Live Music

 

Live Music: and sometimes now we find it as memories set in the crumbling faces of buildings that once contained it. Six nights, and a matinee. You could make it big, or lose it all upstairs or downstairs: or in a small, rented room down the street and around the corner. Places with radiators that never worked except maybe in summer. If you were as clever as you thought you were, you might have run from this: the music business: like the rings of Dante's Inferno: concentric: eccentric: our time in the pit infinite: all of us looking upward as the black birds of Fate circled and picked at our wounds. If hope wasn't a sin, it might have been a chain around our necks. But we'd skipped school, and convinced the scruffy manager to finally hire the band for a week. Maybe somebody had cancelled on short notice. Or perhaps he had simply got tired of us hanging around bothering him. But there it was: our big break. And in we went: forever changed: not duffers anymore, not outsiders: not wankers: but part of it: players: real deal musicians. Destiny called, and we answered with enthusiasm. We took out union cards.

Live Music: inscribed in neon, or stone, or glass, or sometimes by a part-time sign painter who could work his dyslexia against a window for a few bucks. George was the guy in Toronto, and his sloperb handiwork could be seen distributed across the windows of the economy rooms around that city. "Live Music." "Dancing." "Girls Girls Girls." "Haircut." He was a big, hard drinking man who also worked as a nude model at the art college. He didn't care if people made fun of his shrivelled up little prick. Or if he did, he never said so. He played tambourine in a few punk bands, for which we bought him beers. His signage pointed the way to many of our little temples. There was a guy like George in every town.

Neon, of course, was a better bet. "Live Music" in blue, or red was very classy. Better than paint on glass. Some of these joints were built in the 1940's and 1950's. Not just bars, but lounges. "Ladies and Escorts." Dirty velvet wallpaper. Signs that sometimes flashed. High voltage investments from another age. These would cause noise in your stage equipment, and later: add taxi cab radio to your wireless guitar. But they did make a certain kind of proclamation: hot, or cool: and when the right light rippled on the skin in the right way you could easily imagine the rest. Imagination had a lot to do with it, while the dance floor provided opportunities to the brave. "Hey, man, did you know John Lee Hooker played here one time?" Boom, boom. What was the name of that club? Neon stages were just better: they had hotter lights: lights that parted the cigarette smoke and swirled it around in mysterious patterns. Mixed with neon, this fog produced the romance of the stage. Sex, drugs, rock'n roll, blues, heartbreak, sweat, the best solo you ever heard: anything was possible. You can still smell it on the old amps: neon dreams.

Under these Live Music signs we cut loose our dreams: we played, danced, and sang as if it mattered. We opened for Muddy Waters. We played pinball between sets. We stole each other's girlfriends. And now sometimes: maybe not often enough: it returns to us as memories set into the crumbling faces of the buildings that once contained it all. Traces of booze, and pretty girls, and poetry and pool. The best song you ever wrote. The record deal you might have had. The Super Reverb amp you lent to Elvis Costello one time. Live Music. Six nights and a matinee. You could make it big, or lose it all.

Still at it, my Dark Horse blues tour is teasing the blues around Bangor and East Belfast for a few more days before another stop in Dublin, and then: Sept 9 Cafe Myo, Cork Sept 10 Sea Church, Ballycotton Sept 11, Blackstairs Blues Fest, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford Sept 12, Blackstairs Blues Fest, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford Sept 13, Blackstairs Blues Fest, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford Sept 16, Crowley's, Kenmare Sept 19, Clonakilty Intl. Guitar Festival Sept 20, Clonakilty Intl. Guitar Festival Oct 2-4, TBA Free State, South Africa. More dates to follow... 

The next best thing to Live Music is to ride with me to some of the world's coolest little blues venues. To join me on the Blues Highway- you can Like, Follow, and Share me on Facebook.

#LiveMusic #canadiansongwriter #deltablues #nationalsteelblues #notfromwinnipeg #capetownblues #vintageguitar #canadianblues #storytelling #torontoblues #southafricablues #irelandblues #oldmercedes #ontour #sonhouse #RoryGallagher.

A Rory Gallagher Day in Dublin

Now my fave Dublin stop!

My pal Geraldine O'shea took this pic as we visited all of the Rory Gallagher shrines in Dublin. Here I am at Some Neck Guitars. Behind proprietor Owen McQuail and I is his fantastic collection of Rory Gallagher gear and memorabilia. In the bottom left of the picture you can see some of the Gallagher Band flight cases. Up top are some cool amps, guitars, pedals... The 12 string Stella is very nice... Blonde Fender amp with 4 tens in it... on and on... Wow. This display is way better than the poorly lit, single guitar they have up in the National Museum of Ireland. Why did they do it that way? And the Museum has more guitars in long term storage...

Anyway, Some Neck Guitars is a very cool place from front to back. They've got walls of quality vintage and used gear, and some very nice, high end new and used acoustic and electric guitars. Great vintage amps... The not-for-sale Silvertones up the middle wall are a gorgeous feature. Thanks for the hospitality, Owen! The best music store in Ireland? Seriously, you'd probably want to play every guitar in the place through every amp. Ha, this sounds like an ad, but it's not! I was thrilled to discover this little shop.

After an excellent time at the Howth Root and Blues Festival, I'm now heading into Ireland's deep south for shows at Schull, and then at the Skibbereen Blues Roots Soul Festival this weekend.

Dark Horse: A Real Mudder for Ya

 

The Big, Big, Long Long Tour

 

The Tour: stretching off into the distance: in front: behind: behold: the empty highway. The lonliness of a long distance runner: the pack: long dispersed: long collapsed and shattered into the water stops long miles ago: when the road was busy: when headlights were clicked up and down in the darkness: and the distances themselves were imperial. But out here on the eastern Karoo the Old Girl eats kilometres, and there is no hint of light where the world breaks with the sky: no warming signs of life; no mercury vapour beacons: nothing to count but the distance itself: the crackle of the broken radio speaker: the rattle of the ball joints over a rough patch: the interruption of a thought: the zen of the drive: the almost glint of the almost fallen sun catching insulators on the power lines: the steady tick and hum of the German motor.

There are probably other things moving out here, but I can't see them. Driving away from the sun: I could tur off the motor in the middle of the road: and why not: there: the silence: a faint wind shaking the dry weeks: have a leak on the still hot pavement: watch lightning trace the sky half an hour away in: the distance: some big strike: a bit like tracers: but random: glinting. Was it God's left hand? Was it something darker, rolling the bones, coming up craps all the same? The music has been like that, too. Connected to places between here: and there: and not well grounded. And why should it be? It's about 119 km until the next town that might have a petrol station, so I've got my eye on the gauges.

There has been drought, and for all of the miles of fences: just a few springbok: casing the emptiness: do they look for the ghosts of the sheep, or or of the cattle: or of the guys who strung all of this wire? And where are they now? Living or dead? In what place do they drink, and toss their Castles to the ground? I wonder if the main difference between them and me is that they are no longer here? And I am. Here: but not there. Not where you are. It take a lot of hectares to support even a small farm: and it takes a lot of bums in seats to support even a small tour. Drought helps you to see that, while thirst pushes such truth to the back of one's mind. Sometimes that's a lot of distance. Enough to stretch another tour through, enough room to find enough excuses until the main bearing fails, or until it rains once more.

The Darker Roads National Steel Blues Tour will pick up in Glasgow in early August, with festival and club dates to follow in Northern Ireland and Ireland. Check the sidebar for dates and locations.

Venue Somewhere

When you arrive early to the venue: too early: early on a short haul from Somewhere to Somewhere Else: when last night is still lying in the street: the surly doormen still sleeping: somewhere: somewhere across town: someplace: and the deep fat fryers are asleep, too: lard and scum solidified deep in their battered buckets: in layers: blanketed layers: like little piggies: suffering only the faint smell of truck stop perfume: still haunting the stairwell: where the ghosts of darkness linger: waiting for a scowling man with a mop to push them back for a few more hours: and then: turn on the greasy fans: to rumble and splay.

You can park out front: half sleep in the front seat for a couple of hours: until the sun spoils the moment: until the flies skinwalk: until the beggars press up against the windows: looking for brown money or cigarettes. Load in. Sound check. Unplug the giant subwoofers. One stage light works: its nicotine yellow wash setting the mood for the corner stage: for glints on a brass pole from the better days: for the dank, patterned floor swaying underfoot. And now: just the mic stands dance: like they don’t care: like “Jazz me, Charlie, and I’ll pay you back at the end of my shift.” I’m pretty sure she was about eighteen, and just getting into coke, when I first played here. But I gave it all to the Spiderman pinball machine, and we never exchanged a word.

Just above the urinals, if you are a man: standing: looking up, not down: or half-sideways: looking up: you might see pictures of popular or legendary out of town artists: taped to the wall: above the piss and the puke. On summer days the cleaner would pour ice into the urinals: cold piss was thought to smell better than hot piss. The things men thought about: standing: pissing: looking at my picture: and pissing again. When the venue sold a lot of beer, you might get famous: you might get booked into a bigger room in another town Somewhere: somewhere down the road: a place where they might actually put up an 8 x 10 black and white glossy in the bar window: and the waitresses would be prettier. It’s all about branding, somebody once told me: branding and beer: and urinals are often at the cold heart of the business. In Chinatown, I’ve heard that both upstairs and downstairs urinals are unlucky. It depends who you talk to.

In Ireland, the set runs two hours: straight. In Africa: usually two sets on a three hour call– maybe more in Limpopo and Mpumalanga. An early start: an early finish: young people crowding in at the end: the dj: sitting with his gear: waiting for my exit: waiting to plug in the broken subwoofers: waiting for their own moment in the ring. In the Americas, we would play three or even four, forty-five minute sets– usually over six nights and a matinee. Union gigs, with contracts. Some of the venues had the set start and finish times painted onto the walls next to the stages. Here: it’s a cold crowd drinking: brandy and coke: on special: doubles until eight: and I’ve finally learned how to put ice cubes in my wine: and when to start and stop.

The good thing about not working with Live Nation or Ticket Master is that I usually get paid in cash at the end of it all. Where there are bandits, it’s a bit different, as there is no real money exchanged: so everybody else angles for a piece of the pie. But when it works, it’s like visiting the Wizard of Oz: next door to the repro man and the pawn shop. Portuguese math. The shell game. Sometimes I have to wait while the munchkin money gets counted and the numbers tallied: but at the end of the night: bank notes of whatever currency: counted into my hand: no third and fourth parties taking a spread: just the House and Me: just blue Mandelas: dealt out onto another debris strewn desk by some stressed looking guy in sweat pants. He has my bar tab, and is careful to miss nothing. The money flows through his greasy fingers and into mine: deftly: like some magic trick: and really it is: life on the Blues Highway.

Blues magic: On stage: the artist: sawn in half nightly: to the amazement of anyone who doesn’t know how it’s done: and the blood and the bruises and the disappointments and the dreams and the best songs you have ever written: and the best stories: turned into little tokens: little magic tokens which will carry everything to the next town: to the next Somewhere venue: to Somewhere too early, or too late: Somewhere you should have been ten years ago: but not in December: Somewhere: where you might get famous next to the roar of a kitchen fan, or next to the whir of some kid tilting a Spiderman pinball machine.

The Tour soon moves on to Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Scotland. Busy now now routing and filling the remaining summer and autumn dates...

A Little More Dark Horse Blues– 2025-26 South Africa Tour Announced

Blues falling down like rain: the greasy red mud sometimes trying to grab my wheels: like a tyre exploding in the desert sun: like the hands of an old clock. Remember when time, and time telling was analogue? Physical. You could wrestle with it. Not something made up. Or maybe it is.

Smart people figured out all kinds of ways to keep track of our journeys from dust to dust. Moons and hours: and minutes and wishes: the dreams of old dogs, legs twitching as they sprawl near woodstoves: the passing hearth, the smell of open fires. Giving or taking. My legs twitch a little bit too, sometimes. And tyres do explode. So, in spite of booking most of my travels months in advance– it's always about gripping the wheel in the moment.

Sixty shows in Seventy days? You never know how many miles are left until the main bearing fails. I'm now about half booked for this one... so contact me if you have ideas for a show. No venue too large, too small, too grand or too humble.

A Little Dark Horse Blues: 2025 Irish Tour Announced

Well, you read about it here first. Maybe. But anyway– announcing the Dark Horse Blues. A ™National Steel Blues Tour. Launching in Dublin, Friday, August 8, 2025, this will be my third Irish adventure: a small tour of about 25 shows across both the Republic and the North, and then a few more on the GB side. We'll see if Manchester bites! Mose Scarlett and I were stranded near there back in 1979, and spent several weeks in the sheep filled hills... I still seem to play a lot of places populated by sheep and goats!

Meanwhile, I'm supposed to call Seamus at the Lame Horse Pub on Tuesday afternoon, between two and three, unless he's not in that day, and in that case I should call back, maybe next week, to see if he's there, and whether I'd require a microphone, or maybe Joe would be the one to talk to about a Sunday show, and you can try him later if it's not too busy because of the game... ah, just book me and buy me a Guinness. And hold the goats. I've got email and gmail and messenger... Put a little money on the Dark Horse, and I'll bring the Blues to Your Town.