navigate, eliminated the frame structure (which is a stylistic no-no any more). There are just a few more changes to make before the updating starts, next week sometime.

More to come in a little while. I've just set up the blog as part of the new website layout so watch this space.

Cheers, Bob