OOOOH, CANADA......eh?

alas!!! I'm back on the road. It's been awhile, but I'm glad to be cruising along again with my good friends in MBD across the great north eastern corner of the continent. We set out officially on wednesday around noon, rendezvousing at Brian's rehearsal space in Williamsburg to load up our new steed with gear. The monday preceding our departure was our main rehearsal, complete with the OSSO string quartet, playing in beautiful colors and shapes.

Over the past month I've had the great pleasure of recording some tracks with OSSO for the forthcoming My Brightest Album, "1,000 Shark's Teeth." It should be a FINE piece of work. Also in the recent weeks of fall, I and my co-conspirator Michael Resnick got the chance to record the foundations of our LEMMING album. Should be ready in late spring. We tried to keep it in the MBD family a bit, as we laid down the tracks in the same diggs as "bring me the workhorse," a beautiful little nook on Santa Monica Blvd; we even used the same engineer in Joel Shearer, whose band PEDESTRIAN opened up for MBD on a past Fall tour. They rule, and so does Joel. Check PEDESTRIAN out backing shara up! PRO.

But back to the subject at hand: CANADA. After the 7 hour drive up from NYC on Wednesday, we got into our hotel in downtown Montreal at around midnight. The hotel was a nice Hyatt, and I couldn't have been happier pulling into the valet lot after finishing the last leg of the day's drive myself. We were underway. After a comfortable rest, Brian and I got up at a leisurely 10:30, and trolled around for breakfast. During our perambulation, I discovered a few funny things about Montreal. For one, if you ask a person from Montreal a question in English, they'll give you two answers - One in french, one in English. Because most Montreal people are bilingual, they tend to do it out of habit. If you ask the price of a small coffee, the answer will likely be, "Huit Cinquante Eight Fifty." This is a bit of an annoyance, but it also sort of makes me feel like an imbecile for speaking only one tongue fluently. The other thing I've been able to observe about the city is that its layout could not possibly be more logical and intuitive. I got around a bit as I searched far and wide to find a charger for my computer, since i so stupidly neglected to bring my own. I even got to hijack our van for a moment to find an appropriate apple retailer. I finally found the "micro boutique" on Parc Avenue (yes, "parc"), which even had sort of mock-up Canadian "Genius Bar" people. They wore black shirts, drank lattes in the store, and spoke in tones of mild condescension. Of course, I was in the store for about two minutes too long on account of having to listen to two answers to every one question I posed.

The name of the first venue was La Salla Rossa, and proved as good a place as any to commence our "11 fingered tailor tour." Tim Fite, our opener, went on around 9, treating the seemingly tame Montrealean crowd to a performance worthy of a circus tent or an Outcast show. Before they knew it, Tim had them up out of their seats and partying to his magical brand of ironic crunk/country/r&b/circus shenanigans, complete with cartoon projection and sing alongs. The dude is a magician. Check him out. The stage set up is basically Tim, his brother Greg on sampler and backup vocals (and madness), and projected video of an alter-ego Tim playing lead guitar on the projector. The music never stops, and the vibe goes from straight up hardcore hip-hop politique to barn-burning sing alongs. Come to think of it, I can't even really describe it in a way that does the performance justice. Let's just say it's a joy to watch and hear.

Montreal was good to us. The next morning, we awoke early for our trek across the eastern section of Canada, chatting about consumerism in music, Prince, and Canadians. Most of the trip was a little gloomy on account of the rain, and we arrived in Toronto at about 4:30. It's a beautiful city that seems almost futuristic in design, and has a pretty little tower in the middle of downtown which resembles Seattle's space needle. James' quote on the city was, "It's like New York, but cleaner!" That's a pretty good description, actually.

The venue for the evening was the Drake hotel, a hip little venue with free wi-fi and an amazing 60's photo booth.We would have our way with the photo booth later on in the evening. For dinner, Brian and James and I ate at a little Vietnamese place down the street called Saigon Grill, where the waitress succeeded in upselling James on ordering 2 orders of spring rolls, and a large bowl of noodle soup which could have fed a family of six. The restaurant also had a large flat screen TV on the wall which seemed to transfix James and Brian, their eyes fused on the Jeopardy tournament of champions semi-finals. By coincidence, the Canadian contest --also from Toronto--came back from -$1000 to win it on the final jeopardy question. Needless to say, it was riveting.

The show we played at the Drake was GREAT. Montreal had been my first show with MBD since the Bumbershoot festival on September 4th, so i was a little overexcited for that whole show. I tend to flail around about when i get excited. This time, everything was comfortable and right. I was on the bench for MBD's last tour of duty in Europe, and our good friend Jeff Shoop (SHOOP!!) filled in for me so I could hang in NYC with my lady and my other projects for a bit. He did a great job, and has the coolest last name I've ever heard. Since then, Shara has incorporated some new material into the set ahead of the new album's release in 2008, including my new favorite jam, "Inside a boy." It rules. Here's a clip of it from the Zurich show: The drake hotel sound was great, and we were on fire as a trio. The dynamics were PERFECT, the groove was TIGHT; everything was just right. And what's more, Shara, who is always pleasantly hard-to-please, was pleased indeed. Nothing makes me happier than making my boss happy.

After a nice session of photobooth shennanigans (*pics to come*) with Tim Fight, Greg Fight, MBD, and Shara's good buddy Francine, we finished our evening out and prepared for the coming day.

So, that brings us up to date. I am now finishing this as we sit in line at the US/CANADA border waiting to get back onto US soil. Canada treated us well, and I'm happy to have had the opportunity to visit our neighbors upstairs. We had fun. Tonight, we play in Grand Rapids Michigan, and tomorrow we will be onto Chicago. I can't even begin to imagine how badly my back is going to hurt when this 11 fingered tailor tour is over. Even though we're in trio form, MBD does pack a lot of gear. We do NOT travel light. Anyways, there will be more to come, including some pics from our stay in Canada. Hope everyone is doing well. eh?