Joe and Simon will be opening for the stellar duo of Russell De Carle (founding member of Prairie Oyster) and Steve Briggs (of the Bebop Cowboys) at Copper’s Green. Folks, it doesn’t get better than this!
…for inviting Simon, Joe, and myself to present at your conference. It was a wild and wonderful time!
…make their Alberta debut at Calgary’s Gravity Café. Special guest – the amazing Emily Triggs!
…for inviting Joe, Simon and myself to your Saint John NB conference. What an amazing time! Shout out to all our new musical friends – Joyce Boone, Brent Mason, and Aaron Gunn. Seeing Stanton Paradis play Brent’s open mic night at O’Leary’s – the longest running open mic night in Canada – was a highlight!
…and the Inside Out program for inviting myself and Stanton Paradis to present at Kwikwexwelhp Healing Village. Fallen has been added to the curriculum of a trauma and healing psychology course. We felt incredibly honoured to be asked to join in the powerful dialogue that this class of Kwantlen students and inmates were having. Extra bonus: being invited to attend Lawrence Hill’s book club appearance. Who knew Harrison Mills was such a happening place!
…will be opening for the High Bar Gang at the Raven’s Cry. For those of you who caught the show two years ago, you know you don’t want to miss this night!
We are very excited. On September 27th we will be presenting for Brain Injury Canada, alongside one of my all-time heroes Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself, as well as Thursday the 29th For the Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund. Also! Stanton Paradis will be playing the 28th at the Burdock and the 30th at the TRANZAC club. Whoo! Whoo!
“When a case had high jingo on it, you had to be careful. You were in murky water. You had to watch your back because nobody else was watching it for you.”
Harry Bosch in Lost Light, by Michael Connelly
Simon’s new band High Jingo played the Gumboot Cafe last night. If you live on the Sunshine Coast, you know the Gumboot. If you don’t live on the Coast you might still recognize the name. It is, since time immemorial, or at least since we arrived on the coast in 1996, the beating heart of Robert’s Creek. But…if you haven’t ever heard or been to the Gumboot, well, that too bad. It’s a great place. Joe, the owner, (who also happens to be a smokin’ good guitar player) has continued the cafe’s legacy of being the hip spot, a nexus of good food, good people and artistic expression, a gathering place that supports and cultivates the creative and politically minded Creek community.
It was a great show last night, well attended by an enthusiastic audience who couldn’t, by the end of the second set, remain seated. Tables and chairs were shoved aside and most of the room was up on their feet dancing. Simon came upon the phrase High Jingo in Michael Connelly’s detective series about the LAPD officer Harry Bosch, and it refers to a homicide case that is fraught with unseen political implications and high level bureaucratic secrets. In this sense, it is not a great name for the band. The group of guys – Simon, on lead vocals and guitar, the singing rhythm section of Boyd Norman on bass and John Rule on drums, and the lovely Walter Martella alternating on either trumpet and accordion – embody, in the almost magical way that musicians can, having each other’s back, supporting and wordlessly communicating with each other as they changed the set list on the fly, adapting to the mood of the audience, occasionally playing songs that they had yet to even run through in a rehearsal all together.
But Simon chose the name simply because he loved the sound of the words. It’s fun to say. Try it. High Jingo. It sounds like something fun, maybe a little edgy, is going to happen. And that was last night. A lot fun, with a bit of an edge, which is also a good description for the direction Simon’s new original songs are heading. Last night was a first for Simon, in that the bulk of the songs he played, ninety-five percent, were originals. He’s played other people’s songs for so long, songs he loves and that he knows other people love, it’s hard for him to trust his own invention. He has been writing all these new songs but, over the last few years, hesitating in playing them live. I’ve been referring to them as his orphans, itinerant songs that need to find a home. And that’s why last night was such a good night. All those orphaned songs took a seat at the communal table, welcomed in the wide open arms of the Gumboot Cafe.
