Archives for March 2007

Have you ever been to a bar and heard the most interesting guitar player staring right in front of you playing like a possessed man on stage? Well that happened to me last year.

My wife, sister, brother in law, Stevie cakes (long story), and myself went to a bar that is in our neighborhood which I have always wanted to visit. It’s called The “Eton House“. It’s commonly known as the “Greek/Newfie” bar in this area.

A newfie is of course a person from the Canadian province of Newfoundland. It’s just a nickname that the rest of Canada and possibly the world has for the people that come from that province. Newfie’s are the nicest people in the world that you will ever meet. We have many Newfie friends. If the world had more of them, there’d be no wars, honestly!

So, there we were. We had a lot of light refreshing beverages in us at the time and the music coming from the outside speakers of the music playing in the bar sounded fast and furious. It sounded like a band but to our surprise,it was a single guy alone, playing acoustic guitar with some machine in the back ground playing drums and keyboards.

His chord progressions are similar to the ones that I play, but when he adds some little riffs to the songs, it’s just like he’s some kind of mad genius, hell bent on blowing you not only out of your seat, but the building as well! He blows you away with his ability to play.

If you are ever in Toronto on a Saturday night, it would be a crime not to see this guy. He is a musician that you can’t help but love. His voice is great and his selection of tunes would make a dead person tap their foot as his energy is intoxicating!

A couple of weekends ago at the Eton House, Marty and the kids were having a fund raiser for his niece and her mother. His niece has a disease that has to be treated at a hospital, in the capitol of his province which is far from the little village they live in, in Newfoundland. The money raised that night was for some pocket change for her mother to use while she is receiving treatments. God speed on her recovery!

A co-worker from the hospital had told me of their plight, and the event gave me an excuse to go and see this great guitar player again. She had also informed me that she knew Marty personally. I was introduced to him and talked for a while during one of his breaks. He said that he remembered seeing me there watching him perform. It was probably the envy energy that I was directing towards him that probably caught his attention those nights.

While chatting, he asked me if I might be interested in playing with him in a band with another guitar player and a stand up bass player. We would be playing more progressive acoustic folk music and performing at venues where the audience was there for the music and not just the beer.

I told him I would think about it. Wow, what a lucky break for me! I still have to get back to him but the answer is a definite YES!

Stay tuned for further updates.

Keep on Jammin’