It's Starting to Realize It's No Longer a Tree

I had the amazing opportunity to play at a really great music festival in Calgary this weekend called Sled Island. It's an annual festival featuring some really great bands, mostly in the rock vein. This year featured Mogwai, Wire, Jonathan Richman, The RZA, Broken Social Scene, The Mae Shi, Grizzly Bear, Forest Tate Fraser (?!), and tons more.

This was only my second Forest show. The festival takes place at various venues around town. Mine was at a smallish club in an old movie theater downtown.

The guitar sounded great on stage. My friend Pat was doing sound and perhaps he was just being nice, but he said it was the best live acoustic sound he's gotten in a long time.

It felt really good to play it in front of people.

Evan, Forest:





After the show, I booted it back to the mainstage which was just down the street for some back stage hacky circle action and Mogwai. Mogwai melted my brain. Perfect music for that moment. There are no words but every song sounded like amazing grace....how sweet the sound....that saved a wretch like me..........

Mike


Matt, Dude with a Hat, Chad


Mogwai




After the mainstage closed down for the night, Shannon, Dik, Pete, Camile and I went to see Qui (featuring David Yow of The Jesus Lizard) at the HiFi Club. Pretty good. I was able to enjoy myself with the help of my "Good Eye Blinders", a pair of metaphorical blinders made of hearts to keep your eyes focused on what you need to be focusing on. Sounds nuts, I know, but it helped.....It would take too long to explain what I'm talking about. Just ask Rich or watch the Danielson Family movie.



Jeez, Adele is right, I am becoming a hippy.

It was great to run into friends I haven't seen for a while. I had some really great conversations with people. Apparently Saturday was "say nice things to Brendan day". I had so many random interactions where the person said in one way or the other how much they appreciated me. While that doesn't help my ballooning ego, it makes me feel pretty good about things. I must be doing something right. Pete said today on the front stoop that people/relationships are like a mirror. They reflect back what they see.

If yr an asshole, expect to be treated like an asshole. If yr a champ, expect to be treated like a champ.

My last post is coming soon. The last thing the internerd needs is another aimless blog. I'm going to keep journaling for myself though. It's been good for me.