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If you read through enough of these ticket stories you will notice the occasional reference to Instruments For Africa, which is a not-for-profit I founded back in 2012. The idea was to gather donated musical instruments here in Canada (Ottawa, mostly) which we would have assessed, cleaned, and repaired before taking them to Africa and dispersing them to schools and community groups that needed them. To date we’ve delivered well over a thousand instruments to more than forty groups scattered amongst four countries.
Amazingly, IFA has never had much of a problem collecting instruments. It never ceases to amaze me how happy – excited even – it makes people to give me their old instruments. We occasionally receive bulk donations from businesses or a schools but most donations come from individuals who’ve moved on from their beloved instrument and want it to live on and inspire others. Amazing.
Money, however, is a whole different story. Ironically, every instrument that we collect cost us a little bit of money, and instruments come through the door a lot more often than dollars do. Frankly, raising funds has always taken up the bulk of my IFA time.
Now, with that preamble behind us allow me to dive into today’s ticket tale, which involves an Instruments For Africa fundraiser that was held at Irene’s Pub on September 5th, 2015 and featured John Kadlecik with opening act Lucas Haneman.
The more esoteric heady-headies out there might recognize John Kadlecik as the original “fake Jerry” who started out as part of the extremely successful Grateful Dead tribute act Dark Star Orchestra before making the leap to playing alongside his heroes Bob Weir and Phil Lesh as a member of their Dead-offshoot band Furthur, and later as a sometimes member of Phil Lesh & Friends.
For some reason, right in the middle of all this hubbub Kadlecik found himself briefly living in Ottawa of all places. I met him through a friend and discovered that he was interested in playing a solo show while he was in town. Now I don’t really recall for sure, but I suspect that I thought up the IFA benefit on the spot. My next frequency to Irene’s would have nailed down the date, and I specifically remember asking guitar-phenom Lucas Haneman if he wanted to be involved to which he gave me a quick and emphatic “yes.”
On the night of the show m’lady and I set up our IFA banners and accoutrements and laid out a pretty impressive silent auction table including items autographed by Bill Frisell, Bobby McFerrin, Daniel Lanois and others, as well as cool stuff that had been donated by local artists and businesses. The doorman stayed busy and the place was packed by the time the show started.
Now, did I do a little opening set? Maybe, but probably not. I certainly did the MC’ing though. That’s fun, it doesn’t make me nervous, and I can pretty much do it while still keeping my fingers in all the pies.
Lucas Haneman was fantastic. I had first heard of him just three months earlier when I saw him playing at the Ottawa jazzfest alongside my friend Mike Essoudry. Then I started seeing him playing solo shows around town as well as duet shows with his wife. I believe he had a band on the go too…dude was working hard and it showed. Like I say, he was awesome.
Same for John K (as many people call him, which is much kinder than “fake Jerry”). Of course he played mostly Grateful Dead material but he threw some surprises in there too, like The Maker, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, and (amazingly) Time Stands Still by Rush, obvious nods to this, Kadlecik’s first-ever show in Canada. Another surprise was when he sang Ripple in French, adding that it was neither the first nor will it be the last time that he translates the Grateful Dead anthem into another language. Kadlecik’s set was really fantastic, start-to-finish.
It was such a great night all around. The Ottawa jamband crowd got a super-rare treat, both John and Lucas got to play in front of and energetic, highly-interested audience, several lucky auction winners went home with some amazing one-of-a-kind items, and Instruments for Africa raised over $3,000, 100% of which went directly towards putting musical instruments into very eager and shockingly underprivelidged hands.
Geez, I feel like I should be wrapping this up by thanking people. Thanks, people.
(My late great friend Bradm recorded the show [of course], though it seems that he only uploaded John’s set to the archive. You can listen to it here.)
Todd Man Out 