We are off to Lisbon tonight and are looking forward to seeing our Portuguese and Italian friends over the next 10 days. These are tough times in Southern Europe and we hope to provide a much needed distraction, if only for a couple of hours. The rest of you please follow along on the Tour Diary which we'll be posting as we make our way through the chaos and the beauty.
In the meantime here is another excerpt from The Neighbours Dog:
Unfortunately there has been some coordination problems between us and our Spanish promoters and the two shows in Barcelona and Madrid have been cancelled. Anyone that has bought tickets will be able to get a full refund from the agent that they bought them from. More details about ticket refunds should be coming to you via the ticketing agent in the next few days.
We are so sorry about the cancellation. We know that times are tough in Spain these days and we looked forward to visiting your beautiful country and exciting cities and playing some music for you. We are determined to get back there soon.
We are off to Europe next week for a two week tour of Spain, Portugal and Italy….pretty tough, eh? We are very excited to see our Southern friends (and enjoy a bit of their weather and whatever else they have to offer). There may not be much money floating around those countries these days but there still isn't a better place in the world to spend time than Southern Europe.
Here is a video of a performance that we did in Germany two Novembers ago. It was 1:30am, we were the last act of a two day festival jammed in to a tiny venue and on a tiny stage, Alan had been in a coma all day having been stricken by strep throat and we were all feeling the effects of having spent the previous day in Christiania….a lazy, hazy, surreal performance. Enjoy.
http://www.wdr.de/tv/rockpalast/extra/videos/2010/1113/cowboy_junkies.jsp
When we were out West this past Summer we visited our friends in Saskatoon to tape an episode of The Neighbour’s Dog. It was a fun day and an excellent night of music…and it was all captured beautifully by the film and audio crew. Here is a preview of the show which will air across Canada on October 21, 10pm (CST) on the following stations:
Across Canada on CTYS
Bell TV 266
Shaw Direct 31
AB & BC
Telus Satelite 266
Saskatchewan:
Shaw Cable 7
Access 12
Max 19
Image Wirelss 28
Manitoba
MTS Cable 254
It will also be available online for thirty days after the showing on the CITYTV SASK website. We’ll provide you the link as soon as we have it. Enjoy.
Just a reminder that Amazon (US only) is selling the Nomad Series albums as a digital download for $5 until the end of August.
We hope that you are all coping with the end-of-summer/back-to-school stress. Here is a beautiful video for Angels In The Wilderness that Jeff put together using some of the thousands of images that he has captured over the past many years on the road: maybe this will help you cope. Enjoy.
It’s always hard to leave home, especially in the middle of the summer and especially after you have already been away from the family for the five weeks. The only way to make it all worthwhile is to play like demons and come off stage each night filled with that magical energy that only live music can provide…so that is what we plan to do over the next couple of weeks. And you should join us. We’ll be in Plymouth, New Hampshire tomorrow night, Newport, Rhode Island on Saturday and in NYC on Sunday and Monday. From there we hop all around New England. If you are on the fence about buying a ticket, then check out these two videos that we recorded for a CBC Studio 211 Session back in February. I think it will inspire you to come on out for a night of great music…man, that girl can sing….
See You Around: http://youtu.be/zzYNpIZqtTo
I Cannot Sit Sadly By Your Side: http://youtu.be/UzThkt96iQw
In a couple of days we are back on the road and we’ll be heading through some of our favourite parts of the country…traveling through New England in the summer always reminds us of our youth. We spent quite a few weeks of our summers in Maine and the surrounding States. Here is a really good video (from the excellent website Wolfgangsvault.com) of our performance at the Newport Folk Festival four summers ago (we’ll be back in Newport at the Newport Yachting Center this coming Saturday). Take a look if you have some time and if you are planning to be in New England in the next couple of weeks please check our Tour Dates page and see if you can take in a show…if you can’t join us in person please drop by the website and follow us on the Tour Diary. Enjoy the music and the rest of the Summer.
While we take a break in-between our just-ended Canadian tour and our upcoming tour of New England, we’d like to introduce you to some new music. Some of you might already be familiar with Ivy Mairi’s work, if not; we think you’ll like what she is up to. Ivy’s first album, Well You, was one of the first releases on our revamped Latent Recordings label. This past year Ivy released her second album, No Talker, on Latent. Both albums were produced and recorded by Michael Timmins. No Talker has been garnering some much deserved praise (see below) and if you are curious you can get a free download from the album by going to Ivy’s website or visiting her Facebook page. Also, through Ivy’s website, you can buy both albums for only $5.99. We think that Ivy will be a much appreciated addition to your summer playlist….enjoy.
Recent reviews for No Talker:
“One of Canada’s hidden musical treasures is Toronto’s Ivy Mairi” – the Broken Speaker
“a singular voice and vision, that shines brightly through this humble collection of mostly slow-paced, deep and serious songs” – Berkely Music
“Ivy presents a different voice in the world of music” – Baby Sue
We are on the home stretch of our Canadian Tour, with just a handful of shows remaining. We’ll be winding the whole tour up with a special performance in Toronto on Saturday, July 14th at The Great Hall (Queen and Davenport). This is a benefit concert in support of the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC) (http://parc.on.ca/) and community mental health. It’s an important cause and one which we are proud to be associated. It will be a great night of music. You can purchase tickets here:
We packed our bus last Friday and sent it West, then spent the last past few days with our families preparing to leave them as they recover from surgery, cram for finals and struggle to finish up end of year projects. We will be absent for that transition in to Summer vacation, that beautiful rush of freedom and energy. Yesterday we all flew in to Penticton from various points, catching snatches of the Euro Cup in various airport bars: Portugal coming alive, the Dutch sputtering. We arrived in Penticton at dinner time and ate at a water side restaurant with very average, very over-priced food but with an amazing view of Lake Okanagan and the mountains that ring it. It was worth the larceny. This is the start of a very long cross Canada tour as an opening act for John Mellencamp. Despite being Canadian we have done very few cross Canada tours and we have never played in about 80% of the towns and cities that we’ll be visiting. We are approaching it as a great adventure.
Today was a long day, especially for the crew, Jared and Chris had to load in and set up at 8am. The rest of us stumbled in to the venue at 10, occupied the stage for a couple of hours to get our monitors set and generally get comfortable and then we broke it all down. We appreciate the generosity of the Mellencamp-camp, letting us use some of their production time….it’s a true luxury. I took the opportunity of some free time between production rehearsal and soundcheck and grabbed my fishing rod, rented a kayak and tried to find a ledge in the lake that some local had told me about. I wasn’t out there for very long before a thunderstorm came racing down the valley and chased me back to shore. I plan to fish wherever I can this tour, especially in BC, where highways trace the paths of wild rivers.
Soundcheck today (as it will be everyday) was at 5pm, dinner at 6:30, showtime at 7:30, off by 8:15. I love a well run ship and this one looks to be in fine trim. A little know fact is that John Mellencamp’s music was a pretty big influence on the band and an influence that we probably haven’t acknowledged enough. When we were putting together the songs for Trinity Session, Mellencamp’s albums Scarecrow and The Lonesome Jubillee were enormous hits. We listened to them a lot and his arrangements and use of fiddle and accordion was very inspiring, especially the way he used accordion. So we owe it to John for setting us off down a path that lead to Jaro and Jeff (who we initially contacted as a fiddle player). We are very happy to be along for this ride, it feels like another completed circle.
Considering that we hadn’t played together in several weeks, and we were on a strange stage, in a strange room, in a strange situation…I think our opening night rocked. My favourite part of Mellencamp’s set tonight was the audience sing-a-long, five thousand strong, during an acoustic performance of Jack and Dianne….”oh yaaaa, life goes aaaawwwaawwn, long after the thrill of livin’ is gawwwaawwn”….how great is that…..
