He’s tried. If you look around online, you can find him on the obligatory Facebook and Twitter, and he has a Tumbler website – but there’s not much there. Social media is clearly low on his list of priorities. His focus has been elsewhere.

His friends report that he seems to disappear for large blocks of time, only to emerge sporadically with some new version of himself and his art. They imagine a cave – which is not too far from the mark. They imagine screens glowing in the dark late at night, knobs and buttons, piles of instruments, piles of unwashed dishes and empty bottles. They can hear this in his music.

When they hear it, they can also tell right away why he’s doing it. It’s clear he’s searching for something great but different. Different but not weird. OK, maybe even weird sometimes, but not stupid or abrasive – or weird for weird’s sake. The words sound like thoughts we’ve had, the tunes haunt from a place not easy to reach and the emotions revealed are tempered with a welcome intelligence.

A song is a fragile construction, with each piece dependent on the other and, initially, only supported in the air by the artist’s sheer force of will. Some of Connor’s songs don’t get finished, but I sure love the ones that do …

Today I’m doing some social media for him, since he’s been mostly preoccupied with making music (and, in his spare time, his Boba Fett armour).

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Please click here to watch a live recording of Connor’s new song “Hand it Over”.
(**For some reason, Safari users need to click “use original player” to see the video’s full width)

There are 29 shows here – shown in chronological order. The Curacao show is missing (despite the fact it was the Carribean, and hot, it was technically pre-summer), as is the private birthday party in Ontario. Otherwise, though, I think they’re all here.

UPDATE: Video link is horked. Click here for a link that should work

Luckily, for the first time ever, Gogo took photographs at every show this summer from his place at the keyboards – so you can get an idea of what my life’s been like for the past few months. Many of these shots necessarily involve the back of my head, but all of them show the party in front of us. Short of standing up there yourself and feeling the palpable love that overwhelms us every night – it’s a stage-side look at what we did this summer. Three of the shows (Parksville, Olds and Cochrane) have two pictures each (Cochrane, so that the collection wouldn’t end on an odd number) but the rest are individual shows and roughly in the order we played them. Every show we’ve done since Canada Day is represented here except for the private one we played for our multimillionaire buddy in Muskoka.

Gogo’s full set of pictures from the tour, including autographed body parts and tour bus exposés are here and I encourage you to check them all out. I thank my rock and roll brother for documenting our experience every night. It’s the first time anyone’s ever done it, and seeing all of them together like this is quite moving for me. Hopefully you enjoy it too.

He’s been creating mash-ups (digital re-mixes wherein one or more popular songs are mashed together) for fun for months, but started working on his set in earnest when he learned there might be an opportunity to try it out live on a room full of drunk and dancing twenty-somethings.

He’s posted three early mash-ups and an original electro/club/pop track on his “Pack Mentality” MySpace page – where he has quietly but steadily been building his Nu Disco persona.

This is another musical left turn for Connor – but probably a welcome and rewarding antidote to the frustration of trying to assemble a band of great players and then keep them together for more than one or two cash-challenged shows. His MacBook Pro, Reason, ProTools and Ableton Live allow him to create and perform solo – not with an acoustic guitar like Rev. 1, but with the power and the glory (and the block-rockin’ beats) that only an infinite collection of digital samples can deliver. Add to that the undeniable ear-candy of layered iconic pop slices and you can begin to see the appeal – both for him and the dance floor.

And all his gear fits in a backpack.

Stay tuned.

I also keep doubles of my computer power cables, adapters, USB, ethernet and audio cables in the backpack so I can ready my laptop for the drive to the airport in the time it takes to unplug it and pack it away. Since the camera, drives and headphones are stored in there already, I’m less likely to leave them behind.

Jumping up and leaving town is such an expected part of my everyday reality, this routine seems eminently logical …

Until this morning, in the early days of Trooper’s traditional winter break, when I paused for a confused moment wondering where to put my camera.

A pre-debut release of Connor’s new video.

Also, check out the story at Connor’s new website.

“Jonah Smith from Brooklyn New York” he said.

Jonah hits on pretty much all of the qualities that I think a great songwriter and singer needs. And his band is one of the most empathetic I’ve seen – leaving lots of space for the best parts.

Here’s a live vid of Jonah playing my current favourite song, “Little Black Angels”. This is not the original arrangement, which I also recommend. I couldn’t find a vid of “Stay a While”, which is another favourite, but your instructions for today are to go and buy both of these tracks, now, on iTunes.

Here’s a clip of the song they were playing at soundcheck: