A Strip of Velvet
My first comic
Author: Todd Snelgrove
I've been having a lot of fun these past fifty-odd years. I've busked and bicycled through more places I can count, taught music and caught dengue fever, managed a band that toured all over North America and worked with Canada's National Orchestra for two decades. I've traveled countless miles to see a thousand concerts, played hundreds of gigs, won in Vegas and lost in Estonia, worked as a concert promoter, university instructor, janitor, and entertainment writer, seen the Grateful Dead and hiked the Dogon Valley, ran the stairs of the CN Tower and pedalled across Scandinavia once and Newfoundland twice. I've visited the graves of Alexander the Great and the great Robert Johnson, drunk excessively with some of the best and worst people you can imagine, and I've slept in some very, very weird places. Several years ago I started writing some of it down, and much of it is collected here for your perusal.
051605 Joel Plaskett Emergency, Ottawa, ON
The Tulip Fest used to be an excellent little addition to Ottawa’s wide offering of annual music…
051417 Sangeet 2017, Ottawa, ON
As soon as that glorious, unmistakeable tabla/tamboura/sitar sound began I was instantly numbed…
Travel The World With Gogol Bordello; an Interview With Eugene Hütz
Eugene Hütz explains how his transcontinental rock ‘n’ roll band infiltrated America in this 2010 interview I conducted with the Gogol Bordello frontman.
(reprinted courtesy of Soundproofmagazine, April 26, 2010)
Sandboarding in Peru
This is me taking the inaugural run down the first (and smallest) hill of the afternoon. The best part is when the guy filming says “poof” by chance at the very moment that I wipe out. And if you look really closely, I come out of my tumbling somersault on my feet like a gymnast landing a routine…
Folkalarm, 5
A review I wrote long ago of 5, the fifth album from Kevin Breit’s acoustic ensemble Folk Alarm.
(reprinted courtesy of jambands.ca, not like I asked them or anything)
050414 Dead Feat, New Orleans, LA
The concert was a conglomeration of musicians called Dead Feat, a ‘super-group’ of sorts that pairs members of Little Feat and The Grateful Dead with a few local heroes solely for a single (albeit annual) New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival aftershow…
050314 Dr. John Tribute, New Orleans, LA
The lineup for this amazing tribute concert was scheduled to include the likes of Mavis Staples, Jimmie Vaughan, Gregg Allman, Lucinda Williams, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Warren Haynes and so many more, not to mention the man himself, Dr. John…
050114 Dumpstaphunk/Soulive/Lettuce, New Orleans, LA
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is legendary, and while the festival that takes place on the fairgrounds is outstanding enough all by itself, it’s the countless aftershows that happen nightly throughout the world’s most notorious music city that really amps things up…
Thrush Hermit Redux; an Interview With Joel Plaskett
My 2010 interview with Joel Plaskett as the former Thrush Hermit frontman set out tour yet another solo album, this time a three-record set.
(reprinted courtesy of Soundproofmagazine, May 31, 2010)
Todd Man Out 