Filling Station is new again!

Hi, it's been ages. What's been going on? Well, I'm now Managing Editor of Filling Station. This is going to be a huge job because I keep finding extra work to be done - re-examining our use of different vendors, our use of materials, our web presence, our survival tactics with regards to funding, and then there's all the fun proofreading and editing and grant writing and event planning.

Fortunately, we now have a stellar team of excited, talented literary folk on our Collective these days. We're always looking for more Collective members to help choose the content that appears in the magazine and share ideas for improvement. So if you're in Calgary, drop a line to meditor.fs@gmail.com If you're not in Calgary, you might as well move here to be part of it. Let's start a Greenwich Village for writing. You be Joan Baez, I'll be Joni Mitchell, we'll have some kind of awesome cat fight (Joni would totally win) and get in bed with really hot folk musicians.

We're also looking for a new webmaster & web designer, so please let me know if you might be into that as well. Again, we're hoping for Calgary-based help.

http://www.fillingstation.ca/ is officially kaput for the time being, so please check our Blow-Out Fest Blog at http://calgaryblowout.blogspot.com/ for info.

Next submissions deadline: May 1!

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What else am I up to? Playing upright bass for my friend Dylan's band, Sadlier-Brown & The Sound. We're a six-piece roots rock band, we have some rough demos and a pic up at www.sonicbids.com/sadlierbrownandthesound Also playing electric bass for ryan fitzpatrick's new project, The Ogden Owls. ryan's amazing, and so are James & Jocelyn, who are also Filling Station editors.. it's practically the Filling Station band until ryan moves on as Flywheel Coordinator in June. By the way, I'm no longer with Lonely Hunters or Pine Tarts, but they're still my pals. No longer on the Single Onion board either. Writing about music for Beatroute occasionally when I know there's a really great band that needs coverage. Interviewed Neko Case via email, but was really bummed that she didn't reply in time for the deadline.. Still, Middle Cyclone is an amazing album. Write for music weeklies if you want to hear amazing music faster. Wandering around with an alt-country tornado in my ears for a couple weeks was a highlight of my winter.

Thinking about starting my own band, but I'm pretty busy with Filling Station, my full-time job at the ballet, and Dylan's band. Still, I'm sitting on about two albums worth of indie pop rock and 1 of alt country / roots rock type material, and my butt's really getting sore, all those pointy music notes, all those paper cuts.. so I've got to get off it or really get on it. Hmm.

Just got a copy of the new Kara Keith, it's amazing! Everyone look it up on CDBaby, it's called Kara Keith & Your Dignity, and the album is called Visions Fugitives. Kara was a bright belle of the Calgary music community and has moved to Montreal where she's been working with a producer who did one of the Arcade Fire's albums among other things.