Still licking my wounds following a late night/early morning Juno’s after party thrown by the kind folks at Warner Music Canada.  Held at Bianca’s, normally a fine restaurant on Water Street in St. John’s. But for this event, the white tablecloths and good cutlery were put aside to make way for guitars, drums and speakers. 

After a few polite hellos and sips, I appointed myself emcee for the evening and started a parade of jams that went well into the daylight.  Highlights included, some Andrews Sister-esque singing by the Good Lovelys, Lenny Gallant and Ron Hynes proving to all hands that Atlantic Canada has the best songwriters, and the return of Brothers in Stereo. 

Sean managed to coerce the Billy Talent boys to come up for a jam of a few tunes including a Police number in which I pretended to know the chords and Ian from BT ripped a solo like he wrote the shagging song.  All the while, Magoo and BT’s Ben held the battle of the male sopranos.  The BT boys rocked and later confessed that in their 15+ years history, they had never really jumped up and jammed with other bands. 

My personal thrill was getting to sit in for Greg Keelor with a makeshift Blue Rodeo.  Jim Cuddy, Basil Donavan, Glen Miltchem from the real band made up the core of the experience while myself and Chris Ledrew from Brothers in Stereo tried to look like cool and act as if this moment was not the f*&king coolest of our musical lives.

The daylight was creeping into the restaurant as the last tunes were sung. I jumped a cab home and got to bed around 5:30 am.  The Prince woke up at 6:55.  Ouch.  Pancakes were made.  Very quietly.

Despite the rain, drizzle, fog, volcanic ash, floods, locusts, and other Biblical Plagues cast over St. John’s last weekend, I think the Juno’s were a massive success.  The numbers support my suspicion as this year’s event had the highest ratings in years. 

Thank you Juno’s.  Please come again.

The unpronounceable volcano from Iceland has arsed up many schedules and plans around the globe.  Even Hollywood is not immune to Ash Clouds.  The much anticipated press event for the film Robin Hood to be held in the Mother Country in London, Nottingham and a few other places has been relocated outside the no fly zones of the UK.

As I type, I am bound for Los Angeles where I’m to meet up with the rest of the cast and prep for a press blitz over the weekend.  Really looking forward to seeing some of the cast and crew again.  They were such a big part of my 2009 and I have not seen many of them since I walked off the set and on to a plane last August.  Not sure what lies ahead as I have never before done a Hollywood Blockbuster press junket.  I do know that the publicity machine is in full swing and more clips and photos have been released to the public.

Here’s a cool poster I found on the film’s website, www.robinhoodthemovie.com:

Friggin’ cool.

Here’s an individual shot of Allan A’Dayle.

Exciting times. 

Much approaching in GBS land as well.  I join the lads in Nashville on Wednesday and we do a few dates on the East Coast.  Looking forward to the gents on the bus.
And, I’m very happy to announce that the new CD Safe upon the Shore is mastered and in production.  Release date is set for early July.  Keep checking here or on the homepage for the exact date.  Shortly after that you’ll see the full fall touring schedule in support of the new cd.

Also looks like a few of us might get to fulfill a life long tourism craving and get to visit some of the remote communities in our Province.  Me and Sean hope to join some of the Distance Education folks at Memorial University who teach music online to kids and classes in tiny isolated schools in Newfoundland and Labrador.  We hope to visit four communities in the last week of the school year and bring some traditional and not so traditional music workshops to the kids.  Keep you posted on that as well.

I’m flying in to LA for the second time in as many weeks to further this flirtation with Hollywood.  People are gonna talk.

Hope to make the most of these days and nights.

Grand times for this lucky bastard.

Cheers,
Alan