The Daily Show Report

The Toucans have been taking the ferries a lot lately! We livened up the Mike Wallace Marina Park in Kingston (mon!) for a crowd of about 350 moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, boys & girls, with a couple ferryloads of walk-on passengers passing through every 30 minutes.

It was a beautiful day in the park, and the steel drum music reverberated out over the water. We had a couple of folks come over and say they could hear us from the dock of their house across the bay! We managed to sell a box of our newest CD, Beak Sounds as well, which also makes the Toucans happy.

You couldn't ask for a nicer day.

After another private party the next day (featuring the excellent food of Chilehead Catering, highly recommended!), the Toucans will prepare for a long flight to the Inland Empire for the National Lentil Festival. We'll be staying at our favorite Best Western in Othello, which boasts both a swimming pool AND and a designated bird cleaning area! Sweeeeet....

Snog Count: 74 (Thanks, Chileheads!)

A Crushing Weekend

*Whew* The Toucans just completed a burly weekend of:

First we rushed onto the Southworth ferry to get to a wedding in the South Sound region, complete with dancing kids, bouquet tosses and lots of steel drum music. The lucky bridge and groom were off to Acalpulco for a tropical honeymoon, but the Toucans were off to their next gig!

Back to Bainbridge Island for a convocation of environmental educators from all over the country. Toucan Dave chalked up snog #68 with a hearty helping of steamed clams, and even Toucan Steve's golden labrador retriever, Toucan Blitz, got in on the action!

Summertime means county fairs, and that's where we found ourselves early on Saturday, livening up the stage at the Skagit County Fair in Mount Vernon. Also on the stage was a great cowboy trio called Fidalgo Joe (guitar, bass, accordion & rope tricks!), and next to the stage were the kindly hot dog girls of the Skagit Valley Herald. They kept the Toucans happy during the long afternoon of onstage, offstage, rinse & repeat.

You can check out photos from this weekend on our Super Summer Adventure page!

We capped the weekend off with a beautiful evening dinner party in a candlelit garden in the Magnolia neighborhood. The Toucans filled the backyard with lilting steel drum music as 50 couples wined, dined and danced to celebrate their friend's birthday. Lovely!

Snog Count: 69

Next up: a week full of public and private outdoor shows, then it's off to Pullman, Washington for the National Lentil Festival! See you there, Toucan fans!

Deep in the Heart of Summer

The middle of August means only one thing in Seattle, and that's Seafair! The hydroplanes, the Blue Angels, the beef jerky; it's the Pacific Northwest's annual party, and the Toucans were right in the middle of it. First up was a 4-hour cruise on Lake Washington in the classiest ship afloat, the M.V. Kirkland. This converted ferry now serves over a hundred people (and a band!) as a leisure vessel. We sailed out to the middle of the lake and waited for the Blue Angels Navy fighter jet team to begin their fly-by, but the low clouds forced them to cancel at the last minute. Arg!

A fantastic outdoor birthday party with great food, lots of beverages and a trampoline was a perfect way to spent a Saturday evening. We topped the weekend off with a high-energy outdoor concert in Edmonds. There was a huge turnout, and the weather couldn't have been nicer. 60 minutes later, the entire park was ringing to the sunny sounds of the Toucans. Our new album made its way into the hands of many a Toucans fan, too!

Get ready for another week of steel drum madness as the Summer season continues. We'll be at the Skagit Valley Fair next weekend, after a half-dozen private shows, come on up and say hi! We've also got the National Lentil Festival in Pullman to look forward to the week after that!

The Snog Count is: 67!

Stay tuned!

August Prep Rehearsal

The beginning of August is the "hump" for the Toucans; that time when the upcoming gigs are fewer than the gigs already completed. It's also the time of year when we've played all the songs we know dozens of times, and are about to go crazy from lack of new tunes.

The remedy?

A fun mid-summer Toucans rehearsal!

After retrieving Toucan Dave from his bivouac high atop Mount Rainier and fishing Toucan Steve out from his secret underwater laboratory, the Toucans swooped down upon a handful of new songs. Each tune was carefully chosen by Toucan Rob and Toucan Pete to give maximum value for your steel drum dollar. A few sultry latin tunes, a reworking of an old calypso favorite, and a pop tune from the early 1980's for good measure; a little fresh material goes a long way!

Get ready for Seafair Weekend! Ear-splitting Blue Angel fly-bys, outdoor concerts (Edmonds City Park, Sunday August 8th from 3-4 pm), and BBQ on Lake Washington. Find out why we call it the Tropical Northwest!

Baking Hot Thursday

Well, we started the day off right with a 2-hour ice cream sundae event. Our good friend Karl was there dishing out the scoops, with whipped cream and other toppings provided by the capable members of Team Karl. We followed the show up with an inside tour of the Xbox Live command center, conveniently located next to our ice cream gig.

After collecting our free Xbox t-shirts, we cruised the streets of old Renton until we found it's most hidden treasure: the Value Village. Much fun was had by all, and Toucan purchases included a golf club hard case, a leather adventure hat, a toy piano, a hohner melodica, and some cool green shades for Dusty.

We managed to locate the Acapulco Fresh mexican restaurant, and scarfed burritos and guacamole around the big tree in the restaurant's patio. Cigars and Negro Modelo beer rounded out the afternoon nicely.

Off to the next show! A management consulting firm had set up a large buffet and a drinks bar on the Kirkland waterfront, at the Woodmark Hotel at Carillon Point. Between sets of music, the Toucans loaded up on drinks, sunshine, and snog #60!

(Snogs, BTW, are a free meal provided by the client as a perk of the gig. Toucan Dave broke 100 snogs in calendar year 2002, just barely missed the century mark in 2003, but is poised to shatter all records in 2004. If you'd like to help out, hire the Toucans for a picnic or BBQ!

Live at Lunch

Bellevue's Live at Lunch concert series featured the Toucans today. We played a brisk 90-minute show, helped the Bellevue Downtown Association interns fold up their canopy, made a plan to acquire raw video footage from the BCC TV crew who were there filming, and managed to get in a quick BBQ snog as well!

Snog Count: 53

Dave is on his way to shattering all previous snog records, which date back to the great earthquake of '02.

It's the Toucans!

The "tony tigers of steel" have begun their 15th summer season, folks!

Kicking it off with a brand new album, the barrel-banging beaksters are hammering out the mad beats all summer long!

Visit the blog to view pictures, read about amazing Toucan adventures, and to learn the inside tricks of the Toucans trade!