{"id":8270,"date":"2015-11-06T08:30:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T16:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/?p=8270"},"modified":"2015-11-06T08:30:52","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T16:30:52","slug":"the-first-band-youre-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/06\/the-first-band-youre-in\/","title":{"rendered":"the first band you&#039;re in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They say the first band you&#8217;re in should be a cover band, and while in a lot of ways my musical history is the opposite of typical, in that way, it wasn&#8217;t. The first band I was in was Three Good Measures, and it was a mostly-Great-Big-Sea cover band. We did some other music as well &#8211; Billy Bragg, non-GBS Newfoundland trad, a couple of Popular Monsters tracks, Ivar Haglund (no, really, &#8220;Acres of Clams&#8221;), things like that.<\/p>\n<p>But the majority of material? Great Big Sea. When we came back as Twelve Good Measures for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.angelahighland.com\/2015\/11\/05\/for-the-bys-of-great-big-sea-thanks-for-all-the-good-times\/\">a one-shot video contest<\/a>? Great Big Sea.<\/p>\n<p>Most people, I think, if they were honest with themselves, knew that the last GBS tour was a farewell tour. They&#8217;d just released a box set that had very little <em>new<\/em> new material &#8211; plenty of unreleased old stuff, but very little new. We saw them at the tour&#8217;s start, Tor Bay, Newfoundland, and it was like going back in time to 1998. (Which was <em>awesome<\/em>.) Darrell Power, the original bassist, even came back for &#8220;Excursion Around the Bay,&#8221; his old signature song with the band:<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fxQWz3zGk3M\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Later, on the other side of the tour, we saw them on the other side of the continent, in Vancouver, at the Expo. That was a lot less like 1998, but it was still a great show.<\/p>\n<p>But they never called it a farewell tour. And even after they lost S\u00e9an McCann, they didn&#8217;t make it official. With only half the original band left &#8211; and with S\u00e9an being so critical to everything they were &#8211; I didn&#8217;t see any way they could honestly continue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.leaderpost.com\/entertainment\/alan+doyle+loving+life+solo\/11492386\/story.html\">Finally, almost two years after their last show, Alan Doyle has said it<\/a> &#8211; Great Big Sea is retired. I&#8217;m fine with that; they had a hell of a run (20 years is a lot) and the last couple of real albums, honestly, sounded to me like they were finished. They sounded like they wanted to do other things.<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s sad &#8211; they meant a bunch to me as a band, and as a musical force &#8211; it&#8217;s good to have official word, and it&#8217;s good &#8211; as Alan said &#8211; not to see anyone &#8220;fighting over the spoils.&#8221; Anna has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.angelahighland.com\/2015\/11\/05\/for-the-bys-of-great-big-sea-thanks-for-all-the-good-times\/\">her own thoughts on the statement over at her blog<\/a>, including video of the time she almost died from swoon.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll miss them. With the possible exception of DEVO, I&#8217;ve never seen any band before or since do a live show with as much impact, and who knows when I&#8217;ll ever see it again. But hey, I got to see it, and more than once. So thanks for everything, guys &#8211; it&#8217;s been great.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the other band I&#8217;m in <em>now<\/em> &#8211; Leannan Sidhe &#8211; has a show today with several other bands at Shoreline Community College. 4-6pm, I&#8217;m not sure when we&#8217;re on. C&#8217;mon by!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><i>Looking for the Grammy Awards Long List nominee post? <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/for-your-consideration\/\">Thank you for listening, and for your consideration<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They say the first band you&#8217;re in should be a cover band, and while in a lot of ways my musical history is the opposite of typical, in that way, it wasn&#8217;t. The first band I was in was Three Good Measures, and it was a mostly-Great-Big-Sea cover band. We did some other music as [&#038;hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-peoples-art","category-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}