My Summer of 2011

Hope everyone’s summers went well. Mine was something else. TBA started off in May doing a silent auction acoustic event, then a "Summer love" event in June with psychedelic lights, live music and art exhibition. Between those two shows, some of the TBA Crew went to Fredericton to participate in a House Art show set up by Mike Erb and Ashley Theriault at their house. Other than the TBA Collective events we put on this summer coming up to Messtival, I got a chance to play my solo act at Follyfest, a great festival coordinated by a group of artists and musicians called Feelsgood. I used to play my solo act a lot. At one point in fact, the most. Then The Umph, Morse Code, Something Delicious, Motorleauge, Quoteunquoteonhiatus happened. Didn’t see that comin’. But now, I brought it back. And did stuff to it like loops and added a new pedal board. Thanks for the invite Follyfest. You officially revived my solo project. After Folly, I played an afterparty event for the screening of the doc Highway Gospel, a film which Jon Jerome did the soundtrack for. Jon also played.

Where Mario (Something Delicious and QUOH bandmate) (and wonderful friend) is in Grandfalls indefinitely, it puts the others projects on a bit of a hold, which can have it's advantagess if you already have a lot going on. I think it’s best to enjoy the time you have with someone, no matter the amount. And Mario comes down sometimes and we high five about it. From there, I did a psychedelic lightshow at Evolve with Mike Ritchie, joining his project "Eye Candy" of liquid gels and oils with my digital projections of time laps and stop motion animation videos.
I also had the pleasure of guesting on keys/vocal fx with Paiens for two sets at Evolve. Shortly after that, I joined the band. Then did a solo set at the Kuato CD Release along with photography exhibtion – something I recently started doing.  The summer continued with more Paiens shows. Then we held Messtival. Now, Messtival was my summer. I really let Messtival take over my life this year. I went part time at The Postman and even trained someone to take the rest of my load, which is maybe a big risk employment-wise for me, but it had to be done for the peace of mind of trying to put Messtival together.. Anyway, I’m proud of how it turned out. I have to say though, for those of you whippersnappers that love someone - don’t lose sight of that in the mix of it all. It’ll get to you when things start to slow down and you start thinking about what really matters.
After Messtival, I did a solo set at Sunseeker Festival along with a few other TBA crew peoples such as Phil Flowers, The Rhythm Section and the Jedis of Funk and partied my last ounces of party’age for the rest of the year I’m sure. I enjoyed murdering Wanda, Ian MacMillan's party accessory, in various ways.

From there, I played a couple of Paiens shows, Sean Booth's CD Release and here we are. Now I’m done with my big load. I worked a little bit, but feel a strong need for human connection, education and exercise. I've been going barefoot jogging at Victoria Park everyday and usually read afterwards. The current book is a Dan Gillis lendsy called "Reflections from the journey of life", which is a collection of quotes from the Dalai Lama. On Tuesdays, I go to guided meditation held by Patrice Leblanc, which has been helping me rediscover my true essence and on Thursday I go to yoga held by Beth Dobson. Now that the summers done, I’m looking back into  our other activities such as open discussion forums, bad movie night, and Cinema Politica screenings and working towards the fall schedule of that. At some point soon, I need to start doing things that pay money again, but I'm glad to finally be back to the Botsford Station and TBA Collective routine. It's what brings me peace of mind and heart. Coming up, Botsford Station has a fundraiser dinner/silent auction where the money is going towards building a second set of stairs for the building. Tickets for the dinner can be purchased at Artsy & Vintage. For TBA Collective, we have a special art performance piece of sorts in Victoria Park for Festival J’est the last week of September and a beer tasting and presentation event October first from the local beer maker Acadie-Brous. Both events are someone else’s spearhead which is nice. I’m doing a good part for the J’est, but other than that, it’s just my solo stuff, my artwork and Paiens. Paien’s playing Havest Jazz and Blues festival next week in Fredericton and MMW plays the same night as us, so as soon as we’re done, it’s RUN TO MMW.
That's my wrap up of the summer. Fall is the time for going back inward, for learning and creating with others. Let's see what comes of that.