Night before Fall Tour 2014 kicks off in Vancouver, BC. We discuss hand care, real Canada vs. Vancouver, performance spoilers and Tim Hortons.

RCBig weekend coming up in Vancouver. First show. Excited?

JCHYeah, I’m pretty excited. So I’m on Palmolive Lockdown.

RCPalmolive Lockdown?

JCH(Laughs) yeah, it’s where I start taking care of my hands–like Madge in those old TV commercials.

RCI don’t think anyone under fifty will get it.

JCHWell, maybe they watch Mad Men. Anyhoo. It means wearing gloves. Not digging in the garden. No fishing. Gardening Trying to remove paint to with my fingernails. That sort of thing.

RCSounds serious.

JCHIt is. It sounds so sissy and it’s really bitten me in the ass for decades. I used to sound different night after night because one night I would be playing with my fingernails and the next night I’d break a nail and changed my technique and then I’d bust something else and then […]

A status report on the upcoming Fall Tour 2014, including reminiscing on Detroit House Music, college and Robin Williams

Over the years, I’ve gotten into an ever-increasing number of serious flame wars (I guess even this speaks volumes. The youth of today don’t ‘flame’ because not much goes beyond 140 chars.) But I’m already digressing…

Several acquaintances/colleagues in the Progressive Rock community have finally gotten fed up with my emphasis on the ‘serious’ nature of high-level music making. Relax. Don’t take it all so seriously. This is awkward of course. It causes me to opt out of various ‘networking opportunities’ (festivals) where I know this attitude prevails, but it also makes it hard because I value the friendship of everyone in our little world. It’s sort of like politics: we all should be able to disagree in good conscience, but of course, that’s easier said than done.

Progressive music has had a pathological insecurity complex since he late 70’s. The whole genre got beaten to shit and unceremoniously kicked to the curb first by critics (who never liked prog) and then by fans who made a clean sweep of pretty much […]

Four tickets. 😀 I love that joke.

A discussion of the current state of music theatre in general and the opera Detroit

I await with terror every one of these long musical evenings.–Friedrich Nietzche re. Wagner’s Ring

I just got my complimentary ticket for the annual ‘Wagner Competition’. I still receive stuff like this for some tangential reason because the Seattle Opera was one of the places I got a bit of money to write Detroit The Opera. And that reminded me. Now that some time has elapsed, I’ve been meaning to mention a few things regarding ‘Detroit’ as well as the state of music drama in general. I’ve been reluctant to talk about this stuff until now for fear of burning bridges. Well, that boat has sailed. If burning bridges can sail (on a sea of chocolatey metaphors.)

Like all arts organisations, the Seattle Opera faces an existential crisis. It has been led by Speight Jenkins for so long no one can remember ‘life before Speight’. But now […]