Those who remember the old Six String Nation site may remember the podcasts we had up there - a handful of mini documentaries about guitar life in Canada. Those were made with the assistance of Tod Maffin and podcast producer Mark Blevis. Mark is also co-host of the annual Podcasters Across Borders conference, held this year in Kingston ON. Mark was kind enough to ask me to give the keynote address.
Now, to tell you the truth, I wasn't sure it would be a perfect fit. I mean, here were people from north and south America and the UK with projects and preoccupations of their own and although I was sure there would be some interest in the guitar, i thought it might be simply a pleasant diversion from the meat of the conference.
I'm so happy to say that it was perhaps the warmest, most intensely interested group I've spoken to. I think the fact that Voyageur is really an alternative avenue of storytelling appealed to the sensibilities of many in the room.
Thank you so much to Mark and Bob and to everyone I met at the conference. I hope we'll all find new ways to tell compelling stories to hungry audiences.
Posted at 6:53 PM
Douglas & McIntyre, publisher of the Six String Nation book, is running a contest on Twitter!
Write the best Canadian song lyrics in 140 characters and win a copy of Six String Nation: 64 Pieces. 6 Strings. 1 Canada. 1 Guitar.
Get on Twitter, use the hash tag, #6SNSong, and let out your inner songwriter. D&M will collect all the entries on June 30 and July 1 - Canada Day - they'll announce the winner. The top 20 will be listed on the D&M website and on the Six String Nation Facebook page.
Good luck!
Posted at 3:37 PM
First of all, thanks to the Luminato Festival, Douglas & McIntyre, the Royal Canadian Mint and This Is Not A Reading Series who made the lead-up to this year's birthday so spectacular.
The book launch at the Gladstone last Tuesday was like the party to celebrate the book, the coin and all the wonderful public events that Voyageur has been part of during this year's Luminato Festival. There are plenty of events planned for summer but today is a day for taking it easy and taking stock.
It's been a phenomenal three years. We've covered somewhere around 200,000km going to different places in Canada. In July, we'll finally put the checkmark next to NWT when we visit the Folk On The Rocks festival in Yellowknife. We've taken nearly 50,000 portraits of close to 7000 different people with this guitar at events across Canada and each one adds a little bit of love to the project.
Voyageur is holding up very well - especially for an instrument that is handled by so many people, including so many non-guitarists! There is a bit of wear and tear on the pick-guard and a few scratches on the back from zippers or belt buckles but Stephen Fearing calls these lovemarks and I'm inclined to agree - it's all part of the ongoing story of Voyageur.
And as for sound, it just keeps getting better. Since it came off the bench on June 15th 2006, Voyageur has absorbed so many vibrations and so many experiences and each one has crept into the very structure of the guitar giving it warmth and wisdom that we hope will only continue to grow. Happy 3rd birthday, Voyageur!
Posted at 11:01 AM