artist Aislinn Grant

So I spent the Last Year Travelling... Here is my recap FIJI Land of Kava, fire ants, and ridiculously cheap alcohol. Fiji was not at all what I had expected, but it was an amazing place to be for 3 weeks. The only thing missing? My guitar that I left at home so as not to “wreck” it. Oh well! I had to fill the void with the child-size High School Musical guitar with only 4 nylon strings. There were a set of them- so when it was time to Kava at night with all the local Fijians, me and the appropriately named lad “Crazy” would jam out to Hotel California on our horrible sounding High School Musical Guitars. AUSTRALIA It was in the beautiful Noosa that I met my future guitar- Rusty. $150 at a pawn shop bought us Rusty, a set of terrible strings, a tuner, a strap, a capo, a ¼ inch cable, and two incredibly tacky picks. Playing Rusty was like breaking a horse. He liked to do it his way- and your fingers would pay the consequences. The action on ol’ Rusty was so terrible that playing anything past fret 7 would end in your fingers being soaked in ice water. At first 20 minutes was too long to play on Rusty- he wouldn’t have it. I pushed through it in hopes that when I returned to Calgary my fingers would be harder than stone. We played our first gig together at Ric’s Bar in Brisbane- a success! Not soon after that, I was surprised with a FULL day of recording for my birthday and had all but one day to get my songs down before I was in the studio. I knew Rusty was not the best guitar to record with, but travelling the world does not tend to leave one with much funding for guitars. 10 hours later (7 of which were guitar) I had completed all 7 songs of my EP. With fingertips bleeding, and vocal chords numb, I walked away with my first solo album. What a great feeling! Several weeks later, a secret started spreading around the streets of Brisbane…that Wolfmother was playing at a local benefit secretly. I had already planned on going, and the rumors were true. No less than 400 lucky people crammed into a tiny alley in West End, Brisbane to watch the legendary Wolfmother. I have to say- that was the best concert I have ever seen. As I watched their giant afros bouncing around stage, I wished so desperately that my friends back home could have witnessed this moment. Too bad! NEW ZEALAND And so, it was on to New Zealand. When taking Rusty to the airport and the kind gentleman asked if I would like to put Rusty through Fragile luggage- I quickly responded, “Hahahahahaha pffft. No thanks.” And sure enough, he was fine! He took me through all my New Zealand gigs- one of which I played in front of an American blues legend with an INCREDIBLY drunk piano player. Not my best show, that’s for sure. The last gig of the trip was in beautiful Queenstown, with all our travelling buddies front and centre. Most of our friends in Queenstown were Irish, one of which was named “Max”. That was not really his name, but his celtic name was one that very few could pronounce so hence “Max” was born. The first time I heard Max sing I thought Johnny Cash had possessed his body. His voice was amazing, and at my last show Max agreed to come up on stage and cover “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros with me. It was an amazing way to end the trip- and at the end of our trip it was time for Rusty and me to part ways. It was only fitting that Max was the one to have him, so that Queenstown could be serenaded for many months to come.