Man, the world is smaller than it once was. No doubt. Less than two days ago I was in the winter in St John’s Newfoundland. I am about 2 hours away from touching down in summer on the other side of the planet. I did nothing to accomplish this travel but sit down and watch movies and read a Wayne Johnson book. Truly amazing.

Now, I confess that my previously mentioned Million Mile Status with Air Canada afforded me a very reasonably priced Executive Seat so I could lie down when I wanted, and I can smell them cooking my posh breakfast as I type. Hmm I wonder if I would feel so good about this if I were sitting in Seat 56K? I’ve done the flight to Aus many times is many different ways and travel classes, and can never really recall hating it.

I travelled to Australia for the first time six or seven years back to work with Russell and the TOFOG guys on a CD. I remember sitting with Russell and some of his gang in Toronto as they were working on the Cinderella Man film. Russell’s long time friend and fitness dude Spud asked me if I’d ever been to their home country. I explained that I had not as I feared the flight would be too hard. ‘What do you mean hard?, asked Spudd. ‘Its not that hard. You ever had stomach flu? Well its not that hard’.

I’ve never forgotten that advice. ‘Hard’ or ‘too hard’ are terms we throw around too easily. They will always be very relative terms, and that’s all. I flew to Aus on a puddle jumper of a flight in the cheapest class available a few months later. I think my itinerary was St John’s, Toronto, Calgary, Los Angeles, Fiji, Sydney. And Spudd was right. It wasn’t that hard. It was harder than taking a bath, but way less hard than hauling wood in Maddox Cove at 6 am on Saturday mornings on two hours sleep in the middle of February. And I did that many many times.

I’m not sure what my point is, and trust me I realize that the guy sitting in Seat 1K who just chose pancakes over the omelets, is probably not the guy to be talking about what is hard and what is not. But I think I’m just wondering if our perceptions of what is hard and easy, possible and impossible, likely and doubtful, are all too often skewed to the wrong side.

Anywhoo…yeha..GBS is finally getting to play in Australia. I really hope we go over well at the shows, as I’ve long thought that the kind of night-out we often deliver would be very welcomed here. I hope I’m right. If you are in Aus, please check us out in Melbourne on Tuesday, Sydney on Thursday, and Byron Bay over the weekend.

Much ado in the hours before I got on this plane as I sat with the guys from Universal Records Canada to plan for some marketing and promotional strategies for the release of the CD. I also spent a bunch of time at CMT with the amazing Joel Stewart and his team reviewing the ‘Live at Revival’ show set to air right around the CD launch.

Got a nice email from Sonic Entertainment folks saying that the presale tix for the Tour in May basically Sold Out right away. I am very grateful for this. The Public Sale would have happened five or six hours ago while I was on this flight. So I have no idea if it went as well, but my fingers are crossed. Love to see you at the shows in May as me and the Alan Doyle Band (Jaysus that sounds weird) make our way across much of North America. Thanks so much for all the advance hype about the shows and for those of you who’d like to pick up tickets, you can follow some links at

www.alandoyle.ca/tour

Kinda bummed that Russell will not be here for this GBS’s first trip to Aus. He’s been such a big supporter and it’s a shame he won’t be here to sing a tune with us. Looking forward to seeing some of the TOFOG cast and crew while here. Great fellas one and all.

It’s Saturday for me and Friday for many of you back in North America and Western Europe. Have a wonderful yesterday.

Cheers,
Alan

I’ve had today circled on my calendar for quite a while. Today, the first single from ‘Boy on Bridge’ is available for public consumption. I confess to a bit of nervous energy around the house as much rides on how the single is received by folks at home and at radio. I’ll have a few meetings with the labels and the like this week and touring and video budgets etc all seem to be easier to get if the initial response is positive.

So, if you’ll pardon my shameless self-promotion, please go here…

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/ive-seen-a-little-single/id511682121

Here you can buy the song “I’ve seen a Little”. It’s a tune I wrote in Nashville in with Gordie Sampson and Troy Verges. I wanted to write a real simple Country/Rock tune that almost any band could play real quickly. I suppose I wanted it to hearken back to the Records I loved when I was a young teen. Back then, I loved John Cougar and Tom Petty especially. Seemed like every band I was in played those tunes at every dance and bar, and everyone loved it.

Lyrically, the song is really a summary for the whole solo project. I speaks about wanderlust and a live every moment kind of energy, as you guys have probably already heard me sing about. But this one goes a little further to talk about not being satisfied with what’s already been accomplished and about making a conscious choice to not rest on one’s laurels.

“It ain’t what you done, it’s what you’re gonna do”

Thanks in advance for picking up the Single and for requesting at your fav radio station, and for spreading the word in general. I am very grateful.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the big announcement of the Boy on Bridge Tour Dates.

Cheers,
Alan

Welcome everyone to the new website and Facebook and all that. You’ll still be able to find this blog as you always have, at www.greatbigsea.com, but it will be here as well and I’ll link it to my Twitter stuff, @alanthomasdoyle.

Exciting times. Boy on Bridge is to be released on May 15th on Universal Records in Canada, at Redeye in the US, and on iTunes everywhere. The first single, “I’ve seen a Little”, is going to radio this Friday the 23rd and will be available for purchase on iTunes on Monday, March 26th. I’ll be shooting a video for the single in the coming weeks and in both cases, I’ll be asking/begging/pleading for you to get it, request it, share it etc. You know the whole deal.

I really hope the Single does well. I wrote it at a shack in Nashville with my friends Gordie Sampson and Troy Verges. Here’s me and Gordie at the shack learning to play it. Cool.

I’ll keep you posted about the press events around the date of the launch as I suspect I’ll be showing up in a few places here, there, and everywhere flogging myself and committing shameful acts of self promotion.

Stay tuned as well for details about a tour of smaller venues that is to start on May 22nd in Western North America, and proceed East till the second week of June. It will be me with a great group of musicians featuring tunes from the CD and a bunch of other fun stuff. Tix will be limited compared to some of the bigger GBS gigs, so I hope you all get in quick. Thanks so much in advance.

In the GBS Camps, I think we are a couple of days away from finishing the bonus material for GBS XX. I really think you are going to dig the new traditional, original and cover tunes we’ve prepped for the release slated for late 2012. We are all very excited about our first Australian trip coming up in just a week or so. Really looking forward to sharing the stage with so many awesome acts at the Byron Bay Festival. Sydney and Melbourne folks should get tix if they want to see the club shows as they are both very near sell outs.

Again, welcome to all the new social media spots. I’ll do my best to keep up with it all.

Many thanks for all the excitement in advance of the Solo CD. Keep you posted.

Cheers,
Alan