The
Squamidian Report – May 28 / 11
Issue #470
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Any one that knows us at all knows that Warren and I have been getting together for years now to make music. Its what we do. We have ended up with a very polished, tight harmony style that is in my opinion something to be proud of. We are able to switch between lead and harmony on the fly, we do it all the time when we take alternate verses in a given song. We have worked on our instrumentation as well and we’ve both become better musicians over the years. Either that or our standards have dropped but I think its that we continue to improve. But now something has changed and I firmly believe it’s a change for the better. Much better. Refreshing, new and interesting.
You see, it turns out that Warren’s lady friend plays guitar and sings, and can sing harmony by ear and that’s a good thing because everything we do is by ear. Even someone as unaware as I am knows how intimidating it much be to be dropped into the middle of a couple of guys who know exactly what the other one will do and are used to blending our two voices. However, she has survives that intimidation and brings a voice that is strong and clear, and different from our male voices (obviously). The result is a whole new sound. Three voices blending, giving depth and colour. And the result is that our weekly jam sessions have taken on a whole new sound and a whole new level of enjoyment. We are also able to expend our musical scope. Pretty cool, I think.
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I’ve had to find two members in my CMC chapter who are interested in being officers and road captains. I’m loosing my 2nd officer for the next 2 months and my 3rd officer for several months, and to make it worse, Ryan (2nd officer) is my best and most experienced road captain. Both of them have jobs that take them away for long periods of time. My 3rd officer works for an international fishing company and spends several months at a time on a ship somewhere off the west coast of Africa. Ryan leaves in a couple of days for Europe on another Adams tour and will be gone for nearly two months this time. So, I’m left on my own to manage and guide our riders, arrange and schedule rides and basically organize everything. Good thing the chapter is still relatively small.
I’ve got two guys who are enthusiastic and interested, the enthusiastic and interested part answers most of the officer requirements. Now I have to teach them what a road captain does and how to do it. That takes a bit more work. I have access to lots of material that the club publishes so it should be just a matter of going over the information and doing a test ride to make sure everything is going to work ok.
I was able to put one of the guys into a road captain situation last Monday. We had a chapter ride scheduled for Sunday but it was rained out of course. We tried again on Monday and were able to ride but the cold and the long weekend kept most away. There were just 3 of us, including one of my new officers, so I was able to have him take the tail gunner position. Tail gunning is actually more work and requires more awareness but is less intimidating than leading the group. Both the leader and the tail gunner need to be road captains.
We did an enjoyable ride up to Whistler where we had a nice lunch before heading back down. We had hoped to be ahead of the holiday traffic but because of the weather the traffic started heading south earlier than usual. It wasn’t a problem, it was actually good practice for my tail gunner to watch over the ride and control traffic while there was just 3 of us. It will get much more interesting when there is 8 or 10 or more riders in the formation.
This was just the second time I’ve been to Whistler on the bike this season. It’s been too cold so far. ‘The Wife’ and I tooted up there last week on a very rare sunny day to try out the new Dairy Queen. They have a long way to go before they get their customer service up to speed but at least they are there and we have a nice summer evening riding destination if there are any nice summer evenings. And by the way, its now official, the west coast has now had its coldest wettest February on record, coldest wettest March on record, coldest wettest April and record and now the coldest wettest May on record. Enough already!
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone
I’m just curious to know if being a musical family, any of you watch “American Idol”? At any rate I do know that you appreciate good music and talent! While watching American Idol the other night they had a special guest group on called "Il Volo" Italian for "Flight". It consists of three young tenors from Italy (two from Sicily). These guys are geeky looking (I mean that in a nice way!) and are only 16, 16 and 17 years of age. They have a mega hit with their first recording of an Old Italian standard "O Sole` Mio" and have just released their CD in Canada and the USA. I've always been a fan of Italian Tenors, ever since I gave my dad a Mario Lanza album for his birthday back in the late 50's. He put that record on the console stereo and said to me "Now just sit and listen carefully to the quality of this mans voice and tell me if you know of any Rock N Roll singer that can sing like that!" I had to admit that Mario's smooth tenor voice was a thing of beauty and he was a "Real" singer, a man with a truly amazing voice!
Ever since that night in our living room on Floyd St I was smitten with the sound of the Italian Tenor. I know that many nationalities can and have produced great tenor voices but there's just something about the Italians that makes them the greatest when it comes to this type of singer. Anyway, back to my story of "Il Volo"! These young boys are amazing to say the least! I sat and listened to the mature sound of what usually is attributed to an artist or artists of many years of training. They knocked my socks off as their velvet powerhouse voices pierced my ears and touched my soul! They sounded like seasoned opera professionals and if I hadn't seen them as I listened to this magic sound, I would have sworn I was listening to veterans of years of vocal experience! I took some time to Google “Il Volo” and read up on their background. They were apparently competing on an Italian TV show similar to American Idol and each of them as solo vocalists. As part of the competition the producers of the show assigned the three of them to sing as a trio and to perform “O Sole` Mio”. Well, apparently by the time they had finished their performance the producers of the show were contacted by a major record producer and “Il Volo” was put under contract as a permanent group. The nation went wild and their new producer scrambled to get them into a recording studio to work on making a CD of “O Sole` Mio”. They put it out first as a single and it went platinum in sales over the next few weeks. They were an instant hit and immediately got to work on their first full album. It’s since sold over a million copies in Italy and is just now released in Germany, Spain, France, the British Isles and now North America this week! Their producer/manager contacted a recording studio in LA and arranged to do some of the new album in California. The mentor for the contestants on American Idol, Jimmy Iovene, caught wind of these talented young tenors and arranged to listen to them. He immediately signed them to sing on American Idol as a guest group. To say that “Il Volo” is an instant success is an understatement indeed! Their futures are already secure and I’m sure they’ll be around for many years to come. If you haven’t heard of or heard these young men sing, I recommend you give them a listen. Even if this isn’t your type of music, I’m sure you’ll appreciate and be amazed at their talent. They do indeed have impressive voices and from watching them in a couple of interviews they seem like very nice young men with personalities to match their talent. I will be out this week to buy a copy of their CD and I sincerely hope that fame doesn’t take its toll on their youth!
Please give them a listen. I’m sure you’ll like them!
You can go online and hear them sing a few of their recordings in promo videos.
Just Google: “Il Volo”
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… GREG.
PS: Something To Think About>
To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over two million individual flowers!
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Have a good one..
the doug
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