This pretty much sums up my tour
Back in TO in five days

‘Young Canadians’ live @ the Wunderbar, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Well you know you’re back in Alberta when it’s snowing like hell at the start of May. I woke up this morning to miles of white at my aunt Ann’s place in Cochrane just outside of Calgary.

The show at Broken City was epic! Last show with Rob and Duncan, they killed the set and the turnout was awesome… my old Alberta friends knew all the words, old buddy Brendan Kane jumped onstage for “Before You Got So Sad” and sang the whole thing, rocked out with his heart out.

Lethbridge tonight… turns out Hank & Lily are on the bill, and apparently the Slice has the best pizza in Canada. Looking forward to it.

Arrived at the Habitat… I’ve been seeing fellow Torontonians Zeus everywhere on this tour. This is about the third or fourth time I’ve shared either a marquee or a page in an entertainment weekly with these guys. Things are going really great for them.

See you after the show…

Met up with Rob Josephson (who plays drums on Young Canadians and Peace Maker) in Vancouver a few days ago, along with bassist Duncan Sadava of Vancouver metal heroes Reckoner, had a quick rehearsal, and hit the road.

First up was Victoria, reunited with some old friends (Trevor and Carmelle). The show was great, for our first show together as a band it went off essentially without a hitch. Rob and Duncan are solid, the songs were punk as hell, the turnout was great. Stayed up really late with Trevor and Carmelle and drank a bunch of Sleeman’s…. the rest, as they say, is history.

It was off to Vancouver where we played at the Media Club. Reunited with some more folks, rocked out. Hung out with prairie ex-pat Jake Hardy aka Holzkopf as he prepares to go on the road in a few weeks to Toronto/Montreal/Ottawa etc. Get a hold of him and book him a show!! Holzkopf rules.

Today it was up into the Rockies to get to Kelowna. Drove through a full-on blizzard to get here. We play tonight at the Habitat. Should be a good show. Calgary tomorrow…

The above photo is from The Northern Pub in Fernie, BC.

Still coming down from the crazy high of last night. Man, that show was totally insane. One of those nights where you just go blurry onstage and everything becomes a rush of red lights and white heat. So good to do that in the middle of a tour that’s been mostly mellow acoustic shows.

Nursing a mild hangover I hit the road at around 9am, the QE2 was quiet as hell and we got passed Calgary at about 11:30 en route to Fernie. And holy shit, living in Ontario makes you really forget how fucking crazy the Rockies are. Let’s just say this was kind of a nice way to recover from a punk rock blow to the head.

Hopefully some videos from the show last night are coming soon.

Tonight was an amazing show in Edmonton. Nice to see a lineup of people waiting to show you a good time in your hometown. Ended the set with the NY classic “fuckin up” from Ragged Glory, and there was actually a slam pit for it. About fucking time! Black Flag-meets-Neil Young to the max with a healthy dose of some psychedelic Westerberg. Lee Klippenstein of Slates/Falklands, Mark Budd of Falklands, Dallas Thompson of Slates were the band.

See SLATES on tour across Canada in the next few months.

NO PROBLEM announced a European tour recently. Today was the first time I heard their record and it’s great, produced by Jonah Falco of Fucked Up. Old friends of mine from Edmonton punk days, Graeme Mackinnon was in hometown legends WEDNESDAY NIGHT HEROES, Ian was in the OPERATORS, Steve was in a band that restored my faith in a lot of things– HIGH JINX (I practically lived in a High Jinx shirt for about two and a half years)– and Matt Bouchard from LET’S DANCE plays bass.

Touring on your own is really weird: you have nobody to talk to, you spend a lot of time killing time. But in some ways being able to solely reunite with old friends day in and day out makes an uncomfortable sleep on a shitty bus all the worthwhile, in a way which kind of makes sadness seem useless. I hope I die doing shows like i did tonight, playing with the kind of people i did tonight, playing music with the same feeling and energy as I did tonight. I will sleep on as many shitty buses and trains as it takes to get me to the end of that highway.

Heading out to Slave Lake, AB now, after a show last night at Better Than Fred’s in Grande Prairie. The show was great, played for about an hour, sold some records, and had a decent turnout on a Tuesday. Staff is awesome, one of the better venues in Canada I’ve ever been too when it comes to hospitality. Big thanks.

Here’s a video of me performing “File Under Fire” as the closer to the set. Thanks to everyone that came out, and we’ll see you in Slave Lake tonight.

Getting ready for a show at Better Than Fred’s, pictured above, in Grande Prairie, AB.

Crazy few days in Alberta politics, looks like the Progressive Conservatives won the race to the middle and beat out those pesky Wildrose idiots. Good news is the NDP might have a decently significant say in Legislative on-goings, David Eggen and longtime MLA Brian Mason are making their Edmonton ridings proud as hell. Bad news is we have to sit through another four years of a Tory dynasty.

In any case, going to keep my political opinions to myself onstage tonight.

In other news, just got word that my good friends Rich Taylor and Tyson McShane in Saskatoon are putting on a music festival called MoSoFest that’s happening in June. If you’re not at NXNE then get your ass to sask and check out performances by Burning Love, Bryan Webb, Damien Jurado, The Ketamines, and a bunch of other killer acts. What a bill for the first run-through of the festival, holy shit.

Check it out on facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/MoSoFest

Above is a photo of my friend Kristjan Harris in a disguise. He owns a place in Toronto called Saving Gigi with his girlfriend Amelia, he’s going to see Nick Lowe tonight, he loves Bob Dylan, he’s from Winnipeg, he has a cat named Pirate, and he enjoys long walks in the park. The rest of his past is shrouded in mystery. Photo by C.L. McLaughlin.

Right now I’m in Edmonton, my hometown. I just finished an in-store at the excellent Permanent Records, just off Whyte Ave on Gateway Blvd. Turnout was great, sold some LPs. Here’s a photo of Mike and Clint proudly displaying their love of Exclaim!, and letting me get in a shameless plug for Canada’s greatest music magazine.

Permanent Records is great, loads of vinyl, a great selection of punk and indie rock, devotion to the local Edmonton music scene. Tons of DIY 7-inches and at the back there’s a gallery of old Edmonton punk posters that probably take Mike back to his days in Jr. Gone Wild. Support the place, they support the scene so it’s the least you can do.

Grande Prairie tomorrow. See you on the road.

After a flurry of Ontario dates it was a day off in Toronto, and then an early morning wake-up to catch a plan at Pearson that took me to Thunder Bay. I wandered around for a few hours before ending up at a bar called the Sovereign Room where I met a girl named Jenn Bryan who plays violin for the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. I recruited her to play some fiddle for my show that night and we partied hard.

The next morning I woke up and got on a bus to Winnipeg, where I met up with some old friends before hiking across town from Osborne to get to the Lo Pub. Played the set, sold some LPs, and then cabbed to the airport where I caught a flight to Saskatoon at about 6a.m. with no sleep.

After landing in Saskatoon, I cabbed into the city and went to a great store called the Vinyl Exchange where I played a short set with Tyson McShane of Slow Down, Molasses in celebration of Record Store Day, leafing through used copies of “Zen Arcade” by Husker Du, “Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing” by Discharge, and the “Coffy” soundtrack by Roy Ayers. Ended up killing some time before ending up at Vangelis where I shared the stage with Slow Down. A great night.

Tomorrow it’s off to Edmonton, my hometown, where I’ve got a day off, and I’m going to do some catching up with some old friends. Darrek Anderson, I’m looking at you. More to come from all that madness later.