Creative Fire

Sitting on the patio of the Brownstone where I played last night. Great to hear Tyler Knight’s tunes; he opened the night with a mixed set of originals and cool covers (including a great one by Amelia Curran… wow.) It was an animated crowd, and I confess I didn’t crawl into bed until sometime after midnight (uh, more like 1am?) And on a school night!! Managed to crawl back out of bed at 8:30am and made it down to the Orillia Youth Centre where I…

…just finished the youth songwriting workshop in Orillia with six highschool students & one of their teachers participating too. We started the day talking about lyrics and a bit of “song theory”, then in the second half they broke in groups and wrote brand new songs in ONE HOUR!. Wowsa! Three amazing new songlets (mostly written… and they’re all stoked to go home and finish them.) It was a real pleasure… and honour… to be among these young writers. Their creative fire was inspiring!!

Now I hop in the car and head to Peterborough for a house concert with Dave Tough. What a great weekend of music this is turning out to be!

Culture days

The first of my final three shows during this brief stop in southern Ontario happens tonight. I’m heading off to Orillia to play at The Brownstone Cafe, then Peterborough on Friday and Kingston on Saturday. I believe there are still a few tickets for these shows, though seats are limited so you probably want to reserve ahead (especially Peterborough & Kingston.) Check my tour dates page for info about any of these shows.

Let me add that on Friday during the day, I’m also facilitating a one-day songwriting workshop during my stop in Orillia for a group of highschool students as part of Ontario Culture Days! I’m very excited and honoured to be working with this group of young writers. I’m curious to hear their words and to see what inspirations come out of our time together!

First Stop

Just got back to Toronto this a.m. after playing a private house concert in Kitchener/Waterloo. The evening was hosted by a friend of mine, Josh, who I met a few years ago during my Toronto improv comedy days. It was casual and a good time: a bunch of his Waterloo U friends came out, sprawling themselves across throw pillows and bean bags dispersed across the living room floor. As an aside, I might add they looked fabulous in their (imaginary) leisure suits during “Shooting Star”!

Tomorrow night (Sunday September 25th) I’m playing at the Cameron House in Toronto. Drop by the front room between 6pm – 8pm for some music and bevvies. I’m bringing out a few of my new songs I’ve been writing this summer; a sneak peak at what’s to come on the next album. Now that I’ve moved out west, my Ontario visits are becoming rarities. It would be great to see some of your hometown faces there. Come on by!

hallo Ontario!

I’m in southern Ontario for a few shows this weekend and the next. During the week you’ll find me milling around the streets of Toronto visiting friends, frequenting old haunts and catching up on all those errands you can only do in the big city. Like, gotta head to Kensington Market to load up on organic vegetable stock powder! Also, getting my favourite red boots resoled. Woo!

A festivalling we will go!

Robson Valley Music Festival this weekend! I’ve been looking forward to this festival since I heard about it… the line up looks amazing! Gonna try out some of my new songs during my mini-sets on the side stage on Saturday & Sunday, and the workshop on Sunday. Check my Tour Dates page for details about the festival.

Speaking of new songs, the Dave Bidini workshop a couple of weeks ago in Wells was fantastic. I wrote three and a half new songs in four days. Add those to the songs I created during my late night porch writing marathon in the 2 weeks leading up to the workshop, and I’m just about ready to record a new record this winter! Weeeooo! More about that in the coming months…

Roll-me over in the Clover

I found this as I sat down to write this morning. A sign from the universe to keep working on the new record, I figure… http://karynellis.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/four-leaf-clover-of-the-day/

Tunesy Tuesday

Horsefly was a romping good weekend. Caught some great music and played a few sets/workshops myself. Treated myself to a jangly bellydancing skirt for future festivals. Fun for dance music. And other than a minor squirmish with a loud campfire reveler at 4:30 in the morning, it was an all around lovely time. (If you’re curious about that encounter, I’ve posted a blog entry about that on the writing section of Letters To My Editor, my musings blog.)

My first attempt at leading a songwriting workshop turned into a song swap and discussion about the craft rather than a writing session, which was fun in itself. Thanks all who participated! And from that workshop, I was inspired to go home and write a song called “Setting Sun (Song for a Cosmic Cowboy)”. I’ve been living in space words for the last week. No demo of the song yet, because I’m still practicing up on the fingerpicking challenge I created for myself in the intro. But I expect I’ll be playing it live somewhere sometime soon.

Now I’m in a songwriting marathon… yep, looks like I’m writing another record! Today I’m pausing from finishing up “Make it to the River” to have peanut butter on a bagel and update this site.

I’m trying to stay focused on the act of writing good songs and not worry too much about the details of how to get the record made. A little further along in the process I’ll be looking at song sponsorship again, and I’m checking out an idea of inviting people to become patrons of the process. More about that later, cuz for now it’s back to the songs…