Music is Life and Life is Good

It has been a very satisfying couple of weeks for me musically-speaking. The past two weekends offered up some great moments on stage, starting with the May 2nd Songwriter's Circle at The Cove in Westport, ON. I really enjoy this format. Four songwriters on stage, passing the guitar around, sharing songs and stories, and trading licks. On this night, it was myself, along with Chris Brown, Luther Wright, and Seamus Cowan.

The first set, we all played our songs individually, passing my old Guild around, then in the second
set, we all collaborated on each other's songs. This was a lot of fun. I ended up jumping around from guitar to bass, and even piano for one song! I was really impressed by Seamus' singing and his songs. I'd heard Luther and Chris before in this style, but had mostly heard Seamus playing in bands. The acoustic thing suited him quite well.

There is talk that we will do this again. Perhaps on Wolfe Island next time. I hope so.


This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of performing at The Pumpkin Pie Concert Series in Battersea, ON. What an incredible vibe! I love church halls and I love listening audiences...and I also love pie, so this was pretty much the perfect gig!

I've performed at many house concerts and small coffeehouse-style venues over the past couple of years touring my solo show, but this was the first opportunity in awhile that I have had to do so with a band. Bonz Bowering ( drums) and Alexander Tikhnenko (bass) did an excellent job holding down the rhythm. Some special moments on stage for sure. I love to play a room where the audience is so attentive. It's nice to have the ability to take advantage of the silence in the room, and play with the dynamic range of the songs. We rode the wave in No-Win Situation for sure - at one point bringing it down so quiet that I was barely touching the strings on the guitar as I was soloing. Then kicking it back up again, eliciting spontaneous applause from the crowd, and sending shivers up our spines.

Music is life and life is good.