In which our hero gets Poutine
My summer vacation
Barrage Band's friends in Montreal invited us up to a radical marching band festival . For some reason we keep getting paid to play shows so we had more than enough for gas so those of us with passports and a weekend to kill went up.
Usually when touring I would climb into my nest in the back of the mini-van and go into stasis until I was needed to drive or unload at the venue. This time I didn't have the luxury of room and my iPod was playing possum so I decided to be present and enjoy the company passing the time. Still, if you can sleep the length of the NJ turn pike, I recommend it.
The band which can be up to 13 people but averages 7 most shows and practices was just down to 4 people. Horn, baritone, accordion and french horn which is a small but respectable collection of instruments and a good size for packing into the car for a 10 hour trip.
It rained all the way up through the turn pike which made it slow going, but still we were not in a hurry so we stopped for lunch at a road side diner. Diners are one of NJ's finest traditions, large menus of comfort foods cooked competently but not spectacularly. Get the special and for less than $10 you have a meal with salad, side and desert. By salad I mean a salad bar with iceberg lettuce and not much else. Dessert is something sweet and can be eaten with a spoon. Our dinner had a old hostess with a Russian accent and our server was a cheerful guy who had the kitchen add a side of gravy for my meatloaf sandwich because thats how he likes his served.
We stopped at the New Baltimore rest stop in New York just outside of Albany. New Baltimore has nothing on Baltimore prime. We hung around looking tough like real Baltimorons but I don't think anyone noticed how authentic we were. I took over the driving and we put in some This American Life and the driving was so pleasant we went half an hour down the wrong road. I drove all through the Adirondack Park just before sunset which was exceedingly beautiful. When I was in Germany I would compare areas to places I knew in the states, now I do the other way around and the Adirondack area reminds me of the Black Forrest.
I gave up the wheel so that the owner of the car could cross the border. We had a cute border guard and we were exceptionally friendly to her and had no trouble crossing.
As a stupid American who doesn't pay attention to what is in his back yard I had no idea that all the road signs would be in French. I though that like Luxembourg they would be in French and English. The house rules for the ADD van (AKA Nerd Taxi) when I was with Ego was a strict no reading signs out loud unless they were relevant or particularly funny to preserve Donna's day to day sanity. We were so excited to be over the border, almost there and punchy from being in the car 11 hours that every road sign was hysterical in the way that they are when you are exhausted. We get to the picnic and jam session in town with only minimal confusion with road signs.
Some day I will be in a band where don't have to repeat the name slowly. Barrage Band was confusing for our francophone hosts to say. I think I heard that Barrage is similar to a word for bridge or dike so there was just a general confusion about it. In the introductions I said that because there were just 4 of us there as a Quartet we could be called BBQ. This was funny and caused much delight among the crowd. Someone asked if I made that up on the spot and I had to admit that no I thought of it earlier that week. A slight pause came after that. "Thats all I've got... Thank you Montreal, you have been wonderful GOOD NIGHT!". If I had been wearing my comedy gold hat I would have exited up the stairs waving and blowing kisses to the crowd. I like it when people think that I am funny and quick witted, which most of the time I'm just on the wrong side of that curve like everyone else.
We played a bit and found that almost all our songs were in different keys which is a bit of a challenge for us at least to try to re learn phrasing and notes on the spot for something that is muscle memory. My flugal horn was of interest as they play quite a few Balkan songs.
Our host wasn't feeling too well so she took off after the introductions but left the door open to her apartment for us and a greeting on the chalk board on the door. We crept in as quietly as we could an got ready for bed. The house cats took a liking to my bag and immediately sat on it. They took turns stomping over me at night so I wouldn't get home sick. When we got up there was an entire apartment of people with similar hair cuts to our host. To be polite we thanked anyone who walked by for having us but it seems that they were all just passing through too and the actual housemates were in a different apartment or still asleep.
That morning we went out to breakfast. The place we ended up at had just 2 waitresses working the whole place including at least 2 parties of 10. As the English speakers I think we were just a little bit ignored. Our waitress dashed off on us after ordering coffees but before getting a menu. When we asked the hostess for a menu we got a 1000 yard stare and not a flicker that she even saw someone standing in front of her. We did as Americans do and grabbed the menu off a nearby table. I got a smoked meat omelet (corned beef hash). There was an interesting bit of double negatives when the waitress asked our vegan if she wanted to get no bacon with her order.
We walked to a community center where band related workshops were held. I announced that I was completely assimilated to the culture when I read "Beer and Wine" in French on a sign across the street. There was a huge flower market and someone had a table with a picture of Obama photoshopped in with a picture of Hitler. I don't know what that was about.
The community center had a history mural on the wall that I had fun trying to interpret. In particular was a train with shamrocks coming out of the smoke stack with the steam. I decided that in the Montreal version of history St Patrick drove the snakes out on a train. From the train was a rainbow all the way to the present time showing homosexuality started with the industrial revolution. Later I overheard a concise history that explains about the shamrocks representing the Irish immigrants who came with the railroad and until recently had a strong Mob presence.
Workshops were fun, focused on how to run a marching band. One topic that came up was music copyright which I surprised my self by know a lot about, at least in terms of ASCAP, publishing and special rules covering parody. It was good to sit down with a small part of the band and talk about how we saw our selves and what we wanted, doing that introspection thing I really hate to do.
Some of the other workshops were movement based. RMO from NYC came up with 4 people also, but half of them were dancers and they lead some choreography workshop teaching them to dance to Decepticon which they cover.
We as a group marched to the metro to get to the venue. We played all the way to the metro. Stopped while we got tickets. Picked up playing again on the platform, on to the train, past 5 stops and up the escalator and all the way to the venue. Peoples reaction in the metro was magical, either their face would light up and they would dance around or they would shove their earbuds deeper in their ears, burry their face in their collar and try to not make eye contact. Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble plays they prettiest song about stabbing rich people which we have been working on translating from French and localizing.
We got a little wandering time in before the show at an area like a less hilly Adams Morgan. There was sorbet at an anime mad scientist themed stand and we passed an absinthe bar that looked pretty swank. There were a bunch of places I would have wandered to if I had time.
The show had a team of MC's one speaking French and one in English doing little comedy bits between sets. Most of the sets were in French so I didn't follow them too much. The French hip-hop and breakdancing was pretty good and the salsa was hot.
To side step the pronunciation issue there was a mime skit before we went on under the hand written sign "le' Barrage Band". The schedule back stage listed us as the barbecue band. We borrowed a drummer and a trombone from the other band and the audience, well rounded with our new friends immediately started to dance. I haven't had that direct contact with the audience sense playing with Ego. People have enjoyed BBO and have danced but this was some thing different where I was feeding off the energy of the crowd and spitting it right back at them through the horn. I look back and suddenly we have a clarinet section playing along with us. Our last song we start out and the other band comes in and we somehow modulate up to their key and they take over the set. I change over to being part of the audience and am completely wowed by what a big group can do. They end their set marching with us to the parking lot where we play for some fire spinners.
The next morning we have coffee with our host on her roof and then try to head across town to get breakfast only to be thwarted by a bike race bisecting town. We give up and get some poutine for breakfast. Poutine is gravy fries with cheese curd on it, nothing special but still really worth checking out as a regional thing.
Driving out our small sampling of Canadian radio was favorable. Sex Bomb was played on 2 separate station back to back and there was some Baltimore Club kicking on Friday night. We make it across the border with out incident and after hitting an organic farm store and checking out the cows out back we head directly home. I took the driving shift that covered from just above the turnpike all the way home and we listened to almost my entire collection of the moth pod casts and a couple of This American Life episodes skipping over Dan Savages most recent piece because no one felt like crying.
The muffler fell off on 83 less than a mile from home and I was glad to be back.
Barrage Band's friends in Montreal invited us up to a radical marching band festival . For some reason we keep getting paid to play shows so we had more than enough for gas so those of us with passports and a weekend to kill went up.
Usually when touring I would climb into my nest in the back of the mini-van and go into stasis until I was needed to drive or unload at the venue. This time I didn't have the luxury of room and my iPod was playing possum so I decided to be present and enjoy the company passing the time. Still, if you can sleep the length of the NJ turn pike, I recommend it.
The band which can be up to 13 people but averages 7 most shows and practices was just down to 4 people. Horn, baritone, accordion and french horn which is a small but respectable collection of instruments and a good size for packing into the car for a 10 hour trip.
It rained all the way up through the turn pike which made it slow going, but still we were not in a hurry so we stopped for lunch at a road side diner. Diners are one of NJ's finest traditions, large menus of comfort foods cooked competently but not spectacularly. Get the special and for less than $10 you have a meal with salad, side and desert. By salad I mean a salad bar with iceberg lettuce and not much else. Dessert is something sweet and can be eaten with a spoon. Our dinner had a old hostess with a Russian accent and our server was a cheerful guy who had the kitchen add a side of gravy for my meatloaf sandwich because thats how he likes his served.
We stopped at the New Baltimore rest stop in New York just outside of Albany. New Baltimore has nothing on Baltimore prime. We hung around looking tough like real Baltimorons but I don't think anyone noticed how authentic we were. I took over the driving and we put in some This American Life and the driving was so pleasant we went half an hour down the wrong road. I drove all through the Adirondack Park just before sunset which was exceedingly beautiful. When I was in Germany I would compare areas to places I knew in the states, now I do the other way around and the Adirondack area reminds me of the Black Forrest.
I gave up the wheel so that the owner of the car could cross the border. We had a cute border guard and we were exceptionally friendly to her and had no trouble crossing.
As a stupid American who doesn't pay attention to what is in his back yard I had no idea that all the road signs would be in French. I though that like Luxembourg they would be in French and English. The house rules for the ADD van (AKA Nerd Taxi) when I was with Ego was a strict no reading signs out loud unless they were relevant or particularly funny to preserve Donna's day to day sanity. We were so excited to be over the border, almost there and punchy from being in the car 11 hours that every road sign was hysterical in the way that they are when you are exhausted. We get to the picnic and jam session in town with only minimal confusion with road signs.
Some day I will be in a band where don't have to repeat the name slowly. Barrage Band was confusing for our francophone hosts to say. I think I heard that Barrage is similar to a word for bridge or dike so there was just a general confusion about it. In the introductions I said that because there were just 4 of us there as a Quartet we could be called BBQ. This was funny and caused much delight among the crowd. Someone asked if I made that up on the spot and I had to admit that no I thought of it earlier that week. A slight pause came after that. "Thats all I've got... Thank you Montreal, you have been wonderful GOOD NIGHT!". If I had been wearing my comedy gold hat I would have exited up the stairs waving and blowing kisses to the crowd. I like it when people think that I am funny and quick witted, which most of the time I'm just on the wrong side of that curve like everyone else.
We played a bit and found that almost all our songs were in different keys which is a bit of a challenge for us at least to try to re learn phrasing and notes on the spot for something that is muscle memory. My flugal horn was of interest as they play quite a few Balkan songs.
Our host wasn't feeling too well so she took off after the introductions but left the door open to her apartment for us and a greeting on the chalk board on the door. We crept in as quietly as we could an got ready for bed. The house cats took a liking to my bag and immediately sat on it. They took turns stomping over me at night so I wouldn't get home sick. When we got up there was an entire apartment of people with similar hair cuts to our host. To be polite we thanked anyone who walked by for having us but it seems that they were all just passing through too and the actual housemates were in a different apartment or still asleep.
That morning we went out to breakfast. The place we ended up at had just 2 waitresses working the whole place including at least 2 parties of 10. As the English speakers I think we were just a little bit ignored. Our waitress dashed off on us after ordering coffees but before getting a menu. When we asked the hostess for a menu we got a 1000 yard stare and not a flicker that she even saw someone standing in front of her. We did as Americans do and grabbed the menu off a nearby table. I got a smoked meat omelet (corned beef hash). There was an interesting bit of double negatives when the waitress asked our vegan if she wanted to get no bacon with her order.
We walked to a community center where band related workshops were held. I announced that I was completely assimilated to the culture when I read "Beer and Wine" in French on a sign across the street. There was a huge flower market and someone had a table with a picture of Obama photoshopped in with a picture of Hitler. I don't know what that was about.
The community center had a history mural on the wall that I had fun trying to interpret. In particular was a train with shamrocks coming out of the smoke stack with the steam. I decided that in the Montreal version of history St Patrick drove the snakes out on a train. From the train was a rainbow all the way to the present time showing homosexuality started with the industrial revolution. Later I overheard a concise history that explains about the shamrocks representing the Irish immigrants who came with the railroad and until recently had a strong Mob presence.
Workshops were fun, focused on how to run a marching band. One topic that came up was music copyright which I surprised my self by know a lot about, at least in terms of ASCAP, publishing and special rules covering parody. It was good to sit down with a small part of the band and talk about how we saw our selves and what we wanted, doing that introspection thing I really hate to do.
Some of the other workshops were movement based. RMO from NYC came up with 4 people also, but half of them were dancers and they lead some choreography workshop teaching them to dance to Decepticon which they cover.
We as a group marched to the metro to get to the venue. We played all the way to the metro. Stopped while we got tickets. Picked up playing again on the platform, on to the train, past 5 stops and up the escalator and all the way to the venue. Peoples reaction in the metro was magical, either their face would light up and they would dance around or they would shove their earbuds deeper in their ears, burry their face in their collar and try to not make eye contact. Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble plays they prettiest song about stabbing rich people which we have been working on translating from French and localizing.
We got a little wandering time in before the show at an area like a less hilly Adams Morgan. There was sorbet at an anime mad scientist themed stand and we passed an absinthe bar that looked pretty swank. There were a bunch of places I would have wandered to if I had time.
The show had a team of MC's one speaking French and one in English doing little comedy bits between sets. Most of the sets were in French so I didn't follow them too much. The French hip-hop and breakdancing was pretty good and the salsa was hot.
To side step the pronunciation issue there was a mime skit before we went on under the hand written sign "le' Barrage Band". The schedule back stage listed us as the barbecue band. We borrowed a drummer and a trombone from the other band and the audience, well rounded with our new friends immediately started to dance. I haven't had that direct contact with the audience sense playing with Ego. People have enjoyed BBO and have danced but this was some thing different where I was feeding off the energy of the crowd and spitting it right back at them through the horn. I look back and suddenly we have a clarinet section playing along with us. Our last song we start out and the other band comes in and we somehow modulate up to their key and they take over the set. I change over to being part of the audience and am completely wowed by what a big group can do. They end their set marching with us to the parking lot where we play for some fire spinners.
The next morning we have coffee with our host on her roof and then try to head across town to get breakfast only to be thwarted by a bike race bisecting town. We give up and get some poutine for breakfast. Poutine is gravy fries with cheese curd on it, nothing special but still really worth checking out as a regional thing.
Driving out our small sampling of Canadian radio was favorable. Sex Bomb was played on 2 separate station back to back and there was some Baltimore Club kicking on Friday night. We make it across the border with out incident and after hitting an organic farm store and checking out the cows out back we head directly home. I took the driving shift that covered from just above the turnpike all the way home and we listened to almost my entire collection of the moth pod casts and a couple of This American Life episodes skipping over Dan Savages most recent piece because no one felt like crying.
The muffler fell off on 83 less than a mile from home and I was glad to be back.