After a wonderful, watery, whale-filled summer in Desolation Sound, my family is now fully in the thick of the fall season, having just survived a packed Hallowe’en weekend. On Friday, our son Josh performed a sold-out show with his band Blue Jay Valley, and on Saturday we had over 1,600 kids trick-or-treat to our front door.

That’s an all-time record for our house, as the number of trick-or-treaters keeps growing steadily over the years. Why? It’s a question I’m asked often, so I wrote about this awhile back, trying to source the answer as to why our street is such a Halloween hootenanny year after year.

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WHALE TALE: new book update

Amidst all the action on the home front, my wife Jill and I continue along with our artistic pursuits. Jill will be heading off on another Holly Jolly Jill Barber Xmas tour – dates below – and I am currently in the final proofing of my new book, WHALE TALE, which will be released in the spring of 2027 on Penguin.

Here’s how Penguin is describing the book:

Whale Tale: A gripping work of narrative non-fiction that tells the astonishing true story of how a family of orcas changed our relationship to the sea.

That’s one way of putting it. Another would be that this true story is about a tragic capture of an ultra-rare white orca and her family, and a bold escape aided by a person or persons that has led to generations of wild orcas. The book is filled with all sorts of fascinating humans and whales, heroes and villains, scientists and scoundrels, secret burial sites, confessions, denials, and the epic mystery surrounding that escape which has endured for over fifty years. I couldn’t solve that mystery for my CBC podcast that this book is based upon, but will it finally be figured out by the time the book hits shelves in the spring??

It looks like the release date for WHALE TALE is slated for May 11, 2027.

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That Nirvana gig… 35 years later

I was reminded of my role in an iconic Vancouver concert when a recent article came out in Exclaim Magazine celebrating the 35th anniversary of Nirvana’s seismic, game-changing album Nevermind. That record came out on September 24th, 1991, and changed music history.

That very year I was a young, dumb and highly ambitious teenaged concert promoter, working my first real job in the music industry at Teamworks Productions in downtown Vancouver. They mostly specialized in roots, blues, folk, and traditional rock bands bouncing back and forth across Canada, but the Seattle scene was exploding a mere three hours to the south and I was drooling all over it.

In the winter of 1990 and the spring of 91, I convinced my boss Frank to allow me to do shows with many of those exciting bands for better or for worse. Favourite bands of mine like the Young Fresh Fellows, the Fastbacks, Gas Huffer, Seaweed, and Girl Trouble all played repeatedly, all of them staying the night at my parents house post-gig. I also did shows for a lot of the bigger Sub-Pop grunge bands.

In early 91, I booked Screaming Trees and Nirvana at the Commodore Ballroom (arranged over the phone a couple of times with Nirvana bassist Kris Novoselic pretty much right before they signed on with a big agency.) Soon after securing the gig, I found out that another local company, Timbre Concerts, had booked two popular Canadian punk bands, the Doughboys and the Wongs, on the very same night across town at a different venue.

Rather than compete, we combined the shows. That’s why on my scrawled “budget sheet” of what to pay the bands, the Doughboys got paid more than Nirvana– we honoured their guarantee from their original show. But the Doughboys weren’t happy with their place on the bill. As a Canadian band (from Montreal) they didn’t think they should be opening for American bands on their own soil (although I recall the Doughboys had some east coast punk connection with Dave Grohl).

What they didn’t realize was that Vancouver had more connectivity with Seattle and the West Coast in general than we did Toronto and Montreal. So the Doughboys went on second before the Seattle grunge explosion… and the Doughboys have been pestered for stories about this gig ever since. (Also, what show wraps up at 1:45am any more?? Pretty sure we took this right to 2am.)

And one part of the story that didn’t make it into the Exclaim article: members of Nirvana also stayed at our family home that night. It must have been after 3am when we piled in. My sister was at a sleepover so drummer Dave Grohl slept in my little sister’s canopy bed. Years later, sitting around our family dinner table, my sister announced that she had become a fan of Dave’s new band the Foo Fighters.

“Oh, really? Not sure if you remember this but the lead singer of the Foo Fighters slept in your bed when he drummed for Nirvana,” I said between mouthfuls of roast beef.

“WHAT?!?!”

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Contrabandistas of Rock ‘n Roll: The Smugglers return to Spain

The last complete show by my ol’ band the Smugglers was in January 2019, performing with the Young Fresh Fellows at the Seattle Pop Punk Festival. In 2027, we shall rock out again, this time making our first trip back to Europe in twenty-five years. We will play ONE show, in Madrid, Spain, on Wednesday February 3, 2027 with… guess who? The Young Fresh Fellows! And our ol’ pal from the Untamed Youth, Deke Dickerson! The show will be held at El Sol, a famous rock ‘n’ roll club, and the very site of the recording of Growing Up Smuggler, our 10th anniversary live album, released in 1998 and mixed by Young Fresh Fellow Kurt Bloch. It all connects! The reason for this one-off sojourn? A week-long rock ‘n’ roll celebration for the 60th birthday of our dear Spanish friend / promoter / record label honcho Francisco J. Santelices, a pillar of the international power-pop-garage-punk-rock n roll community for decades.

Nos vemos allí?

In other Smugglers news, our 1997 EP Buddy Holly Convention (my favourite record that we ever did) will get the 30th anniversary remastered treatment courtesy of Lava Socks Records (the same label that has also released deluxe reissues of In the Hall of Fame and Selling the Sizzle)… the EP’s first time on 12” vinyl, a whole new cover, liner notes by Nardwuar, and the story of the Smugglers visiting the Surf Ballroom and the plane crash site in Clear Lake, Iowa, will be out in the fall of 2027.

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Jill Barber’s 2026 Christmas Tour

I won’t be doing any live events until my book comes out, but my lovely and talented wife Jill Barber is busy as ever with her annual highly entertaining, family-friendly Holly Jolly Jill Barber Christmas spectacular!

Tue Nov 24, Capital Ballroom, Victoria BC

Wed Nov 25, Tidemark Theatre, Campbell River BC

Thu Nov 26, Playhouse, Vancouver BC

Fri Nov 27, Clarke Theatre, Mission BC LOW TICKETS

Thu Dec 3, The Westdale, Hamilton Ont

Fri Dec 4, Aeolian Hall, London Ont

Wed Dec 9, Cinquieme Salle, Montreal SOLD OUT

Thu Dec 10, Palais Montcalm, Quebec City LOW TICKETS

Fri Dec 11, Theatre Granada, Sherbrooke, Que LOW TICKETS

Sun Dec 13, Studio Bell, National Music Centre, Calgary

Mon Dec 14, Civic Centre, Golden BC

Tue Dec 15, Bert Church Theatre, Airdrie AB

Wed Dec 16, MacLab Centre, Leduc AB

Fri Dec 18, Darke Hall, Regina SK

Sat Dec 19, Broadway Theatre, Saskatoon SK

TICKETS!!

Happy fall, happy life, hope to see you at one of Jill’s shows, and all the best from the West,

Grant Lawrence

Hello World of Friends!

HAPPY SUMMER!

Whoa. Okay. Well, here goes: After more than 15 years working with wonderful, BC-based, independent publishers like Harbour Publishing and Orca Book Publishers, I’m makin’ the leap to the bigs for the next book. My longtime agent Samantha Haywood has landed me a deal with Penguin Books. Yes, that Penguin. I’m trying something new. And still trying to process it.

My history with independents goes back further than books. My band the Smugglers only ever worked with independent labels like Mint Records in Canada and Lookout Records in the USA, and we were very happy. We never knew what is was like to be on a major label, because, truth be told, we never received the offer, or ever chased one. I’ll admit it: it would have been nice to be asked. Now, in the book world, I have been asked, so while this is a significant departure from my indie philosophy, we’ll see how it goes, eh?

All of this is for the book I have been feverishly researching and writing in every place possible: ferry line ups, airports, libraries, cafés, forests, and late, late, late into the night while my family sleeps around me in our family home. I even wrote on the banks of the Capilano River the other day (see below) while my family shopped at the nearby Park Royal Mall. Every minute counts as the deadline looms.

The most special period of writing I had recently (ever?) was a glorious seven day stretch at the Hollyhock Leadership Centre on Cortes Island. It was a true honour to be their writer-in-residence.

To be able to simply concentrate, all day, on writing, was a gift. To focus and organize my thoughts, to translate them into words, a privilege.  It helped that there was also a silent retreat going on while I was there. A lot less noisy at the hot tubs.

There were actually two other programs happening at Hollyhock while I was lone wolf writin’ it: that silent retreat and another called Aging and Saging (not sagging, as I originally misread in the program guide.) It was all about how to age gracefully, how to find spiritual growth in the second half of your life, and eldership as opposed to old age. It was actually really cool, though when I was invited to take part in one of their workshops, I couldn’t help but tell them that I’m more into agin’ and ragin’! Whoooo! (I did do a reading at one of their workshops and it was great.)

Thanks to everyone at Hollyhock for an incredible experience.

Oh, and here’s what the press release says in case you’re wondering what the book is about (and I do appreciate the use of a head shot from a dozen years ago in that above graphic.)

Deal News – Grant Lawrence’s WHALE TALE

“Radio host Grant Lawrence brings us WHALE TALE, the true story behind one of the most consequential cases in modern environmental history: The Pedder Bay 5. In the height of the orca capture era, five killer whales were taken, among them a white orca, considered the rarest ocean mammal ever caught alive. The capture instantly turned into an international spectacle, setting off a chain of events impacting everyone involved – orca and human – for the rest of their lives, and culminating in a mystery still not solved to this day. To Nick Garrison at Penguin Random House, by Samantha Haywood at Transatlantic Literary Agency.”

Big thanks to Emma Shuparski, Straitwatch, CETUS, Margaret Gallagher, and CBC’s North By Northwest. Without them, I wouldn’t have stumbled into this story or brought it forward.

My hope it that you might see WHALE TALE on bookshelves at some point in 2027.

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Desolation Sound Tour 2026

Anchors away, baby! The guitars are tuned, the stories are tweaked, and we are ready to BOAT across Desolation Sound and the Discovery Islands, B.C., to bring you our (mostly) boat-access only summer tour.

This year, beside my lovely wife Jill Barber and myself (we’re the mainstays), we welcome beloved Ontario singer-songwriter Danny Michel, along with the amazing Vancouver singer Desirée Dawson, and several special guest performers, including our daughter Grace Lawrence. I’ll be sharing local stories old and new, so we hope to see you there!

A couple of notes: this will be our first show at the brand new Lund Community Hall, the village’s first place to gather inside in decades … the Savary show will serve as a tribute to Rick Thaddeus, our long time Savary promoter who sadly died in the winter … and we’re excited to be bringing the show to Read Island, in the Discoveries, for the first time.

Tickets are on sale now!

Mon, July 6, Northside Community Centre, Lund (also with local guests Prashant Miranda and Tyler Bartfai)

Tue July 7, Dockside Kitchen, Refuge Cove, West Redonda Island (also with local guest Tyler Bartfai)

Wed July 8, Hacienda Pascalito’s, Savary Island

Thu July 9, Gorge Hall, Cortes Island

Fri July 10, Lamberts Beach Gazebo, Read Island

A big thanks to our tour presenters Hollyhock and the Lund Resort at Klah ah Men.

Tickets here!

Whoo hoo!! The Desolation Sound tour is back! Our special guest musicians this year are an all-star cast featuring Danny Michel, Desiree Dawson, and Jill Barber, with other special local guests at most shows. Tickets are on sale now, please check start times as they vary per show. Hope to see you out there! GRAB YOUR TICKETS HERE.