Portraits out in Record Time
Call it the benefits of a poor economy...
We didn't have as many festival bookings this summer as we had same time last year, which has meant a couple of weekends off when we'd normally be out and about on the festival circuit. The upside (for those who have had their portrait taken) is that Doug has had more time to process the portraits for distribution and I've had more time to do the distributions themselves.
So, as of July 24th, those of you who had your portraits taken at the Luminato Festival, the Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival and the Oakville Waterfront Festival should all have your portraits. Make sure to check your junk folders and allow emails from photos@sixstringnation.com.
The Canada Day Major's Hill Park portraits are ready and I'll get to distributing those at the beginning of next week and the Folk On the Rocks portraits will follow in a week or two after that. In the meantime, click the Flickr link above to see what's up already.
Posted at 7:02 PM
Farewell Yellowknife
With a plane to catch in just over an hour, I wanted to say what a great experience we had in YK - even if we didn't make it to Bulloch's for the fish and chips.
Thanks to Denizeh and the rest of the Folk on the Rocks board, to Ashley, Joanne, Madison and all the staff and volunteers, to all the artists, to the folks who came to see the guitar, the various media outlets who made sure everyone knew we were there and especially to Lynn Feasey for making it happen this year.
We'd love to come back for longer and we hope to see you soon.
Posted at 7:33 AM
FOTR Finale
Great time at Folk on the Rocks today at Long Lake in Yellowknife.
Actually, it was a pretty slow start to the day. Doug and I arrived a little later because our set-up was done from yesterday. We got organized pretty quickly and then sat around for quite a while before tents around us started coming to life. I gather the party scene following last night's Sam Roberts show lasted until the wee hours (7:00am, though it's hard to tell without the sun going down).
Anyway, back up and running without a volunteer for the most part, until I had to take the guitar to the Endless Summer Strings workshop, at which point Alison came over from another assignment to help. While I was asked to showcase the Six String Nation at the top of the workshop, 6-string beasts were in the minority at this event. Chris Luedecke was on 5-string banjo, Dana Sipos on 8 string mandolin, Drew Gonzalvez on 4-string quatro and Pat Braden on 10-string Chapman Stick - to name a few. But T. Nile took on Voyageur and lead off the workshop. Later, Dana took it up for a song. She's a real find - a native Yellowknifer with a wonderfully textured voice and fine songwriting skills.
As I'm watching the workshop unfold, I notice a woman in the audience just a few feet away from me sitting with a small boy and another woman. She sees me and smiles and I think she's just being friendly. Meantime, I'm thinking: She looks a lot like Leela Gilday - I wonder if she's related? Although Leela is from Yellowknife, she's been living in Vancouver for a while and I figured there's no way that's Leela just hanging out at the festival because surely if she was back home she'd be PLAYING at the festival. But it looked so much like her that I went over at the end of the workshop and sure enough it was Leela and her sister and her boyfriend's son. She's moved back to Yellowknife!
Leela disappeared into the festival fray and came to see us at the booth just as we were tearing down but we did get a few shots of her with the guitar anyway. We both vowed that we'd do it up right with a proper performance next time our paths crossed.
Had a nice chat with Sam Roberts this evening. Seems like a great guy. I didn't have the guitar with me and he was about to get into a car en route to the site so we didn't get the chance to sit down this time but we'll be in Salmon Arm together in a few weeks and we'll make it happen then. My dream is to hear him do "Canadian Dream" on Voyageur.
Thanks to booth volunteers Alison and Amy and driver Dave.
Posted at 2:14 AM