Even I need time away from covering  live music, so usually afternoon shows and jam sessions  don’t end up getting covered. But sometimes I can sense that something cool is about to happen. So I made a point of  going to Honker’s Pub’s always popular Saturday afternoon jam, April 6 when I learned that Chilliwack drummer Jerry Adolphe was in town and would be at the jam. And sure enough he was. Host Paul Kype  played a couple solo blues songs on acoustic guitar, welcomed up another musician, then his wife Jenn Kype to sing a beautiful duet of “Shallow” from  “A Star is Born.”

 And then, after by a quick set of blues  rock from most of Driving while Blind, plus some excellent harp, the magic began.

 Kype welcomed Adolphe on stage with bassist Shawn Worden who played  a couple songs   from Paul Kype and Texas Flood’s new CD “Blues From Rosie, featuring Adolphe on drums.
 Kype noted Adolphe was in town to record a new EP from Jenn Kype, and changed his flight so he could play the jam. So that was special on it’s own and even more so when the trio really locked in with each other.

They began with my favourite track from the Cd “ If You Could Read my Mind.” and followed it up with “Outlaw Game.”

 Worden, who  doesn’t usually play with Kype,  fit in like he played with him for years.
 They added a couple covers including  Blind Faith’s “I Can’t Find My Way Home,” from the Cd and  a beautiful version of Van Morrison’s “Into The Mystic” and added Steve Ray Vaughan’s  “Pride and Joy,” to  show off some of Kype’s substantial guitar chops.

Songwriters in the round shows are a lot if fun, because you get four different songwriting perspectives. The only problem is you never get to see enough of the people you really want to see.
 Unless they all add to each other’s music , like with Olds/Red Deer guitarist Tyler Allen, Edmonton’s  Kimberley MacGregor, and B.C musicians Nasti Weather and the Brain Porter who were playing as Rovers in the Round at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, April 5.

 Tyler Allen plays here with a lot of bands including Boots and the Hoots as well as solo.
 This time he was adding twanging Telecaster to  everybody’s songs.

He started off the first set  with one of his original country songs.

 Kimberley MacGregor, has a new CD coming out in the next year or so, so was eager to share brand new music,  beginning with a slow, mournful number featuring her huge, soulful, bluesy voice. Allen added some lead guitar while Nasti Weather added a  few subtle banjo licks.

 Nasti Weather was up next with her banjo and decided to out  do MacGregor on the sad song front. She told a few stories about breaking up and plucked banjo, singing a sad jazz tinged number with Brain Porter bowing his upright bass to make it sound a little more mournful.

He kept up the sad jazz feel on his own song, with Allen adding a little bit of chicken picking on guitar.
 He  turned the set more country on his own.

MacGregor sang another more upbeat, sultry jazz number after that with everyone chipping in.
For her next song, Nasti Weather explored a more exotic sound on her banjo, with Brain Porter bowing more upright bass.
 Brain Porter added some bluesy harp while thumping on his bass for his third song of the set.

Kimberley MacGregor picked up the tempo a lot with the quirky and appealing “ You Fill My Cup Up With So Much Love.”
 Nasti Weather  carried on with the more optimistic tone with a song about “ finding beauty out of sadness.”
 And Brain Porter finished the first set with  song, featuring mostly of  the lines  “ Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results.”

Windsor, Ontario born ’90s rockers the Tea Party are enjoying a second life after taking a break in 2005 after scoring a string of exotic flavoured hard rock hits in the late ’90s including “the Bazaar,” “the Messenger,“ “Temptation” and “Heaven Coming Down.”
 But they came back with a vengeance with a live album Live From Australia in 2012, and released a full length  CD “The Ocean at the End” and are enjoying more success from their new single. “Black River,” which they named their tour after.

“It’s been on the charts for several months at number 5 and hasn’t really shifted. It’s a pretty nice accomplishment,“ noted drummer Jeff Burrows, who is excited excited to embark on a new tour with band mates, bassist Stuart Chatwood and frontman Jeff Martin, who now lives in Australia.
“He’s been there for awhile now. So when we want to work on new material, we book a tour there and arrive a couple of weeks in advance. We’re going to stay there for a couple of weeks after the next tour,” he observed, adding that will be in June.

“Not to compare ourselves to the Rolling Stones, but they don’t live anywhere near each other either,” he said. The tour comes to Lethbridge for a sold out show at the Yates Theatre/ Sterndale Theatre with Proud Sons, May 1.
“A lot of them are sold out, and a lot of the others are already 90 per cent sold out,” observed Burrows.
 A lot of the shows are in theatre like the Yates Sterndale Bennett Theatre.

“We’re playing a lot of bigger clubs and theatres. It’s great and it’s a lot of fun being able to play theatres we weren’t privy to when we were young. You just roll in and there’s this nice big stage for you. We’re used to playing cramped clubs were it’s really loud and you can feel the drums beating against your chest,” he said, adding they don’t change the style of the show for a theatre.

Pete isn’t dead or in jail, according to Hamilton funnyman B.A, Johnston, who  returns to the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Tuesday, April 23 with J Blissette in  support of his new CD “The Skid is Hot Tonight.”
“Pete loves that song,” chuckled Johnston of the first single from the CD “We’re All Going to Jail (Except Pete, He’s Gonna Die), which also inspired a frame by frame re-creation of Van Halen’s “Jump” video.

“It’s not as good, because they have more money and we‘re older. But we painstakingly re-created every frame, but cut most of it,” he said.

“ But it features they guy who does my beats and the guy who does my album artwork, so it is nice to feature them,” he said, adding the song is partially based on a true story.

“Pete took too many magic mushrooms and thought security was chasing him. We lost him for a half hour. And he still thought security was chasing him, though I don’t think  they were,” he said.

It is a follow up to his last CD Gremlins 3.
“ That was like two years ago. Time flies. I have like 12 CDs out now,” he said, adding they will  probably only be playing three songs from the CD.
“I have a lot of ‘hits’ and people want to hear them. I know when I go see Iron Maiden and they mostly  play their new album, I don’t really like that,” he said, adding he is always writing.

“It’s a long CD. It’s 12 songs and 42 minutes long. So it‘s like a Grateful Dead album,” Johnston chuckled.