7:30 am, Similkameen Lodge, RockRidge Canyon

I wake up to the loudest air-horn I’ve ever heard and having no idea where I am, and for a second I panic. Mike Edel then jumps out of the bed across from me and softly says to himself, “Breakfast.” I can tell he’s excited and then I realize where I am and say quietly to myself, “Breakfast.” I dress quickly, brush my teeth, put on a dirty band shirt and follow Mike to the mess hall. breakfast is good and I eat fresh fruit for the first time in what seems like ages. I also eat a bowl of oatmeal with cranberries and 2 slices of bacon. I grab a cup of coffee with the boys and head downstairs to the first keynote seminar, “Making Friends with the Media” starring the ever so wonderful and entertaining, Grant Lawrence. Grant is informative and funny and makes awesome jokes about last nights road hockey game, describing the end celebration for the musician victory as “Slapshot meets Lord of the Flies.” The seminar ends and JP Maurice points to my porcelain coffee cup I accidentally had brought downstairs and says “You’re breaking the rules, man.”

12:00 pm, RockRidge Canyon Mess Hall/Club Room

Lunch consists of really big “build-your-own” sandwiches, chips and veggie plates and we are really happy, to be eating 3 solid meals a day and being relatively healthy for once. I drink my 4th glass of orange drink and we head back up to our cabin to work on some new songs, shower and “get fresh” for our series of mock interviews that are scheduled for the late afternoon, the first of them being Radio, with Grant Lawrence himself, but we run out of time and end up not getting a turn.  He’s a great man to practice interviews with, but we understand that bands who have not yet had a chance to speak with him, should. Both Dan and I agree, that we could listen to him speak all day. Duff from the band “Avairis” tells us a very captivating story about his past, about how he had “Rode on the rails” when he was younger, flown and crashed a plane and re-learned how to play the guitar left-handed after playing all his life. Amazing. We move on to the Print interview with Janine Verreult, and learn how to tell juicy anecdotes for paper press and magazines. Tyson tells an entertaining story about the time we played Junofest with “Wide Mouth Mason” and how he scored the winning goal for the 2009 “Juno Cup.” Following the interview, we move out onto the dock where the ever so wonderful Tamara Stanners is waiting for us to do our Television interview, which included full camera set-up and crew, a wake-board bench and, thank the heavens, sun-block (I may or may not have mentioned yet how SMOLDERING it is here in Princeton) We have a fun interview. Following Behind Sapphire‘s interview, Matt jumps into the lake with his clothes on. Laurie Logan then challenges Tamara to an interview of her own and it is quite excellent.

6:00 pm, Mess Hall, RockRidge Canyon

Dinner is Ribs, pasta salad, corn on the cob and rice. Dan and I dine with Tamara, Laurie Logan and the boys in Treelines, and over dinner, we have a conversation about our roots, where we grew up, how and when we were influenced by music and our 9-5 jobs. The first of many showcases begin at 7:00 pm, including “Hilary Grist” an amazing singer songwriter from Maple Ridge with an excellent backing band, “The Belle Game” a wonderful Arcade Fire-y 7 piece band with great songwriting and trumpets galore (Who we have the pleasure of playing our Rifflandia showcase with) “Fields of Green” who absolutely blew my mind, seriously, incredible, and “Sex With Strangers” who got everyone dancing like nothing else. The judges describe them as “Possessed German Electro-Pop” which I am hoping will become, genre of the year. We have a late rehearsal following the showcase and it goes well. We sure are happy to have our friend Cody Beer filling in for us on the skins, we really are.

Talk to you tomorrow, friends! Goodnight!

– Acres