the white Prince and the Land of JLS

Some of my ideas are good... others could use some more thought.

Interestingly on the morning of this supper show (november 21 2007), i received what one might call a "setback email" at around 6:15 am... which is unfortunately the time i had to get up to go to work as a pizza, drugstore and school advertisement flyer boy... i mean mailman. Word to the wise would be to always take your time to digest things because what you think might happen may in fact not happen at all.

About an hour before the show i had a good idea of who was going to be there and there was a chance that some of them were going to be on time, but then at home we had a baby malfunction and he twins needed a nap so as CT put one down i held the other while Kaiya entertained. That setback put me a few minutes behind and i thought i would take the bus to the sky-train to save some time. There was a lunatic in the bushes yelling at something and two women talking about why the bus is so late... i began to waffle about trying to walk towards the sky-train but then surly the bus would come right. In the end it was me who was late as i walked into the club to see JLS lounging with everything ready.

The good news was we had 2 ace drummers in the house and 2 sound-men one of them being an expert bass player. All we needed was for someone to think ahead and have a bass guitar... this is where one of my good ideas came through... you see as part of my deal for doing the supper show the club has given me a fair sized titanium locker with a galvanized thompson bank lock that is big enough for a few things like a Bass guitar i call "the white prince". The white prince was my original ROADBED bass that constantly turned heads with it's booming tone and full fret-board. Now all i had to do was put on my white gloves, work the combination, submit to an eye-scan, get the bass to JLS and presto we were ready to rock.

21 tandem Repeats opened the show and with Simian Special on drums we hit some songs from the Supersimian disk "how the tiger got lionized" to get going. We also hit "dishpig" (that saw a total WB guitar clinic), "4 feathers", "sun rises" and then called up Deborah to sing "Blue skies" from our cd "never wanted to be anyone" which went very well if i don't say so myself. Then i left the stage drummers changed (Shawn Killaly for Simian Special) and The Land of Deborah played a wonderful set of original music with shawn, Willingdon Black and JLS. Powered by her strong voice she stayed on guitar and played some LOD hits including one called "Optimistic Death Song" one she wrote for a movie a while back. She plays the Railway on November 29 if you are looking for something to do... nudge nudge. A few audience member came up to me during her set to ask who she is and "is she from here", which i always take as a good sign for various reasons.

At the conclusion of the land of Deborah set we did a version of Mr. Greenie with Shawn Killaly on the drums and JLS leading the band on a song he played once before... which of course is why we had to do it.

November 14th re-cap

Ween played this night in town with their show starting at 8pm... some sceensters were warming up at the Railway. There was also a Canucks game, so i pity any fool that drove downtown on this night. Come to think of it i got a ride down with one of those fools... i even got let off at the front door while Parker went to rustle with the parking dilemma... Never Mind.

Don Alder was up first and he gave a packed house a guitar clinic with some fine warp speed finger-picking. there was also a song called , i believe "the Wall" or "wall" that was written on the great wall of China some time ago. Don also played a harp guitar, which put my faith back in "double guitars" that i lost a long time ago during my time in the band Knockin' dog.


21 Tandem Repeats followed with a fine set that included "Blue skies", "wishing Machine", "Saskatchewan" (nothing to do with football), "bay city Kitty" (with Simian Special on Vox) and a version of the Key of 5 that ended up Robertson preaching about the Devil and the Holy Ghost in the vain of some movie i saw years ago about a preacher who is on the run from the law because he killed somebody with a baseball bat... you probably know the movie... i did a search but you know... i can't spend what time i have left in the day looking for a clip on you tube that i was going to embed.

The Canucks went into a shootout and lost to Edmonton... it was good to watch some hockey with the boys.

bloggerson strikes again... Nov 7 re-cap

I opened the show by playing a few new numbers "Robertson's dream orchard", about a fantasy of mine to move to the country and run an apple orchard, and "the littles", another snapshot of life with a nod to the two newest Robertson's in the spirit of "Blue skies"... a song from the disk "Never Wanted to Be Anyone". That was a bit scary, which i guess proves it was a worthy exercise. When you are finger-picking and you sing the wrong line and you back off there is nothing there. I think i did OK. My hosting was decent as well for like the first time ever... I found 10 weird english laws to read in the transition from me to the next act..

Next up Genny Trigo put on an absolute clinic. So much so that a well known music critic flagged me down with crazy eyes and said "WHO IS THIS... SHE IS AMAZING... WHERE DID YOU FIND HER!!!". I tried to play it cool "She is a scientist i know through my wife... yea we have made some changes" and then i caught myself and shut the fuck up.

Genny plays music like music should be played. Singing in spanish she covered some classic songs of revolution... i couldn't understand what the words meant but it didn't matter.. i was fulfilled.

After Genny's set a packed house had full attention to the stage... as 21tr set up i gave out some Super Robertson Supper Show buttons to those who could answer some Bird Trivia correctly. One of the good things about being me is that i have these bizarre banks of information in my head... I never would have thought when i was in grade school that my obsession with ornithology would come in handy as a 37 year old hosting a free show in a bar in Vancouver (that would be the Railway Club every wednesday from 7:30-8:30).

21 tandem Repeats started out with a mellow version of "Mr. Greenie"... my subtle comedy in that one was the standing wall push-ups... you either get that or you don't. Let's move on.

Fine improv moment was when... in a prelude to "Fragile Day" i explained why Tiny Marsh is called Tiny Marsh in an effort to lure a certain "lyric forgetting delinquent" to the stage and then we made up a song about the marsh hawk and people were digging it.

By around 8:30 we were in the breakdown of the song Wastelands, so i did what any normal person would do and stood on my head, thanked people for coming, barked out the names of those involved and my main man Walkinshaw pulled the curtain. Done.

It was Halloween

Me, being a man with many children, well, i was out trick or treating with my young daughter. And for the record i did not pick my kid up and run her from door to door in an effort to get more candy... my wife was strongly against that and even went so far as to disrupt our training run the day before.

As it turned out 3 year olds want to go home after a few blocks so it turned out i was at home at 7:45... just in time for a mad dash down to the supper show in my best fangs and formal attire. I brought a few of the supper show regulars down with me as my house seemed to be the hotspot. So of course i was delighted to finally be able to go and see a supper show... what a great idea. i got over the mild regret that i didn't change Super Robertson to Spooker Robertson on the chalkboard and walked up into the club... but no music on the way in... how can this be?

Rather a beautiful woman with an erotic puppet dressed as a scientist... i believe she was giving a lecture on the erotic art of puppet-erring. All good in my books... I am a big fan of lectures.

Unfortunately i missed D. Trevlon who had Simian Special (the man) sit in on drums. When it comes to music D Trevlon is a winner... you can never go wrong.

Then it was Simian Special the band, Sim's latest and greatest working project. A fine trio that gets the most out of minimalism powered by Sim's golden voice, melodic bass and the rock steady guitar work of a stella drinking man named Marty. I noticed that the Mule had a Simian Special demo in his mitt.

In the end i left feeling honored that 2 great musical acts came and played a stage that had my name on it.

Speaking of that.. i had this idea. Bring out the old sony reel to reel 4 track to the supper show... record the shows and call it the "I got 4 tracks supper show" 2 mic's on the band 1 on the room and one on a "theme" table... a clapping table

ideas like that always hit a snag once you write them down