On the Road- Kristin Sweetland

December 24, 2005
London, ON

Merry Ho, my sweet ones. Home with the family and going out to Michaels on the Thames for a super-fancy Christmas Eve dinner. It raineth in a very un-Christmaslike manner. I am fully in the spirit regardless. Ho ho. Going to Toronto tomorrow to make a Tofurkey feast. yeah, baby

In my chambers working away like a crazy little industrious rodent... Settling well into winter in Ontario (aside from the cold part) and planning my great creative hibernation. Will be spending the next few months bouncing back and forth beween here and Toronto. Rehearsing and recording and finishing up writing for the new album is the high priority right now, but I'm also working on a few wee artistic side-projects as well. Have grand plans to save the world from evil, as usual. Details to follow soon...

Back in the holler for a wee spell! Couldn't head north out of this delicious fall weather quite yet knowing what might be awaiting me up in the great wilds of brrrr... Have been having such amazing adventures. I love my life. Music has been insipred too... Heading home soon to start more work on the new album! Yay yay yay. It's gonna be a productive winter! xoxo Kristin

Had amazing show last night at the Bitter End with my pal Olivia Maxwell. We rocked the house, man and now I'm going th celebrate by having a couple crazy days in NYC. Today I made my big official pilgramage uptown to the Menkes store on 54th for purposes of Flamenco shoes and a new Flamenco skirt. It is SO hard to find Flamenco accesories in Canada, not to mention anywhere... The ladies in the store were so great and helped me so much with the finding of the perfect shoes and skirt to fit my body. Excellent. Can't wait to get back to Ontario to start my dance classes again. Here for another day or two to visit with friends and then back to the holler for a day or two. Tomorrow my friend Elisa Korenne is taking me all about Brooklyn on a stoop-sale hopping mission. Apparently you can score big at such events... Hope to hook up with the amazing Chris Brown for dinner this evening. Check out his website please as he is SO supremely talented and doing such important work. I heart NYC. Not to mention the eternal glory of this sunny sunny GORGEOUS weather. Loving the high-70 degrees in November. Yeah, baby.

Happy Halloween! How much do I love this day? Kickin' it up down in the holler with my friend Jenny and dear amigo Trevor Mills who came down from Pennsylvania to visit. If you click on the more photos link and scroll to the bottom you can see us in our costumes... Can you guess what we are? I also went the full mile on the Jackolantern carvin' this year. Hooray for those new-fangled pumkin-saw carving kits that make life so much easier than when I was young... Here for a few more days then New Yeeork City bound!! Eeee!

September 19, 2005
London, ON

Lovelies,
I have been so enjoying my time at home house and puppy-sitting for my parents while they're gallivanting about Europe. Me and Raven the dog have been having the best time ever sleeping in and running through the f-o-r-e-s-t... Besides the relaxing I've been super busy working on exciting new album plans! There will be a new page set up soon with album info that will let you vote on things you'd like to see on the new CD- artwork... instrumentals... traditional tunes... etc... Feedback and ideas from you are always so incredibly appreciated! Everything I've been studying and working on lately seems to be lending itself to the new album. Have been working on a couple Flamenco-influenced tunes and yesterday I just had my first Flamenco dance class (in years and years...) Will be working on learning some fancy footwork to accompany my new songs. Watch out baby! Also, my dance teacher is going to try and hook me up with a Paco de Lucia disciple in Toronto who will seriously whip my playing into shape! I can't believe how intense and challenging it is to play Flamenco. I've had to work HARD. I've been working so hard infact that this weekend I truly though my brain was gonna blow up. I then forced myself to go out for an entire day of brainless entertainment at the Western Fair, the site of so much fun and excitement from my youth. I had the best day ever. Saw little baby lambs and goats, (I unfortunately missed the pig races) ate french fries for dinner, got to sniff the #1 ribbon award-winning rose (it was true heaven) and got a spray on fake tattoo on my chest of the chinese character for "treasure". And then I lost five bucks in the casino. (But I'm choosing to see it as energetically investing in my future wealth..) I guess we'll see. Stay tuned in the next couple days for the new album page, and hope to hear from you all soon! And you can check out a couple more photos of me at the Western Fair here.

Mmmm... eatin' apple pie at the Shelter Valley Folk Festival
with Rob Lamothe and fine friends

It's me. Officially home from a summer of incredible adventuring. Just spent the most amazing weekend at the Shelter Valley Folk Festival up in Grafton, ON. I just can't say enough about this sweet little festival- sooo good! Am now settling down for six weeks of no touring with a serious focus on new album work. It's coming... Check back in the next week or so and I'll post even more secret info! (And more summer festival photos coming too!)

August 16, 2005
Gid Brown Hollow, VA

Sooo hot is summer in the holler... apparently 316 year old cabins weren't made with air conditining. I am melting. Can barely even strum a chord on my guitar. Thank the Lordess my beautiful friend songstress Olivia Maxwell keeps inviting me over to her dad's mountain-top manor to go swimming... or I would surely perish. -- happy floating me xo

August 1st, 2005
Brooklyn, NY

Have been having quite the NYC adventure for the past few days... Getting here there was a night or two from the annals of "I can't believe this is my life: Road stories from almost-hell" to be elaborated on later in the road novel I will surely write one day- Jack Kerouac, watch out buddy. But now I'm here and all is glorious and vibrant and fascinating and did I mention HOT? And today despite the heat I walked and walked and walked for what must have been a million blocks all the way from Broadway-Lafayette to Times Sqaure and beyond. Then I did a big runabout Central Park before deliciously dining in the Central Park Boathouse on Pinot Grigio and Salmon Carpaccio... ohhh baby. My legs hurt, but it was so worth it! Spent last night crashing on the fine couch of my friend the incredible songmistress Elisa Korenne. Hittin' the 1-95 corridor of traffic jammage tomorrow en route back to Virginny for a wee bit more of a spell. Writing and writing and writing.... xxx K

There is nothing so sweet in the whole wide world as your very own bed and your very own dog and your very own clean laundry! Home for 48 hours and planning on enjoying every last delicious second of it. Had lots of fun this morning on Canada AM, CTV's national morning show... got to kick it up righteously with a bunch of other fabulous guitar pickers in the name of the upcoming Canadian Guitar Festival this weekend. Hope to see y'all there...

July 17, 2005
Cranberry, PA

At Motel 6... encore. Soooo sleepy again, but at least no odeur de wet doggy this time. Adventures have been seriously good- and highly adventurous. Left the holler this morning en route back to my home and native land. Yayyy Canada. Spent the last week at Paul Reisler and Julie Portman's Songcamp intensive in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I had the most incredible time, learned absolutely tons and met the most amazing people. Wrote some damn fine songs too... I highly recommend this experience for songwriters of all levels. It was so good for me! Next stop: Torontonia for a little Canada AM morning television... and I ask- why can't morning television be on in the afternoon? ... Zz z z z z z z z z z z z

A hazy dazy 4 o' July in the holler... more photos

July 4, 2005
Gid Brown Hollow, VA

All is well in the little cabin in the holler. A hot and lazy Fouth of July with the buzzing bees and the blowing breezes and the gurgling swamp monsters in the nearby pond. No communal fireworks display tonight in this neck 'o the nowhere woods! So we had to go buy our own like true rednecks and set 'em off ourselves in the back forty... Mmmm pretty sparkles. !(*)!

In Jeffersonton, VA... more Virginia self-portraits here!

June 26, 2005
Cranberry, PA

Tooo sleepy to write.... Motel 6 smells like wet doggies. Forgot how much I love television... xo nighty-night

At the Crown Fountain in Millenium Park, Chicago... more photos

June 25, 2005
Chicago, IL

I've been having such an amazing weekend in Chicago. This city is happening! Besides the over-the-top torturous traffic congestion (which in the 101 degree armpit-of-the-universe heat is reasonably unbearable) I've been having such fun exploring the city. Had a fabulous "Women With Guitars" show at the Abbey Pub on Friday night and met some truly fine and talented ladies. On the other side of the club the Easy Star All-Stars were playing and kickin' it up big time! I never even thought I liked Reggae but these guys certainly changed my mind. For their second set they played the entirety of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" à la exceptional reggae. It didn't even remotely suck. I loved it. Other highlights of the weekend were Neiman Marcus hat shopping and the Taste of Chicago- the city's anuual outdoor food festival. I ate some superfine crab cakes and seafood gumbo... yum. And drank some truly heinous Budweiser-made beer -Don't try that at home. Will be heading off Virginia-bound in the morning... yayyy remote mountain nothingness and no traffic! Gotta make it cross the whole blasted Ohio turnpike first tho. But I know there will be Cracker Barrel hashbrown casserole somewhere on the way and that will make it all eternally worthwhile....

101 Degrees in the traffic jam... more photos

June 16, 2005
London, ON

Home sweet home... So glad to be here for some resting and eating and cleaning before I yet again hit the road. And thank the universe, our recent painfully stifling Southwestern Ontario heat wave has finally broketh! My brain is once again officially functioning and that is very helpful to the cause of getting work done. I've just posted a whole slough of Europe photos from my ongoing self-portrait series... check them out here! I'm around Ontario for the next week and a bit and then off to Chicago for some Women with Guitars action. Then down the the Virginia holler... Gonna lock myself in a cabin in the middle of the beautiful nowheres for a while and work hard on finishing some new-album writing. Yeehaw! New album! It's getting closer to existing every single day... I'll keep you updated... xoxo K

At the Hotel de Sejour, Paris

May 20, 2005
Paris

Adieu Paris. I have had the very best adventure ever. Spent my last night here enjoying the sweet sounds of Lotus (you gotta say it with a French accent..."Lotou!") at my favourite bar I found in all of Paris- Le Connétable. The first night I found this place I was wandering about the Marais after going to "La Nuit des Musees" at the French archives -They lit up all the museum exhibits with coloured lights, black lights and other various Rave-y madness and let all the Saturday night streetgoers wander through... with live DJs and all! I got to see Napoeon's hat- Anyways, Le Connétable is a true real-thing beamed out of the 1920's artsy philosophising speakeasy joint that sucked me in like a giant horseshoe shaped magnet in the sky. It's the kind of place where the seriously talented cute boys (all Johnny Depp-like in "Chocolat") rock out on the ragtime guitar in a stairwell 'till the crack of bleedin' dawn in the drippy drippy carved out stone cave bar basement like we're all gonna die tomorrow or somethin! There was even bad wine, French intellectual conversation and the whole nine yardage, man. I think I might just have to move here.

But I am indeed really looking forward to my bed... and my dog... and not having to speak French if I don't want to...

With the moon and Ste-Chapelle cathedral... more photos

May 17, 2005
Paris

Tonight- oh!!!!! I got to go see Jean-Paul Poletti & La Choeur de Sartène sing their nouveau-Gregorian majestic chanty resplendentness in the unparalleled glory of Ste-Chapelle cathedral. I wept in awe. I LOVE Paris.

Paris Candlelight... more from my Europe self-portrait series here

May 14, 2005
Paris

I am the happiest girl in the world- well, now that I'm here. My supposed high-speed 4 hour train ride from Amsterdam to Paris ended up taking 8 hours due to a railway strike in Belgium. They held our train for 2 hours in Antwerp and then we were additionally late cause they couldn't find the conductor! But alas, I made it and it was worth every single torturous stranded minute. I found the most fabulous restaurant on La Rue Francs des Bourgeois close to my hotel in the Marais and I am addicted! It's called Le Potager du Marais, all organic gourmet Vegetarian food and wine. I had a to die for organic Bordeaux . Can't wait to go back... Tomorrow I must go museum-ing like a good little tourist, the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages being at the top of my list. Mmmm gorgeous Unicorn tapestries. Other than that it's follow-my-intuition adventuring... we'll see what happens. Adieu for now! La K

A birthday Sake toast in Amsterdam... more photos

May 10, 2005
Amsterdam

Happy Birthday to me. After a serious overnight flight of no sleep whatsoever and a subsequent day of zombie-like wandering in a delicious daze I am celebrating my birthday in true fine style. So incredibly happy to be here. It's like a dream. A dream with really good clothes shopping and super-fine beer and lots of bicycles. Lots and lots of bicycles. I walked and walked and walked all day... there was also some eating of chocolate strawberries on canal bridges and sipping of extremely good champagne. I also made a very important trip to one of my goal destinations- the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. Library of all things mystical and fascinating and glorificus and ancient. I had the best day ever. Can't wait till tomorrow.

yay. xo Lady K- one year older...

In Toronto at the Mod Club... more self-portraits here!

April 29, 2005
Toronto, ON

Alas, I made it all the way across the country in time to see Patty Griffin play tonight in Toronto. Sweet! It was a long country man... let me tell ya. So glad to be back in the arms of the homeland. Here for a week of unpacking, cleaning and re-packing... Then it's off to gaie Paris for me!

updates soon! xo

April 25, 2005
Sault Ste Marie, ON

It's the last night of sleazy motels for me on this trip, baby. My motel blanket even says "Motel" printed in black ink all across it. Gotta love that. Oh, Ontario-you are so long and take FOREVER to drive through. This was day 2 of the Ontario-haul, all cold and drippy with threats of snow and such. Had to pull over last night in Motel Nowhere due to serious freezing rain. NOTHING good to eat up here for days. Icky white bread and nasty fried soggy potato products prevail. Dreaming of clouds of brown rice sushi lifting me up to the firmament forever... But oh, the beauty. This is true and glorious wilderness country and I am so blessed to be travelling through. It's off to Sudbury to see Darlene tomorrow. Hooray!

love, K

April 24, 2005
Winnipeg, MB

Have been hangin' in the Peg for a couple days with my good pal Trevor Mills. Thank the gods for Winnipeg- a grand oasis of glorious folks (and such great musicians!) smack dab in the middle of the long Canadian nowhere-ness... A haven for the girl that's been driving and driving for days... about to go truly and officially insane. Heading into the Ontario northlands for many days of driving yet.... dreaming of my soft bed at the end of the rainbow.

More from my cross-Canada self-portait series here!

April 23, 2005
Saskatoon, SK

Sweet prairie skies have been bathing me in sunshine all day. Blue blueness with golden fields and orange dusty winds... Wandered forever up desolate train tracks taking photos and soaking in the warm-ness. Think I even got a sunburn. Got some wicked new clothes in Edmonton (always the Great Font of clothes shopping it seems.) And had so much fun prancing around prairie-land in my new wares. Have been having Way fun with the self-portrait series. Yay for productive artistic compulsions! They oft bear such fine and delicious fruit. (see above.)

Hence I press onward across this great land... xo

Adieu Ocean

April 16th, 2005
Victoria, BC

Goodbye beautiful Island. It's been an incredible winter. But onward ho -back into the world I go- on my merry way.

xo
me

In the back of Ruby the Van
The self-portrait mania continues... more photos here!

April 5th, 2005
Victoria, BC

Back from a supremely fun weekend in Vancouver. Played a show with my good pal Sam Masich and his trio FFM at Sam's Tai Chi studio in Kitsilano. Besides being a brilliant songwriter and great performer Sam is also one of North America's premier Tai Chi Masters! I love playing gigs in all kinds of strange places but I must say, a Tai Chi studio was a new one for me. I also spent a good amount of time kickin' it up at Vancouver's Kino Cafe -a Flamenco bar on Cambie St. I LOVE the Kino Cafe. Not only do they have seriously yummy Sangria there's also live Flamenco nightly with great players and oh-so beauitful dancers (with make-you-drool gorgeous outfits on.) Hmmmm... perhaps I'll have to go to Spain next winter... Until then, I'm just going to seriously enjoy my last wek in Victoria and all the adventures soon to come. I'll be heading back across Canada and then to Europe for a bit of a birthday extravaganza. T'will be sad to leave this sacred place (I've gotten attached) but Alas- the wide world calls once more.

Will update soon.

xo
your faithful
me

Greetings again from my bright sunny kitchen in the glorious Victoria morning... Not a drop of rain has fallen since before Valentine's Day and Vancouver Island has been positively drenched in golden sunlight. This is indeed strange weather behaviour for the Pacific Northwest in winter- but I complain not! I guess the desert down in the Southwest US has just been getting pounded with our rain... not to mention LA. And I heard around Death Valley the desert has started turning green! Seeds that have been dormant for thousands of years are suddenly growing... oh my. (Like, climate change anyone?) Yet I suppose climate change tends to happen on planets sometimes- think Ice Age.

In other more artistically-centric news, how do you like my new wedding photo? I've started working on a new self-portrait series in the vein of the one I did (now) years ago... See here. Hopefully I'll be able to use some of the images for new-album booklet design and other such endeavours. And who did I marry you ask? I'm thinking it's probably my guitar as we seem to be the only ones there....

Hey folks... It's been a great day. Yet again with the incredibly beautiful sunshine! Spent the afternoon frolicking about Goldstream Provincial Park, one of my very most favourite places in the world. No matter what crazy business is going on in my life that forest always manages to set me absolutely right again. Thank the Universe for that.

Today I've also been working on creating a new Mailing List sign-up form for the website. So please sign up! I'll keep you abreast of the important Sweetland goings on and let you know when I'm coming to your area on tour...

Hope all is fabulously well with you all out there,
and nighty-night, xx kristin

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Being the true daughter of Venus that I am I cannot help but enjoy this day immensely. But really, any good excuse to buy myself some fine wine and roses is so ok with me... Was going to take myself on a fabulously nerdy Valentine's Day date to the Dominion Observatory here in Victoria, but they strangely seem to close before sunset. What possible good could that be I ask? I oh-so require dark skies for my glowing orb viewing. In other affairs, all is going magnificently well. Have been working hard on new-album writing, website fixing and conspiring my fine and illustrious future... Stay tuned for extreme yumminess coming soon!

kisses, xo K

January 25th, 2005
Victoria, BC

All is well in beautiful Victoria. It's a mild and lovely January (at the moment...) and the crocuses are already poking out their wee heads! Wow. Have been spending much time outside being good exercise girl as well as lotsa time at the computer trying to be good working girl.... Getting into busy planning season for spring and summer touring (not to mention all the practicing and writing for the new gestating album!) There's lots on the go and hopefully you'll all be able to see the fruits of my winter labours soon enough... Hallelujah.