Howdy friends!  You may have noticed from SHOWS calendar that we’ve gotten into some regular routines.  Here’s the low-down:

DELTA BOW VALLEY HOTEL (Downtown Calgary):   I play solo, usually 3 out of 4 Fridays at the Delta, from 4:30 to 7:30pm for the after-work crowd.  There’s a nice acoustic grand piano there, so I do a “norah-jonesy” style show- blending country, pop and light jazz on piano and vocals.  There’s no cover charge, and they’ve started doing a  fresh sushi bar there, where the chefs come out from the kitchen, set up in the lounge, and roll your sushi right on the spot, for only $10 a plate — which is an amazing deal.  What’s more, no cover charge.  If you don’t like sushi, there’s a full dinner menu as well, and I highly recommend the salmon!  If you come down, come on over and say hello- and I’ll play you a tune!

POWDERHORN SALOON (BRAGG CREEK):   This laid-back saloon in Bragg Creek is working us into their regular rotation.  They do music on Friday nights only, and our next date there is Friday, March 14.  Show starts 9:00am, and the bar is really well kept, serves great food, and has the feel of “the owners actually care!” The crowd there is down to earth folks, looking for quality music and dancing – definitely not a DJ/thumping/heavy drinking room. We played there in December and just loved it!

BULLHORN SALOON (COCHRANE): The Bullhorn is owned by the same folks as the Powderhorn, and again it is really well kept with a nice feel and excellent food (thumbs up on the Steak Sandwich!).  This is a bigger bar, with music Saturdays and gets an older crowd early in the evening, and a huge influx of younger people late at night (after about 11pm).  Fortunately, last time we were there, we were forewarned of the crowd turnover – and put our relaxed and classic tunes at the front of the evening, and wound it up to louder rock/dance tunes by the night’s end.

I’m also doing “Private Functions” Friday afternoons — volunteering with the Alzheimers’ Club in Calgary, at their various day program locations.   Here’s something amazing — they DO remember me from week to week (even if I haven’t been there in a couple weeks).  Walk in the room, and people start clapping!  Yahoo!

In other news, I’ve written a ton of new tunes since we did “Red Hot Candy Heart” and some of them are really fun dance tunes (2 really cool ones in the last couple weeks).   The band is just getting better now that we are rehearsing weekly and working on stage/show elements beyond just learning the songs….stay tuned for lots of cool stuff/news heading into Stampede. Yahoo!