Newsletter #12

Festivals, a New Song and a Different Kind of View

It’s been a couple of busy weeks here on Protection, but I’m finally getting to this newsletter and the promised video of the new song. Thanks for your patience.

Weather

Here in coastal BC we’re experiencing our first heat dome of the summer, with daytime temps edging up towards 30. When I got up at 6AM this morning, it was 16 on our garden thermometer - warmest night so far this season. There is a strong breeze mitigating the heat wave, but with no rain in the forecast for at least a week, this weather is foretelling another dry, hot summer.

Music 1 - Winnipeg’s 50th Folk Festival

July 11-13 will be the 50th Anniversary edition of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and I’ll be there, performing four times over the course of the weekend. Here’s my schedule:

• Friday, 11 July - 1100-1245: “Fiftieth Anniversary Hootenanny.” I’ll be sharing the workshop with lots of old WFF friends, including the Duhks, Peter Paul Van Camp, Cathy Fink, and Marcy Marxer.

• Friday, 11 July - 1430-1530: Solo Concert. Lots of original songs - new and old - plus some Inner Elmore, for you slide guitar fans.

• Satuday, 12 July - 1600-1730: “Kings and Queens,” Blackie and the Rodeo Kings host a tribute to our late friend and legendary songwriter, Willie P. Bennett.

• Sunday, 13 July - 1115-1245: “Bottle Up and Go.” Romi Mayes leads us in a workshop of songs about the pleasures and pitfalls of grain and grape.

If you’re planning to attend, please come up and say hello at some point over the weekend. One of the sublime joys for us performers at Canadian folk festivals is “hangin’ out in the field” - getting to spend some personal time with the audience.

According to the WFF Archives, this will be my 14th time to perform at the Festival. I’m really looking forward to lots of great tunes and happy reunions.

Music 2 - Songs of August

• Saturday, August 2, our Protection Island friends Jen Riley and Dennis Moore will host their annual JenStock - a one-day musical celebration at their beautiful waterfront property. Their deck is the stage and their garden, leading down to the beach, is for the audience. It’s definitely Gulf Island style: a musical potpouri and the best potluck buffet you’ll find anywhere on the coast. And it’s the only festival where I can walk to work - we love JenStock!

• August 8-10, I’ll be heading over to Red Rock, Ontario for the “Live From the Rock” Folk Festival. This will be my third time at LFTR and I’m delighted. It’s one of the best of Canada’s smaller festivals - a real community party where everyone joins in for a great weekend of music. Red Rock is a town of just under 1,000, about 1 1/2 hrs east of Thunder Bay, on the shore of beautiful Nipigon Bay of Lake Superior. Ontario’s northland at its best.

• On Sunday afternoon, August 17, Karen Kelm and I will be having a concert together at Beacon House, here on Protection. It will be an informal musical conversation about the art and craft of songwriting. Karen, who lives just down the road from us here on the island, is an amazing songwriter and performer. Her roots are in jazz and musical theatre, so it will be an exciting juxtaposition - finding the common ground where Broadway meets High and Lonesome.

Feel free to get in touch about any of these fine, upcoming events. It’s going to be an energetic summer - busy’s good!

Music 3 - New song

As promised - I started this song last month when I was on tour in ON - another in my ongoing series of Canadian portraits. Two lonesome souls find each other at the Calgary Stampede. This video is “live off the floor,” - straight into the computer - no effects or edits. Just delivering the goods while they’re fresh out of the oven.

The guitar is the Langecker, made 106 years ago in Munich. It has some serious mojo going on. It’s become my favourite songwriting tool and new best friend in the studio.

Food - Sunday with Marcella

Sometimes on Sundays, we like to head back to the basics and make a special dinner with the traditional elements of the Italina/Slovenian cuisine. Yesterday we reached out to our favourite kitchen bible, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.

First published in 1993 and reprinted many times since, this book is, hands down, the best English-language book on Italian cooking ever written. Marcella’s like a third member of our kitchen - I can’t count the number of times one of us has said, “go see what Marcella says…” before we proceeded with dinner.

Yesterday, we made a trifecta of Marcella’s classics: fettuccine (thin, broad egg noodles), onion-butter tomato sauce, and polpetti (small meatballs). Marcella fries the meatballs, but we bake ours in the oven for a healthier finish. The trick is a moderate oven temp and pull them out right when they’re done. Leave them in the oven too long and you’ve got meat pellets that only the neighbour’s dog would relish.

The meal came together fine, with the addition of copious tumblers of rose`. Marcella would have advised a deep red, but with the temperature cresting 30 yesterday, we went with the chilled rose`. Deliciosa.

Views - Taking a break with a different kind of view

Now that we’re past the shock and awe, it’s apparent to all of us that our neighbours to the south are headed towards a police state. Excellent commentary from multiple angles abounds, so you likely don’t need further exegisis or amplification from moi meme.

I’ll just add that, having lived in downtown Washington, DC during the riots in the aftermath of the MLK assasination, I can feel it in my bones that this is going to get worse before it gets better. The regime has been in itching for a Reichstag Fire. That may now be on its way as public protests grow in size and intensity.

So we’ll take a much-needed TFD (Trump-free-day) and share a different kind of view this morning: Milena with the portrait of her that our friend Jean Compton just painted. Jean did the portrait of me that we use on my masthead - we were so taken by it that we asked her to do a companion painting and she accommodated us perfectly. She filled the background with sweet details, including a picture of Milena’s childhood home in Slovenia and our beloved table totem: the bobble-headed Buddha.

Jean is fine artist and a dear friend - we’re so grateful for these beautiful pieces. Thank you, Jean!

Stay safe, stay hopeful.

Love to you all,

David