Tofino. ahhhhhh.

well what can i say about tofino....if you have not been you simply must. it's without question the most amazing place in cananda i've been to. it has everything one wants.....mountains, rainforests, ocean and very little snow. the drive to tofino is so beautiful. winding roads climbing up mountains, driving along side beautiful lakes and rivers. upon arrival we went down to the marina where we immediately saw the local sea lion who likes to hang out there. we took this as a good sign. after finding out host geoff johnson we loaded in to set up. there were windows all behind us and during sound check i turned around just in time to see a bald eagle swoop down and grab a fishy right outta the water. unreal.

these are only some of the pics that we took. i wanted to put a few up so you can see what i'm talking about even though you wont really get it till you go see for your self......this pic right above is of the amazing long beach. true to its name it really stretches out!

the  pic here is from the top of radar hill and the pic  below of ruby is literally at the end of the line. this is the END of the trans canada highway! the pic below ruby is the marina/harbour. the sunset pic below i took right outside of our hotel room door! we had just enjoyed a feast of crab!!!!

the next pic i believe is another beach right in front of sarah mclauchlans house. this is where we hung out and swam. below that is meares island. this place is full of bonafide rainforest! we strolled around in it for a while and then picnicked on the beach!

i dont know if you can see the sign on the tree in the pic beside this but i thought it was hilarious....it said...beware of flat tires if blocking the driveway......just another local educating the tourists!

well during our time here i took a lot of video and i wanted to put some up for you to enjoy so here is a few......the first one is of a GIANT tree in the rainforest on meares island. you could see right through the tree and if you were brave enough you could go right through it. we tried to convince shawn but he wouldn't do it......the second video is a tree that had a few protrusions on it...it appeared to be some sort of anatomically corrected -ness on the tree......when you are dealing with grown men who are approximately 14 in mentality this is what you get...........

well the first one here is a little sign that we found amusing....again going with the 14 year old mentality.....the second is our big key lime pie find. shawn and i asked every single spot we ate at across canada if they served key lime pie....not a single one. we were duped once in kelowna (big surprise) when we bought what said key lime pie and ended up eating key lime cheesecakes...amateurs....any way we found a spot in tofino with homemade key lime pie. it was freaking awesome!!!!

well it wouldnt be right to talk go on about tofino without putting up some pacific ocean vids. we just had to go swimming....wll in fairness shawn had to go swimming and since none of us can be out done by the other we one by one went into the pacific. it was cold. no, not as cold as the atlantic but freaking cold just the same. in the first video shawn leads the pack and i resist through out...right after this though i succumb and decide i wont be outdone by the bastards and i put the camera down and join in the cold fun. everyone we asked said really? swam? did you wear a wetsuit? (everyone there wears a wetsuit) and we replied...NO! we're form the east coast. we aint a bunch o' sissies! here are the pacific vids.....

well there you have it. some memories from tofino. it's safe to say that as long as we tour to the island we will ALWAYS go to tofino now. its soul soothing fun. big thanks to sean davis in medicine hat for hooking us up with geoff johnson and many many thanks to geoff johnson and all the folks at the weigh west resort. you all showed us an unbelievable time and we can't thank you enough. you truly changed our lives. most of all thanks to rock n roll for taking us such amazing places.

Vancouver Island

well hello there

been a while eh? sorry bout that. we haven't really had real internet that would allow us to upload anything for quite some time.....but now we are in edmonton for the week and i should be able to get caught up......lets see, when i blogged last we were in kelowna. that means our next trip within the trip was to vancouver island. last tour this was easily my favorite spot. we had some fun shows and met great people AND the island is freakin beautiful! we went to the cathedral grove (big ass trees) and just had a great time. this trip was par for the course. we started in parksville which is a small beach resort sorta town. we played at the rod & gun pub. nice folks, modest crowd. decent size room with an adequate PA system. they treated us real nice. the next day we had off so we decided to keep a hotel room and hang out. turns out that night at the rod n gun was stripper night!!! and they were staying at the same hotel...although this did not influence our decision to stay.....we went to the beaches and hung out in the sun. great day for sure. for supper we decided to grab some grocery and cook at the hotel kitchenette. we thought, hey, lets grab some fresh shrimp! we went down to the docks and got some spotted prawns. if you have nt eaten spotted prawns before you should find some....these little babies were awesome! they tasted like little lobsters! guilty of being delicious. 

Friday we headed into nanimo for our weekend stint at the queens. on the way we stopped at the tourism centre which is in the bedan house. this place is rumoured to be haunted so it sounded like fun. upon arrival we were told that the tours really arent happening anymore and the fella there didnt seem to keen to do anything for us.....well after a little conversation the next thing we knew he was taking us all over the house! i mean every office, nook and cranny, including the room where the previous owner and namesake died!!!! although we didnt see any ghosts it was extremely creepy. definetly something going on in there! here's a little video ofus getting psyched up for  our in house tour:

 

after our adventures in haunted housing we were off in search of a nanaimo bar to sample. after all you cant be in nanaimo and not have a nanaimo bar can you? check it....

once we got settled into our classy hotel we hit the queens to load in and set up. we had a different sound dude than last time but it was equally good sound. last time we played here was a sunday night and it was sorta quiet. this time it was a friday and saturday. they gave us our set times and we were surprised to see that we only played 40 minute sets. the tunes between our sets was hardcore dance music and we quickly realized that on the weekends the queens is a kiddie dance bar....ouch! turns out that we were filler between sets of dj music. the first set was kinda awkward but the second was better and the third rocked pretty well all things considered.  Saturday we decided to go get our tarrot cards read by a local gal. first time i have had that done in quite a while and it was fun for sure! after hanging most of the day and enjoying the humour of watching the working girl downstairs we went back to the club. we were surprised this time that our sets had been cut back even more and that our second break was an hour! while on that break the owner came down to notify us that the kids were packed in and having to good of a time for us to go back on. not surprised by this but a little stung we went back to the hotel to drink our sorrows away. the owner did say that he would have no problem having us back and we agreed that it would be better mid week! 

Sunday we packed it up and headed for tofino. we had such a blast in tofino that i'm gonna give it its own separate blog so stay tuned for that....

tuesaday we sadly left tofino and headed for our old pal longevity john's showroom in duncan. this is a funny little hippy town. the showroom is a great little theatre filled with millions of trinkets to look at. lots of fun. we ended up crashing right at the venue to avoid spending the $$$ on a hotel. big thanks to long john for that! long john also owns a handful of tiny little dogs and at the end of each night has "the running of the dogs". its quite funny really. i happened to grab a little video for you enjoyment!!!

Wednesday AM we got up and made a run for the ferry to vancouver. we were stoked to play the yale. probably the most reputable blues club in all of canada where just about every great blues icon has performed at one time or another. it was nice to catch up with some old pals and even our label manager, brian thompson came out to get some on him! 

we had a fun gig but due to the fact that we had to make penticton it was an early night for us. thursday AM we hit the road and after a wrong turn out too made the TCH for penticton. another great day for driving we made it to the dream cafe just in time for load in and sound check. the dream cafe is one of those special places where the food, people service and crowd are all this sort you would wish for. we did this one low key and i played mostly acoustic. the folks dug it and we ended up rocking the joint in the end. we met some wonderful people and started what i hope to be a real long term relationship with the dream cafe. cant wait to get back here. its just awesome.

Friday we had another long haul to jasper. we did two nights at the downstream and its always nice to be surrounded by mountains. gigs like that really make you thankful for being able to do what we do. we got to hang with some old friends, had a great bbq and partied way to late/early on saturday. sunday after some napping we got into ole ruby and made the trek for edmonton. somehow after supper i went to bed feeling funny....i woke up with a case of food poisoning. not sure how this happened as we all at the same stuff but it did. needless to say the gig on monday night was pretty rough for me. we made it through though and i look forward to rocking up blues on whyte for the rest of the week!

well there. that is a lot to get through. i'm gonna sign off now and in a day or so i'll put up our amazing time in tofino, the most beautiful spot in canada!

cheers,

MB

things that look like a turd...That You Can Eat Pt. 2 & 3

well here it is folks another great segment in things that look like a turd, that you can eat. its just fun to say. try it. go ahead...you know you wanna.......while in edmonton our great old friend james "sully" sullivan treated us to an awesome Chinese buffet. yes, jim, the dumplings were delicious. the ginger chicken was also good. especially for something that looked like a turd.....had to try it and of course i HAD to get a shot of it for the blog!

part 3 is one of the funniest food items around....the ole walnut crunch from timmy ho's. i can hardly keep from lauging when i'm in line there just cause they look so nasty. i saw this one in ontario and i couldnt resist. had to do it.....

well there's some stuff for you to chew on...er....ah, i mean ...i hope you enjoyed this segment. there's always more to come so make sure you check back often!

MB

shaved pussies

well a while back i promised to put up some video of our pal sean davis's kitties. this was the manager of the bar in medicine hat and we crashed at his place after the gig and hung out with these silly looking cats.....

.....what did you think i meant?

MB

hello stranger

hi minions, 

well the ole internet has been scarce. because of this i have fallen waaay behind so i'm gonna try and post a shit load of stuff to get a lil caught up. we are holed up in a motel in parksville, on vancouver island. it is awesome here.  last night we played the rod & gun pub. very interesting.we spent our day off  checking out the town and hanging on the beach. it is pretty beautiful here. i have some pics and vids i'll post from van island but first we need to catch up...the pics above are form the trip from banff to kelowna including........here's the vid's etc....

BANFF:

driving into banff from calgary the rocky mountains tease you immediately...for a good solid hour you get a lil closer and a lil closer. the excitment of feeling that fresh mountain air go into your lungs is so much that i find myself hanging my head right out the window taking it all in. we arrived in banff and loaded our gear in the rose n crown for two nights. our coach the fearless barry morrison was also with us for two more nights. the shows were not so well attended but we had fun and rock the joint anyway. we spent wednesday hanging around town and went to a place for breaky/lunch that used to be a swingers club in the 70's. there were phones at each table and the placemat was a map with all the tables numbered so you could call which ever table turned you on....our phone didnt work. the food was not so good and grossly over priced. although banff is a great little town as far as scenery goes it just plain sucks for glitzy exspensive tourist trape-ness. i would take canmore first anyday. anyway we had a nice dinner at the band house on wednesday. a tai peanut thingy whipped up by master cheffy K Gans. Thursday morning we hit the road for an all day drive to kelowna........check the vid's!

MB

if you have never driven from banff to kelowna i would suggest that you do so soon. it is absolutely stunning. from giant snowcapped rocky mountains to the most lush green valley's to the bluest lakes you have ever seen. Ghost towns, Goat walks, beaver valley's and more exciting things than you can shake a stick at. this drive was more on the quiet side in the old van. each one of us looking out the windows at the breathtaking scenery trying to wrap our heads around how or why we were even there. when your cell reception abruptly dies just past revelstoke it is clear that you are deep in the heart of western canada. this is probably my favorite part of the canadian highways that i have seen. we stopped at lake louise to tourist it up a bit. what a gorgeous place. i got some great shots from there, and banff,  that are posted at the top of this entry.....while roaming the hotel we encountered a harpist and as we walked into the room she kindly made her way into a beautiful rendition of stairway.....here's a taste....

we also stopped for a pee at this place that had really friendly critters called ground squirrels that shawn decided to play with. here they are

 

the green valley of the shushwap and lake country is just ridiculous. i forgot how much i love and miss the oakanagan. the lake is awesome and we spent all week enjoying its beauty. Karls parents place overlooks. we spent many hours on the deck enjoying coffee, dinner, rehersal, beers, bbq and all round good times. Big thanks to Karls parents for treating us with great food and fun stories. this couple certainly goes into the books for awesome people. the first video is just a glimpse of what you see from the deck. the second is a "hat party" we had the first night at casa gans. enjoy.

we had a time at our gig in enderby. the last time we played here we met a fellow named robert planet AKA the one armed man. we had our fingers crossed that he would be there so we could get a video clip of him. to try and describe how crazy he was would be impossible. i wanted to record it so  people would know what true unbridled whacky-ness was.  alas, it would not be so. he never showed. to add to our confusion, when we asked our host lorne about rober planet, lorne didnt even remember him being there last time...perplexing for sure. we culdnt figure it out as not a day has gone by since then that i dont think of the one armed man.  i'd post some video from this night but its a little lethbridge-y.......as in we were to "funny" to post the evidence....maybe we'll put it in the DVD.....

osoyoos was pretty typical. no one there, we rocked and then went home. sunday we hung out at karls folks place then went in to kelowna to the blue gator jam night. it was a little strange as our style of blues sticks out like a sore thumb here. we got up and did a couple tunes and it was fun but a little weird. afterwards we went over to roses pub in the fancy hotel on the lake. they were having a rock jam night so we got up and pretty much barfed our tunes all over them. the kids seemed to like it and we had a blast and felt good about it all. i guess i should say that this was a strange night for me as i sort of cut my teeth in kelowna at these bars. i used to play bass in a band from the okanagan called dog skin suit and we played the original gator a lot. i used to go to roses every week for their jam and wait to get up and do my thing. i learned a lot by playing these places years ago and it was neat to see some kids doing the same thing now. very nostalgic night all in all.

tuesday we killed the after noon by having a rehearsal for our acoustic show outside on karls parents deck. this was all too surreal. the poplar trees were in bloom and it was quite windy so on the right moment it kinda looked like it was snowing on a super sunny day. its moments like this that make us shake our head and realize how fortunate we are to be able to do what we do. more than once we all looked at each other and just shook our heads thinking how awesome life is. again a LARGE thanks to karls family for being so kind. we love you guys. here's a little video to try and give you an idea how awesome this day off was......

so that catches us up a bit.....tomorrow i'll try and get to work on the vancouver island trip. its only been a day and a half but its wicked! this is a wonderful place on earth people. it you haven't been you need to. till then.

MB

crazy people

we meet a lot of crazy mofo's out here on the road. some of them good crazy, some of them bad crazy. we met this fellow names chris ryman from nelson, at our enderby show. they were paddling the nearby river and pulled out by coincidence at the venue. check this crazy bastard out right here.

http://kayakhotdogs.blogspot.com/2009/05/lucky-13.html

click the lucky 13 video and enjoy. obviously nuts.

great to make new friends.

MB

a breakfast worth waiting for

hi everyone

so last friday night we played in enderby at lorenzo's cafe. this is a super funky place that is in a huge old house. the floors are hardwood from an old bowling ally. all the railing posts are in fact bowling pins and there is one functional lane out back. we hard a tiny crowd but a very large time. the last time we played here we met Robert Planet AKA the one armed man. good crazy. anyway no sightings of ole RP this time but we had fn anyway. the point of this story is that last fall when here we had breaky the next morning at a place called lulu's. we had the best eggs benny we had on the whole tour. needless to say we were stoked for the return. at lorenzo's lauren the waitress said we should go to hungry jacks, which is a cheap diner sorta spot were all the locals go. we hummed and hawed a lot and became concerned when tracy, another local, told us that they dont even serve benny at lulu's any more.   when we were comparing notes with locals to see where we should go another fella did say though, that lulu's was "a fancier place where they come right to your table and serve you"! after much thought we decided we'd try lulu's anyway. upon arrival i asked if they still had canada's best eggs benny and she said no. we panicked. i started to throw a flail on the floor fit. hitting emergency mode we started to eggsplain (haha) that we had it last time and it was the best ect, etc AND that i had, in fact, abstained from EB's all across canada cause i wanted the BEST! once she realized we weren't staying without EB's she said she'd "ask the kitchen". having been in the sevice industry for ten years i expected the kitchen to say up yers. HOWEVER....we were delighted that they would in fact whip us up a homemade eggs benny. let me tell ya, it was awesome awesome awesome. once again we got our way and all was good in the world. if you are in exotic dowtown enderby, make sure you stop by lulu's. tell 'em the bastards sent ya!

MB

i found my hat, everything is broken.

hey all,

we are in sunny kelowna right now and it is beautiful. i just dropped my guitar off at the local store to get fixed. seems her  jack aint quite right. i think she ran into a door or something. shilo our tech guy there said he can have her right by tomorrow. wicked! soon we are off to future shop to try and get our camera fixed as i may have had a mishap with it involving the floor.

i forgot to mention that in calgary i found my long lost hat!!!! when we played cowtown last fall i left my hat at sailor chucky's house AKA the vista compound. well i was pretty stoked to walk in and find it hanging roughly right where i left it last november! 

tonight we hit up lorenzo's cafe. last time we played here we met Robert Planet, the one armed man. 100% pure crazy. we are excited at the thought that he may be there again! stay tuned. we'll see if we can get some footage this time!

the new podcast is up too  www.cyberears.com/podcasts/podcast_5518.xml  check it out. this week features tunes from mike clark, carter chaplin, donnie dunphy and the sufferin bastards! check it!!!

MB

caught up....kinda sorta

Hey folks

well another week has zoomed by so now i'm trying to get caught up on the blog thang. a week without iternet sure throws a wrench in keeping up with the blogery and what nots.....now lets see.....

may 14th:

last thursday we had a nice drive to medicine hat where we were scheduled to play the ottoman lounge. the ottoman is a funky little night club that really works hard to bring original live music to medicine hat. the manager, sean davis, was an awesome fella and he looked right after us. sean is crazy enough to let the bands that tour through stay at his house and we were no exception. we had a great time performing to a a very small crowd. sold some merch and enjoyed meeting some new folks. specifically we enjoyed meeting andy, a hilarious english dude and chunk, a new zealander. chunk has been kind enough to offer to take us fishing and more importantly to the gun range next time we are through the hat! you can bet we'll take him up on that!!!

After the gig we went back to our gracious hosts place for a few after work pops. not only is sean a nice guy but he has two of the funniest looking kitties you ever did see. i think he said they were called fire tipped Himalayans.....these little cuties have lots a fur so sean likes to shave them for "their comfort". well let me tell ya, their comfort is our amusement cause they are hilarious looking. check the video and see for yourself.

friday am we went and grabbed our gear and stopped at a diner called nifty fifty's  for breaky on the way outta town. i can tell you for sure that this diner will NOT be getting a nod in breakfast of the week. with enough salt to clear the roads of new brunswick in february, it was gross. shawn had to send his bacon back as it wasnt even cooked. people, i gotta say...its bacon and eggs not rocket surgery......all you need to do is put a tiny bit of attention in and you can get good breaky, but noooooooooooooo. anyway, after breaky we hit the road for cowtown where good times were sure to happen.

MAY 15 & 16 cowtown:

 last tour we had some of the biggest fun staying with our old pal sailor chuck at the vista estates in calgary. never one to disappoint, chucky and mikey's juke joint delivered again, as did we.  we rolled in round supper time on friday and sat on the front lawn to enjoy a heini and the view of downtown calgary with the mountains right behind it. it was so nice to see the mountains once again. i always forget how truly spectacular they are. what a sight! after some catching up we went to the club to load in and soundcheck/eat. mikey's is a little roadhouse sorta place that reminds me a lot of bearly's in halifax. nice staff and patrons and they all act kinda like one big (drunken) family. the crowd that goes to mikey's is one of my favorites to play for. they cheer, dance and have a great time all round. oh yeah, they also love to buy cd's, which in our line of work sure helps out!  some of the vista estates crew came out to help warm up the party and by the end of the night everyone was in fine form and we went back to the compound to relax, have a beer and enjoy the entertainment of our host, sailor chucky!

Saturday AM i awoke to the smell of bacon. ever the consummate host ole chucky was already up and had breaky just about finished. guilty of being delicious, our breaky was just what the doctor ordered. after chilling for a bit we went to the alberta boot company to oogle the fancy boots. man. a fella could spend a lot of $$$ here. after some window shopping we hit a little restaurant's patio to enjoy a beer in the sun and check out the sights of downtown calgary. i gotta say. calgary has got lots to look at. indeed. after some string changing and a power nap we returned to mikey's juke joint for another night of fun. again the crowd was awesome! super appreciative and again bought lots of cd's! we also got to have mike clark hisself up to jam with us on a couple tunes. man. f you haven't heard mike play sax well then i guess you'd want to soon! he rips it up! 

chucky was the sole visitor from the vista estates on saturday and he certainly represented!!! my favorite part of the night was our last tune. traditionally we like to end with "call me gone" off of early grave. as i'm playing call me gone i can see at the end of the bar that sailor chucky is indeed being escorted out of the bar. chucky had such a good time that he had to have a rest period outside at the bartenders request. good time fo sho! all in all we felt like we had conquoered calgary and ad a great time playing at one of our fav spots in canada and hanging with some of our fav peeps! thanks to mikey's and the vista estate folks for looking after us!  

May 17th. 

longweekend sunday. we went to lethbridge where we had a time with old friends, barry morrison and matt price. we played the slice which is a great club with a kickin sound system and wicked pizza! the drive to lethbridge from calgary is spectacular. out the passenger window there is a solid line of rocky mountains reminding us that we were soon to be in the mountains. but first....the slice. the last time we played here it was to a very small crowd. this time the crowd was a little bigger and very receptive. i like the sound and the system here. get to full on rock out! after the show we went back to barry morrisons apartment to celebrate making it to the half way point of the tour. celebrate we did! man. it was silly. there were many laughs and many bevies enjoyed. i believe Karl and i had a sunrise perogie breakfast before falling fast asleep. when we awoke we started in on what would be another killer bastards breakfast. eggs and peppers, sausage, and corn beef hash made with an actual corned beef brisket. the real deal not that canned stuff! amazing.....oh yeah, how could i forget my favorite part....MIMOSAS!!!!! yes, its true, we live the decadent live....but hey we were celebrating after all right? half way through nine weeks and we were all still alive....we continued to celebrate for the rest of the day right into the evening too. we spent the evening at Average Joe's, eating, drinking, playing pool and my new favorite game, buck hunter! good fun. all in all a real grand time in lethbridge big thanks to barry morrison for hosting us! and for coming to banff for two more days of RAWK! atta boy barry.

May 18th:

the drive to banff is spectacular. the rocky mountains teasing you for a solid hour before you are right smack in the middle of them. sadly i spent the first two hours in the backseat sleeping off my lethbridge debauchery. i did manage to get up in the front seat for the final drive into banff. stunning. the mountains are so amazing. we hit the rose n crown where we scheduled to perform. after a load in and meal we checked into the band house and got cleaned up and went right back to the club for sound check. the gig was poorly attended but we sure rocked 'em anyway. today we found a bite to eat and then went in search of some internet to get caught up. of course since its banff there is nothing anywhere here for free so we are at starbucks begrudgingly paying for what should be free. tonight we are back in the ole rose n crown for another go at the ears of banff. i suspect we'll have a few more peeps tonight as word should have spread a little bit from our show last night. the podcast should be up tomorrow so stay tuned for that. always more to come!

well that about gets you up to speed. the pics here are from the medicine hat trip and then a few from cowtown. i have lots of good video that i will post later this week when i have a solid internet connection....hey starbucks yer internet sucks!

see y'all out there

MB

West Edmonton Mall

you cant go to edmonton and NOT hang at the mall. i mean come on. where else can you swim, ride roller coasters, have a nice meal, shoot guns and shop?.....so............. we did. it was exciting. we saw sea lions, pirate ships, freaky statues and our fav pub, Hudson's.  shawn bought bass strings. i bought finger picks and a postcard. we also went to the gun shop....real guns, not a boob store....when we come back in june we are gonna go and fire a few rounds!  oh yeah!!!!  

we also saw our good pal Pat Pelletier at chapters....he's been popping up and we may have to start a whole new segment called Pelletier sightings.....anyway......heres a pic or two.....

Super Dude tries a Dude Beer

well, well, well, let me tell ya...in edmonton (alberta) booze ain't cheap! what would be a $10 bottle of vino is $15 here....beer is also pricey. after much looking we found the almost cheapest beer in the store. $20.99 for a 15 pack. AND it was called DUDE beer. had to try it. here is a lil video and photo from our sampling. Big Thanks to Brockway Biggs (www.brockwaybiggs.com) for making me an honorary super dude! i couldnt have done it without him!  check it.......

Things That Look Like A Turd...That You Can Eat Pt. 1

ok folks....here it is...i know you've been waiting for it...this is definitely going to be the silliest and possibly grossest segment on the tour blog....how ever...it will also likely be the funniest.....it occurred to me last tour that there are certain foods out there that people eat that kinda look like a turd.....yet we eat the food anyway....this is segment one of things that look like a turd that you can eat...in segment one we focus on one of 7/11's finest nasty products......we call this one.......the turd dog!

cool pics

hi there we are in edmonton now at my pal jim sullivans place. chillaxin for a few days. i found these pics and thought i'd post a couple. the spider bug was captured on our way to manitoba and the grain building was on our was to edmonton from prince albert.......dig it.

What is it pt 1 the reveal

well since no one go the first one i'm gonna reveal it....for the next episode of What Is It we will shorten the answers to five until there are more people to play the contest. so here it is the photo of a collection of mine and karls .....TOE NAILS!!!!!!

we'll put up part 2 of "What is it" in a few days.

five cents a bag?

so sobeys is charging five cents a bag for plastic bags now? for real? man......times are changin. are they doing this to save the earth and what not? does everyone know that there is an ice age coming? no really.....every 10 000 years or so...you could prolly set your giant long term clocky thingy by it.....nothing we can do bout it either....its happened before and will continue to happen....ice age.......anyway i digress...karl aint too happy bout the five cents a bag dealy.......watch yerself sobeys.

winterpeg and reginacology

well we were happy to split outta thunder bay. we settled into ruby for the drive to winnipeg, stonewall to be precise. we got in about 10pm to dan and kristens house.  dan is my cousin and he and kristen treat us sooo good. it is always awesomeness to have family to visit. we had a nice chat and then crashed hard. deliscious breaky int he morning which in most likely goint ot win breaky of the week for next weeks podcast but...it is early...could be more great breaky in the future! after breaky we got back in the van to head for regina....home of our first saskatchewan gig ever! 

we got to regina event free and found our venue. ole mcnallys tavern. good sound system, nice staff. looked like all would be good. sounds check was pretty quick and we had some time to kill.....

 i didnt realize my phone hadnt changed time and i ended up thinking it was an hour later all night......it was a small crowd but we had fun. met some nice peeps and sold some cds. good night all in all. oh yeah...i forgot to mention that our waitress was going to a lesbian baking party after her shift so we tried to convince her to bring us back some baked goods by telling her that lesbians love us! (no really, thats a true story) and she did!!!!

fear & loathing in thunder bay

wow. Thunder bay is a full on shit hole. we hit t-bay monday night and holed up in a rather pricey but safe hotel. the thunder bay inn is a nice enough spot but the guy who ran it was a tight ass. no guests or deliveries after 10.30pm, rations of ice in small little bags and unwillingness to give shawn an ethernet cable....all these add up to -wiener- in my books.

i started tuesday by finding out that our saskatoon gigs were cancelled because the bar double booked us and couldnt switch anything around to help us out. this hurt bad budget wise and just plain sucked all round as we were really looking forward to playing at bud's on broadway. a lot of my fav guitar players came up playing there and i was looking forward to rocking the joint. anyway, we went downtown t-bay to find an internet cafe and after driving around for far too long we ended up going to starbucks for the afternoon so we could figure out what to do about the saskatoon screw up. in the end we realized that it was just one of those things that we cant change so we packed up and headed on over to the venue for the night....the apollo is on a main drag kinda street full of depression, darkeness and dreary. everywhere you look in t-bay is sad, and cold. the saving grace however was the folks at the apollo. we arrived to meet sheila our host. after inquiring about details we were treated to a pork tenderloin dinner by sheila's mom, tina. both sweethearts. the dinner was fabulous and it was topped off with cheesecake!!! we were feeling better already. 

the apollo also had a kick ass sound system that we couldnt wait to send our rawk through. the sound man was alex. a good guy and competent sound tech. we played to a small but appreciative crowd and sheila gave karl bastards the award of best drummer to ever have played the apollo. yup. thats right. gans kicks ass.  at the end of the night we went upstairs to have some wine, chill and crash. thanks to the apollo crew for saving the day in thunder bay. y'all rock! 

Ok. i know y'all have been dying to see the carbquing sessions so here are a couple vids for you to check out......

i believe this was the inaugural attempt........

Attempt number two...Eggs......this attempt didnt work either and we learned a lot....mostly not to put all our eggs in one basket so to speak!!!! more tins equals shorter cooking time. what can we say. we were young and learning.....

Here is a video from last night in wawa. it had been a kinda....like a....nothing go right day and this is a little vent.....

ok so that should make you laugh for a bit.....we have lots more an dwe are trying to find a better format to present them to you....looking into youtube. stay tuned.....

MB

WHAT IS IT? (part 1)

ok..... i know i'm bombarding you with posts here..... but i am just getting caught up....besides, aren't you smiling?

here is a segment of the blog that we are calling "what is it?" .....this is our attempt to get y'all to interact with us.....we show you a picture of something shot close up. after ten guesses, FROM YOU READERS, we'll tell you what it is and try to  post a pic...BUT.....if someone guesses right the round stops there and the winner will receive one free Ross Neilsen & The Sufferin Bastards trucker hat......thats right. 

FREE SWAG! oh yeah!

OKOKOK. here is the first pic....so...can you guess?.......................WHAT IS IT??? 

unka peeeeee

check it out...its uncle pat from trenton. this is where we hang when we are in the area. he and auntie D are the BEST hosts. we dont get to see em as much as we like to but we sure do appreciate our time when we get there! love you guys! 

PS...uncle Pat was featured in our first podcast ....what? you didnt hear that? here it is....

http://www.cyberears.com/podcasts/podcast_5518.xml

horny goat weed

hi again....just wanted to drop a few pics and videos to y'all for your viewing pleasure....

in this one we see a little package of something that claimed to enhance your sexual abilities if you are a dude. well we were enjoying a visit from the one and only mark richardson and i simply asked mark to take the pills.....and he did. the funniest part is the ingredients on the side of the pack....check it out! i n the end we wanted to consult mark the next day and see ho whe made out when he got home if you catch my drift but we never got back in touch  with him! i'm sure he was "fine". thanks to mark for stopping by. always hilarious and fun to catch up! 

the great lake they call gitche gume

hi

i know...two posts in one day...wow. i forgot to say that on the way to wawa we had the luxury of watching the sun set the whole way and it was stunning. just stunning.  today was another day of beautiful lakes and scenery that we will never take for granted. canada is truly magnificent and we are very fortunate to be able to view it this way. thanks to rocknroll and all who make it possible for us to do this.

MB

11 north 17 west (aka no gas 'tween the soo & wawa)

hey everybody

well we are finishing breaky in WAWA!!! i'm gonna put up a bunch of pics and video later today but for now thought i'd give a quick recap......

Wed, April 29 - we played at the golden pheasant in St catherines....this place was funky....real roadhouse feel to it. the owner, jack, was an awesome dude and had lots of great tales for us. we had a fun time playing even though it was sparsely attended. we did get to see our friends betty & joe so that was cool! there was a high crazy quotient here as most of the regulars were kinda barflyish but fun peeps. we met a local named bob who was by far the craziest we've met on this trip. we like dhim so much we gave him a hat. bob had a killer ray charles impression too!

Thurs, April 30 - we played in toronto around the corner from my sisters house. the club is called the pressclub and is a nice laid back spot. great people here. big thanks to ian and mikael. good times had by all even if it was a little sweaty!!! we enjoyed some bobby duvals, which is a shot of jamesons with some amaretto.....mmmmmmmmm.

Friday may 1 - collingwood. home of the elis impersonators. we love this town. lots of fun. we had promised last time that we would have a few pops with them when we came back through and we didnt let them down. we have some great podcast footage as well as some fine pics that i will post later on.....we stayed at our friends allison and heathers art studio where there were many facinating artifacts like a chrome deers head, obama action figure and a playboy from 1962! we had a lot of fun much to the dismay of the guy down the hall (who wasnt suposed to be there) ....he confronted our little gang when we got there and said he was going to call the owner of the building as he "knew him". turns out the guy was the owner of the buildings son...so he in fact called his daddy on us. party pooper. we decided to have fun anyway. so we did.

Sat may 2 - we got up and had a surly breakfast at chartreus.....then hit the road for north bay....we played at 100 georges. great spot....awesome food...tied with the oasis for the guilty of being deliscious award. we had a lot of fun with the patrons and staff alike. good dancing here folks! after the gig we went back to our home in NB. the ole voyager hotel, or the VOY as the regulars call it. last time we were here we were sure the maids were running another business (hookers) out of the hotel...this time we didnt even see a maid. weird.

sun may 3 - drive drive drive. we decided to abandon our cheap hotel in the soo for the option to drive farther thus allowing us to try another round of engine cuisine...aka ...car-bqing......we hit sudbury grocery store hard. pork, sausage and cabbage rolls. this turned out to be a bit of an error in judgement. when we hit the soo the liquor store was closed cause we forgotit was sundeeee! we also didnt get gas in the soo thinking the half tank we had would get us to the next town for a fill up. WRONG. there is no post 9pm fill up between the soo and wawa. so we found a spot with cell reception, called in our wishes for gasoline to CAA and had a sandwich picnic. once we hit wawa we went right to the Beaver motel (yup) to get a cheap room. turns out that after midnight all the cheap hotels are closed. we ended up staying at the motor inn for extra bucks...the good thing here was that the bar stayed open for us to get some "relaxers" into us. an hour later we were relaxing in the hotel room...we grabbed the food off the carbque and realized the pork was lost....good news was the cabbage rolls were hot! (ok warm) so we ate em....we sliced and diced the sausage and fried it on our in room coffee maker to have a deliscious in room meal of cabbage rolls n sausage!!! after reviewing our video footage we have decided to post some in the next 24hrs. got some gems folks! 

so that about does it...we're about to leave the ole wawa motor inn (largest fireplace in northern ontario! true story!) to head for thunder bay...we hope to have a cheap room before we hit TB so we can put our new podcast together. it should be up tomorrow night so i'll let y'all know. we have some gems this week folks!

talk to you soon,

MB

trapped in toronto.

well hello again. we are stil here in hogtown. starting to get itchy feet now. it doesn't really feel like touring when you are holed up in one place for this long.....dont get me wrong, we are having a blast but i think we are all ready to get on the open road......

so the last few days have been quite something. a nice sunday led us to bbqs and beers. great day off! on monday we hit one of our fav spots to east here. its a place called nirvana. its cheap and tasty just like we like 'em. after luch we strolled to kensigton market to chill for a bit. we found a neat little cafe called the hot box cafe. they are pretty liberal there...seemed to be a lot of people enjoying the weird-o space contraptions that were on every table. we had a smoothy and enjoyed watching the staff try and remembner who ordered what. hilarious! needless to say our walk back to the apartment was out of the ordinary. we saw many strange sights. in toronto you can see crazy just about any direction you look. sometimes its fun. sometimes its not.

monday night we bbqed again. then had a couple pops at home before hitting the orbit room. the orbit room, for those that dont know, is a small club on college st that is owned by alex lifeson from rush. on mondays a band called sisters euclid perform. in this band is one dude named kevin breit. kevin is a guitar master. actually all the musicians in this band are masters of their craft. me and the bastards agreed that if we lived in tdot we would be there every monday. this band is simply amazing. i dare you to show me something more awesome that these four guys. they rip it up on so many levels its just sick! i had seen them before so i knew what to expect but they still didnt dissapoint. it was fun watching the bastards see them for the first time. we all agreed that we had our asses blown out! we are still thinking about how wicked they were. right now. this very moment.

yesterday we drove to burlington to play the slye foxe. we have played burlington before but it was nothing like this. the slye foxe has a blues night about once a month or so. on a tuesday from 8-11. good crowd of people and true blues lovers. we're always nervous how aficianadoes will respond to us as we are what i would call the new age of modern blues blending trad with modern. some of the trad lovers dont take to kindly to that. it was evident though after our first tune that these folks were gonna dig it. by the end of the night we had won large. big thatnks to kirsten and m for treating us so well. we had a ball. we also recorded the show and our next podcast will have some of that in it. podcast you say? well thats a nice segue ross. .....

the pod cast is up and you can stream or download it here... http://www.cyberears.com/podcasts/podcast_5518.xml big thanks to tradroots.com for helping us with this. looking like we'll have one of these every week so keep on the look out.

well i gotta go now cause we are hopping in the van to go take over st catherines. looking forward to it. i'll try and post again tomorrow.

also i noticed i haven't used capitals or proper spelling in this note and i'm ok with it.

cheers,
mb

do's and dont's of 7-11ing

Hi all,

Its Sunday. its our first day off since last tuesday. to celebrate we went to the Lakeview diner for breakfast. Its just down the street and it has $3 mimosas! Yup. thats right. Delicious. Now we are chilling at my sisters and waiting to be hungry again so we can fire up the BBQ!

In the meantime i figured i'd recap the last few days......lets see...

Friday April 24th: We went to Barrie to perform at the pub, Sticky Fingers. We played here last summer to a very small but appreciative crowd. This time there was a decent size crowd who were again very kind to us. When we got there we got to eat at the  "tongue" table.  If you are  not a huge Rolling Stones fan then you may not know that the pub is named for that amazing album they put out i n 1971. Sticky Fingers, is part of what i refer to as the holy trinity of stones albums..."Get Yer Ya Ya's out, "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Mainstreet".... Anyway.....so they have a table shaped like the Stones logo. I thought this was a good sign right away. We had burgers. They we good. We set up our gear after we ate and waited for the sound system to arrive. The P.A. system was provided, and set up, by a fella named Kelly. Nice guy. So nice, in fact, he sold cd's for us. This guy was hardcore. he went to EVERY single person in the room. Sold lots of discs as a result. Just plain awesome.  We celebrated our Barrie victory with a beer after we loaded Ruby. When we got back to Toronto we continued celebrating for a few hours. Saturday we had breaky at Musa's. Without a doubt one of my favorite breakfast spots in Toronto. Everything is good here. It was back in the van to hit Orillia. I hadn't played here since i did The Mariposa Fest back in 2007. Unfortunately it was poorly attended but we, as always, had fun. The folks that did come were awesome and i think they all had a good time too! Big thanks to Amy Mangan for having us up there. The show was real civilized in the sense that it went from 8-11. Because of this great timing we got home around 12.30am and thought we should hit up my favorite Dundas street bar, The Magpie. They have a great selection of beer. We spent an hour there enjoying whiskey and beer. If you are ever have a drink at this place with me you are in luck. For some reason, that i can't explain, when i am at the Magpie i can't help but buy rounds for friends who are with me. Its just that kind of place.

On the way home we stopped at an ever too conveniently located 7-11. Shawn and i happen to be suckers for the taquitos here. The cheese and jalapeno one kicks ass. When we were in the night before we noticed they had some weird new meat product, that looked like a turd,  on the ole roaster. I vowed that we would try it even if it killed us. We got the old standby, taquitos but I also loaded up on what was called a cheese burger dog or something like that. The dude at the counter said it was filled with cheese. Turns out it wasn't. I also picked up some other flavored dogs and we headed home for our 7-11 hot dog buffet. I dont exactly remember what the taste of them was like (probably a good thing) but i do remember being disappointed by them. especially the turd-y looking one. We have some pretty funny video of the taste test that we'll post somewhere later this week. We just need to edit them a bit if you know what i mean.

Well that pretty much gets y'all up to speed. Tomorrow is another day off  and then we're off to Burlington to play the Slye Foxe. Im really stoked for this gig so i'll be sure to update y'all on how it goes.

Till then,

MB

Friday in hogtown

Hey all

well here is a quick lil recap of the last few days for ya.....

Wed. april 22 - we had a great time at the Oasis in Cobourg. This is a smaller place to play but it is always a fun time. they have great food nice folks. people really seem to enjoy the band there and they always take some cd's home! what more can you ask for?

Thursday april 23 - we had some time to kill before we left for the boathouse in kitchener so after we had a killer and cheap breaky at Dapps Family Restaurant in Trenton we hit the Canadian Air Force Museum. Well let me tell ya....this place kicks ass. as far as having quality things to look at, it is over the top. loads of cool things to check out in the first room. the SECOND room is full of a great big ass restoration plane. the plane is the Halifax NA337, a great big f'n bomber type plane that was shot down in WW II . it was so cool to be able to walk all around it and check it out. after we oogled this baby for a while we went outside where they have an array of planes set up. very cool. all around the walk way are little stones with airmen's names engraved (folks who died serving). Very very heavy place all in all. a must stop if you are traveling near Trenton. Thursday night we hit The Boathouse in Kitchener. It was a little anti climactic but sometimes thats just the way it goes ya know? After the gig we wanted to check the Perpetrators from Winnipeg but ended up splitting for Toronto before they hit the stage. Again,just  the way it goes.

Friday April 24th - thats today, as in right now....well prolly not right now by the time y'all read this but its right now for me....today we had a great breaky at the ole Lakeview Diner on Dundas. decent food and real funny staff. i 'spect we'll do that again while we are hear for a few days. After breaky we started putting our podcast together for the monday show. stay tuned for more on that baby!

well, we are about to hop in Ruby and head to Barrie where we'll eat, drink and rock the night away at Sticky Fingers.....tomorrow we head for the Thrilla in Orillia! yep thats right. just what it sounds like. Orillia, Us and good times...aka...thrills.  I can smell it already.....

talk soon, 

MB

day off at Uncle Pats & Aunt D's

Well we had a typically perfect day yesterday in Trenton. we arrived at a bright and shiny 6am after a breakfast stop at the ole ten acre in belleville! yum.  once we had rested up we were treated to a nice lunch by auntie D and some quality hangout time in front of the ole big screen. if you can find it check out the documentary about humans disappearing from the earth. very cool.

after some shopping at the LCBO we listened to some of the recordings we did at the rainbow room in ottawa. for a "one mic kinda set up" it turned out decent. we'll be airing some of that show on our first podcast next week. After an amazing supper of some wicked chicken concoction from the one and only Auntie D we got out the recorder and did some "interviewing" for the Podcast. again, this stuff will be on our first P-cast next week! stay tuned. 

well we just returned from a classic bastards breakfast at Stop 33 here in Trenton. possibly my favorite breakfast stop in Canada! at 7.99 the above average Joe is a killer plate of breaky! if you are in Trenton this is a MUST STOP diner. we are just chillin now waiting to head to Cobourg so we can deliver the goods to the Oasis tonight! talk at ya soon,

MB

ps....

its 4/20. smoke em if ya got em! and a happy b-day to carmen townsend, colepaugh, jess derrah and my old pal peter chow!

blogged down

Well hi all. here we are in Ottawa trying to get our blogg on. i guess i'm gonna start by recounting the past few days as we are a little behind....here goes:

Wednesday: we prepacked Ruby the van to make sure everything would fit. prolly the tightest pack ever and we got some extra noise makers in there too! very happy about this pack folks!

Thursday: we had our inaugural kick off for the 2009 Special Delivery Tour at the ole snooty fox in Fredtown. good times and thanks to all who came out. after the show we all slept up so we could hit the road nice and early in the AM

Friday: well we got outta town event free and were on the highway by 11.20am. our destination was to be the lovely Le Zaricot in St Hyacinthe Quebec. the drive was fairly ordinary except for the one spot where we saw thousands and thousands of Canadian Geese.  honkers as far as the eye could see!!! It was totally biblical folks! we arrived at the club without being smitted and set up for a night of rawk! We had a pleasant surprise as well..... Our pal,  Charlie A'Court was in the house and it was decided it would be fun for him to warm up the room! While Charlie did his thang we hit the samich (redneck word for sandwich) shop around the corner. decent food. Back to the Zaricot...We hit em with some nice New Orleans stuff to grease em up so we could insert the RAWK straight into the middle of their listenin' devices. All in all we had a good show and fun time as per usual at the Zaricot. After the show we hit the hotel to beer it up and chill as Seerdee (this is a redneck word for saturday if y'all dont parlez the redneck) was a day off. We got some great snore vids from drum guy . maybe i'll post the video when Gans ain't lookin'. we also devised a delicious idea to keep ourselves entertained on this trip....

Seerdee: we hung out in St H for a bit. did the ole Candian Tire right up. bought a thermos and some instant coffee. gotta keep the costs down ya know. we also purchased supplies for what is probably the greatest idea we have ever had....we decided to convert ole ruby into a kitchen with her innards being the cook stove. yes thats right folks, we are cooking on the engine of our van. RAWK! well to be honest the first try didn't go so well. we put the sausages on but by the time we hit montreal they were only warm. we decided to try again on monday. Saturday night we chilled with our friends Patty and hung out at his pal, Andy's house. I learned to lose at poker, as did the bastards. Pat rode a treadmill on a skateboard...video to follow....All in all it was a good time.

Sunday: we were so stoked to play on sunday. the pub is called smoked meat pete's. definetly the best smoked meat sandwich i have ever wrapped my chompers onto. The fries were so good. think mashed potatoes with a crispy shell giving them a big greazy hug! oh yeah! we started out gentle with some straight up blues and gradually slipped the rawk to 'em as the night got dark! by the end of the night we were fast friends with mr. smoked meat Pete hisself! Great guy and a real fun place!

Monday: well after our teary goodbyes (we have feelings too ya know) we decided to hit the grocery store to get supplies for engine kitchen part deux! we found some eggs and ham and green onion. we mixed it all up and threw it in a tinfoil tray, strapped her to the engine manifold and hit the raod with great eggspectations....sorry couldn't resist that pun. we checked the situation out an hour in and realized we needed more time. they were only a 1/3rd cooked when we got to Ottawa. we have made a few more modifications and plan to try again next long road time....stay tuned as we also have video of this momentous idea! as soon as i figure out how we'll start posting the goods! 

So that about brings y'all up to speed. we are killing time now and plan to go to the Rainbow here in Ottawa in a bit to load in and bleed some ears. stay tuned folks. more good times ahead!

stay tuned...

RNSB