Latest News

December 14th - The "First Tuesday Foodbank Fundraiser" at the Mex Pub was a fun evening with lots of familiar faces. Sue Pyper at Emagination Design helped us with the posters, and we had a full turn out of folks who really enjoyed the outrageous antics of our special guest, Todd Butler. The food bank received $550 in cash donations that evening and 2 shopping carts of food. Their cash donations go a long way so we're pleased to see that another $600 in online donations have come in through our website. Generosity is such a wonderful contradiction to the gloomy stories we hear on the news! Our next fundraising event is Tuesday, January 6th, and our guest will be Richard Caissie, a very talented singer/songwriter from here in the Comox Valley. Hope to see you there, and thanks for your support!

October 31 -Wahoo! The new CD has finally arrived and we sent out our first announcement this week. It's great to have something in hand, sort of an evidence that the time spent over the past few months has been time well spent. We have been getting some great feedback from radio programmers near and afar so that's very encouraging. Speaking of radio, we will be guests on CHLY Songwriter's Circle on Friday, November 28th 7-9AM. Tune in with your coffee and listen in online if you're an early bird.

October 20 - Helen Austin and I spent a productive day in the studio last week, recording background vocals for Sue Pyper's new CD. It's going to be a great one! One of the tracks is a co-written song called "A Thousand Miles", the other a song I'd previously recorded. Her rendition is wonderful, I'm so pleased. Quite an honour for me considering the high calibre of her recordings.

As Voices Three, we performed on Saturday evening for a Gala fundraiser event that raised money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation through the auctioned sales of stunning textile artworks. The talent of the artisans, the vision of the charity, and the generosity of the community were all very inspiring. A pleasure to be a part of that event.

Week five... still waiting for our new CD to arrive.

October 5 - The Tin Town Artisan Mystery Tour had a good turn out yesterday as did the Farmer's Market considering the fall weather is less predictable. We enjoyed playing our tunes and running into familiar faces and meeting some new folks as well, especially the little twirlers.
Our new CD is finally finished, at least on our end of things, and we await the final product to be delivered some time this month. As soon as we can firm up a date we'll be able to announce our CD release date and related events. We do have a few tracks uploaded to www.myspace.com/judyandbrucewing as a preview. We've already started recording ideas for the next one; now that we've worked out a good process, we can just work at a leisurely pace toward the next one. We often comment on how fortunate we are to be able to do this, so thanks to our supporters. We appreciate you very much!

September 13 - Just received the final master tracks from William at Raven Mastering. We're so excited... Sue Pyper has done a fabulous job of the artwork and it's all ready to send off. Once we have it in hand, "all we have to do" is spread the word. We'd appreciate your help with that, if you could kindly send a short note to folks on your contact lists, we'd be happy to do the same for musical happenings in your world. We're in the process of planning a CD Release concert, and once we have some dates confirmed we'll be letting you know!

September 4 - Our CD is in the final stages of production, and is in the process of being mastered. Emily Celeste at Quadra Fusion has finished our final mixes, and Sue Pyper at Emagination Design has done the finishing touches on the artwork so we are stoked about sending it off for packaging. Stay tuned for more info about the release date...

August 31 - The 6th Annual Artisan Festival at Woodland Gardens was held over the long weekend. As usual, Brian and Bev Zimmerman have put together a fabulous weekend of original artwork of all sorts. We performed a few sets in front of the big bell (we got married here and rang the bell... aw...). We also enjoyed hearing the other musicians who were planted here and there amongst 24 acres of garden. Great atmosphere. (Photos courtesy of Sue Pyper)

August 23 - The Comox Valley Fall Fair was a grand affair, with everything you'd expect from ferris wheels to strong man competitions. We caught the turkey judging, watched some muscle feats, and wandered around talking with vendors of all sorts. The afternoon stage was shared by local musicians John Enns, Gordon Carter (Gord has a new CD out called Diary of a Coal Town), Sue Pyper and Richard Caissie. Thanks to Tim who was our sound man for the afternoon and kept us from getting our wires crossed.

August 6 - What a great holiday weekend! It started with a performance on the mainstage with Voices Three at the Filberg Festival. The audience especially enjoyed Bohemian Rhapsody, offering an ovation at the end of our set which was tons of fun. Then we zoomed off to the Backstreet to do our usual Sunday Jam, thanks to Gid and Bettyanne who started things off for us! On Monday, our performances at Nautical Days and the Filberg Festival were back to back, only possible because the events are in pretty close proximity to each other, and the organizers had things running like clock work. We especially appreciated the opportunity to play at the Garden Stage at the Filberg, (the sound tech did a fabulous job, what a treat!) We also saw many familiar faces in the audiences which adds so much to the enjoyment of it all. We feel so fortunate to be able to do what we love!
July 20 - Wow! Where's the time going?! We had the pleasure of playing a beautiful outdoor wedding yesterday in Oyster Bay. We often get called "Juce and Brudy" so we were especially amused when the ceremony combined the bride and groom's names from Paul and Colleen, to just Pauleen. Congratulations to the bride and groom! Or should I say the gride and broom?

We're still working on our CD, and getting some initial mixes from Trinitude to listen to. We're very thankful for their open minds and objective ears. I've been delving into the writing a little more, which can be a consuming endeavor and I cringe when I look at the clock to realize how much time it took to groom just one little paragraph. I really should finish one thing before I hop onto the next. Voices Three are in full lasagna... I mean rehearsal mode... for our upcoming performance at the Filberg Festival. A great line up this year.

Spent some time with my new grandbaby and two of my sons, which was a treat. Today we are off to the jam in Royston to enjoy the local talents. If you haven't been down before, it's a great way to spend the afternoon. We have an ongoing challenge with one of our regular jammers, Sue Pyper to play a new song at every jam, so I'd better go and practice!

July 1 - Happy Canada Day! What a great turn out for our local festivities in the Comox Valley. We sure enjoyed our afternoon set in the shady beer gardens...and thanks to the jammers from the Backstreet for coming out to hear us! CD project is still moving along, new bass parts inspired by Bruce's latest stringed acquisition.

June 24 - Hey! How do you like our new website? Awesome isn't it? A huge thanks to Sue Pyper at Emagination Design for giving us our facelift! We feel rejuvenated!

June 23 - Bruce has a new Blueridge guitar and he is totally enjoying his new pal. He may need surgery to replace his fingers if he keeps playing as long as he has been. It sounds so great he just can't put it down! Anyone know if there some sort of world record he could go for? We also have added a Taylor to our guitar collection which is a very complimentary sound to the Blueridge.

June 18
We have had some talented people adding their skills and personality to our project here which is inspiring. Trent Freeman has added some violin, as has Mike Schwarz on the sax. Yesterday we heard Gid and Betty Ann Hampton's additions to one of the songs...very cool. Sue Pyper is adding some harmonies, along with Shauna Drayson-Hayward and Helen Austin who has also done some instrumentation. It's very cool to be able to make music with your friends and be able to keep it to play back any time you want to.

June 15th
Sue Pyper has brought some harmony ideas to the table for Before I Love You Again and we started to record some ideas.  It's gonna sound great!

June 11
We're heading down to Quadra Fusion studios to do the vocal tracks on our new album called This Heart, This Season. We've been diligently recording bed tracks  in our little studio a.k.a. Lovenest Studios for the past few months and we're getting excited about the project as we get further along... it's like expecting a baby in a way, the conception is the easy part.

We are delighted to have very talented friends who will be appreciated additions to our sound and will help to make this album a little different from Saying Hello Feeling Goodbye, which was intentionally understated. Trent Freeman has recorded some great violin tracks, Helen Austin will be adding a little flute, Mike Schwarz has saxed us up a bit...Mark Wing will be spicing up an instrumental piece, and Doug and Betty Ann Hampton are adding their special touches to some of our chosen cover tunes. The harmonies are still evolving... and Sue Pyper is doing an awesome job of our CD cover so her skills are going to make us look sharp! Our goal is the end of July and it's looking like we're right on track. Karen McKinnon and Sue Pyper have been behind the camera lens taking photos for our upcoming promo materials so we are really feeling blessed to have such great artistic talents so close to home.

Emily Celeste. Merisa Donaghue and Les Tibbo at Quadra Fusion will help us with our final mix and mastering process, giving us objective ears as we get to the home stretch.

April 25-27 were the dates for the Vancouver Island Music Business Conference. Susie McGregor and Andy Lorimer did a great job of organizing things. Bruce did the sound at the Edgewater Restaurant for one of the live music venues, and we enjoyed meeting the speakers who had travelled to be there and share their talents and info. I hear there are plans for another one next year!

March 2008
We enjoy being the hosts for the Backstreet Jam in Royston. This little pub sees a lot of great musicians come through on Sunday afternoons  from 4-8 and it's always great to see new faces. Sometimes we even get out-of-towners, most recently Trinitude from Nanaimo who played a few tunes from their new CD called Rooted.

February 15th, 2008
Bruce and I  received an invitation to play in Powell River at the Local Loco Arts and Music Cafe. I'd  never been to Powell River before and we thought it was a great reason to do something out of the ordinary, so... not really knowing what to expect we headed off. The ferry ride brought back all sorts of memories of life in Sointula, as it's been a long while since I've been up there. The cafe is owned and operated by a small group of artists who have a common vision of creating a place for the artistic community to gather. One of the partners is artist Autumn Skye Morrison whose work is displayed in the cafe along with other local artists, so if you visit her website, you'll have a very good idea of what the inside of the restaurant is like. They host music jams there as well as "art jams"  where folks are welcome to bring whatever work-in-progress they happen to have on the go. They treated us very well, and we enjoyed a great vegetarian  three cheese lasagna (one of their sustainability goals is for their menu to be comprised of  locally grown food) and we played a couple of hours of music.

They'd arranged a stay for us at the Powell River  Harbour Guest House, which was also very welcoming. We spent the next day driving around looking for things we'd heard about on our local cable channel such as The Flying Bread Bowl, and the refurbished Patricia Theatre. We had breakfast in the Old Jailhouse Cafe which is a little eatery complete with handcuffs on the cell railings.  Lots of character in this town for sure!  A new digital camera is definitely on the list!

February 1st
We went to the Trinitude CD Release Concert in Nanaimo which was a great evening of music to say the least.  All three of our favourite tudes were in attendance: Papa Tude (Dirty Flannel Dawg) , Mama Tude (Merisa Donaghue), and their daughter Attitude (Emily Celeste).  They each bring their own speciality to the mix, but their family harmonies are especially tingly.  Their CD is a great listen of celtic flavored roots music called "Rooted". They'd decorated the hall with teapots, which as it turned out was a clever seguay to one of their original songs that explains the origins of the name "jinglepot", a little Nanaimo BC history lesson. (I love those little details.) Their other daughter Alicia does their graphic work and website so it' s truly a full family initiative - an inspiring rarity these days.