sorry for the delay in posting. we are buzzing around the french countryside in our little citroen. we’ve played two shows since i last spoke to you computer. one in annecy, and last night in lyon. here are photos from our journey:

french strikers in the rain. the man closest to the camera fell out of the truck shortly after this. scary!

here’s where we stayed in annecy. sylvie and i slept in the room in the top right corner with the balcony. whoa!

lac d’annecy. so beautiful.

i see mountains. i see france…..

crazy crazy crazy. la balme-les grottes

i have to make this bloggy a little short just because my battery is about to die. we played this awesome little club in annecy, that was was right on the lake. we’ve been pretty stressed out so far with trying to get all of guitar pedals to work because of the different voltage over here. we were sold the wrong adapter and so far have lost one power adapter to smoke and fire because of it. yesterday i bought a real big voltage converter and now we are all powered up and ready to go. it’s been so nice listening to leopold skin’s set the last two nights. can’t wait to see more shows with him. waking up every morning with his new record stuck in my head.

the show last night in lyon was amazing. it was in old lyon, in an area protected by unesco. the buildings in the area are all so old. it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. we played in the basement of this bar called l’antidote and it was like playing inside an old cave, but with lots of really nice people. it’s so nice to have an audience here. they are so quiet and then clap for a long time after each song. i feel so honoured to be here playing music. last night was our first real tour night it seemed. we stayed late at the bar and had too many beers and i polished up my french. hit up a secret bar on the long walk back to damien’s flat and now we are going to go out and spend the day walking around lyon.

i will charge up my compy and take more pics and get this bloggy rollin’. and i’ll post more photos from sylvie’s camera too i hope. it got dropped last night and we’re not sure if it’s going to work now…

okay… sorry about the shorty. we’ll be back with more words and less filler.

au revoir.

jb

allo,

we spent a full day as tourists pretty much. wandered around clermont-ferrand and ate and took pictures. it was great. most days on tour are spent sleeping in, then driving, so it’s nice to lazily walk around a city and look at things. we got these amazing sandwiches at the bakery below where we’re living. mine was tomato, lettuce, goat cheese, mustard on a baguette and it was 3euro… i wish we had more sandwich shops like this in canada… fresh and cheap and really big. and of course the cheese is amazing and everything is so fresh.

after lunch we wandered the streets. here’s proof:

it really feels like a movie-set and it’s particularly quiet. i’m not sure if it’s because of all the stone or if it’s because all of the streets twist and turn in weird directions. anyways, it really adds to the surreal feeling.

after our walkin’ and our gawkin’ we took a drive in our citroen to the kütu folk office. here we got to work on making some of the new delano orchestra records. this record is going to be amazing. we got to hear some of it yesterday and alex gave us a copy to listen to so we’ll spin it in the car today!

here is the team hard at work:

damien is on the left, laura is in the background and alex is on the right. these are the people that have worked so hard on our record and are the reason we are here! MERCI!!!

here’s our record. what?!

the photo on the cover of the record was taken by my brother josh and is from the old property where i grew up in orono.

after the office we went and met francois from st. augustine. he and his wife have a beautiful new baby! so cute. their apartment is really cool, from the 1700′s i believe. i can’t remember. they live a few steps away from the blue house which is this old apartment from the 1200′s that damien and leopold skin recorded in. here’s a picture that i can’t get to sit upright in this blogmachine. argh.

how do i rotate photos in wordpress?

we’ve been offered to record a couple songs here before we leave so we hope to maybe do that when we come back in a few days. can you imagine? it’s all old vintage gear and the place is just jaw-dropping. i’ve got 3 new songs we’re playing on this tour so it would be nice to track them here.

here we are in front of the apartment with francois and his family, and christophe and his wife who lives here and has the studio and the rest of the gang.

sideways photos are the new jam.

after that radness we went to damien’s mom’s house for dinner. she made us alligot which is a potato and cheese puree. it was soooooo good. very rich, but that seems to be par for the course here. i just happen to love cheese so it’s alright! damien’s mom was so nice and we had a rule that the french had to speak english and vice versa and i hardly said anything because my french is terrible. it has really been bothering me so far. i’ve been very self-concious about my ability to speak french on this trip. it’s stressin’ me out man. i try a bit more after a few beers and that is helpful. i think i will get better. it’s been frustrating. for those who know me i’m a bit of a chatty guy. the french are going to think i’m a quiet man.

yum yum.

after d-money’s ma’s house we went back downtown to have celebratory drinks with the label because our record came out today in france!!!! the bartender brought us out beers with glowsticks in them. haha… so cool.

a heart carved into the stones of the street.

we finished our night by heading to alex’s to pick up some equipment. it was pouring rain so hard and thunder and lightning and when we got to the apartment i was fooling around on alex’s guitar, and damien slowly closed the windows of the apartment to naturally fade out the rain, and then i played history books and alex filmed it.  maybe we can show you that at some point. it was a very special day for me.

okay, well it’s still raining here. we are going to have a quick practice then we drive to annecy for our first show of this tour. it’s time to get it started. be well. stay tuned.

jb

bonjour.

here we are. in france. after months of prep, but what it really feels like is months of emails and dropping the little guy from google street-view into random french cities and having my stomach drop at how surreal the landscape seems. we spent a bit of time yesterday wandering around clermont-ferrand, the city we are staying in right now. it is really hard for me to wrap my head around the movie-set feel to this place. i’ll get to pictures in a second. here’s a quick recap of how this trip has gone down so far.

our flight was delayed at pearson for a couple hours, which was okay because it gave us a little bit of extra time to hang out with ma and fam and help my sister move her stuff back to college and it took a bit of the edge off. it’s funny doing things like cooking a burger in cobourg for lunch and then flying to paris at night. a real juxtapostion. next time i’m going to start building a birdhouse in the morning and then, leaving it unfinished and my hammer still out, head to the airport and fly. that will be good. it’ll help to eliminate travel anxiety. anyway, the flight was real smooth. we paid extra money to carry more weight on the plane (guitars, pedals, etc.) and this also gave us some extra perks. we got a sleeping package that had an inflatable neck thing, and eye patches, etc. and we also got a small bottle of champagne each, and then a small bottle of red wine each, and then a small bottle of cognac each. whoa. lights out!

it’s really worth it to buy into the “options plus” program on air transat as far as i’m concerned.

we were fortunate enough to sit beside a real sweet girl named anne on the plane. she took the above picture for us. she was flying to paris to look for a job and do some traveling. i really admire people that just pick up and move. basically flipping your whole life upside d0wn. find a job, find a place to live, etc. i tried to convince her to start a blog so we could follow her journeys. here’s hoping the people that interview her find her as charming as we did.

landed in paris and were met by damien from our label here in france. he is touring with us for the next two weeks. his band is called leopold skin. he has a new record coming out called “i see mountains” that is really beautiful and sylvie and i are excited to hear these songs in the next couple days.

here we are standing in front of volcanoes with a bag of wine, bread and cheese:

once we got to clermont we hit the hay for a bit to try un-jetlag. here’s our flat that the label has set us up with:

this is our view out our window. tada!

ate some cheese and bread and washed it down with cheap wine that tastes so good. walked around clermont-ferrand for awhile before meeting more people at a sidewalk cafe/bar for beers and cheers and learned new handshakes. got to meet alex from the label too! everyone is so nice and seems as excited to meet us as we are to meet them. here are a few pictures from our night:

that last photo is of a statue in the city’s centre of some battle dude who is pointing at the ground. kids in clermont-fd used to look at it from this angle, which gives one the perspective that the man has his privates exposed. needless to say, i had to get a picture of it from that angle.  my immaturity seems to translate well in france i think.

just woke from a monster snooze and now we are going to go hike a volcano, meet some new people and hit up the bakery downstairs. i really want to order a pizza from one of the dudes on the mopeds buzzin’ around the city slingin’ ‘za, too.

for now we get to be tourists which is really refreshing.  usually on tour we have a very structured day. wake up, drive, play music, sleep, wake up, drive, play music, etc….the time flies by and i really want to feel like i’m living here more than just visiting and flying through it all. it helps to have a family of sorts here with damien and the label folks.

have a great day.

we haven’t even gotten started yet.

jb

Another kick at the cat’s pajamas. I’m prepared to blog my face off again on this european tour we’re embarking on. people seemed to follow the last cross-canada blog so i figured i better keep it up. please spread the word(blog)!

I’ve decided to name the blog. It will forever be known as THE BLOG OF THE FORSAKEN. Okay, lets get started…

Saturday we launch in a rocketship over the Atlantic Ocean and into Paris where we begin almost a month’s worth of tour dates.  I’ll cut to the chase and just post them right here:

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH    ANNECY    Le Comptoir de la Folie Ordinaire w/ Leopold Skin
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 8TH    LYON    L’Antidote w/ Leopold Skin
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH    BORDEAUX Total Heaven In-Store w/ Leopold Skin
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH    BORDEAUX    House Show w/ Leopold Skin
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 12TH    CLERMONT    Secret Roof Show w/ Leopold Skin
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 13TH    CLERMONT   La Coope w/ Leopold Skin
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 14TH    PARIS    Point FMR w/ Leopold Skin
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH    LILLE    Folk Adhoc House Show w/ Leopold Skin
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 17TH    RENNES   Tion w/ Leopold Skin
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 18TH    NANTES    Le Ferrailleur w/ Leopold Skin
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 19TH    DIJON    Galerie Sabotage w/ Leopold Skin
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 20TH    BRUSSELS    House Show w/ Trijaus
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 22ND    BERLIN    The Monarch w/ Deer Tick
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 23RD    BERLIN    Schokoladen w/ Trouble Books
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 24TH (aft)    HAMBURG    Platzhirsch w/ Dan Mangan, Woodpigeon
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 24TH (eve)    HAMBURG    St. Pauli Kirche w/ Timber Timbre and Mohna
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 25TH    SAARBRUCKEN    Sparte 4 w/ tba
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH    LONDON    The Hoxton Bar and Kitchen w/ Timber Timbre
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 28TH    LONDON    The Windmill in Brixton w/ tba
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 30TH    LONDON    King’s Cross Social w/ Monica Heldal and William Rahr Fortna

This tour is in support of our record Spirit Guides being released by Kutu Folk Records in France! Check out the label here:www.kutufolk.com

We are really excited about this all coming together and the record coming out in France.  It’s all one truly exciting surprise for me. On top of that, we get to tour france in the fall, and not just paris, but a bunch of smaller cities too. I can’t begin to explain how fortunate I feel about this. The folks at Kutu Folk already feel like a family to me and we are excited to land there on Sunday morning and meet our new friends. This tour will just be Sylvie and I and we’ve been working hard at trying to make as many sounds as possible with the two of us and I think it’s a really great sounding evening hymns right now, definitely one suited to the autumn weather and bottles of red wine.

After france we play a house show in brussels and then we hit germany for 5 shows. really excited to see berlin and saarbrucken and so excited to play in st. pauli church in hamburg with our good friends and church-shredders Timber Timbre

if that place ain’t haunted yet then it will be after that night!

thanks to tobias at gastspielreisen booking for helping us out! I look forward to doing a more extensive German tour in the future.

we finish up in the U.K. doing a few shows around London and most importantly opening again for Timber Timbre on the occasion of their European album release.  it feels good to have this show near the end. taylor, from TT, and i did our first tours ever together many moons ago and it’s a real feelgooder for me to be asked to do this show in london with him. if you haven’t heard his latest release, well any of them really, than you should do yourself a favour and pick up the S/T record now. wowsers.

anyways, we’re camping out at my mom’s place for the next few days to escape toronto and focus on rehearsing and relaxing. stay tuned to the BLOG OF THE FORSAKEN for all important evening hymn’s news.

bon voyage.

jb