See it here:
Why mention The Re-Mains, well, I checked the line-up for North Country Fair in northern Alberta and saw they were playing. Hailing from Australia, the 6 year old band was going to tour Canada for three months. And they had shows in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C.
We dropped an email to them, and Mick Daley, their frontman and singer wrote back that he would love to see us at his New Music West showcase show at The Bourbon.
Down at The Bourbon, where we had played on St. Patrick*s Day, along with the Dreadnoughts, Jon and I saw an excellent show. Sadly it was spoiled by the following and (God-knows-why!) headlining act, The Satellite Nation, a poppy, emo kid band whose singer had all the moves. (But they do go to show that record sales still rule the day, despite the growth of indie power.)
And, I have to admit, I do get a sick little pleasure out of the child-like antics of emo stage acts. Like a kid whose lolly has just been taken by his mother, emo kids just feel so much pain.
Moving on, we chatted to The Re-Mains; showed them our cowboy hats we*d worn in support (even though they are not really country at all, but more rock with a banjo and dolbro); and gave them our recommendations for good breakfast spots in Vancouver. And highly stressed they go and drink at Big Bad Johns in Victoria -- one of our favourite bars in the world.
This is us at Big Bad Johns just a while ago: we have mixed up our hats and glasses with these strangers while drinking draughts of XXX, staring at the plastic snakes and lizards hanging from the ceiling on fishing wire, along with signed braziers and other nick-nacks, all to be dropped on unsuspecting customers from behind the bar, and then drawn up again.
Now, to understand our next encounter with The Re-Mains, you really should read our guitarist*s Os* Teacher Turned Folk Star accounts of the Lilac Festival (a.k.a. The Calgary Trip).
I was driving from Calgary to Banff in our rental van, to return it, before hitch-hiking to Canmore to see about getting the Pooka repaired. I picked up hitch-hiker as I left metro-Calgary, thought some karma would be good for when I had to hitch, and it turned out he was a local Banff expert on bears. The Bear Detective, people called him.
Mostly he lived in the bush.
Driving into Canmore, he said he knew a hotel where we could get free coffee. I loved his scavenger mentality, and used the opportunity to hijack the hotel*s internet, call the rental place and let them know I would be there a little after the return time.
When we met back at the car, The Bear Detective said he had made another phone call, and gotten some Canmore bush grass. Just hitting the road, we pulled in to get gas, realising I had to return the gas tank full. In the gas station on the side of the highway, there was The Re-Mains.
One of them recognized me as I pulled in. Then Mick Daley saw me and smiled a very surprised smile. We all greeted each other in amaze and laughed a lot.
It was pretty crazy. Feeling a little left out of the loop, The Bear Detective pipes into our fray,
-- Hey! I got some weed!
We discussed this important issue behind the gas station near the train tracks, like classy minstrel would, and the giggles didn*t subside about the odds of the encounter.
After a couple of pics being taken (soon to be shown, once Mick sends them to us), we rambled on.
Mick Daley had given me The Re-Mains first record at The Bourbon. I owed him ours when it came out on Midsummer, at North Country Fair -- the event that had led to our meeting this band, which slowly was getting cooler and cooler, in my serendipitous estimation.
Hot Blood was my favourite of their rocker songs. And finally, at North Country Fair I got see them do it.
To be continued....
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