Steve's Blog
Friday March 28, 2014
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It's been an incredibly busy week for me, with lots of physio and exercises for my back, a grant report deadline, the beginning of the long process of moving our office to Granville Island, a Board meeting, protracted negotiations about a variety of future concerts, and the beginnings of a process to relaunch The Rogue Folk Review, our occasional newsletter / magazine. So, brevity - or at least, a limited number of offerings - is the name of the game in this Update!
1. Steve Dawson, Sunday March 30th, 8pm, St. James Hall (3214 West 10th Avenue)
This Sunday's Steve Dawson show is filling up rapidly. Due to the vagaries of the local fire regulations, the capacity of a venue changes when there is alcohol on sale. Don't ask me why, but if we have a bar we can only have 227 people at St. James Hall. If there is no alcohol on sale we can have 340. It makes absolutely no sense to me, but it's the law. Perhaps people who drink are more likely to combust spontaneously, or maybe they need more room to fall over without knocking anyone else down. Anyhow, we have already sold well over 200 tickets so you can see where I'm going with this. Suffice to say that we have opted to go with the maximum capacity of 340, so there are now plenty of tickets available online here.
There are excellent articles in Thursday's Vancouver Sun and this week's Georgia Straight about the Vancouver-born guitar hero who relocated to Nashville last summer. His concert at St. James Hall this Sunday is the Vancouver launch of his latest CD, Rattlesnake Cage, an album of acoustic instrumental compositions, recorded into a single suspended microphone. The album has a uniquely raw and invigorating feel, with some stunning musicianship. I especially love the sound of slide guitar, and this album pays tribute to one of Steve's guitar heroes - the late John Fahey - whose rendering of a remarkable tune called Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Court Of King Philip IV Of Spain was my own introduction to the marvellous sound of a slide guitar, way back in the 1960s, probably on a John Peel show on BBC or one of the pirate stations. I'll play it on The Edge On Folk this Saturday.
Steve will perform half the show solo, and the rest accompanied by the mercurial, barefoot Seattle bassist Keith Lowe. It promises to be an amazing evening of acoustic music, so get there early to get the best seats (and don't delay your ticket purchase if you haven't already bought yours. We anticipate a full house.)
2. The Edge On Folk, Saturday 8am to noon, on CiTR fm 101.9 and www.citr.ca
Besides the aforementioned classic from John Fahey I hope to have a phone interview with Craig Cardiff, the Waterloo songwriter who makes his Rogue debut next Thursday, and I might even have some live music in the studio from Gulf Island family stringband The Merry McKentys, who play Cafe Deux Soleil on Commercial Drive on Friday and St. James Hall on Saturday. There will also be a feature on the brilliant Irish trad. quintet Caladh Nua (who play The Rogue next Wednesday) and some new music from the likes of jazz fiddler Regina Carter, gypsy jazz band Paris Combo, accordion wizard John Whelan, and a really great new single from The Paperboys called City Of Chains. It's a timely protest about Vancouver's changing skyline and the fact that we are all increasingly in hock to developers. It's a catchy little number, too! And the perfect anthem for the Save The Hollywood Theatre campaign. All this and a whole lot more!
I hope you can join me for 4 hours of the very best in Folk & Roots music from across the street, across Canada, and across various ponds. The show is broadcast live on CiTR fm 101.9 and Telus TV Channel 7023, and streamed live on www.citr.ca
Podcasts of this show - and others dating back as far as 2006 - can be found here.