STARTING OUT

I moved to Montreal during the October Crisis in 1970, when the separatist resistance was at its peak and Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau had brought in the military. I had just turned thirteen and considered myself a serious hockey player. Coming from the prairies there was not much else a boy could do in the winter, plus the rink was only a stone’s throw from my house, so it was easy to practice a lot. In Montreal hockey was more competitive and the tension between the English and French kids added spice to the game. But after getting my front teeth smashed and my wrist broken by a couple of dirty bastards I called it quits and needed something to occupy my free time.

Everyone back then had a guitar so I joined the ranks and got a twenty-five dollar steel string. I strummed along with Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin and Eagles mostly. When my older brother, Greg, introduced me to the Mahavishnu Orchestra everything changed, especially after experiencing their concert in 1973, but that’s giving the plot of my book away.

I just finished the third draft of my first novel, P minor blue, which is a story about an aimless boy who discovers music as a way out from his troubled life. I hope to have it published in the coming year. So, now that I have a respite from working on it, as I wait for feedback from a group of readers, I can focus on catching up on the other things that I have going on in my artistic life, like maintaining Mosaicland and building a new site called 6stringMosaic.com.

So, here’s a piece of music I wrote for a CD I made a while back with my group Mosaic.

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Desert Drive