Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

Back in 1998, I was home from a year in Australia and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I had studied one semester at Dalhousie but I wasn’t even sure why I was there, so I came back to PEI. I made a few friends who persuaded me to sneak into Baba’s every week (I was only 18) for open mic or to see Rhythm Rules every Thursday night with Jon

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

Last month Chris and I attended the Folk Alliance conference in Toronto, five days of music performed by hundreds of musicians and bands in one hotel. As expected, it was madness but the kind you adjust to after a while. By our second day we were in full swing, running the hallways, slinging guitars, going from showcase to showcase. Among the throngs of musicians

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

We are headed to Toronto by car, fighting a wicked winter storm to get there. Highways are full of snow drifts but the beautiful glassy ice of a silver thaw keeps me excited about winter. We are headed to a massive music conference called Folk Alliance International which brings people from all over the world to play music as many times as possible over five

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

We’ve been hanging around New York City for a few days now, playing venues that pass the hat and have regular hourly turnover of musicians all night. In Manhattan’s lower east side there is the feeling that the city never sleeps and musicians are akin to rats, everywhere and certainly bottom feeders.

Our first night in the city we played our regular haunt

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

It’s been quite a year for everyone I know, really. Hardships with the economy, health of body and mind, and rushing, rushing from the summer into the preparation of the fall for the cold and dark months ahead. I always welcome December and the feasts it brings, I also welcome a month of not straying too far from my home and being with family. Right now I’m s

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

This past September, I had the opportunity to be part of Music PEI’s Artist Exchange program. Founded last year between Music PEI and the English Folk Dance and Song Society, the program arranges for a British songwriter to travel to the Island to work on songwriting with a local musician. I was the local and Mr Sam Carter of London was the UK part.

When I

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

September and October are my favourite months. I think. Although I will miss the heat of this past summer and lying on the beach, I am happy to make soup and put on sweaters. I’m also happy to get busy with work again. It’s been a perfect summer of weekend festivals and random shows, but I am in need of a good, old fashioned tour.

So off we go again. Ontario,

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Surviving the East Coast Music Association weekend

Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

I have now survived yet another ECMA week, although I must say that now that the conference is held in April, it is much easier to survive. I remember when it was held in the dead of winter, always (somehow) the coldest weekend of the year. We would all be tramping through giant snowbanks with arm-fulls of

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

I boarded the plane to Calgary for the shortest of tours, two shows in Alberta, not really wanting to leave PEI on that beautiful spring day. I rearranged my iPod with only my favourite records and started playing them beginning to end.

At the very start of this list is Halifax's Acres and Acres and their album All Nations. It has been out for a couple of

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

After a nice, long break at home, I found myself back out on the road with my guitarist Chris Gauthier, heading down that long stretch of pavement from PEI to Ontario. As a child, my family would take this trip several times a year, going home every summer to the peace and quiet of our Island and my grandparents log home. I remember always being asleep when

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

It has now been 17 years since my father, Gene MacLellan, passed away. I was just a kid, 14 years old, watching my dad fall further and further into the turmoil of mental illness at a time when people were still not really talking about that. Now, having been alive longer without my father than with him, I feel like it’s time to truly celebrate his life and s

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Notes from the Road
by Catherine MacLellan

After an exhausting but rewarding trip to England, I’ve been back home on the Island for a few weeks now, doing the holiday meet-and-greet and all the things that go with that. Holiday shows abound and winter has officially arrived.

I’ve been thinking about writing a survival guide for those of us who live year round in PEI. It’s not the same as the mainland. I m

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