Jodie Ponto Photography

This summer I collected a few clips that answer the perplexing question of how one keeps fit, has fun, and maintains a svelte girlish figure while on the road.

Being on the road for 4 months I’ve become one hell of an adaptable sleeper. What I mean by that is when you have to sleep when you can and where you can you soon develop the ability to do just that – sleep anytime and anywhere. That said, over the past few months I’ve gotten my dream on in more places than you can possibly imagine:

In the front seat, middle seat, and backseat isolation chamber of a green minivan.

On living rooms floors, bedroom floors, kitchen floors, closet floors, and fluorescent linoleum airport floors.

On couches, fold out sofa beds, air mattresses, deflated air mattresses, thermarests, yoga mats, hand crocheted afghans, instrument cases, and often just the plain ol’ hard ground.

In rooms and beds shared with uncountable people. In rooms and beds all my own. In single beds, double beds, king sized beds, bunk beds, and the childhood beds of my friends.

In tents, hammocks, backyards, front yards, empty lots, parks, fields, and forests. On lakeside beaches and ocean-side beaches. In city centres, suburbs, small towns, and absolute wilderness. In the homes of friends, family, acquaintances, and absolute strangers. In heritage houses, modern houses, hand-built houses, completely empty houses, band houses, farm houses, and lakeside bunkhouses.

On apartment fire escape porches. In front porch sun rooms. In a stranger’s cabin on a mammoth mattress pulled from an attic. In an attic deemed Bedlam. In a supposed Scottish crack shack. In a dodgy hotel room down the hall from a strip club called Tailgaterz. In a cleverly traded motel room. In a converted bus. In a ditch next to a power station. In a straight up mansion. In a magic tree castle. In a converted prison cell. In the bunk house of a motorcycle club.

Need I go on? Perhaps I should just cut to the chase with a few photos of the random sleepcapades.

The Prison Cell

The night I slept in a converted cell in a former military prison in Ljubljana, Slovenia. For more photos and dirt click here.

The Motorcycle Club Bunkhouse

The night Miss Quincy, the ladies of RedGap, and I slept in bunkhouse of the Patriots Motorcycle Club in Crumlin, Wales (only to wake up and discover a man named Digga bunked down with us). For more photos from our Welsh motorcycle club adventure click here.

The Mini-Bus Sprawl

The tour manager of the CMEAS UK Spring Tour sleep-sprawled in various locations of the mini-bus that carted us all across the UK.

The English Park

A lovely afternoon park nap in Uppingham, England that was rudely interrupted by Frank and his stupid soft ices. For more adventures in Uppingham, click here.

The Fluorescent Linoleum Airport Floor

Crashing hard in the fetal position on London Gatwick’s fluorescent linoleum during my first ever adventure in air travel hell. For more dirt on air travel hell, click here.

The Bass Case

The morning we found our guitarist curled up in the upright bass case.

The First & Only Hotel

The first and only time on Miss Quincy‘s Your Mama Don’t Like Me album release tour that we rented our own hotel room … a “single” room for $53 right down the hall from Tailgaterz strip club. To read the tale of how we managed to sneak 3 dirty hippies into said single hotel room click here.

The Mansion

Is that Peter Mynett from Victoria’s Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra sprawled on our four poster bed?

The Empty House

No exaggeration, the few objects and people you see in this photo were the only things in the absolutely empty house we stayed in for a few days in Nanton, Alberta.

The Beach

The night we made a nest on the beach in Vernon, BC and slept soundly while our bassist spent the night being terrorized by beavers (his portion of the nest was unknowingly on top of a pile of sticks).

The Magic Ukee Tree Castle

The magic tree castle in Ucluelet, BC built from the ground up by a supremely crafty chap named Merlin.

Rocco Fortune starts his day just like everyone else – he puts his leopard print tights on one leg at a time. Except, once his leopard print tights are on, he makes gold records.

The importance of eating out creatively and nutritiously when one is on the road, as demonstrated by Tyler Toews with a revolutionary take on the classic PB & J sandwich – the peanut butter and jam blueberry flapwich garnished with an extra eyesight booster.

I think when Miss Quincy sang “Sing Lady Sing”, Mr. Brinjamin Porter misinterpreted it to mean “Strip Lady Strip”, because that’s what he immediately proceeded to do with his big ol’ upright bass.

Photo from The Royal in Nelson, BC on July 19, 2010.

I took this photo to illustrate why we were in dire need of an Emergency Band Health Day after the debaucherous South Country Fair.

This is what happens when one spends a few days in Nanton, Alberta with nothing but whiskey and a self-timer for company.

“I always cry when I’m drunk”.

Friday, July 9th. It’s the first day of the 2010 Calgary Stampede. We’re being trampled by sweltering cement and cowboy chaos but it’s okay because the Quincy crew is set to play an intimate house concert in a heritage house in the lovely Kensington area … or at least that’s what we thought until our host Mike says, “How do you guys feel about playing on the balcony and turning this into a street party?”.

Slightly skeptical, the band set up on the balcony only to realize that one should never be skeptical of the suggestions of a dapper English chap who muddles street party sized pots full of caipirinhas (Brazil’s national drink) with a cricket bat. That said, both neighbours and random passerbyers began rolling by and Miss Quincy and co. rocked and rolled and folked and wanked on that balcony until the cops shut them down at 2am. The photos below are from the absolute beginning of the evening.

Tom Robbins wrote that there is only one serious question. And that question is: “Who knows how to make love stay?” He has all sorts of advice on the matter. For example, wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.

I think Mr. Brin Porter has stumbled onto another method – shack up with a smokin’ hot 2D cartoon who shares your passion for playing upright bass.

(Photo from Tracks Pub in Olds, AB on July 7, 2010).