Songwriter Circles, well actually half-a-circle

by Nico Boesten

These songwriter circles have been super cool. This 2nd one we've tried featured some local familiars and some recently-local-not-so-familiar faces.

Brent Tyler

Let me take a minute to introduce the newest addition to our great city of Kelowna, Brent Tyler. This guy actually really blew me away. He was introduced to the "tribe" via Ari Neufeld and has been touring like a jack rabbit on crack for a few years now. And by "touring" I mean doing a bit of travelling but mainly playing cover tunes in a variety of Calgary pubs to a bunch of drunks. What he explained was that he was making a good living doing that, but apparently drunk people don't really want to hear anything other than "Sweet Caroline" or "Brown-eyed girl". So he spent a year of his life (& piles of dough) recording a super high quality album entitled "In Rhythm" with some legit industry people, moved to Kelowna a couple of weeks ago, and has begun to venture into the world of "making it work" in the singer-songwriter world hopefully playing to more sober people. Understanding that this road ahead of him is crawling with obstacles, competition, and an overwhelming amount of noise, he's following his heart and doing what he loves. Not only were his songs insanely strong but he had the vocal & guitar chops of a wild animal - like imagine a rabid badger who could sing like Ray LaMontagne and play guitar like Martin Sexton - it'd be close to that. Welcome to Kelowna Mr. Tyler.

We also had some old (sorry, didn't mean it like that) familiar faces like Graham Ord who has the phenomenal gift of making people feel like a billion bucks. Probably the best songwriter circle host in this universe I might add. Mark Irving is also a common face around here and he played a few tunes off his new record about to be launched into the hands of humans in a couple of weeks (which was beauty). Then, Rachel MacGregor also shared some of her stories and music which was a unique experience as she's normally joined by her sister. I didn't realize she had won a handful of awards including the International Songwriting Competition & the John Lennon songwriting comp a few years ago as well. Nice work. It was a swell night thanks to the artists, Streaming Cafe, and all the sober people who came out to listen.

Songwriter Circle Jun 17, 2011

You can almost smell the silk with this photo, except they aren't silk so that would also decrease your chances.

Graham Ord - not only is it funny to hear WHAT he's saying, but also HOW

Graham Ord

Rachel MacGregor

Mark Irving. And yes, I think the bridge on his guitar is called a mustache or something.

Thanks to Carrie Harper for taking pictures - not only is she a great artist, but apparently also a great photographer.