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