Jodie Ponto Photography

The first time I visited the teeny tiny town of Bruno, SK (population 600, about an hour east of Saskatoon) was almost exactly 2 years ago when Miss Quincy & co. played right next door to Senior Citizens at All Citizens:

To see more photos from the first visit click here.

Since then Tyler Brett & Kerri Reid have taken their knack for transformation a few doors down and revamped the old red brick bank building (built in 1917) into the Bruno Arts Bank – an artist-run coffee shop, music venue, artist residency, record/book store, art gallery, and mini-museum.  With a 20 seat capacity and many of the original bank features still in tact (the vault, for one), it’s as gem-like as they come.

The Bruno Arts Bank and Main Street Bruno (photo by the Bruno Arts Bank).

Miss Quincy & The Showdown on the Arts Bank stage.

Record Shop turned Miss Quincy merch den (photo by the Bruno Arts Bank).

The ever-crafty Tyler Brett’s backyard A-Frame where all 4 of us bedded down for the night.

Shari framed within the A-Frame.

An A-Framed Family Portrait (photo by the Bruno Arts Bank).

You can’t fully comprehend the absolute enormity of Canada until you traverse it by automobile. For some perspective, once upon 2 years ago Miss Quincy & I stupidly drove from Calgary to Montreal in one fell swoop …. It took us 54 hours.  54 fucking hours!  That’s with a constant rotation of drivers and only stopping for gas, grub, and one four hour sleep in a roadside ditch.  What’s even more unbelievable about that number is that it excludes 5 whole provinces.

Here are a few rogue photos from the past week when Miss Quincy & The Showdown and I put over 3,000kms on the Vangina in a massive westward trek from Quebec to Saskatchewan.

Quebec City By Night

Everything you’ve ever heard is true, Quebec City is a time-travelling European city stranded in North America.

Backstage Pass

When travelling as an independent band you don’t often find a backstage full of star-studded dressing rooms, bottles of vintage Dom Perignon, 18 year old Greek virgins, and jars of M&M’s with all the brown ones removed.  In fact, there’s most often not a backstage.  Here’s what it really looks like:

Shari & Miss Q putting on their stage faces at Chez Rachelle & Erika in Montreal.

Pre-show beerverages on the leather-couched back patio of Not My Dog in Toronto.

Backstage in Bruno, SK at the Bruno Arts Bank.

Pre-show rehearsal at The Rusty Bike in Moose Jaw, SK.

Roadside Attractions

Miss Q making dinner for four on the hood of the Vangina in Wawa, ON.

Shari shadow-kicking the shit out of Miss Quincy.

Sleepover Time

As mentioned many times before, to survive on the road you have to become one hell of an adaptable sleeper. You must develop the ability to sleep when you can and where you can, or you will die a haggard sleep deprived death.  Here are a few of the more respectable places we’ve bedded down in over the past week:

Miss Q & Holly take turns chugging cough syrup (for illness not inebriation purposes) at the Motel Express in Quebec.

Our European mansion of an apartment in Quebec City.

The Thunder Bay International Hostel – although we arrived too late to take their infamous dump tour we still managed to sleep peacefully beneath the watchful eyes of the hostel owners’ wedding portrait.

Ontario: Putting The Cunt in Driving Across The Country Since 1867

As anyone who has ever driven across the country knows, the vast majority of your highway time is spent in Ontario. I’m not exaggerating when I say it takes days & days to circumnavigate the edge of the Great Lakes.  As Miss Quincy put it, “Ontario puts the cunt in driving across the country”.

One of the innumerable craggy lakes along the Trans-Canada’s seemingly endless Northern Ontario stretch.

A Northern Ontario sunset looking especially beeyootiful after 9 sweaty hours in the Vangina.

Prairie Respite

The Vangina finally emerges into the Prairies after 4 days of driving through Ontario.