DAY FOUR – JUST WHEN WE THOUGHT IT WAS OVER…

Hi everybody -

You’d think it was easy to just return to the apartment, spend the night, then get up and drive home, right?

Wrong!

First, after we came back much later than planned (Moneen was too good to leave), we did a bit of website work.  So around 3 am, I decided to turn in, as we were planning on leaving fairly early.

That’s when I noticed that the time on my BB and my watch were not the same….

Apparently Daylight Savings Time had kicked in, and neither Matt nor I were aware or had noticed.  Damn.

So we opted for a later departure and decided we would go straight to my place for rehearsal at 2pm.  So far, so good, we left TO by arund 9:15.  Plenty of time, right?

Wrong!

Everything went fine until we got just E of Belleville.  Here is what the 401 looked like;  for about an hour it was stopped in both directions.

So we took full advantage of our technology to defer band practice until 3;  we actually pulled into my driveway right at 3 pm.  All credit to Matt, as he was driving, although I won’t pass on our average speed.

So we arrived back home – tired, but inspired!

Rock on.

The 401 parking lot...

DAY THREE – ITS A MAGIC NUMBER

Hi everybody – it has taken me a couple of days to get my sleep on and put some words together about the end of CMW.

In contrast to Friday, Saturday’s seminars were superb.  Lots and lots of good material, but the best, by far, was Tom Jackon’s piece on  live production.

Tom took the band “Crash Parallel”  and one live song performance from really good to really great.  It was amazing to watch him work with these guys and bring out the moments that matter on stage.   So the seminars ended on a truly high note.

Lucky for us Tom is coming to Ottawa in a couple of weeks and we get to see it again!

Saturday night, Matt wanted to check out the Mod Club, as the acts there started with Joel Plaskett and ended with The Trews…so the lineup looked great, plus it was supposed to end a bit early – which worked for us as we had to drive back to Ottawa and rehearse on Sunday.

Unfortunately, it was pouring cold rain;  we waited in line for over an hour until they announced that only ticket holders would be admitted.

What?  Didn’t we pay for our admission already?  Wasn’t this part of the deal?  Guess sometimes its “live and learn”.

So after meeting some cool folks in line – we’ll put the video up shortly, and enduring hypothermia, we were forced to look elsewhere for entertainment.

Enter the Garrison club.    Three great bands – metal,   metal/punk/Weezer fusion (that was different)  and then Moneen.   I have never seen a band with such a big fan base – by which I mean that every fan was the size of an NFL linebacker.  Matt’s a tall guy, and I actually lost him in the crowd for a few minutes… and then the moshing started.

In the interests of getting out unscathed, I retreated to the bar. 

But the show was excellent, we couldn’t believe how these guys worked the stage without crashing into anything or anyone, it was awesome to watch.

Maybe I’ll still come back next year.

Rock on.

DAY TWO – BUT OH WHAT A NIGHT

Well, the weather was crappy, and that meant that Matt and I decided to only visit venues that were really close to the subway line. 

Which is how we wound up at the Hard Rock Cafe.

First band we saw was “Faithdown” from Toronto.  Solid, tight, good old alt-rock.  Enjoyed them immensely.

Second band was Bastard, also from Toronto.  Wow, we were impressed.  Great band, fantastic singer who really knew how to work the crowd.  Awesome. 

But the third band, Jonas, from Montreal, blew us away.  Their lead singer looked like a young Jim Morrison, with looks, moves, and charisma to match.   Hottest thing  I have ever seen in person, oh yes.  I was rooted to the floor, especially when he looked at me (I was the only one in the room, un-huh), it was just incredible.  Their final song was a cool rocked-up cover of “Edge of Seventeen” that left us feeling completely inadequate as musicians….

Rock on.

Faithdown

Jonas, from Montreal

Bastard, from Toronto

Faithdown, from Toronto

DAY TWO – BORED TO TEARS DURING THE DAY

Hi everybody;

Well, first we played last night – which was a great chance to feel like part of something way bigger!  We want to say thanks to Slacks, to Elana Harte especially for all her fine work with sound, we had a great time and would love to come back again.  I”ll be posting video of Elana playing a song or two with our drummer, who volunteered to help her out, on our youtube page.

Seminars today, though, were a bit of a disappointment.  First was “How to make a living from music”  but it turned out to be “all the ads I’ve placed music in and like”.  Sigh.

Second was a pretty good, but not lively or sparkling panel called “The Fan is always right”.  Ho hum, really.

Then, OMG, Bob Lefsetz piled a bunch of crap on the young’uns about how musicians don’t need education, ’cause if its not only thing you want or are capable of doing, then you shouldn’t be doing it.  I wish they’d had time to get to me in the question period;  I can’t believe how many people bought into that idea in the 20 feet around me, and I would have liked to speak my piece.

Dave Stewart was a complete disappointment, it was “all about Dave’s weird visionary world” which left both Matt and me cold.

Another day like this and I won’t be returning next year.

Rock on.

FROM DAY ONE

Hi everyone, this post will be short because we are racing around to get ready for the show tonight!

We attended 4 seminars today:  an interview with Slash (he is promoting a book, so no juicy parts really), information on how to tour intelligently, touring Australia, and apps for bands.

We got quite a bit out of it – Matt says it helped him find a bug in our website – but I won’t be able to write more about it until tomorrow, as we are way behind schedule.

Pics to follow – thanks for reading!

Rock on.

WE’RE BAAAA……………..ACK

Hi everybody.

You might remember that last year Mark and I came to Canadian Music Week, had some adventures, met Gene Simmons (and others) and came home with lots of new good info.

This year, Matt has made the trek with me;  it was a lot less eventful, although it did involve me renting a really big car (Chrysler 300 Limited, ask me how that happened), boarding 2 dogs with my friend Vicki, and taking over my friend Dean’s Toronto apartment for a few days.  Nothing like a free hotel…

So we are off to a good start;  we expect to see Slash and Dave Stewart, as well as find out about the emerging music market in India  (would that be considered in-sourcing??)   And maybe we’ll have some surprises along the way.

There are some Ottawa bands that have been picked up for the showcases – congrats to Hollerado, Amos the Transparent and Wise, Young and King.  There might be a few more, but we have not read through the entire programme yet.

And we are playing tomorrow night as well, at Slacks on Church.   

Rock on.