the northern southerners
Greetings from Kiruna, Sweden, a city built around iron ore mining north of the Arctic Circle. This is the furthest north I have ever been. I went to Anchorage once. I have been to Helsinki. But this is the Arctic. I have some friends up here—Bjorn, Orjan, Tony and Fred from the Willy Clay Band. We worked together on their album “Rebecca Drive” a few years back. We did a tour together over here once.
Yesterday I flew Nashville to Detroit, then Detroit to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Stockholm and finally Stockholm to Kiruna. I met Eric the drummer on the flight up here. Orjan and Bjorn picked us up and we went straight to a rehearsal. Sounded good. From there I went to Orjan’s house where we had dinner and I met Orjan’s wife, Yvonne. I’m staying at their house. Orjan plays guitar, lap steel, pedal steel and dobro.
After dinner, I did a guitar clinic/workshop at the local music school. It was great: the chairs had people in them, I felt good playing.
Tomorrow we rehearse the band again and do our first band show here in Kiruna. After that we hit the road.
It’s cold here. Arctic-style. But it’s a kind of dry cold that isn’t bad if you dress right. The temperature right now is -17 Celsius, which is about 1 degree Fahrenheit. Chilly.
We are doing at least one gig under the name The Northern Southerners. Cheers. Send me a blanket.