Rock Your Awareness AVI Benefit Show @ Logan’s on Dec. 10, 2009, originally uploaded by The Photography Elf.

Rock Your Awareness took place on Dec. 10th, 2009 at Logan’s Pub. It was a benefit variety show to raise funds for AIDS Vancouver Island. We caught part of the show but had to leave early & missed the last 2-3 acts.

Tegan & Sara – Jingle Bell Rock Concert @ SOFMC in Victoria,BC, originally uploaded by The Photography Elf.

Tegan & Sara performing at the Jingle Bell Rock Concert @ SOFMC in Victoria, BC on Dec. 21, 2009. They were definitely the biggest highlight of the concert. The gals are hometown favourites and the crowd really gathered when they took to the stage. Victoria was the first stop on Tegan & Sara’s North American tour to promote their latest album “Sainthood”. I brought a reviewer, Kim Magi, with me to the concert and she wrote the review to accompany the photos.

Check out the full review at Guttersnipe!

Guttersniped ‘zine & Atomique Productions have permission for full photo usage. Please do not use any of my photos without prior permission and full credit. Thank you.

Jets Overhead opens up the Jingle Bell Rock Concert @ SOFMC in Victoria,BC on Dec. 21, 2009, originally uploaded by The Photography Elf.

Jets Overhead opens up the Jingle Bell Rock Concert @ SOFMC in Victoria, BC on December 21, 2009.  They did a good job of entertaining the crowd despite the last minute time change which gave Tegan & Sara a longer set. Most people started coming in at 8PM when the concert was originally slated to begin.  Thus the crowd wasn’t very large for Jets Overhead but I think they did quite well.  The only thing that I didn’t quite enjoy was the fact the band members were spread out pretty far from one another.  This created big challenges for shooting the entire band and it also made it hard for the audience to see how band members ‘connect’ on stage.   I’ve seen this band a couple of times before but hadn’t photographed them until yesterday.  They are promoting their latest album “No Nations“; go pick it up and support an awesome local Victoria band!

I covered this for Guttersniped ‘zine last night and had a great time photographing at the arena.  It was my first time having a full access press pass there and it was both exciting and nerve wracking.   The nervous energy left me a couple of minutes after starting to shoot; for gigs like this I always get a few butterflies in my belly until I’m warmed up.

Guttersniped ‘zine and Atomique Productions have permission for full photo usage.  Please do not use any of my photos without prior permission and full credit.  Thank you.

Amazing that 6 months have flown by since my last posting and Christmas is just a few days away. Am I excited? Yes say my family who have always good naturedly indulged me in Christmas craziness. And I’m not embarrassed to say the house has been decorated since the end of November. As soon as I see someone else in town with Christmas tree in the window that’s my cue to get started. Chris teases that eventually we’ll just leave it all up year round. Heyyyy that’s not a bad idea We’ve always had a fake tree which is essential when you leave it set up as long as we do. And every year we need one more tote to pack it all up for the trip to the basement. This year I added 3 more snowmen, 2 more Santas and yards of fake boughs.

The rest of the year our decor is pretty minimalist but at Christmas every flat surface is covered. A few years ago my Mom started sending pieces to this beautiful Nativity set and because it’s too big for shelves or window sills it has a special place on the floor by the fireplace. Thanks Mom for supporting my Christmas addiction!!

Very important for me along with shopping & wrapping & parties is the music. This year my top picks are Canadian Tenors The Perfect Gift and Pavarotti’s O Holy Night. I’ve been caught a few times with the stereo cranked high and having to run to turn it down to answer the door. So far 20 Christmas CD’s and counting. I love the range from nostalgia of oldies compilations to BB King singing the blues.

The most important part of Christmas prep though has always been the movies. My all time favourite is It’s a Wonderful Life and Megan and I watch White Christmas together loving those dance sequences. Yesterday a friend and I watched Polar Express in 3-D with the special glasses. Wow it was amazing !! Next for us is the Christmas Eve service to sing carols by candlelight followed by a tour around town to oooooohhhhh and aaaaaahhhhh over all the lights.

To all my family & friends I wish you a joyous Christmas. Enjoy the crazy time and the quiet moments but most of all enjoy.

Blessings from the beach…

I love weekends away! While I love living in Vancouver, a getaway to visit friends in Sooke, on Vancouver Island is always a welcome change of scenery and pace. I was visiting my friends Alice and Jaire. While Alice ran some errands, Jaire and I tucked into Mom’s Cafe for breakfast.

Jaire is a writer, and a damn fine one, but he really wasn’t interested in writing about his breakfast-he just said to write it for him. Okay. I can do that. Mom’s Cafe is very blue, and I mean that literally. Apparently it was renovated recently and everything is blue-blue floor, blue walls, blue booths, blue blue blue. And a warning. It was bloody cold the morning of our visit. I made the mistake of visiting the ladies and discovered they didn’t heat the bathrooms. The toilet seat was frozen, turning a certain part of my anatomy as blue as the decor. Gives new meaning to freezing your ass off.

Breakfast Burrito

Anyway, on the breakfast. I ordered the breakfast burrito, and this thing was HUGE! And it was good. I have had many a badly made scrambled egg and these were miles ahead of any restaurant in Vancouver. There were light, and fluffy and buttery. The burrito was stuffed with huge chunks of ham, tomatoes, and peppers. The potatoes were hot and crunchy and made to order.

Jaire kept it pretty simple for breakfast. He had the breakfast special (choice of eggs, choice of toast, choice of meat). He went with eggs over easy, sourdough toast and sausages.  When I asked him how he liked his breakfast, he simply said, “It was good.” So there you go. Nice and simple. Just like Mom used to make.

Egg and sausages

Now if only my nether regions would defrost…….

The facts:

Mom’s Cafe
Sooke, BC
250-642-7911

Breakfast for two cost us $23.00

Theresa’ rating: 3.5 eggs out of 5
Jaire’s rating: 3 eggs out of 5

That’s right.  We took some great expensive whisky (Highland Park 18) and infused it with our Ogden Porter.  Aging it for a few weeks produced an amazing result, with a smooth beer that had so much flavour, and was perfectly balanced.  The chocolate malt still came through enough to counteract the sharpness of the whisky.  The subtle peat in the HP 18 gave just a hint of something for everyone to think about.  To make a long story short, we had a room full of people drinking a dark beer.  FANTASTIC!  I couldn’t be happier.  Having those who love beer experience something completely new is such a great experience.

This coming Monday we have a French Oak cask conditioned Fog Fighter dry hopped with Saaz coming out on the bar.  It’s December 21st, Winter Solstice.  What better way to celebrate, than to get foggy?  We’re not even sure what this Fog Fighter is going to ring in at for ABV, but I can be certain it will be over 8%, but don’t get too excited, it probably won’t make it over 9%.  Come join us!  We’re tapping it, as always, at 4pm.  SEE YOU THERE!

Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub
308 Catherine St
Victoria, BC
250-386-2739

The other day I went for a walk out to Tonquin Beach. A five-minute walk from my doorstep takes me to the start of the trail. From there, I meander another 5 minutes through the rainforest and I am on the beach…

It is a soft grey evening (yes, this time of year, 4pm is evening…).  Tonquin is a small beach, but the tide is low, so the beach is nearly as long as it gets, maybe 400 or 500 m?  I touch the rock at the south end with my rubber boot, as is the custom.  The winter surf curls beside me and I turn and now follow the tideline towards the north end.  The sky is grey. The sun setting over the open ocean touches the cloud-bottoms with hints of peach and rose.

I take a deep breath of cool salt air.  I exhale slowly, then focus on breathing steadily, deliberately: in with the good, out with the bad, letting go of thoughts of deadlines, overdue obligations, mortgage payments, year-end tasks, as I gaze out to sea.

A flash of black on the water catches my eye.  I watch the spot as I walk the waveline, stomping through the salt water in my gumboots.  A moment later, it reappears: two large dark faces, the silhouetted, crumpled brows of a pair of male steller sea lions, swimming side-by-side into Tofino Harbour against the swift ebb current.  I stop to watch them, letting the salt waves swirl around my boots.

I breathe out. Forcefully. Out with the bad, in with the good. And while I watch the sea lions, another black shape appears – even closer, at the edge of the break.  The rounded face of a harbour seal hangs by the peaking wave-crests, turning his head left then right, as he watches me.

Here I live, a stone’s throw from Nature (yes, Nature with a capital N). That’s what I came to Tofino for, some 15 or so years ago, to live on the edge (or, hopefully, beyond it).  Yet I realize that I have barely spent any time out in Nature for several years now!

I have been messing up on my life plan… (and, by the way, didn’t I go through this exact same thought process a year ago, when I promised byself that this summer I would get back in my kayak, back into the wilderness, But what’s happened?)

It’s a tough time to be a writer, with magazines folding left and right (National Geographic Adventure mag folded earlier this month!) and with web media not having any model by which they can charge users… and therefore pay their writers. I’ve been stressing so much about planning my career, plotting out how I can survive (financially) in this world… that I am forgetting to simply live in this world, to appreciate the parts of it that I value, that feed me.

I don’t have an answer.  It is a tough period for me.  If I am to partake in society, I have to earn a living in it (where “living” equates to $$). In that case, my Nature time comes down to being “vacation”.  And taking vacation is pretty hard to justify, when you are self-employed in a seemingly dying industry.  Or, the alternative: I return to Nature… and leave the conventions of our Society behind?

I’m not sure what I’ll do in the long run. But I know that on the shorter term, I have to make time to get “out there” more. To feed my soul. Because, right now, I am living the worst of both worlds.

As far as towns go, Tofino is lacking in many things – it is expensive to live here; our schools and hospitals are underfunded and the services are under threat; we don’t have facilities like sports centres or movie theatres or shopping malls.  The trade-off is that we have the grandeur of Nature, the rainforests and oceans that make Clayoquot Sound one of the world’s cradles of biodiversity, at our doorstep.  But if I am not going to take advantage of what this place has to offer, what am I doing living here?

So I sit here, tapping away in front of the computer screen, warm in this room with my electric heat and electric lights and the radio chattering away, thinking of those sea lions and that curious seal, and of the whales and the bears and the sandpipers and the eagles, and of the barnacles and mussels that right now are being washed by cold sea-surf on the new moon’s rising tide, all of them living their lives right here, all around me, and reminding me that there is so much more, so much more, out there.

CHEK-TV video clip on the Somenos Creek archaeological situation. Click to play.

Someone passed along this CHEK-TV news item showing George Schmidt of TimberCrest Estates, Ltd., the development company wishing to put houses on top of a major archaeological site in the Cowichan Valley at Somenos Creek, which I’ve written about before: 1, 2.

Listen to the favourable treatment he gets from the newscaster. Loaded language like “In limbo”. “Pony Up”.

Hey, CHEK-TV, since you’re the voice of the people now and all that and also “journalists”, how about you dig around in the zoning history of the land before you just repeat the mantra “government must pay”.  Did the developer buy this land already zoned for residential development?  How much did he pay in 1972?  Does he deserve compensation for having a risk turn out the wrong way for him?  Does he have the right to destroy a cemetery?  Is he, in fact, losing anything that he already had, or is he losing a perceived entitlement?  He took a risk, he has gained mightily, and now he wants a slice of the First Nation’s pie as well.

I’d seriously suggest CHEK-TV also looks into the $500,000 amount he claims to have spent on archaeology at Somenos Creek.  From what little I know of the site, I am very skeptical about that figure.

Truly, there needs to be a mechanism by which true hardship cases of conflict between development and archaeology, or where the impact assessment process has failed, can be resolved.  That, indeed, may mean some government financial input.  But these should be reserved for instances where other options have run out and where there is demonstrable financial hardship.  This case does not pass the smell test – vast profits have assuredly been made and now legal and moral constrains are drawing a line under this development.

I say this company should stop going cap in hand to the government and just give the land up as a heritage park in return for a tax receipt.  Unless I am mistaken, most entrepreneurs are not socialists, and I  am sure the last thing the typical developer would want is to be perceived as a corporate welfare bum.

That’s what boaters say, when they discover this entire Georgia Strait area.

The Gulf Islands, including Salt Spring Island, the jewel of the Southern Gulf Islands grouping, nestle into the lee of the much larger Vancouver Island.

This offers a “rain shadow” effect, and so the Gulf Islands enjoy a very appealing micro-climate, known as “cool Mediterranean”. Vineyards, olive groves, orchards…this is a foodies paradise!

With more hours of sunshine and warmer temperatures than elsewhere on the Pacific Northwest Coast, these Island treasures are protected by a government body (called the Islands Trust), with the mandate of “to preserve & protect” the environmental beauties of the area, for all B.C. residents.

This Trust has been in effect since 1974, and growth was capped on all Gulf Islands, at that point in time. This control of development is achieved by very stringent bylaws/zoning controls.

Some of the Islands are “summer places”, some are water access only, and the ferry accessed options can sometimes be “attached” to a nearby Vancouver Island community, for services/amenities.

Salt Spring Island is the only one with a unique year round/”stand alone” lifestyle, and with all services/amenities that are required for a pleasing 21st Century lifestyle at hand on the Island. Easy to get to, by ferry or by floatplane…you’ll want to stay forever, though!

Did you know that one can live on Salt Spring and ski at Whistler? Call me, and discover the “how”. A visit will show you the “why”.

Thanks to Julie Ovenell-Carter, travel writer on These Boots, I have two passes for the Butchart Gardens to giveaway.   The passes are for two adults to see the Magic of Christmas display and rides on their new Rose Carousel for this holiday season!  If you love travelling in Canada you’ll want to check out Julie’s site and bookmark it or subscribe to her feed.

Read below on how to enter this giveaway.

*You can get an idea of the carousel experience by checking out the video*

Christmas is just around the corner and I thought it would be nice to have a holiday theme giveaway to celebrate the season of giving. Specifically I’m focusing on celebrating giving to others who have nothing to offer us but perhaps a simple thank you.

I’m interested in hearing about what you are doing this holiday season to show strangers that you care and how you are opening your heart to those in need.  Share and you could win!

WHO CAN ENTER:

- Residents of Victoria, BC & surrounding areas who are of the age of majority.  The prize DOES NOT include transportation.  Please do not enter if you are not able to get to Butchart Gardens on your own to redeem the passes.

GENERAL:

This giveaway will run from December 13th, 2009 – December 17th, 2009 MIDNIGHT PST.  Winner’s name will be drawn at 6AM on December 18th, 2009.

By entering your comment you are giving me permission to share your feedback in my blog and giving me permission to post your name and initial if you win.

HOW TO ENTER:

- Reply to this post with a comment on how you are showing strangers you care and/or what you are doing to help a stranger/strangers in need.

It can be something simple because I do believe that a little goes a long way!  For example:  Helping someone across the street or helping a stranger with their grocery bags.  Taking care of an injured animal or person in some way.  Helping someone with directions.  Visiting with someone who has no family and isolated in a retirement home.  Just some examples to help get you started!
*If you have an account please make sure your contact info is accessible so I can notify if you win.  If you don’t have any account please leave your contact info in your post or email me with the info*

ONE COMMENT ENTRY PER PERSON.  You may comment more than once but only the first comment will be counted as an entry.  You must make a comment to gain initial entry and then you can gain additional entries by using any or all of the methods described below.

HOW TO GAIN ADDITIONAL ENTRIES:

1.  Go to Twitter & tweet this:  I’ve opened my heart & want to win! http://tiny.cc/0oTzr #photographyelf

2.  Subscribe to my blog

3.  Comment a photo that you like on my Flickr

4.  Post about this giveaway in your blog and post the link in a reply here or send me the link via email

MAXIMUM OF 4 ADDITIONAL ENTRIES PER PERSON IS PERMITTED.

Selection of winner will be done by a random barrel draw.  Winner will be notified within 24 hours of drawing and contacted via email.  Their name and last initial will be posted in my blog.

Good luck!

Well, that’s it…I’ve moved over to photoblogging. The first few posts will be some of my old favorites from here. But there will be fairly regular new content. Check it out and if you like the pics, add me to your blogroll!

And here we have it, straight from the owner…Here’s what to buy Kathe for Christmas…better start shopping lol

10.    Munch card from ‘Video to Go’

9.    The last book in the Steig Larrson trilogy that the bookstore ordered in for me.  (Hey, there has to be some benefits to owning a bookstore.)

  8.    A Punch Card from Seapark for their fitness programs

  7.    There is some silver jewelry that we have in the Cafe that I love.  It would be great to get a silver chain and pendant (the pendant with the word ‘goddess on it’.)  Anyone that knows me knows that I nearly always wear a goddess pendant.

  6.    A date night dinner at Markus’ Restaurant with my husband. 

  5.    A gift certificate for a night’s stay at the Sooke Harbour House during their yearly off season community deal.  Thank you Fredrique for making it possible for locals to enjoy your beautiful facilities.  (Maybe we could combine this with dinner at Markus’ and make it a very special occasion)

  4&3..  There are two things I would love to get from the South Shore Gallery.  I collect Charles Van Sandwyk books and this is the only place in Sooke to get them.  If you’ve never seen his illustrations you’ll have to go in and take a look.  They’re whimsical and beautiful. The other item I’m always looking at is the latest Linda Danielson doll.  They are exquisite.

     2.    Hello!!!!  A gift certificate for a manicure and a pedicure at Pure Elements.  There’s nothing nicer than having a glass of wine or a peach cider and relaxing while getting a pedicure.  This is one of the things I splurge on a couple of times a year.

   1.     I have been waiting for at least 10 years (I don’t want to embarrass him by telling you that it’s actually longer than that) to have my husband build me a bed.  He is an excellent cabinet maker (just look at all my cabinets, bookshelves and counters) and I have had this bed on my wish list year after year.  Unfortunately, he is nearly always busy making other people beautiful furniture or cabinets.  But who knows, maybe this is my lucky year. 

 ~ Kathe Drover is the Owner Operator of the Reading Room Bookstore and Cafe in beautiful Sooke, BC on Vancouver Island.

Came across a sappy poem that reflects my mood right now:

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

***

Rebecca Spit, Quadra Island. Nov ‘08.

I added some of my Victoria/Nanoose Bay/Tofino/Vancouver pictures to my online gallery. Please enjoy, but know that the /Tofino/ part isn’t quite up yet. I’m slowly (and steadily) processing the incredible and festering backlog of images in my Aperture import folder, and hope that somehow, someway, in the next few days and weeks I will be caught up.

We’re off to Vancouver for the holidays. We were there last year around this time and enjoyed it a great deal, despite the traffic-seizing and headline-making snowfall and temperatures. Personal matters dictate this trip this time around, which I am for some reason looking forward to a whole lot more than the previously planned (and yet otherwise unannounced and now indefinitely postponed) Maui vacation in January. Vancouver for Christmas, with the right people and for the right reasons, is infinitely more satisfying than Hawaii. Modest detail may or may not follow regarding our trip. For now I’m leaning towards not.

In other news, lots is happening these days. We completed the follow-up Government of Canada eco-audit inspection and the numbers are off to the feds for approval and cutting of cheques. After installing attic insulation, three low-flush toilets and a new high-efficiency furnace I feel like something of a cynical apprentice handyman: capable, yet completely aware of certain projects that I will never do again (the attic insulation).

I recently admitted to my wife (and to myself, sort of) recently that if I could stock our wine cellar with nothing else, it would be Champagne and Sonoma pinot noir. It was truly remarkable in retrospect to think about the great wines we enjoyed in Las Vegas (a full report and photos will eventually surface, promise). Two bottles of Bollinger Special Cuvée, an Au Bon Climat Isabel Morgan pinot noir, Veuve Cliquot… Tough life!

Though thinking about the volume of my cellar, or at least its potential, I would have to find room for tempranillos from the Ribera del Duero region in Spain; some Italian Barbarescos; a few bone-dry Australian (Eden Valley, Clare Valley) rieslings; some ports (both vintage and tawny) for cold nights beside the fire, and of course my wife’s rosés. Oh, and some grassy, acidic sauvignons from Chile’s Leyda Valley for those truly blistering-hot days in the summer. But that would about do it. See, living with a vegetarian (ok, ‘pescetarian’) there’s not much room nor need for red wine, and it’s only our affinity for pinot, Barbaresco, temperanillo, and the lot of 2005 Bordeaux that we already have that we have any reds at all really. Sadly, I cracked a delicious 2004 Jackson Triggs SunRock shiraz last night and I know I’ll be in for a challenge to not pour any of it down the drain a week from now.

Such are the extravagant challenges life presents sometimes, I know.

I have several irons in the fire right now, speaking of blog post drafts that is, including (for my own inventory as much as your interest):

- the Blasphemous Province of Alberta: defending our destruction of the environment in the name of money

- Tiger Woods’ daily doings (and the fact that he’s currently sitting at 11 over par)

- Brand Loyalty

- Advertising and Creative agencies (both my love and spite for them)

- my perpetual and growing hatred for the Papyrus typeface (a project I’ve been working on for over a year now)

Cheers for now. More soon.

Cordova Bay Records celebrated their 10th anniversary with a combo holiday party on Dec. 5th.  They are a well respected local music record company that has been able to evolve with the changing industry.  CBR supports talented independent Westcoast Canadian music artists and will continue to do so in coming years.

The celebration featured some amazing acoustic performances by CBR’s artists.  It was a lovely way to see the musicians in a more intimate setting.

Acres of Lions ended the night’s performances with a sing a long; it was fabulously spontaneous and awesome!

Cordova Bay Records celebrated their 10th anniversary with a combo holiday party on Dec. 5th.  They are a well respected local music record company that has been able to evolve with the changing industry.  CBR supports a lot of talented independent westcoast music artists and will continue to do so in coming years.

The celebration featured some amazing acoustic performances by CBR’s artists.  It was a lovely way to see the musicians in a more intimate setting.

Jeff K from Acres of Lions performed a fab acoustic solo set which was a real crowd pleaser.  This was the band I really wanted to see perform because I’ve heard a few tracks prior and enjoyed them.  I was not disappointed at all even though the entire band wasn’t playing.  Jeff did a smash up job of owning the stage with his voice and an acoustic guitar.  The performance was intimate, engaging and entertaining.  Make sure you go see this band when they hit up your town!

Sea to Sky’s world encompasses magical Whistler, the agricultural paradise of Pemberton, the town of Squamish, nestled into the lee of Howe Sound, the “Amalfi style” Sea to Sky Highway that emerges into Vancouver’s cityscape, and to the ferries waiting to spirit one to Vancouver Island and the pristine Gulf Islands…these are not seasonal areas!

Yes, tourism plays a strong part in the entire Coast region.    The residents of Whistler and the other nearby Sea to Sky areas know that they enjoy the “best of the best”.     Each community is self-contained, offering an enticing year round lifestyle, and all of them are a short commute from each other.    Ski in the morning and sail in the afternoon is not an idle promise!

Come for a holiday…you’ll want to stay forever.    Isn’t that how we all get to be residents?

Cordova Bay Records celebrated their 10th anniversary with a combo holiday party on Dec. 5th.  They are a well respected local music record company that has been able to evolve with the changing industry.  CBR supports a lot of talented independent westcoast music artists and will continue to do so in coming years.

The celebration featured some amazing acoustic performances by CBR’s artists.  It was a lovely way to see the musicians in a more intimate setting.

Second up was storyteller/musician Wyckham Porteous from bop ensemble; I really loved his set & looking forward to seeing more of him solo and with his band in the future.  I was introduced to his music at this event and adored the entire set.  This man has got a lot of talent and his lyrical style has a real storyteller’s feel.  Make sure you go see him and/or his band when you get the chance – you won’t be regret it!

Cordova Bay Records celebrated their 10th anniversary with a combo holiday party on Dec. 5th.  They are a well respected local music record company based in Victoria, BC, that has been able to evolve with the changing industry.  CBR supports a lot of talented independent westcoast music artists and will continue to do so in coming years.

The celebration featured some amazing acoustic performances by CBR’s artists.  It was a lovely way to see the musicians in a more intimate setting.

The first musician to perform was the ultra talented Vince Vaccaro.  If you haven’t seen him perform yet make sure you check out one of his show’s in the future.  Keep your eye on Vince in the music world; he’s going to go far with his talent – I’m willing to bet my life on that.  Amazing musician that you must see live!

Cordova Bay Records celebrated their 10th anniversary with a combo holiday party on Dec. 5th.  They are a well respected local music record company that has been able to evolve with the changing industry.  CBR supports a lot of talented independent westcoast music artists and will continue to do so in coming years.

The celebration featured some amazing acoustic performances by CBR’s artists.  It was a lovely way to see the musicians in a more intimate setting.

Canada’s top blues guitarist David Gogo performed a splendid acoustic set!  Relatively a young gun in the world of blues guitarists; David can definitely hold his own.