SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to How's Your Stool, the show where we pull up a stool and find out if things are really going. Not just the gig, not just the music, but what's happening when the app lights get turned off. Because if you ask a musician how they're doing, you'll want to answer the detective stool might get the truth. I'm your host, Dave Randall, and today I'm sitting down with the scholarly Dr. Blair Mackay. Let's get a school sample. Hey everybody, it's Dave here, and I'm sitting down with Dr. Blair Mackay. I've never called him Dr. Blair Mackay, but uh, in prepping for having him in here today, I I did uh a bit of a review of his his life and stuff, but you don't want to hear me tell it to you. Um so introducing Blair Mackay, Mackay, Mackay Mackay? Mackay. Mackay, good. Um welcome and thank you for coming out. I know you are in the home stretch of of launching uh Hudson Music Festival this week. That's right. And uh I can't imagine uh w what that's like. So I uh extra appreciate you making the time to come and sit down here. But Hudson Music Festival we're gonna get to. And uh as I mentioned before, I'd just like to know a little bit more about you, like where you're from, and um and and we'll just move into your progression into music as a as a well in your case, a significant part of your life and uh and your career, really. Pretty much all my life. Well, yeah, we're gonna focus on transitions a lot, I think, and and the you know, why you made those transition choices that you made throughout your life. But let's go back to um where you were born and uh and how how you started out.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, I was born in Quebec City, which is pretty good for an Anglophone Quebec. I always like to tout that one. Um but um my parents were born at Trois Viernes, so they were anglophone bilingual anglophones. Uh uh and I ended up in Ottawa for a few years, but I moved to Hudson when I was five or six.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Oh really? Okay, so you're long timer here.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah. So but I but I was in Hudson until 18, 19, somewhere in there. And then I moved to Toronto after that. So but in Hudson was great. Um great place to grow up, you know. It's easy, like freedom, lots of flex lots of stuff. And our basement was was pretty quickly sort of jam central, you know. So we had a lot of music there all the time, you know. Um and I was in a high school band when Hudson. I mean, I wanted to play drums right away, like when I was 12, 10, 10, maybe. And what what inspired you to was it contemporary music or was it Oh uh you're 10 years old, nothing inspired me. Just so I like to hit things and make sounds, you know? So and and put stuff together. You know, my my dad bought me a bongo, some bongos, and a book to tell me how to play them, which is cool. So I went, oh. So you have to fingers here, finger. So I said, Oh, that's kind of cool. So you can get some nice sounds. So we sit around the campfire and sing tunes and play bongos, you know. And my brother, one of my older brothers played guitar, so he would do some stuff and uh like folky kind of stuff, you know. And and that was great. And then I got a drum set with myself and my other brother together. We were close a year apart, you know. So and then so that was maybe I was eleven or something, we got that.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So you were playing folky stuff with your brother or whatever, whatever you know, whatever he's gonna sing and play, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, crochet, whatever, you know. So but and now you got some bongo, so you figure out how to play him, right? So then I got a little snare drum. My parents gave bought me a snare drum. Uh huh. I don't know why, but they did. It was uh I I I wish I had it now. It's it's an old wooden pigskin crazy thing that that that was funny. Um I didn't really know what to make of it. I think well, this is interesting. So, but then uh then we got a little drum set, not a good one, but a little one. Uh Stuart thing. It wasn't great, but um a good starter set, you know. Um which I later sold to Andy Farnum of all people. Actually left us not too long ago. Um anyway, that's just an aside. Um yeah, so so then I just got into that. So I started band in high school, grade eight, seven or eight, might have been seven, eight, maybe. And I just I said I was gonna play drums, so I played drums. It was great. That's all I that's all I did. Drums percussion. So uh well, there wasn't any choice. I just wanted to do it. I think by the time I was twelve, I said this sounds like something I it feels like something I want to do. So uh that's what I did.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

That's uh and but what were you playing on the drums? What was your what kind of music? Were you listening to the radio? Was it contemporary? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Well, I quickly, I mean, you know, I was 12, 11, 12, like Black Sabbath, you know? Okay. I had all four of their records. Great records to play along. A drummer is actually Bill Ward's pretty good drummer. I didn't think about that at the time, but so I played along with that stuff, you know. And we didn't have headphones and CDs and and YouTube and stuff. It was basically crank up your your fairly lame record player and play along with it. And then when you wanted to stop, you had to pick the thing up and put it back where it was. So it's you know, whatever. It was pretty labor intensive and you know, not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fun to to figure it out. So that's I you know, and and but you know, I can say that Black Sabbath quickly moved to uh Weather Report and Miles Davis and and fusion jazz really strictly jazz very much by the time I was 14 I was into jazz uh pretty heavily.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

On your own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

You just discovered these this and like King Well I went to the also progressive rock, so Black Sabbath went to like Genesis and King Crimson, Gentle Giant, all that stuff. So that's complex complex kind of music, you know. So I was very motivated by that. Um and also, I mean, by the same token, I was, you know, I had a sister who was six years older, so I was into, you know, like there's a big hoopla these days about uh mad dogs and in all the records. I mean I had that as a kid, I burnt it, I loved it. Yeah, great record. So that kind of drumming, you know, those days of and I didn't analyze who it was, although when I look at who it was now, I said, no wonder I liked it. It was great, great players. And and um, you know, and folk stuff, you know, James Taylor, my sister bought me a blind faith record, you know. So like I was I was had a lot of nice Janice Joplin played a lot of that. In my first band, I was 13. I was playing and singing Janice Joplin, that which must have sounded just awful. Um but it was well it was fun, yeah, exactly. I I was the only one who had the had the was was tenacious and stupid enough to say, I'll do it. Um the the uh so we did that, you know, that was fun. So I was always kind of looking looking at stuff. Then we had a I had bands, you know, since I was a kid, and and we had and then and that grew up in the Montreal scene, and we started playing clubs eventually, you know, uh at the high schools. Where were you playing playing at that time? Well we played we started playing high schools. There was um a disc jockey guy, Live Earl Jai, if he was at Showman. Remember that name, yeah. And so he he lived in Hudson, actually, on a tree farm. So so we'd go to his place, we'd rehearse there, uh, and and we I would start to do jingles with him. I did a couple jingles with him, which was great for for Shoam. I was what 17 at the time doing that. So so um, but having said that, like drumming through high school, the teacher we had, Ted West, we had a great program. We went down to Berkeley uh every year. So I had some great workshops early on, you know, from uh uh Dawson.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Is that Berkeley College of Music? Yeah, down in Boston.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

And some great, great stuff early on. And also he brought um uh Don Ellis to the to the high school. You know, so I I I did some research afterwards, and I I I uh by default there was a r uh Ralph uh uh who's the guy like um uh what's his name now? Uh great drummer played with Zappa after that for a long time. Um and and he was the guy. And they were talking, they were talking, I was like 14, they were talking to us about autotype and signatures and how to deal with these things and and and how to count them and how to feel them. And this was great. I was totally right up my alley. I was I love that idea of of complexity of music and and and it's not the straight ahead. I mean, for me, I was uh drawn to that originally a lot. Um so and these uh and also the impro improvising part of it, I was drawn to a lot. We used to have a lot of major jams, you know, we just hang out and play play like Mahavishnu licks, you know, and then we just try to play them for as long as we could without screwing up, basically, but but we and we'd improvise and try to do stuff. So it's nice, and while you're doing that, you're understanding the you're calculating everything that's going on and what does nine, eight really mean, and what does 13 really mean, and and how can you manipulate it in different ways so that it becomes m musical and that you can actually count it and feel it. So these were great. You're 17 at this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great. So we were doing all that stuff. We were sometimes pretty, you know, I I'll say how we we were helping ourselves in in ways that helped us enjoy the music more. But what we also did a lot of it, we recorded a lot of it. Right. So then we would record this stuff, just you know, completely, you know, blatant and crazy jams, you know, that were uh and then we listened to it. You know, we'd have a party and kid and we listened to it. So you you could hear, well, that that's no good. Don't ever do that again. Well, that was really good. That was cool. I remember like that's interesting. So you start to you start to define what sounds good and what doesn't sound good, and and working with your playing. So that's I found that was kind of intuitive in a sense. We didn't analyze it specifically, but it was very clear that, ooh, that sucks, ooh, that's good. You know, so then you go, more of good, less of the sucks. So it's pretty basic stuff, you know. Well, it's not but you just mentioned a 9-8 signature time.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So I mean that's not basic. Where did you get that?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Well, it's high school, like I learned how to do that in high school counting with the with the Don Ellis looking those stuff. And I was just and also listening to Gentle Giant and how do you count that? What is it? You know, you know, in my way to you. And so all these like different shifts and moves and changes and stuff. So you I learned how to count that really young.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Were you particularly strong in math?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, pretty good. I skipped skipped the grade, actually. Okay, because I was good in math.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

It sounds very mathematical.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

It is very clear. It's like, but you but it's great, and you have to make it feel good, is the critical part. You know, so I was always I mean, I I wasn't always good at it, but I I worked, I liked it. I liked that part of it, the kind of complexity of line of that way and and structure. So I was drawn to that. So, so uh, you know, that and which helped me out in my entirety of my career.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

How's helped me out in that? Uh so it's been a useful. I mean, I didn't choose to be like I just I was drawn to those things. Yeah, yeah. Because I found it interesting, you know. Uh the other thing about, you know, owning a King Crimson record, when I wanted to clear out a party in my house, I knew how to do that. Stylist and Bible Black will get rid of a lot of people. Not me, but but it would be, you know, you know, it's great. I later saw King Crimson 1980 Elma Combo. First record of the new draft with with Adrian Bellou and Elma Combo, like 300 people sitting there, and it was great. And they they ran out of tunes because they only had one record of this new stuff, right? So they played red as an encore, and that and then I got it. It was like intellectual heavy metal. And it was like going, wow, this is cool. And I just went, and in Mel McCombo, it's a small room. And it was like, this is very cool. Uh and it sort of reaffirmed why I liked it to begin with, you know. It was like rock, but you had to think about it. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you have to think about playing uh whatever you're playing. You have to think about playing AC DC, it doesn't matter. You must still you gotta get the right thing to it. Uh, but but here you have to think about it uh on other levels as well. Sort of like rhythmic placement and and how it's shifting and and you know, bigger picture of stuff, maybe. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Well, progressive rock, you have to pre like a highly honed sense of arrangement and and working with the other musicians because it's a lot of moving parts and they're not all playing in 4-4 and one follow-up and one-four-five.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, for sure. For sure. And when I got later in life, when I got into playing contemporary music uh and classical music, it was uh, you know, uh a great um skill to have started early in life because it paid off. Because that's what it's about. All that's there's a lot of complexity to deal with, you know. You're playing contemporary music, it's could be anything, you know. So you were playing with bands like uh local and yeah, Meilange had a good band, Meilange for a while with uh Francine Raymond and then and had a great piano player for a while, but uh worked a lot with Juno Santos, who's went on to work with Hermeto Pascal for decades. He's now in Seattle, but um he was a great f Brazilian piano player, so he taught me a lot as a teenager about how to play sambas and where did you meet these people? Like they're not from Hudson. You know, he they lived in St. Anne's and he was going to the he was going to university at the agricultural part of McGill, you know. And and he we had a band and we needed a piano player, and he I you know uh these things just happen. Yeah, there's no there's no rhyme or reason to it. He didn't have a plan. Yeah, you know, it's just like so. He was great though. He was fantastic. And he took our demo, we did a big demo, and he took it down to her when he finished his degree, took it down to Hermeto Pascual in Brazil. And Hermeto said, I I can't help the band, but I need a piano player. So he got the gig without so it's great. But later I went to see her uh in Toronto, went to see her. They were on tour a couple of times. Every time I go to see Hermeto Pascual, I would walk, they'd love they they remembered me. Oh blair, but that was great, it was a lot of fun because it was the demo of the you know the tunes that that brought Javino to them, you know. So that was a lot of that was cool. Um yeah, so I mean I'm sort of skipping a whole lot of years there, but uh well, I mean it But with Mailange we did. So we did, we did I was working in like and then I I was working, we'd be like Crescent Street pubs and stuff, you know, the usual stuff. Um there's another one in Maison Euvreve, I can't I can't remember what it was. So I was working with other players like Andre White and stuff and jazz sort of stuff, but pop, you know, we were just ja playing tunes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Did you know the Gossage Brothers?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah, not well, but I didn't know them. Yeah, yeah. I didn't hang with them really at all. But but uh we sort of we've always been on a a little bit peripheral, but never I never I don't think I've ever had it. I've had a conversation with bass player fiddle guy once because he was played at our festival. That's when I went, oh yeah, yeah. But but um but no, not really. You know, I mean I left 1819. I left. I was doing a lot of gigs in Montreal, and I just went to Toronto. People were going, and I said, I'm gonna go. And and part of that is to test your metal. Sure. So, I mean, I went to Marionapolis College because everybody was going to Vanier, and I said, Well, the hell with that. I want to go where nobody knows me, and I want to know if I'm any good.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Marionapolis had a music program. Oh, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Great player, great, great guy. So it was nice. And I knew nobody going there, which is what I wanted. I wanted to know I wanted to see like just be me, you know, and how good was that. And I failed at some stuff and excelled at other stuff and went, oh, I thought I was good at this. Well, I kinda know. I gotta get my act together. So so so it tells you that you need it tells you really clearly what you need to get together. Enough, at any rate. So that was great. So that was really great. I did that just for a year, you know. Uh um, and um you studied jazz or what was yours? Well, you said the code. I changed I played in a jazz on combo and ended up with six McGill credits um when I was 17, you know, it was great. And then um uh yeah, so but then classical, you know, playing classical stuff, you know, it's like whatever, you're learning percussion repertoire, you know. Sure. That's a classical percussionist. So I'm quite trained at that, actually, a lot trained at that, and studied a lot of jazz drumming and just multi-world music, the different African drumming, still a lot of that, Indonesian drumming, a lot of that. Um South American drumming by default, more than specific, but because you need to learn all these things. I've learned a lot of that. Um yeah, so so that so then I just went to Toronto and and I played in a couple bands and I hustled the you know, you're 20, 19, you know, what you're trying to you're trying to plug, you know, write some tunes and you're 20, and this is like late 70s, early 80s. Yeah, 79. 79, I was 20, right? So so you're trying to, you know, be in a band and write tunes and get a record. I mean, you're doing it what everybody does, right? So so I was doing that, and I I also realized I quit because I needed to I wanted to practice drum set more even. So you know there's a 10,000 hour thing, you know, that you need to do to be up be to be any good, you know. And so I was uh determined to do my 10,000 hours in a more diligent fashion. Um which I did do. I mean, I worked so I got into we were in a created a situation where I had a band in Toronto where where we were playing, I mean, uh seven nights a week forty-eight weeks of the year. Yeah. And then and mostly around Toronto, and then I had a studio and a percussion store in the basement where I were practiced three hours a day, five days a week. So I just played all the time. And even on the road, I would we we would play, you know, Southern Ontario bars and stuff, you know, did that a lot of that for a few years. And then and so I would bring a practice pack kit and practice in the day and and and just uh just always trying to figure the stuff out. Um and took some lessons to figure out how to practice. I mean, I know how to practice to a degree, I always practice as a kid, but but but you know, you to sort of be more concerted in how you how you uh think about what you need to learn and how you learn it and and don't waste your time doing a bunch of other things that you don't need to do to learn stuff. So sort of make the make the make your make your education concise and clear that so you figure out things you need to know.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

So when you when you were going through this this period rehearsing, getting your $10,000, were you focused strictly on uh playing drums?

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, that was drum set. So yeah, yeah, exactly. So that yeah, I mean I did own a Marimba at home. I did I played that a bit at home, but but I had bought one, actually, it's like a member. It was kind of a weird thing to do, but I bought it. But you know, uh yeah, with that was like I realized I quit percussion for a while because I needed to focus to get to just even more intuitive, make even more intuitive the drum set part of my body. I've been playing it since I was a kid, but I need I just wanted to put even more hours into to doing that. So so that was great. And and I we were making I was making a good living, we were touring and traveling, but you know, then it became we didn't get the record deals we thought, usual stuff, you know, usual renamil stuff. So you know, and the whole circuit became tiresome. Uh and bars I I grew tired of, so I stopped doing that and and went back to my uh studied classical roots, uh, which was the best thing I could have ever done. You know, I remember sitting in a bar in pretty sure it was Lethbridge, Alberta. And middle of the afternoon PBS was showing there was a contemporary music ensemble from New York City playing. It was scary, I said, I gotta go back and do that. So within a within a year and a half I was doing that. So it's just I needed to change stuff. I needed to I needed to not be this the drummer. Like I knew a lot of drummers who were doing some great gigs and they come back, I mean they did the same bar gigs everybody does. So back back and back and forth, back and forth. I said, Well, you know I needed to I needed to um uh diversify, you know, really, and then uh and be be more uh be more artistically satisfied with stuff, or even monetarily satisfied as well, would be one thing. But I wasn't really thinking about the money part of it then. It was more like survival of how am I gonna keep like for me being a musician was making a living being a musician. It wasn't a there was no compromise on that issue. So if I'm gonna do it, I need to do that, nothing else. So that was pretty clear to me. So I had to say, well, how am I gonna do that? So so I went back to univers and it was fantastic. I mean, I studied with in at UFT with the guys from Nexus Percussion that is like world uh heavy, heavy, major, major guys. Ironically enough, Maylange played in a festival with them in yeah, just outside of Cornwall in 78, you know, and they were playing with Paul Horn, free jazz kind of wacky stuff. So there was a you know, I love the like there are sort of the X there are there are those circles in life that happen that are, you know, not so there is a reason to the rhyme at times. Right. Um or or at least it looks like it. Retrospect. Yeah, it feels like well, look at that. That's kind of cool. You know, so so so uh and I got there at the I was fantastic. I mean, within a year I was with playing, you know, with the opera with Tron symphony with doing contemporary music stuff. And I remember sitting down playing with a six big incredible musicians who were playing this percussion piece that was crazy. And I just started doing this stuff. And I'm I'm realizing that my days with listening to Gentle Giant were paying off because I had to count all this stuff. You know, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, one, two, three, bucket, you know, you you gotta figure this stuff out, you know? And how do you play five over four? How do you play eleven over eight? You know, how do you w how do you do that? You know, uh that's it's a lot of math, but it's also a lot of intuitive feeling as well. You have to you have to figure you have to feel it, but you gotta figure it out. Um so so that was fantastic. For me, it all kind of fit together. So so I became I became the instead of trying to pursue my band, yeah, to try to make a become a record deal and do that do that thing, which is a good thing to do. Um I just became kind of like the hired gun.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So I was I wanted to be so I diversified, learned a lot of stuff, and and had a good time playing a lot of for you know for many years, a lot of jingles. I um a lot of movie soundtracks, a ton of those, and and then and then a lot of theater, wax of theater music. Uh Toronto Symphony for dec for a couple of decades for a few, I guess about 10 or 15 years I played a lot with them. Opera I kept using stuff for the opera, and then contemporary opera, like m like when I say contemporary, it's very abstract. Very technically, I mean it's you know, it's yeah, it's not for the tame of the art, you know. No, it's for um but I love doing that. I mean, I recently just did it. I just did this January uh four big shows, well, with two weeks of of the contemporary music opera by Anna Sokolova for the opera de Montréal, you know? Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Massive show. That that stuff I love to do. It's great. I mean, it it's complicated, but but but you know, I studied how to do that stuff. I mean a lot. I mean a doctorate in it, you know, like the interpretation of music, how you interpret it, what do you do, how do you there's a lot of uh I mean you don't want to get too dogmatic about it uh because there's a certain amount of intuition involved, of course. But but but learning how to to be free enough to to e express yourself within the confines of very restricted things um is um you know basic we I guess that what that boils down to is play you all the time, and then you'll you'll sound like you all the time. Um but make sure you play you all the time.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Is there room in symphonic performance to express yourself?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Uh uh, I mean, you know, it's different kind of but you know, no, yeah, you know, equally as so, you know, if you're trying to cover uh some tune, I I mean I don't really do that. I don't like doing that. Um I don't much like covering other people's music. I'd rather just put me to it, you know. But but I will. I mean, I did it for decades, you know. I mean decades. Early on in my I mean when I was playing bars, we learned so many songs I can't I can't even imagine. Like I we it was crazy how many songs you learned, how to play, you know. Just crazy. But that's how you learn how to play. Like, oh, that what's that? Oh, you figure it out. Oh, what's that? Oh, how do you figure it out? What's that? I mean, hundreds of songs, hundreds, and all by memory, which I not so good at anymore, but but uh but hundreds of them, you know. So uh I kind of got tired of that. So then I moved into a reading school. I mean, once I hit 20 late mid mid late 20s, you know, I just read everything.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Well you didn't just slide into this. You you uh you you got yourself schooled uh for four like eight you did your uh eight, you did your bachelor's at U of T. Yeah. And in 1988, you were 29. I'm with my master's, my master's by 29. You yeah, you did your master's the next year uh at at U of T. Yeah. And uh then uh you did a teaching degree.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

I did one year, took it was great.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, that's well, yeah. Having a master's to do a bachelor's, uh you just had to do the core courses, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah, that's it. It was great. It was great. Yeah. And that's been a great that was a great, you know. I'm not a I'm not necessarily an advocate of having something to fall back on, but that was sort of in my head. Sure. Yeah, you know, like for a simple thing. It was a tough year because I was touring a lot that year. I tour with the Toronto Symphony, we were down in, uh it was lovely to play Carnegie Hall. I'd like to save Shostakovich's second symphony, maybe, or fourth, I can't remember which one. So so we it was great. I mean, this is heavy, you know, it's heavy stuff. And then I went to Europe, I was in Bel Belgium again with a gamelon group that that we had, and and also out west. So I was touring a lot that year, but I still did the degree at the same time. And they it was I I I pushed the boundaries of their kindness. But they followed through with it. I mean, I I I I I made amends and fixed up a few things, but it was great to do. And I and I had a I I had a teaching degree, I've done a teaching jobs because of that. Right. Um, teaching music, and that was fun, not for very long, but I do do it. But it's nice to be qualified to do it. So you don't have to, there's no question. What do you got? Yeah, I got this. Great. Where would you like to work? As opposed to, well, we're not sure. What have you done? What are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Does your teaching degree apply here in Quebec? Yeah, it does. It does. You just need a certificate.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Well, you know, I mean, if I really wanted to explore it on a on a grander personal level, a grander permanent level, which I mean at 67 I'm not interested in doing that, really. Um uh you need the brevet. You know, I'm not they don't they don't need me to get the brevet, but if I wanted to make slightly more money, maybe you'd get you could do it. I went, well, I don't I don't see the pro I don't see the point. I haven't seen the point. It doesn't affect me. I mean, you know, I'm kind of retired. Essentially I'm semi-retired, you know, but I like to work, but I don't I don't do well, you know. You work for you. Kind of, yeah. You know, you know, it's like i it it's not black and white like that, you know, but but that's kind of the idea. I mean I mean I I mean you I you have to understand when I worked from 19 to when I went back to university at 25 or 24, 25, every day. Like we were working all the time. Toronto was great. You do a bargain, it was six nights, seven nights, you know? And it was great. Uh it was a lot of fun. Um that started to dwindle, so it became more work. I mean, ah, this is kind of you know, you're doing three nights and a night here, and a lot of one-nighters, and uh, it's just a lot of a lot of work. Um and um so I went back to the university, did another 10,000 hours really because of practicing mallets and the keyboard stuff, and like, you know, and and just developing a sensibility about playing in a in a more classical manner, uh, and also studying from Russ Hardenberger was like mind-blowing. Um just a fantastic guy, he's we became a good friend and a mentor, and and and uh the whole group of those guys, those of five people that were in Nexus, they I a lot of them I worked with throughout many years and developed repertoire and and uh premiered pieces of theirs. And it was it was a huge connection for me. Um so so I so once I started that, I mean I was playing every day and working and practicing, and and once that I mean I just kept doing that, and then I started doing theater shows at the same time. So that's like eight shows a week when you do when you get those gigs. Uh so that's a lot of work. And then you're doing other gigs in between, you're doing sessions in the day, you go and do show. So like for for many, many, many years, I'm playing there are exceptions, there are days and weeks where it's slower, but but essentially you're playing every day and every night. Yeah. Nonstop.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

And and and well, I I know that you you did like some Broadway show stuff. A lot of them, yeah. And that must require a lot of rehearsal, like because you're not only just you and the orchestra, but you have performers on stage who you're Well, they don't rehearse we don't rehearse when they're doing that.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

There's a piano player, they do it. Oh, I see. I think. Yeah, I mean you do, yes, there are times when you do it weather, but the bulk no. Yeah. I mean I mean it depends. Like if if I know the show and a touring company comes in, you get an afternoon. That's it. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You can figure it out and do the gig. Because you should know it by then. You know it. If you've done it before, it's not a big deal. Yeah. I mean, one time years ago, they I did Les Miserables like in 1990 and and then I later on in '98, there was a touring company, so they wanted me to come and do that. But they asked me to go down to Minneapolis and audit the show. It was just awful. I went, oh come on, really? Do I do I have to see this again? Uh so they I did it. You know, they paid me to go down. It was great. It was fun. Uh, but I don't think I ever watched the entire show. I had to leave before the end. I said, I gotta go, man. I can't do it. So I wanted to explore Minneapolis, you know, like the the home of Prince, you know. So I wanted to go, I went to the I went to the same whole area and and sussed out the bars and places some blues bands. So this is what I want to go to do. So but I have to see the and then they made me play one show, which was great. I said, I didn't have an issue with that. It's great, no problem. They said, This would be great, you love it. So I was uh clearly past the audition. So so so then we did the show for I think it was three months in Toronto at that point, maybe I can't remember exactly. But that was a lot of fun. I mean, but that was where they made me do to but that was a bit of a longer ordeal. But when we got there, you know, a couple run throughs and you're you're on the gig, you know. A lot of shows are like that. When I used to do Pop's concerts for the Toronto Symphony, you know, playing drum set, you get a day. You get one rehearsal, maybe two in a day, running through all the repertoire which you won't get through. And then you have three shows. So there'll be some stuff you're sight reading. And when you're the only drummer, because there's only one drummer, it's pretty strong. Um, it's a lot of fun. And then the and the section behind you, these are like the great Toronto players, you know? Palabarberber, you know, Wheel Bath. So these are the your section is that. You're like, I gotta you need to pull your socks up. So that was a lot of fun. Those are hysterically fun, pressure laden, but but you don't you know, you don't really think about that. You just you're there to just make it work, you know. And but your antennas are huge because you got you're reading, you gotta you have to interpret and be around with a lot of stuff. And playing with an orchestra is is not everybody's skill set. It's not easy to do as a drummer. You have to really have to be very careful. Talk about staying in the pocket. And finding it. Yeah. You have to find it if you can't. I mean, uh, you know, I I'm I'm whatever. I mean, because it's uh I love the because you have to be very you have to be willing to move around. And a lot of drummers aren't. Yeah. They say, boom, this is it. Yeah. Right? Well, if you do that, you're gone in the in the first two beats, you're dead. You're dead in the water. You won't do it. So you have to sort of collect everybody, and then once you've collected them, you're there. Okay. That takes a while. So you gotta listen. But I mean, I played a lot of symphonic stuff, you know. So the classical music I know, I know the how the orchestra works. So I I underst I understand how that is, you know. Playing percussion in an orchestra, you you learn to realize how how the system, how the how the whole I mean it's six six upwards of sixty people moving at once. It's not gonna be immediate, you know. Once they get rolling, they are great musicians. It's gonna be killer, you know. But it takes sometimes a little bit like up a hill kind of thing. And um, but it's you know, once you uh but they're they're so they're all so wonderful as musicians that it it's uh you just gotta hang in there with them. And you're all in kind of the same same boat. You're you're all you just want to make it work. Everyone wants to make it work, you know. Um so that was a lot of I those years, so so so going back to university was critical for me. Yeah. And and and and because of that, I was offered then a lot of jobs through the teachers at university. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, yeah. They gave they br they totally opened up the doors for me completely. It was great.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

You you focused on drums, like your two, your your undergrad and your masters were both in performance. Percussion. Percussion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Um not drum set? No, all percussion. I played drums with Phil Nimmons and big band stuff, which is great. Yeah. Um I always played it. I played in a proof the Tower of Power Band for a bunch of years there. One of the trumpet players, Rick Rochesco, played with the tower power for a couple years. So we did that. You know, I did stuff, you know, but not that much. You know, I really focused on the on the classical part of it and contemporary music mostly. I got doing that. Started doing that. And that was uh and it was great. I mean, I they gave me huge opportunities, uh, which you know, I mean it was lucky.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Right time, right place.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Right time. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

But you gotta back it up, but you know, but but having that right time, right place was good. I went there, I went actually, ironically enough, I went back at the right time. It was sort of a I don't know if you can call it a lull, but a a point where actually there weren't like ten killer percussionists playing.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Well, this is the next question I had for you. It's like you you must have been a rarity, like a I was a bit older, not much, but you know, four years, four or five years older than that.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah, it makes a big difference. Yeah. And and uh yeah, I think that well, I mean, uh yes, so it worked out nicely for me. I mean, I had my own space, I had my own sense of identity. Right. Um uh so it worked out, it was great, it was the best thing I could possibly have done. So um, and that then I I finished the master's and actually I it was it was heavy. I actually got them to skip one year. The fourth year of my undergrad, I made them make it I got them to make it a master's degree. So I petitioned basically to skip a year. Stressful, but but it worked out. Uh but I did a huge amount of recitals, you know, so lots of performing, you know, so lots of performing. So then and um yeah, so and then I just got into doing work.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

So I after that I just work so we're gonna we're gonna go into that cornucopia of work that you've done, but with regards to education, so uh yeah, 89 you graduated with your master's, you did an extra year to get your teaching degree, but then and then you went off and did like a whole ton of shit. Uh and then you went back in 2013 to McGill or University of Montreal to do your PhD. Why? I don't because it was there. I think it's fantastic, but but um you were already you had already achieved your your your stature in the industry. You were working. Um I and I just when I looked at the timeline and I don't know what was happening in 2013 that made you decide I'm gonna focus three years or two years really on the other thing. Three. It took three years.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Three years, yeah. Um yeah, but I mean I did a lot of other stuff in between that three years. Okay. I mean it but not a lot, actually. I mean I mean uh enough. I mean, I had just uh finished working with April Wine and I was doing a big show in Toronto. Oh that's right, it was after April Wine. Big show in Toronto, right after that. Yeah. For the summer, I was doing a show, a theater. I can't remember what it was gone, what the name of it was a lot of fun actually. Um so I did that show uh all summer in Toronto and then I started I I don't know, it was something I figured I had some time, you know. And it was a way for me to kind of um well continue uh my some of my passions about music. I had worked you know for since 1992. I'd been the artistic director of a group called Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelon. Yes. So I'd been in the group since '86. Again, another thing that came out of going back to U of T. I was this so so then uh in eighty and ninety two I started running the group, which was a big I didn't really want to do that. I mean, it was part of me didn't want to do it because when you run something, there's a lot of responsibility. Sure. I um so so I did that and we we we um and then I entered the world of well in the 80s I entered this a little bit, but entered the world of uh writing grants for Canada Council for the Arts, Toronto Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, um, so these bodies of government that will give you money to perform um contemporary music, not popular music. Right. Um and also to commission a lot of musicians, uh composers to write music for me and the group and other and I can you know so so and that whole system I played in a lot of groups who did that. I played with a Ray Music Ensemble, we did we they they had the same system, different kinds of musicians, but say uh espree orchestra for twenty some odd years. I did that, so big orchestra, contemporary music. So I was premiering new music all the time. Right. It's like since like since late 80s, premiering new music all the time. So so and I and a lot of it then I commissioned a lot of it, not all of it, but I commissioned a bunch, like upwards of a hundred composers. I've raised money for uh some of it a lot, you know, uh, to um write music for me to then play or us to play and then record if it's good and tour and do stuff with it. Um so that was a lot of fun. So I was doing all of those things, you know, starting in uh 92. But I mean we and and and then yeah, I mean that was that was that was the bulk of my life, you know. It was a big it's a big part, writing grants to create art, recordings. I have ten CDs with that group that I produced, co-produced, and produced and and generated, and and all the material we generated to perform. Um so it's that's a lot, a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

It is uh immense amount of work. I've worked on the um technical side of writing uh uh proposals for grants to to the government for technical software development and that that kind of stuff. So it's pages and pages of Yeah, I always say it's a lottery ticket with a thesis attached.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

So so so it's kind of like that. But you know, and you don't get, you get, you don't get, you get, but we are pretty good. And I I was in it, I would say there was a heyday uh that where the government was much more uh you know forthcoming with with funding in the um 90s and into the 2000s. Right. We had like we we did quite well. We toured, you know, even well, even you know, even as late as 2018 I raised money to bring the group to Munich for two weeks. So so, you know, uh and a big CD. Also at the same time of the 20 before the my going back to do my doctorate degree was we finished the string quartet gamel on CD, which is really an incredible recording. Um so that was, you know, the the those are the joy those are the complete joys of my life. I mean, these aren't things that you're you know, you can't make a living just doing that. But but these are like my life was always made up of many, many different aspects of things that I did in order to A, keep happy and um keep busy and and make enough money. I mean, I bought houses, raised families, and I just played music. Right. I wasn't into I wanted for me that was important, it's not important for everybody, but for me it was very important that I said, well, if I'm gonna be a prof for me, the operative word of professional is that that's what I do.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

It doesn't mean other people aren't great and whatever, but for me it's like, well, this is what I do. Yes. So hookah by crook, I'm gonna try and do it. Um I you know, uh it you know, whatever. I mean, that's just my mentality. Um there's no right or wrong about I I'm not saying I'm not I'm not I'm just saying that that's that was my approach. And it still is in a sense, but I mean I'm kind of re I I don't I don't look to perform to make my living anymore. Right. But I'm but I'm not really doing anything, you know, I I don't I mean I want to do I like I love performing and I and I'm I'm open for all kinds of stuff. Um yeah, I mean it just depends, you know, it's all relative to what it is, you know, what I what I'm how I'm gonna play, what what you know uh I have ideas about things. I might I might start playing some more later, but it's hard to say, you know. Um I think that I think that um yeah, so anyway, going back to the doctorate, this is what you asked this question. So why would I do that, right? So so I would do that because I I I was looking at at um hybridity in music. So so and it is actually a word. I wasn't sure decades ago. Is that is that actually a word? Can you say that? It is a word. So so but the the my my thesis was on on gamelon music, this is which is music from Indonesian instruments that we make contemporary music on.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Which I do want to go into as a master, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

So that was the idea of like when you take something from another culture and then you you make it hybrid, at what point does it, if possible, does it become authentic?

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

So this was my thesis. So and I don't know if I I don't know if I answered that question in the thesis, but I certainly raised it enough. And I spent 35 years, 40 years pursuing that understanding or pursuing whatever pursuing music in that way. I mean, you know, I can say in the 90s in Toronto, cutting edge world music, it was just starting to burgeon, you know. We played it, I played in a lot of ençons that were hybrid crazy, you know. A lot of Indian music, Portuguese music, Latin music, Cuban music, African music, all mixed with Western music and different instruments that you're mixing. With all kinds of different stuff was going on to try to find something unique and new, right? Which goes along the idea of new music for me is like, well, it's new, right? I mean, yes, you're working with old tools, you know, old har harmony is what it is, you know, rhythm is what it is. But but but but you arrange those in a certain way that it's new. I don't care if you're writing a simple pop tune to make a great one, everybody knows the elements, how they're put together. That is the sort of ineffable thing that we don't understand. We'll never understand it. And contemporary music is exactly the same classical music. All of all of writing music for me is exactly like that. There is a skill set required. Within that, there's this ineffable, ineffable kind of understanding that you don't know really what creates a great piece of music. Yeah, you know. You know, like every like I remember hearing a TV about a TV show once, and this guy they were advocating we've got all the right parts, all the right things, all the right saying, Oh, that's that sounds like it's gonna suck to me. Because you say you have all the right parts. Who cares? You know, the all the right parts don't matter. Uh to have, yeah, we got them all. Yeah, okay, great. But does it sound any good? I don't know. It just sounds like everybody. So who wants that, right? So, and a lot of music is like that. They got all the right things, you know, everything's great, got the new sound, got this. Okay, great, but who cares, really? You know, it's not I'm not going home singing the thing, man. Or nor am I nor am I enjoying, like I played a lot of contem very complicated music, contemporary, and and good stuff is is is blissful. It is amazing because this complex, everything is coming together, and it's wow, it's an extraordinary experience when it's really well done. Like any music, there's a lot of bad and a lot of good. It's okay, you know, like anything. It's like it's hard to write a good piece of music. I don't care what genre you're in, it's hard, you know? Yeah, no picnic, man. It's not simple. People who say it is, well, they're wrong. Maybe they're or they're brilliant beyond my scope. So that's great. Fair enough, you know. I mean, uh I I think there are there are like waves of intelligence and move, you know, like people are have like the you know, waves of of productivity, you know. Yeah, you know. We did um uh in in my one of in one aspect of my doctoral dissertation was the formula of of um time, talent, and resources. So if you want to do anything really good, you need enough of those things, you need all those things to be on a high level. So I I've got time, people have the time. It's hard to find. People have everybody's busy. So you need talent. All these people have really good resources. If you if you have resources, you can find the time and you can pay for the talent. Resources go down, ooh, man, it becomes a problem, you know. So you how do you keep the talent up at the same time? And and and so you gotta get great players who can work quickly. You need to do that. Um you you need that otherwise it's not gonna work, you know. You need talented people who can put together this idea as quickly as possible because there's no money for any anything else, you know? Right. So so you gotta do that, and sometimes it's not preferable, but you have no choice. Uh so so but but you that that that scale, time, talent, and resources was something that I've worked with for decades, you know, and to try to keep performances up, you know. Uh like this gamelon was an eight-piece group, you know. How do you keep those people interested? And all really good players and sometimes very busy players, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

In terms of their work not busy playing, what they're busy to play, but you know, so I was uh I mean I I'd heard of Gamelin and uh I was familiar with the the sort of style of what Indonesian music uh was like. Uh very very ethereal, very can be, yeah. Yeah. And uh so but I wanted to research more, and so I looked up some of your videos on YouTube, which I will post to the to this page because um in in one of the first videos I watched, you were doing a uh a piece that was I think you commissioned from Ann Sokolovic.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

Oh boy, yeah, yeah, yeah. In between heavy pieces, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Okay, so that's a string cord. For like the uh opening three or five seconds of it, it it flashes to your sheet music and I'm like, there it there's uh what do you do with that? Yeah, yeah. I'm lost, and you guys are reading music. But it I was gonna ask, like, how did you get into that? But it seems like a natural uh space to go to, along with other world beats, which a lot of world music, international music, well, international folk music, I guess you could call it. It's all it's about the percussion, it's about the beat of the music. The other stuff is kind of like window dressing.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

But I've been reading music since I was 11.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Yeah, yeah. So it's just it's just it boggled my mind. But so so for those of you who not Gamelin is um from the Indonesian countries, uh Sumatra and Java and all that that area, yeah. And uh you can imagine uh if you've watched movies, I use they used a lot of that cut style of music to set like what was that silly show, uh White Lotus. I think there was one episode that was shot in in Indonesia. Anyway, it's uh largely a percussive music. Yeah. Most of the instruments are have mallets, and and you're playing a form of uh xylophone in this particular yeah, it's metallophone bronze.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

It's all bronze. It's all bronze instruments, yeah. Uh but there are drums, lots of the the these instruments that we have, the culture the part of it is Sundadis, which would be West Java. There's a lot of singing in it. There's the whole system of beautiful vocals and stringed instruments, is uh is a lot, it's a diverse, you know, a lot of dance also.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

So those performances are like an extension of what traditional pure gamelin is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Well, yeah, and traditional pure pure gamelon differs where you are in Indonesia. Sure, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like where we are, it's not Balinese. Balinese is very different. Um where we are, the Sundanese gamelon that that I was have been and still am involved with, but but um the is um more like high court, smaller chamber. It's like a chamber gamelon. Yep. Um and it's for high court stuff uh traditionally, originally. Um so there are a lot of songs, and actually there's a lot of standard song forms, you know, A B A kind of thing. And and and beautiful, beautiful melodies. Um uh so uh that's kind of neat about that, and then they play with the song form, they play with, they manipulate how they play it, and they they're it's quite they have to be very inventive because you have one scale, right? That's the key. You got one key. You can change we we you can change a note and make it a different mode, but it's all the same. So it's sort of like not unlike blues bands who better learn how to diversify their night, otherwise it's gonna get pretty dull because you hear the same three keys, same three beats, everything. You know, it's like the whole thing is like, okay, great, okay. But the good blues guys know how to do that. Yeah, they diversify, they figure it out to make an evening diverse. You gotta do that with the world music and the gamma and stuff. You gotta you have to figure that out because otherwise you're playing the same tune all night. Same thing. It's like, oh I don't know, get back in the list. You can't do that. But but you are doing that eventually, but essentially you're doing that, but but you you figure out ways and different repertoires, different kinds of things, you know. So for us, a lot of it was also mixing those instruments with Western instruments. Sure. Big part of it. We did a lot of that and with electronics too. We have a big history of doing self-electroacoustic stuff with with uh uh which was fantastic. Uh we've mixed uh with uh as many things as you can think of. The guys right now they're doing the in in this the week of the festival. The um younger folks in the group are doing it for a big harp fest harp festival, classical harp. We have a big harp concerto that I commissioned years ago, and they're playing that, and that's a great piece of music, very virtuosic harp part, but the band is it's really fantastic. So that that's going on next week. They're doing that, they're rehearsing that right now. Um, so so yeah, um, yeah, it's it's it's complicated that way and what it what it is, but but you know, it's basically a five-note scale, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Yeah, that's what you got. There are so many things that you've done. Um there's no way I can get who so I kind of cherry-picked uh a few highlight things. As I mentioned, I'll put uh links into the uh into the the podcast post um so people can go go see these things because it's really is special to see a group of musicians working together. To it's what I love to watch. I don't know it, I don't understand it. To me, I am pure listener. I have no musical reference point in this, and I and I like that. And something else you did, uh I don't think you did it for so long, but um the dangerous kitchen on some Frank Zappa stuff, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was something else, I must say. That was great, actually.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

That was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Yeah, there's a couple of great videos up there of you guys doing a Zappa piece. And what inspired to go out and do Zappa?

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Well, I was just asked to do it, actually. I mean, the thing is so it was a company in Montreal, a Krek, mixed with SMCQ, and they had a c they had a deal to do that, and they did it mostly, it was supposed to be electronic more. So when I first did it, I played on electronic kit. Not a lot of fun. Eventually we evolved out of that, but but it was good. But so, and but also the part of the government collaboration was to mix Quebec artists with Ontario artists. So thus the Toronto contingent came down, and we were hired to play with the Quebec contingent. So they mixed up a few players, and uh that became the ensemble. And we did that off and on for geez, almost about 10 years, eight years, something like that. Off and on. A couple years, a couple gigs a year. We did a recording, we went to Dresden, you know, Dallas, Texas, there's different different places another place in the States, different, different, I don't remember now, but it was a lot of fun. And every time you have to relearn all this, this is a pretty complicated repertoire. Oh yeah. I started doing it because I could play the mallet stuff and the drum set part. That was a thing. So they needed they had a mallet player, but I needed a drummer, but the some of the stuff we were doing, we needed two mallet players. So because I can do that, and a lot of drummers uh well, I was most drummers couldn't do that. I mean, some can for sure. I mean you know, I never think of myself as a great anomaly, but but but it was an it was a skill set that is hard to find. So I was able to do that, so and then play drums convincingly as opposed to a classical player who can play drums not sure convincingly. You know, yeah. Uh they can certainly do all the you know, A goes to B, goes to C, goes all of that, but is it okay? You know, like it's not so black and white, right? So so so I spent those years after Seja trying to have that inside my body so that I could sit down, even if I hadn't played drum set for a while, yeah, I can still be a drummer. You know, I needed to be that always. It's always been my home base, you know. Uh sometimes to my de mostly to my benefit, but sometimes, you know, sometimes I sound a bit too much like a drummer and not like something else.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Is that your own critique or somebody said that?

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Yeah, somebody it's been said. It's been said. And I can say it for myself as well, but it's been said. First, and I don't have a problem. I can only I can only do what I can do, right? Right. So uh I I don't mind that. You know, and I'm not I I do a lot of different things. Some of them I do really well, others I don't do as well as I need to as uh as other people, but I do them well enough. Uh a great friend of mine always said to me years ago, you don't need a sledgehammer to put in a nail. Yes. So think about that. Yeah you know, I need to make it groove, make it feel good. For years, you know, I would do jingles and they'd ask me to just bring in tons of, I'd bring in, oh, we need this, that, but you know, and I would bring in like a mass of stuff. I'd use a a quarter of it, maybe. But often I would use stuff that they didn't think about that I thought, I think I'm gonna bring that. And we we ended up using that. Yeah. And not the stuff they thought. They said, that's better. Let's use that. So and I didn't have it wasn't like I was trying to be some Latino aficionado. They don't want that actually. What they want is somebody who can take the sound and fit it into what they've written. Right. So that it sounds good. And that I can do. I mean, I can be an aficionado in certain things, you know, that I've studied, but I wouldn't profess to be in other ways. But but you know, you need to do this certain thing. You go, oh, okay, I know enough to make that sound good and be musical about it. Critical part, musical. Be music. Whatever you do, be music. Try to be musical. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

And then you're okay, you know. Uh if you can do that. Sometimes you don't, you know. I mean, I don't succeed all the time, but but uh, but that was for me the so uh that I made a great living with that mentality.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Now, through all all these things, you know, the the uh what was it dangerous kitchen?

SPEAKER_00 57:10

Was it like anyway, the zappa thing, the gomalon, which seems to have been your root, your mainstay, I did that, but it was a big mainstay of my my artistic output for sure.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

For sure. And then in 2013, for reasons I have never fully understood, you joined up with uh April Wine as true as their drummer. And much like your obscure, right? Much like your PhD degree, like why?

SPEAKER_00 57:44

Well, because they asked me. No, no. Well, clearly you you you you knew uh Brian, uh who well actually I could say before that, for two years I had worked with Miles on his blues recording.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Ah, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

Yeah. In his home. Every time I was in town, I was going to Toronto a lot. I mean, I moved back to Hudson, but I was in Toronto most of the time, you know, working back and forth, back and forth. So whenever I came in, I would give him a call. I'm around, you know. So we do some tunes. We did a whole lot of tunes. I mean, he re eventually he did release them before he died. And I'm on a lot of the tracks. I mean, I don't think it's but I could I listen to a few and I said, Well, that's me, that's me, that's me. I can tell me. Uh I mean, uh I know how I sound, you know. So so that's pretty good. I'm and and there's some other there's another drummer on them too. Um, I don't know who that is. I think it's someone from the Maritimes. Okay. But um I don't I don't know. Um anyway, so so I did that for him with two years of that. In and out, in and out. Then they asked me to join once and it didn't work out. And then they asked me a year later to join again. And I knew I know I had met Brian through the jam nights at the yacht club that we started to do. When I like I I I came back here in 2006. I was really burnt out and tired. I've been working on a big show for a lot, like I was touring, I was crazy. But even in 2008, I was doing a lot of big productions out in Maritime. So like a lot of, a lot of a lot of stuff, very complicated stuff. And um that was fun, but I was tired. Like at a certain point, you have to just sort of relax. So I was doing that. Then these jam nights came up. So I met Brian and we browser and also Brian, Brian Greenway. So we did that stuff. So we sort of became friends. So then the the idea was they needed a new guy, so they asked me to do it. And I said, Well, I I I thought about it, but you know, at the same time they asked me to do it, I was also offered a year contract playing sound of music in Toronto. It's a big gig. Yeah, huge gig. So I uh in my true fashion, I did both. That's what I'm so for the first year I did that gig, I did I was touring and then I was also doing eight shows a week in Toronto of something completely different. You know, you well, not that different, but but you know, you're playing paperwise pop rock stuff, and then you're playing, you know. But he dumpped great music, actually. I mean, you know, I think the music for Santa the tunes for sound of music are some pretty great tunes. Uh uh, they've become they they some of them have become jazz standards, right? So sure so so so they're you know, they're well written, well crafted, but it was a funny show to do. But it was, you know, it's it's also that's what I'd been doing a lot for decades. Yes, yeah. So I said, well, okay, I'll take both. So I did both.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

It was So one night Blair forgets and he packs the alarm bell into his drum. Julian Andrews, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I didn't have to pack anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

I did this in one theater the whole time, right? I just stayed there. I went in, I had my stuff set up. Yeah. I had people who subbed for me, I would hire them, they'd come in and do my job when I was away. So so yeah, it's not, I mean, you know, it it was it was it was a lot of work, and you had to kind of wear a couple of hats. And in between that, I was also working with the Ray Music, doing concerts with them, doing uh Evergreen Club concerts with that. I was doing some recordings. I mean, I was doing a lot of things at the same time. But I said yes to the the wine thing. After the Sound of Music closed, it was a little more f I had a little more time, you know. I could relax a bit more in that. So for the next three years after that, I was more you know, just sort of stayed with that and did a few did the gamelons. I mean it was less, you know. I admittedly that year was a lot of pretty problem pretty tough. Yeah. I mean tough, lovely, it was great. But you know, it was great to be so busy, you know. Sure. But you can only maintain that for so long to become a star.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

Having played, you know, big arenas and in a rock and roll setting, would you have traded everything that you did? Let's say you ran into Miles Goodwin in 1990 and uh he asked you to play drums. Is it would you have uh been interested in that?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

I have no idea. I don't know. I don't know. Humorously enough through a friend of mine, Dick Stensham who toured as a piano player with everyone a long time ago. He I was I met Gary when I was eighteen and Steve Lang used to come and see me play at clubs on Crescent Street, was that the bass player, and I gave him a drum lesson. He came to my house as a drum lesson when I was 18. So I knew them, ironically. I mean in a weird weird weird way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those circles you talk about that comes out. So I mean whatever it is, it is what it is, but I it was like so it wasn't like a new thing. But you know, I don't I can't that's a hindsight question that you asked. I have no idea. You know, maybe I mean uh if he had a if the if they had asked me in 85, would have done it. Right. 90?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

Yeah, before he before he went to university.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Yeah, yeah. Doubtful. Um I I I might have but even then, you know, I was I was always kind of um I I was always very concerned about um you know, making sure I had enough basis covered. I guess. Um, you know, I'm not much of a schmoozer really. I'm not much of a I I I I hustled a bit, you know. I'm not the kind of person who hustles their life away. Um but so my always it's always for me it's always been you do a good job, people tell you it's word of mouth mostly. So my career has has been for the most part, with the rare exception, word of mouth. I and and um it doesn't mean I I'm not pursuing things, you know. You you can't sit at home and you've never had an agent or no, never. I mean, I don't even know how that would even work.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

I was wondering who could be as possibly as connected as you already are, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:50

Yeah, you know, I don't I mean, I you know, it's hard it's hard to I don't know exactly. I mean, because of the diversity of what I do, some people, you know, they they think of me as one thing or another thing, or not everybody thinks of me as everything that I do. Yeah, yeah, sure. And I I uh you can't you can't. I don't even I I try not to think about that much because it is what it is, you know. I've had I've had friends good friends who I've worked with a lot. Guys, you know, Max Max, who's a guy who's got bass player, uh great, great guy writer. Um, I should be saying his name, and I can't um uh Steve Webster played with uh Billy Island much it's like started uh Parachute Club and all this guy. And I did a lot of session work with him over the years, and and he asked me later, he said, What was his April Wine thing? What was that about? I said he because he loved hiring me for these weird hand drums and world music and all that stuff. He said, What's that about? I said, Ah, you know, it's like um, you know, it was fun. It was I had a great time, you know. It was uh and my teacher, one of my my great teacher Russell Hardenberg said to me when I started that, I said, Well, you'd like going back to your roots or something. It's like I said, kind of. It was kind of like it was an opportunity for me to go, okay, let me check that out. You know, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:59

I don't think it was a bad idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

It just it's like it's not really my first go-to of music that I play. Right. You know, right. And I'm not really uh what they would call like a meat and potatoes drummer, you know? Right. I'm not I mean, it's not really my my thing. I like to move around and play, be playful, and have fun and improvise. And you couldn't do that there at all. So so I had restrictions, you know, but but it was fun. I learned a lot. I I could I mean I would have still learnt if I had stayed with him for a while, but it w I did my time with him, and it was fun. It was a good, it was a good it was enough for me. It was good, worked out well. Things evolved, and then he died later anyway. So miles. So you know, he and I got along well. Um, you know, it was nice, you know. Um yeah, I mean he got me in it, it was great. We had fun. The the greatest fun I had was the two years before learning working on his tunes. Yeah, because sometimes he was with no just him and me. And eventually I said, Can I get a click at least like at least I know where I'm like I some kind of ballpark? So we got that, and then sometimes a bass player would come in. But he just write and then he kept all my drum parts and he used them to build up on. Other stuff. So that was a lot of fun. And he'd be working on tunes. And sometimes we'd spend all day, two days on one tune because he didn't know what he wasn't sure what was doing. So I got interestingly enough, I got a a good understanding of how he writes. Right. And how or he wrote, I mean, whatever. And and and how how he perceived music, uh, which was is what it is, you know. I mean, he's really neat. He had his he had his sort of intuitive way of dealing with things. Very intuitive, not schooled at all, you know, but but very cool. And and and it was nice. So I learned a lot that way. That was the I had more fun doing that, actually. More fun. A lot of fun. I had fun otherwise, you know, too. But but that was a unique part. It was intimate with him. We were just hanging out, you know. So uh that's where we developed a relationship. Okay. And that was fun. Yeah. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:47

It was more organic than great, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Yeah, yeah, it was really. I mean, you know, I guess came up. I mean, I he did eventually pay me, but I wasn't thinking about that. I was just, I was in town. That's great. Play some stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

No, it was we had that was fun. I had a good time with that. Yeah. Um, and the whole thing was a good time. Met a lot of nice people, you know. Great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Um my clock is running down, but I do want to take a moment. This uh this is.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

Yeah, make sure you cover all the bases that you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Well, it's you have such a broad base that uh there's no way I could cover all of it. But um, maybe that'll be an opportunity to to have you back. And but this episode is being recorded. It's uh July 25th. It is my 23th, 29th, 39th wedding anniversary today. You look at you today. What are you doing here, man? Yeah, well, um wife's out with the grandkids, so uh that's why the house is so quiet. Beautiful. Um the um Hudson Music Festival is uh another big cornerstone of your career and your passions, and I know you've been very dedicated to it since 2007, I think it says it started out. And uh you are co-founder with your wife, who who is and you're the artistic director, meaning you get to pick all the bands. Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

Yeah, never that black and white either, but you know, it's a so that starts July 30th.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

The schedule is available on again. I will post links in the although this episode's only coming out August 5th, so you can still post them other places.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

We you know, always you know, never more or more the merrier, you know. You never know with the festival is always yeah, in Hudson it's hard to know who comes out, you know. And we're a pretty big last minute festival. Okay. We have pre-sales for sure, but it's always more it's always which makes it a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:35

Well, you start early in the year planning all this.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Right away. I write my first grant in September. Okay. So we just finished and I'm writing one in September. Okay. It has to be in for early October. So so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

Um And that's what you're talking about. These grants can help pay for a specialized musicians to come and here it's a bit different, it's festivals, young uh y small festivals grant.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:00

Yeah. So yeah, you're you but it you know, they won't find, for example, they won't find tribute bands and pop stuff. Right. They f they have to find artists who are doing something original and new, which is what I like anyway. But we do have tribute things.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:11

Yeah, what's the tribute band this year? I just Bowie. Bowie, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

Yeah, where is that show? Free outdoor BMO parking lot, you know. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, nice. A bunch of people from me. I can't find tickets for the birthday. I said, Yeah, because it's free. Oh, that's cool. I said, yeah, come on down for the whole day. We got we got there's food around everywhere. Yeah. We got a bar, you can hang out.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

I don't know if it's still the same, but the street fair used to be the same weekend. It's not anymore. Not anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

They took the town took it out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:41

Too much logistics.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:42

Well, I don't want to get in. You know, I am told to be remain positive. I would say later. Just be positive. So I will remain positive. Um, but yes, uh, you know, working with any town is complex.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:54

Of course. Yeah. There's so many, so many interests involved, and everyone's got a say, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

Yeah, it's always a complicated. Which it is what it is, you know. Um but um but you're enjoying that still. Like it's you know yeah, not always, but but you go seven, yeah, it doesn't see the math, doesn't it? It is 20. It's our 20th year. Okay. And and yeah. I understand you. It started in 2008. Started seven, so it's twenty. Include two thousand years. So so um yeah, no, it's it it I mean, we've got a we've done a lot of when I go look back over the 20 years, a lot of great musicians are and this year a lot of great ones too, you know. It's a lot of interesting stuff. Um, and we've gone through cycles of of you know different ideas, you know. Um, and and we've gone through, yeah. I mean, the I I mean, we have it down to a pretty good formula at this stage of the game, obviously. So it's not as crazy as it used to be. Um, but but it's still always changing, you know. We're always trying to find new money to do to create stuff and all of this stuff. It just costs money. Yeah. I mean, I hate to say that, but but it it really is. I mean, no, it's the reality. Uh uh I mean anything volunteer is very dangerous and it will not last. Volunteer-based activities have a huge uh cyclical pattern and when it's down, there's nobody there. And then you gotta get remotivated and go back up. So you can't rely, and actually government government establishments used to have more of a criteria for volunteers, but now they've backed off on that to a certain degree because they realize that it's actually not a sustainable formula. You need people who are actually doing it, being paid enough to do it or you know, actively involved in it. Um otherwise it won't sustain it. So you want sustainability, right? You're not gonna fund something then two years later is dead. Yeah. They want to find something that's gonna be like continuing, you know? That becomes part of the you know, like the f our festival is I mean, it essentially it's I mean, it's part of the hot Hudson Summer thing. I, you know, I could say that we're we're being a bit, you know, bogged down by everybody else trying and their uncle trying to do the same thing. I could have opinions about that, and I do, but I I I want to remain positive. I mean, just because the saturation point, you know, that's I I I there and I think that I think that people aren't thinking about that. Right. And and saturation is a real issue. Um we're a small area, you know. Um so we try to appeal to people outside of Hudson mostly who come in and do stuff. I mean, I want I want to appeal to Hudson for sure. That's a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:29

Well, I mean, Hudson is a small market, nevertheless.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:32

So really I want people from other areas to come in and check it out. And and um and that's you know, that's that's that's the idea, anyway. You know, but uh but it's problematic sometimes in Hudson. Sure. If you've had like 500 people coming to the jubilation choir at the St. Thomas Church, and nobody could find a cup of coffee except at the depth. I'm going, really? Come on, guys, really? Come on. I got over four, I got all these people here, and a bunch of them wanted some nice coffee. I said, Well, the only coffee available is at the depth. It's not great. You know, so you can drink it. I mean, if you got nothing else, it's good. But that kind of stuff, you know, we've we that's evolved a bit, and people are people are paying attention more to that stuff. Yeah. I hope. I mean, I think they are. So that you know, it's uh it's teamwork, you know, and teamwork is hard.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:18

You know, we have to discuss and communicate, and people are misunderstood. I get misunderstood a lot. People get misunderstood, like, no, I mean, I just trying to make something happen, you know. Just trying to make it make put it on a great event and have some nice music and get a lot of people there, or enough people, you know. That's really it. I mean, there isn't really any there isn't really any other I mean that's it. Well, in 2007, it was dead and looked awful. The street fair was gross. I thought, and Linda and I looked at each other and went, okay, we have the skill sets, let's do something. I had money, I had a group, the gamelon group with singers, the pop kind of stuff was great, was playing at Ottawa Chamberfest the day two days before bring them down. I had some money, so I had some money from the government. I could you know manipulate in a way that made this a gig, and it was. So I brought them down, did a couple things on the street. I think Jeff played them again, and a bunch of so I then just to just to sort of fatten it up, you know, it's a little thing at the shot, and then year one, you know, my money, really, is all it was. And then year two, we got a little bit from government, a little bit, and still nothing from the town. Year three, a little bit from sorry, a little bit from the town, a little bit of stuff. So eventually it built up, you know. The town is still you know unsatisf is not satisfactory at all, but but they still they do support it, you know. Uh they just haven't understood the degree that they should support it. But that's okay. It is what it is. You know, I work with it, we have no choice, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:38

So yeah, I guess I suppose uh, you know, and there's no comparison. You've got the Hudson Music Festival, and then you know, just two, three weeks later you've got Porch Fest, and I can see the town going, Well, they're not asking us for money, and why can't you the same? Well, it's it's it's two different events. Apples and oranges.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:57

We used to do Porch Fest. We used to incorporate that idea in our thing. We had bands all over the street and stuff like that. Yeah, I used I used to play when it was the Hudson Street Fair. So we had and they gave us so white they the town gave me extra money to deal with. So most of those people, I don't know if you were, but for the most part, they were paid at least something. I was never paid nothing. That's that's too bad. Mostly I tried to pay them a couple hundred bucks, you know? Like you're sitting there for the day, you I guess not great money, but you wanna do something.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:23

That is what it is. So so so the point is that we did do that, and then they, you know, I I ever nothing stays the same. So it evolves. So I get the evolution of it. It made it made good sense to me. I said, great, you know, and and it sort of we then promoted and then it eventually shifted to this. You know, they are not the same thing at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:45

No, no, no, not not even closed.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:47

But people mix them up, you know, people people confuse stuff all the time, you know. So uh and that's annoying. That's part of the saturation part that I'm talking about. Right. You know, it becomes like, you know, can you get your ducks in order and actually make the distinction? So but you know, people won't.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:01

And you know, you got neighboring town. Like I know St. Lazare now is doing festivals at this point in the year, every other weekend, they have a festival going on down there.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:09

And they give them a lot of money. Yeah. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars. In St. Lazare. Yeah. So it's a it's a bit, I mean, the amount you know, I think the town has to revisit um and I I they have to revisit their approach to culture and define what it is and define what kind of investment they should put in it because there is an economic retombé, you know, return that is quite large. Um not to be you know, not to be thrown away. I mean it's big, you know. Uh in Toronto, statistically, uh the economic return is 17 to 1. So when the Toronto Arts Council gives a company one dollar, 17 goes back into the city in some way or another. Parking, babysitting, dinner, whatever, you know? All of that. It's amazing. Here you could three to one would be the minimum, five to one easy. You know? So I I have a hundred thousand. If I ha if I were to have a hundred, well, I have some, so it's just take a ballpark of a hundred thousand dollars. You know, three hundred, four hundred thousand dollars is coming back into the town in some way or another. It's a bit difficult to nail it down. Sure. These are these are but there have been reports on this. There are a multitude of them, and it's true. It's the reality, it's a reality. But because it's like, well, because the store owner goes, Yeah, but I don't have any more money that day, no, you don't, maybe. But you've contributed to the whole town building itself to that, and actually more money will be coming in, hopefully to you. See what happens. But but it does work that way. I mean, that's like anything, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:53

Um but you know, it's it's not just arts for art's sake.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:57

No. God, no, no, no. It's money. There's a there's it's a it's a business. I mean, people you know, that you do this, people come in, you go to more money. They buy food here, they buy this, you know, buy I can it it's it it helps everything, you know. I mean, uh I I'm I I'm in it for the art, but you know, I s I've always as I said, back to being a professional, I also said I want to make a living at it. For me, it was like I want to be able to do this and I don't want to be doing anything else. Right. Which means sometimes you do things you don't like, like any job, you know. I played a lot of music I don't like. But you play it as well as you can and move on. Right. And you learn something from it anyway, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:35

Uh you know, and even then sometimes, you know, man, I've been playing some lately, a little bit more Mozart and Timpany stuff on Mozart. And you know, I used to hate doing that stuff. But now I play it and go, this is really fun. And it's really great. I mean, it's a skill set. I mean, studied how to do it. I I don't play it enough to do it in like like great, but if I did it more, I mean I worked at it for many, many years and played a lot of played a lot of gigs doing that stuff, you know, big, big stuff. Like so I so I have the I can it's a lot of fun. Anyway, so so you sort of realize getting in these different situations how how how you know the different ways, different things to play is is remark remarkable. And I I still enjoy that. Like I say, when I was doing the opera and this recently with the opera de Montréal, you know. I again you're listening to In Between by Anna Sokolovic. It was her opera. Oh, yes, I heard you mention that name. Yeah, she's great. She I've known her for 30 years or so. Played on her CD, played on another opera for so she knows how I play her music, so she phoned me and said, I need somebody who can interpret my stuff. Which is kind of nice. You don't get that as often as you'd like. But it's big, and it's just a question of again that sort of a bit ineffable idea of like if you have this thing, it's written, how are you gonna play it? What are you gonna do? How are you gonna approach it? Everybody, it's the same. No one's I'm not changing any notes.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:49

But what are you gonna do to make it you and make it fit in an interesting way with everything that's there, which is huge, a big, you know, singers and six other five other five other musicians, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:01

It's like to that is uh one of my favorite quotes is from uh Motown bass player James Jamerson. And his his his philosophy was it's not just the notes, it's the space between the notes. Totally, yeah. And and he was a master at that. Yeah, he was um that the intro of uh my girl. It's like that's you can't write that music down, yeah, and you can't put it through a quantizer either because it would fuck it up. He'd they'd bring that beat back onto the meter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:31

Anyway, yeah, yeah, no, no, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:32

For sure, whole other stuff. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to talk to you more about so many things, uh the you and your your thoughts on AI and all stuff, but we are truly running out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:41

I'm very happy to go back another time. I mean, there's as I say, like uh my life has been uh uh deliberately diverse in music, yeah. Uh and and uh and and and I've I've I say I've done like so many great gigs. I guess stupid amount of great gigs that I've I've I'm very happy to have been able to do, you know. Good for you. You know, and and work with some artists that uh uh like great artists, like lovely. I'm I mean I've always I've been fortunate that throughout my entire career, mostly I've always worked with really great performers. I mean I never not worked with great performers. You know, there's some players I don't like working with, and I don't work with them much because I don't I'm not interested in that. But but you don't have to. I don't have to. I mean if I had to, I probably I would. I I guess I would, you know. I don't, you know, you you at a certain point you do the gigs because you need the money or you want the money, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:29

Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:30

That's like a black you know, it's not it's not a negative thing. It's just it's uh you know, you you try to make a living, you know. So so um but that's fun. That's a fun part about it. I like I I I'm lucky, and I can tell you, uh, sometimes I would get I'd have you know be like, oh nothing's happening coming up. What's what's gonna what's gonna go on, you know. Next month it's looking pretty pretty pretty uh interesting, but not like I would want it to be. All of a sudden, this out of the blue, this thing comes in from oh yeah, this guy over Oh, great, and all of a sudden, full of work.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:02

That happened a lot to me over the years, where it just like because again, it's word of word of mouth, and they say, Oh, and then people remember working with this. Oh, we need this. Okay, great. Let's can you you want to do this? And it's hysterically fun all the time, you know, very, very, very different stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

Well, Dr. Mackay, it has been a pleasure talking with you this afternoon. Yeah. I won't call you that on the street. It's okay, it's okay. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

You are technically allowed to. I mean, you have the law. The law says you can. I'm allowed to write it down, but I don't. I think the only time I've ever used it is for the government sometimes to sort of make a point of something. I go, I'll put I can't put doctor in front of my name. It's a bit, I feel a bit arrogant doing it personally, but you know, nonetheless. No, you earned it, guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:44

Yeah, for sure. Thank you very much, bud. It's been a pleasure. And good luck with the festival this week. Yeah, thank you. Come down, Mennonite. Definitely make it down. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:54

You can have like you did this, you can uh free. I'll give you a pass. Oh, thank you. You can have a pass. Come do whatever you want, bring some friends. Thursday night's the opening party uh with a wand. Great, they're Montreal, a Toronto-based uh alt-country Americana band, you know, and it's a nice singer from Montreal, also sort of countryish, pedal steel, uh, and a singer. I will hit I will hit you up for that. Thursday. No, do it, man. Do it. It's a it's a at the barn, it's at the Alibi Barn. It'll be a lovely night. We got prosciutto. Well, you're not drinking, but you can we'll have fake prosciutto. There's zero beer, you know. So uh and uh cake. You're still eating a bit of cake? No, no, you don't. Try not to. Anyway, forget this prosciutto and prosecco and cake. Posecco and prosciutto, that's not it. No, soda water and carrot steak. But yeah, so that's fun. And then the weekend, the weekend is some nice stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:41

Yeah. Absolutely. And I hope you have great weather for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:45

I'm only concerned about the Saturday, that's all. It looks looking pretty good. Other than that, it's all indoors, so I'm okay. You know, it's the Saturday.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

Outstanding. Yeah. All right. We will talk to you after.

unknown 1:23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:11

Alright, that's a wrap. Huge thanks, Dr. Blair Mackay, for pulling up the stool and hanging out. If you liked what you heard, go check him out. Support local music, go to a show, buy some merchants, make some noise. Before we go, one last check in. How's your stool? I'm Dave Randall. This is how your stool, just to take a look at this in a standard monitoring.