August: 100 Mile House

from A Year In Song by The Nautical Miles

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about

About the song…

100 Mile House is a song that I wrote while I was working in Oppenheimer Park on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It was a great job. Oppenheimer is known as the “living room of the Downtown Eastside”, a gathering place for the homeless and underhoused. I was working for the local community centre, a dry facility, and was charged with bringing recreational programming to those who could not access the centre because of their addictions.

One of the best parts of the job was hearing people’s stories. Some were hilarious, some were tragic. Each taught me something new about the city I lived in and its residents.

Vancouver is often trumpeted as one of the greatest cities in the world. Tourism BC sells our city to the world with imagery that can only be described as ecological pornography. The BC Liberals have even gone so far as to give our province the unfortunate slogan “The Best Place on Earth”. Our adolescent city on the lip of the Pacific Rim is meant to be an urban utopia; the envy of everyone who visits.

What I learned from hanging out in the park and listening to people’s stories is that, for a large number of people, this is not the case. I spoke to dozens of people from small towns from all across BC and the rest of Canada who are stuck in Vancouver because this is where the cheap drugs are. Many wanted nothing more than to leave and to return home. For many, Vancouver is an extremely cruel place.

I’ll send this one out to my “Street Mum” Philo May. RIP.

100 Mile House features the beautiful vocal stylings of the inimitable Debra-Jean Creelman.

About the artwork…

Kate Zisman is the official visual artist of the Nautical Miles. Over the last six years she has created dozens of posters and images for the band. She created the cover of our 2006 record, Tell me again how this place got its name, and is also the mastermind behind our website, www.corbinmurdoch.com.

We owe her a lot of favours.

If you ever need illustrations, posters, album covers, or beautiful works of art for your walls, you can’t do better than Kate Beth Zisman. Track her down. Doing so may just land you a record review.

Cabin is a transferred drawing based on photos she took in 100 Mile country.

credits

from A Year In Song, track released August 15, 2009
Kate Zisman: artwork
Corbin Murdoch: guitar, vocals
Debra-Jean Creelman: vocals
Tim Tweedale: steel guitar
Simon Rotheisler: bass
Lucas Schuller: percussion, vibraphone
Jesse Gander: production

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The Nautical Miles Vancouver

The Nautical Miles are an adventurous roots music band from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

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