By Stephen Pate
How many years before you’re old
And all the senseless stories told
Forgotten like leaves in autumn
Lining up grievances in columns
This one forgotten this one not
Caught in your brain like a clot
Lying on your cot in slow pain
Resurrecting your mother again
Thank you YouTube and Blogger, and Google and Facebook. Because of you I have 68 videos published with over 38,000 viewers.
OK some people have millions. Mine don’t have breasts or the promise of breasts or quasi sex acts so they get a more views for that promise. And they’re not about famous people for the most part.
They’re just things Michael LeClair and I put together with Trisha Clarkin plus some I did on my own and a few I stole.
If I did a film and showed it in Charlottetown, how many people would see it? 15 maybe 50. Thank you YouTube.
I need to get a new camera.
One of the best entertainment bargains of the summer was the free outdoor concert at the Confederation Centre – Confederation Bridge Concert Series.
First it was free. OK so instead of 25 or 80 couple, you and all your friends could listen to the music for free. They had a bar. The seats are concrete a cushion was handy. Mine comes with the wheelchair.
We enjoyed Tim Chaisson and Morningfold plus the blues master Chris Colepaugh and the Cosmic Crew. Enjoy the Tim Chaisson video and I’ll try to make up a Chris Colepaugh one over the weekend.
The Guardian, formerly the Charlottetown Guardian, has evolved into a pretty cool example of a paper on the internet. It is updated fairly often and has interactivity.
The update stories all day and throughout the weekend, although I think they put it all to sleep on Saturdays. If you want to see what’s happening just click throughout the day and new stories are posted. As I am writing, they update a plane crash story 3 minutes ago.
Reader comments are a super part. It’s like the wild west some days with people slamming each other, politicians and humble servants like myself. The dialogue is unpredictable but fervent. Politicans should pay attention although I doubt they do.
Usually I only comment on advocacy issues but every once in awhile I allow myself the luxury of what ever is on my mind. Today I got to comment on hockey.
There are videos, both Guardian developed ones and reader submitted ones. They have blog listings for several local blogs of varying quality. You be the judge.
Today they posted a Google map showing building and other permits denied or allowed by the City. That was very cool.
I still read the Guardian every morning but turn to the on-line version throughout the day.
The Guardian website is a smart move on the publishers part
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Tuesday was the first day of busking downtown and the sun felt good.
So good to be warm and let it burn your skin, just once before the goo goes on.
I was late setting up so things were rushed at noon on the corner of Queen and Richmond. Like who cares if I’m late: it’s not a job where you punch the clock.
Settling in – I got down to business and ripped through some originals like I Can’t Get Over You, Your Song, Don’t Quit on Me Tonight, Up on a Landing and Dan Aykroyd Tequila. A busker joined in with lead on I Can’t Get Over You which was cool.
Friends stopped by in the droves, so much that performance stopped by times. Danielle came over just as I was playing Mean Hearted Woman, the song she claimed as hers! Can you believe her?
Nick, Ted, Daniel, Kier, Jen, Gordie – the parade was endless. My bad-boy role as disability advocate had a few philistines heading for the opposite side of the street. What a hoot.
Then I played Dylan: Watchtower, Knockin on Heaven’s Door, Things Have Changed, Don’t Think Twice and an amazing acoustic Like a Rolling Stone. How does it feel to be all alone with no direction home.
Sunburned, hot and happy I quit. Ted Simmons came back so I gave him the corner, packed up and went home.
I love taking music to the streets. Yeah!
By Stephen Pate
An excerpt of this article was published in the Guardian Voice for Seniors June 2008
Lennie Gallant writes and sings of the Acadian and Celtic traditions that make Prince Edward Island unique reflecting our rich heritage. His stories are the stories of our Island.
Born in Rustico, PEI Gallant has been performing for three decades since he was 13 years old. He performed in a variety of local bands in traditional and rock and roll styles, including the Speed the Plow.
In 1988 he released his first solo CD, Breakwater, which demonstrated his traditional Island roots and story telling abilities. Since then Gallant has traveled the world telling his stories about people, places and especially about PEI. His 7th CD When We Get There (2005) was nominated for a 2007 Juno, his third JUNO nomination.
It was the PEI stories I wanted to explore when I met Lennie Gallant in downtown Charlottetown in February. He was here to judge the David Foster Star Search.
What keeps him writing and singing about PEI? I asked.
“PEI is definitely my home,” he said. “I live in Halifax because my wife has a job there and it’s easier for me to move around than for her. I’ll be back here eventually.“
“My family is the oldest (European) family on PEI, the Gallant family” he said tracing his ancestry to Michel Haché-Gallant who lived from 1662 to 1737.
Growing up in rural PEI, Gallant was close to the land. “I’ve worked on farms. I’ve worked on fishing boats. I’m pretty close to what we’re all about here.”
Peter’s Dream is a song about fishermen and the hard times they faced. “I wrote it in Rustico Harbour one morning,” said Gallant. “I woke up at 6 am just in time to hear the put-put of the boats going out.” The song tells of a fisherman who drowning in despair sinks his ship in the harbour.
The first CD Breakwater displays Gallant’s talent for story telling and his Acadian roots. One song, La Tempête, is entirely in French. Destination is a bilingual song that became so popular Gallant performs it at almost every concert.
Island Clay, from Breakwater, was inspired by a poem by Island historian Harry Baglole. It is the touching story of an 80-acre family farm auctioned off to pay the debt. “Another part was inspired by Maggie Carmichael who was in the first edition of Speed the Plow,” said Gallant. “Her family owned a farm like that.”
The song also echoes Gallant’s roots. “I lived in a small farm community and I did all the work, baled hay, picked potatoes and all the work you do in a farm community. I have a great affinity for Island farms and the farm way of life. The song came from that life.”
At Rendezvous Rustico which takes places each July, Gallant sings Going Back to Rustico. “It’s just a fun song to get you to come home to PEI and hang out with your friends and family.”
Ghost stories are also part of Island tradition. Gallant remembers Antoinette Gallant, a story teller, who told them of a phantom ship. Gallant said he incorporated this tale into his song Tales of the Phantom Ship.
The last verse tells of the drowning at sea of six hundred Acadians trying to make their way back after the expulsion. Years later he was given a book by a woman who attended a concert in Victoria, PEI. It had the exact same story of an Acadian ship that went down off the north coast of PEI. Gallant added, “It was exactly like the last verse that I thought I had made up about Acadians who didn’t make shore.”
That song seemed to make strange things happen. “We lost power in concerts while playing that song so many times, we put the song at the end so it wouldn’t end the concert early. We lost lights. We shut down the Vancouver Folk Festival in the middle of the Festival over that song. We we’re playing a TV show with Rita MacNeil and a wind storm came up. We’ve had three lightening storms in the middle of that song,” said Gallant.
I felt the old story teller was weaving her story through Lennie Gallant as he recounted the unusual events that accompanied Tales of the Phantom Ship.
Gallant says he will return to PEI for four or five concerts this summer. We also can look forward to the Lennie Gallant Songbook coming out later this year. It will include his stories in song with the music and guitar chords.
More information about Lennie Gallant is available on his website.
Photo: Stephen Pate