Joshua Van Tassel

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Howdy. Been a busy few days with lots of driving but still good fun. Saskatchewan is quickly becoming a contender for the friendliest people in the world prize. Everyone treats us great, doesn’t hate us because we live in Toronto, and seems to genuinely like their life. We played a very very little town called Nokomis with a population of 459 people including us. Tonight is Saskatoon which is looking promising. Apparently Canada has this thing called the Grey Cup that people get reasonably excited for especially if your team is in it. This province is home of the rough riders who certainly are part of this grey cupness and the city feels pretty alive with pride and booze. Hope they like us. Headed back to TO tomorrow, it’ll take a couple days but our sites are set for home.

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Had the extreme pleasure of playing one of my now favorite venues in Canada, or frankly anywhere. It’s called the Blackbird Cafe, located in Coleman Alberta along the crows net pass about 2 hours from Calgary. A wonderful
woman named Kim moved herself and her three kids into this beautiful old church, fixed it up but not too much, and the people started to come. The sound is beautiful, the vibe is cozy with a fireplace/dog/cat included, and the community of people who support the place are lovely. Can’t say enough good about it so I’ll just stop now.
Calgary has been our home base for the past few days and we’ve been treated well enough that it’s tough to leave. Off to Edmonton today to start the journey back east.

Ps- in terms of local interest on the crows nest pass, google Franks slide. You’ll hear the unbelievable tale of the mining town of frank which got buried in minutes by the side of a mountain collapsing. Insane.

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In Calgary at long last, the half way point. Played a really great show at the ironwood for a good full hometown crowd, can’t beat that kind of vibe. I’ve spent a lot of time here over the years but haven’t been back for a while. This city seems to be getting taller and more spread out every day, but there’s still some really nice charming parts hidden in the orfices of the offices we’ll say.
We’ve been staying at JC’s folks place the past 2 nights, beautiful home with a mountain view and a pool table, can’t beat that. Also met the biggest dog I’ve ever seen, his name is Gordon and he’s only gonna get bigger. So loveable and terrifying at the same time. We’re playing in Crows nest pass tonight with a great band called the Warped 45’s, super nice guys and they sound great, my favorite combo.

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So our little convoy is now enroute to Calgary for JC’s hometown release, should be a good night. The past few days have been fun, saw some family in Winnipeg and rocked it with my grandmother til 130am which was super fun. We played a really nice place in weyburn Sask. where the people were ultra friendly and loved to buy CDs. The locals even took us out afterwards and showed us how prarie towns do it.
Our sunny/good weather streak just ended sadly, in the midst of a big fat snow storm at the moment. We’ll take it slow and hopefully see you soon.

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Dauphin is a great city with a great venue, wonderful people and friendly cats. In Winnipeg tonight, playing a really big venue that may be a bit too large for us to fill. We’ll see…..

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Spent the last 2 nights in the great crossroads of Northern Ontario, and it’s been kind of fun. The city has a great waterfront area, some good food and extremely friendly people. The club we played maintains some good old world sensibilities, in the sense that Tina (the bar owners probably 70+ mother) had a giant chicken and potato dinner ready for us as soon as we got there, and a giant plate of nachos for us as soon as we finished. Sweet lady for sure. They also have a surprisingly clean apartment upstairs that bands are welcome to stay in, complete with a coffee maker and an almost life sized 80’s Superman/7 up ad. They must have read my rider.
Had the night off last night and went to see 2012. It’s funny to go see a movie like this because almost every human there (it was full I may add) was complaining as they walked out about how terrible it was, waste of money, should have stayed home etc. I’m sure this happens everyday, about 6 times a day because that’s how many times it’s showing at that theatre. Now, open up the Thunder Bay newspaper or speak to any club owner in the city, and you’ll hear the same tale of empty bars, shows with almost zero attendance, and bands that can’t afford to come here anymore because they won’t even be able to cover their gas costs.
So, now we have 2 camps, the public who has a bad taste in their mouth over the bullshit movies they keep going to see for $10 plus whatever food they buy, and the music scene which is brimming with talent and the willingness to play they’re asses off no matter how people are there. Sounds like you should all get together and work this out, no?
I realize the appeal of a bad movie as much as anyone, we went last night, only after trying unsuccessfully to find music on a Thunder Bay Sunday night. What Im asking is take one night out in the next month in whatever town you’re in, and go see some live art rather then a movie. Be it music, dance, theatre, fire juggling, whatever, just support the creative community within your community. Im not trying to turn this into a public service announcement even though i suppose I did, but it’s my blog goddamnit sooooo….anyway, think about it. There’s so many good things happening in every nook and corner of this country, go check one out and tell me about it. Off to Manitoba today, send us some good weather thoughts.

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Made it here uneventfully yesterday, played a great place called Loplops which is set up 75% bar/venue and 25% gallery. Gotta say, the scotch collection was serious and the staff were great. We kept it pretty tame(as you can see below), Sudbury was hard on us , but it was still a good show. A bit of a driving stretch today to Thunder Bay, but we’re fed with charged iPods and coffees and songs to sing. See you there…..

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Charming Sudbury, why haven’t I come to visit you sooner? Oh right, there’s not really anything here. No offense to anyone from Sudbury of course, we actually met some really interesting locals last night as a matter of fact.
Like Morgan, who could of been 16 or 32, it was hard to say. She did inform us that “Calgary was her favorite place I Toronto, it’s so nice that it’s right on the water. ” Or her boyfriend Chad who wanted us to play our first set again because he couldn’t remeber the name of his favorite song but he’d kn ow it when he heard it and cmon he bought a cd and a poster and he deserves it and uh oh he has to go because he got banned from the bar last week for dealing coke and there’s the owner. Or Michael, a lovely gentleman who has been hearing the record on CBC and wanted to come check it out live. We promised we’d play his tune in the second set, which we did, but he didn’t notice bcause he fell asleep at his table. Either he got really drunk without me noticing or he was just really sleepy. Or we suck.
Gonna try and get some sort of little video up each day, here’s one now……..

The stage looked super green last night too in a Lou Ferrigno/80’s hulk way. Overall, show was great and we had a lot of fun. See you tomorrow?

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As usual I’ve been slack on the blogging band wagon, and again I ask for your forgiveness. I’m heading out on a cd release tour today with the hardest working Josh in folkrockcountry world, Josh Cockerill, and we’re excited. I’m gonna do my damnedest to provide some quality blogging throughout the tour, hopefully with some links to videos that are at times incriminating, entertaining and who know maybe informative? We’ll see.

Here’s a video that isn’t really any of those things, but it does look kind of pretty.

We tracked David’s record at Plaskett’s studio in Darmouth, and would take this little bridge trip across to Halifax a couple times a day. I think it looks nice at night, and eventually want to put some music to it.

First stop tonight, Sudbury. see you there? Maybe? Probably not, I understand.

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….looks like this –