Luke Doucet.

I am incredibly angry with myself. Luke Doucet & Co. and James Lamb are in Vancouver. SIX DAYS AGO. Furious. Seriously. I am crushed. I was listening to Luke again this evening and decided to have a look at his myspace to see how many page views he had (woefully few - this guy is seriously the most underappreciated musician I can think of) and I saw that he had a Vancouver date ON MAY 3RD. I felt like crying a little bit. It's one thing to go see a band you like, but when said band is one of the finest guitarists in the deal today, gah. As a musician, that sort of thing is a real treat - it's so amazing and, well, educational even, when you get to see musicians of Luke Doucet's calibre.

Like I said, this guy is honestly the most underappreciated musician around today that I can think of. He's a BRILLIANT guitarist (really; I'm blown away every time I listen to him, and I've listened to a lot of truly great guitarists), and he's nearly as good a songwriter as he is a player. And yet, despite this, his album sales are indeed decent but certainly nothing like "popular" music sales. He draws a blank every time I mention him to anyone I know. His label has seventeen very high-quality videos of a complete show he did in Toronto on youtube, and yet none of them have more than 600 views. NONE of the videos of him on all of youtube have more than around twenty-thousand views (for reference, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" has over two-hundred-MILLION, and as a licensed musician I can confidently say that it is really bad).

In all honesty, I don't think Luke himself really cares that much. He's been touring and playing for most of his life - seriously, the guy started gigging around Canada with his dad when he was 13 or 14. He gets to live a life that few of us get to live: his entire livelihood comes from performing and producing albums. His wife is also a fantastic musician (Melissa McClelland - she's not as good a guitarist but she's still pretty good, and certainly prettier, which is saying a lot). In short, he's living the best life that is, in my opinion, possible. I just think it's perplexing that he continues to be so completely under the radar considering how incredibly talented he is.

Here's a perfect example to close for y'all: closer from the Mod Club set - this is "First Day in the New Home Town".



As of this posting, it's been on youtube for a week short of a year. It doesn't even have three-hundred views.