written by Trevor

What can we say that hasn’t already been said about the Tractor Tavern in beautiful Ballard? Everyone that plays there raves about the place. We’ve been playing the Tractor for a decade or so, and every time we do Chris and I can’t help but say to ourselves “Maybe tonight nobody will show up, the show will tank and that will be that.” Not saying it won’t ever happen, but so far it hasn’t.

It’s always good to see Dan the owner and all of his great staff. Ballard is thriving. The bars and restaurants all seem to be full. There is definitely a cool vibe in the neighborhood. And especially inside the Tractor. Even more so when it is so packed full of people you can barely move. And I’m happy to report it was.

Lots of familiar faces and first–timers side by side feeling the love and the energy in the room. And participating in the madness. After all, it wouldn’t be a Clumsy Lover show without some kind of spontaneous thing happening: An impromptu jam, a weird medley, a wacky dancer or the occasional colossal mix-up on stage that we do our best to skillfully steer around…J I would guess that these are only several of a dozen reasons why some people keep coming back time after time. Like Juliana and Matt who for some reason know that they have seen the band 65 times.  

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(written by Trevor)

Boise, Bellboys and Bean Burrito’s

This phrase pretty much sums up last Saturday night in Idaho. Boise was the town  we were playing, the Bellboys opened up the show and a bean burrito was what I had for lunch earlier on in the day. The Knitting Factory is a top-notch venue we’ve been playing for the last few years. A big stage, killer sound and lights make it a full-on rock and roll experience for sure. That being said, some of our longtime supporters miss seeing us at smaller venues around town where it can be easier to establish eye contact and thereby have more of an intimate connection with the audience. I like both situations. In my opinion, we generally do a pretty good job of connecting with the audience with whatever situation we are presented with, but there are always exceptions. Tonight wasn’t one of them.

When there is a lack of connection with the audience, sometimes it’s something as simple as having the lights shining bright in your eyes. It’s kind of like having a tractor trailer truck with its high beams in your face for a couple of hours. Poor sound can also really quash one’s mojo. Or maybe you’ve been up early and drove all day through a snowstorm and your last remaining nerve is pretty frayed before you even get started. Or maybe you are feeling homesick, or just plain old sick, or your new pants are too tight, too much wine with dinner, or you’ve got a cramp in your calf…but generally speaking, all of these things are put aside once we fire up the clumsy engine.

When playing a larger venue, there is the need to have lots of people come through the doors. The doors opened and lots of people came in. We played long and loud, threw in some spontaneous things and before we knew it, it was time for the doors to open and let everyone out into the street to resume their lives. Ten years later we are blessed to still feel the Boise love.

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It’s different these days, in Clumsy Lover land.  We used to be on the road over 300 days a year.  Basically lived in the van, more or less cut off from the realities of home life.  Not saying it wasn’t fun a lot of the time, but honestly, looking back, it’s not really a way to live.  I’m quite proud of us that nobody had nervous breakdowns, or at least not super major ones. 

But it’s a new day.  And while it does suck that we don’t get to towns as often as we used to, or some towns really at all anymore, it is really great to have some balance in our lives.  Makes a fella feel like he could keep doing this for a long, long time.

One by-product, tho, is that we very often arrive at gigs from different places.  Tonight’s gig in Pocatello is a fine example.  Trevor, Rebecca and Jason drove from Vancouver to Boise last night.  Tyler drove in today with the Bellboys, who toured this past week, from Billings.  I flew in to Boise this morning, via SLC, and caught a ride to Pocatello with the van.  I should have just caught a ride up from SLC with Renee, who was driving up to run the door.  These types of arrangements have become the norm, and while it can be a little stressful, so far everybody’s made every gig (although I did get an 11:30pm phone call from Tyler December 30, needing an emergency plane ticket for early the next morning to make the New Year’s Eve gig – but, hey, that’s what orbitz.com is for).

What’s that?  The gig?  Oh yeah.  It rocked.  After The Bellboys played a stellar opening set we did three full sets of our own.  As somehow seems to always happen at the First National, it probably went a drink too far.  Man, they pour stiff ones there.  Plus I got coerced into an over-the-top shot of whiskey by one of the Bellboys (I think Brad).  Those guys are a bad influence.

But honestly, it was a really, really fun gig.  A packed and sweaty bar of people ready to participate quite simply never gets old.

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Moscow, Idaho January 15 & 16, 2010

 (written by Trevor)

We’ve been going to the college town of Moscow three times a year or so, for over fifteen years! How is that possible? We’ve played club shows, university events, street fairs, ren fests, hemps fests, weddings…the full gamut. So suffice it to say, we know the town fairly well and look forward to seeing old friends and familiar places.

We left very early Friday morning and made it to the club, John’s Alley, by late afternoon. We set up and had time to grab a bite to eat and hop in the shower to freshen up. The drivers, who didn’t get much naptime during the day were pretty tired by show time, but the energy in the room was off the charts so that was soon mostly forgotten. Drummer Tyler has a group in Portland called the Bellboys so they drove down and played a good set of music with wonderful harmonies to warm up the crowd. We’ll be doing select shows together in the coming months when the timing is right. We started out with a ninety-minute power set, took a break to cool off and rocked out loud and proud until the wee hours of the morning. Expectations exceeded! Got to sleep around three so it was a long, but eventful day.

The great thing about playing two nights in a row is there is no driving to do the next day. So everybody slept in and explored the town a bit in the afternoon. The opener Saturday night was a great outfit, also out of Portland called Hillstomp. A two-piece band that created a wall of sound with slide guitar, manic vocals, and a drummer on an eclectic drum kit pounding out an unrelenting beat.

There was a sizeable crowd gathered by the time we were set to play but there was still plenty of elbowroom. It wasn’t thick and humid like the night before. Generally a Saturday is a bit busier, but this weekend it was the opposite. We went to work rocking as usual but for my money it didn’t take off the way I was hoping it might. Ah expectations…When a humdinger of a Friday night is followed by a slightly smaller crowd, for some reason it can feel disappointing. Quite ridiculous actually when you really think about it. It’s amazing to think even one person in a town might like your music, let alone several hundred, but nevertheless it can by taxing psychologically. Of course we generate a lot of energy from the music itself, and we do still love to play but an insane mob of people can push it over the edge. In a good way.  So I felt a little distracted and overtired from the day before and therefore wasn’t fully able to lose myself in the music. My mind was periodically wandering and the brain felt mushy. Songs I’ve sung perfectly, O.K. almost perfectly, a thousand times seemed new and unfamiliar. Lets chalk it up to the stars not aligning the way  they usually do.

Part of the problem with playing less, is that because we are trying to randomly play every song we’ve ever played as a band, months can go by without playing a particular song. With long, frequent tours it’s easier to get into a rhythm. By day ten, the wheels are turning the way they are supposed to be turning. Music and lyrics begin to enter the unconscious part of the brain and flow out effortlessly most nights. As we’ve mainly just being playing weekends lately for the sake of the newborns, the contrast between home life and road life is quite apparent. From a cozy room with a smiling baby, to a cold mountain highway can be a little jarring to the nervous system. But, we still love doing what we’ve been doing all these years. If it means dad needs to be away now and again, then so be it. Music is our career and travel is a big part of it. Finding the right balance is the tough part.

So is it better to lives one’s life with little expectation and be pleasantly surprised when things go well, or should one always aim high and let the magic of positive thinking and mystical forces combine to ensure every night, or every event in life will naturally be the best it can possibly be? See, this is what happens when I sleep with an unread Deepak Chopra book under my pillow at night.

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New Years Eve 2009

Spirit Mountain Casino

Grand Ronde, Oregon

 (written by Trevor)

After a month off, it felt good to be back in the van heading south. Getting up at 5 didn’t feel quite so good but as we all know, the traveling lifestyle involves a lot of late nights. And early mornings…

It was a slow wet drive to Oregon along the I-5, but we arrived at the venue mid-afternoon and set up for the show. We’ve played a lot of different situations on New Years Eve over the years: Clubs, theatres, and various events but never a casino so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. After partaking in the massive buffet, we loosened our belts, strapped on our axes and were ready to ring in the New Year Clumsy style.

The band was in good spirits and it was fun to play again. We’ve been trying to make the shows more interesting and ever-evolving by adding new music and medleys as well as digging way back into the Clumsy catalogue to dust off a few crowd favourites from yesteryear. By and large, things are coming along and sounding pretty good. We knew some folks in the crowd but it was mainly everyday people living it up Las Vegas style on the last day of the decade. We did a countdown at midnight, busted into Auld Lang Syne for a while then finished up the evening with a long medley. There it was: New Years Eve 2009! That decade sure flew by.

2009 has been a very exciting year. Having a self-imposed lighter schedule has allowed us to slowly re-integrate back into civilized society. We still played 150 or so shows all the way to Kentucky and back, but we also had plenty of time at home to see family and friends, get married, have children, exercise, practice, pursue other interests and projects…things that have been lacking in the past. More of a balanced life for sure. Deepak Chopra and Dr.Phil would both approve.

Hope everyone has an awesome and inspired 2010!

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Here’s another road diary entry from the archives, Trevor’s account of our gig in Moscow, Idaho a few months back…

We’ve been going to Moscow almost since the time the band first started back in the early 90’s. It’s a happening little vortex in the middle of the Palouse just across the Washington border. The university of Idaho is there and Washington State University is only a few miles down the road so there are a lot of coffee shops and interesting stores and restaurants that cater to the student population.

It was the first day of a two-week tour so we maximized our time at home by leaving early the day of.  We left our apartments about six a.m. and arrived in Moscow mid-afternoon so we had a few hours to luxuriate in the splendor that is the Royal Motor Inn. The best thing about the hotel is that it is well situated close to John’s Alley. Beyond that it’s hard to come up with much else to praise. But it is cozy and familiar and we’ve grown to love the chest high shower and the tie-dye sheets.

After relaxing for a while we went out for Italian food and had the biggest bowl of pasta they are legally allowed to serve in the state of Idaho. I could almost hear Atkins rolling over. But the leftovers made for a nice breakfast the next day. Then it was on to the club. A nice crowd had already gathered which is always a good sign. It ended up being the biggest night we’ve ever had there. And we’ve had dozens of awesome shows at that place. All of the usual merriment, zany dancing, spilled beer and lots of people screaming sweating and yelling. And that was just the band! The audience looked like they were having fun too…It’s hard to believe the first incarnation of the band has been going there since 94 I think. It’s been since 1996 for me. My favourite quote of the night, and there were several was from an old friend who in a moment of warmth as we were packing up in the alley said to me that he figured he would have been sick of us years ago. But he still isn’t! A compliment is a compliment even if it’s a backhanded one as far as I’m concerned. Next stop: Sunny California

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Okay, there was one more road diary update after all.  And yes, I’m aware it’s Christmas and I’m posting road diary accounts from last summer.  You never heard of fashionably late?  Here’s Trevor’s account of the last gig from our second longest tour of 2009.”It was a beautiful drive from the Porcupine Mountains into Wisconsin. Oddly enough we passed by two dead porcupines on the side of the road within about fifty miles of each other. Hopefully they died of old age. We stopped shortly after the Wisconsin border for gas and cheese curds. I asked the clerk what the difference was between cheese curds and hunks of cheese and she came up with a really lame, indecisive answer. I think she was probably a Wisconsin wanabee from Pennsylvania or some other place where you won’t find cheese curds at every gas station.  Or no one had ever asked before. They tasted O.K. but not as good as I remember. I guess you can’t go back to Kansas.

But you can go back to Milwaukee and that’s where we ended up around dinnertime. Half the band went to see the box office smash Inglorious Basterds while the other half just chilled out. Tuesday we all took advantage of the day off to sleep in and participate in various activities until it was time to go down to the club.

We played Vnuks three or four years ago so it was nice to walk in the doors and take a trip down memory lane. Sidecar Steph opened up and played a spirited set of 50’s inspired numbers. My favourite was Rock Me Baby All Night Long! They really did a nice job drumming up a crowd via Facebook, Myspace and word of mouth.

The crowd was suitably warmed up so we took over and rocked hard for a couple of hours. We had old friends Heather and Kimberly come up and help Rebecca belt out a number. It felt like the roof was going to come off the place that’s how hard they were rockin’!

It was great to be back in town and catch up with the legendary Danny and his beautiful new wife (Danny once had us over for a fish-fry in Florida) who rolled in from Chicago, and Barry from the Milwaukee Irish Fest, and Kimberly and Heather, and Howard and Marion Cunningham… We tip our hat to the fine city of Milwaukee. The home of P.B.R., Fonzie and a guy named Harley Davidson.

And there it is. Another tour has come to an end. In the Midwest. And we live in Vancouver…2000 miles away…We need to home by this weekend to play The Sunshine Coast Music Festival outside of Vancouver…Gotta fly!”

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The second to last of the August tour recaps.  Trevor covers a lot of ground here, so that’s enough preamble.”We’ve played some places in Indiana before but never the picturesque college town of Bloomington.  The venue tonight was called Max’s place. Pizza place by day, performance space by night. We arrived plenty early so there was ample time to drink coffee, surf the net and check out the downtown core. It sure was muggy and hot though, especially when it was time to suit up in our usual stage gear. A young guy from the town warmed up the crowd with some acoustic tunes. The pizza crowd slowly left and a really nice bunch of listeners and dancers alike showed up for the show. We played two long sets, took some requests including “Mercy” for the booker. Thanks to sound guy/owner Travers for the CD of his band “Zion Crossroads”. He calls it Dreadneck music. It’s a new genre I guess. Anyway, it sounded pretty good in the van.

The next day we put Michigan in the GPS and ended up at the Saugatuck brewery in a town called Douglas. It’s not to far from Kalamazoo if you know where that is. Some talented guys from Michigan, WHO SHOT DON? opened up playing a little blue grassy style music with some good claw hammer playing. Big stage, big sound, small crowd. Everyone was super nice. A friend of ours from Tennessee flew into Chicago and rented a car to come to the show. He happens to be a chiropractor. I happen to currently have a messed up back. Needless to say I think it’s the first time anyone’s had a chiropractic adjustment at the Saugatuck Brewery.

Saturday night was the brew festival in Traverse City, Michigan. And boy did it rain. The crowd didn’t seem to mind. Maybe the waterfall of unlimited microbrew was helping to warm the drenched patrons. We got stuck in the mud driving in and had to be towed out. It got dark, we started playing and the crowd began to swell. Just like my pride did back in 1994 when I watched Rebecca ride a bike for the first time. Set went really well. Everyone played well and the time flew by. We had poor merch guy Colton set up under a tree in the dark in the storm. He actually seemed to like it. Ah….the resiliency and hardiness of youth. Wet rainy pack up back to the trailer to make way for the headliner, Zydeco king Buckwheat Zydeco. Said a quick hi before the show. He smelt good. Makes me want to start wearing cologne.

The main reason we came this far east was to play some music festivals that had expressed interest in booking us over the years and scheduling wise we weren’t able to make it happen until now. Like the Porcupine Music Festival in Michigan’s upper peninsula. What a spectacular drive! It reminded me a lot of Ontario. Again we got there pretty early so we had time to do various things like watch Flight of the Conchords, teach a banjo workshop, climb the ski hill for a view of Lake Superior, and check out the other bands including the wonderful Deke Dickerson. We closed down the festival with a 90-minute set including a couple of encores. Then it was off to a cabin on the shoreline of the aforementioned Lake Superior. I love the ocean but those Great Lakes are pretty great too! There’s a band called the Great Lake Swimmers I don’t mind. Saw them at the Vancouver Folk Festival. When we got to the cabin the neigbour was having a barbecue and invited us over. Almost everyone was asleep by midnight all tucked in and cozy in their little beds like the Brady children circa 1970 before Peter’s voice changed.”

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Played a couple PA shows last month, and they were night and day in scope.  Here’s Trevor with his usual eloquent accounting of the details:”We eventually ended up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania to play the Flood City Music Festival. We’ve been in the general area in the past, and played lots of shows in Pittsburgh but this was our first time to Johnstown. We arrived at the right time and unloaded our stuff then took a shuttle a little way down the road for some catered food. I asked our driver how big his town was and he thought for a long while before responding “I have no idea”.   O.K. then. He was just being honest as it depends if you include the surrounding counties…

Before we knew it was Showtime! We were introduced by a local TV personality sporting a nice white pair of pants and the games had officially begun. Did a nice long set of old and new material and some old- timey standards we’ve been throwing into the set lately, Summertime is the time for sing a longs! We used the house monitors instead of our inn-ears to save a little time and cranked them up good and loud. In conjunction with a huge P.A. system it felt like a rock show. It sure is easy to sing when the speakers are making your voice sound louder than a jet taking off. After the show we hung around the merch booth and sold a bunch of stuff and met a lot of nice people. At least they seemed nice. Truth be told I didn’t actually get to know them that wellJ It would have been nice to stick around and watch Donna the Buffalo perform but we had a bit of a drive to get to the hotel in Pittsburgh.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, we played at a place a on the outskirts of town called Your Inner Vagabond the next night. Sunday nights are often tough to draw a crowd and tonight was not about to prove to be the exception to the rule. The place itself is really cool. It’s a coffee shop in the front and a music venue in the back with a middle eastern meets the Middle Ages theme similar to The Grotto in Knoxville if you’ve ever been there. Or the Afghan Horseman in Vancouver. Or some of the trippy scenes in I Dream of Genie…You get the picture.

The show itself was kind of the opposite of the night before in terms of volume, energy, cheering etc…but it was still fun in somewhat of a subdued way. The people that did show up were very appreciative and supportive and seemed happy to be there. The band seems to be pretty good about trying our best every night whether there are five or five thousand people in the audience. Or fifteen. And sometimes its shows like these where bands meet diehard supporters that will follow you till the day you hang up your hat. And they say you are only as good as your last performance, and as far as we know you only live once so there’s added incentive to sing our little hearts out every night!”

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Here’s Trevor back with more adventures from our September tour, this time in the Ohio/Kentucky region:

Columbus, Ohio/Newport, Kentucky We’ve played near Columbus, Ohio several times but never in Columbus itself. Tonight it would be Byrne’s pub. Something told me it was going to be an Irish pub and by golly I was right! We’ve played hundreds of Irish pubs over the years and by and large they’ve been a good time as a fun crowd generally shows up.  Maybe it’s the Guinness or the Oscar Wilde quotes on the wall, probably both, but sometimes it’s better to play a packed Irish pub then a huge rock and roll club or a theatre when playing a new town where unlike at Cheers, nobody knows your name.

People started filing in as showtime was coming round. It turns out a lot of people had heard of or seen the band before in Montana and nearby Dublin Ohio and various Irish festivals that we’ve played in the Midwest.  It’s a real family affair with several brothers owning the place and proprietor Pat’s son doing a nice job behind the soundboard.  One of the ladies behind the bar had recently traveled to Vancouver and hiked the Grouse Grind after reading about nature’s Stairmaster in the Lonely Planet travel guide. 80% per cent of the band felt her pain as she tearfully recalled burning lungs, stiff legs and a general feeling of hopelessness.

We played two solid sets and called it a day. Afterwards it could have very easily turned into a long night of merriment and socializing but we had one of those after the show drives to do to get to the hotel in Cincinnati.

The next evening we headed ten or fifteen miles down the road and across the river to the Southgate house in Newport, Kentucky. We had a really fun weekend show there a while back, but being a weekday our expectations were realistic.   The venue is a historic mansion from the mid-nineteenth century. According to the plaque on the front lawn the inventor of the Tommy gun was born there in 1860. It’s an amazing building. Tonight we were playing upstairs about a half block and a hundred stairs from where we were able to park the van in the alley. Unfortunately due to a strained back I’ve been hobbling around slower than Tim Conway’s old man character on The Carol Burnett show, and unable to lift anything. The guys have been really helpful packing in an extra armload from the trailer and helping with packing and unpacking my gear. It certainly has made the tour feel a lot longer than three weeks. More like ten years actually. I guess we tend to take our mobility and general good health for granted until something happens to remind us of how fragile we are.1

Laurel opened the show with her husband on banjo. They played some nice tunes and are hoping to play out a little more in the future. We fired it up and seemed to connect with the audience. There was an Ow Sorry t-shirt, camera’s clicking and people singing along so that made these Canadian kids feel good about themselves.

Oh, and on a further positive note. At dinner Tyler bit into a nametag that had been baked into the pizza so they gave it to him for free! And the nametag too! He’s still wearing it. He almost looks like a Charlotte…

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