Worm Blog

Never travel with Mike McCormick. He has the worst luck. Mike decided to fly to Cincinnati while Trevor and I drove down. He should have driven with us. His first flight was cancelled because of a mechanical problem. His later flight was late getting into Detroit where he had to connect to Cincinnati. He made the flight but his baggage didn't. His baggage included his guitar. Trevor and I, having arrived hours earlier, had to find him a guitar to play in the show. We had a lot of help from some very fantastic people. Lisa at UC Clermont was cool as a cucumber - much more cool than a promoter with only two thirds of a band and no guitar should be. Lisa rules. She called the local music store to see if we could borrow a guitar for the show. Our new best friend Scott Carnder at Willis Music helped us out and saved our show. Thank you thank you thank you. The show was a lot of fun and Mike had a lot to say about a certain airline. Trevor and I didn't get to talk much. That's okay. We enjoyed Mike's rambling about luggage. His bags finally showed up at the hotel at 5am, just before he left to go to the airport for his flight home. Never travel with Mike McCormick.

We are heading to Ohio shortly. Here's an article about us in a Cincinatti paper.

We also got an email from someone who blogs with another service and has joined an Arrogant Worms community. It is here. Our very own community. Imagine the tax breaks!

Post-Ohio post coming soon.

Canada has not cornered the market on crap weather. Illinois and Indiana are doing just fine in that department. We have driven through bad weather before in our illustrious career and this was right up there with some of the worst. Nothing like watching the car in front spin around many times and hit a guard rail. We were able to stop in time and not hit the guy but our hearts were certainly pounding. He was fine and no further damage was caused. Two minutes later, folks weren't so lucky. A huge truck was jack-knifed across all lanes of I-65 and stayed that way for about 90 minutes. There were plenty of emergency vehicles on the scene but at least 60 of those minutes were spent discussing the situation. Many experts from the long line of cars offered their opinions as well. Everyone had an answer but the solution took a while. There was also a car and a police car involved but again no one was hurt. Thank goodness.

But we had a nice time. On Thursday night we played a fun show in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It's a TV talk show called Night Shift and it's taped at Snickerz Comedy Club. Right now, it's only aired locally. It was very fun. Nice folks there.

On Friday we woke up really early and hit the snowy roads for Grayslake, Illinois. Grayslake is north of Chicago and almost to Wisconsin. We had a great show there. Special props to the crew at the theatre there. They were awesome. As were the plough people who helped our audience dig out of the snow so they could get home. We even stayed at a hotel across from a giant mall. Good times at the mall.

Saturday was what the Weather Channel called The Winter Wallop. Our driving trip is described above. We had to get from Grayslake to New Albany, Indiana which is very close to Louisville, Kentucky. The storm was nice enough to only stay above our car all the way. However, we got there in three pieces and did two shows. I think we were still a little rattled from the drive at the first show as we got there about 40 minutes before it started. If there were incoherent moments, sorry about that. By that I mean, above and beyond the normal incoherent moments when we are well rested and haven't just almost died on a highway. Thanks to the New Albanians for two fun shows. And thanks to folks who drove great distances to join us. We weren't the only ones who came from far and wide. That means a lot to us.

Sunday was another early morning drive to the airport in Indianapolis. The flight back to Toronto via Chicago was uneventful unlike Wednesday when the wildcat strike by Air Canada baggage workers forced Mike to drive from Ottawa instead of fly. Good times. However, we are all home safe and sound and looking forward to adventures in Ohio this weekend.

Word up, over and out.

We're back from the frigid cold of Whitehorse, Yukon. When I say frigid I mean minus 45 degrees celsius. Actually, at that temperature celsius and fahrenheit meet up and are the same number. I was worried that it might go low enough for Kelvin. It was cold. Our trip there and back was fairly brutal thanks to delayed or cancelled flights but lets focus on our time in Whitehorse. It was great. And cold also. Did I mention that already?

We arrived on Thursday evening (a day late) and went right to the venue for our soundcheck. Had it been two degrees colder, then plane couldn't have landed. Even the locals thought it was cold. There was ice fog. It smelled like a dry ice machine at a rock show. The whole city was like the stage at a KISS concert. Awesome. One of the backstage crew boiled a cup of water to throw in the air outside. There had been a report on CBC radio that if you do that, it makes a cool cloud and a whooshing noise if the air is cold enough. The air was cold enough. CBC is great for that kind of information. Thanks to them for that.

The show was a lot of fun. The show was sold out but there were some empty seats presumably because cars wouldn't start. Most people just left their cars running during the show so they wouldn't freeze. The audience was a lot of fun and very patient as we ranted about airlines and talked about how cold it was. We pulled out a couple of nuggets from the past in Tokyo Love Song and Having Fun is Bad for You. We've been dipping into the back catalogue to see if we remember the old songs. So far so good.

Since our morning flight the next day was cancelled we got a day in Whitehorse to hang around before we left in the evening. We were mostly indoors but I ventured out a couple of times for very short walks. I walked around by the river and then hightailed it back to the hotel to watch the weather channel and find out how stupid I was. I was stupid.

We eventually made it back to balmy Ontario. When we were gone, it was plus 15 degrees in some places in Ontario. It was back to minus 15 by the time we returned. Good times. Good times.

Right you are, Ken.

We knew it would be a long day. We knew it would be a fun day. It was both. We got to Hugh's Room at about 10am for a rehearsal and soundcheck. Trevor and I had been there just a few hours before singing with Betty and the Bobs at their Christmas show. Fun. We should have just slept over. It was also the first real cold snap so far this year in Toronto and it was really really really cold. Glad I bought a new hat with ear flaps.

We augmented our band with two of the finest musicians we know - Anne Lindsay on the fiddle and Mike Ford on congas, keyboards and electric guitar. This combo was hard-wired for fun. The rehearsal and soundcheck went along well thanks to the efforts of sound-goddess Anne Keillor. She can handle any curve we throw. The crowd starting coming in at around noon and it was a great mix of kids and parents and grandparents and everyone else. It was standing room only by the time Mike Ford hit the stage for his super fantastic set to start the show. Only Mike would have the stuff to open his show with one of our songs. He sang I Am Not American so well that I was sure it was his song by the end.

We hit the stage and had a ball. Anne and Mike are total pros and really add so much to the stage dynamic. Trevor, Mike and I are fairly used to each other and our on-stage habits and antics so it's nice to mix it up a bit. The crowd certainly was a big part of the show as well. It was like a big old Christmas party on a Sunday afternoon. The kids didn't get all the jokes but they didn't care. Hard-wired for fun. We did a mix of Christmas and other tunes and talked about various topics such as Canadian Tire commercials, MXC on Spike TV (right you are, Ken) and cassettes. We brought a few boxes of tapes of the first four albums to give away. We wanted to be like Oprah so we brought about 400 tapes so we could give them out at both shows. Lets just say that the kids went crazy and they were all gone after the first show. We were happy to be rid of them as they were taking up valuable space in the storage locker.

After a dinner break it was time for the evening show. The room was once again packed to the rafters with those about to rock. It was a very fun crowd. Quite chatty too which got us going on many topics likes cows riding the bus and streetcar. Odd. Fordy's amp cut out as his big moment arrived in The Christmas Blues. His one request for these shows was that he could do a big stupid electric guitar solo. We were happy to oblige and then the amp cut out. Rats. He looked good though.

We finished the show with what was probably our most stirring performance of Christmas in Ignace to date. We were fairly tired by this point and the song went in some sonic directions that we weren't expecting. Anyone who would have walked in at that moment would have thought there was something quite horrid going on. They would have been right.

And that wraps up the year for us. No more shows until January. We wish you all the best for the holidays. Check back here in the new year for more banal musings and keep an eye on www.arrogant-worms.com for tour dates and such.

Happy Ho Ho!

On Saturday December 11th, we were given the great honour to play at a memorial celebration of the life of our friend David Grierson. David was a CBC fixture in BC and was one of our earliest and most vocal supporters on the radio. The world lost David suddenly on November 20th at the too-young age of 49.

The memorial for David on Saturday included many of the musical artists, poets, authors and friends whose lives he touched. The show was at times solemn, reverent, irreverent and hilarious. There was no place we would have rather been. We treasure our friendship and we have so many great memories of the short time we had with him. David was one of the good people in the world. He was tireless in his support of the arts but his greatest passion was for the people he loved.

To know more about our friend David Grierson, have a look at vancouver.cbc.ca/ontheisland. There is a touching tribute there as well as information about the memorial concert.

Thank you, David. We miss you.

For a Canadian to swim in the Atlantic Ocean in December is a rare and exciting treat. That’s what I did on Friday in Daytona Beach, Florida. I think I may have been the only one in the water that day and a few passersby stared a bit at the weirdo Canadian. The locals were wearing long pants and light jackets because it was only about 20 degrees Celsius at the time.

But we weren’t just in Florida to swim in the ocean. We had to work too. We had shows at the fantastic Seaside Music Theater in Daytona on Thursday and Friday. Daytona is the home to car racing and motorcycle mayhem and spring break. Apparently Canadian musical comedy is fine too. The folks in Daytona were great to us. We had some friendly faces in the crowd from previous trips to Florida. It was great to see friends from Orlando, Vero Beach, Stuart and Atlanta at the shows. On Thursday night, a new superhero was created onstage – Turtle Man. When things get too dicey for him, he just retracts into his shell until danger passes. We thought it was hilarious.

The Orlando airport has a monorail. I rode it more than I had to. Monorails are fun. Monorail monorail.