Black Sheep Inn July 29th 2006

After my run-in with the fake travelers from Orrilia, it was off to the Blacksheep Inn in beautiful Wakefield Quebec to see my friend Pat Ang, and three other performers I hadn't seen before, piano singer/songwriter Katie Sevigny and her guitar and vocal backup Miai Davies, and Arun Pal.

Man, everytime I hit the Blacksheep, I'm always surprised at how much I enjoy the music, even if I have no idea who's going to be playing that night. Gotta love that atmosphere!
I got there early and got to sit and chat with Pat and the girls from Montreal before they took the stage, Katie Sevingy reminds me a little bit of Chantal Kreviachuk and Sarah McLaughlin. And her accompanist Miai was a great addition. The world needs more girl guitar players. The Piano arrangements were tasty and there were some neat hooks with chords that you want to hear a resolve for but never get, and some funky tempo chorus changes.

Pat was great and did a few songs by the late great Matt Osbourne, who passed away about two years ago. What a great songwriter he was. I'd been hearing about him for ages but this was the first time I've encountered his material. Here is a link to a cool Matt song entitled "I want a Girl with Glasses". Check it out! Very Bare Naked Ladies. Pat did some of his own included a nice one about his sister, and even did Thin Air by Don Ross.

Arun, the feature guy was a good friend of Osborne and used to play in his band. Arun alternated between Guitar and Piano on the night, kinda cool. He said he was sick and but you really couldn't tell, and he has a great stage rapport. He had some good tunes as well and some acoustic chops.
At the end of the night they had a draw for an HMV certificate and wouldn't ya know it? The waitress picked my number!(wooHoo). But I forgot it there at the end of the night when I left after the show (until I was about 5 minutes out of Wakefield and remembered ACK!) I went back and got it. I see some $100 boxed DVD set in my near future! I also left with two Matt Osbourne CD's. Man, I wish I could have seen him play.

Some of the folks headed back to Ottawa to take in some night life but I opted to head home. Good thing too, my youngest had developed a flu bug and was doing the Linda Blair thing when I got home (this continued into the Canada Day Weekend).

I gotta get up on stage again. Every time I go see someone play I ask myself why I ever got out of it.. And then I remember, Oh yeah! It's hard on long-term relationships and the pay sucks! (and we won't get into drummers and vocalists) hehehehehe.. But I miss it sometimes. I'll continue to live through these folks and just keep doing the odd coffee house thing and music for my corny movies.