Little Flower Fest

The Little Flowerfest is called "The best micro-music festival ever".  It's 'not a paying gig', but it sure is a fun gig.  I am always amazed at the talent that comes out to play for fun.  The 6th annual Little Flowerfest was held this past weekend.  This is the 3rd time we have played there.  Didn't make it last year because two many of us were on vacation and out of town.  The whole thing is organized by Breezy Brian Greg and Patsy Amico. 

The festival starts on Friday night and goes through to Sunday.  You can camp out over the weekend or come and go as you please.   Saturday starts off with "the Hike to the End of the World Concert".  This year we got led through the forest by a bagpipe and at the end, we were truly entertained by the Sawhorse Symphony.  

After the hike back, the main stage show began.  After the first great four performances, we finally got to do our thing.  Again, we showed up with a few more instruments, but this time we decided to travel light and only bring 1 keyboard, the bouzouki, Brian's bass, my banjo, and 2 six string guitars.   Don and Brian weren't playing guitars at the same time, so they shared Don's.  

Our set list:

• Black Room
• Earnest and Lucy
• Road to Nowhere
• Green Valley Monsters
• Clouds of Alberta

We left out Blueberry Pie, but had it in hand.  We figured we'd be doing good to get in 5 songs considering the set up and sound check within 30 minute time slot,  We did good.  

We had a good set.  First song had a rough spot in the middle, but I don't think anyone noticed but us (nerves maybe).  Next 4 songs went great.  I think we did the best live version of Road to Nowhere that we have ever done.  I thought Green Valley Monsters went almost flawlessly too. 

Now on to Clouds of Alberta.  Cloud really rocks out, but we folk up the rock with the banjo.  Song was going well, but as soon as Don hit into it, he broke a string (again).   His guitar went out of tune when the string snapped, my banjo had one string that was off just a bit, and Brian says one of his bass strings went out.  We think the hot sun was at play.   We kept going anyway.  After such a good set, it was kind of an unfortunate set of circumstances, but interestingly enough, no one seem to notice.  I'm sure the musicians in the crowd noticed. 

After all was said and done, we had several people come and tell us they enjoyed our set. One fellow said our lyrics were 'brilliant'.  I told him that we call our music 'clever'.  He liked that. 

After the set a couple more players got up, then it was time for the pot luck supper - a Little Flowerfest tradition.  Again, this was a treat.  lots of variety and volume.  No one goes hungry here. 

Brian left early.  Wanda, her mom, sister and the kids left early too.  Don and Linda stuck around for a while, I stayed on until about 10 pm.  I would have liked to stick around for the fireside jam,  I could have camped out, but I didn't take my camp stuff because we are having a mosquito state of disaster.  Wasn't as bad out there and it is in the City.  Go figure.

Auditions and Radio Interviews

 Practice makes perfect.  You all have heard this since you were born.  Hey, it's true.   The hard work that we (Magpies) did over past couple of weeks to prepare for the audition for the Heart of the City Festival paid off.   We did our 3 songs and the panelist said play some more until the other musicians show up.  Guess getting there early helped too. 

This is what we heard today.  "Wow! you guys are playing a different kind of music this year".   "You are playing with a lot more passion."  "I liked you music, I could listen to you guys all day"  We asked them what genre they think we fit into.  Answer: "clever".

Our music has grown over the past year.  Part of that is that we, well more so Don and Brian, are experimenting with more and different instruments.  Songs that we would have played in a more 'roots' style in the past are now taking on a new and even unique sound.  It is truly becoming 'our' sound. 

After our audition we were interviewed by CJSR about our music and the Heart of the City Festival.   That was pretty cool.   Our first media interview.

I'm Pumped!

We, as in the Magpies, decided that we are going to work on our song and bear down and truly practice.  Practicing is something we don't really do that much.    We get together a lot and we play a lot, but we really don't practice and  analyze our songs and how we play them.  When we do some really amazing things happen.  We find more interesting ways to present the song.   What it comes down to is that it is really about the song.  What's the best way to play it to be interesting to the listener and still be fun to play.  

We got together last night, made some song selections to work on so we will be ready for our upcoming audition for the Heart of the City Festival.   So, songs selected, we got together again tonight to really work out the songs.  How should the vocals be sung? Where do you put the emphasis?  What instruments?  What doesn't belong?  How do we start the song? How do we end it?  Do we need an instrumental break?  how long should it be and how should it be played?   Do we need backing vocals and where?   All of these things are important to give the best presentation of the song.   Again, it is really about the song.   

Well, what happened tonight is we worked out these things on four songs tonight.  We've played them enough before that we've evolved the song close to where we like them, but we were really fine tuning them.   I really enjoy that part of taking a song from the writing, to arrangement, to presentation.   To me it is and exciting process to live through the growth of our music.   Tonight our songs were not just sounding good, but sounding great.   That is what a little practice and hard work can do. 

I think in our case, it is one of the sweet pleasures in life where a song that whoever wrote the song, Don, Brian, Me becomes a "Magpies" song.  It becomes 'our' song and not 'my' song. 

Well, we have these four song worked out and now we just need to keep 'practising' until audition day.   Our goal is to impress the 'judges' enough that they give us a higher billing at the Festival than in past.   I think we are well on the way.  

So what songs did we pick.   One of the great things this year that is a big change from past years - we have a lot of our own songs to choose from.  It is getting to be a bigger challenge for us to choose songs for an audition or a festival performance, but that is a positive thing.    Oh, and the songs we did pick?    I'll keep that to myself until after the audition.

I'm pumped!

Heart of the City Festival

Edmonton is sometimes called "Festival City" because starting in June, there are festivals all summer long. The more famous ones are the Street Performers Festival, Edmonton Folk Festival, Fringe, Heritage Festival, International Blues Festival, and Jazz Festival.   The first festival of the year is the Heart of the City Festival.   The HOTC offers the opportunity for local musicians and artists to show their talents over a two day week-end.  The music ranges all across all genres and must be all original compositions.  Entertainers must work, live, or volunteer in the downtown area of Edmonton.   You can come and listen in to the Festival for free.   All the organizers, entertainers, and artists volunteer their time and it is a great venue to entertain folks who may not have the opportunity to attend the more famous festivals in the City. 

Each year, the organizers hold an audition for musicians.  Just the other day we, the Magpies, were invited to audition.  Hopefully we get accepted to play.  If so, this will be the 3rd consecutive year we play at this festival. 

Over the next two weeks, we'll be working hard to prepare for the audition and then even harder after that to prepare for the Festival.    The Festival takes place on June 4th and 5th in Giovanni Caboto Park, which is located in Little Italy at the corner of 95th St. and 108 Ave

Here's a poor quality sound track with photos from our performance last year.  Song is called Sittin' Here. One that I wrote a couple of years ago and has a bit of a ragtime feel to it.