There’s no dust on Winnipeg based musician Rambling Dan Frechette. He is as good as his name, rambling about a variety of 
topics including his dislike for writing for government grants, the Sept. 11 attacks, the plethora of people he has played with over the past year and internet downloading. He spent the last year and a half holed up in his studio recording no less than 10 albums of all different genres.
“ I spent most of the year recording some albums,” said Frechette who plays The Owl Acoustic Lounge, May 23 with Kayla Luky and California violinist Laurel Thomsen who also plays guitar.
“I had about 1,400 songs, so I thought it was time to get them out there,” he aid adding he used his own studio for most of the albums, but also used the studio of friends like friends like Scott Nolan with whom he recorded his latest blues album.
“ I still have another 500-600 songs I’d like to record,” he said adding time in the studio was a nice break from spending the previous year on the road touring.
“ This means I can choose which albums I want to support, he said adding this tour will be in support of “ Dawning of a New Day,” which he recorded on December.
He did a lot of collaboration with Thomsen online.
“ I’ve been talking to her for about two years online, trading files. We had an internal connection. So we booked a tour of towns around where she lives, he said.
“I recorded most of this CD on my 12 string guitar. She performs on a lot of them. When she plays with me it’s like she has always played with me. It’s been like magic,” Frechette continued.
“ It sounds really great with Laurel,” he said. He plays most of the instruments on his CD including guitar, bass, banjo and drums.
Fellow Manitoban Kayla Luky is a musician he has always wanted to play with.
“ I’ve been listening to her ever since she was 18. I noticed where ever I played, I noticed a poster stating she was playing the same place too. So she and I booked 16 solid dates before we get to Lethbridge of places we’ve both played before. We’re doing 35 dates in six weeks,” he said.
The duo make for a diverse billing.
“ She has more of a country, rural feel, while I am more of a folk and blues player. So it is a nice cross section that will attract a music appreciative audience,” he said.
He chose to support “Dawning of a New Day,” because it received the best response online with 700 plays on Bandcamp, though not many people bought the CD.
“I appreciate that people listen to it, but if they don’t buy it, there will come a time when I can’t afford guitar strings,” he said.
“ I don’t like writing grants. So if things go badly, then it’s my fault,” he said.
His albums are available online at Bandcamp, though he will print off some for his tour.
“A lot of my people like CDs. They don’t even have computers. But they aren't in those jewel cases that always crack. I’m using digipacks,” he said.
“These are songs I’ve been playing for about 10 years. Most of them were just me with a 12 string guitar,” he said adding one of his favourites “New York City Sundance,” was written shortly before the 9-11 terrorist attacks in 2001 at a pow wow in New York stage which ended up being oddly prophetic.
“ When it happened, a lot of my friends asked me ‘didn’t you write a song about that?’ But it was just about a sundance,” he said.
