"Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life"...Literally!

I could confidently call myself an outdoors woman. A competent angler, huntress and camping enthusiast I thought myself possessed of some fairly advanced survival skills. It was under this hubris that I ventured forth into the primeval jungle of Costa Rica a few vacations ago for what I hoped would be a solitary communion with nature. The Central American rainforests are nothing like those of coastal British Columbia-a fact I soon realised a few hours too late into my hike.
I'm not a squeamish girl, and was utterly fascinated by the ruby throated geckos, gleaming black scorpions and the strangest metallic silver backed spiders. But it was the bush rattling thunder of what must have been a wild boar that sent me running in an unknown direction until all sense of bearing was gone. I was lost and never more alone. Worse yet, the sky had begun to turn deep azure. In a few hours it would be night.
I swallowed back impending panic and attempted to retrace my steps. The air filled with the sounds of early evening-cicadas, night-birds, and the haunting laughter of howler monkeys. Then, another sound keened from the distance. I thought I might have suffered a scorpion's toxic sting and was beginning to suffer from delirium. But no-this sound was a real as my inevitable demise:
"Hey, hey Mama, say the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove"... 
I uttered a prayer of thanks to the jungle's Pre-Columbian gods, one of whom I'm sure must have been named Zoso, and followed the sound wherever it grew louder.
"Oh Baby, whoa Baby, pretty Baby..." lured me toward a flickering glow, and I soon entered a clearing. Five obvious ex-patriots with once fair complexions sunburned to lobstery hues sat around a fire, accompanied by their swarthier native consorts.
I blinked in disbelief, and proceeded to stammer a brief introduction. They remained silent and still, beer bottles held suspended beneath stunned expressions while I explained my predicament. For a moment I wished I had left myself back to the fate of the elements. The final bars of the album's second track "Rock & Roll" thundered on, but were soon drowned out by peals of laughter. I was warmly embraced by all, slapped on the ass by a couple, and welcomed into their camp. Despite their gracious hospitality, I spent my night in a state of hyper vigilance, but my fears were unwarranted. I remained safe and unmolested. They proved to be as honourable as they were inexplicable.
The next day a couple of the men-who, as it turns out were clandestine boar hunters-led me safely back to my cabina in the village. It was later explained to me by a local that one of these gallant gentlemen was rumoured to have recently murdered a tourist who raped one of "Their Women". To this day, I can't hear "Black Dog" without getting a little misty-eyed, while the phrase "hacked to pieces with a machete" echoes fondly in my memory...

Classic Albums Live will be performing Led Zeppelin IV at Toronto's historic Massey Hall on April 16, "Note For Note, Cut For Cut"

And So It Begins...

My dear friend Rock has just proclaimed himself the "President" of my fanclub. Here he sits at my side, offering words of encouragement as I attempt to hurdle this first paragraph. "The longest journey begins with the first step" he says. While I would generally avoid a zen cleche` such as this, I'll be damned if it hasn't worked!
And so it begins...
I have a few down days in the midst of a whirlwind schedule. Classic Albums Live has kept me going virtually nonstop for the last couple of months; the veritable feast after the famine. While it's great to be a Canadian musician with regular well paying gigs, I don't do all the shows on CAL's roster. I'm happy to be run ragged when the work is available. February saw an Ontario tour of Supertramp. In March we took Fleetwood Mac to Florida and The Eagles to New Jersey and Long Island. Saturday we're doing Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon in London Ontario, then hit the ground running with rehearsals for another Fleetwood Mac show the following Thursday in Richmond Hill Ont. After that, it's only a matter of days before I fly to British Columbia to tour the Pink Floyd show yet again. This pleases me greatly, for after so many years my family and oldest friends will finally see me perform. I left B.C. for Toronto in the late 80's and only recently reconnected with my first friends and earliest bandmates through the miracle of Facebook.
Ah, yes...the miracle of Facebook. This pleases me greatly...