06/17/2026
One last super-long post, and then it’s back to stuff about gigs, new music, recording, and other misadventures.
In the traditional circuit, I’ve been walking two worlds since my late teens, with one foot in Cajun music and the other in Celtic music. Here in Cape Breton, I felt at home no matter what part of the island called out to me.
When I’m abroad, I try not to be “that foreigner” who blurts out things like “My ancestors were McNeills!” But there I was, gleefully interjecting things like, “My driving teacher was an Aucoin!” or “My principal was a Leblanc!” or “I’ve recorded with a Doucet, and you probably know of him!” (Those are prevalent surnames here.)
For all that I worry about the state of the world, I can still say, “What a time to be alive.” And someday I will tell future generations what it was like to play music with the last lighthouse keeper on the island. Or witness how strongly traditions still weave themselves through entire communities. Or hear dialects of languages that might need preservation one day. Or hear a song that is so relevant to my own people, that I decide to share it the way it was meant to be shared: by committing it to memory and playing it before live audiences.
In a time where so much art has become synthetic, living in the moment and embracing every human quirk is where the spark lives. My friend Xenia often states that all music is folk music, and when you break it down to what’s essential for reaching people, I can’t argue with this.
Thank you, wild and wonderful Cape Breton. À la prochaine, and chi mi a-rithist thu.
