Badlands
This video is from over 10 years ago when making a video was something that required a lot more equipment than today. Micheal Short, for whom I had written a song “Let’s Go Outdoors” for his radio/TV show of the same name (that incidentally has over 1,000,000 views) is my good friend who made this video of this song shortly after I released it.
We had travelled to the Badlands (Drumheller, Alberta) together to film it. We only had one day, and we had no idea where to go, etc. So we just headed out down the back roads and miraculously found all these amazing settings that you see in the video.
We decided to add a few other scene later at HayLoft Acres, a great spot near Sherwood Park Alberta owned by friend, Uwe Wojek, and asked Haley Myrol (a fellow musician and friend) to play a part in the video.
Thanks to all three, Haley, Uwe, and Micheal, for this wonderful production!
Music and Metaphysics
Hi Friends,
There have been a few studies that have shown that musicians tend to have more psychic ability than the general population. Some classic examples of psychics and music are Dolly Parton, Lorretta Lynn, and Johnny Horton.
I can add myself to that list and what is more, I have made the move to becoming a professional practising psychic over the past few years. www.universe-psychic.com
It all started during the height of COVID when the only place to perform was at the Vernon Farmers’ Market. 2020. When I would go to play there, I could only play for 2 hours. One day as I was packing up my stuff, I thought to myself, “I am here already…I wonder if I could set up a little table and read some cards (fortunes) for the people and maybe make a few extra bucks?”
I have had this ability to read cards for a long time, but I only did it for friends and family at parties, etc. And I would use the regular card deck–not the Tarot.
So…
I asked the managers, and they said, “Sure, but you will need a tent and pay all the fees of a regular vendor, etc.”
So I sat on this idea for while but it kept bugging me, and it would not let go of me. So come fall (when the market moved indoors for the winter), I paid my fees and started reading cards professionally.
As this was happening, I decided to buy a Tarot deck and try reading with Tarot cards instead of a regular card deck.
So….
I went to Chapters and just picked up a deck that attracted me (The Millennium Thoth Tarot by Renata Lechner).
I had no idea that this deck would change my life.
This deck drew me in and called on me to write a book about it: The Five-Card Pentagram Tarot. I finished and published the book by the next year and started reading cards from this deck at the Vernon Farmers Market and other places (and selling my book).
Now, I am working on another book about this deck and the Tarot, continuing to read these Tarot cards, and have become immersed in being a professional psychic–as well as a professional musician.
Life is good!
Here’s a Vernon Morningstar article on my card reading/metaphysical side.

Marv Machura, a tarot card reader, psychic and author, will be at the upcoming MysticAfair Saturday in Vernon. (Contributed)
Musician turns tarot cards at Vernon psychic fair
By Jennifer Smith, Vernon Morningstar
Marv Machura can read more than just music. The local musician can also read minds and tarot cards.
“Many musicians are also psychics,” said Machura, who is also an author. “It’s just that I decided to go professional with it during the COVID crisis due to the lack of live music.”
Machura will be among a small collective of psychics at the Centre for Spiritual Living in Vernon for Saturday’s Psychic Fair.
This psychic and healing arts fair (MysticAfair) is part of an original project started by one of the Okanagan’s premier practicing psychics, Alara Serait.
“In 2020 and the COVID crisis, MysticAfair reinvented itself into the Little Psychic Fair that is more intimate and friendly than some of the bigger psychic fairs that I was running before 2020,” she said.
The MysicAfair events have steadily grown in popularity, especially over the past year, said Serait.
MysticAfair is a collective of psychic and metaphysical practitioners with Seriat featuring various psychics and crafters for each event, so each is unique.
The Psychic Fair starts at 12 p.m. and goes until 6 p.m. at 2913 29th Ave. Admission is $5. For more information, visit mysticafair.com.
The fairs take place monthly, alternating between Vernon and Kelowna.
Saskatchewan

Photo by Marv Machura
Hi Friends,
This song came to me as I was driving through the countryside of East Alberta around Vilna and Smoky Lake where I have deep family roots. As I saw the big empty fields, I thought about my parents’ and grandparents’ life on this land, and how it may have been to see it with big families living on each quarter section of land. Today, the remnants of those days (old homes, barns, granaries, etc.) that I knew as numerous when I was younger are almost all gone as well.
Here’s my song “Saskatchewan” on my Spotify Channel. Check it out if you have Spotify, otherwise you can find it on YouTube, etc.
Have a great Tuesday!

Saskatchewan
Verse 1:
There’s a golden land called Saskatchewan;
Held before our fathers like a promised land.
1888 is not that long ago; they started the life that’s left me here.
Verse 2:
Every quarter section had a family.
They didn’t come here to leave.
They thanked God for Saskatchewan; they thanked God they were here,
Chorus:
I’m driving through miles and miles of empty fields, broken-down old homes
A lonely tractor’s out there on a thousand acres of this golden land called Saskatchewan.
O, Saskatchewan…
I feel a warm wind blow; I feel her warm wind blow.
Verse 3:
I wish the old ways weren’t so far away.
When we were content with so much less.
But I’m pushing through, I got to be on my way…oh, oh, Saskatchewan
Chorus 2:
I’m driving through miles and miles of empty fields and broken-down old homes;
A lonely tractor’s out there on a thousand acres of this blessed land called Saskatchewan
It’s a blessed land called Saskatchewan;
I feel a warm wind blow; I feel her warm wind blow.
© 2003 Marv Machura
Gig Salad Site
I have had this Gig Salad Site for a few years. It provides a focused place where people who are looking for entertainment can find me for their entertainment needs.
https://www.gigsalad.com/marv_machura_vernon

On This Beautiful Night
Hi Friends,
When I released this song a couple of years ago, someone commented in on my YouTube Channel, “Aren’t you like 50?” I thought about that and it’s implication that I was too old to write a love song like this. So I wrote back, “Actually I am like 60.”
It is not true that as we grow older that we need less friends and love. If anything the opposite is true. We need more.
I hope that you will have many “beautiful nights” regardless of your age!
Cheers!
South of the North Saskatchewan
This song has had a long history with me. I was on my way to some show in Lac La Biche and as I was crossing the North Saskatchewan River near Smoky Lake the song came to me in a flash. But, as often happens with inspirations like this, it takes a while for the inspiration to be realized. In this case it took a few decades, but here it is!
Thanks again to the mighty Michael Short for creating the video.
A classic lounge in a wonderful winery, Kelowna! This coming Saturday!

Coming soon!!! Cheers, friends!
That’s Blitzen the Blues Fan, Reindeer in the poster!!

Okanagan Restoration Services Blues Jam
This past spring, I approached the community-minded people at Okanagan Restoration Services if they would like to sponsor a blues jam at Don Cherry’s here in my hometown of Vernon, BC. This was just as the COVID restrictions were lifted. They said yes, and the rest is history. From the first show, there has been a huge outpouring of support for the blues from the wonderful staff at Don Cherry’s to the musicians of Vernon, and all the blues fans that come out to the Jams. “The blues is the roots; the rest is the fruits.” – Willy Dixon