Category Archives: harvest jazz and blues festival

Saturday 19th September 2015 – SOMEONE IS ON A POWER TRIP …

… and, just for a change, I’m not talking about the farces of Law and Order either.
What we have here is a “suspicious package” in the middle of the festival, and everywhere is cordoned off by the police.

But what we do have is two of the Festival volunteers, pushing (and I DO mean pushing) people out of the way, yelling at everyone, and generally being on a major control freak exercise. I asked them what was going on and they told me that it’s “a police incident”. And so when I asked what kind of “incident” I was told that it was nothing to do with me.

And when I asked them how come, as festival employees, they were dealing with a “police incident”, they walked away. And so when I asked them if I could ask another question, one of them replied “yes, I DO mind. I’m not answering”, and carried on walking away.

And so I went 20 yards further on to a police officer, who made a full and complete statement without any inhibitions, even telling me that “no-one is taking it very seriously but we have to check it out just the same”.

But this kind of behaviour by festival employees, assaulting members of the public (because pushing someone is an assault of course and had it been me on the receiving end of it then the matter would not have rested there), being aggressive and abandoning their festival duties in order to go on a major power trip is something that is inevitably going to have repercussions as far as the festival is concerned.

And not only that, on the main street I counted at least two other “acts” that included backing tapes. Whatever is the festival coming to, that it is abandoning the principles under which it was founded?

If you are a solo performer and need more than just a guitar, then this is exactly how you do it.

This is a guy from Montreal called Steve Hill and he’s playing guitar and singing. And not only that, if you have a closer look at the photo you’ll see that he has a bass drum, another drum, a hi-hat, a tambourine and a set of cymbals, that he plays by hitting them with some kind of extension fastened to his guitar.

He had another guitar too, and that had a maracca attached to the end as well so he could shake his maraccas during the performance.

I was amazed to see that he didn’t have a mouth-truss and a gob-iron, which was what I would have expected to see in a solo performer, and I did have a little muse to myself that had he had a really good plate of baked beans for lunch he could have played the trumpet too.

But I’m a big fan of one-man shows and I have appeared in several, but these were usually named after the size of the audience.

But joking apart, I do have to say that I really enjoyed his performance. He was certainly a very competent performer and he had quite a good voice too.

This is what being a solo performer is all about. Using backing tapes and the like is selling the public, and the festival, short.

Talking of mouth trusses and gob-irons, this is what I mean.

This is a guy called Oland Monteith and he comes from up the road in Nackawic, and he is an excellent representation of what the festival is all about – the old man sitting on the porch with the guitar and mouth organ singing the blues – in this case the Folsom Prison Blues.

You might – or might not – have realised this, but this is the FIRST real old-man blues act that we have seen at the festival. And by the time that the festival had finished, this was the only one that I had encountered.

What a let-down from the days when I first came to the festival and we had raft after raft of old men singing the blues. Of course, I’ve not had the blues for years – ever since I started on the Prozac of course.

As for other unusual acts, how about this one?

This is the North Mississippi Allstars and if you look very carefully at the stage and the musicians, you will notice that they have one singer-guitarist and two drummers.

And that’s your lot.

You might think that the sound that they would be able to create would be rather limited, but nothing could be further from the truth.

They managed to put in a “complete” performance that certainly sounded as if there was nothing missing from the show, and it all went down rather well. Much better than I had expected.

And with all of the above, just WHY do you need backing tapes? And just WHY are you allowed to get away with it at the festival?

And so this morning I was up quite nice and early and had plenty of time to have breakfast and do the paperwork from yesterday without any interruptions.

But I did have an interruption while I was driving into town. However, this was something of a quite welcome interruption. You may remember that I’d sent a note backstage to Ross Neilsen during his performance yesterday, And this was him, ringing me back.

We had quite a lengthy chat, and the result of this is that he will indeed do something for Radio Anglais and that can only be good news. If what he sends me is as powerful as what he performed yesterday then our listeners really will enjoy themselves.

That’s not all either. At a Charity Shop, Strawberry Moose made a few new friends – a couple of girls aged about 8 or 9 were very keen to make his acquaintance while I was having a long chat with their mother.

And so to the music.

We’ve already seen a couple of acts, right out of running order. The first band that we actually encountered, in strict running order, was Greensky Bluegrass. They come from that well-known haunt of legendary bluegrass music … errr … Minnesota.

Bluegrass is a long way from being my favourite style of music as you all very well know, but good music is good music, no matter what it is and where it comes from.

But this bluegrass music was so astonishingly good that I doubt if I’ve ever in all my life had a better time at this kind of concert

We media-types are only allowed to be there for the first three numbers but I was there for probably three quarters of an hour because one of their numbers seemed to go on for ever.

Not that I minded, of course. I could have stayed there all night and listened to them, if I hadn’t had so many other things to be dealing with.

There were five musicians on stage – and no drummer, which they didn’t need anyway because the guy on the upright bass was a stunning performer who kept perfect time.

They aren’t really suitable for a performance on Radio Anglais unfortunately, but I’ll be checking them out when I return home to see what else they can come up with.

On my way to my next venue I passed by the Barracks Tent. There was no performance scheduled for there, but there was certainly something going on.

One of the benefits of my media pass is to be able to enter venues when they are officially closed, and so I went in to investigate, and found myself face-to-face with Yukon Blonde doing a sound check.

Yukon blonde’s bassist, as well as being a left-hooker, comes from the UK, which was evident when he shouted across the stage “there’s something the ma”er with your speaker” – not a trace of a ‘t’ between two vowels. I hope that he doesn’t sing like this.

But that apart, they were quite a good group too.

I doubted very much that I would be around for their act, seeing as it was timed for 23:00, long after my bed-time, and so I stayed around for the entire sound check.

And it wasn’t a wasted experience either because, as I said, they put out quite a good performance even if it was only a simple sound-check. A shame that their set wasn’t timed for earlier.

Down at the Mojo Tent, Raoul and the Big Time were due to come on stage and so I needed to get a move on if I wanted to catch the act.

This looked like something out of the 1950s, what with the shiny grey suit and pork-pie hat, and this was indeed what we got. Appearances were certainly not deceptive in this case.

Despite the presence of the mouth organ, this was another very good, competent performance.

It seems that Raoul, whoever he is, is something of a well-known performer on the music stage although I have to admit to never having heard him before. And to be honest, it wasn’t my cup of tea and so I wandered off elsewhere.

“Elsewhere” turned out to be tea. There was quite a big gap between the next performances and so I went off to find some food.

We’re overwhelmed by food stalls this year and vegan food is quite popular. Tonight I had 6 hot-vegetable samosas, for $7:00 – and they were totally delicious – and very filling too. I’m doing well for food at the festival and, to my surprise, it’s not as expensive as it might have been.

My wanderings took me back at the Mojo Tent (we’ve seen the photos of Steve Hill in the Blues Tent earlier) where Amy Helm and the Handsome Strangers was the next act.

Now let’s forget the music for a moment – let’s talk about Amy Helm, because she was well-worth talking about. She’s someone else of whom I hadn’t heard before, and so I went off to make enquiries.

It turns out that she’s the daughter of Levon Helm who for many years was a member of the band “The Hawks”, which later became “The Band” and backed Bob Dylan during his “rock” phases and went on to have successes of their own.

This was another act that wasn’t really up my street as far as the music went, but there was no doubting the quality of the music, and no doubting the quality of the performance either, because Amy Helm really knew how to put on a show.

She was an entertainer from start to finish and not only that, she clearly had the air of thoroughly enjoying herself on stage.

At the Barracks Tent, I went to see a band called Rah Rah, who come from Saskatchewan apparently.

They were a five-piece band featuring a guitarist-vocalist, a bassist, a violinist, a drummer and a keyboard player who doubled on guitar too, and they produced quite a powerful act that I enjoyed very much.

The sound mix was all wrong however and I couldn’t hear half of the instruments, although that’s not surprising for us in the media pit at the front of the stage.

I was disappointed not to be able to hear the violin though, and I shall have to go around for a fiddle with the violinist later.

Final act that I caught was back at the Mojo Tent where Waylon Thibodeaux took to the stage.

He’s a ‘cajun from down Louisiana way, and he and his back-up band played just like it too. It didn’t bother me too much because this kind of music is the kind that you can listen to anywhere on any occasion

And if it’s played in the right kind of spirit with performers who enjoy what they are doing and are able to communicate with the audience, it’s usually a rip-roaring night.

And so this was what we got – a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a good bunch of performers and a lively crowd.

But I didn’t hang around too long. It’s my last night and I want to have an early night as I’m back on the road tomorrow. But today, I had a pile of interesting chats, including one with a cameraman from CBC and another with a young guy at the Rah Rah concert, to name but two.

It makes the time pass so much quicker and make things so much more interesting.

But I’m disappointed to see that the traditional “old-man blues” is no longer popular at the festival. For me, that’s what blues is all about and to legislate it out of the festival is a very sad thing as far as I am concerned.

And by the way …

… the photos that I’ve posted for tonight’s acts at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival are only a small sample of the hundreds that I took during the evening. If you want to see any more of those that I took, you’ll need to contact me. Leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

-2

Friday 18th September 2015 – I KNEW THAT …

… I couldn’t keep it up.

We had twice the amount of usual interruptions today, to make up for the smooth day that we had yesterday.

I’m not counting the rain in this because although this morning there was no sign of any precipitation whatsoever, I’m convinced that I heard some rain during the night.

Mind you, that’s all that I heard. I had another Sleep Of The Dead and didn’t feel a thing.

And so next morning I started on the building of my bed for Strider. This meant that I had to completely unload him so that I could measure up. and with stuff all over my camping pitch, another camper pulled up on the pitch beside mine. He came over to see what he was doing, and his dog promptly went to urinate on my camping pitch. And so the dog had my boot up its backside and his owner would have received one too had he not beaten a hasty retreat, with my opinion of him and his dog ringing in his ears.

While all of this was going on, a camp site steward came up. I can’t stay at this pitch, apparently, as it’s been booked for the weekend. I have to move.
“But you should have come to the office and booked in. After all, you’ve been here a few days”
“Every time I’ve been past the office I’ve seen the ‘sorry – we’re closed’ sign in the window”
“But I come on duty at 12:00”
“And I’ve been gone by then”
“But you do need to register”
“How?”
“One of the campground rangers should have come to see you and given you the details”
“And did they?”
“… errr … no”
“And as you know that I’ve been here for a few days, have you pinned a note on my tent to tell me what’s happening?”
“… errr … no”.

But in the end I had to move and I’m now elsewhere, and my bed isn’t finished either. All of this just goes to prove what I’ve always said about most Government servants. They only work when they have too and when it suits them. Providing an efficient and effective service to their clients is the last thing on their minds.

Some good news anyway concerns the group Tokyo Valentine – you remember that I saw them yesterday on one of the free stages. I was quite impressed with what I had seen of them and so I’d given my phone number to the guy who was doing their sound engineering.

The result of this was that Rachel, the keyboard player, rang me back and we had quite a lengthy chat. She likes the idea of recording one of the group’s live concerts so that I can make up a live broadcast for Radio Anglais. Plenty of interaction with the audience – that’s the thing, even if the have to summon up a clacque. I want to make my audience feel that they are part of the performance.

But as for the other acts to whom I’d slipped a little note – not a word. As I’ve said before, just like most people, musicians seem to be just interested in moaning about the lack of airplay that they receive and it’s far too much effort to actually go out and do something about it.

But before we start to involve ourselves in the festival tonight, let’s just say a word or two about the volunteers.

If you haven’t yet been to the festival, you won’t understand just how much work is done or needs to be done here and without the volunteers, none of this work would be done and the festival would ever take place. The volunteers deserve a big round of applause from everyone.

The first group that I encountered was on one of the free stages in the main street. This is Paula Tozer and Friends.

They were nothing special. Technically competent, they were, and playing an assortment of 12-bar blues including a number by JJ Cale that I hadn’t heard before but they didn’t manage to set the crowd alight.There wasn’t anything that I would have considered for broadcast on Radio Anglais.

As for the musicians, I recognised the lead guitarist. He’s called Rick Bartlett or something like that and I’m sure that I’ve seen him elsewhere at the festival in a previous year.

As for the bassist though, he gave me the opinion of being rather sour-faced. I went up to him as he was umpacking, and told him that it’s been years since I’ve seen a Rickenbacker bass, but he merely scowled and carried on unpacking, totally ignoring me.

And talking of totally ignoring me, I went into Tony’s Music Shop to see what they had – I’ve bought a few things from there in the past at various festivals.

This year though, I went in and all of the shop assistants were busy chatting away to various callers. Eventually, someone bade farewell to one of his visitors and came over to chat to me. And while we were chatting, another visitor came in and he turned to chat to them about babies and children, totally ignoring me.

That was enough for me and I walked out, with him running behind to try to persuade me to stay. But whatever happened to North American customer service? It used to be legendary, but now it’s all becoming just like Belgium. It’s shameful.

Talking of thigs being shameful, here’s Mike Peters, my favourite busker.

He’s been shunted out to play underneath the footbridge far from the madding crowd surging down the main street. He’s here playing to an audience of … errr … just me. And this is shameful treatment for someone such as him because he’s miles better than many of the performers who have appeared on a paid stage – never mind a free stage on the main street.

This is another thing that is shameful in my opinion.

The festival was created, so we were told, to counter the DJ movement and recorded music, and return to live entertainment and live music. But here, what we have is a “musician” strumming a guitar every now and again, backed by a recorded drummer, a recorded bass and a recorded backing choir. And it’s in the main street too.

But whatever is he doing with all of this gear at the festival, never mind on the main street, when many artists much better than him and playing all of their own music are stuck out at the back of the festival miles away from the crowds.

The first formal band that I encountered was the Earthbound Trio at the Barracks Tent. They were to play a little later on as one of the opening acts for Grand Theft Bus and so were warming up before the crowds filtered into to tent.

And yes, the Earthbound Trio is indeed the name, even though those of you who are able to count will have not failed to have noticed that there were four of them up on stage.

Musically, they were okay, I suppose, but this isn’t really my cup of tea and so I didn’t stay around very long.

But this is much more like my cup of tea.

Ross Neilsen is by far and away the best rock musician that you are ever likely to encounter anywhere in New Brunswick and, furthermore, he plays with the correct number of musicians too. Just a drummer and bassist – no horns, no keyboards, no nothing. This is a genuine power trio although his two backing musicians this year seem to be different than those who I’ve seen him play with in previous years.

Now if ony he would play like this all of the time, it would be a magnificent performance and he would be the star of any festival that I would organise.

He does however have a tendency to run a “blues by invitation” kind of show where he invites his friends up onto the stage to join in with the show. And while his friends are without doubt quite competent musicians, you have to hear the opening numbers of any show that Ross Neilsen puts on to hear how much of a disappointment the “augmented” show might become.

One of the things that I noticed about Ross Neilsen and his mates is that while Neilsen and his bassist weren’t ‘arf freaking out at the front of the stage, the drummer, whoever he was, was quite simply and stoically playing away on his drums totally oblivious of what was going on out at the front.

It was quite a remarkable exercise in concentration from the drummer, given the distractions.

And distractions they certainly were because Ross Neilsen and his mate were putting on quite a show and giving it all that they’ve got out there on the stage.

And as my three numbers were up (I’m only allowed to photograph the first three songs) I passed a note to backstage to ask him to contact me. I’d love to use one of his live concerts on Radio Anglais on my radio shows and I’m sure that my listeners would love it too.

This group on stage at the Barracks Tent was the winner of this year’s “Rising Stars” competition and unfortunately I forgot to enquire as to the name of the band … "it’s Free to Grow" – ed.

The stage in the Barracks Tent is one of the smallest stages at the festival, and yet there are no fewer than nine performerss on the stage. It’s cramped enough when there are only three or four performers on here and these nine were really suffering.

Once again, the music that they were playing, technically competent though it might have been, was not my cup of tea and so I didn’t hang around very long.

But what did impress me was the bassist, who you might have seen on the previous photo. He was playing what looked to me like a six-string bass and it’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen one of those on stage.

My permabulations took me back to the Mojo Tent. I’d seen Matt Minglewood and his band warming up earlier as I was wandering around and I was determined not to miss his set.

He had a four-piece band, consisting of himself on guitar and vocals, a keyboardist and drummer who provided the backing vocals, and a bassist. And all in all, it was a very tight set and from what I saw, I enjoyed the show immensely.

And did you notice the bassist? Yes, we had a female bassist who looked as if she might have been Matt Minglewood’s grand-daughter.

From what I heard of her, she kept her bass lines simple and basic, but then what else do you need in a show like this? And if she ever reads these notes, she’s quite welcome to come round to my tent and have a play on my instrument any time she likes. After all, I do have a Jaguar in my truck, don’t I?

He was a really popular performer with the crowd and rightly so because what I saw of his performance was quite impressive.

I was inclined to ask him to do something for Radio Anglais but at the last moment I had a change of heart. It turns out that he is an out-and-out militarist and spent much of his time regaling the Canadian Armed Forces and their aggressive and unprovoked invasion of Afghanistan.

I’m not having my listeners infected by any of this kind of nonsense and so I desisted. People who adopt polarised positions have to accept the consequences of their actions.

And I couldn’t hang around anyway. The battery in the camera was going flat and Canned Heat are up next in an hour. I need to do some charging.

Having rustled up the battery charger and infinity lead, I shot off to Tim Horton’s for a coffee and a charge. But, to my surprise, the Tim Horton’s in town has no public charging points. Consequently, I refused my coffee and wandered off elsewhere, eventually finding an outdoor power point at the local church where I could listen to (but not see) Garrett Mason in the Hoodoo House.

Back at the Mojo Tent, playing to a disappointingly small audience, was Canned Heat.

I couldn’t understand that. For a start, the Mojo Tent is not the best venue for one of the oldest continuing groups in the history of modern music – the Blues Tent where I’d deen Michael Franti and Spearhead is much more suitable. And I couldn’t understand why the tent here was only half-full anyway. Canned Heat should have packed out the festival.

Mind you, talking to one of the stewards earlier, he told me that for one of the artists here, the tent had been filled to beyond capacity.

The problem that they have is that they sell tickets for the individual shows but issues Ultimate Passes so that people can wander around from venue to venue. And if all of the Ultimate Pass holders were to present themselves at a venue as well as all of the regular ticket holders, then the capacity of the venue will be exceeded.

Returning to the music, I’m not sure whether or not the drummer was the same as when I has seen them previously. He certainly looked different, but then there are a great many reasons why that might happen.

But what made me consider this is that the drummer has a high-pitched voice and you’ll recognise his singing on many of the group’s early hits. And he sand several of the songs last time that I saw them, including “Going Up The Country”. But this time, “Going Up The Country” was sung by the lead guitarist who has a quite different vocal range.

Nevertheless, te performance was quite good and I enjoyed what I heard. But I had other fish to fry – there were still several groups to see and so I set off on my rounds.

But my heart wasn’t in it and I rather lost interest. I treated myself to a big plate of chips (I’d had nothing to eat since breakfast) and headed back to Strider. And here’s a thing. On the side of the street was a hat with a note – something like “thanks to all the musicians” – and people were leaving money in it, even though there was no-one with it, never mind doing anything. Imagine that – in the UK – leaving money lying around like that. Some people have much more faith in human nature than I have.

Back in my tent, I spent a half-hour or so quietly reading a book but at the end of the day I decided that enough was enough.

I turned the light off and settled down for he night. I was going to have an early night.

-2

Thursday 17th September 2015 – AND SO TODAY …

… nobody managed to get in my way. But then again, I didn’t put myself into much of a position where I was likely to be interrupted or diverted (although anything is possible of course).

I had an excellent night’s sleep in the tent, which I reckon that I thoroughly deserved, and I was up early and at work by 07:30 with a mug of coffee and a pile of breakfast biscuits, and it didn’t take all that long to work on the 61 photos that I had taken yesterday. And then they all needed to be imprinted with the copyright logos.

Once I’d done that, I wrote up the blog for yesterday ready to upload as soon as I could find a wifi connection.

One thing that I did manage to do is the change the headlight bulb in Strider. I’d picked one up at Rouses Point when I was there a few days ago, and while I’d been looking for a paper for Strider yesterday, I noticed that there was a section in his handbook about changing the bulb. It looks pretty straightforward but it isn’t, mainly because I don’t think that it had ever been changed before and the clips took quite a bit of forcing with a pipe wrench to move them. But at least he’s all legal now.

I also took the opportunity to have a really beautiful and warm shower.

On the road, first stop was the Atlantic Superstore where I stocked up with food as we are running right low on fruit, veg and bread. And they also had a few other things on special offer. So I now have a full pickup and we’re (almost) ready for anything.

Tim Horton’s came up with an internet connection (they must have made a fortune on coffee since they started on the free wifi connections – I know that they have from me) and after all of that I went to my usual little spec on the boat launching ramp car park opposite the city for lunch.

Home Depot was the next stop, and there I bought all of the wood that I need to make the bed that I want for Strider. And so Strider is now all loaded up with wood. They also had the insulation that I want too, but that’s going to have to wait until I’ve done the bed. I don’t want to load up Strider with stuff that’s going to be in the way. I’m going to buy it as I need it.

And so off to the Festival, and at the Barracks Tent, which has now been erected, we were having a communal yoga session.

As I arrived, they were all going into the mass hypnotism session that they have usually right at the end of every session, and so I engaged in a conversation with the volunteer on the door. We were wondering what might happen should a marching band go storming past the tent at this particular moment

The free stage has been erected at the City Hall, and the first band up on there was Tokyo Valentine. They are local, from Fredericton, and have only been together for a short while.

The vocals were a little, well, hit-and-miss, but musically there was nothing wrong with them and they seemed to be enjoying themselves, as did the audience.

In fact, the rhythm section was quite impressive. The drummer was superb and I really enjoyed listening to him.

As for the bassist however, he was easily the best that I have ever seen at this level. And I’m certain that I’ve seen him before too. I don’t remember his face but I do remember his style of play and I’m sure that I’ve seen him before with someone else at a previous Festival.

We had two female singers. One of them was sometimes on the keyboards and sometimes on the tambourine. And her vocals weren’t all that bad but her style wasn’t really a style that appealed to me.

But she knew how to interact with the audience and at one stage went off the stage to dance with everyone in the audience, who clearly enjoyed it too.

The girl on guitar, who was really a mermaid apparently, kept it simple and basic and that’s all that you need to do. But she knew how to get an audience moving too.

All in all, I had to say, what a way to start the Festival. This was quite a good act to have on a free stage, considering some that we have had in the payable venues, and I approached their manager afterwards with a view to doing something with them on Radio Anglais.

But we shall see.

The Hoodoo House is now open for business too and we started off with Tomato Tomato, who come from Saint John. They’ve been at the Festival before but I don’t recall having seen them.

It’s a married couple, who have been together for 11 years, and the kind of music that they were playing was certainly different. It wasn’t jazz and it wasn’t blues either, but whatever it was, they put everything into it.

We had the guy on acoustic guitar and vocals (and by the looks of thing, banjo and a few other stringed instruments too) but it was the woman who interested me.

She was playing almost everything – the washboard, the cymbals, the tin can, and also the bass drum and the tambourine, which she was playing by hitting pedals with her heels.

That must have taken quite some co-ordination, but never mind. She managed it fine and it was really quite different

I’d seen Kill Chicago last year in the “new faces” competition and this year here they are again, back in the Barracks Tent as established performers.

I wasn’t all that impressed by them last year. It wasn’t that their music was bad in any way, it was just that the style of music didn’t appeal to me that much. It’s something like modern pseudo-punk, high energy stuff.

They were much more refined this year, having had 12 more months to work on their act, and the audience clearly enjoyed the music that they were hearing.

But as I said, it’s not for me and, in all honesty, I don’t know why it’s the kind of music that should feature at the festival. I don’t reckon that it’s blues, and it’s certainly not jazz.

Now, this is much, very much more like it.

We’ve all seen these before. It’s the Record Company and they’ve been here at the Festival before too. Playing proper music with exactly the right number of musicians on stage for a change, and they made the most of it.

We had a bassist and a drummer and also a third musician who played guitar but also occasionally played mouth organ (without the guitar).

Now I’ve said on numerous occasions that I don’t like harmonicas in blues bands, but that’s because most musicians don’t know how to play it properly. But here, the musician certainly knew how to use it, and he was using it in a novel way as backing to the bass and drums., and that’s different.

He also played slide guitar and bottleneck guitar (with a real bottleneck and this isn’t something that you see every day), and all in all, this was a really good performance.

They have moved clearly into first place on my hit list, and I sent a message backstage to contact them about doing something for Radio Anglais. We’ll have to see about that too.

Now this is an interesting duo, for sure.

We’ve not yet had an old traditional blues musician on stage yet – the kind that we always used to have back in the days when I first started coming to the Festival – but here we are at last, and about time too. And in the Hoodoo House, which is where I always used to spend my time back in those days.

This is Old Man Luedecke, and with a name like this, there has to be something about the blues in the performance.

He was accompanied by a mandolin … "PERSONdolin" – ed … player and between them they pumped out some good old Tennessee blues music during the time that I was there, and I would have stayed around had I not had other places to go and other people to see.

A couple of years ago, I’d really enjoyed Keith Hallett’s performance at the Festival, and I’d had quite a lengthy chat with him when I encountered him in the street back then.

He and his band had led my hit-list for quite a lengthy period that year (was it 2013?) until they were overtaken right at the very end of the Festival by the 24th Street Wailers and then by someone else whose name I have forgotten.

I was therefore quite looking forward to seeing his act this year, and when I noticed that he’d reduced his band from a four-piece to a three-piece (the right number of musicians on stage in any rock or blues band, in my opinion – lead vocalists may be extra) I knew that we were going to be in for a really good night back at the Barracks Tent.

And I wasn’t to be disappointed either.

And here he is, with his well-worn and well-battered semi-acoustic guitar, belting out the blues at 100mph.

As you might have expected, he’s soared to the top of my hit-list now and he’s yet another one to whom I’ve slipped a little note to ask him to contact me about doing something for Radio Anglais. I’d feature an hour-long live show by him at any day of the week. This performance was special.

Final act on stage (at least, that I saw – I’m not as young as I was and can’t keep it up like I used to) was Michael Franti and his backing band, Spearhead.

Franti is quite a well-known performer in North America with a string of hits behind his name (although he’s never made it across to Europe) and is one of the most popular live performers on the “circuit”. And it’s easy to see why from this performance.

His interaction with the crowd was stunning, to say the least. Just like Gord Downey last year, he knew how to reach out to the crowd, and that included going walkabout and having a dance on one of the refreshment tables in the middle of the hall.

And there’s no doubt whatever that everyone in the crowd enjoyed it. And going over to a woman in a wheelchair and giving her a big kiss was a piece of art.

The music though, was a long way short of the blues and that wasn’t for me.

But there was no doubt about the quality of it all because his backing band was superb. He had a young energetic lead guitarist, an old powerful bassist, a competent keyboard player and a wild, enthusiastic drummer, and they gelled together completely to belt it out for hours. I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the concert.

However all good things come to an end and I headed for home. But I was interrupted by a vegan wrap from a mobile food stand. They are all here now, and there’s a much bigger vegan choice of food on sale than in previous years.

Things are looking up!

And talking of that, what have – or haven’t you noticed tonight?

Despite all of my whinging yesterday, we haven’t had any brass sections. That’s a big improvement as far as I am concerned. I hope that it keeps up.

And by the way …

Wednesday 16th September 2015 – AND THE ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S QUESTION IS …

… just about everybody.

Actually, that’s not quite right.

First port of call was the Scotia Bank. One of the things that I need is a bank statement with my name and Canadian address on it. And so to the Scotia Bank on the north side of Fredericton, and as you might expect, it was closed.

After a coffee however, it was open, and the bank quite happily obliged with the information. You can’t say fairer than that.

Next stop was Service Canada. They don’t have an immigration service office there – it’s in a separate department elsewhere and callers are only accepted by appointment. But they did have a telephone number and eventually, after a considerable wait and jumping through a great number of hoops, I was put through to a human being.

I need an immigration form 1M1442 setting out my entitlement to be in Canada. This can be applied for on-line, but the waiting list is … errr … three months, by which time I shall be out of the country. I can however obtain it at the border when I cross in.

And so after a great deal of discussion, there was only one solution – and that was to go BACK to Houlton where I crossed in yesterday, and pick it up from there. Of course, that will take a good few hours, but you spend more time debating the issue than actually doing anything and I am playing for high stakes here, so off I went.

And at the border we had the most astonishing arrangement that makes European bureauocracy look like nothing at all. I could only pick up the document as I ENTERED the country, so I had to leave the country, go and annoy the American immigration people (who were not in the least amused, and who can blame them?), do a U-turn, and then go back in to Canada.

Back in Canada, after much discussion, I ended up with the manager of the Canadian Immigration office there. They do indeed issue IM1442 forms there, but only for immigration purposes, not for demographic purposes. However he did accept that laws and rules and regulations change according to events, and he would have been quite happy to issue a document to me, but he needed something in writing from the Insurance Company.

And here’s the rub – the manager of the Insurance Company REFUSED to put the details in writing and to fax them to the Immigration Office – so that was that. I was there for a good few hours in earnest discussion, but I’m a miserable pleader at moments like this. However, I am in possession of the address of the Insurance Company Head Office (it’s in Dartmouth, opposite Halifax) and so I shall go to Home Depot and sort out a suitable pickaxe handle, then go for a drive.

Despite everything that the manager of the Immigration Service did for me, Service New Brunswick wouldn’t budge either, although they did give me the phone number of the Appeals body. I shall just have to apply on-line for this form – which of course takes much longer than the time that I’ll be spending in Canada – and the Insurance Company will still honour the policy as long as my application is ongoing.

Back at Fredericton (good old Strider), the Festival proper started tonight with two tents opened – the Blues Tent and the Mojo tent.

First up on stage at the Blues Tent were the Mellotones.

First thing to say about them, as you can see from the photo here, is that there are far too many musicians up there on the stage. Four too many in fact. I’ve no idea why they needed a brass section but there you are.

I mean – they were good at what they did – there’s no denying that of course – but it’s not my kind of music at all.

It certainly wasn’t blues, and as for jazz, well, jazz can be very good if it IS very good, but working over a few Bar-Kays numbers and that kind of thing isn’t really what I was expecting to hear. In fact, I found it all rather a dismal proceeding

From here I popped into the library. I’ve been writing quite a bit on certain occasions about the railway lines in New Brunswick and I went to see if they had any old maps of the area. And sure enough, they produced a set of old maps that showed quite a few railway lines, but it was dated from the late 19th Century and there were many lines which I know existed but were not recorded. I had been hoping for a map of the 1930s, but they had nothing from that era.

I wandered on from the library to the Mojo tent, in time to catch the start of the Downtown Blues Band.

We’d had the Bar-Kays in the Blues tent and so in the Mojo tent we had the Blues Brothers. The Downtown Blues Band played a re-hash of numbers from the film of the same name.

This was another occasion of far too many musicians on the stage. I’ve absolutely no idea why many of these groups want to have brass sections, and indeed why the organisers of the Festival want to book them. It beats me.

But then, as I have said so many times before, the rest of the audience enjoyed them. I’m clearly in a minority of one here.

The female singer was clearly enjoying herself on the stage. She was having a good time too.

And it has to be said – they were quite good at what they did. But to my mind, it’s not jazz and it’s not blues either. There’s clearly something that I’m missing here.

Back to the Blues tent and we had JJ Grey and Mofro from Florida. They’ve played the Festival before, but I somehow seem to have managed to miss them.

They started off quite well and I was feeling that I might actually enjoy this concert. But my feeling of elation didn’t last long.

They played a number that was crying out for a lead guitar solo, and they built up to this over a period of a good five minutes, or so it appeared to me.

And then we got it – the solo. But, would you believe, played on a trumpet. Well, I suppose, you would believe it after having read what I have written up to date. It was so disappointing as far as I was concerned.

And so back to the Mojo tent, and this was the Halifax group Paper Beat Scissors.

They are now living in Montreal and recording CDs, and they weren’t all that bad. They were something similar to Sigur Ros, but singing in English of course, and I didn’t mind at all staying here for a while to listen to them.

The one big drawback that they had was that they had a brass section.

When they wheeled on the French horn of whatever it is during the warm-up, I feared the worst. And I was right too, because even though the player started off on the keyboards and shaking his maraccas too, it didn’t take too long for him to get on the horn.

However, the singer had a good voice for what he was doing, and they were definitely the best band that I have seen here so far this year

But then again, that doesn’t say all that much for them. They haven’t had all that much competition to date as far as I was concerned.

Back again at the Blues tent, and we had Galactic on stage.

They started off with an instrumental number, and of course we did have the brass section that has featured in every act to date and it’s thoroughly dismayed me, in case you haven’t guessed

However, we were soon joined by a singer, a young lady from Louisiana if I remember correctly.

And their second number was a scorcher too. This was much more like it, even with the brass section and I quite enjoyed that. I was quite optimistic with that and was quite looking forward to the rest of the set.

But it was not to be, unfortunately.

Despite the energy that our vocalist was putting into her show, the third number degenerated into a rap number and if there’s one thing that really grates on my nerves, it’s rap music. This kind of stuff isn’t for me at all, and I beat a rather hasty retreat.

But not before we had had a little excitement on stage.

We had a small, lightweight platform on stage and they had an organ and a heavy drum kit crammed onto it. And I mean ‘crammed” too because there was no room for anyone to move and the drummer was extremely enthusiastic to say the least.

With the platform bouncing around, I was betting with myself about how long it would be before all of this went pear-shaped and sure enough, just a couple of minutes in to the performance, part of the drum kit collapsed across the stage. We had the roadie trying to rebuilt it all the time that the drummer was playing with what was left of the kit, and in the end they weighted it down with sandbags.

Now this is very much more like it.

At the Mojo tent we had Wintersleep.

I’d missed the start of their act because the performance of Galactic had started late, and so I can’t tell you all that much about them. but what I can say is that they were a four-piece band and I enjoyed their performance very much.

There was no brass section – or mouth organ – in sight while I was there and they were playing real music from my point of view.

Nothing quite as electric or as lively as Samantha Fish or the 24th Street Wailers, but then again, what could ever be as lively as all of that, but it was good enough to hold my attention for quite a while.

And so we definitely have a winner of today’s entertainment – something that was looking very unlikely after the first couple of acts this evening.

I’ll have to go and have a look for these and see if I can’t lay my hands on a live performance for broadcasting on Radio Anglais sometime in the near future. It would be quite enjoyable, that’s for sure.

And so I went back to Mactaquac Provincial Park and my tent.

I’d had a good night’s sleep last night for once and that had certainly helped with all of the issues that I had had to deal with during the day. I don’t suppose that tomorrow is going to be any different and so I’ll need to have a good night’s sleep.

And by the way …

… the photos that I’ve posted for tonight’s acts at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival are only a small sample of the dozens and dozens that I took during the evening. If you want to see any more of those that I took, you’ll need to contact me. Leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

Saturday 13th September 2014 – DAY FOUR OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Little did I know it last night, with everything being so quiet and peaceful where I had parked last night, that the tents around me were packed full of infants.

When I’m in Canada, I’m usually up quite early – the alarm goes off at 06:30 and I’m usually awake long before that, but these kids beat me easily to the draw. It’s a good job that I wasn’t planning on a lie-in this morning.

I dashed through the photos and the texts and then set off for the Tim Hortons on the edge of Fredericton to upload everything to the web, stopping off at the petrol station at Keswick where fuel is just 122.9 cents per litre.

I wandered up to Value Village to see whether they had anything in the line of a new tote bag to replace the one where the zip has broken and sure enough, the place did me proud. There was a new $50 rucksack in there at just $12.99. Not quite the cavernous one that I was hoping to find but it’s certainly bigger than anything else that I might find at that price.

Parking at Fredericton was horrendous today. It took me ages to find somewhere that was near the city centre, and there was still a long walk into town. Still, needs must when the devil drives, I suppose.

First person whom I stumble upon is Mike Peters. He’s had a promotion this year, playing at the CBC busking spot in the centre of town. You may well recall that last year he was playing stuck around the back of everywhere by the footbridge over the by-pass.

I’m not quite sure where he will go from here, but it’s a shame, if not a tragedy, that he can’t be given a place as a support act at one of the more formal venues. He’s streets better than some of the performers we’ve seen on there.

Here at the Officers Square, this is Double Dutch Hutch whom we have seen before. I’m not sure when but it might have been 2011, I reckon. I just caught the tail-end of their show and saw them perform Londa Ronstadt’s "You’re No Good" and Bob Dylan’s "Mr Tambourine Man" and I wish that I had caught some more of them too because I really enjoyed their music.

And as for his team of go-go dancers, then good luck to them, and good luck to him too.

Carrying on into the Mojo Tent, we have Morgan Davis on stage. He was at the Officers Square – was it yesterday? He had Rick Fines with him today and we met him too in 2011 – I remember speaking to him and the bassist whom he had with him at the time, a female bassist whose name I have also forgotten but who I remember was pretty good.

Bassist tonight is Alex Fraser, and we have of course the famous Jeff Arsenault on drums.

With Morgan Davis and Rick Fines together on stage you don’t need to say too much about their performance do you? Traditional simple home-spun blues, and played to perfection too, especially when it’s backed by Alex and Jeff.

It’s a shame that many of the performers here can’t keep things simple and basic. There’s quite a place for this kind of simplicity here at the Festival

These are the Revivalists and it’s much easier sitting on top of the bleachers at the back of the marquee with the big telephoto lens. And another Gibson bass as well.

and all that I can say is that I’m really sorry that I missed most of their set because I was quite enjoying what I heard. They finished with the old Blues Brothers standard “Somebody to Love” and did quite a good job of it too.

The Chris Robinson Brotherhood is another Southern Rock band. The musicians are somewhat under-rehearsed but they have the crowd bouncing around as well and this is going to be a good concert if they can keep going like this

So as well as a very competent moog synthesizer player we had a duelling guitar solo right at the end just like most Southern bands and it was really good. The drummer is excellent too but I did notice that he was counting the bars as he was playing.

But the sad thing about all of this is that with not having been to bed until long after midnight, and waking up at 06:00 to do the photos and the notes, I’m crashing out here, even in the middle of a rock concert and so in the end it’s all too much and I head back to the car to crash out there.

I’d parked the car near to the Government Offices in Fredericton and as I passed, I noticed a woman setting up a tripod to photograph the floodlit building. I fell in with her and we had quite a chat about all kinds of things.

I realised that I don’t actually have a decent night photograph of the building and so while I was talking, I added one to my collection.

And then I hit the road

And I’ve been spending more of my money today, more of which anon

-3

Friday 12th September 2014 – DAY THREE OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Mind you, it might not have been, for I’d been on my travels again during the night.

I’d been working for years in an office and was to retire in a couple of days. I’d several files on a shelf behind me where they had been for several years, files that I hadn’t been able to deal with. I was planning to surreptitiously shred them so that no-one would find them. It did occur to me that I could simply leave them and it wouldn’t make any difference as I wouldn’t be there to face the consequences, but my pride wouldn’t let me do that.

There were also some items hanging on a chain link fence and they needed to be removed too, and Nerina put in an appearance to lend me a hand.

On that note, I awoke to something of a chill, but also to a little sunshine. The weather had improved considerably during the night, but there was quite a strong wind blowing.

There was so much work to do from yesterday so I had to press on without stopping to make a coffee – I could fuel up at a Tim Horton’s when I upload everything to the internet. However it took a while to make it to Tim Horton’s as I came across a Salvation Army thrift shop (but no books or CDs for me) and then went shopping in the Atlantic Superstore.

Once I’d had the coffee and done the work, it was into town as things were starting early today.

This is the Alex Bailey Swing Band apparently, although there wasn’t a swing in sight, no matter how much all of the children here would have loved to have been on it. Playing in the fine weather on the free stage at Officers Square to a contented crowd sitting in the sunshine.

For me though, the music didn’t do much to warm me up as Jazz isn’t really my thing and so I wandered off to see whatever else I could find.

This is a group called Kill Chicago. They were featuring at the Barracks Tent, taking part in the Galaxie Rising Stars Showcase.

They were another group that blew hot and cold as well – sometimes some of their stuff was quite enjoyable and at other times it didn’t appeal to me. Still, I have to admit that i’m getting old and it’s going to be very rare that a group of musicians 30 and 40 years younger than me would play music that would keep me riveted in my seat.

Technically though, there wasn’t much wrong with them, and that’s the kind of thing that is always worth admiring.

Back on the Free Stage at Officers Square we had Morgan Davis and his long-time drummer Jeff Arsenault. They are Festival regulars although it’s a shame to see them relegated to a Free Stage in an early afternoon rather than as a support act in a marquee venue. Sign of the times, I suppose. And shame as it is to say it, I can’t remember the name of the bassist, whom I have met before.

His set was exactly what you would expect it to be – a very competent and talented set of home-spun blues. And I did like his reference to the “United Snakes of America”.

First up this evening in the Blues Tent was, at long last, a real Blues performer. Gord Downie, The Sadies and The Conquering Sun. And that was a belting, powerhouse performance, well worth the wait for this. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this performance.

He had the correct number of musicians on the stage too – with no keyboards, no horns and no harmonica either, and his lead guitarist was one of the best that I have heard in years as well. During one track he played a lengthy solo right up at the top end of the scale of his guitar and that somehow found its way into my bones.

Downie was a showman and a performer if ever there was one too, and he was also a few other things besides, but we won’t go into them on these pages.

If I had been writing these notes 30 years or so ago I would have described this as an outrageously camp performance, but I’m not so sure that these terms are acceptable these days. I will have to think of another way to express exactly what I mean.

Their performance finished with a high-energy punk number, and having seen a few of these here this last couple of days, all I can say is that Downie and his bands put these other punk musicians to shame and if punk music had been played as he and his band played it, it would never have been classed as the nadir of performing music.

What an amazing concert. I really enjoyed this set, so it’s “hats off” to Gord Downie, who cheered me up immensely and restored my faith in the festival. But it was sad to see so few people enjoying this concert with me.

This is a busking group out there on the free stage at the Fredericton Tourist Information Office and I’ve heard worse than these too. They are called the Arlens, I think.

I can think of many worse ways to pass a free half-hour of my time. The audience enjoyed it anyway, boogie-ing about even if the music was a little hit-and-miss. As for the singer though, well, he must have been having an off-day I reckon.

Shame as it is to say it, I was somewhat disappointed by Blackberry Smoke.

However this was entirely due to the video that I had seen of one of their live performances, and that was something quite extraordinary, but then as a promotional item they would always use the best publicity available and I’m fully aware of that kind of thing, so I was expecting it.

So perhaps I wasn’t really disappointed after all.

What I wasn’t expecting though was the tirade launched from the stage about the Canadian Customs and Border Control. It seems that they have had the same issues with them that I have been having.

Had I caught the group unawares, I would have been enthralled by what I had seen because as a Southern Rock jam-band (from Atlanta in Georgia apparently, which should come as no surprise to anyone), they might not have been in the same class as The Outlaws or Widespread Panic, but they would be by far and away the best band that I would ever likely to catch a l’improviste.

And a Gibson bass too. What bliss! I was beginning to think that I was the only bassist in the world still to be playing one.

They did the track about “One More Silver Dollar” – the Allman Brothers one – and that involved a jam that went on for about three hours (and quite right too – my only complaint being that it didn’t go on for four hours). And somewhere along the line the managed to fit in a sample of “When the Levee Breaks” – the old Led Zeppelin show-closer.

All in all, I enjoyed this show too. It did drag a little in the middle but when they did break out into a jam solo here and there it lifted my spirits again. “Naked self-indulgence” I hear you say, and even if it might be, ask me if I care. I’d go along to see these again.

One thing that I will be doing as soon as I return home, whenever that might be, will be to try to track down a live performance somewhere to use on the radio.

If you have read my remarks on harmonicas, you would be forgiven for thinking that I hate the instrument. But that’s not really so. What I hate about it is
1) Almost every Blues musician thinks that it’s an essential part of the blues, and no blues can ever be performed without it.
2) Most harmonica players don’t know how to play the instrument.

So how will we get on with Blues Traveler, who is really a harmonica soloist with a few vocals here and there and a backing band?

The answer to that is that he’s the only blues musician who knows how to play it properly, and when I noticed that his bassist had a collection of 5-string basses on stage (unfortunately, all Fenders but you can’t legislate for that) I suspected that this could be an excellent performance with much more to the music than just the harmonica.

And I was right too. This was a stunning performance. We did, of course, have “Canadian Rose” – that was odds-on, wasn’t it? And we had a magnificent keyboards solo during one of the tracks. But as for the harmonica playing, well everyone else might just simply throw away their harmonicas for they will never ever be able to reproduce the sounds that came out of this one. It’s a waste of time trying.

The net result of all of this is that with Gord Downie and His Mates, Blackberry Smoke and Blues Traveler, I’ve had one of the best night’s entertainments that I have ever had, and I was walking on air on the way back to the Dodge, long after my usual bedtime.

Only downside of the day was that when I returned to the camp site I discovered that someone has pinched my spec and was having a barbecue there. I wasn’t in the mood for confrontation and so I cleared off and found another pitch somewhere else.

-1

Thursday 11th September 2014 – DAY TWO OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

It was much warmer this morning and I felt much more comfortable, although I’d had something of a turbulent night. I had lots to do this morning and that kept me pretty much occupied for quite a while and then it was off to find an internet connection. Once again, Tim Horton’s came up trumps and I reckon that the free wifi service that they offer will pay for itself in spades with the amount of custom it pulls in.

However, while I was in there, the weather changed. You may remember me telling you that they had turned the tent around at the Barracks Square and it’s now on the grass rather than on the hard-standing. I mentioned that if it ever started to rain everyone would be up to their knees in mud by the end of the evening.

And so it comes as no surprise to notice that it’s now raining. And as the afternoon wore on, the rain came down heavier and heavier. After doing a few more things that needed to be done, and going for something to eat, I had an hour or two to spare before the evening’s entertainment began. So I took refuge in the public library and read a book on Canadian Railways.

So here in the driving rain, although it’s quietened down a little from how it was half an hour ago, we have Lee Fields and the Expressions on the stage.

Again, there are far too many musicians on stage for my liking with his brass and his horns, and whether or not you would call him good would depend upon your own point of view, he has bags of presence and certainly knew how to get to a crowd, there’s no doubt about that. He’s a showman if ever there was one.

He had his first hit record in 1969 which is quite surprising seeing as how I haven’t ever heard of him. Still, soul music isn’t my scene at all.

I wasn’t impressed with his dress sense. I thought that the silver lurex suit was a little too 70s for my liking.

But I do wonder what must be going through the minds of the organisers when they have soul singers at a jazz and blues festival.

Pogo Ray on the drums, Scott Sutherland on the bass and of course, Samantha Fish on guitar and vocals. She played a superb set, and I will tell you now that I thoroughly enjoyed her concert.

I only heard three songs, what with other things that needed to be done, but I’ll make a special effort to catch her act later on tonight at the Hoodoo House so that I can hear some more.

And so I did. I caught up with her later, just in time to catch her doing the most astonishing version of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs that I have ever heard, and I told her so after the show. She has also put me in touch with her record company so that I can obtain a copy of one of her live performances for Radio Anglais.

Hers was the best act so far and although she hasn’t had much competition up to date, nevertheless she’s now way out in front by my reckoning, and by a country mile too.

Meanwhile at the Hoodoo House there can’t have been more than 70 people watching Shirley Jackson and her Good Rocking Daddys. Mind you, I can’t say that I’m surprised. I didn’t hang around very long and for three good reasons too –
1) I had other fish to fry (including Samanthat Fish of course)
2) Jazz isn’t my scene at all
3), technically, Shirley Jackson and her Good Rocking Daddys were, well, not quite at the races in my opinion and the guitarist was, well, a little way behind the others.
I’ve seen worse than these, to be sure, but I’ve also seen a whole lot better too.

Next group on stage were supposed to be the Belles, but they were announced as Always, or something like that … "it’s ALVVAYS" – ed … or my hearing is going, one or the other.

It was enjoyable new-romantic pop but technically they have been bettered by quite a few other bands. I spent most of my time watching the bassist with his Paul McCartney Hofner bass guitar, and playing all of the bass lines. And I was playing them, well, totally differently.

What didn’t help the group was that the sound mix was so awful, although it probably sounded much better at the back than it did at the front where we were, hemmed into the tiniest protographers’ pit I have ever been in.

This is someone called Doctor John and I had a little bet with myself that with a name like that it would be odds-on that he would produce a harmonica at some point during the proceedings.

So we did have Doctor John (without a harmonica for at least the first three numbers that I saw) and I had to say that the stage was the wrong way round – he had his back facing towards the organ and drums (but facing across to the guitarists and female backup singer who was doubling up on trombone).

Again, an enjoyable act that was technically very good, but not my scene at all.

David Clayton Thomas’ act looked quite ominous – there’s a whole pile of trumpets and horns and so on being wheeled out on stage. That makes my skin creep a little.

So He is someone quite well-known in certain circles (but not mine) and even brings with him his musical director – the guy in the green shirt playing trumpet on the left of the front row. I mean – who has a musical director in a show like this?

Anyway, he’s enjoying it and so are his musicians. They are having a whale of a time up there and I’m sure that some of what he is saying on stage contains some kind of in-jokes amongst them all, so good luck to them – and good luck to the crowd toon because they were having fun. But it wasn’t my cup of tea.

And for all of their rehearsals and musical directors and so on, I did detect a few, well, shall we just say “impromptu notes” and “uncommon timing” floating around here and there. It didn’t seem to hang together like it should – a bit bitty.

These are the Arkells and they are another 24th Street Wailers, aren’t they? I was exhausted just watching them for three numbers – dunno how the rest of the crowd got on for an hour or so, and as for playing it, well, I did have my suspicions about one or two of them. The second guitarist, for example, looked quite … errr … animated.

It was like the punk music of the late 70s which was quite surprising as the bassist was doing a very good impression of Glen Mattacks, bassist with the Sex Pistols, who just stood there and played while the others got up to whatever it was that they were getting up to. But unlike the punk bands of the 70s, these could actually play to a certain degree.

In contrast to the 48th Street Wailers though, the anarchy on the stage was totally uncoordinated and we had musicians crashing into each other every now and again as they jigged around the stage. At least the Wailers had some kind of coordinated stage act.

The Arkells had the crowd, mostly of teenage girls, quite animated too and the audience participation was thoroughly excellent and the crowd loved the performance. And it was the largest house of the night by far in what has been a pretty poorly-attended festival so far, so I’m clearly in a minority of One.

I’m probably far too old for this. I went to catch the end of Samantha Fish’s stage act at the Hoodoo House before going home to bed.

-1

Wednesday 10th September 2014 – DAY ONE OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL …

… so I need to organise myself properly. Quite an impossible task, for many have tried and all have failed.

To start with, here’s a photo of my pitch at the Mactaquac Provincial Park. I’m sheltered by bushes and trees on two sides, which means of course that the wind is coming from the other two sides, as you might expect.

And it was cold during the night. Really cold. I went to bed fully-clothed, and that was uncomfortable when I had a bad attack of cramp at about 04:00.

And it was even colder at 07:00 when I was up and about. I almost went to look for a jumper but a hot coffee followed by an even-hotter shower did the business.

Strawberry Moose had some visitors too – presumably collecting maintenance payments from last year, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Having read the news recently, His Nibs is quite keen to play his part in diversifying the species – in fact, any species that he can. It’s why he’s so insistent upon coming here with me.

Mind you, if his friends don’t learn to move off the road quicker than they do at the moment, they might need all of the help that he can give them in that respect.

I had quite a few things to do this morning, and then I went off for lunch at the boat-launching ramp across the Saint John River from Fredericton. The view from here across to the city is quite phenomenal, especially in the magnificent weather that we were having at the time.

And having dealt with that, I went off for an explore around until the early evening when the Festival is supposed to get under way.

But there’s something that isn’t quite right here this year. The headline act, Blues Traveler, aren’t opening at the Playhouse Theatre, as most of the other headlining bands have donein the recent past. The Hoodoo House isn’t erected yet and won’t be opening tonight, and the Barracks Square tent isn’t open either. Furthermore, it’s been turned 90° so that it’s only half the size and instead of being on the hardstanding, it’s on the grass lawn. That will be interesting if we have a heavy downpour of rain at any time.

First band up on stage were the Wood Brothers in the Blues Tent. Apart from a bassist, Chris Wood, who spent a great deal of his time dancing with his instrument, I’m not quite sure what to say about them.

I made a note that they were more folk-country-rock than blues but that wasn’t necessarily the case. They chopped and changed styles and like most people who try to be something to everyone, they ended up being nothing to anyone – or at least, to me. Technically they were excellent, there’s no doubt about that, but their diversity didn’t appeal to me.

At the Mojo Tent I missed Gypsophilia – they were walking offstage as I arrived.

Next up was a group called Thus Owls, or something like that. They consisted of a guitarist, a drummer, and a woman playing keyboards and “things”, singing and using her voice for sound effects.

I wasn’t sure what to make of them. They were something like a Sigur Ros but singing in English, not Icelandic, and I’m not sure exactly where they were supposed to fit in at the festival because whatever they were, it was neither blues nor jazz, and this experimental avant-garde chamber music isn’t really for me. I’m not able to comment on the technical ability as it isn’t easy to understand what it is that they were really trying to do.

Back at the Blues Tent, we had Matty Andersen and the Mellotones, a name sounding like something out of the Blues Brothers. He’s from New Brunswick and his claim to fame is that he won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2010.

He wasn’t alone either. He had four brass musicians (they were also playing horns and the like too), three guitarists including himself, a bassist, a keyboard player and a drummer, and probably a partridge in a pear tree too somewhere.

Mark Knopfler said something about not giving “a damn about any trumpet-playing band. It ain’t what they call rock and roll” and I’m afraid that I have to agree. His performance, which I have to say was quite competent by anyone’s standards, didn’t need half of these musicians on the stage. It’s just, in my opinion, unnecessary clutter and it tends to distract from the music.

Godd though it may have been, it wasn’t my cup of tea. I put my camera away and prepared to leave for the Mojo Tent.

It was at this moment that we had one of these priceless occasions that happens only once in a lifetime. As I was standing by the door putting the Nikon away, a “Security” guard came running over.
“I saw that!” he shouted accusingly, pointing to my camera bag (generally speaking, DSLRs are forbidden at the Festival)).
“Did you see this?” I said, thrusting my Media Pass under his nose.
One rather red-faced security guard beat a hasty retreat.

On the way back to the Mojo Tent, I was harassed by yet another beggar (there are a few of these about) and while he was busy trying to cadge half a dollar, his mobile phone rang. And it was a much-better smartphone than I could ever afford. And so I told him what I thought about it all, in no uncertain terms.

This is the kind of thing that annoys me intensely.

Final act onstage for tonight was Bahamas, not bananas – at the Mojo Tent.

They consisted of a singer-guitarist, another guitarist, a drummer, a backing vocalist and – shock, horror – not a bassist in sight. What a sacrilege! I can’t think why any blues or jazz band would ever want to play without a bassist, and how it would even be possible. That is just the kind of thing that would have me on the back foot before we even start.

I didn’t make a single note or comment about the group’s music so they clearly made no impression at all on me. I’ll have to give them a rather neutral mark.

As a Media representative (Radio Anglais does have some benefits after all) I’m allowed to photograph the first three numbers and then I can stay and watch the rest of the act. But I ended up leaving and going back home for an early night.

I have to say that on Day One, I’ve seen nothing that has grabbed my attention. In fact, to be honest, I’ve been rather disappointed with the music that I’ve seen so far. I hope that things pick up considerably for Day Two.

Saturday 14th September 2013 – IT WASN’T THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that woke me up this morning. The weather seems to have cleared up a little – unless it’s run out of rain and gone back to find some more, which is most likely.

I wasn’t in a hurry to leave the stinking pit either today seeing as it’s weekend and I’m on holiday, but eventually I managed to do the photos and the notes as well as having a long chat with Cécile and her mum on Skype.

ON the way into town I stopped to fuel up and found the cheapest petrol that I’ve seen in ages – $1:26.9 at a garage owned by a Lebanese guy. Coffee at $1:25 too so I fuelled myself up with that. We also spent ages putting the world to rights too.

But now for the music.

First up in the Alexander Keith tent was Bob Marley’s old backing band, doing loads of covers of some of his best material.

Reggae is not really my scene and so I didn’t hang around too long as there was plenty of other things to be doing today, but at least I took a few photos of them. Not very many as it was impossible to fight my way through the crowds and down to the front.

However I didn’t half feel a fool. Due to a misunderstanding and a bad telephone line, I was the only person in the crowd who was carrying a harpoon.

In the Mojo Tent we had Marcia Ball, the Swamp Boogie Queen, on stage with her backing band. She was really quite good and thoroughly enjoying herself, and quite right too.

Not quite my scene either but I can appreciate good music whenever I hear it and I had no complaints about this performance, saxophones notwithstanding. I did enquire of one of the stage crew whether she had received any help in setting up her concert and giving her advice and all that kind of thing, to which he replied “not in the least – it’s all Ball’s.

This is Jessie Ashcroft on one of the outdoor stages, that restarted operations today now that the weather has improved. She was playing a Pink Floyd song, the name of which escapes me for the moment and which I’ll remember as soon as I press “send”, when I encountered her. Wat I found disappointing was that there was probably not even 40 people watching her act.

Even more disappointing was that when I asked the technician who the guitarist was, he answered “ohh, just some guy who plays with her” – he didn’t even know her name and that was dreadful because he deserved so much more that to be left in the deepest, darkest obscurity and anonymity like this.

Back in the Mojo Tent Garrett Mason (in the silly hat) and Keith Hallett (in the cap) were back on stage along with their rhythm section – Ray Jay Junior from Prince Edward Island on bass and a drummer called Chuck from Chicago.

The bassist was efficient rather than spectacular but the drummer was superb.

As for Garrett and Keith, they did live up to my expectations and moved into first place on my unofficial list of Festival winners. A fine hard-rocking boogie blues band that had the audience on its feet from start to finish.

Back at my spiritual home, the Hoodoo House, I saw the most astonishing band that I have probably ever seen in my 45 years of concert attendance – the 24th Street Wailers from Toronto.

They featured a sax player, a bassist, a female lead guitarist and a female lead singer on drums. Finding singing drummers is rare enough – finding female drummers is even rarer, but finding all of that together is astonishing.

And they weren’t bit-part players either.

Technically there wasn’t much wrong with what they were doing although it wasn’t all that technically-challenging (not that that ever bothered Status Quo and their army of supporters, I have to say), but if top rung on my ladder of Festival success was measured by energy, enthusiasm and audience interaction, they would have been down the road and out of sight long a long time before the final number

Headlining tonight was Ross Neilsen, together with a bassist and drummer whose name I didn’t catch. Sorry, guys. As a blues power trio they were thoroughly magnificent even if the sound mix was pretty awful, and I was prepared to install them at the top of my list, which I would have done with ease had they kept it up.

But then an astonishing thing happened.

They kept on inviting their mates to come up on stage and take part and we had a sax player, a keyboards player and, even worse, a mouth-organ player (and you know that that puts the kiss of death on a performance in my opinion). Of course, worse things happen at sea but it wasn’t as if these musicians added anything to the performance – in fact it quite detracted from what had been a magnificent opening set of numbers. All that was missing from the second half of the set was an invitation to next door’s cat to come up on stage.

Seriously, if Ross Neilsen and his two mates had kept up the power trio bit all the way through the performance they would have swept the board in my awards because they really were that good.

And had this motley crew of musicians been on stage from the very beginning it wouldn’t have been so bad either, but starting off as well as they did and then descending into chaos brought the curtain down on their performance as far as I was concerned.

Mind you, judging by the audience’s reaction, I’m clearly in a minority of one in this case.

I took refuge outside amongst the buskers, and spent a pleasant 20 minutes listening to this guy. He’s called Mike Peters and originally from Saint John but somehow managed to drift his way up here to Fredericton.

He was playing a set of folk-rock numbers, including Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and it beats me how it is that performers like him can’t find a regular spot at a festival like this when you consider some of the other artists who have been given stage time at the festival. There was nothing wrong with his performance and people like him deserve far more recognition than they are receiving.

So back to the camp site and it’s a clear night. So much so that I actually did a pile of washing before going to bed. That’s rather optimistic of me, I know. Cue a torrential downpour during the night.

-3

Friday 13th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that awoke me this morning. Things aren’t looking so good for the Festival. Still, the show must go on I suppose.

And no, this isn’t a misprint with me copying from yesterday or the day before either – it’s just an exact replica of what has happened this morning. The same as yesterday, and the day before.

After coffee and breakfast and updating the notes and images etc, I set off through the driving rainstorm for town. We didn’t get far though because there was a deputation at the gate. It seems that Strawberry Moose is in great demand again – not for his charm, wit and eloquence, but the first of this year’s paternity orders has arrived

I told him that this year he will have to take precautions, but he told me that he always checks to see if her parents are asleep, and he puts vaseline on the living room door knob.

This weather though is completely out of hand. One of the ways into town follows the nothern shore of the Saint John River and there are several opportunities to stop and take a look at how things are doing. As you can see, they aren’t doing so well right now.

The river has burst its banks in several places, which is hardly a surprise given all of the rain that we’ve been having and if the rain carries on it can only get worse, and that’s a depressing thought. Luckily I’m quite happy in my Dodge. This is a splendid way to have a holiday, all happily installed in here

Into town and shopping, and running a few errands as I have plenty to do, and then off for the music. Today opened at the Barracks tent and the first artist was one of these rap artists. Not my thing at all of course – in fact I reckon that this is another spelling mistake and there’s a letter missing off the front of that name.

I went off to eat some food instead because I was in a rush. The legendary Canned Heat are playing in an hour or so and guess what?

Our Hero has been granted a photography permit for the show!

First onstage was Thom Swift from Halifax and I’m sure that he was the opening act when I saw Taj Mahal here two years ago. There was him, Geoff Arsenault on drums (and what a magnificent drummer he is) and Brian Bourne playing a weird machine that I later worked out seemed to be the modern equivalent of a double-neck guitar – bass and lead in the same instrument. Anyway he certainly knew how to play it.

Thom Swift was in a different class completely than anyone else that we have seen before – not a rockin’ blues performer like The Record Company but nevertheless extremely competent. No wonder that he was chosen to open up for Canned Heat.

However, onto the stage came the legendary Canned Heat – opening act for Woodstock 1969 so we are told although this isn’t strictly true as Richie Havens was first on stage.

Nevertheless, nit-picking apart, their performance was a stunning one. Considering how old they are, they gave it everything they had got and that was plenty. Everyone in the audience was up on their feet by the time the curtain came down.

Canned Heat are definitely the stars of the Festival so far although I was puzzled to see why they only have fourth place on the list of artists. Probably because many people have short memories and can’t recall the good-yime days of the late 60s and early70s

But never mind the stars of the Festival. The highlight for me was being awarded a photography permit – one of only 5 issued – to photograph the band and I shall wear the permit to bed every night.

I just hope that, given the primitive equipment that I have compared to many other photographers, my photos have done justice to the performance. The permits were only for the first three songs and so I only have about 50 photos of the band and if you would like to see them, then you need to look at my web page of the event, whichis now on line

I’d missed most of Garrett Mason and Keith Hallett’s show at the Hoodoo House but they are playing again tomorrow night and so, unless the dam upriver from the city overflows and we are all swept away in a tidal carnage, I’ll be there to see them again.

What I caught of their show was excellent and of the “ordinary” bands here, they have now moved into first place on my preferred list of artists, overtaking The Record Company and Steve Strongman.

Anyway, back to the campsite in the driving rain just like last night, and now I find myself caked in mud just like back home

. This is starting to become depressing. It’s a good job that I have the music.

-4

Thursday 12th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that awoke me this morning. Things aren’t looking so good for the Festival. Still, the show must go on I suppose.

And no, this isn’t a misprint with me copying from yesterday – it’s merely a carbon copy of what has happened this morning.

However it did clear up enough for me to have a shower and make a coffee, and while I was on the computer Cécile appeared and so she had a guided tour of the Dodge and the campsite on Skype and the webcam.

Into town at lunchtime where the weather caught up with me again and I sought refuge in the library. With a stable internet connection I could do all kinds of things and catch up on a lot of stuff that I had let go for the moment.

The music this evening started off at 19:30 and I was in the Hoodoo House. First on stage was a guy called LeeBoy from Monastery, near Antigonish in Nova Scotia.

He’d had success in some of these reality TV stuff and songwriting competitions and while I’ve seen better acoustic blues performers, I’ve also seen a lot worse.

He certainly put everything that he had into his performance which, although it might not have been a lot, was nevertheless quite an acceptable warm-up act.

Next up was a three-piece blues band – guitar, bass and drums – the typical blues power trio. At last, the right number of musicians on stage.

This was Steve Strongman from Hamilton Ontario. He’s been on the road for over 20 years, so they say, so I imagine that he’s pretty tired by now and his feet must hurt. They say that he is quite well-known, with a string of blues albums to his name.

His set was absolutely excellent. I really enjoyed this. Shame that he got the gob-iron out halfway through his act but then again I don’t suppose that you can have everything. Why do blues musicians think that they have to have a mouth-organ?

There was a half-hour break at the Hoodoo House and so I went for a wander outside. We had the usual street entertainers who have now moved in, seeing as how the streets are now blocked off. This guy was on a plank on a few tin cans juggling with flaming brands.

Yes, it is a flaming brand, not a perishing torch.

I also enountered a couple of Fredericton’s finest. Two women as well, patrolling the streets of the Festival, the first that I’ve seen here.

One of them (for I did ask) told me that there was just 8 on duty tonight patrolling the streets of the city, a Provincial capital at that. I compared that to a music festival in the UK where there would be 800 bobbies patrolling the festival alone, always assuming that the festival would be allowed to go ahead, given the pathetic UK Health and Safety rules.

I’d seen the Avett Brothers, a country and western band from North Carolina, doing a sound check in the Alexander Keith tent earlier and so I went over to see what they were up to, because it sounded interesting.

I don’t think much of Country and Western but if it’s really good then it’s excellent and I quite enjoy it. However this wasn’t as good as it was cracked up to be during the sound check and so I didn’t hang around for too long, just in case they started up with “I Lost Control Of My 18-Wheeler And Ran Over My Dog”.

At the Barracks Square, there was a band called Billy Dre and the Poor Boys playing.

They certainly lived up to their name because “Poor” was exactly the word, although there was a spelling mistake in the leader’s name – there was an “I” missing.

This was punk rock at its worst and I do not understand how the organisers of the Festival had let these people (I refuse to use the term “musicians”) onstage at all.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like their music, the singer/guitzrist had in my humble … "humble?" – ed … little technical capability and the bassist even less. I reckoned that this was bringing the Festival into disrepute.

Back in the Hoodoo House (to which I had fled) The Record Company, from Los Angeles, took the stage.

Another power trio, and another excellent power trio too. While they were not as technically efficient as Steve Strongman and his band, they certainly knew how to move a crowd and their performance was thoroughly enjoyable.

And so heading back to my campsite in the torrential rain, I mused on how I had seen that evening two of the best bands that I had seen for ages, and also musing on the fact that how a band like Billy Dre and the Poor Boys could pack them into a tent whereas Steve Strongman and The Record Company didn’t even have 250 spectators.

And all of this just goes to show that my opinion counts for nothing in moments like these when it comes to personal taste in music.

-4

Wednesday 11th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that awoke me this morning. Things aren’t looking so good for the Festival. Still, the show must go on I suppose.

And leaving the camp site I left behind the old suitcase, as I remembered when I arrived in Fredericton. Ahh well, that’s one less piece of clutter to worry about I suppose. Good job I emptied it.

The weather dramatically improved round about 14:00 and so I went for a walk along the old railway track bed along the southern shore of the Saint John River. Over there on the northern shore is the boat ramp where I had my lunch yesterday and so I took a photo of that as it looked so nice from here.

Back in town, I did a very silly thing.

When I was in Truro in 2010 I went for a wander around in a music shop and noticed a Roland Cube Amp. These little practice amps are about 15 or 20 watts and are battery-powered, running of 6xAA batteries or a 9-volt DC inverter. They cost $289 which isn’t all that much, and so I enquired if there was a bass version – one of these would really suit me back home.

I was told that there was one in the pipeline but it wasn’t available yet.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … here in the music shop was a Roland bass cube amp, previously $319 (inflation over 3 years of course) reduced to a mere $149 in the summer sale. Borrowing a Fender Precision bass, I had a little play.

Now we are even more crowded here in the Dodge. Heaven alone knows what it will be like by the time we get to Woodstock, where we were half a mill … "you’ve done that twice already" – ed.

After finding a library book sale and a military tattoo (spelt correctly of course, this isn’t Maine), I went to listen to the bands. But not without being caught in one of the most trememdous thunderstorms I have ever seen. The lightning was magnificent and one burst of thunder, right over our heads, had everyone on the floor, including me, and we watched the rainstorm roar up the street to engulf us.

First band up was STU Jazz. 37 of them on the stage, so we are reliably informed, and that is about 34 too many if you ask me for my opinion. Like Mark Knopfler, I don’t give a damn about any trumpet-playing bands, and these weren’t up to all that much, even if they did have a lady bassist.

And while I was busy deleting a pile of photos thinking that I can do better than that, the performance came to an abrupt halt. The hurricane was heading back and the tent was not built to withstand it, neither was the grass floor.

We all trooped over to the Blues Tent to see World Party, a British blues duo.

They weren’t all that bad at all, and in fact could belt out some really serious blues when they really wanted to, which, unfortunately, wasn’t all that often.

And to prove how small the world has become, in the audience was a guy with a Nick Lowe tee shirt and we had a lengthy discussion about Brinsley Schwartz, a concert of whom I recently played on Radio Anglais, and it turns out that he’s a wine importer and
1 – he knows the Massif Centrale
2 – one of his clients is Simon Cowe, former bassist with LIndisfarne.

Headline act was a band from Florida, JJ Grey and Mofro. again, far too many musicians on stage – get rid of the horns and the keyboards would be a good start in my opinion.

And we had to wait until the middle of their set to see the first harmonica. Why can’t we have blues bands without harmonicas?

They were under-rehearsed and over-produced but could still belt out the serious blues every so often and I wish that they would have done more about that.

But then it was time to brave the torrential rainstorm again and, with a bag of chips from the Lebanese take-away, I headed for my camp site at the Mactaquac Provincial Park through the downpour.

-2

Tuesday 10th September 2013 – I HAD THE MOST UNEVENTFUL …

… drive down to Fredericton that I have ever had. There was nothing going on and nothing to report whatsoever … "hooray" – ed …

But in Woodstock earlier a few things happened.

Zoe and I picked up her price list and stuck it on the wall of her salon where it looks pretty good and effective. We did a few more things (and I’ve still forgotten to fasten her cupboard handles) and then I wandered off to see someone about another little project that I have in mind.

However, that won’t be happening, said he with deep regret.

A small piece of land that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while, well, they want a telephone-number kind of price for it. Its situation is such that it merits a few extra shillings, to be sure, but the price that they are asking is simply delusional. Even half of the asking price would be expensive.

In Fredericton I went to Value Village – the charity shop – to scan the books.

Here in Canada, there isn’t a variety of different charity shops as there is in the UK. All of the charities have joined together and have a charity megastore, and all of the items are colour-coded, the purpose of this I suppose is to tell which charity each item belongs to.

I always visit it because it’s a really good source of books on Canadian affairs, history, grography and the like, and I wasn’t disappointed. Six new books have found their way into the Dodge and now this place looks more like a library than anything else.

I picked up my Media Pass from the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival offices at Regent Street (it helps, having your own media outlets back in France – good old Radio Anglais).

And Strawberry Moose was in his element – not only were there floozies to admire but they even dressed him up in Festival Gear and allowed him to be photographed with them.

What more does any Moose require?

Lunch was at the side of the river near the boat ramp and for some reason or other I crashed out here. And for a couple of hours too. It’s not as if I’ve been overdoing it or anything just recently.

What woke me up was the book sliding out of my hand and crashing down to the floor of the Dodge. I’d probably be still there now otherwise.

So off to the camp ground – this is at a place called Mactaquac about 20kms outside Fredericton and close to the big dam for the hydro-electric power station. This has created a huge lake and the campground is on the shores of the lake.

It’s a wilderness campsite run by the Province of New Brunswick and so there is a good deal of wildlife hanging around and because it’s protected, it doesn’t have too much of a fear of man.

Consequently there was quite a deputation of Strawberry Moose’s friends and admirers from previous years awaiting his arrival, all keen to continue their acquaintance.

So I’ve emptied the Dodge and tidied it out, and made tea. Now I’m off to bed for an early night. Of course, you can guess what Strawberry Moose will be doing.

-2

Sunday 18th September 2011 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

… and after my late night last night, I deserved a lie-in. And when I was finally awake I went off to have a nice shower too. But something that I saw made me burst out laughing and I wish that I had a camera with me. Someone came to fill up their 50-litre water container – one of these round ones that looks as if it might be on wheels – and then towed it away with their car. It’s rather sad really.

They say that old Fords never die – they just rust away. But here is the proof that old Volkswagens never die either. They just merge into the landscape.

There’s a good few parked up here, and it did make me wonder what the owner is intending to do with them. There’s a few there that haven’t moved for a considerable period of time.

I said previously that it’s a rather sad affair when I’m taking photos of vehicles like this and calling them “historic”.

This is a Chevrolet Chevelle SS L82 and it’s a single headlight model that dates it from the very early 1970s I think, although like Eomer in The Lord of the Rings, I would gladly learn better. I do know that the SS refers to SuperSport and that the insurance on one of these would have been unaffordable to most people.

This is however much more interesting.

Not so much that it’s a Peugeot Boxer caravanette, and I bet that you’ve never seen one of these in North America before, it’s actually on German numberplates. I managed to track down the owners to have a chat with them, and it transpires that they came over with Seabridge and Atlantic Containers, the same companies as those whom I met the other week.

So it clearly works and I shall have to look into it. And it’s amazing how quickly my German of 30 years ago comes back when I have no alternative but to speak it. I was impressed with what I could remember.

There was still plenty of music to be found here and there around the city. Rick Fines and his lady bassist were playing at Officers Square to quite a healthy crowd sitting here in the sun.

I had quite a chat with the bassist afterwards and, to my shame, I forgot to ask her name. That’s rather embarrassing. But she did tell me that she’s been playing guitar since she was 9 and bass since she was 13.

Today is also the day of the Terry Fox run – he was someone diagnosed with cancer who set out to run across Canada to raise funds but died before he could make it.

Now, on the third Sunday in September, loads of people take to the streets to complete a little section of his run.

The run through Fredericton follows the public footpath that was formerly the railway line through the city. and here they had a band to help them along.

They were called Blue Train and while the music didn’t appeal to me all that much, they are local and the vocalist certainly could sing. He had loads of stage presence too so it was quite an enjoyable little concert.

>Now here’s the answer to a question that I have often asked.

When I worked with that weird American company a couple of years ago I was talking to a couple of people who worked for the giant UK Supermarket company Tesco, and I asked them why they had never set out to conquer North America. And when they did invade North America, they used a totally different name to Tesco, a strange decision when their brand has so much recognition in the UK

So here’s the answer. Someone else owns the trade name in North America. A manufacturer of lorry bodies.

We’ve seen a few of these before, and here’s yet another.

Not the GMC Tracker, but the state of the outer sills just in front of the rear wheel. I can remember welding up dozens of cars that were rotten like this back in the 80s but the last welding that I have ever done on a car was to weld up an exhaust pipe on my old Passat in 1997. I haven’t welded up a car body for over 20 years.

And if you notice, the rot here is on the offside, not the nearside. That’s rather unusual as the salty water is usually in the gutter alongside the kerb. One thing though – I can see that there are plenty of openings for me over here. I won’t be short of work.

I went off for a little drive later on and found a Canadian Tire place, where I couldn’t persuade them to sell me their display model AIR403 wind turbine. And here, parked outside, totally unattended and with the engine running, was a big black Jeep.

Could you ever imagine a situation like that in the UK?

Saturday 17th September 2011 – I HAVE SAID …

… “on many occasions too” – ed … that if I were to live around here, the vehicle that I would choose would be an old Land Rover.

And not just any old Land Rover either. Not a Defender and not a 90 or 110 either but a “series” Land Rover with leaf springs and other prehistoric fittings that I find so attractive.

And sure enough, here we are. A Series Land Rover (I can’t tell if it’s a 2A or a 3 but at a guess I would say that it’s a Series 3) complete with snowplough parked up at the back of someone’s house. A new galvanised chassis underneath that and a little tidying-up of the bodywork and you would have something that would last for 100 years.

Here’s an interesting sign. I’ve also found a Burpee Drive and a few other Burpee things, so it might be a common local surname.

My interest in this name is that there was a “Burpee” – in fact, a Pilot Officer Lewis Burpee of the Royal Canadian Air Force who flew Lancaster ED-865 “AJ-S” on Operation Chastise “the Dambusters Raid” and was lost with all of his crew near the Gilze-Rijen night-fighter airfield in the Netherlands

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. There are a couple of garage sales around here and I’ve stocked up on a couple of tools and a couple of books, including one on how to build a typical Canadian wooden building. I’m really making progress here

Parking is difficult here on Saturdays but I find a place near the Historic Burial Ground of Fredericton. This is where you will find the early pioneer settlers, United Empire Loyalists, civic leaders, visiting provincial dignitaries and the like.

And also the unmarked graves, just in front of me, of British soldiers who died while serving at the barracks in the city between 1784 and 1869

I went off into the town to see what was happening. And with Queen Street being closed off to traffic, we have a pile of street entertainers – all kinds of things happening.

One thing was some kind of informal skateboarding competition with teenagers leaping over a few jumps and, a little further down the street, an old car. You can see that there was quite a crowd watching the entertainment, and it certainly was entertaining.

I had a chat with a couple of the skateboarders later and, unfortunately, I can’t find the notes that I took. Did I mention that the batteries went flat in my dictaphone and I had left the spares in the Dodge?

And going all the way back to the Dodge to pick up my spare batteries, I had the shock of my life.

Despite being the symbol of the trendy hippy-set of Europe in the 1970s and 80s, the 2CV had a dreadful reputation for exhaust emissions and I never expected to see one on the roads in North America.

However a few were actually sold in North America and whatever reached Canada didn’t last long due to the wafer-thin bodywork being destroyed by the amount of salt on the roads in winter. So this is quite a rarity.

I can now carry on with my wandering around the street entertainers down Queen Street and end up with the skateboarders again who seem to have moved on to have a go at leaping over the car that I mentioned earlier.

Many of the skateboarders don’t seem to be able to manage the leap, but credit to them because I wouldn’t want to do it, but this guy here does it in spades, so chapeau to him.

By now the music has started and I’m drawn to the marquee un the Barracks Square to see what’s going on.

This is someone, or someones, by the name of Double Dutch Hutch who are competing in the Galaxie Rising Stars competition with the prize of playing at an international blues competition in Memphis, Tennessee in the New Year.

Another band that is competing in this Galaxie Rising Stars competition is the George Street Blues Project, whom we met the other day … “yesterday, in fact” – ed … in the open air at Officers Square.

Highlight of their show was definitely a spirited rendition of the old William Bell number “Born Under A Bad Sign”, which echoed many of the lyrics written by Lightnin’ Slim in 1954 in “Bad Luck Blues” and made famous by Cream on Wheels Of Fire and which went down well with the crowd.

Having seen these before I went off for a wander and there at the back of a dimly-lit “Snooty Fox” I encountered Morgan Davis and Geoff Arsenault.

I had a chat to Morgan afterwards. It appears that he’s originally from Detroit and came to Canada in 1968. Probably too young to have been one of the people who found peace on Canadian rather than Swedish ground, and now he lives in Nova Scotia. And quite right too.

On my way to catch Taj Mahal I ended up chatting to quite a few different people, including a guy who was a sales rep for a Fibre-Optic system. He had quite a keen interest in all kinds of Renewable Energy and in the social situation in the UK – such as it is.

This time, armed with a media pass, I could take photos of Taj Mahal, and so I did, much to the chagrin of a security guard who made a spirited grab for my camera until he saw my media pass.

I’ve never seen anyone go so quickly into reverse than I did just then. It was all rather amusing.

I enjoyed the concert, especially as they played “Good Morning Miss Brown” – an old blues staple that was part of our playlist with “Jack the Ripper” and “Orient Express” in the early 70s.

And I enjoyed his sense of humour too. He played some of his own compositions as well asa few old standards and generally took the mickey out of the audience “I recorded this song when ‘it’s squid-dipping time in Nova Scotia’ was top of the Canadian hit parade”.

Now what do you notice about this acoustic guitar?

That’s right – it’s a seven-string guitar made by Eastman and I’ve never seen one of these before so I went off to have a chat with the musician, TJ Wheeler, after the concert. Apparently most musicians string it to A to use it as a seventh string for chords, but he has it strung to B and uses it to play walking bass notes while he’s playing a “normal” chord.

Not content with playing acoustic guitar and bass at the same time, he can play the kazoo too. I would have been confused a long while before this.

Still, they are all bizarre in New Hampshire, which is where he comes from. And his gob-iron player is Dan Robichaud who tells me that in his day job he’s an educator attached to the First Nation communities in New Brunswick.

Next up was a guitarist called Thom Swift. He played a variety of different guitars, including this interesting 1930 National Steel guitar – and steel is the right word to use, because it is.

It has a built-in speaker in the front that resonates backwards into the body and the sound reverberates around and escapes out of the holes in the front. They were made for public performance in the days before electricity

I quite enjoyed his act, as did the large crowd here in the Hoodoo House, even if he did spend a great deal of his time singing maudlin songs about his mother and his dog.

But isn’t that what the blues is all about? As for me, I regret very much going on the Prozac because I haven’t had the blues for years. I’m going to have to sort out my bass guitar and take up the music again.

Final act up on stage at the Hoodoo House tonight was Rick Fines, complete with a lady bassist and I’ll try to track them down too to find out her name, as I missed it (out getting a bag of chips at the Lebanese takeaway down the road) when they came on stage.

I quite enjoyed their act too – quite simple basic blues, but then what do you need more than that as entertainment? It’s possible to overcomplicate your music and play ten notes when one note is much more effective, isn’t it, Chris Squire and Jimi Hendrix?

And so having had a really good day out, and now that I’m thoroughly exhausted, having walked about 100 miles today, I’m off to bed.

-1

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Category Archives: harvest jazz and blues festival

Saturday 19th September 2015 – SOMEONE IS ON A POWER TRIP …

Friday 18th September 2015 – I KNEW THAT …

Thursday 17th September 2015 – AND SO TODAY …

Wednesday 16th September 2015 – AND THE ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S QUESTION IS …

Saturday 13th September 2014 – DAY FOUR OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Friday 12th September 2014 – DAY THREE OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Thursday 11th September 2014 – DAY TWO OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Wednesday 10th September 2014 – DAY ONE OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL …

Saturday 14th September 2013 – IT WASN’T THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

Friday 13th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

Thursday 12th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

Wednesday 11th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

Tuesday 10th September 2013 – I HAD THE MOST UNEVENTFUL …

Sunday 18th September 2011 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

Saturday 17th September 2011 – I HAVE SAID …

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