Robin Tivy
Mountaineer by day – Musician and Blogger by night
Years lived in Kitsilano: +30

January 12th 2008

So I got to the Wired Monk at 7:30 sharp, and the place was already
packed. It was so full of guitars that Tim was thinking there were more
guitars than people. I noticed that the legendary fingerstyle champion,
Don Alder, was back at the wired monk, after being missing for months. A
7 page version of his life's story is in the current edition of the
Vancouver Courier (See
http://www.canada.com/vancouvercourier/index.html).

I managed to talk him into being the first performer at the Monk. Its
always great to have somebody really good start off, because it gets
everybody's attention, and sets up the whole tone of the evening. Leah's
only instructions to me was that we could perform our number "anytime,
but not immediately after Don Alder, because he's so good".

So Don played, and the place quieted right down. He started with his
harp guitar, and then switched to his beautiful Yamaha LL36 for the third
number. He says he's been working on the electronics a bit and wanted
to try it out.

Following Don Alder was Aiden Mayes, also a seasoned performer. And
then Steve Beck followed her, performed his song Dancing with Orion, and
then a John Prine number, and finally, the wired monk "house song from
last year "Pancho and Lefty" (Townes Van Zandt 1972). He claimed that
although I told him it was the house song, he had never heard it at the
Wired Monk! Well I guess that shows how things just keep changing...
Certainly last year at this time, you'd never go through an evening but
that somebody would play it.

The next performer was Ann Eberline, with her song "I am Fragile". I
was really getting into the beat of that song, really solid rythym.
Then Erica Wong played three absolutely beautiful songs.

Then it was Robin and Leah (that's me!) with just two songs:
The first was "Long Long Time". I started off singing out of key, since
I always do it in C, but once Leah started, I was able to recover.
When we got to the third verse, Leah took it alone, and did a beautiful
job, and she got a huge applause. Our second song was Patsy Cline's
"Faded Love", from 1963, with Leah throwing in a few licks with mandolin,
and then doing a whole verse on just the mandolin, to a great applause.
We had done this once at my house, and I assumed Leah must know the
song. But Leah claims that she just learned the song from me singing it,
which certainly makes it impressive that she could play a whole verse
just having heard my crank it out a couple of times.

Next up was Darian and David George. These days David George is the MC
on Wednesdays, whereas on Tuesdays it is Greg Monforton. So tonight,
David was just singing.

Second last in the evening were Jonah and Erai who promised us they
would put some good energy into the room and we could all sing along. Sure
enough, they did, with that old Rod Stewart song from 1971 - Maggie
May. Erai really had the routine down, pointing his finger dramatically
into the air at various parts of the performance. And then they closed
with "Hey Jude" (1968), and everybody got into the endless jam at the
end "na - na,na na na na na na na na na na Hey Jude".

After that, Pamela did her song "You Cheating Bitch" on an subdued
electric guitar, and we were out of time for another evening.

On Thursday night (January 10), it was time for music night at "The
Center" (my house). It is the second Thursday of each month. This
thursday, people just kept arriving (about 10). It started off pretty wild,
with 10 diverse people playing every song, but eventually settled down. I
do remember a few great successes like "Lying Eyes" (Eagles), with Bev
and Betsy on recorder and penny whistle. And then some great 4 person
whistling on some Gordon Lighfoot songs. The worst song ever was our
attempt on "California Dreaming", with everybody going in every direction.
Next time, we've got to have just one person start. Anyway, after that
disaster, everybody's morale could only be recovered with a good round
of "Bad Moon Rising" (Creedence Clearwater 1969, a song impossible to
blow. Then Tom Campbell finally got his chance to play the part of Stan
Rogers and lead Barrett's Privateers. He's been wanting to do that for
months. Initially Greg Stoltmann was confused on the protocol, and was
singing the lead with Tom, until Tom informed him "There can only be
one Stan" on this song!

Later in the evening, we discovered that we had some real John Prine
fans. I could hardly believe anyone but Tom and I knew "Subu Visits the
Twin Cities Alone 1970", but Steve Beck was right in there. And then
"The Torch Singer" 1972".

One song that worked was "Those Were the Days" which was lead by Silke
Gumplinger and Anita Miettuenen. They sang each verse, and then we all
sang the chorus. As you may know, Gene Raskin put English lyrics to the
Russian song Dorogoi Dlinnoyu" written by Boris Fomin. It was recorded
in 1968 by welsh singer Mary Hopkin, produced by Paul McCartney.

Silke Gumplinger grew up in East Germany when it was still Russian, and
Anita's family is from Finland, so they are good people to lead a
Russian song. That song always makes me think of some Russian comrades out
in Siberia somewhere, drinking Vodka and wallowing in the hopelessness
of the old Soviet Union. I just had to gulp down a beer that Jim had
brought, just to feel more "Soviet" for the song.

The evening closed with both Betsy and then Silke playing Pachelbel's
Canon in D (1680) on the piano. Anita remembered it from when Betsy,
Denise and Anita were visiting an old church in Europe.