Mid month blog, Performances and BoodAbooM progress....

Fiona Stuart

Jeffery Randle

Giving it at the Red Willow Coffee House

I spent a bit of time at CHLY this month promoting the coffee house show with Dave Kilbank of the Songwriters Circle show February 3rd. We spent nearly an hour chatting about the process of recording for broadcast and played a half dozen songs from the new album. I sang “Choices” from my previous album live and encouraged people to come out to the Red Willow Coffee House.  February 5th I went back and spent the afternoon doing pretty much the same thing with Pam Edgar who was filling in for Big “G” on a show he calls “The big G spot”. It was great fun to hang out, chat about songwriting  and spin a few more tunes from the soon to be released BoodAbooM album. Pam and I discussed how the BoodAbooM project was a concept project featuring music I’ve written that reflects the rudimentary teaching of the Buddha against life in modern times.

We had a great night with a full house and a long open mic at the Red Willow Coffee House February 8th. The performers are far too many to list here, but some of the real standouts for me were Brian Hazelbower, Paul Bezooyan and Dave Kilbank (Nanaimo’s Simon and Garfunkel), and the lovely Fiona Stuart who performed with bass wizard Kenny Brault and Jeffery Randle on Cajon. Jeffery also put in a performance of his own on guitar with a couple of his tunes. Consequently I didn’t take the stage until much later than expected, but fortunately most stuck around after break time and took in my presentation.

I felt truly blessed with a warm and loving audience. The musical focus for the night was songs from the upcoming BoodAbooM album and a bit of conversation about the concept behind the project. I opened with a tune called “The Answer” that basically points out that “love” is the answer. Try to approach everything from a standpoint of loving kindness, it seems to work well. After a few songs from the BoodAbooM album, I wanted to pay tribute to three song writers that I have great respect for and I feel have influenced my own song writing. I sang Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”, got everyone to sing along in the last chorus of “I shot the Sheriff” and rounded out my trinity of songs with Steve Earle’s “I ain’t ever satisfied”. Great fun to be sure. After that I performed a couple of songs from my previous album “Choices” and then finished the evening off with more songs from the BoodAbooM project.

The BoodAbooM album project is pretty much completed with all of the recordings being in place. As of the writing of this blog I am in the process of finalizing the mixes with producer / engineer Rick Salt of Lois Lane Studios. After that, the mastering and we are off to the next step. Physical CD’s to sell will be a little ways off and once that has been completed, I do hope to be able to assemble the band for a full album release party. The details of that will be announced once we get closer to that becoming a reality. There will be a period of taking the project to a variety of music professionals for a variety of reasons, mostly to get feed back. What happens next is really quite unpredictable in the ever changing vortex we know as the world of music.

My next performance in the Nanaimo area will be “party time” at the Landlubber Pub on March 30th with my friend Dean Doyle from the Hygrade band on drums and harmonies. We are going to be playing a lot of old favourites as this gig is just about having HUGE fun. New owners Andrew and Jenny have been unwavering in their dedication to bring and keep music in the pub. The kitchen is turning out great food and the atmosphere is awesome. They have brought a wonderful friendly vibe, so Dean and I are looking forward to a night of “given’ er” and playing a bunch of our favourite songs. Music from the Tom Petty to Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen to Steve Earle, Bruce Springsteen to The Violent Femmes. It’s going to be a fun night!! Come on out, enjoy a great deal on steaks (for you carnivore types) or any of their menu selections, as well as an evening of sing along and jump around dancing.

As mentioned earlier there will be more BoodAbooM shows coming up, but details will be released closer to the show dates. Check back here or go to the BoodAbooM web site for continuing updates.

I would suspect somewhere into early March is when the next blog can be expect. It's good to check back though because if the desire or a reason hits to blog, I will blog. Between now and then be good to each other. Remember to try and approach everything from a standpoint of loving kindness. It really helps make the world an easier place to live.

Brother T