We're back in Ottawa - again at the invitation of the National Capital Commission - who have been real champions for us. It was a conversation with Mark Kristmanson in December 2005 that really shifted the project into high gear when he asked if we'd be ready for Canada Day 2006 so he could build the show around it. And everyone else there has been fantastic too: Joel, Therese, Alain, Julie, Stephan and others.
I've met with Mark several times since then and not once did he tell me that he has a daughter who is a musician. I've recounted this tale in the blog before - back in October - but I was reminded of it again tonight because we arrived in Ottawa a day before the launch of Winterlude so that we could take the guitar to Kyrie Kristmanson at the Rainbow Bistro in the Market for her set there.
She is everything I thought she would be after our first meeting at the OCFF Conference - a beguiling performer with lyrics so thoughtful, so vivid and so tenderly painted. Apart from the fact that she doesn't sound like anyone else, her writing is just exceptional and I hope the country gets to know her better as one of our most unique voices.
Immediately after her set, one of the musicians came up and introduced himself and asked if he could play one of his songs for me on the guitar. His name was Neil Gerster. We went into the dressing room backstage and he played a gorgeous song full of images of Canada. It was a real treat and wonderful again to see the connection that musicians feel when they encounter the guitar.
Posted at 2:46 PM
A real thrill today - meeting Michael Brook.
Michael is originally from Dundas Ontario. I had the chance to meet him years ago but declined because Brian Eno was going to be at the dinner and I was too nervous to contemplate having a meal with Brian Eno. Boy do I regret declining that invite.
Anyway, it turns out that Michael Brook and I have a few friends in common but he's been living in London and, more recently, L.A., where he's in huge demand as a producer and composer.
If you don't know him, he's a frequent collaborator of Eno's, the producer of Mary Margaret O'Hara's still-extraordinary "Miss America", the inventor of U2's Infinite Guitar and the composer of the soundtrack to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", among other things.
I was interviewing him today and had a chance to show him the guitar. He was really impressed by it and was a lovely guy as well.
Posted at 2:45 PM
It was a while in the making after a couple of chance encounters but we finally got to hook up with Greg Lawless, who performed a sold-out show tonight at Hugh's Room.
I love these Hugh's Room shows - not only because it's a great venue but because it's just a couple of blocks from my place.
No room for portraits there, unfortunately, but lots of interest in the crowd - especially from some teachers who came up to chat after the show.
Posted at 2:11 PM
That was testament to the power of radio.
Doug and Sarah and I came up to Orangeville early this morning so we could stop at the home depot for some material we needed for the portrait set up at Orangeville Mall. We listened to the piece with Don Ross and me on Fresh Air with Jeff Goodes and it sounded fantastic.
We got to the mall and started setting up. I'd say a good half of the people who showed up over the course of the day to get their pictures taken had heard the show and came out just to see us. This was confirmed for us by the end of the day when the mall management came up to thank us for increasing their traffic significantly. We got lots of great shots - including the wife, daughter and granddaughters of Elmer Iseler!
Then it was off to the show at the Opera House. Laura Bird and the Headwaters Acoustic Music Society did a brilliant job with the show. Not only was it sold out but they had involved a local music school in a draw which saw two local students get a one on one master-class with Don Ross in the afternoon. In fact, they opened the show!
The raffle continued at the intermission - including a select number of spaces for another handful of portraits we set up for in the lower lobby of this beautiful old building, which also functions as a municipal office.
Special thanks to Laura and Javier for their hospitality.
Posted at 2:10 PM
It's been a big week.
For the past 7 days, the guitar has been in the possession of finger-style guitar master Don Ross. I commissioned a new piece from him specifically for the guitar to accompany a documentary being made by radio producer Steve Wadhams. This is the first time it's been in the hands of someone else for such an extended period. Given that it's Don Ross, I have no qualms (except that he and his wife Brooke Miller had a whole bunch of gear stolen from their car on a trip to Montréal back in October - gulp!).
Anyway, Don and Brooke came over last week to pick it up and they were just lovely people. Today, Don met me at the CBC Radio studios where we were guests on Fresh Air with Jeff Goodes. Don premiered the song in a mostly finished state for broadcast tomorrow morning in advance of our gig in Orangeville. It was spectacular. Truly.
After the show, Don returned the guitar to me and tonight Sarah and her parents and I came up to the little village of Mono where a small show had been arranged in the basement of the Mono Cliffs Inn - a cramped and totally charming little pub called Peter's Cellar. Mark Pickett did the organizing and the place packed out. He played, Sarah's brother Luke played, the young woman whose set we displace played and Laura Bird - a wonderful singer/songwriter who happens to be the person who arranged tomorrow night's show in Orangeville - also took a wonderful turn. It was the most perfect kind of night - small and intimate with a real sense of the impact this guitar has on the people who come face to face with it. Word of our presence even drifted up to the folks in the Magnolia Dining Room on the main floor, who asked to see it and came to join us later in the evening.
Special thanks to Mark and Annie Pickett, Wayne and Carol from the Mono Cliffs Inn and all the musicians who played.
Posted at 2:08 PM
Riverdale Share is an annual community event in Toronto that benefits families in crisis in the Riverdale neighbourhood. They've gotten pretty good at it after 14 years of practice so today's show - the 15th - was a very glossy, well-produced and well-attended affair.
A great chance to chat with Stephen Page and Jim Cuddy and - whaddya know - Gregg Lawless was there too!
The portraits portion, unfortunately, was sort of poorly considered so we didn't get much traffic (but bless the ChoirGirlz) but Jian Ghomeshi used the guitar (with full children's choir backing!) for the finale of "Happy Xmas, War Is Over" by John Lennon. That was a blast.
Thanks to Randi Fratkin for the invite.
Posted at 2:06 PM
Back last summer, I got a message from a guy who heard me say in a radio interview that I was excited about all kinds of people playing this guitar - not just famous ones. He wrote to say that he was not famous but definitely wanted to play the guitar.
His name was Don Ablett and we began a correspondence. It came out through the conversation that he was a high school principal in Brampton by day and a guitar enthusiast the rest of the time - even with a CD to his credit. I told him that I was anxious to get the guitar into schools and he absolutely ran with the idea. We set up a date for a visit - which happened today - about 2 or 3 months ago. In the interim, the teachers at his school had been using the stories that are in the guitar materials as a platform into their subjects. And that's just the beginning.
In fact, Don set up two school visits for us today. Doug brought his son Gabriel to help out with the portraits and Kathy Hill came along to assist as well. We arrived early this morning at Chinguacousy Secondary School where I did a presentation in the cafeteria for about 300 bleary eyed kids. Don had been vice-principal at this school so he was on hand to play a tune and to introduce Will Bennett - the student who played for his peers.
After that, we headed down to the music room where Shawn Abedin's guitar class were gathered to get their portraits done.
Then, it was a short hop kitty-corner to North Peel Secondary School where Don is now principal. We were just stunned and amazed entering the school to see all the banners and posters the students had made marking our visit. While Doug, Kathy and Gabriel set up the photo system in the Cafeteria, Don took me on a tour of the school. One class had created a mural of their school composed of pictures from the building's 30-year history - inspired by the Six String Nation idea; another class had created four 8-foot banners of the guitar based on images from the website - fully annotated with blue cards from each of the students attached to the bottom articulating their favourite piece of material; in the Library were several displays outlining the histories within the guitar and special book selections related to stories in the guitar were featured. I confess I was just blown away - this was all way more than I had imagined. And there was more to come: while we were in the library, the P.A. came on announcing that the "guitar cookies" were ready and would be on sale in the Cafe at lunch. The culinary arts class (who also made our lunch) had made cookies with the Six String Nation logo on them to raise money!
In Don's office, he showed me stacks of reports and essays the students had done for their courses built around stories from the guitar. I just can't get over the amount of effort everyone put in.
We did photos - mostly groups of kids and teachers and school staff - and then went into the gym where the aforementioned banners had been hoisted to the ceiling. I did my Keynote presentation and then there were some performances. The drama group did a reading - each student taking a voice of one of the provinces or territories and talking about the pieces - a student named Eric played it and then Don and his musical partner did a couple of songs - ending with "I've Been Everywhere" by Hank Snow while the computer ran the slide show of portraits on the wall behind them. It was almost too much to take - I was just so moved by the whole thing.
Still glowing from the visit, Doug, Gabriel and Kathy headed back to the City while I followed Don to his home where he and his wife Carol-Ann had planned a guitar party for that evening. They gave me a glass of wine and let me use their office to do a little work and then we had a lovely dinner of pot-stickers before everyone started to arrive.
The party was terrific - very friendly people and the guitar got passed around a fair bit (along with several other guitars). There was much music making and I had a great conversation with Gregg Lawless, who wants to use the guitar for a show at some point.
If future school visits are even half as good as today's experience, I'll be extremely happy.
Special thanks to Don Ablett, Carol-Ann Michaelson, Shawn Abedin, Will Caldwell, Will Bennett, Eric and the staff and students of Chinguacousy and North Peel Secondary Schools in Brampton Ontario.
Posted at 2:04 PM
D'Addario Canada has been our very generous sponsor of guitar-strings from the beginning of the project but I've never actually met them before.
I had sent some copies of the portraits to Larry Davidson - who runs the D'Addario Canada shop with his dad, brother and a small staff that might as well be family. He loved the photos so much he asked us to come up and get shots of the whole staff to use in this year's holiday card collage. So we went up this afternoon and had a great time (and came back with an armload of strings to boot!)
If you're a music retailer anywhere in Canada, look for the Six String Nation guitar on your Christmas card from D'Addario.
Posted at 2:04 PM
There are not many people around like Charlie Coffey.
He's Vice President of Community and Government Relations for the Royal Bank of Canada. He's a banker. And yet he's so unlike anyone's picture of a banker. He is sincere and dedicated and actively engaged in getting the bank to do the right thing with regard to women's issues, aboriginal issues and many other causes.
We met a few years ago when I was emceeing an event for a social assistance programme he had involved the bank in. I was impressed by his bearing, his sincerity and his piercing gaze that held the room as he spoke. For some reason, I thought to tell him about Six String Nation and he's been a supporter ever since. Sadly, he hasn't been able to convince the sponsorship department at RBC to pitch in but he's done a lot personally, financially and by introducing me and the guitar to all kinds of folks.
Last night was his retirement from the bank and he asked to have the guitar there for all of his colleagues to see. We did portraits on the 40th floor of the south tower at Bay and Front Streets - including the President and CEO of the bank and all kinds of others who might one day consider a sponsorship.
He also asked if I could invite someone to play and I asked my good friend Andy Stochansky - who performed an acoustic version of his incredible song "Shine" as well as "Happy Birthday".
It was an honour to be part of the event but I know I'm not alone in feeling a little bit afraid for the future - after all, how often do you know someone that committed and that approachable who is VP of a major bank?
Charlie is one in a million.
Posted at 2:03 PM
My friend Peter MacLeod will be Prime Minister one day. He's a brilliant young guy. So brilliant, in fact, that it's embarrassing to note how much he's accomplished for someone so young.
Anyway, before he actually ends up running the country, he wants to make sure that he's not actually running it but that he's doing the work of an informed and engaged electorate. So he's been working with the Ontario Government's Electoral Reform process to engage youth in the discussion.
All this week there's been a conference of these high-school aged kids from every riding in the province taking place at the Deerhurst Inn near Huntsville. He invited me to come up last night to share the guitar with the conference participants. We didn't do the whole photo thing because there was no budget - but it was a nice chance to spend a night at Deerhurst and meet some really interesting kids.
I presented the guitar pretty briefly at the second last session of the day and the kids in the room just loved it. They ended up passing it around and playing for each other. Other team leaders regretted that they programmed other activities because not everyone was able to participate with it and it seemed there was a lot of demand.
I suppose that, ultimately, this is all about building connections between people across the country and this guitar so that as many Canadians as possible carry around this connection for years to come. I felt we hit that mark last night at the Deerhurst.
Special thanks to Peter MacLeod.
Posted at 2:03 PM
What a terrific night that was last night! We were set up in the lobby outside the Gryphon Theatre at Georgian College in Barrie and did a ton of great photos. The ones of Ian Tamblyn, in particular, are amazing.
Even more amazing was the time spent backstage during the show. Stephen Fearing was there with Blackie & the Rodeo Kings. Of course, Stephen was the first person to officially play the guitar on Canada Day and he hasn't seen it since Mariposa. He was thrilled with the way it's finding its sound and he was especially glad to see some scratch marks in various spots on the top, back and pick-guard - signs, he says, that it is being loved by musicians. I agree.
It was a pleasure to meet Ian Tamblyn and have him play for a while - he's a great writer and knew my dad when they did some work together in Ottawa.
The wonderful Katherine Wheatley played the guitar in her set as did Lennie Gallant and Pat Robitaille.
And for the finale, Colin Linden took the guitar into the crowd as Blackie & the Rodeo Kings ended their set unplugged. Great to see Colin with this guitar as always.
The guitar was supposed to join Blackie and the gang (along with Cowboy Junkies, the Skydiggers and others) on the Roots On the Rails train later in the month but they've been kind of uncommunicative and aren't offering me any guarantees about looking after it. Plus, no mention of us on the website so it feels a bit like sending it out into the ether. Got some great advice about this from Tom Wilson. He said: "Man, this is the Stanley Cup of guitars. Don't let it go anywhere without you".
I think I'll take that advice.
Special thanks to Arnie, Elaine and everyone at BarrieFolk.
Posted at 2:02 PM
Wow - today was the first of what I hope will be many school visits with the guitar.
Arnie Isvins is one of the organizers of the BarrieFolk Festival tomorrow night but he's also a teacher at Sunnybrae Public School in nearby Innisfil and he thought it would be a great idea to share the story of the guitar and the history within it with the students at his school.
I was a little nervous at first. I haven't really spoken to a group of young kids like that for quite a while. But it turned into a really nice event. I spoke for a while at an assembly of kids grade 2 to grade 8. I showed them the guitar and talked about all the pieces within it and then there were a few performances: the principal had a brief go at it as well as two students - a girl from grade 6 and a boy from grade 8. They thought it was pretty cool. I thought it was even cooler that they were playing it.
We offered Arnie the opportunity to play it but he says he's holding out for something special tomorrow night at the festival.
Thanks to Arnie Isvins, the Barrie Folk Society and the staff and students at Sunnybrae.
Posted at 1:54 PM
We'd been having some problems with the iBeam pick-up in the guitar. Depending on how much time sound engineers had to soundcheck it, it could sound pretty boxy or be subject to a lot of feedback. So L.R. Baggs graciously offered to replace it with the iMix system (mic and pizo through a single output with balance and volume wheels accessible in the sound hole) and the work was done earlier this week.
Tonight, we got to hear the result at Hugh's Room where Lennie Gallant was in town. Dave Lang was doing sound and he always does a great job so that was a good place to start. And Lennie was absolutely magnificent. The guitar has all the presence and range that we knew it had acoustically and it came through the P.A. in Lennie's hands loud and clear.
This was a great prelude, actually because we'll be seeing Lennie again Saturday night at BarrieFolk in Barrie Ontario.
BTW, Lennie is one of the closest friends of this project - so much so that his own ancestors are represented in the guitar with a piece from the oldest Acadian dwelling on PEI - the Doucet House.
Thanks to Lennie and Dave and all the folks at Hugh's Room.
Posted at 1:50 PM
We were thrilled to be invited to the opening gala of this year's edition of the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. This was the 26th year for the fest and it really is the best in the world for attracting an amazing array of authors.
There was actually no occasion to have the guitar played at this event but we had a prominent space in the Lobby with our portrait set up and managed to get great shots of John Ralston Saul, Eleanor Wachtel, Ian Brown, Jian Ghomeshi, Rita Cox, Susan Cole, Gautam Malkani, Eden Robinson and many others - including a brilliant pose from Arpad Solter, director of the Goethe Institute in Toronto. I'm just kind of sorry we never connected with Farley Mowat!
Afterwards, we had a chance to hang out at the hospitality suite with new pal Julian Rubinstein - author of "The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber".
Posted at 1:43 PM
Well, tonight was certainly a departure from the usual Six String Nation crowd. Instead of hanging out with musicians, it was the stars of the literary world tonight at the opening reception of the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront Centre.
We had the portrait station set up in the lobby of the Power Plant gallery and various luminaries kept coming out to get their picture taken with the guitar: Eleanor Wachtel, host of "Writers & Company", Ian Brown from "Talking Books", Noah Richler, John Ralston Saul, Julian Rubinstein ("Ballad of the Whiskey Robber"), Gautam Malkani ("Londonstani"), storyteller Rita Cox, Jian Ghomeshi, Simon Ings, Paul Quarrington, various consular representatives and a few passersby.
Posted at 1:39 PM