Winter gets to me. Acoustic guitar is what gets me through. I can’t really focus on anything else during the chilliest part of the year. I tend to pick songs to play that remind me of summer. Of times when the days are longer. Of times where the sun still warms your face at 9 PM and the temperature never drops below 20. I long for the outdoors and fresh air. I spend the majority of my summer sitting on my deck plucking away on the classical in the sun or sitting under the tree in the backyard working on fiddle tunes. If there’s one thing I can appreciate winter for, it’s the fact that when you miss summer this much you really learn to take in and appreciate those few months where the weather wouldn’t take you out if you got locked out of your house for an hour without a coat on.
Luckily, when winter depression hits, I usually have some gigs to look forward to that will help pull me through the dreary season. This Friday, ROOKS will be performing at the King Eddy. Cover is $15 at the door or $10 in advance. Our drummer Darryl has been gone for a few months on a big tour so we’re really missing the stage. Looking forward to letting loose and laying down all of our original material.
I’ve started playing a little bluegrass with my friend Dave and we will hopefully be booking some gigs around Calgary in the near future. I haven’t played much bluegrass publicly yet except for here and there in my solo shows. But I can really feel my playing getting to a place where I’m going to be playing that style a lot more soon. It’s an exciting transitionary times and the pandemic had a lot to do with me moving this direction. I’m not grateful we all had to go through a pandemic but I’m grateful for the time I had to study and progress.
My long term goals with the whole bluegrass thing is to put together some type of string band that can back me up on my original material. When I’m playing “solo” it will be bluegrass instrumentation whether or not we are playing bluegrass songs. I guess you could call it “folk” then, but there will be some grass standards peppered in here and there for sure. Keep an eye out for the advertising. I’ll plaster it all over this site and also spread the news on socials when bookings do happen. The search starts today.
Anyways, I hope you’re all well. Just wanted to spill my thoughts for a few minutes. Hopefully I will see some of your familiar faces at the ROOKS show on Friday! I’ve heard its getting close to standing room only, so if you want a seat you should call the King Eddy and book your table!
-JB
