Hello Dear Reader…

So I didn’t finish the tour journals – MEH! It all happened so fast – alas – I was not diligent with my write-each-night-before-bed policy… and things got a little crazy on the homefront for a while there. Apologies if your city didn’t get a little write-up… There’ll be plenty more to write about soon (see new additions to the Tour page…) It feels to me as though this last cross-Canadian was the best Slean tour yet! I hope you agree. Stellar musicianship in this awesome new band, a big, juicy double set and of course some dynamite stories to tell (you know what I’m talkin’ about)! It is always invigorating for me to perform with such terrific musicians. Shout outs and effusive thanks to Lyle, Karen, Derek and Paul! It was a pleasure and honour to create with them every night. And as the dust settles and the shiny bus goes back to the Calgary garage from whence it came, we adjust to civilian life once again…

“Land & Sea” seems to be getting its wings… which is really exciting and rewarding to see. I honestly didn’t know how people were going to take this record… Some great reviews from major publications (Globe, Star, Gazette) helped to give us momentum during these first three months (thank you, writers) as did the incredible showing of support from all of you…I will never ever tire of the words “We’ve been listening to you for over ten years”… Ahhh. Sweet balm for a songstress’ soul… Humbled. :)

Which reminds me – I’d like to send out a big thank you the new fans, and also to the long-timers who dragged them to the show. ;) (Some of my favourite concert-going experiences have happened that way…) We hope you all made it through December relatively unscathed, with many happy memories of snow-fights, moonlit walks, soul-satisfying music, and good meals with your favourite folks.

Which brings us to 2012, hello! How fresh, bright and futurisitic you seem, sparkly new year! Straight out of an Isaac Asimov novel! Or a Prince song! …no wait…
Why am I particularly jazzed about the New Year you ask? Well. I too, make resolutions. Yes, sometimes I break them within the first three days of the new year – but I think of resolutions as targets instead of Thou-Shalt-Nots. You needn’t jump off a bridge with baby and bathwater if all shots aren’t bulls-eyes, right? The point is to AIM. And I’m excited about these targets. I feel like they will still seem exciting to me in March too… Alas, I can’t really stop swearing, (triiiiiiiied!) but these – these ‘vows’ put a twinkle in mine eye…

1. Flow.

During an interview on tour, I was talking with a very clever music journalist from the Gazette about “connecting to a current” when creating music or art – getting to a state of being that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called “flow”. Most people have experienced this – your idea of selfhood is absent, time slips by unnoticed, and there’s not a blessed peep of chatter in your head. It’s a kind of blankness or utter openness that allows an in-dwelling genius to pour forth – whether you’re cooking, snowboarding, singing or doing carpentry… I wonder what would the world be like if we could all relax this way and behave naturally, spontaneously, without hurry, worry, expectation or anticipation… To sing as a bird sings, simply because it is alive? To not be sculpted by fear or convention of any kind?

The best, least religiously dogmatic description of this concept I’ve discovered is The Tao. It’s what I’m referring to in the lyric “going no direction it is everywhere, knowing every word it makes no sound” from “You’re Not Alone”. Taoist poets describe one substance, pure Being without effort – a union of seer, seeing and seen – what actually IS, beneath the veils of thinking, naming, categorizing and differentiating. Metaphysics baby!

I don’t fully understand how to dwell there more often, and “trying” to get there seems painfully ironic, but I intuitively feel drawn to it (and I know my best performances and songs were conceived there) so my resolution is not so much to court this state, but to gently invite it… or rather, to live in a way that doesn’t hinder it or drown it out… make sense? I.e. to leave room for error, spontaneity, accident, nothingness – to be flexible, yielding… and less hard on myself… Which leads me to…

2. Boy Wonder

O enough already about your world-altering musical Slean! Blah blah blah! Where the bleep is it?! Let it be born! How I have laboured over endless re-writes, destroyed and revived characters, written and scratched songs… doesn’t it all just smack of trying too hard?! It’s time to quit nail-biting and get on with it. But what if all this stalling has been for good reason (this is often what I like to think)… What about Rilke’s remark “all things consist of a carrying to term and then giving birth.”? Maybe a key collaborator is about to appear across my path, maybe the means to launch it will finally be revealed to me in 2012, maybe I subconsciously know that the components are gathering… All future-guessing aside, this is the year. I will, I shall, for my sanity!

3. Je deviendrai bilingue…

Picking up a handful of Italian nouns, a smattering of Spanish verbs, or some French slang, who hasn’t felt a little smug when traveling? “Hunh! I’m a natural!” Pfft. Alas I’ve discovered, finding the washroom is a far cry from being able to express yourself or carry on a conversation. Over years of mostly subtle, and even occasionally intense exposure to French, I still struggle to form sentences. C’est affolant! Chomsky believed we are born with a brain primed with grammatical rules, and that language acquisition happens so rapidly in youth because all the pre-existing templates are clicking into place according the the language being heard. Then there’s the critical period hypothesis, which suggests there’s an ideal window to acquire language and turn on these templates a certain way, after which, learning a new template is pure sweat and heavy-lifting. I can relate. O to have split the grammar hard drive in my head at the tender age of 4.

My desire to speak French isn’t necessarily political – if it were really so, I should learn Inuktitut and various other aboriginal languages that pre-date both english and french as far as Canadian-ness is concerned. It’s borne of a desire to communicate to more people – to penetrate a whole new world of ideas, expression, eloquence and beauty.
Plus, let’s face it, it’s dead sexy… No seriously. I think learning another language is also the ultimate gesture of respect and good will – it conveys a willingness to reach out to other minds and cultures… Maybe I will rename this resolution “build more bridges”… yes… I like that. I guess that means I have to quit sending business emails when I’m angry… note to self… ;)

Avec tendresse,
xox
SS

Oh Vancouver…. coo coo coooooo.

Darling love. It’s not enough that you have ancient forests of towering redwoods, that magical, salty ocean air, the majestic mountain ranges and lush vegetation?… not enough that you bubble over with cultural interest, simmer with culinary delights, and overflow with good experiences of all descriptions? … no. You must draw me, and the whole traveling Slean caravan to your fair city on a whimsical breath of westward wind, set us up on stage in a crimson-curtained theatre and pull from us our most ecstatic performance yet… O ravenous Vancouver, how I adore your hunger… Thank you thank you….

The rain, the rain, the rain could not keep you away fair Victorians! Even in a band-unfriendly room such as St. Ann’s, you filled every seat and made us feel right at home!
When we arrived, I wasn’t sure how the band was going to sound in this hall. It is perhaps more suited to un-amplified performances of Beethoven’s string quartets or piano concertos, and during sound check I could sense my sound tech getting, mmm, frustrated. But after receiving some lovely Christmas presents (including an original painting!) at the meet n’ greet with VIP ticket buyers, I was feeling lifted and energized by a steady influx of good vibes… (thank you VIPs! and to Elizabeth and Passioneers for the card and fudge! YUM)

The moon was rising, the magical stage was set (complete with a Vaudevillian arc and multi-coloured lights) the people filed in, and we started our engines… ahhhh…. Lovely sparkling people! I had to chuckle at the shout-outs for old-school songs like Universe and Angel… Vintage Slean indeed. We’re old friends now Victoria, no matter how many years we may have been apart, our reunion is always sweet as can be.

My hotel room that night had a gorgeous view overlooking the Harbour. I took a long, satisfying look at the beautiful scene before closing the curtains and settling into bed.
Sigh. Pretty lights all over Parliament buildings get me every time.

The next morning I had time for a short stroll in the lush nearby gardens before our departure. The air is so different over here… so heavy with moisture,
so fresh and clear and alive! An inviting little path led me up to the top of a rocky hill, where totem poles cast their regal looks over the tranquil bay. Inhale….
O Canada. We are a lucky people. Six or seven worlds in one country! So much of nature’s beauty in one nation! It’s astonishing…

And with that – we were all back on the ferry to the mainland – our Vancouver homecoming awaits!!

The drive in from Nelson was a sleepy over-nighter so we were blessed with a full day to experience the tranquil beauty of Kelowna. I woke up on the bus, which was parked right by the stage door, and went for a quiet morning run along the boardwalk with breathtaking views of the bay (see picture). Karen and I were uninspired by the box of cereal we’d been nursing for the past week, so, thanks to Kosowski’s techie research skills, we hunted down a killer brunch at the Bohemian Cafe. Steamed spinach, real berries, organic eggs and serious espresso?!! That’s the sound of my internal organs waking up! Before our meal, I lingered for an hour or so in a fantastic store on the main strip called “Mosaic Books” (think Chapters minus the obnoxious hegemony…) Picked up a weird little gem by Ernest Holmes that delighted me in the wee hours before falling sleep in my tiny bunk.

The Kelowna venue was extraordinary – the kind that gets my juices flowing, that begs for epic musicals, grand, sweeping THEATRICAL MASTERPIECES!! Dramatic exits, oversized stage sets, things entering on cranes or harnesses from the ceiling! OH.
There is a seething restlessness in me that stirs when I encounter these perfect theatres – a restlessness to launch my musical Boy Wonder at long last and watch it soar… Soon, oh soon.

There was an exquisite piano waiting for me, all tuned up. I’ve never played Kelowna before (well, maybe 12 years ago with my pal Oh Susanna perhaps!) so I was seriously wondering if we would have any fans in this town…. then GAH! Thankfully, we were very pleasantly surprised!

I’ve said something on stage several times this tour – it’s this: “We,” – as in the audience and the band – “are all making something together here”… Well this night in Kelowna pretty much turned my theory into utter conviction… A great crowd elevates a performer. It draws out our best, which in turn fuels the crowd, and up we all go in a feedback loop with such upward momentum that truly incredible experiences can be created…

That’s what happened on November 20th … I could have sang all night! I felt invincible, riding high on a wave of joy that was surging from the darkened seats before me… the band felt it too…. we were flying! Ahhh…. thank you Kelowna…. we’ll be back, and the love party will most certainly continue…

A few days earlier we heard (on Twitter..) that our excellent fellow Canucks Ohbijou were unable to make their mountainous passage to this very venue… Eeep! So we elected to take the ferry – a gentle, pleasant affair run by ever-relaxed mountain-dwelling hippies… While waiting on the bus in line for the ferry, Josh (tour manager) ducked into the nearby cafe which, in these parts, is nothing like the sterile mini-mall food court-type plazas at the Victoria/Vancouver crossing. No! This cafe was a whimsically decorated log cabin full of steaming hand-rolled oven fresh croissants, a steady stream of reggae tunes, chalkboard menus adorned with playful curly-qs and flowers, the owner’s offspring climbing over the chairs… Ahhh! British Columbia, your secret treasures! Here’s a pic of what my morning looked like on that lovely day. What a life! Lucky, lucky lady am I.

We eventually arrived in clean, clear, winter-bright Nelson. Upon rolling up to the front door of the venue, situated in the middle of downtown’s main drag, we quickly realized this was going to be a unique show…
The Royal (swell name, I must say!) is one of those places that really gathers a community around itself and creates a veritable force field of warm fuzzy good vibes. People are drawn in by it,
and then seduced instantly by the ambiance, the charming, chilled-out host Paul, the insanely delicious food by amazing chef Sarafina (who, understandably, has become quite a culinary legend on the West Coast)
and of course, the live music. I have to admit, the size of the stage left me doubtful. Can we do this in here? It’s going to be tight. But how can you resist this tidal wave of awesomeness? To walk in that door is to fall in love.

We played two sets – Derek barely 6 inches away from his amp, Paul sort of sitting on his bass cab which was pointing directly at my back, and Lyle’s cymbals about two feet from my ear … ok, maybe I’m exaggerating slightly, but miraculously, we all felt like we soared that night! The crowd was warm, attentive, responsive… we played that encore with absolute glee! … even Stephen the janitor loved us, so much he sent me an email that, I confess, made me a little misty. It was truly contender for the best show of the tour, for sheer fun-factor…. And after a full two weeks of touring, I decided to let down my hair… Three bourbons later I was sound asleep in my bunk as the bus drove slowly through the pine forests on to Kelowna. Thank you Nelson, thank you Royal! You left us warm in the heart, warm in the belly.