The folk, flying again.

So. The Flying Folk Army. You remember us? Slightly infamous east vancouver folk band formed back in 1998 in the wake of the APEC protests. You may have seen us playing on the corner in front of WoodSquat, or at one of many Flying Folk Fridays at La Quena. Perhaps the WISE? Perhaps Cafe Deux? It’s been awhile, I’m sure, since we haven’t played in Vancouver for about three years (our last few shows have been in Seattle), despite frequent requests by our friends who miss drinking and dancing along to our impulsivity. But you know, with the guitar players off and raising children and the rest of us getting our educations finished and careers on track… well, the band didn’t really make the priority list while life was going on.

But this weekend we had a show, one of those casual community-fair type of things which Duane arranged through someone he used to work for. Really nothing to write home about as far as shows go, but it gave us an excuse to get together again and rehearse a set. And although the first rehearsal was a bit rough… after three get-togethers (the final one at my place before the gig) it was like – “Oh yeah. We are a band.” All over again. My upstairs neighbour even put his head in the door to tell us how awesome we sounded – which I thought was pretty decent of him since we *were* inflicting everyone in the house with accordion and fiddle on a Saturday morning.

And so we’re having some discussion about doing it again. The band. Not the same as we did before, not the same music and not the same crazy schedules – but a show here and there, some new tunes, perhaps even finishing the album we started in 2003, getting a new website up… the basics for getting gigs and letting people know what we’re up to.

And it’s funny, because I felt two years ago that this project was over for me… and here I am excited by it all over again. Excited because we know each other so well musically and seem to be moving to new places together (less anger, more dancing! more fun! more children’s music!). And damn, it’s been almost 10 years of knowing each other, we might as well capitalize on the fact that we can truly be “folkies” now that we’re old enough 😉

We’ll see. It would be fun to do some of it again. And I’ll be sure to let y’all know when we do.