okay.

so i have a lot to speak of.

i can’t remember if i’ve explained how a lot of this tour has come together but basically our tour plans fell through about 6 weeks before we had to leave and it was up in the air whether we should even risk touring because it’s expensive and a lot of driving and time off work and if we can’t really play too many shows then why should we bother at this point and maybe we should just wait and book something later in the year. we all decided that we should just push forward, commit to touring and hope to book enough shows to get west and back and not completely lose our minds. i mean the three of us were really excited to travel across canada in july. swimming, the mountains, etc. joe and sylvie had never been west before and never seen the mountains and so we decided to see what we could make happen in the little time we had to book a tour of sorts. i think the day we left toronto and hit the road we had 15 shows confirmed, along the way we’ve picked up a couple more and we’re so happy that we decided to forge ahead and make this trip. when the original tour fell apart i emailed a bunch of my friends that are in other bands and asked for help. basically just looking for any leads on small cities to play, cool promoters that might want to help, etc. my dear friends in the wooden sky we’re unbelievably helpful this way and gave me plenty of contacts out west of places they had played during the western tour they did where they played houses and smaller alternative spaces. you can watch so many of these amazing shows right here: http://vimeo.com/6771566 they are amazing videos made so beautiful by our friend scott cudmore. one of the contact that we got from these guys was for a dude named sean in nelson, bc. i had never been to nelson before and was excited to try and get a show there. when sean got back to me saying that he was going to help us out i was super excited. we left vancouver and drove the 8 hours or whatever it was to nelson. it was such a gorgeous drive and we hit town around 8pm. we were greeted by some of the friendliest people we have met yet on the road, told not to go eat because they were having a big potluck, and shown where we would be sleeping… basically got to town, met these strangers and they opened up their home to us.

sean, evan and riley opened with a nice little set and got the room warmed up. everyone sitting on the floor…

we’ve been doing a lot of singing into the room without mics cause it’s so nice to play quietly on this tour and nelson was the best for this yet. i can’t believe how much fun this show was.

the night concluded with us playing an old song called “sips of sea” that ends with a cover of the beach boy’s “god only knows” and we got the whole room singing the big harmony at the end… a very magical moment for us. so grateful to play to the most gracious audience in canada.

our friends forest city lovers played in nelson that night too and they came up the street for a beer after their show.

so many fun stories from nelson. i’ll just share 3 quick ones.

#1

as we were unloading the car, brent, one of the tenants at the fishbowl (the house we played at) saw my pillow in the car and was shocked and asked whose it was. i told him it was my pillowcase that my mom had bought me 15 years ago. he then told me that his mom had made it. it’s an airbrushed pillowcase with skiers on it that says “jonas takes to the air”.  it’s pretty rad. brent’s mom used to make these things and sell them. what a small, strange world we live in…

here’s brent and i, 15 years later, commemorating the meeting of our moms…

#2

after our windsor show, joe found a setlist on the floor of the phog lounge and pocketed it because of the song names. after sean and the boys opened the nelson show and said they didn’t have a band name i told everyone how i had this dream on the first day of tour that a new band was in toronto opening a bunch of shows that we had turned down because we were busy and the band was called “directional glory” and so sean, evan, and riley took it on as their new name, and then later decided that they would create new songs to match the setlist. joe gave them the original list and then they typed us out one as a keepsake. we are playing with DIRECTIONAL GLORY next time we play nelson. here they are:

and here is our extended gang:

thanks nelson. you are the most wonderful people!!!!!!!!

#3

so we leave this gang of amazing people on a quest to get my oil changed as it’s overdue from our cross-canada drive. when we played windsor the bartender at the phog lounge, big joe, told me that if i needed any car repair or anything while i was in nelson to go to his buddy blair at midtown motors. he is a honda specialist. so i call him in the morning and ask if he can fit me in and that big joe sent me and he says “sure, i’ll make some room” and sure enough we get there and he pulls a truck off the hoist so that he can put our car up there. he tells me to leave it with him for an hour and so we wander into town to look for a copy of wayne’s world, which we find for $5:

and then head back down the hill to see if the car is ready. walking up to the shop we see hotel honda parked in the lot, gleaming in the sun…. blair had washed out bug-covered car and it looked so good. when i go into the shop to talk to him and settle up he refuses to take my money… we argue for a bit… i tell him we have to pay and he refuses to let us… says big joe sent us and big joe is his best friend and that he can’t charge us…i am almost brought to tears by this… how much better can nelson get right? and he even hooked up his computer to the dash to check on all the warning lights that were lit up in my car and told me about them and what to do and not to worry and basically set my mind at ease.

i know that he probably won’t read this but blair we cannot thank you enough. what a huge boost on the road, mentally and financially. thanks!

if you need car work done in nelson make sure you hit Midtown Motors:

we left nelson full of spirit and headed to the white swan hotsprings. i had been here once before in the winter about 8 years ago. it’s a pretty magical place. the water is piping hot and then you lay down in the freezing mountain river. you pretty much blackout. good times:

stopped in kimberley, bc and the happiest boy in the world got his photo taken infront of happy hans:

then we drove through kootenay national park and into banff and it shattered our minds. now we are off to climb a mountain with our friends julie and michael who have hosted us in banff. here are some photos from the last leg of our journey including a photo out the front door of julie and michael’s amazing place in banff.

the last 24 hours has easily ranked in the top 10 days of my life, possibly even top 5. feelin’ good.

vancouver.

got to neptoon records just in time for our instore.

what an awesome shop.

then we got to hang out at sunset beach with sam, our west coast promoter.

this whole vancouver show basically came together from a tweet. i emailed sam after he tweeted about our band and from there he took on booking his first show ever for us at the iconic Railway Club in Vancouver.  the turnout was amazing and the show was one of the best yet for us. the Railway Club is amazing and i hope that we get to come back soon to play. thanks Sam!!!!

i must say that one of the highlights of this tour was this:

the legendary jon ebrell moves his truck for us so we can park in his underground garage and pulls off this incredible move. so close to the wall that joe can hardly pass an old canadian five dollar bill between the mirror and the wall. mad skillz with old billz.on the road.

here we go… off to Nelson, BC to play the Fishbowl tonite.

then a day off in the mountains!!!!

be well.

jb

okay, so I dropped the ball on blog posts.  we’ve been travelling a lot… and at night we’ve been sleeping in tents and the wifi in the tent isn’t great.

just to recap what we’ve been up to since the last post.

we drove from kapuskasing to dryden, ontario, which took roughly 12-13 hours i think, and slept at Aaron Provincial Park.  nice place. leeches in the water so i didn’t swim unfortunately.

stopped at the side of the road that leads to hornepayne where my dad had his moose hunting camp. nice being up north. haven’t been up here in a really long time.

feel like we were helped along the highway. almost ran out of gas near hearst. scary. happy to pay $1.25 a litre at Klotz Lake Camp!

hit Kanga’s Sauna in Thunder Bay, a necessity. taco time and we’re back on the tarmac.

then we drove from dryden, on to brandon, manitoba. got there around 5pm and played 2 sets at Lady Of The Lake. it was real nice to finally eat some real food.  it was delicious! back on the road after the set and drove to just east of regina, sk.  stayed at Echo Valley Provincial Park. woke up at 6am and hit the road. drove from their across saskatchewan, then across alberta and into BC.  we drove 17 hours.  i think i did 15 of those. i think that’s my new record.  we hit the kootenay pass at 9:30pm and hit Champions Lake Provincial Park at 11pm, just as the warden was locking the gate, but he let us in.  really nice park. got to swim for breakfast!

bugs!!!!

back on the road. drove straight through to mission, BC. stopped in the okanagan for fresh fruit and a swim. arrived at Paul and Sarah’s house in Mission. the most gracious hosts i think i’ve ever encountered. a huge spread of food and a fridge full of cold beer. played a packed house show to the nicest, quietest crowd. what a treat. joe opened with a great typewriter set. so nice to hear his songs. (myspace.com/fortinjoe) we stayed up entirely too late and then paul and sarah got up and made us crepes for breakfast. we’ve been treated like kings and queens. after driving for 4-5 days straight it was so comforting. thanks paul and sarah!

this is 3am in mission.

now we’re off to vancouver.  an in-store this afternoon around 3pm and then the railway club tonite!!!! 8:30pm!!!

here’s a couple more pics:

1000km yesterday.

london to kapuskasing.

gonna try for another 1000km today.

stopped for a swim in latchford:

ate some fries at a fry truck too.  poor lady was roastin’ inside the fry hut. she thought i was the strangest dude when i asked if the gravy they had was mushroom gravy.  “you want mushroom gravy?!”

the day was mostly sunny except for a few storms that hit us. we could see them coming from a mile away.

dusk revealed itself a gorgeous amber burning out on the horizon. the picture doesn’t do it justice but it was nice to drive into.

our destination for the night was kapuskasing, which it turns out on tuesdays and wednesdays lacks any type of reasonable accomodations.  every single motel and hotel on the trans-can was totally booked up. we found this little place in town that was expensive but did the trick. the matagami motel. tired and thirsty.

anyways, i better brush my teeth and get ready for breakfast at the Tango Hotel. the road is calling loudly.

here’s a real nice guy we played with in windsor. he played us a real nice set of folk music. www.myspace.com/kevinechlin

until then…

jb+eh

Just a quick post as we are about to dive into a monster adventure drive… we are in london, sleeping on our dear friend sara’s floor. we played in her backyard last night and it was totally rad. a.j. from the whipping wind opened the show and it was a real treat. looking forward to hearing more of his music.  thanks to sara and paterson for setting it up and for the lovely folks at 33 yale st. for having us.

here’s a picture of where we stayed in windsor:

i feel like our photos are a day behind our blog posts. sorry about that. most nights after the shows we’re hanging out and then hittin’ the hay so i haven’t been crackin’ out the jambox to blog… maybe the next few nights we’ll be able to report back earlier as we will be staying in motels.

my neck is quite stiff this morning.  yesterday, to escape the blazing heat, we hit up a public pool in london. this place had double diving boards and a ton of kids playing “sharks and minnows” in the pool, which looked like a pretty rad game. eventually i had to show the little squirts how to dive and i busted a couple near-perfect swans. sylvie captured me in midflight. unfortunately it was during one of the less graceful parts of the move that she pulled the trigger:

anyways, we’re off… send us posi-vibes as we’re gonna be driving like yahoos for the next couple days.

best,

jb