Band on the Run: A Roadie Without The Heavy Lifting

by Ember Swift on


Alright, this is the first post of a new series entitled “Band on the Run,” (as you can see above.) This is a blog about travelling on the road as a musician here in North America. It’s about what we see and where we’ve been – the stories that go along with those journeys and the images to accompany them. It’ll be like you’re the roadie that gets to witness what happens behind the scenes without having to carry any heavy equipment.

Lucky.

(I mean, I’m the bandleader and I don’t even get out of carrying the heavy stuff!)

Specifically, I’m a Canadian musician with a Canadian band who performs more than half of my shows south of the border. And yes, I have provincial license plates on my van and work permits for the U.S.of A. for all of my band members, so I’m down on American soil legally, don’t worry!)

We are on the road A LOT, which sometimes means that we’re home less than we’re away. In fact, at one point just a few years ago, we peaked at 200 days on the road during the year. I am happy to report that we’ve calmed down slightly and probably are out only half the year now. That’s slightly healthier all around, for everyone.

The downside of this life is the fact that we’re travel-tired most of the time and we spend copious amounts of time in moving vehicles, most notably our van (or occasional rental vans if there’s a flight involved.) Sometimes we joke that we’re professional drivers who moonlight as musicians.

Sometimes it feels like that.

The upside of this life is that we get to make music for different audiences sometimes four and five times a week. Music is what we love to do the most in this world. Music is the drug of choice for this band; it’s the art; it’s the heart; it’s the fuel. Without it, why would we do this to our bodies? Why would we sit in a van for ten hours in a row, for example?

Honestly, music has taken me far and continues to pull me farther still. I am tempted by its long distance promises and its moments of brilliance on foreign stages, no matter what it takes to get to them. (So tempted that I sometimes make bad touring decisions, but I’ll leave that for the blog as they happen…)

Music is my nightlight. It’s the good dream. It’s consistent.

Stylistically, it’s a rather mixed-up folk-jazz-funk-pop-world combo (check out samples here). It’s lyrically-driven music and the show is as much about what’s being said in the songs themselves as it is about what’s being said between the songs. I sometimes write about topics that people don’t want to discuss. I also write about love and beautiful summer days and funny situations worth laughing at. All in all, the music has listeners and that’s all that matters.

After ten releases (counting the 2005 documentary-stye DVD, of course), five vans (we’re on our fifth now), uncountable tours across various parts of Canada and the U.S., eight trips to Australia, two tours to New Caledonia (link to where that country is, as it’s little known!), and one solo trip to China, the adventure continues.

We’re not famous, but we’re well-known in some circles. We have fans – listeners and supporters and friends – and we continue to sell albums. We continue to perform live. People continue to buy tickets to hear those shows.

Life is good.

We’re independent, too, which is important. These tours are not being funded by big label tour support or sponsorship dollars or product placement. We aspire to sustainability and this means we ride waves of occasional prosperity and occasional poverty. In the midst of it all, we find the balance of a living and breathing career that has careened along the corners of mountain passes for over a decade now.

No complaints.

I don’t think it’s poised to stop anytime soon. It always changes shape a little as time loops around us, but the wheels keep turning on these travelling vehicles and we keep finding ourselves in them along with gear and contracts and passports and a well-calculated number of clean underwear tucked away in our suitcases and stashed around guitars and amps and on top of boxes of CDs to stop that incessant rattling of plastic against plastic.

It’s not all glamorous, but what is really?

Behind the scenes is just behind the scenes. It’s my job to strip the scene for you, I suppose. It’s my job to bare all.

(But it’s not that kind of show, so get your mind outta that sticky trench now!)

Now if you do enjoy these stories and we end up in your town all of a sudden, we won’t deny you the opportunity to lift some heavy stuff if you show up early to help us load in or you stay long after the rest of the audience has gone home until we’re finally loading out.

In fact, temporary roadies are the BEST.

They have enough strength to lift the bass amp…

And that same strength didn’t require a meal buy-out.

Love it.

[All photos except the van shot by Desdemona Burgin, a fantastic friend and photographer]

Photo of the Day (7/21/07)

by Adrienne Wilson on


Neighborhood shots are some of the best! This one of a local grocery store is located in Vancouver’s West End neighborhood on Barclay Street. Ohad* is the photographer behind this particular shot and in his notes he states that a skunk almost got in the way of this well-lit scene. Now that is pretty random.

GADLING’S TAKE FIVE: Week of July 8

by Adrienne Wilson on

Time for another week of random picks from the bloggers here at Gadling. Saddle up, simmer down and go solo on the slow train if you must.

5. Albertan Cowboy Culture: Where’s the Real Old West These Days?:
When my mind conjures images of cowboys on the open range or prairie searching for the type of things cowboys go looking for I don’t imagine them in Canada. This could just be me, but thanks to Martha the cowboys in my daydream have a new home in Alberta. Some are a little commercialized and others a bit more authentic, but you’ll have to read further for the details.

4. Why Trains Suck in America:
I’ve never taken a train in America. Have you? Ever wonder why so many Americans don’t? See why Neil thinks train transportation is basically dead in the U.S.

3. The Best U.S. Cities for Singles:
It’s summer time in the city and you’re single. Find out which city has the most singles and mosey on over to find your better half. That’s if you don’t like being single for the summer and all.

2. A Canadian in Beijing: Reverse Culture Shock:
Goodbyes and readjustment can be a tough job to tackle after a long excursion abroad. Ember hasn’t been home long and already she is back on the road touring with her band. Check out this last post in her series and find out where you can keep tabs on her future jaunts.

1. The “Wonders of the World” Votes are in!:
The world has made its final decision and the new seven wonders of the world are…

Albertan Cowboy Culture: Where’s the Real Old West These Days?

by Martha Edwards on

The second week in July means different things to everyone. To me, it’s the time when the city I live in is overrun with tourists and locals alike donning cowboy hats clumsily two-stepping their way around town. To visitors, the Calgary Stampede is the real deal: a place where the old west meets consumer culture and the result is non-stop fun. To us locals, Stampede is a time when gals have an excuse to wear barely-there mini jean skirts (aka Skankpede), when everything’s more expensive (aka Scampede) and when the rich executives wander through the midday streets more drunk and obnoxious than usual (aka drunkpede).Sure, it’s usually a good time, but it’s so commercialized. When did we get away from what Stampede is really about: agriculture, rodeo, chuckwagons and good old-fashioned square dances?

Fortunately, Southern Alberta offers many more authentic (and affordable) ways to get in touch with your inner cowboy, like:

  • Bar U Ranch: Once important ranch-turns-National Historic Site
  • Glenbow Museum: Yeah, it’s a museum, but it’s a cool one, especially their Western exhibits.
  • Fort MacLeod : The birthplace of ranching in Alberta; a place full of small-town charm
  • The Great Canadian Barn Dance : Three words: Kunkel Family Band. Yee haw!
  • The Cowboy Trail: Also known as highway 22 — the convergence of mountain foothills and prairie makes this one of the most scenic drives around. Now, imagine doing it on a horse.

Check out Travel Alberta for more cowboy inspiration.

A Canadian in Beijing: Reverse Culture Shock

by Ember Swift on

(This will be my last blog for this travel series. See the end of this blog for where to read my blogs in the future.)

I have been back in Canada for just a few days and the music touring has launched in full force. Only two full days at home after three months away is not enough to recover and balance the reverse culture shock – a legitimate phenomenon that I can personally attest to – and even though I am ultimately responsible for deciding my fate, I’m currently shaking my head at my scheduling insanity.

I’m writing this from the Vancouver International airport where I am waiting for our transfer flight to Castlegar, BC where we will be performing at a Peace & Justice Festival called “On Our Way Home Reunion.” We will only be there for less than twelve hours, however, because we are expected in Illinois the next day at the National Women’s Music Festival and no connecting flights would get us there in time. That means that we have to drive all night back to Vancouver (about six hours directly following our performance) in order catch a morning flight to Chicago. This flight will then transfer to Bloomington, IN where we will arrive tomorrow at approximately three p.m. central time to be picked up and driven to Normal, IL. We perform tomorrow night and then drive back to Toronto on Sunday (about 11 hours) and then back to my home in the country on Monday (5 hours).

I am the one who approves or declines performance offers. The main problem is that I do this at least six months in advance of the actual travel time and I often imagine myself capable of anything when it’s so far away! So, here I am wondering what poison I was smoking when I decided that this was a good idea.

I am already exhausted from the twelve-hour, China-Canada jet lag not to mention the emotional adjustment to leaving Beijing and returning to my life here in Canada. Top that off with an early morning of five a.m. to catch my first flight out of Toronto and I’m wondering how we will ever make it back to Vancouver tonight without copious amounts of caffeine and some serious injections of good humour?

And people ask us how we stay healthy on the road…

My answer is usually “by staying home.”

On the flight over here from Ontario, I opened the in-flight magazine and flipped directly to a picture of the entrance to the Forbidden City and Chairman Mao’s face (top image). My heart nearly stopped when it fell open to that picture. That image feels so far away and here it was, staring at me from the pages of a magazine, smooth under my fingertips.

Just outside the bathrooms in this spacious waiting area in the Vancouver Domestic Airport (I actually miss the squatters!) are the computers that list the flights. I was walking briskly towards relief and then almost tripped over the friction that suddenly gripped my sneakers to the carpet and stopped me dead in my tracks. It was as though my feet read the screen before I did.

Beijing flight. 12:30pm. Air Canada #29.

My stomach, already heavy from the food I’m not used to – french fries and salad and a veggie burger that had too much relish and mustard on it were all squishing in my now non-western stomach – felt like it was going to lose my whole lunch. I’ve been feeling that way for the past two days, actually. I was convinced that it was the kind of wheat that I’ve been eating and I vowed to avoid wheat today. My burger was without the bun, but the nausea persists. And then, just the sight of the word “Beijing” and I felt sure I was going to wretch.

On the plane, I could hear a couple a few rows up speaking Mandarin and I was craving that perfect moment to interrupt, to pass them by and say something – anything – to have just to have another conversation in this beautiful language. I have felt like part of my ears have been plugged since I arrived home because all I can hear is English and French. Where’s the song of Mandarin? Where’s that language that has become like a friend, like music lilting through my head, like the perfect companion for my brain as it’s constantly challenging me, pushing me, waking me up and forcing me to think. There’s something so dull about English and French. Hearing just these languages (and mostly English) just awakes more of the despair at being separated from Mandarin.

For instance, as I was speaking French with my friend from Quebec two nights ago, I felt more and more sad. The words in Mandarin kept coming to me first and I had to translate them into the French words. It just feels like Mandarin is trying to come out and I was keeping it locked up inside, against its will but for its own good, of course.

Because no one understands here.

What a stupid thing to think while sitting in Vancouver, BC! Of all the cities to write that sentence in, this is not one of them. There is a huge Chinese population here…

Only, they’re not sitting across from me in this little café, or sitting beside me on the plane, or standing behind the counters at the cafes waiting for my order. At least, not on this particular path that I’m on towards Castlegar in the interior of this province (here’s a picture of the tiny plane we took to get there) and the festivals that will fill my weekend with music and other challenges.

I’m clearly flipping between stability and complete meltdown here. Half of my sentences are crying out and the other half are quietly comforting. The overall truth is somewhere in the middle. On the outside, I’m going to be fine. Maybe a little tired, but fine. On the inside, I’m going to be sad. Maybe a little happy too, but sad.

There is such loss and such gain. I have returned to my amazing life: my loved ones, my home, my music, the stage, my band… and I have lost my beloved China (until I return) and Mandarin (until I build more contacts here to keep it alive in my mouth until I return to China) and, last but not least, contact with the loved ones that I had to leave there.

To all of my friends in China: I miss you already. Save me a su baozi for my return.

And to my stomach: get it together. You’re home and you’d better start digesting this food! Head down, and forge ahead.

Keep it down.

And to my overall self: reverse the reverse culture shock. There is no choice in the matter. Eventually, you must arrive home.

Wo lai le 我来了。I have arrived.

It’s okay.

*************

This blog will soon be located in its chronological order at a new location on Gadling entitled “On The Road.”

I will continue to blog for Gadling about my North American travel adventures (and beyond), so keep checking the www.gadling.go-vip.net site and just clicking on my name for new blogs. If there’s a new series, I’ll let you know via my own site‘s main news page, which is also the front page.

Thanks so much for reading this blog and for being so encouraging… and for reminding me that people far away cared enough to check in. I loved writing it and I’m thrilled that I’ll continue to blog for Gadling as I coast from coast to coast in between longterm adventures like this one in China. And, besides, I’ll be back in China before too long.

Of this, I am sure.