From a Doll’s Perspective

Life has been pretty busy here in New Funswick. I guess the best place to start is with the magnificent marvel that is Folly Fest.

Dancing

The 6^th Annual Folly Fest was held from June 27-29 in the Village of Gagetown. And what an event it was! With 3 days full of wonderful music, food, picaroons beer, dancing, laughing, and (best of all) the people, this is easily (in my humble opinion at least) the best festival in the Maritimes.

The museum that I work in during the summer serves as the acoustic stage for Folly Fest, and rightfully so as the acoustics in this building are incredible. It is practically impossible to sound bad when you sing in here. And with bands like Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra and the Alex Bailey Swing band (as well as many, many others) the museum was filled with some brilliant music.

Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra

As Nick is away in Antigonish, I had to enlist my friend Julian to play Folly Fest with me. We had a lot of fun rehearsing and getting ready for the big day. We even wrote two songs. Video footage of them was taken and if I can get my hands on it I would love to share it. And the show itself was ever so fun and intimate. And the rest of Folly Fest is a beautiful blur of sun, dancing, swimming, amazing concerts, fire shows, meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones. It was hard to pack up and leave to return to regular life on Monday. But it only means the countdown to next year’s festival can begin.

The Oddreys

After a speedy recovery on Monday, Tuesday brought Canada day along. My friend Luke and I had been enlisted to play a 2 hour show, and I think there must have been a record set that day for heat. We had a lot of fun, got pretty sun burned, and just had a great time playing music.

And then I had a really long nap.

I wrote most of this a few days ago, with plans to post it the next morning, but then Hurricane Arthur decided to crash through New Brunswick and did a rather large amount of damage. Mostly to trees and electric lines. So we were without power from the morning of the 5^th (when we woke up to trees attempting to fall on my mom’s car) until last night (the 9^th). The storm on the 5^th was unlike anything I have ever seen.

Through the window when the tree went down

With pelting rains and screaming winds, I decided it would be more fun to see firsthand and went swimming in it. It was glorious. Diving under and swimming through calm, undisturbed water, and then rising to the surface to meet the wind and driving rain once again holds a piece of beauty for me. Needless to say, I am a bit weird.

Hurricane Swims

Huge, beautiful, old trees were down everywhere the next morning when we took a drive to survey the damage. My homelands looked as through giants had been playing kickball with the trees. We were lucky to have just lost the trees however, and didn’t sustain any damage to our house. However, there are many people in the area who had trees crash through their house, had roofs ripped off their barns by high winds, glass shattered by branches, and much more.

One of many

That being said, it is incredibly heart warming to watch the huge outpouring of help that is offered when a disaster such as this occurs. We had 2 huge trees fall in our yard, cutting off our driveway and partially landing on my mom’s car. Sunday morning brought the return of the sun and a crew of neighbours who dropped by with chain saws, trucks and big hearts to help us get the trees out of the way. And there were many other such scenes all over the area. People are wonderful.

5 Trees Less at the Cottage

Also, everyone in NB will now have enough firewood for about the next 10 years. It is also incredible the amount of joy one can experience when turning on a light switch to have the light actually come on, or to flush a toilet without having to use a bucket of water. It’s the little things in life that mean the most.

No fridge? Solution: Make Creative Drinks

So what is coming up next musically you ask (as I assume that is why you are looking at our site). I am running a Coffee House and Open Mic at the Court House Museum in Gagetown this Saturday (the 12^th). There will be music. There will be coffee. There will be alcohol. There will be people dressed in their finest hippie garb. It will be wonderful. If you are in the area, or feel like going for an adventurous drive, please come by. Admission is by donation! And there is going to be some amazing music happening.

On another exciting note, Nick’s first play in Festival Antigonish opened last night. It is called Be My Baby, and from what I have heard it is a brilliant show. So if you are in the vicinity of Antigonish, or feel like driving in a different direction than towards Gagetown, I would highly recommend that you go check this show out. If nothing else you get the entertainment of watching Nick talk with a Scottish accent. I am pretty proud of him (but a lot less mushy than he is if you read the last post, so that is all I shall say 😉 ) Happy Opening Nick! Break a leg!

Here is a link to check out showtimes. He is also in Munschapalooza! as well as The Chuckle Hour:  http://festivalantigonish.com/showtimes/

I am heading down to Antigonish for a few days pretty soon to see the play, and we are planning to record some new music. Have a song you would like us to try? Leave us a comment, or send us a message and we might just dedicate it to you.

Here is a large hope for sunny, hurricane free skies.

Peace and Harmony Restored

Much love,

Doll

Guy and Doll Reunited!

Hello everyone! We know it has been a very long time since our last post. This is mostly due to Audrey and I being away from one another in different provinces and we’ve had very few opportunities to play music together. I have been working as an actor with Festival Antigonish, and Audrey is working at the Court House Museum in Gagetown. Being the amazing gal she is, Audrey took the 5 hour drive to come visit me for my birthday weekend two weeks ago. We were ecstatic to be together again and she promised me one fantastic birthday weekend. I had to go to work the day after her arrival and while I was out she made me an amazing pasta lunch complete with chocolate covered strawberries. She agreed that I could take the leftover desserts to work, which made me the most popular lad at the theatre!

 

The first feast!

Following her magnificent lunch I went back to finish work and returned home to a complete Game of Thrones themed dinner (which if the show has taught me anything I should be wary of). No one died. It in fact was very delicious! Audrey made a giant roast (which has only very recently been finished),potatoes, bruschetta and french bread . She topped the evening off with a cheesecake that was positively magnificent!

The dinner.

DESSERT

Over the weekend we finally got around to doing what we love most which is making music together. We recorded a version of Higher and Higher which can be found here:

To complete the weekend full of music, laughs and PLENTY of food, we took a picnic to Mahoney’s Beach where we played songs on the beach for all the seagulls.

It was hard at the end of it all to say goodbye again but we look forward to more adventures in Antigonish. Audrey, I am sure, will have another post soon to follow about her experience playing for Folly Fest and Canada day back in Gagetown. I personally would like to thank her for giving me this amazing birthday weekend. It is not easy being in a new place trying to make it on your own and her visit gave me the boost in spirit I needed to get things running smoothly for myself in Antigonish. Audrey, I owe you the world. Thank you for being so amazing!

With that mushiness aside, we’d both like to wish you all a happy and warm summer! Cheers to you all!

We’re Back!…at home that is

We have been so busy lately with moving from one place to another and starting new jobs that we have been greatly lacking in our updates. So to catch you up on our adventures lately, we will give you a quick photo filled overview.

Barefoot on the Beach in April

We spent Easter in Lockeport, NS. We had bundles of fun there running around on the beach (despite the cold), playing lots of music, spending time with Nick’s family and even finding time to record two songs. Here they are!

Something Like Olivia by John Mayer

Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen

Give them a listen and let us know what you think.

Enjoying the fresh air

Next we packed up and headed back to Wolfville to play one last Open Mic at Paddy’s Pub before scampering off to Gagetown, New Brunswick. We participated in a jam session, a fundraising music evening and then played a sold out show at the Creek View Restaurant. The audience was enthusiastic, the setting was intimate and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Kayaking through the flood

The water was very high when we arrived in NB, allowing us to kayak through heavily wooded areas out into the lake. We felt rather like explorers.

Enjoying the Sun

We also spent lots of time playing with our new little friends, the hedge pigs!

This is Salt

They are a little prickly

Salt and Pepper have a Bath…with a toothbrush for scrubbing!

After a number of wonderful adventures, it was time for Nick to head back to Wolfville and graduate. He received a BA in Theatre. Want to see him in action? He will be performing in 3 plays this summer with Festival Antigonish. Check out the link here for a schedule of shows: Festival Antigonish Showtimes He is in “Be My Baby”, “Munschapalooza!” and “The Chuckle Hour”. If you are in Antigonish this summer, be sure to check it out!

We are all very proud!

Audrey had to work and could not attend the graduation…so we put her there with Photoshop.

We are not professionals…

Nick is now back living in Halifax, NS until he moves to Antigonish, and Audrey is living in Pleasant Villa, NB. So does this mean Guy and Doll are done? Not in the least. We will still be recording music this summer, Nick will be acting in Festival Antigonish, and Audrey will be playing a couple gigs in NB. Catch her at the amazing festival that is Feels Good Folly Fest., as well as at the Canada Day events in Gagetown.

Can you find her in the fine print??

Thanks for catching up with us. Have any songs you think we should work on over the summer? Let us know and we will see what we can do. We promise to update this more often from here on in.

 

All our love! Thanks for the support.

Guy & Doll

Guitar Strings and the Things We Do for Them

We have been rather busy the last few days! Doing things like this:

Sun and Hammocks

Just kidding, we’ve actually been pretty busy! We’ve both finished University for the year now and are just waiting for marks to roll in. Since we are in theatre, the idea of having free time is very strange to us, so we have been stuffing it with as many things as possible.

Sunday we decided it would be a good idea to go play frisbee in the park. Now this park is next to a steep drop off into the ocean. We thought about this, figured that we were good enough for this not to be a problem, and of course immediately watched our frisbee float over the drop off into the mud (the tide was out). As we rather liked the frisbee, it then seemed a great idea to climb down the drop off and retrieve it. So Audrey (in white pants) and Nick (with his pockets full of his phone, wallet and such) ventured into the, what we quickly found was, knee deep mud. But the frisbee was saved! So we went home and recorded a song instead.

Triumphant and muddy!

So here is our cover of In My Life by the Beatles.

 

Monday morning we woke up to find it was 20 degrees outside. I know! We were shocked too! We slipped in shorts and scamped down main street to do some busking. After breaking a guitar string we decided to cut it short and buy ingredients for dinner.

Mmm homemade falafels from busking money!

We ate up, and then headed down to Paddy’s pub to play open mic night. We had a really fun set which included American Boy (Estelle & Kanye West), Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen), No Diggety (Chet Faker), and Kill Your Heroes (Awolnation) and a borrowed guitar.

Today we went out to busk again (as it was once again beautiful!). This time with a borrowed guitar, in the hopes of raising enough funds to buy strings for Nick’s actual guitar. Of course, luck being luck, we quickly managed to break a string on the borrowed guitar as well. However, due to the incredible kindness of the Wolfville public, we made enough to purchase a plethora of guitar strings, so we shall be back in business soon!

Sidewalk tunes

THANK YOU!!

We would like to thank everyone who has supported us thus far. We are incredibly grateful!

 

Do you have a song you want us to cover? A place you want us to play? Food you want to feed us? Leave us a comment, like our page, show your friends, or have a nap!

 

Have a wonderful evening!

Love Guy & Doll

 

Late Nights of Cake And Recording

We had a bit of a late night recording session tonight. It would have been earlier, only we decided to bake a cake instead. Our song choice for the evening was “American Boy” by Estelle and Kanye West. Yes, you are allowed to laugh a little bit at this point. Nick decided to record the guitar and bass tracks first so Audrey sat on the floor and made jewellery and then went and iced the cake (it was her roommate’s birthday).

Audrey doing her part….and hey look! A cake!

Post icing, Nick recorded his rap bits. Audrey laughed a lot. Audrey recorded her vocal bits, and then we both did a lot of overlaying vocal tracks. And out came a song! American Boy (Cover) by Guy & Doll

Nick laying down his rap.

Learning this song was very interesting. It is one of Audrey’s favorite songs, but has the opportunity for both a male and female to do a lot of interesting vocal bits. We spent about half an hour with both of us sitting on the bed while Audrey slowly sang the rap over and over again so that Nick could figure out where all the words went. So enjoy some “white boy rap”, have a drink on our behalf and give our tune a listen.

Some serious editing.

Like what you are hearing? Leave us a comment or like our page. Want to hear us try to cover your favorite song? Let us know, and we will record it just for you!   Have a peach of a day! Love Guy & Doll

Busking in the Sunlight

We hit the streets (actually really only a corner of a street) to do some busking today. Being students and all, and since it is the end of the semester, money is pretty tight. So we had a great day in the sunlight playing for pizza. We both finished classes for the year today so it was great to celebrate with some music. Nick is graduating (we hope) and Audrey is finishing third year.

Grabbing some flowers from the garden. Looks like spring might finally be here!

Audrey in the sun

 

Want to hear some of the new stuff we have been playing? We are playing a set tonight at Paddy’s Pub in Wolfville. This set is very special to us as it is a Tribute to the Acadia Theatre Company, of which we are both a part. This will be our goodbye to the Theatre Company for the summer. Be there!

All proceeds go to pizza!

Can’t make it out tonight? Check out some of the songs we’ve posted on soundcloud. Nick wrote this one!

Closer by Nick Cox

Enjoy what you hear? Want to hear more? Leave us a comment, like our page, suggest songs for us to do, send us money…or puppies, and enjoy the sunshine

Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)

And so we begin. Hullo, we are Audrey and Nick.

We’ve been recording music together for a while now and decided it was high time to create a page in order to share all the fun things we’ve been doing.

Audrey and Uke Ellington

We recorded a new song today which inspired us to finally get ourselves together and make a page.

This is our cover of Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place) by the Talking Heads. We recorded it in Audrey’s bedroom, and interestingly enough did each track in just one take.

Nick adding the bass.

Nick did the guitar, bass and backup vocals and Audrey did the ukulele and lead vocals bits.

So without further ado, here you are.

Naive Melody

We plan to re-record the intro in the next few days when we find the time between classes and shows, but for a draft copy we were pretty happy with it.

Have a wonderful day!

-With love, G+D