Photo: Zuzana Hudackova.com

Hello friends,

And happy 2011! My Mr. Something Something compadres and I hope this new year brings you exactly what you need – whatever that is.

We’re writing new music and looking forward to another year of adventures on and off the road. 2011 will bring us further north than ever, all the way up into the Yukon. We’ll see you where the dirt road begins.

Here are my personal Top 5 tour memories from 2010:

1. The sweaty workshop with early hip hop icons Arrested Development at Regina Folk Fest, a joyfest of a jam that had everyone in the audience on their feet. Seconds after the last note rang out, the heavens opened up. It was that good.
2. Our brazen bicycle-powered guerrilla show on Union Square in New York in September.
3. Our July show in Victoria, BC. The stage at Hermann’s is small but the crowd was big and warm and wonderful, as always. Gotta love those crazy West Coast dancers.
4. Driving through the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana and Washington State for the first time. Beautiful country. We passed on the buffalo pelts for sale but enjoyed the multitude of microbrews available in the North East and had to admit that the Americans are getting serious about their beer.
5. School shows: last year, we modified our pedal-powered show to draw kids into a dialog about music and sustainability. Fun and terrifying. You quickly learn what not to do. At our first school concert I was getting the kids to call in the instruments one by one so I had them chanting things like “We want sax!” Of course, as we were loading out after the show there were a bunch of 10-year olds in the yard screaming “We want sex! We want sex!” So yes, drop me a line if you need any pedagogical pointers.

As 2011 winds up, the members of the Something Something family have a bunch of other projects on the go:

1. Our drummer Larry recently released an awesome debut record with his drumming ensemble Drumhand which features familiar faces like Marcus Ali on wind instruments and Dave Chan on drums and percussion. The album is called Moving Still and climbed up to #1 on the Canadian college radio world music charts last week. Check it out at http://www.myspace.com/drumhandmusic
2. John “We want sax” MacLean is putting the finishing production touches to a record by our very talented friend Roman Tome and he is also busy composing a score for a contemporary dance production by Jennifer Dallas’ company Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects, on stage at the end of February in Toronto.
3. Liam and Paul and their awesome band The DoneFors are making a new record with studio wiz Joao Carvalho and they will be taking their bag of tunes to Europe in May.
4. I (Johan) am working on some stuff with my main squeeze Elizabeth Shepherd, including a Paul Simon tribute in Toronto in March. If you haven’t heard Elizabeth’s latest album which was a Polaris Prize contender, check it out, it’s awesome.

We hope to see you in person somewhere soon. In the meantime, you can always get in touch and stay in the know through www.mrsomethingsomething.com or facebook

Be well.

Peace

/Johan and the Something Something crew

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“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”
-Goethe