Jazz Pianist, Composer, and Teacher based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada

>Drum Roll Please…….brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbclash.  We didn’t go!  Rachel has been trying for the last couple weeks to get a hold of the guy running this band competition thing at the bar.  He never answers.  Parneet called him a bunch today as did Rachel.  We never heard back, so what do you do with that?  You don’t go the gig of course since the place seemed a little sketchy to begin with.  They have no website, but a facebook page with very outdated stuff. Hmmmm…makes a guy wonder.

Anyways, we still have rehearsal tomorrow and the CD release party in Whistler next Friday which should be a blast. 

Please post,share,link,tweet,like,etc.etc.etc…

Peace,
Ryan

>So today the band got some more work in.  I started the day off leaving the house at 11 am and heading to UBC for an audition the band had for the CVC Supaskillz annual talent show.  Apparently some sort of talent show happening at UBC with minimal prize money.  The point is to hopefully get some fans and exposure out of playing at the actual competition. 

UBC is far away, who’s bright idea was it to put it on a peninsula where you have to drive through the whole city to get to.  Bah.  This audition was a case of more time spent setting up and taking down and parking than actually playing.  It didn’t help that I drove around campus with my wife on the phone trying to direct me around from home until I finally drove down an “alley” and saw Jerica and Alexis already parked beside some building.  Turns out it was the building we needed but impossible to get to because of all the streets that are do not enter.  Strange little campus city.

So set up, played two songs for four girls that are the judges?  We played one that we all wrote called “Bad Enough” and one off of Rachel’s EP “Wear & Tear” which will be the big signature song when the tour comes. They seemed to like us, said we’d hear back end of November.  So we packed all the stuff up we just unpacked and head to Parneet’s house for practice.

Got there had a little team meeting about tour plans and etc.  Tour start date is April 22nd for everybody out there, so expect us to be coming through Northern Alberta late April, early May and then back through the southern half in June sometime.  After that we finished working out our changes to “Leave Me Alone” our psuedo Reggae/Ska song.  Then we started writing two new songs called “Song for a Broken Heart” and “His Hold”.  The first one is a power ballad which should be just that once we’re done writing and the other has potential to be a very cool techno/rock number depending on what Alexis and I write and how the drums and bass of Phil and Jon come together.  Either way 2 more songs getting us closer to a full tour set.

Next weekend, Saturday night, is a gig at The Attic in a kind of battle of the bands.  We play some songs, house band plays some songs, we play some more, they play…you get the idea.  So come cheer us on if you’re in the Vancouver area or going to be.  Search for The Attic on Facebook as they don’t seem to have a web page.

Please tell your friends about the blog and post,share,subscribe,like,…etc

TTFN
Faas
(Tigger was great, so bouncy bouncy)

>Well, not a lot is happening with me and the band right now.  On Sunday Alexis and Jon went up to record some stuff at the studio in Whistler before it closes but I’m all done, and had guests, so I skipped out on that one.  We have an audition for a competition at UBC this weekend, we’ll see how that goes.

On a completely different note and having nothing to do with music I thought I would share a story about my blender.  This is a taste of life in my house.

So somebody in this house, I’m not going to name names, made Butternut Squash soup a while ago and uses the blender to mix it all up.  She, again not naming anyone here, put the blender together a little too emphatically and cracked the plastic bottom so it leaked a little bit. I thought no problem I’ll fix it with some super glue, so I cleaned it up, took apart the plastic bottom, the blade with rubber seal, dried it all out and then glued it.

The next day I decided to make myself a smoothie for breakfast.  I like smoothies.  So I grabbed the blender, screwed the plastic bottom back on carefully and put it on the base so I could make my smoothie.  I put in a banana and some frozen blueberries, yum right.  Then I grabbed the milk poured it in and watched the milk flow perfectly out of the blender and all over the stove I was working on top of.  Crap I”m thinking, the glue didn’t work and now it’s worse because I probably screwed the base on too hard.

So I start cleaning up and pick up the blender container and the blue berries and banana fall out all over the stove.  What the hell.  Then it hits me, along with a bunch of milky fruit, in order to blend something you need to have the actual blending part, the blade, in the glass container.  So I put all of the parts of the blender back together, tried again and wouldn’t you know, no leaks.  Had a very nice smoothie.

Moral of the story, don’t let your wife break the blender

Ryan

>

  
Well folks night two of opening for Stef Lang was Saturday night of Halloween weekend and it was fun.  After having taken into consideration how crazy late we started on Friday compared to when we showed up I decided I’d try to arrive at 7:30 for set up.  So I didn’t leave until 6:15.  Guess what, still made it there for 7 again.  The normal traffic laws were not with me this weekend.  Again we were all there early.  Turns out I pulled in beside Phil and Rachel’s car and they were sleeping in the back.

We knew that the sound guy who sets the bands up wasn’t going to be there tonight so he left some instructions on the sound board.  After deciphering random writings we got it working but discovered that we had no monitor.  Kind of hard to hear yourself with out a monitor.  So we searched every nook and cranny in this bar, with the help of the waitresses, looking for the monitor.  Found some speakers downstairs, but after lugging one upstairs we discovered it doesn’t have the right input, so we were still hooped.  Eventually, over an hour later, Stef’s bass player shows up and he has the monitor.  Still not sure what the story was on that, but we plugged it in and magically we could hear ourselves, yay.

We went on at about 8:45 tonight and this time it was a full house.  Which is great for energy.  It also helped that everyone in the band was bang on tonight.  No screw ups that I could hear.  Starts were good and endings were crisp.  No technical screw ups for me, thanks largely to the entire band turning around at different points to make sure I pushed the transpose button.  Highlight of our evening was probably the middle aged Korean couple in the front row that got up halfway through the set and started dancing.  They were funny.  Way better stage energy and presence from all of us I think.  It could still use a boost, but the crowd loved all the songs.  Even had a few crazy drunks asking to play a few again.  (we didn’t).  Looking forward to the next gig of sorts on November 14th.  We’re auditioning for a competition at UBC, might win some cash and prizes, woot.

We all took off after our set so can’t tell you much about Stef Lang for that night other than they dressed up a bit.  Her bass player had some bleeding eyes and she was a maid, and her bass player looked like a cowboy of course   Thanks to Jerica for some more pics from friday night.  Check out Alexis’s Blog for more pics and a view of our gigs from the guitar player.

Stef Lang opening night

Check out the upcoming page for the other shows heading your way.  Nov 20th and a cd release party in Whistler on the 26th, more details on page.

Tell your friends, tell your folks, great music usually to be heard for free.  See you out there.

Faas