M-e-r-c-h
Tour diary!
We drive past hundreds of kilometers of fields and forests,
stands of trees that hide and reveal lakes, quarries, valleys and some towns.
most often we glimpse acres of unknowable brush
quietly living and ending beneath the branches.
We drive along highways with adventurer hearts.
The Canadian Shield is rock, an unconscious bank
along which this paved river flows,
unable to remind us of our conceit
and that these places have all been explored before,
though perhaps never completely known.
We know only
the climate, weather and seasons
in our van, and look out
of the windows
at the blur outside.
Sudbury, ON: A mining town with a heart of gold that is beating the drums in an old wood garage off of the main road. This is the home turf of the young and awesome Lightmares. Band names are scrawled on the boards that cover the windows and the sunlight is substituted by the bright yellow paint that covers the walls. Folks sprawl across couches dragged out into the driveway and wait for the bands to play (five of them this evening, we’re on second) most of them a blistering punk. The room grows in our minds as people pile in and shove about to the beat.
Later, we sleep on couches after they’ve been dragged back into the garage, now no longer a venue, but a practice space where we can sleep, our heads pointing North, our feet South and crossing the place where bodies, just shortly before flailed about, resisting inertia.
Driving days: we catch sight of horses emerging from the shade of trees while geese graze the field. We read signs: the old mill town of Blind River, Bear Road, Old School Road, Sturgeon Lake, a hand painted sign for the Crystal Heart Valley Ranch, no sidewalks, only gravel shoulders
Manitoba: we meet the prairies and stay with family just outside of the city of Winnipeg. Last night, we stopped over in Thunder Bay and huddled down out of the rain with lovely people and shared beers, discussed Lady Gaga, dayjobs and Prince. In Winnipeg, we played at the Music Trader record store, where the lovely DJ Olivia works. Her friends invite us to play a second set over at the Windsor Hotel’s House of Blues where we have an awesome time with cute girls and stout beers.
In Millard's Garage (Sudbury)
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