September 2003
Hey Guys,
Long time no talk! I’m writing you from Saint John NB right now where Ben and I are hanging out at his parent’s house. I’ll give you the lowdown quick as the death threats over me not being in touch are starting to make me nervous… Eeek!
The past month has been pretty awesome. Ben and I started out in Toronto on the 2nd at our friends Krissi and Rick’s wedding. We had an awesome time seeing those two cute kids tie the knot. The following day we made our way to New Liskeard where we spent a bunch of chilled out days with our friends at the Smith Cottage. Nothing but beers, euchre, charades, swimmin’ and beers for 5 days. Sweet!
After that we headed up and around Lake Superior. Ben and I would drive and drive and then park at a truck stop when it got too dark to sleep in the van. The first couple of nights out were brutal. We wouldn’t open the doors when we stopped but somehow the van would get thick with mosquitoes. We wouldn’t open the windows because we didn’t want more mosquitoes in the van, so it would get really hot. Thankfully after we got out of Manitoba we didn’t really see anymore mosquitoes until we came back to New Brunswick.
While we were in Winnipeg we played a show and had some time to explore the city. When I was there in May I think I only got to see the ass end of the city, so I wasn’t a huge fan. This time Ben and I had our bikes and we rode around. Winnipeg is actually a really beautiful place if you know what spots to avoid and what to check out. We played at a place called Academy Coffee House. The crowd was fun and we had a great time. After the show we drove half way to Brandon and slept in another truck stop.
The following morning we got up early because we wanted to hoof it to Calgary. That meant getting the heck outta Manitoba and past Saskatchewan and into the depths of Alberta. Van gave us a little trouble in the prairies due to the extreme dry heat. We stopped for gas and apparently that part of Saskatchewan hadn’t seen rain for 6 weeks. Just grasshoppers. It’s no exaggeration… When you see farmers complaining about grasshoppers on the evening news, they’re not just whining. It’s really sick… They’re all over the place there… and they’re cannibals. They eat other dead grasshoppers. I watched them do it. Fascinated and disgusted at the same time. The heat was getting to me.
We rolled into Calgary fairly early. The sky was hazy and the sun was a bright, unnatural orange. Our friends Carl and Amy were kind enough to put us up, so Ben and I spent the next few days with them. Showers and toilets were a luxury at this point. While in Calgary Ben and I went to a kiddie theme park and rode a roller coaster, we played a show at Karma Local arts and we did a day trip to Banff where we climbed a mountain. Banff was beautiful, but I found it way too touristy. So a retreat to the closest mountain and a good hike was the perfect escape from the downtown core. When we came back to Calgary from Banff there was smoke and haze all over Calgary from the forest fires in the Rockies. The smoke was so thick that it was actually snowing ash all over the place. It smelled like a campfire and the van was covered in charred pine needles. When you touched them, they turned to dust. Really sad to see that happen. But maybe better to leave what’s to be done with the trees up to Mother Nature rather than a chainsaw.
We left from Calgary with the intentions of visiting our friend in Nelson. A highway closure and 7 hour detour made this trip too much of a feat, so we continued on making a stop at Lake Louise which was gorgeous. We decided to opt out on the $38 canoe rental, though… Jeepers. The drive through the Rockies is something that everyone should experience. It’s truly humbling and a bit scary at moments. We spent the night at the Best Western in Salmon Arm BC which happened to be the night of the Blackout in the east. Had we not decided to pamper ourselves with a hotel then we wouldn’t have known about all of you left in the dark. So we watched the news (which most of you didn’t have the luxury of doing) to see how you were all coping. Ben and I were oddly envious that we couldn’t be there to join in the impromptu barbecuing of all the meat in the freezer and drinking of all of the still-cold beer… plus seeing the stars from that vantage point must’ve been a truly unusual and wonderful experience. Still, watching the system fail from afar is still cool and reminds us that we don’t have as much control over everything as we convince ourselves. Sometimes the world has a different plan and we should learn to respect that.
From Salmon Arm we charged onward to Vancouver where we spent the afternoon biking around Stanley Park and eating Mexican at a very excellent restaurant. With full bellies and tired limbs we drove ourselves to a residential area to park and sleep for the night. In the morning, I got right serious and decided to buy a new bike. My old bike was 10 years old and rusty and shitty. So I figured a new one was in order. I found the perfect fit for me and am in love with it. I sold the old bike for a generous $15. Ben and I did another bike around Stanley Park before we packed up to head to the ferry dock.
That afternoon we took the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. We wanted to try to make it to Tofino on the far west side of the Island before nightfall. This jaunt was probably the most amazing drive of the whole trip. My theory is that the highway in to Tofino was built from old logging roads. This means you never go in straight lines on flat ground. You’re always winding your way around steep mountains with hairpin turns and 18% gradations. Once up in the mountains we were surrounded by some of the most amazing climate. It was like we were right in the middle of a cloud with thick mist and wet haze all over and nestled in the midst of dense forests and rivers. We had no time to really stop and take it all in, so we just held on tight on the edge of our seats and kept hoofing it to Tofino. We arrived in Tofino in the dark and found refuge at the first campsite we saw. Luckily, there were a few spots available for the night. We parked and had a feast of wine, bread and cheese in the van as the rain poured outside.
The morning was wet but refreshing. I walked down to the ocean and put my feet in. Damn cold. But amazing. Ben and I spent the next couple of nights at this campground. We were lucky, because we were relying on cancellations since everything in Tofino is usually booked up months in advance. We biked all over the place. One day we biked to Long Beach. We took a path through a forest that we thought was a short cut, but then we started to encounter stairs. Carrying our bikes up and down stairs in the Pacific Rim rain forest was actually a really wonderful experience and probably my personal highlight of being in Tofino. Once we got to the beach we rode along the sand to a spot where a bunch of surfers were having a go at the waves so we could go for a quick swim. Maybe I’m just a huge wimp… but damn that water is cold.
Our last night in Tofino was spent at a Bed and Breakfast. This was also a lucky snag since we had not made reservations. It was once again nice to be around showers. We met some sweet folks from Holland and England who had us play some songs and all bought CDs.
After Tofino we headed into Victoria to chill out for a few days before our show there. We stayed with our friends Jill and Jeremy and had a great time. Victoria is probably my favourite city in Canada. Green year round, a lot less rain than Vancouver, no mosquitoes, lots of seaside and parks, 98 cent pizza slices… I can completely see myself living there someday. Our time there included lots of biking, going to a forest activist fundraiser, seeing Jeremy Fisher play live, a trip to the museum, a tour of a tall ship from our friend Christina, staring slack-jawed at the insanely exorbitant price of groceries, $2.00 pizza lunches, a fun jammed out show at the Spiral Café with Jeremy Fisher and a game of monopoly Donut Rock City styles. We had a great time.
From Victoria we were originally supposed to head to Kelowna to play a show. But sadly the forest fires were very close to the city and the gig had been cancelled. Instead we decided to head north east and try to get close to Jasper. We drove through the day and ate Peanut Buster Parfaits (I had a two for one coupon) at 1500 meters above sea level. We stopped in the parking lot of a Husky in a small mountain town and played some heated games of backgammon before going to sleep.
The following day we arrived in Jasper and found a campsite close to town. I had driven through Jasper before but didn’t have a chance to stop. Ben took me on a death defying bike ride along the river and we saw some elk grazing along the way. The town of Jasper was more our speed than Banff. There something a little more quiet and humble about Jasper. Lots of cute hippies and a lot less tourists. People don’t even lock up their bikes there, so Ben and I must’ve looked like some huge, sketchy tourists putting five locks on our bikes in various ways… not really… but maybe it looked that way. Still, Ben and I loved Jasper and can’t wait to head back there. We wished we could’ve spent more time, but maybe next time we’ll do a show there or something.
Our next stop was Edmonton where we played a low key set at the local Chapters. I was heavily conflicted about playing this show since Chapters is a big corporate Daddy and they were not going to pay me. Plus they were only allowing me to sell my CDs through their store and they would be keeping a $3.00 profit per CD. On top of things… I was told that there would be no sound system. On the upswing, I was able to accept tips and when I arrived, I discovered that they did, by chance, have a little sound system. So we played and enjoyed ourselves and I was sneaky enough to sell CDs on the side out of my guitar case… The fans didn’t seem too interested in letting Chapters profit off of me while I was not getting paid anyway, so they were happy to partake in the mischief. When we finished the show we drove into the night toward Saskatchewan. There was a wild storm close by so we watched the lightening flash and I wrote in the dark. I remember thinking that the lightening looked like flashes of big purple jellyfish in the sky.
We arrived in Regina way too early for anyone’s own good. Our show wasn’t for another 5 hours and I was feeling really ill for some reason. Ben and I went to the venue early to check things out. Upon getting there we discovered that our posters had not been put up… We have never played in Saskatchewan before so this lack of promotion made us feel really uneasy about the potential turn out for the show. Plus it was raining… Good for Saskatchewan… bad for ‘Noit and Neener. When we discovered that a bunch of other details in our contract were now rendered null and void we started to debate about whether or not to even bother do the show. The bartender then told us that some folks from Saskatoon had called and were going to be driving the 3 hours to make the show. So it was decided. We would play the show… not for the money… but for the fans! That’s rock and roll. To kill time we ate an all day breakfast at the local Smitty’s and watched the Lord of the Rings the Two Towers on my laptop in the van. The show actually went really well. Though the crowd was only seven people plus the revolving door of bar staff and some folks on the computers everyone enjoyed it. We sold the most CDs we had sold at a gig yet on this whole tour. This is called paying your dues but getting just enough in return to keep you from hating the planet. Regina was a definite learning experience.
We spent the next night at a hotel in Winnipeg. It had a pool, hot tub, sauna, arcade and glow in the dark bowling alley. But Ben and I ordered pizza, ate cherry cheese cake and drank beer to the tune of 6.5 hours of cable TV. Can you tell we’ve been deprived? We don’t have cable at home, and hadn’t vegged out for a long long time, so it was actually the prefect brain rest for the road weary traveller.
From Winnipeg we booted it to Thunder Bay where our friends Jen and Vaiki had organized a house concert for us. We played for a kind crowd and then drank some beers. Jen had the Ladybird Sideshow demo in rotation and I had many drunken moments of missing my talented girls. Can’t wait to play with them again soon.
If you can believe it, Ben and I woke early the next day a drove straight from Thunder Bay to Montreal. This took us just under 19 hours. We arrived around 2:00am and parked outside Ben’s grandparents place and slept in the van instead of wake them. We woke up to the sound of Ben’s grandpa huddled around the van with a bunch of suspicious neighbours wondering what kinda hippies were inside this creepy weed mobile. I poked my head out and said “We don’t want any!” We spent the day with good home cooking and company.
This past Monday we drove from Montreal to Saint John NB and have been here since, hanging out with Ben’s family and some of his awesome old high school buddies. We did have a show in Moncton, but upon arrival, we discovered that the Steam Engine Saloon had been out of business for the past two weeks. Not only that, it was in a really ghetto apartment building that had a sketchy trailer park in the rear. The only folks in the apartment building seemed to be truckers or old single guys. Still, we had a few laughs with some Newfoundlanders playing horseshoes behind the building and then headed in to the city to go to a pub with our friends. After some happy hour Alpine and tequila we hit the Irving Big Stop for some oatmeal cream pies and chocolate peanut butter fudge. The night was not a total loss.
We head to Halifax in about a half an hour to play at a spot called Ginger’s tonight. I’m excited to see Jill Barber and Amy Campbell who are also on the bill, and then hang out with some good friends from Halifax for the weekend.
So far it’s been an amazing adventure. I miss you all and you’re in my thoughts. We’ll be back in the Tdot around the 21st or the 22nd . I’m looking forward to getting down to it and start recording my record in the fall at the Gingerbread house. Lots on the plate and a big honkin’ planet to do it in.
Peace from the east and much love to you all,
Neener, Benner and the Rutabaga Nugget
August 2003
Yo Lou,
Hi you hot tamale you. Excellent to hear from you! Monsoon season doesn’t sound fun. But glad you’re able to catch some sweet waves just the same.
So, I’m pretty excited. Counting down the last few days before Ben and I hop in the Rutabaga Nugget (Ben’s Chevy 20 Starcraft) and live the van life for a couple of months. Our friends Krissi and Rick get married on Saturday (all the best to those cute folks), and on Sunday we fall in line with the mass exodus heading up to New Liskeard, Ontario. We’re spending the first hunk of the trip at the Smith cottage - likely one of my favourite places on the planet. Ben, Ross, Erin and I spent several low key days there in 2001 a day following the September 11th crisis trying the let the damage sink in (or out, or whatever). The thought of buying 1000 cans of baked beans and locking ourselves away until the war blew over seemed to be a very fitting idea at the time. Instead, we religiously combed over the daily news, played countless hands of euchre and drank “dumps” (a curious mixture of Tequila topped with a dapple of chocolate liquo
Counting down the days to departure. Twenty-five to go. Only five days of work left. I’ve been putting all of my belongings into giant boxes. Opening the window and blowing them away. Making wishes. Hoping that my old possessions will find kind new mothers to exploit them gently. Buying sunscreen. Trying to appreciate the chill. Letting images of muddy snow banks burn themselves into my weak memory. Trying to find all of the hassle and rat race endearing. People are such funny little creatures. So important and busy.
I am Maui-bound to see my friends Erin and Ross, make pretty music and cause pretty trouble. Break hearts and hula dance. Throw my body into an active volcano. Rise up like a phoenix. Fix all of the things that I have broken. This is a tall order. And bad beat poetry at that. Sentences in fragments.
The little doozers in the vaults of the Gingerbread House have been toiling away at making my next record – Leaving Autumn – a force to be reckoned with. I have relinquished quite a bit of creative control to my dear friend and producer – John MacLean – whose ears and musical sensibilities I put great trust in. I have been a fringe member of the afro-funk band 
Why Leaving Autumn? The choice was so clear.
My date of departure is in mid-March, but I would be thrilled if you would all join me on Friday, March 11th at the Horseshoe in Toronto. 
Take 6 cute fellas, 2 hot chicks, gear, a bed, a zillion pillows and miscellaneous crap and pack it into a big blue van named “Grover” and whadya get? A smooshy love puddle, that’s what! Traveling in a sardine can was actually more pleasurable than you’d think, especially when everyone can dig on each other’s vibe. Tons of laughs, naps, cuddling, journal writing, knitting, air-quality control and taking in the landscape.
We had an awesome show in Saint John. It was probably one of the most high energy shows that I’ve ever seen Johan bust out. Filmmaker Greg Hemmings came with his film crew to capture the brilliance on film. The place got so hot that even the walls were sweating. But beware the basement… it’s right ghosty. After the show we went back to my buddy Nick Giffin’s place where he kindly put the band up. We felt like royalty at Nick’s considering some of the dives we’ve been forced to sleep in. Thanks to Nick and the Giffins for putting up with eight showers and smelly bodies.
Speaking of horny…. Our show at the Attic was the most sexually charged show I think that I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. The place was packed with drunken kids groping one another and trying to take away specific body parts of the band as souvenirs. A big treat for Erin and I was having both Paul MacDougall and Larry Graves (guitar player and drummer for Mr. Something Something) accompany us on some of our tunes.
The night after the Attic was a totally different vibe as we played a non-alcoholic show at the Grafton Street Danspace which is a large dance studio. Tons of people, old and young, came out to just free form dance and have a good time. Members of the band got in to it. All in all an amazing night of music and movement.
We only had one night off while on tour and our friend Alex was awesome enough to cook dinner for the band. We watched our video of the Attic show and drank copious amounts of wine. Then things got a little out of control. Liam, Paul and I did the long, drunken stagger back to Paul’s friend Jill’s house (our Halifax home). Paul fell over from laughter in a drunken state of hysterics in the middle of an intersection and I gave him a good deep freeze and we played a few rounds of trip and skip (which Paul sucks at). Back at Jill’s we watched Sex and the City and were obnoxious for a while before passing out. Nesting with cute wookies is the best medicine for a broken heart (or something like that). Thanks to Jill for your warmth and hospitality.
The day before we left Halifax we’d made plans to go out to Peggy’s Cove to take some promo shots of Mr. Something Something that a girl from the Attic show had offered to do. She flaked out, so I became the photographer and got some excellent shots on my digital camera. The backdrop was amazing, and the guys were pros. A really fun day of romping through the rugged landscape.
Johan is not only a brilliant, talented and achingly gorgeous front man, but he’s also an incredibly good liar. We all packed into the campus radio station and apart from doing the “parade” and Skee, Paul and I performing some songs live off the floor, Johan told some outlandish lies about who we are, where we come from and how we all became a band. It was hard to keep a straight face. Larry also told the story of how the band came to be called Mr. Something Something which was pretty cool. But that is not my story to tell.…
Before our show at MacPhail’s Taproom, Skee and I treated ourselves to some fancy girlie drinks. That innocent little cosmopolitan instigated a night of fierce boozing inciting dangerously lowered inhibitions that left us unable to control our animal instincts to grind and gyrate up against the hips of the fellas in the band while they tried to solo. It was hot. Toastmaster G was sweet enough to lend us his floor space at his apartment which is a total 80’s cartoon, rubber ducky, empty pizza box, and bachelor gadgets Mecca. We almost tore the roof off the van trying to squeeze into underground parking. I couldn’t find my friggin’ backpack so I got to sleep in Johan’s underoos which was so hot. There was nothing I could do to cease from steam rolling the whole band in such an environment. A GIANT thank-you goes to Greg for sharing your home and letting us play your Pacman.
Backtracking to PEI was a great call. I’d never been and it was nice to see that part of the east coast, even if only for a handful of hours. We didn’t have the largest of crowds, but they danced fiercely and we had tea and gin and tonics and a lovely supper with turd-on-a-stick and cheesecake and Anne of Green Gables chocolates and rain as light as snow and I was a puddle of in love and drunk and naked and loving every moment of every moment on tour with my wonderful wookies and my favourite girl. My life is so good.
We finished our show in Charlottetown and managed to leave town at around 3am heading straight for Wakefield, Quebec. We saw four provinces in about 16 hours. Ate another “white breakfast”. The van threw up green stuff just outside of Montreal. I fell in love with the hot hippy that fixed the van while Skee and I watched Sound of Music on my laptop in the backseat. We saw Larry’s ass. It was a good drive.
We rolled in to Wakefield with just enough time to unload, set up, shower and get on stage. Skee and I tore it up and played a great opening set before a giant community gospel choir took to the stage and sang some spirituals. The Somethings did their sweet deed for an attentive crowd of dancers and the tour was done. That night we stayed up drinking giant beers and I watched band members slowly drop like tired little flies. Paul, Liam and I were the last noodles standing in the end, which was appropriate. The following morning I was heavy-hearted at having to end yet another amazing trip of music.