Thursday, May 28, 2015

Muggy and Musical

Yesterday was impossibly hot and muggy, and I walked around with a large accordion on my back for a large part of it, and felt that I should have a retinue, who would match my pace, fanning me all the way with palm leaves, and offering me sips of cold lemonade. This did not happen.

What DID happen was that my accordion and I spent much of the day inside Blue Light Studio, which is a pretty magical place to be. It's where I recently recorded my own song, "In The End", and I've done session work there for other musicians and I love spending time there.
Recording sessions are some of my favourite things. And this one was special, because it was for a friend, someone who doesn't think highly enough of his skills as a musician, but who is evolving into a really amazing songwriter. So it was fun to watch some of his songs take shape, coming off the pages and into our ears. I played accordion and piano and sang a bit. Andy the recording engineer put some mandolin down on a song. When I arrived in the morning there was delicious coffee and when I came back in the afternoon there was Maudite beer in a Mason jar .

In between, I trekked out to South Vancouver to play at a seniors home. My luck is holding, because I've still never had a bad show at one of those places, and yesterday's was my all-time favourite so far. I played my accordion in the lounge/lobby of the building, and by some lucky fluke the acoustics were heavenly. I didn't need a mic, and my voice cut through the room perfectly. By the second song there were little, high, perfect old-lady voices joining in with me, and by the end of the hour I had quite a chorus of backup singers. 

Then it was back to the studio, along Industrial Avenue, which is a perfectly interesting little dead-end street. There are railcars and tracks on either side, which makes it practically inaccessible. There are food trucks everywhere (I think they come here to clean, or to re-stock, or something.) There is garbage, and crows, and climbing gyms, and the odd piece of greenery: 

All in all, it was a delightful day, even with all the accordion-carrying. 

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