Joshua Van Tassel

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In Wakefield, Qubec this morning and played a fun show with J Cockerill and NQ Arbuckle last night. It’s a super sunny, pretty day here and no one else is up so I’m exploring. Obviously I didn’t find too much adventure because I’m now blogging. Right. On a bench by some train tracks and a nice lake though, cool breeze in the air, birds singin me a tune that sounds familiar, maybe like spring? Let’s hope. Playing in Ganaoque tonight, there’s a lake there too! Yes folks, being a musician is this exciting,tell a friend.

Jennah/the Cameron house, post Dakota. For some reason I never break sticks, they just shed. And make a mess. Sorry.

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Well folks, it’s been a busy time and once again I’ve been a slack blogger. Only the occasional post of a completely awesome looking Bill Wither documentary and some rants. Things have been great in my world, and I figure today I’ll tell you about a couple random things that are happening or have made me happy or not.

Tinariwen - My good friend and great musician/writer Stacey hooked me up huge with tickets to see these guys at the Phoenix, which for once pretended it didn’t sound like a giant rock club bathroom and actually made the band sound great. Actually, it helped to show great the band sounded is a more correct way to phrase it. They played some crazy rhythms that I can only assume are straight out of Mali, like this one      ( sorry for the distortion, the H4 can’t handle the awesomeness of desert music…) -

I left early due to a cold, but apparently shit got crazy in the best kind of African music way, and a dance party ensued.

Matt Anderson – I went to Glen Gould to see Matt play last night. and he absolutely destroyed it. He’s undoubtedly one of the best performers I’ve ever seen in my life. The perfect blend of humility, charm, raw talent, a vocal range that would make Bobby Mc Ferrin blush, and blistering guitar technique, he’s total package. And one of the world’s friendliest humans as well. It’s inspiring to see someone so deserving do so damn well. He just got back from Memphis where he won the solo category in the International Blues Competition. That’s huge. And completely awesome.

Debashis Sinha – I got lucky and saw a Peggy Baker dance piece a couple times last week, which means I got to get blown away by Debashis’s perfectly composed music twice as well. It was refershing to hear music that was so full of sounds, but that wasn’t totally ambient or devoid of harmonic content. It moved and shifted and came back on itself, and was the perfect sound track for what was happening on stage. I need to check out more of his stuff, maybe we all should? Try something new, go for it.

A new project! – I’ve been wanting to get back into some sound tinkering and sampling for a little while now, I’ve just been extremely lucky and have been playing lots of drums with fun people. I’ve got an idea for something that would be really Toronto-centric, involving some image work from the ridiculously talented Tara McMullen. She knows I’ve got something up my sleeve and I haven’t explained it to her yet, but I will, real soon, and then I’ll explain it here and you can tell me if it’s bullshit or not, deal?

March is a good month if you feel like enjoying some music featuring not one, but 2 Josh’s. I play with Josh Cockerill, and also a great band that JC plays in as well called the Long Haul. I’m playing with Josh C every Thursday in March at the Cameron House, 6-8, and every Friday with Long Haul from now til the end of summer potentially, 6-8pm as well. Come down after work and say hello.Or if the later laife styl suits your fancy, we’re playing with Josh at the Dakota on Friday night, and the Long Haul at Mitzi’s Sister on Saturday night. Whatever works. Or none of them at all. Take a night, call up someone you haven’t seen in a while, have drink, catch up, go home early. Wake up refreshed and thinking, ” wow, so and so ” is doing super well, good for them!. It’s your night, I merely offer options for entertainment…..

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If you don’t know, you’ll know after you watch this documentary. Let me know if you find it on video, they did one screening a couple months back and I missed it. A sad tale about one of the most soulful and important figures in music history. That’s a bold statement and it’s true.

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It’s 11 here in Vancouver and I keep waking up at 6 for some unearthly reason. Jet lag normally doesn’t bug me too much, but I guess this is the best kind. Had a good first day yesterday, tons of sunshine and walking. I’m staying in a part of town called English bay which is super pretty. Hotel window looks out on to the water which is nice. We’re about 10 minutes from stanley park which is big and pretty and fairly easy to get lost in as I found out this morning.
Had a really funny experience yesterday along the water under a bridge. I don’t generally start stories that way…anyway, I was getting my H4 out to record some boat sounds and happened to notice a guy a few feet away with headphones on, plugged into an H2. Then I noticed a girl on the other side of me doing the same. Then another. And 3 more. I realized I was surrounded by people all recording the aural landscape. It was pretty remarkable in a scary twilight zone/David Lynch way. Turns out they were all in a journalism class and were sent out to practice nature sound recording techniques. The girl I was talking to said ” yeah, this is really dumb. I mean, who actually does this? It’s so weird and lame right?”. Ummmm yeah, hahaha nervous laughter igottagobye……
The island is in full Olympic effect, people are loving it and smiling and happy. Lots of red and white and flags everywhere, and all in all it’s a pretty feel good vibe. We play a couple shows at the Atlantic Canada house today, then home tomorrow morning. If you’re in Vancouver let me know and I’ll be sure to get you in.

(go to www.joshuavt.com for the videos)

I fail to see the similarities……..

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Last night I was playing a gig and couldn’t help but notice a very happy looking pair of people who came in at the beginning of the night, and stayed throughout the whole show. Both looked like totally reasonable people, she was pretty, he was handsome, they look like they’re having fun. I was standing close to their table, and ended up in conversation with them. Turns out he saw her walking down the street on queen, said hello, and asked her out. Major bravery points there. He explained his dad had suggested the bar as a good place to hear music and have a drink. So far he seems like a pretty cool guy. However, many things happened very quickly which I’m positive has insured he won’t be going on date number 2.

1. – directly after explaining that his father told him about the place, he smiled dreamily at the girl and said “I’m sure you’ll get to met him soon.” Easy tiger, little soon for the family meet and greet. That definitely threw the panic light color up from nil to yellow…

2. – Anti-Semite jokes after she explained she was Jewish. And then defending himself and his jokes by saying ” why are you getting upset? It’s not like I’m being racist, Jews aren’t a race.”
But my intoxicated friend, you’re still being prejudiced, and in general an asshole. Orange light for you.

3. – the quote ” Oh c’mon, have another beer. I need to get you as drunk as I am!” is just stupid. On all levels. At this point her light is very much red.

4. – we started talking about our respective neighborhoods, and our brave drunk friend makes the comment ” I haven’t been to her place yet, but I bet you I’m seeing it tonight. Yeeeeahhhh!!!” and slaps me on the back. In front of her. Jesus. Her red light just actually blew up

He went to the bathroom, she instantly turned to me and said ” I wish I was on a date with anyone else in this room.” Never a good sign. Anyway, he came back, they left together, but I doubt the night continued much past that. The whole thing was pretty interesting though, a bit of a fly on the wall type scenario where I saw a man make kind of a fool of himself without knowing it.

Here’s something strange sounding! While in calgary we were trying to send music from Kyle’s laptop to a stereo via bluetooth, and things would end up sounding like this -

It’s weird, it speeds up the track without effecting the pitch of the vocals, but puts everything else through some crazy ring modulator. I’m a geek. Deal with it.

3

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…..but lots of mysterious Alberta fog. Weird. In Bragg Creek this morning, had a really great show last night and am currently in the largest bed I’ve ever been in. I could sleep horizontally. We’re in a completely insane bed and breakfast made entirely of wood and logs. They have a really funny dog who tries to bite the back of our legs to apparently display his male mastery. Cute, kind of. Headed to Canmore tonight, home tomorrow. If I could ski and wasn’t completely paranoid about breaking my wrists, I would.

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Alberta has been treating us well so far. Played a day time show at the university in Calgary which was interesting if nothing else. A girl sat down 2 tables from where we were playing, looked at us in disgust, then put her headphones in. Awesome.
Just finished playing a great show In a town called Brooks that definitely made up for it. Great theatre, lots of people, and a giant fake palm tree backstage that we managed to incorporate. Quote of the night?

David to sound man – “it feels great on stage, how does it sound out there?”
Sound man to David- “oh, umm, … To be honest I’m not sure, I was reading Calvin and Hobbes most of the set. ”

Comforting. Regardless, great night all around. Tomorrow Dinosaur national park! And a show in Bragg creek. Should be fun.