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Well folks, after about two years, it has become evident that I am not so much on this blogging thing. If only there could be a direct link to my mouth, because I am known for going on. Of course, much of what I say is factual and, possibly important, but my brain goes too fast for most people’s comfort zone. I do wish to get to this more….
January, 2012 still found “Out In The Storm” garnering great reviews. We were honoured to be reviewed in Seattle’s “Victory Music”! The review is on their website, or at the reverbnation link on the bottom of this page, under PRESS. I can only convey my deepest gratitude to all the folks that have, and continue to, support original, independent, Canadian music.!!
We have some wonderful things in the works for this year. We have a live TV show with Magnolia Buckskin & John Wort Hannam, more recording, collabs, writing, writing, writing; the list is long. Certainly, getting our new album officially released is among the plethora of things to accomplish. Time seems to be on its usual warp, and this has taken way more effort than we anticipated…You know… the cheque’s in the mail,…the lead singer is lost in the forest for many weeks,…the car was stolen,…weddings,…funerals,…near death events,…life keeps happening. As a dear friend said to me, “We came to this earth for a human experience…”. Clea Roddick was quoting a sage of her own, but we are here, and it is so. I think possibly a spoiled house cat experience may have been a wiser choice…
Blessings and Love to you ALL!!! XOXO RPS

Today’s post is long overdue! So much has happened that I can’t even think of where to start. I had an amazing trip to Ontario, full of adventure and surprize. Thank you to all my family and friends who supported me in this!I have so much to tell you, but am so weary I can hardly do a job of it now. However, I will be back VERY soon to tell you some interesting stories. Blessings xoxo RPS

Well Kids, it’s the first of September,chilly & golden already. My old dog died in my arms this last week. She just couldn’t face another Alberta winter! I’m blessed to witness my dear friend leave at the time of her choosing-so many animals must be euthanized or meet with a tragic end-she just let out a long howl(for her this was”singing”, she only did it when her mama & siblings were all together, and they’ve all passed already…) and was gone. Gone is the yellow dog with the yellow leaves…

We are honored & excited to be off to play the Beaumont Blues Festival this weekend! I figure that after the summer I’ve had, I’m in perfect shape for a blues show! It will be so wonderful to run the Big Machine this time. It has been over a year since we’ve had a venue to afford the six piece! All the details for the fest are at http://www.beaumontblues.net/ . We hope to see you there!

I am astounded by the way time is racing by in my life.! I am very much in need of an administrator, a time machine, and a “Ruthie Cam”. My life is SOOO busy and adventurous, that the reality TV would be splendid. I just don’t keep up to this news, but there is only one of me, regardless of the fact that I have 14 arms and 17 bodies in different locations at any given time…!!! I can’t believe that I didn’t tell you about all our great news yet! ACK!! Firstly, “Out In The Storm” is licensed to MTV for ALL future news & documentary programming! Please let them know you’d love to here our music on their shows- The World of Jenks, Cribs, anything they do! Next, we’re #69 on CKUA’S TOP 100 OF 2010! CKUA Radio has 16 transmitters around Alberta and is all over the world on the web. They are the bastion of culture for ALL NEW CANADIAN MUSIC!! As well, we retain our status as #1 on ReverbNation’s Calgary Folk Charts. There is a link at the bottom of this page, and ALL our GREAT REVIEWS are there. You can hear some full songs there too! The new album has turned epic, and we are faced with a number of choices regarding its release. As an independent artist, I encounter some real challenges to marketing & promotion, let alone production & administration. I really just want to play music, write & record, but it is not so simple.

I have so much to tell you all about!! 2010 was an AMAZING YEAR!! We had many adventures, and gathered a lot of gems. I am certainly overwhelmed with the admin on the biz these days, but I have some time coming up soon to write & catch up on all this work. In the mean time, we’re in the studio madly recording our latest effort. I mean madly as insane, really, we’re recording it with extreme gratitude! I’ll be back very soon to tell you all about the 2010 extravaganza of excitement that we had. I just wanted to say ” THANK YOU” for the great year!!! Blessings! xoxo RPS

I know that it’s hard to believe, but I have no gig or reason to go to the city today. This is a first in a while. At a bit of a loss, I got carried away on facebook lookin’ for old pals, and almost (if not really) got myself banned. Oops! No oversocialnetworking. I’m sure that this will, in fact, soon be a legitimate word,”oversocialnetworking” & “socialnetworkaholic”. Soon we can just run every word right into the other and have supremomondohugo words, but, of course, then they’ll have to become text-able so osnwg & snwac which will in themselves become words, and thus, we have the evolution of language.

Great gratitude to RAWLCO Radio for the recording grant we received for our upcoming 2nd release.! We’re getting through the prepro and have the shortlist for the album. We’re gonna do a couple of covers from local writers too, so stay tuned(so pardon the pun!).

It’s almost Halloween, and everyone is talking about dressing up for the gig. I’m kinda glad I have the night off. I ALWAYS dress up for the gig. I come from the Dolly Parton School of Rock- Gotta have something big: big shoes, big glitter, big hair, you know! Dolly Rocks, and my hair could never be big enough!

Blessings! xoxo RPS 

That’s right Folks…a couple shots in the distance, the dog growlin’ low, my fella sickly & tired from working too hard; I live in a country & western song. The summer is gone again, as I knew it would be, and it never got here this year anyway. We sure are thankful for all our little blessings though. Everyday they add up like  pieces of a great puzzle, soon to reveal the splendor of something grand. Let’s see if we can’t get one of these “so called forthcoming stories” out tonight… Sometimes writing takes a certain schtuff to get it going, and I s’pose that shots in the night will do…Recently, I had to drive through a wee town in Alberta called Cremona. It’s one of those tiny villages that has a single main street, an old AND a new( 1980’s) hotel/restaurant/tavern, a post office, the laundromat that’s been there forever, a few stores and side streets, the obligatory fancy house on the hill, no more grain elevator or train tracks, great, strong people, and, I’d imagine, a few dogs. I spent quite a bit of time there in my western days; the youth of my horses and old pickup trucks, cowboys- REAL cowboys, and the first place I ever saw that colour you sometimes see in the sunset that you most wish you could have a dress made from a fabric of even a remotely similar hue. In the cemetery just outside of town a dear friend and great man lies. As the usual pace of my life often dictates, I had to drive past, unable to stop in for a moment to see the grave. I am going back soon. It will be part of my timeline to stop and see Jim Burton’s grave. Many folks believe that another gentleman holds Alberta’s oldest Class A Guides licence, but it was Jim. The structuring of guiding & outfitting licences changed at some point in the 1940’s, and Jim held the title for one year previous to the current title holder, but he’s long gone and that’s just what it is. He knew horses and kids, and horses for kids. He cut many of the trails through Banff National Park, alone, with a head and tail string of some ridiculous number like 17 head, on a green-broke horse, and could roll a smoke as he went down the trail. Really. He had hands that were hard to believe. They were HUGE. Only people that work with their hands and leather and dirt and years get hands like his. Gnarly beautiful like an ancient oak tree they were. In the last season of his life he was still catching wild horses, and he had the brilliant idea to take ready made pens up to the bush on a homemade wagon with the team. He wasn’t so much for riding on the wagon by now. It rumbled his guts. He rode his saddle horse up behind us, as he had to get off and lie in the trail ’til he could take the pain enough to ride again. This slowed him down a little, but the team & wagon went pretty slow, so we set out ahead to get a start on the long ride into Angel Camp. This was the base for Jim’s outfit as mostly a kids’ camp, and some wild horse catchin’ too. Ike, Jim’s son, drove the team. We were going along fine for a while; it’s rough and rambling with the big metal pen panels and a few pack boxes for a seat. Everything was boomered to the rig with chains and come alongs. It was a pretty heavy load. The team was an older solid Belgian and a young Percheron. The old boy had won pulls with the stoneboat at heavy horse competitions, and the young one was learning from him.I think their names were Prince and Doc, but it’s been 25 years… We reached a creek crossing that had a really steep, rutted bank on the other side. These trails were meant to be accessed by saddle horses or dirtbikes, and it was quite challenging to take the team & wagon up there. I don’t remember who all was there, but competent horsemen they were. For an hour the boys tried to get the team to pull the load up that stretch of hill, and they were about to start taking apart the load to split it into two. Just then, Jim rode up, got off his horse( which he rarely did-he had bunions so bad that he could barely walk, only ride) and took the lines beside the team. In the gentlest, yet most intense whisper kinda cooing sound , he started those horses up that bank. They gathered themselves and gave their all while Jim walked slowly coaxing beside them. I can’t really describe the magnificence of witnessing an incredible feat of strength and faith like that which I saw take place between Jim and his horses. They would have split themselves in half to pull that load up the hill if he asked them to. As it was, they required only Jim’s presence and a concerted effort to get up the bank and on our way again. Unloading the racks would have taken hours and left us travelling well into the night. I sure learned a lot about horses from old Jim. I sure learned a lot. Blessings!  RPS

Well, well, well! We have been about the towns, fields, and highways of this province so much that we completely forgot how to type. The list of thank yous and blessings is vast,  and this not typing thing is a great impairment!! No, no, we must DRIVE somewhere right away… Three Hills it is, and back, and then Creston, BC!!! We’re off to the Snoring Sasquatch for a show on Saturday night. Folks, thank you ALL for the great support!! ( Gee, I believe that I’m beginning to get the hang of this typing stuff again…) There are so many adventures to tell you about. As soon as I can get to the beastly computer (ack… shouldn’t curse the thing, sorry little beast!) I will attempt to get it all out there. Again, thanks and blessings!

I am awaiting the inhome version of the direct thought-to-computer interface that is bound to be available any day now. It is almost insane how much time one can spend on these babies(especially if you don’t type well or have magic teenage thumbs). I have been so busy with the CD/Video Release Extravaganzas that there has been NO time to write. So much to say…

I had the greatest interview with Monica Miller at CKUA on May 7th. To listen to it go to http://www.ckua.com/ and check out the archives (top right hand side). She has been a voice in my life soundtrack for so many days. It was such an honour to meet and speak with her!! Blessings!

Well Kids, it’s been an adventurous ride so far! Tonight, as I write this, the wind howls and the rain pelts hard against the window like some Poe moment from “The Fall of the House of Usher”. I had chance to drive past the Great House in my website and video to find it no more. Atop the hill where it once stood was a large patch of black earth and an old D-9 Cat. For many years it withstood the ravages of the prairie storms and deluge, but it too succumbed to the Monster of our times; the Godzilla of progress.

We had such a blast at the Calgary CD/Video Release Extravaganzas, there really is only one word to say, “THANK YOU”! Two words…Blessings to Trina Nestibo & Lark Hill for opening our shows, and Blessings to all of you who attended. We had so much help from so many people, that, to list them all here would be rather bland, so, as the stories unfold, All will be named and known for their great works!

It was way cool to take the band to my hometown hall. Thanks to the Swalwellian and surrounding area contingent who attended! That’s right, yer not from Swalwell…

Blessings Luvs! Please come see us in Edmonton and Red Deer- we’ll have the Big Band there( which don’t happen near enough), and you get your CD with your ticket! xoxo, RPS