Harry the Guitar Player: Recent Episodes
DaVid Studios
Harry is about to play his nightly gig at the Cry Baby Bar. He once walked with the gods of rock and played sold-out stadium shows around the world. He now plays an out-of-tune guitar for beer and plates of fries. Harry is about to make a come-back, though, with a song called, “The Cannonball”. Trouble is, he didn’t write it. Joe-Joe Jollimore did.
Produced by DaVid Studios, creators of ‘Dead in Japan’. Please visit our website:
deadinjapan.ca
From the creators of Harry the Guitar Player comes the new series, “Dead in Japan”
Halloween, October 31st, 2021
Dead In Japan
October 31st, Halloween, 2021, from the creators at DaVid Studios of, “Harry the Guitar Player”, comes the new series, Dead In Japan. An English teacher dies abroad and enters the Japanese spirit world.
Harry winds his way to life’s checkout and finds at last what it is we all strive for and only few manage to get in their cart. Dignity. Email Harry: davedouce@gmail.com
“Back is where he’s at!” HARRY stars in the film North of Smokey headlining the Toronto Fringe Festival July 21-31.
https://fringetoronto.com/digital-fringe/show/north-smokey
All that past hangs over harry’s head. It’s a puzzle and as as he moves closer to knowing it, further back it moves. He knows deep in his heart that all this is connected to Jollimore and the cannonball. And he knows if he records the cannonball the mystery will be solved.
- Mail for Harry: davedouce@gmail.com
From the creator of ‘Harry the Guitar Player’ comes the new novel: The Blue Skies of Winter
Here it is. Harry feels he can trust us. He tells of the event that changed it all for him. And it was his his hurt that allowed the excesses of rock and roll enter his life. he ends up arrested in Japan and then on a plane to a psych ward in Honolulu.
Harry has a visitor on stage; a fights break out. There are no bouncers. Redemption or destruction is near. Harry hangs on, plays his guitar.
Episode 15 ‘Stage Presence’ copyright ©2021 DaVid Studios, davedouce@gmail.com
There was a night that began all this for Harry the Guitar Player. It was when he and his band were on their way to play at the Planetarium, the greatest and worse night Harry would ever know.
From the creator of ‘Harry the Guitar Player’ comes the new novel: The Blue Skies of Winter
From the creator of ‘Harry the Guitar Player’ comes the new novel: The Blue Skies of WinterIn their conversation, Harry grows s suspicious of Calvin. He is sure Calvin knows a lot more about Harry, more than he is letting on, and about his past, his early past.
From the creator of ‘Harry the Guitar Player’ comes the new novel: The Blue Skies of Winter
Harry takes a stand. He goes back into the Crybaby. His clothes are rumpled. He was beat up in the street by Hank, Mikaila's X-husband, the cops took him in the cruiser and the Salvation Army lets him down. Harry knows that if he retreats to his room at the Tarantula Arms he will be done for. He has to go in and show them the musician he is. Tom Tipperoo, the harmonica player is in the street. He helps Harry pick up his bag. "You're on stage with me, Tipperoo. There's some business I've got to take care of!"
From the creator of ‘Harry the Guitar Player’ comes the new novel, The Blue Skies of Winter
It is Christmas Eve and Harry meets a psychologist with three kids, Mikaila. Mikaila is separated from her husband but loves to sing. After a pitcher of draft, she joins Harry on stage for a Christmas carol and when Harry goes on break she joins him at the end of the bar. They laugh and carry on and talk about how Christmas is really a large bully in the lives of many. "Glad to meet you, Mick!" says Harry, raising his glass. 'I never had a girl who was a friend before!"
From the creator of ‘Harry the Guitar Player’ comes the new novel, The Blue Skies of Winter
There's something from the past that Harold is almost telling us. The term singer-songwriter irks him. He sees it as a plumber-carpenter and the multi-skilled means they who deliver a wishy-wash fix to the problem. And the problem is music. He cites a boy playing an out of tune guitar and Beethoven as examples of the true musician. Calvin Swig the bartender at the Crybaby insinuates all music is frivolous, that Harry's work is not real work. Harry defends himself, to us at least, and to us he shares more of a past that haunts him more and more. The songs he wrote, he now realizes, pointed toward a future he would inhabit. One he has to get out of by getting back on top. By recording, 'The Cannonball'.
Harry shares with us a rare treat. He gives a guitar lesson then explains all you need to know to make it in the business. But his break is over, and he must go back on stage for another set at the Crybaby Bar. He goes up and plugs in, 'The Monkey's Paw', his drawed-upon guitar that he keeps in open tuning so no one will play it. He reminisces about how it all started for him, about his win at the age of 17 of the Planetarium's battle of the bands with his first hit called, 'Slimy Rock and Roll Star', a win that prompted his recording career at DaVid Studios on Toronto Island. We learn more about Annabell Baker, too, his teenage love and how she became a part of the family and how Harry treasured her above all. Harry's mother caught him sneaking Annabell baloney sandwiches,. She was living secretly in the basement.
"Harry, if you just keep tuning up up there I can just put on the stereo!"
Itr's Calvin Swig, Crybaby bartender and Harry is brought back to the present.
Harry has to get out of here. The Crybaby is killing him. He has to get back on top where he belongs. Only one song will do it, 'The Cannonball.'
Harry gets in an argument over music with the bartender Calvin Swig. Harry wants to know what real music is. Clavin tells him. Calvin enjoys modern sounds and thinks Harry is a dinosaur with his 'dried up saucepan songs that Harry Jake has been playing since Jesus was a teenager'. Harry's at a low point and then he hears Tom Tipperoo plays his harmonica out in the audience. The walls are closing in on him. Harry has made a deal with KO Bigs and Jajoe Jollimore is back in town and playing a wicked guitar. Harry had better climb back on top soon. He can't take another night at the Crybaby.
After many years, after Harry's rise and fall from stardom, Harry meets Jollimore at the Crybaby Bar. Jollimore says to Harry he has been watching his career from afar these past many years. He liked Harry's disco phase, which Harry has no memory of. Jollimore comments on how Harry has fallen from grace when Harry asks for a drink from his bottle, which the bartender Calvin Swig keeps under the bar for him. Harry's uncomfortable, thinks about the song, "The Cannonball' and tries to decide what to do now that its writer, Joe-Joe Jollimore is back on the scene.
Harry still plays his show at the Crybaby Bar. He realizes he has to get out of the Tarantula Arms and move back up in the real scene of music. He is slipping, drinking to much and going too inward. The strange thing is his guitar playing has never been better.
It's Halloween night and Harry is doing his guitar show at the Crybaby Bar. The patrons are wobbling limbs and dressed as ghouls and goblins. Harry tells us that it's Halloween 365 days a year at the Crybaby. He also tells us about his first marriage and how love in whatever union you find it first splinters, then falls to the floor where you get one in your foot. Harry tells of the passing beauty in the street, that she is not one you can ever admire because the lovee - the one on your arm -must have you all. And she can and does, except not the guitar. No way, not that. A stranger shows up at the Crybaby and though appearing out of place soon reveals his precedence over all.
Harry honours his send-in cassette win by travelling to big ole well-armed Texas. He studies under Ingo, a rock-and-roll monster from a bygone era. An international assortment of musicians are his classmates. A Korean guitarist named Suk Bum particularly grabs his interest and the American-born beauty named Tomasina, who sets Harry right on the ever-present marketing in the world of music. Harry hears the electric guitar and his world changes forever.
Harry has worked on "The Cannonball" while holed up for six days at his room at the Tarantula Arms. He gets drunk and calls his old manager KO Biggs from Toronto. "You still in the biz?" says Harry. KO laughs, flies down to check out Harry at the Crybaby Bar.
Harry is a guitar player at the Crybaby Bar. Once hailed as rock legend extraordinaire, Harry would play to sold-out shows to fans jammed into 100,000-seater stadiums all around the world. But Harry now sleeps on a cot in a single room at the Tarantula Arms. Under his window is a city dumpster, where stray cats yowl. His sketched-up guitar, 'The Monkey's Paw', is his only possession. But he plans to make a come-back with a song from long ago. The trouble is he did not write the song.