Comments

• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  January 1 Posts: 353

  lucky

  Jan 1, 2025

  Baltimore might be worth a look. It’s got the Charm City Festival, a couple of very solid players like Michael Joseph Harris who keep the scene going and a first class luthier in Craig Bumgarner. Also it’s not too far to get to NYC, Stephane’s thing in New Jersey and Django in June.

  Baltimore is an amazing place and I loved there for 5 years. It's various problems (crime and climate) give me anxiety but I miss it a lot.
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  January 1 Posts: 353

  Lango-Django

  Jan 1, 2025

  Hi Paul,

  I live in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario, near the US border. I do a bit of playing in Buffalo (non GJ) and have come to like the place very much.

  I would guess that are probably half a dozen Buffalo guitar players who are into GJ.. Just one regularly gigging GJ band as far as I know.

  Now if you cross the border around my neck of the woods, there are two or three GJ guitar players in southern Ontario.

  But if you are willing to drive north another hour and a half to Toronto, there are probably a dozen or so players there and a couple of regularly gigging bands.

  Good luck!

  Will

  Will, how is it crossing the border in Buffalo, always no big deal? Just wondering if I could easily be going into Toronto frequently without any issues?

  I've never had any issues at the border but don't do it very frequently.
• littlemark New

  January 1 Posts: 376

  Pro tip: Get a nexus pass.

  
• Mondoslug New

  January 1 edited January 1 Posts: 156

  I played a 4th of July gig on the Canadian side of the Falls, Sound guy didn’t make it through (no surprise there), Lighting guy went back to the Hotel after load in, couldn’t get back through for the show. Not much of a surprise there either. Hahah
• littlemark New

  January 1 Posts: 376

  Mondoslug

  Jan 1, 2025

  I played a 4th of July gig on the Canadian side of the Falls, Sound guy didn’t make it through (no surprise there), Lighting guy went back to the Hotel after load in, couldn’t get back through for the show. Not much of a surprise there either. Hahah

  Who planned that event? 🧐
• Mondoslug New

  January 1 Posts: 156

  Hhmmm...good question, I don't know who was booking him or managing him at that time. I think it was probably in house at that point in his career. I've had a little experience road managing & getting a band through at a point of entry with work permits and docs not showing up where they were supposed to. Anyway, not much to do with the OP, just some fun war stories.😀
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  January 1 Posts: 353

  Mondoslug

  Jan 1, 2025

  I played a 4th of July gig on the Canadian side of the Falls, Sound guy didn’t make it through (no surprise there), Lighting guy went back to the Hotel after load in, couldn’t get back through for the show. Not much of a surprise there either. Hahah

  Where are you located?
• Mondoslug New

  January 1 Posts: 156

  Me? About 20 minutes East of Downtown Nashville.
• Lango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator

  January 1 edited January 1 Posts: 1,887

  Paul, I have dual citizenship and NEXUS so no problem for me.

  True story- by a series of unfortunate events I was briefly president of my local AFM circa 2008-2010.

  The big issue at that time was that the US customs were deliberately making it difficult for Canadians to do gigs in the US—- like the musician had to provide them a list in January of every US gig they were going to be playing all year long!

  Meanwhile on the Canadian side of the border, the welcome mat was out for US musicians to play in Canada no questions asked…

  Now I don’t know if this is still the case or not, maybe some of our Buffalo contingent have had experiences with that…?

  Anyway, truth is that with the Canadian dollar in the sub-70 cent range, I don’t imagine that playing gigs in Canada is going to be much of a thing for you.

  But if you’ve just taking your guitar up to Toronto to participate in a jam session, I can’t imagine Canadian border guards having any problem with that…

  Will

  

  Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."
  
  Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
  
  Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
  
• marcelodamon Buffalo, NY✭✭✭ Selmer #561, 2004 AJL, 2006 Dell Arte Blues Clair Hommage, 2009 Dell Arte Macias Hommage, 2024 Cattiaux Swing Chorus, 2023 Bob Holo Traditional, 2025 RJ Aylward White Favino, 2025 AJL Blue Gipsy Fire

  January 2 Posts: 50

  paulmcevoy75

  Dec 31, 2024

  Thanks guys. This is seriously, seriously helpful. This might be long and TMI (and also feel free to talk about other scenes in this thread, this doesn't have to only be about me).

  Couple thoughts: Chicago, lack of gypsy jazz scene not withstanding, is an amazing place in my very limited experience. I was there 2 Augusts in a row for the Fretboard Summit and it was just astounding how nice it was. People seem very friendly and it was clean, public transport was awesome and there was a great energy there that I loved. I was in a pretty nice neighborhood and I know that Chicago has its problems but just wanted to say that it was amazing and I think I would be really happy living there (other than the distance to LI thing...but flying is pretty easy).

  Anyway, barring Chicago:

  I work as a nurse two 12 hour shifts a week right now on the Vascular Access Team which has been great for supporting the luthier habit as sales have been in a word, glacially slow (I also haven't really been working very hard on selling things, I'm working very hard on improving instruments, getting feedback and refining what I'm doing). I'm not generally interested in doing repairs, I've tried it and it really soaks up a ton of time and energy and for me it's a very different rhythm from making instruments. I do some repair work on spec (like the Bleen Busato) when it interests me, it's mostly educational and when I think I can flip something that's cool and I can make it better and learn something from it.

  Not to get too gritty but I'm 49, single, and don't have a ton of money. I have about 90k as a downpayment for a house and a bit more cash in the bank but next to nothing for retirement. Not that I really believe that retirement for me will be likely anyway or even really desired. But I would like to ideally buy a place that I could live and work out of for not too much money and kind of have a happy/poor life. Right now, even if I wanted to stay in Maine, that's just not possible. Housing prices are absolutely insane here. I have a very cheap apartment that isn't wonderful in certain ways but if I left it, I would pay double the rent, easily. My shop space is very affordable and that's a plus. But in truth I am solidly bored of this place. It has been super hard here to make friends and there's not the sort of scene of much of anything that I'm interested in. I think partly that's because it's become so expensive in town that venues are much tenser about everything making $$$$$$ so there's a lot less going on.

  Certainly there's a lot of my issues with being here that are my issues, but I think I can say that I don't think this place is working for me at all AND I can't afford to live here anymore. I will probably stay here till the early winter, enjoy the summer and make sure that the country is still somewhat functional before I move.

  The things I'm looking for:

  1) affordable place to live where I could have a house and a 450ish square foot shop space very affordably

  2) Active music scene both with local people and touring artists

  3) also a GJ scene

  4) Hopefully some nature nearby

  5) Good hospital system where I would have some choice and variety in the nursing job I ended up in

  6) Somewhat younger population than Maine (that's easy because it's the oldest population in the country)

  I think NYC is not doable for me. Just way too much instability there for housing and constantly working just to kind of maintain things.

  It was interesting hearing about Buffalo and Rochester. I'll have to look into the hospital systems. Rochester seems very affordable. I have a friend from there who just talks about it being a S-hole but I think she has other issues with her family and stuff. And I'm sure it does have its problems but in looking it up people seem to like it. I have some family in Buffalo. I really love Montreal, I'd love to be closer to it but I wouldn't be any further away than I am now.

  Milwaukee and Madison for me personally are probably too far away.

  @tbleen Hudson Valley is definitely interesting, I think might be pricier than ideal but I'll check it out, I thought about it in the past and it's beautiful.

  @marcelodamon oddly I was an ER nurse traveler for like 15 years...I might need to check in with you sometime about hospitals around there. I did call one hospital in Buffalo and asked if I might be able to get a Vascular Access job straight away but she said because it was a union hospital they usually go to internal candidates. I think it might be a problem to find another VAT team job which sucks because it's awesome for me.

  @JSanta Thanks for your Rochester thoughts, what does your wife do? Are the Rochester and Buffalo systems connects? Are there preferable hospitals?

  Sorry for the 9 different threads here but it was quite helpful to me.

  I work for several hospitals in Buffalo: Buffalo General, Erie County Medical Center, the VA, Oshei Children's Hospital, Millard Fillmore Suburban, and DeGraff Memorial. I'll ask around to see if there are any openings for your sub-specialization.