… the tour was booked by a young punk rock agency called ODB and Matteo Preabianca of a label called Movimento Flaneur, who are doing my digital distribution. Nice people- we did 10 shows in 10 towns in 10 days- in and out like the ninja. We played to full rooms and the crowds were super attentive and loving- and eminently good looking- my god. So needless to say, it was great fun.
We played a rock bar in the northeast with a huge banner of my boyfriend, that big dude from Manowar behind us, a club in Slovenia where the front lights of the building were turned off to ensure the ‘privacy’ of the show… man it’s cold in Slovenia. I think my favorite show was in a half German, half Italian town near the borders of Switzerland and Austria called Bolzano- it was a smaller bar but it was packed with people and between songs it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop… we also played a private party in Florence that my friend Matteo booked through couchsurfer.org- we had the night off and they gave us great food and a place to stay in exchange for a set in their living room.
The people over there seem really interested in Canadian bands, it’s neat. Also, it’s always so great to play with Keith Rose, who I consider one of the seminal players in Canadian indie music and part of the reason I wanted to play bass when I first started. We traveled with a duo called ‘NonMiPiaceIlCirco!’ which translates to ‘I don’t like the circus’. Great songs. There’s this cool trend for what they call ‘Noise Folk’ over there- organic instruments, dissonance with a roots feel. It worked really nicely with the stuff I’ve been doing.
I’ve been doing a lot of work over the last year on ‘other’ music- jazz standards and old-time mostly- exploring different singing styles, so it was really nice to be able to rock out and play my own material again, and a great way to kick off the re-launching of Happy for the first time since my guitar player, Robin Hunter, left for Vancouver. This new version is going to have a bigger power-pop-stomp feel with Tom Murray on bass and Fat Dave Johnston on guitar- I’ve really missed playing with Graham Guest on keys, so I’m terribly excited to do this show on February 12 at the Starlight Room. It’s the Grant MacEwan bash and we’re sharing the bill with hip hop outfits Swollen Members and Scratch, from the Roots- we kick off the night. Fun.
(Gigantic thanks to Fish Griwkowsky for putting a big chunk of this in his column at See Magazine)
Happy with Sherry Lee 