The Morning After

It was a weekend of ADVENTURE for me and Mads.  I had the opportunity to DJ a wedding for Vancouverites Robin and Jon at a beautiful lake called Upper Campbell Lake.  They got married at the stunning Strathcona Park Lodge… “off the grid” as the literature states.  No cell, limited internet, intermittent power. We battled the comforts of civilization to play in one of Vancouver Island’s most spectacular settings.  The dining room had a whale skeleton hanging on the wall to stare at (if you get tired of the pristine scenery).  You sit on wooden chairs in a room that reminds you of camp as a kid but with better art.  And the food is basic, and wholesome and healthy.  Then down to the lake for a float.  Amazing.  I need to go back for a proper holiday because the place is laced and criss-crossed in hiking trails, zip lines, mountaineering… then the boating, campfires, lake…

Meanwhile…my brother CJ, his lady Caitlin, my sister Andrea and their friend Anders took Maddy camping with my folks.  First at Englishmen River then to Rathtrevor… where I joined them.

The beach stretches forever and the water was warm. We played on the beach for a couple hours then hit Parksville.  Great vibe…like a surf/beach town for people that grew up directly knowing the Beach Boys.  Not their music, but actually lived in the 60s and KNEW them.  Now they are retired but still living the Surf City dream.

Hitting the highways of Vancouver Island demands a soundtrack… and the Purple Tour-van only lets me do FM radio and CDs.  The thing about CDs is that I’ve stopped buying them, so my collection of records that I LOVE kinda ends in the mid-ish 2000s (save for a small selection of bands that still send the odd CD to the radio station).  No problem.

The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
Hot Wat Music – Caution
Coheed and Cambria – In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth
Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star 4 (part 1)
Blink 182 – Enema of the State
Tool – Aenema
Band of Horses – Everything All The Time

The Hold Steady record in particular I was feeling.  Sounded so good cranked in the lake country.  Many of the songs take me back to the first yet I met Coral and there is a special place in my heart for the whole record.  No bad songs… one I have for you today is this jam which I send out to all people enjoying summer hard on Vancouver Island, the best Island.

The Hold Steady – “Massive Nights”

Download MP3 >> theholdsteady_massivenights

Go with yourself.