Good Timber

While visiting Victoria, British Columbia for the first time, my wife and I heeded the advice of friends and toured the British Columbia Museum.  We noted a poster for the live performance of "Good Timber", musical settings of logging poetry of Robert Swanson.  We went back and purchased tickets to the evening's show.

Wow!  This talented cast (The Other Guys Theatre Company)  each took turns with the stringed instruments (guitars, fiddle, autoharp, bass guitar and mandolin) before handing them to each other for the next go-'round; percussion was played on the tools of the era, files on an axe blade or on its handle, a pipe wrench, a bowed crosscut saw...) and a harmonica rounded out the instrumental accompaniment.

Each one of the 6-person cast has a unique and rich voice, but their harmonic blend was tight and the voicing and instrumentation was quite varied from the high soprano to the basso profundo.

A Multi-media presentation of period video and still photographs was the backdrop for the costumed performers.

The run at the British Columbia Museum in downtown Victoria, BC opened on June 2 and will continue through August 28th, Monday-Saturday nights @ 8 pm.

If you find yourself anywhere in the vicinity, walk, run, drive, take the ferry and soak up the rich reflections of a vital industry, carried out by hard-working people who took pride in their labor, even as they made fun of it; lamenting tragic losses, being surprised by disreputable ladies who use their savvy in the service of hope, the "frozen logger" a song that my friend Gary Puckett introduced me to;

The company has released an excellent recording of all of the music in this show.  Below is a sampling of the tunes as a work in progress last year.