Graventown

Ballers. What's the shot? Here's another Carcast on one of my 78 trips to Toronto in 2023. Just kidding - but I bet I went to that lovely city about 7/8 times this year. It's like muscle memory for my Civic, now. I just punch in the coordinates and take a nap. But in all seriousness, this was before playing a showcase show at Great Lakes Brewery for the Four Winds Festival that happ...

Hello again from the golden Graventown fountain pen. My apologies for the audio in this episode (as for a good 17 minutes, it sounds like I'm recording it on an airplane ON the actual wing of the aircraft) but I hope you catch the vibe. I'm having fun popping these mind mints in your brain mouth. Does that make any sense? I might be one of the wittiest and verbally eviscerating wordsmith...

Well golden Graventowners: that was a lot of fun having Simeon Ross on for the second time since starting the podcast - and before even hitting number 50 on the podcast dial yet. Call me Captain Nepotism. Sigrun Stella is a multi number 1 hit releasing artist from Iceland who was with us in spirit but had another project to tend to in Antartica. Simeon Ross is a talented filmmaker, music creator,...

We're back at it again with the sonic white vans, friends. That's a tik tok reference from 2016. I try to stay hip.  I hope you enjoy this lovely interview with singer songwriter and side player Ally Corbett. Ally knows everyone and they all think she is awesome. Ally Corbett is a folk singer-songwriter from St. John's, NL who is now based in Kitchener, Ontario. A versatile fiddler...

Friends - hello. I'm back in the Graventown basement again - stirring up the dust and making a fuss. What can be said about Oliver George? Oliver is a recent friend (and Nepean neighbour) and a fine who has become a mainstay in the burgeoning Ottawa comedy scene - but he's also been grinding away at his podcast called Just Chill With Oliver George for almost 100 episodes (follow him here...

Fishes of the pod pond; I have not been casting my pod-reel and for that, I apologize - but I've been extremely busy (like a buzzing pollenating bee in a hive of wild music/dad life activity) - so I hope you've been alright with the unannounced hiatus, but just like that - Graventown is back bbz. Today on the podcast, I was very lucky to snag a few golden minutes from a jewel of a human...

Welcome to carcast 3, my dudes and my 40th Graventown episode! WOOOOT! This was a more recent snapshot of my mindscape after a hardcore storm almost suspended myself and my bandmate Tom in Peterborough, Ontario in early March. I hope it finds you well. I don't really remember what I said. These carcasts are as fun for me to play back as I hope they are for you. Maybe you hate them. Or maybe y...

Friends. It's really been a red hot chili peps hot minute since I've been anywhere near the podcast wheelhouse - and so I thank you for subscribing and being on this random roughshod journey with me. A recent sickness and eye infection has allowed me to rest and gather some files from the days of yore - and one thing I've wanted to pump out for a while is a "Carcast" serie...

Carcast number two comin' atcha - red hot and ready like a little caesars late night pretzel pizza with extra orange cheese drizzle. This carcast was from my ride out to Folk Music Ontario in London, Ontario (back in Oct 2022) for a weekend of connection and relationship building with lots of other rad musicians and festival runners. I didn't love everything about it - as one rarely does...

Friends. Welcome back to Graventown yet again. I don't always pod, when I do, I pod with the gods. Here's another one for your content wood-chipper. Drive it into your ears to lessen your fears. Today's guest is one of the most prolific songmakers I've ever met and I was lucky enough to have a nice intimate chat with him as he drove around the countryside shoreline in his lovel...

My golden goose of a wild creative energy guru guest today in Graventown almost needs no introduction, but he's gonna get one anyway. We talked about music, art, creative forces, manifestation and the modern age of content creation and it was a real lovely chat. Stephen Paul Taylor is a Neo-Synthpop-Punk, genre-hopping artist who graced hundreds of stages all over Europe, went viral (10 milli...

This episode is a little different from other Graventown formats but I really felt the need to talk in depth about death and grief (as both entities have been around me a lot lately). I spend a lot of time in this episode talking about two special people connected to me who both suddenly passed recently named Willy and Kyle. Please listen to get more of the specifics of the story, but both of them...

Gadzooks - this is one gold nugget of a special Graventown episode as my guest is a songmaker who, in my mind, makes music that is not of this world. Having spent the last 20 years playing nearly every folk and jazz festival in Canada and captivating audiences across the globe in Japan, Europe, Australia, Mexico, South America, the USA and the Middle East, JUNO and ECMA award winning Jill Barber,...

Pals. Just wanted to hop on the mic for a solo wonky-donkey ride through the dead neon sign landscape of my mind and talk about some of the inside baseball mental health of being a music maker, and how this year was sort of a rough start for me. If you're not having a great start to this year, please do yourself a favour and reach out and talk to someone you care about (and who hopefully care...

Graventowners and Quarter Pounders: Let's put some cheese and sauce on season two and catch the intellectual train to flavour country. With me today is someone who I'd call a musical hero, but he's far too humble and grounded to accept that title. I actually got to open a few shows for him this year when he performed with a trio called Brown Hawkins Stanley, and I had one of the lov...

Today's golden goose of a Graventown guest is someone who has been involved in my life in many different iterations. As a kid, I would hear my friend Stu regale tales of a hilarious guy named Sean Cooley, and their adventures around the Kanata/Nepean/Bells Corners corridor with another young wild funny human named Tom Green. Years later in life, when my daughter was on the way, in a small wor...

Graventowners and Bright Eyes Turn-Arounders - what's the ham hock? This weeks brand new season 2 episode is all about someone who has become a big chef in the country kitchen mess hall of Camp Graven; Mister Tom Thompson. Being born in Toronto and never really fitting in in high school, Tom had his consciousness blown wide open when he went with his sister to see U2 at Maple Leaf Gardens on...

Whizbangers and swizzle sticks. Season two is really rocketing out of the mental Cape Canaveral of our mindspheres. I'm so thankful to have had some insanely talented guests so far and episode 4 (4 already?! DANG SON!) is NO different. But also different. Because yeah. We don't want to paint people with a broad brush here in Graventown. Broad brushes just leave more cleanup. Boy, I'...

Holy cow, my dudes. I have a real hot pocket of a cheesy saucy episode in store for you today.  Matt Mays is a Canadian indie rock singer-songwriter and was the lead singer of Matt Mays & El Torpedo  (a rock music group based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and New York City). Previously, Mays was a member of the Canadian indie band The Guthries and was born in Hamilton, Ontario, but grew up in Nov...

Graventowner Beancounters: get off the abacus and on to the graven bus. Welcome back for another episode of Season Two to warm your intellectual biscuits. If you were anything like me, you spent a lot of the 80's and 90's glued to a screen and enthralled in the vast array of television and cinematic gold that helped us all grow up. The legendary Hollywood actor Keith Coogan played some m...

Graventowners: welcome here - wherever here is. Here we freaking are. Season two. I even have a new theme song, for gosh sakes. So kick back, grab a muffin or a meringue and let me put your thought train back on the rusty rails. I have a sizzler of a second season in store for you and I'm so happy to kick things off with a serious kazam whizbang from the heavens of hilarious hounds with Janel...

Folks - have I got a big bang of a beautiful Graventown season-one-ender for you. Originally from Marin County, California, Seth Morris is a comedic wizard who steals every scene that you’ve seen him in. Morris started a career in comedy after moving to New York City, performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) as an improviser and sketch comedian, and became the first staff writer fo...

It's been one hot RHCP minute, my pals. This summer has been redonkulously busy for shows and I've finally had a few minutes to reflect on some/all of it. I hope you're thriving wherever you are. Special thanks to the incredibly talented and legendary Chris Walken who popped by to say a few words on the G-Town pod. JULY 16 - Graven In Graventown Nepean, ON (Email gravencanada@gmail...

Friends - it's been a red hot chili pepper minute since I've been on here. I sort of wanted to talk openly and freely, with little context or subtext, about some heaviness that's been on my mind lately. The recording and undertaking of Simple Complex (my newest album) took up a lot of psychological weight and I'm just sort of realizing that now. I wanted to unpack how I've...

Holy crow: was it ever lovely to converse and catch up with my old touring pal and JUNO nominated mega-talent Saskatchewanian music magician Megan Nash. Throughout their self-produced upcoming album Soft Focus Futures, Megan Nash mines the death of her marriage for clues that could decode its demise and set her on a path toward some sort of stability in self. In the process, they achieve a distill...