The Walrus Talk at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Thursday night took The Arctic as its theme, and the evening was as inspiring and illuminating as previous events in this ambitious national series. It also demonstrated with stunning clarity the conflict between communications cultures that is my main topic on this blog. As usual,... Continue Reading →
Been gigging steadily lately. April gigs included a wedding with my awesome soul band The Funktion, a punk show at Babylon with my rowdy noise-trio Caymans and another gig with The Funktion last Friday at The Rainbow. All were excellent, if exhausting. March gigs included Montreal's Coolfest and Treehouse Talks in Toronto. Next up is... Continue Reading →
So a while back I came across an ad on a musician's website here in Ottawa for a 'beach-thrash' band looking for a horn player. Needless to say, being the musically curious soul I am, I answered it. And so it was that I recently performed with Caymans at Montreal's Coolfest 12, an excellent microfestival... Continue Reading →
A few days ago I had a blast playing with the amazing Alan Gerber, a truly masterful artist who not only writes and sings great songs and plays sensational slide guitar, rocking boogie-woogie piano, folksy fiddle, and fine fingerpicking acoustic guitar, but is also as funny a musician onstage as I've ever seen. It's no... Continue Reading →
Two weeks ago I played a role in a terrific local festival called Taste of Wellington West whose centrepiece is a massive public gifting event. This year 36 different independent local restaurants, bakeries and food shops gave out tens of thousands of free food samples to thousands of visitors throughout the afternoon. It is partly... Continue Reading →
I've had a nasty prejudice against Poetry Slams ever since I led the first Canadian team to the first National Poetry Slam in San Francisco in 1992. That event was so so unsatisfying in so many ways - so self-indulgent and self-satisfied and poetically unadventurous - that it led my poetic teammates (Kedrick James and... Continue Reading →
YOU ARE YOUR MEDIA 