Darwin and Quarrington

[By Stuart] Today, February 12th, is Charles Darwin’s bicentennial birthday, so I can plug my favourite Quarrington book, the boy on the back of the turtle. It’s a tough volume to find, but Paul’s story about cruising the Galápagos Islands with father and daughter in search of Darwinian insights is funny, wonderfully informative and deeply touching. (It’s also the only Quarrington book with a bibliography; five pages closely typed!)

I have my own Darwin story. In 1991 I was in England studying the ‘natural’ or valveless baroque trumpet. England is a hotbed of ‘authentic’ instrumentalists, who play gut-string violins, wooden flutes and such, and near the end of my stay I heard Handel’s Messiah played by such an orchestra. This was in a nave of Westminster Abbey with the audience sitting on folding chairs. At intermission I noticed an inscription on the large stone slab under my chair. It was Darwin’s tomb. I had been engaged in a sort of ‘rear-view mirror’ approach to music-making on primitive historical instruments while five feet below me lay the author of The Origin of the Species.

Western Tour Revisited #3

When you’re out touring from one end of this country to the other, you can’t help but be stunned by the range and diversity of experiences. For a born and bred urbanite, I was struck by this sign on the front lobby door of a hotel in downtown Castlegar, BC.

Western Tour Revisited #2

One of the most delightful surprises of the western tour this fall was our first gig. It was at an out of the way spot, south of Calgary and just 12 miles north of the U.S. border at a place called The General Store near Twin Butte. Dubbed “one of the windiest spots in Canada” the surrounding foothills are dotted with wind turbines, while the majestic Rockies loom in the background. It’s a surreal and compelling sight to behold.

The venue was small but it was packed with warm hearted, generous folks who like to have fun, live large and take their western hospitality seriously. Thanks for making us feel so welcome. We’ll be back any time you’ll have us!

The view from our accommodation. What a way to wake up!

Western Tour Revisited #1

Just before Christmas of /08  PBF returned from a 3 week tour of our western provinces. It took us from our home here in Hogtown all the way out to Nanaimo B.C. and back with many stops along the way. Some of them scheduled and some of them not. Stuart and myself were charged with the responsibility of getting all our gear out to our first gig in Twin Butte, Alberta. (more on Twin Butte later) We hopped into our van (The Pig Rig) and headed west on Nov.9 It is interesting to note that many parts of Canada are, in fact two different places. One in summer/spring/fall and a completly different one in winter. This was never more evident than when we discovered just how few gas stations there are, that are open, between Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa in wintertime. You guessed it, we ran out of gas 15 miles south of Wawa. We needed to flag down some help but traffic was scarce so Stuart decided to serenade the pines with his cornet while we waited. Eventually someone came by. It’s probably not everyday that drivers see someone practicing the cornet in the middle of Canada’a frozen north, so the curious driver slowed down, came along side and rolled down his window. Stuart leaned in and uttered what has to be one of the best quips of our tour……”Any requests?

The Summer of ’08

This is a good time to reflect on our festival appearances over the summer.

First off the mark was Toronto’s City Roots Festival, following up on our show there last year. City Roots takes place in the historic distillery district, and the venue, the crowd, the weather (and the distilled products) were all first rate.

This year, Paul was featured as both writer and musician, which was nice of them. Speaking of Paul, his latest novel The Ravine has just been “long-listed” for the Giller Prize…

In July we performed at Mariposa, on the shores of beautiful Lake Simcoe at Orillia. I referred to Mariposa a few posts ago so you can read about it below, but months later it’s still a great memory.

Next was The Ottawa Blues Festival. We had a wonderful audience at one of their huge outdoor stages, but we also spent a lot of time in audiences, listening to Cindy Cashdollar, Redd Volkaert and other killer acts. In addition, the festival presented the Porkbelly “trio” in a lovely, small indoor theatre. This acoustic group consists of Paul, Rebecca and – on guitar instead of drums – Martin.

Next up was London’s Home County Festival. By all accounts our main stage evening show went well, but we were mostly looking forward to what might transpire at the next day’s workshops. The first, a blues event, put us on stage with Jackie Washington and Mose Scarlett. The second, a Willie P. Bennett tribute, paired us with Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson from Blackie and the Rodeo Kings plus Tony Quarrington and other special guests, and this is when the rainy weather Porkbelly had been dodging all summer finally found us. Even that, though, could not dampen the enthusiasm of the London audience. They stayed, they clapped, they sang along.

The month of August took us to eastern Ontario and Clarendon’s Blue Skies Festival on Hwy 7 west of Ottawa. This happy hippie event is something to behold, with all 2,000 audience members actually camping on-sight every August holiday weekend. Blue Skies was similar to London’s Home County Festival in the following respects: we played our regular set to a large crowd; we participated in a great Willie P. tribute; it rained. It actually rained an incredibly great deal, but again, nobody complained.

Our final festival engagement consisted of three nights at The Forest Festival. This was a Words & Music affair, presented in an historic logging museum in the Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve. We are much taken with the acoustics of this logging museum and are threatening to record a live album there. After the final show, forest owner Peter Schleifenbaum took us into the woods for a wolf howl, trying to get a response from the several packs that inhabit the forest.

Reflecting on this summer of festivals, it’s astonishing how different they are, that each has its own, distinctive character and appeal. The commonalities, of course, are great music and happy audiences. It was a privilege to have participated.

10 For Paul

In all the hoopla about Paul’s King Leary novel, we (OK, Stuart) managed to miss this item on the CBC’s website, in which Paul responds to ten questions about the novel. It’s fascinating reading – and it’s only been online for five months or so…

We Made the Mariposa Festival’s 2008 CD

Incidentally, the Mariposa Festival’s 2008 commemorative CD is a beautifully packaged set, and features tracks from 19 of this year’s featured performers. We were surprised and pleased to see our own Gotta Love A Train first on the track listing!

Porkbelly made its debut at Orillia’s legendary MARIPOSA FOLK FESTIVAL over the weekend, playing to overflow crowds in the “Mariposa Pub”, really a spacious awning on an huge expanse of lush grass. Saturday was very special, a gorgeous summer evening with pleasure boats rocking on their moorings just offshore.

We had mischievously decided to tamper with the mellow, mellow mood of the festival, and luckily, the crowd was ready. Not to put too fine a point on it, we rocked the place out. The next afternoon saw us paired with A & R for a “Blues and Reggae” workshop, and if anything, the crowd was even bigger. A & R’s trio instrumentation includes box drum and steel pan, so we had absolutely no idea what to expect.

Amazingly, it worked a charm, with Chas and Marty spontaneously laying down a solid foundation to the reggae tunes, and our own stuff receiving a fresh new sound from A & R. Everything just felt so comfortable, and some of the grooves (helped by Rebecca’s cowbell) simply wouldn’t quit. Stuart got a roar from the crowd for attempting, in a single song, to solo on four different instruments. (He only dropped one, but he almost dropped them all.)

Fronting Porkbelly, of course, was P.Q., in great voice and with his guitar amp set to maximum raunch. Wouldn’t it be great if life were like this all the time? Now we look forward to our Ottawa Blues Festival show Saturday afternoon.

Thank you, Mariposa!!