Roxanne Tellier – God Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise

We at DBAWIS will be on hiatus from this afternoon, when this column drops, until we return on Monday, September 11th. (Editor’s Note – I will be reprinting a column on Monday because it is relevant more today than ever).

That’s quite a while, in these troubled times. Kind of makes you wonder how different our world will look by then. After all, it’s certainly seemed like every day for the last few years has been an endless, nauseating, roller coaster ride. Fires, floods, droughts, plagues, economic turmoil, murder hornets – kind of frightening to think what might be next.

Pat Blythe – The year the music died…..the pandemic interviews…..and music

Tuesday, July 21…..the column writing begins. I sit here staring at four walls desperately missing the music, the people, the clubs and the noise. At least four nights a week I was out prowling the various music venues in the GTA, Hamilton, even London until the wee hours of the morning. The music was always happening somewhere. Now it’s eerily quiet. Yes, there are a few outdoor shows scattered about. Suzi Kory produced and presented her first hugely successful drive-in country music festival called “Love Revolution” in Cavan, Ontario. Country artists Joe McCaughley, Colin Amey, The Housecall, Bree Taylor, Nicole Rayy, Alessia Cohle, Brian John Harwood, MacKenzie Leigh Myer and of course Kory herself all performed. Where was I? In Hamilton and St. Catharines on other business. Damn!!!

Love Revolution also happens to be the name of Kory’s latest release, and a timely one it is. Give it a listen below in the “music section”.

Pat Blythe – This is not about COVID……and music

This column is usually about the clubs, the music, the bands, the nightlife and the denizens of Toronto who haunt those places. The clubs are shuttered, the live music has stopped, bands are silent and the nightlife…..well there isn’t any. Yes musicians (solo or otherwise) are busy streaming on any platform possible. Artists from the around the world record themselves in isolation and then join together via video to perform, Brady Bunch style. All around the world people are trying to keep everyone’s spirits up as we sit, isolated in our homes, many alone, having had no physical human contact in almost three months.

Roxanne Tellier – Hang in There, Baby

Argggh!!! Woke up in a ‘mood’ this morning, and the weather – grey, cold and damp – isn’t helping at all.

It’s not that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, it’s more that I’m just tired of playing pandemic. In February, I could still see a path ahead, even though it wasn’t clear how long our preparations and quarantine would last. Still, I had hopes that the light at the end of the tunnel was a bright future. Turned out it was an oncoming train.

Chef Tom’s Tales and Tuna

 

Editor’s Note – Chef Tom has requested a No-Pictures presentation of today’s column. He wants you to use your Theatre of the Mind to conjure up the characters, locations, and story. Experience the age old Joy and Immersion of Reading the Printed Word.

In the Round Robin writing course, even though I was to write one story per day with a time limit of 12 minutes per story, I liked, from time to time, writing multiple chapters of the same saga. This one was fun to explore. The titles of each “chapter” were the daily writing prompts. They were not linear, either, but putting them all together after, there is a definite arc.