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McCandless back in P.G., playing two concerts this week

When Derrick McCandless moved away from Prince George, the first gas station attendants he tried wouldn't help him fill up because they were too fixated on the images of jets slamming into the World Trade Centre towers in New York.
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Former Prince George resident Derrick McCandless will be performing again in Prince George. Citizen photo by Brent Braaten May 24 2016

When Derrick McCandless moved away from Prince George, the first gas station attendants he tried wouldn't help him fill up because they were too fixated on the images of jets slamming into the World Trade Centre towers in New York.

Yes, that day, of all days, was when he and his family hit the road for Ontario where he was going to expand his music career.

It did expand and he is back now in happier times to show Prince George how it's been going since his departure almost 15 years ago. He has a pair of concerts scheduled for this week. You can catch him Thursday at Nancy O's and Saturday at Art Space.

These concerts are a study in Prince George contrasts since he last lived here. Nancy O's didn't exist, but he was active in the music of the local Celtic Club when Nancy O's proprietors Garrett Fedorkiw and Eoin Foley were kids to some of the club's key leaders. Art Space, meanwhile, was where he had his McCandless Music luthier and instrument repair shop, and also staged many concerts involving himself and others. McCandless would act as promoter for touring musicians like Doug Cox, David Essig, Don Ross and many more.

"Art Space hasn't changed a bit," McCandless said, other than a different business in his old space, and a few other new entrepreneurs around the rim of the room. "The folding backdrop is still there, Huble Homestead's office is still there, even the smell is the same. It was like coming home.

"I dropped in on the Friday Night Mic open mic event downstairs at Cafe Voltaire, and Eric Tompkins, what a great player he is, first of all, hosting every week, and what a classy guy. He pointed me out and announced how I had started it up, and it's still going now all these years later."

Since leaving, McCandless lived awhile in the London-Toronto region of Ontario, then moved to Winnipeg in 2008. He produced two albums and an EP in those 15 years. Some of the guest musicians who helped him produce those recordings include Ruth Moody (of Scruj MacDuhk and The Wailin' Jennys fame) and Tania Elizabeth (a Juno and Grammy winner with The Duhks, now The Avett Brothers).

Lately he has been part of a old-time/ragtime country band where he described himself as the weak musician link in order to challenge himself to higher skills, and a Chilean band where "I'm the only white guy, and the others will make jokes in Spanish and then everyone in the audience looks at me and laughs, so I know I'm useful in that way, too," he laughed.

He still builds instruments, too. He took training in welding and the use of a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) carving machine. He now makes resophonic guitars out of metal in addition to the wood-based instruments he learned to do first. The guitar he brought to Prince George for these appearance, in fact, was the first one he ever built.

"This trip is all about nostalgia for me. I'm playing a lot of my older material, too, because I'm enjoying these visits I'm having with great people, and all the memories it's bringing back to me," he said.

The instrument construction, the various bands and solo gigs, the songwriting, the touring has all added up to an eclectic body of work, he said, and he might have become a major star in any of those things had he concentrated on it, but that isn't how his mind is built. The variety has kept him progressing through it all.

Even when he was living in Prince George in his formative musical years, he was a man of many bands. He and his then-wife Mary had a group with Jim and Margaret Coyle before they formed Out Of Alba and also in that group was Jo and Greg Beattie before they became the city's premier concert promoters whose work eventually led to the invention of the Cold Snap Music Festival.

Also, McCandless, Mary, brother Jeremy Cundy, IIlya Medlicott, and Shawn Nelson had a popular pop-Celtic band Black Sheep Outcast for some of that time. He was also frequently seen on local stages as a solo artist, and as such represented the Prince George region in the singer-songwriter component of the B.C. Festival of the Arts when it was last held in this city.

One of the mentors in that event was Stephen Fearing and McCandless credits that Canadian star for infusing him with perspectives that became quite valuable as he established his career over time.

One of the first lessons was when McCandless expressed a fear of performing his BCFA material live, feeling shy about it.

"Stephen Fearing said - and from him it was motivating, not a put-down - 'that's just your ego talking. Who do you think you are to deny that gift you've been given?' That really stuck with me. And I asked him how you know when you're ready to go out there and perform live, do your own shows, be on stage, and he said you don't, you just have to go do it and do it and do it, and if, over time, people don't respond, well maybe that's not for you, but you have to just go and put it out there. He was great for me."

As age and experience built up behind his efforts, McCandless came to other realizations in life.

"I always wanted to 'make it' in music," he said, "but I never had a sense of what that meant. I thought if I got a song on the radio, I'd have 'made it' or if I got someone else to record my material I'd have 'made it' or whatever. All those things happened, but the world didn't suddenly change. So I had to learn to understand that 'making it' in music was just being satisfied with the work, looking forward to playing music, enjoying the process. It's about fun. Most of my angst is gone from my songs - well, there's still a little angst - but that's what it's really all about. I enjoy making music. That's it. That's how I know I've 'made it.'"

McCandless admission at Nancy O's is free, with tips to the musician accepted during the show, and tickets to the Art Space show are $10 at the door.