It Took Me A Long Time To Get Back On The Train

[guigsy]

so, i had a meeting in toronto on wednesday and took the 4pm train back to london... first time on the via rail since i dirtied up the aisles on new years day.

anyways, i sit in my seat, this dude sits in the seats across the aisles, and these 2 old women come down and and ask him to give up his seat so they could sit together, so i tell him he can sit next to me, he looked about my age, maybe a bit younger, just a dude, had a guitar, so we got talkin music and stuff and he mentioned he had been home to get something fixed on his guitar, home was north bay, and he just left his bro at the airport who was headed to bc, which triggered to me that my only friend from north bay was also out west, and i said this and he asked who it was, i said the name, and sure enough he was good friends with her little brother, so that was a pretty cool coincidence. anyways, we got talkin about what kind of music he plays and writes and such, and he had his demo on him so i gave it a listen and thought he was actually really good... clearly a big neil influence, acoustic folky kinda feel, good sh!t, and it reminded me of some of filipowitch's new material so i asked him if he'd heard of the burties, and he said only through his brother who was apparantly friends with them at lakehead... anyone i've ever met who spent time at lakehead was 'friends with them at lakehead'... anyways, i had the last ottawa show in my bag so i pulled it out and gave him disc 2, told him to go to track 6 (waiting for the days) and if he dug it, the set was his... i know where i can another copy, anyhow... so 7 or so minutes later the headphones come off and i handed over the other 2 discs. haha. awesome! so, for the next 2 hours we just traded music back and forth on the train, picking out cd's and songs, go here, check this out, etc etc... i ended up scoring a sweet scissor sisters disc (low roller knows), and converted another slip fan!** - i asked him if he could handle 15 minutes, he says yes, so i give him wolof, 4.29.00... another one bites the dust. so all in all, a pretty kickass train ride.

** i stopped writing this around 10pm when a buddy of mine showed up... its a few hours later, and im finishing up the story after a kickass nite at the riderless...

speaking of which... 4 bands, below the sea, death of dreams or something like that, the riderless headlining, and the first band i missed, but i'll get to that in a sec... below the sea i thought kicked ass, death of dreams or whatever they were called were ok, but pretty repetitive and sorta boring after a while. and the riderless, althought pretty fu©king awesome, i had to leave after about 4 or 5 songs, i have to work in the morn, and im fu©king starving... poutine going down the chute as i type...

anyways, in between bands, i see this dude sitting at a table in the bar and he looks really familiar... i think its charles fu©kin spearin from bss and do make say think! the moustache, hat and height... anyways, after a beer or so i make my way over to confirm his identity and make mine known, and we had a decent little chat, turns out he and a friend were the opening act! damn, one of those nights you wish you got there an hour or so earlier. anyways, i didnt want to take up too much of his time, basically just wanted to say thanks for the tunes, and ask him what it was like jamming at brad barr's house... he told me it was pretty awesome, brad was a total gentleman inviting them over, and that he was a little upset he missed the slip's set at austin, but they had the same timeslot on different stages.... cool.

anyways, i was thinkin about it afterwards, and he was a really great dude. totally unexpected, but pretty cool to say hello to the man.

[Del]

Awesome... Guigsy, sweet, just sweet...

[Velvet]

I like stories.

[Jay Funk Dawg]

that is a cool story... I'm working on getting Charles Sperin to open a show coming up in March with Rock Plaza Central.

jay