We put around 13,000 kms on the van between the end of July and the middle of September. We had three festival weekends in a row: Fog Fest on Campobello Island, NB followed by Live From The Rock in Red Rock, ON and rounded out with Trout Forest in Ear Falls, ON. After "The Trout," we headed off down into the US for a few weeks playing some smaller rooms in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. It was a great honour for me to wind up the tour by opening the 2016/2017 season at Old Lynn Concerts, in Lynn, PA.
Shortly after we arrived home, we took off to Iceland for a week for a little R&R and to help my cousin's wife celebrate a milestone birthday. Iceland is a stunningly beautiful place and if we're Facebook friends, you may already have seen a few pictures.
Now we're home again and back to work, we've been back in the Otitis Media studio with David Findlay. We've been working on new compositions and with the whirlwind of travelling finished, we sat down and completed a couple of new pieces. One is a mellow, relaxation piece which Dave says is the next Spa Channel™ hit. It's called Marigot Bay in honour of some time spent in St. Lucia enjoying a little winter warmth and sunshine. The second is an upbeat song with a celtic flair called Is It Reel? which is a backward glance to Flea's Reel (which is actually not a reel) from Wires Rosewood & Roots.
Like many musicians nowadays, we are exploring our options for the release of the new music. Sales of physical CDs are on the decline as people are using other technologies to listen to music so the idea of a 12-song album with a physical CD for sale is coming increasingly under pressure. As yet with only two songs recorded we are a little bit away from having to make a decision but as we develop more tunes, we will be looking at various options for making the music available to our audience.
The other activity we've been undertaking in the last week or so is a makeover of bobardern.ca. The new website is a cleaner version that should load a little quicker. The mobile version uses less graphical content to save your data plan if you're not accessing the site over WiFi. The site is essentially an electronic press kit, where you can watch videos, listen to all our music, and obtain bios and pictures for your own use. We also have links to some of the radio stations that are playing our music and if you're a radio host and you want us to add your station to the list, drop us an email.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the shows on the tour and thank you for your continued support of Nova Scotian New Age music. According to the Guardian newspaper, New Age and Instrumental music is being recognized as "cool" and those of us who have been playing it for a while can't agree more.
Cheers, Bob
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