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 went 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. anyways, 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. light’s 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 infront 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. wah wah.

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 private’s 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 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

well i guess i did okay with this blog right?

like i almost kept it pretty updated?

and i only really slipped at the end?

maybe cause home was in my sights? maybe it was all the thunder bay saunas and beers?

let me try and pick this up where we left off…

played a cool show at this little artspace on albert st. in winnipeg called Freud’s Bathhouse and Diner, which was neither a bathhouse or a diner.  it was a very hot, very rad space. we played sandwiched between a bunch of really different, experimental films. my favorite was leslie supnet .  check out the link there… pretty radness! thanks to jonah from ghost town, mb for hooking up the show for us, and michael elves from UMFM for putting me in touch with michael. also thanks to the gang at freud’s for having us.

here’s some video of us performing history books at freud’s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWDnHSuoSkA&feature=player_embedded

after the show we hit up the LoPub for a couple suds and watched ohbijou.

they were totally awesome and it was good to see them. i miss them.

michael elves, baseball fan extraordinaire:

after this we went home to michael’s house and hung out a bit… felt good to catch up with a friend.

slept like a log then up too early for thunder bay to play 2 shows with forest city lovers.

the three of us hit kanga’s sauna again before the show to unwind and get our heads together.

then we went to the apollo to set up for two nights of playing.

thanks to sheila for having us for two nights and puttin’ us up! love this place!!!

pre-show:

only one way to turn these frowns upside downs:

CHANGEFACE!!!

i believe that was all the change from joe’s pocket.

sylvie got a temporary tattoo from some random:

and then we after the show we stayed up really late playing jeopardy, under the influence. pretty challenging and fun.

the morning, or well, afternoon… was a great time to go to the hoito to eat breakfast. they were celebrating their 100th anniversary. i am making it official saying this was my favorite breakfast of tour. very close runner-ups would be the bent fork in nelson, bc and the park cafe in saskatoon, sk.  maybe i should just make it a 3-way tie? anyways, the finnish pancakes were amazing…

and then we followed this up with a real long sauna at kanga’s again. this one was extra special cause we got christian and kyle to join us and we cooked a couple real gems in there. not to mention we had bought some new soap and loofahs and we all left feelin’ squeaky clean! one of my favorite places to stop on tour for sure!

no picture from the show that night at the apollo. i got a little topsy-turvy and played a heavy version of mtn. song that was really fun for me.

post-show consisted of more jeopardy, under the influence.

slept amongst the gulls of red river street and then up and out in the a.m. for the drive to sault ste. marie.

thanks to alex from the apollo for waking up early to let us into the venue to load our gear out.

we stopped on the drive to snap a cliche band photo beside lake superior:

here’s a couple randoms from the show at loplops:

oh good times! hit up a hotel in the soo for tour finale/party!!! pretty good times.

the next day we drove to sudbury for pizza hut with fcl and we got to see this on the way:

totally badass!!!!

and then we ate delicious pizza and hit the road home.

farewell fcl…

hit peterborough around midnite and snapped one last tour pic.

i’ll send this one out to my fellow comrades Joe and Sylvie. thanks you two for playing my songs with me and coming along on the adventure. you both made it such a pleasant journey!!! love ya!

those eyes are sparkling cause it was a joyous farewell, albeit a touch emotional…

and now i must sign off on my tour blog… thanks for reading, and thanks to all of those who opened their homes, beds, venues, hearts, wallets, etc. for us!

this tour was a huge success for us. cannot wait to come visit you all again.

all the best until then….

xo

jb

bruno, sk

http://www.allcitizens.org/

wow.

drove from saskatoon to bruno. in short, (cause it’s an amazing long story), this wonderful gent moved to bruno, sk (population a few hundred) and bought this house on main street that has a little storefront that he uses as a consignment shop and espresso bar and as canada’s smallest venue! tyler cooked us an amazing pasta dinner and after the show we stayed up super late gettin’ inspired by his story and his ideas for bruno.  he just recently bought the royal bank building a few doors up from him for $25 and he is converting it into a bigger space for arts/live music. tyler awarded us with an engraved plate with our name on it and an etching of all citzens on it for making it out to bruno, sk (see picture above!)can’t wait to come back and visit and play again! thanks to tyson from slow down molasses for making the trek with his friends out to see us! we also convinced him to play a couple songs and he did a sweet version of new partner by will oldham.

host with the most:

the weirdest part was when we were packing our car this dude kept driving by in his truck.  he literally drove by 50 times… probably more actually, playing loud music and staring at us. pretty funny:

also, as we were loading our car this pleasant lady walked by and said hello and said “it must be hard to sleep in that car” cause i guess she had read our blog and recognized us and saw that we had slept in the car. we thought that was pretty rad. hi nice lady from bruno, sk if you’re still reading this!!!!

from bruno we drove to riding mountain national park and camped out, had a fire, sipped coldies.

beautiful spot but man oh man, to camp one night, with a bundle of firewood, came to $55!!!! same price as a motel. what gives?

glad we did it… but that kind of fee makes a broke, touring musician contemplate the walmart parking lot solution a lot more!!!

woke up and had a nice brekkie at uncle toms.

hit winnipeg and played an instore at music traders.

here is a picture from the perspective of our friend Archer:

then we went and had a campfire at michael and michelle’s beautiful house and stayed up late playing wii baseball after. i hurt my arm a bit and my ego, as michael crushed the jays with his almighty twins.

woke up in the morning and went to mondragon for brekkie.

met up with these dorks:

then we bid them farewell, they’re off to play brandon, mb tonite and then we re-unite tomorrow night in thunder bay for a couple more shows before we’re home. myspace.com/forestcitylovers

sylvie and i put josephine down for a wee nap in the afternoon and then drove over to our friend neil’s house. he did the artwork for the evening hymns t-shirts so we wanted to drop a couple off to him. he was getting his next show ready for switzerland. i want all of these:

here’s some of his incredible work: http://www.royalartlodge.com/

after this we went for argentinian gelato and then home to beagle HQ:

gave this little dude a quick belly rub to get him gigglin’ and we were out the door to freud’s bathhouse and diner for our show tonite!

here’s the invite:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=102649656456795&ref=ts

oh and that brown hat i’m wearing in all those pictures is my new hat. i’ve been searching for that hat for over a year. happy to finally have found it in winnipeg.

okay, soundcheck time and then sleep, and then thunder bay for more saunas and coldies.

be well,

jb

just got wifi.

here’s our last two days.

we hit up the west edmonton mall. i almost puked on the roller coaster.

after the mall we hit up the venue… haven social club.

such a nice space.  brian the sound guy was super rad.

didn’t get any photos from inside but we did get this one from across the street:

we were offered a space to stay with a real nice girl named Jill but we decided to push east a bit and stay at elk island national park but when we got there, at 2am, it was all full and we couldn’t pitch a tent so we decided to keep trucking, eventually settling for a walmart parking lot in vegreville, sask. 3 little hymnsters tucked into balls in hotel honda. slept beside a tim hortons though so that was handy for crappy road breakfast.

our humble abode:

we actually slept pretty well… for 5 hours.

we hit saskatoon around 4pm and hooked up with our main man Phil Greer from vive music!

him and rich taylor, the minds behind vive music, put on an amazing show for us at their new venue, which remains without a name right now, and it’s a real beauty spot. it’s connected to this wonderful cafe called caffe sola and is a real nice sounding room.  here are some pictures of the show/space. they don’t really do the room justice. it’s been a definite highlight of playing on this tour. i think we maybe sounded our best in that room last night.

will robbins opened with a real nice set.

followed by husband/wife duo economics!!!

find me a happier looking group of people then this one above. that’s us making a joke about taking a smash at sneaky dees.

that’s rich satisfying his pizza tooth with us.

this is me elongatin’ my jam before hittin’ the hay.

thanks phil and rich for a rad show! can’t wait to come back to saskatoon.

on to bruno, saskatchewan!!!!

stay tuned.