the sidewalk

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight!

2010-02-21T00:21:00.000-08:00

Well friends, it's been fun. It's been amazing at times and a let down at other times. When we finished our first tour across Canada in the summer of 2008, i described touring with the Painted Birds like roller coaster ride between the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. There would be a good show, and then a terrible show, and then a mediocre show, but there was always that great next show.

That same year we embarked on an even longer tour across Canada in the fall and i discovered that the lows could last even longer. I recall a 12 to 15 day stretch of around 9 shows where there were no highs. No positive points, nothing amazing to lift our spirits. We were in the desert.

Ladies and gentlemen, for the Painted Birds 2009 was a return of that desert. While i'm only now reporting our demise, some among us believe that it actually happened about a year ago. Last february, for emotional reasons perhaps, I neglected to report to you, our friends and followers, that TPB had parted ways with one of its key members; Shane Lynch. While we'd parted with drummers before, Shane had worked his way into the fabric of the painted birds. We told ourselves we could carry on but i don't think we truly believed it, and some, perhaps at times, didn't really want to.

The rest of 2009 was basically a front. for show. Like a married couple putting on the happy face to make it seem that everything is happy and ok, but behind closed doors we truly weren't happy or ok. The Peak Performance Project seemed to offer some hope. Shawn recently explained to me that to him the contest was like a window in a jail cell; the last chance for escape. Josh, had also announced his possible departure from the band long before we didn't place in the top 3. When we were included in the top 20 bands, Josh let us know that he would stick around to see if we could win it, but he hadn't found the Painted Birds creatively stimulating for quite some time. If TPB was a struggling married couple, it had just become pregnant, and the Peak Performance Project was the baby that we thought we could make it work for.

All of this is not to say that we as people don't get along anymore. On the contrary, Josh, Shawn and I are still great friends, and all wish the best for eachother in our future pursuits. We just agree that this project has run its course. We were ok with being economically broke for a while, but something is gone. The dream of standing out and making it that brought Shawn and I together 4 years ago has died and all the B.S. of this industry with its too many promoters who, too knowingly, screw over band after band just toss more dirt on the carcass.

To draw this to a close, we're done with this dream. We're grateful for everything that has happened along the way. We met so many amazing people and are thankful for everyone of you who believed in us, let us sleep on their floor, listen to our music, and came out to shows. We'll never forget that. I'm so thankful that Shawn was and still is my best friend, and i'm extremely grateful that we chose to pursue this exciting path together. It's sad to him and I that we need to now choose new paths but i'm so happy that we can keep our great friendship and share all the memories. I'm writing this into our closing agreement right now, that though we as a band have retired, we will still be forced to play songs for whoever cares to invite us over for dinner as long as there are a couple of guitars or a piano around.

I will continue to make music and will let you know soon as to where and under which name it will be posted. (I'm not sure whether Dominique Fricot is the best performer name...;)

Thanks for the ride

So long
Farewell
Auf Wiedersehen
Goodnight

How Dom Hit Rock Bottom

2010-01-18T04:50:00.000-08:00

How did this happen? If you read my last blog entry you might come to the same conclusion that I have. The fame of this week had gotten to us, or ME i should say. I'd just heard our new single "Wash Away" for the 3rd time on the radio at Virgin's 95.3 fm and my mind started imagining the royalties pouring in. We're talking 3 or 4 digits, if of course you count the 2 digits behind the decimal point.
So i'm driving home last night at about 2:30 AM while listening to Motley Crue's 'Dr. Feelgood' on cassette. i'm feeling pretty good or rather I'm feeling REALLY good. It's the Crue's greatest album of all time and really there are no albums that consistently make me feel i should be wearing tighter pants. As i come around the last couple corners and pull into my driveway Vince Neil committing vehicular manslaughter couldn' be farther from my mind. Suddenly, the sensation of the van tilting forward as i come to a stop on our perfectly flat driveway make me realize that i've over shot the driveway.
In front of my driveway is my lawn, so I didn't do any massive damage or kill a lead singer from the 80's metal band, Hanoi Rocks but I had gotten myself and my van in a little bit of a predicament. It has been raining in Vancouver for weeks and my lawn is basically a muddy swimming pool. I attempt to back out but my attempts just dig me deeper into the mud. After 2 trials i figure that 2:30 in the morning probably isn't the best time to be squealing my tires. (sidenote: i don't know why i was comparing myself to the likes of Motley Crue, i can't even squeal my tires, so not rock'n'roll).
Walking away from the car i regain hope. Maybe if i drive forward enough on my lawn, i can then back all the way out and skip the ledge that is my driveway, the lawn will look like crap but at least i won't have the embarrassment of a van that is sinking into my lawn.
I restart the van and try.
Outcome: failure, after again squealing my tires i've now dug myself further into the dirt.
I go to sleep deciding not to think about it until the next morning. At 9 AM i wakeup look out the window and decide to go back to sleep and do something about it when i wake up later.
Eventually i call jim's towing and $55 later all is back to normal minus the massive tire holes in my lawn....I hope that doesn't come out of my damage deposit.
(Caring about damage deposit= -20 rock'n'roll points)

We Hit the BIg Time

2010-01-18T03:26:00.000-08:00

That’s right, it’s red carpet time. Time to crack out the champagne and make a toast to the end of living in a house that’s falling into the ground. No more TV Dinners or showering at public pools because we’re out of hot water. We’ve made it baby. It’s big time time. For some reason the Universe decided to make the Painted Birds ultra mega super insane-o rock stars, and all in one week.
Virgin Radio 95.3 FM Vancouver selected our new single “Wash Away” as their Best of BC song for this week (Jan 18-23). That means they’ll be playing “Wash Away” as if it were a hit for this whole week. Like 12 to 15 times. Man, I’m just imagining all the possible royalties we might collect off of this and while I write this I already have another window open booking a flight to Hawaii.
We also decided to hit the world with a mass media double WHAMMY. We’ll be performing on Urban Rush this Tuesday, January 19th. Check us out on Shaw TV at 5 PM Pacific time. It’s gonna be awesome.

Dom “probably in too silly of a mood to make this post” Fricot

The Winner of The 100.5 Reasons to Win Contest!

2009-12-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

We're very happy to announce the winner of our Facebook Contest and share with you a video. Our friend and fan Carly posted over 15 different status updates in our final push in the Peak Performance Project. As one of her status updates mentioned "what girl wouldn't like to be serenaded by (our song) So Beautiful", we took the initiative to bring that very private serenade to her house.

Congratulations to Carly and all that took part in our contest. We sadly did not place in the Peak Performance Project but will put our heads down and continue to power through it.

Watch Shawn and Dom's very covert mission here:

100.5 Reasons To Win Contest and Video

2009-12-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

As the Peak Performance Project winds down, and Christmas is fast upon us, The Painted Birds have decided to throw another awesome Facebook Contest!

As some of you may seen our video "The 100.5 Reasons TPB Should Win the Peak Performance Project", you may have noticed that the amount of reasons posted did not add up to 100.5 reasons. In this contest we're asking you, our friends and fans, to help us complete the list of reasons. Don't worry if we go over 100.5 all the better.

How you compete is easy, simply type the reasons you think that The Painted Birds deserve to win as your status on Facebook and make sure to tag two things in the status:
1.The Painted Birds
and
2. One of the members of TPB, i.e. Josh McNorton, Shawn Berke, or Dominique Stephane Fricot.
Tagging is super easy, all you have to do is put an "@" sign before whatever you're going to tag. i.e. @the Painted Birds or @Josh Mcnorton.

If you're having trouble tagging the band make sure you've gone to The Painted Birds profile page on Facebook and clicked "Become a Fan" at the top.

So for example, if you'd like to take part in the contest and help us promote the band you could type a reason like this as your facebook status.

Because @Josh Mcnorton and @The Painted Birds have such sweet beards, oh i just want to groom them!

or

Because @shawn berke of @the painted birds doesn't hear the bass, he feels it in his bones.

We'll keep track of reasons and the person who comes up with the best reasons as well as the person who posts the most reasons as their status on facebook will receive...drum roll....

A very special surprise holiday package from the Painted Birds! Believe me, it's gonna be sweet. Take a look at the Photo at the top of this post, yeah, how would you like to be as lucky as the girl in the photo we're each holding?? I'm sure you'd like it a lot.

Now go, post some new statuses. Contest ends this Friday December 4th at midnight.

"Wash Away" Acoustic at the Streaming Cafe

2009-11-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

After a very long drawn out trip, we had 2 great shows in Kelowna. On Friday night we played a show at the Habitat opening for Ohbijou: a great band from Ontario that absolutely delighted the room. On Saturday night, after getting new grippier tires for our van we had our very own show at the Streaming Cafe. Thanks to all that came out and tuned in online. For those of you that don’t know, the Streaming Cafe is a new venue in Kelowna that books music acts and films and records the shows to ’stream’ them for the audiences watching live online. The venue, the staff, the audience and the whole experience marks one of the band’s favourite shows of all time and we’re very happy to have great footage of the show.

On a personal note I was very pleased to find out that two old friends of mine, Greg Sczebel and Dan Bremnes played the night before me and after me at the Streaming Cafe. In highschool I took a music composition class with both these gents and it's so cool to see that we're all still slugging it out on the road with our music. All the best to you boys!

For your viewing pleasure here is an acoustic performance of our single “Wash Away” at the Streaming Cafe.

Enjoy!

How to Paint A Dying Bird Back to Life

2009-11-21T12:38:00.001-08:00

So we've made it to Kelowna. Twas a long long trip to get here from vancouver, but we made it. Josh and Shawn are currently making a trip to Kal-Tire, while I sit at an old friends house writing this blog to you.

You may be wondering how getting to Kelowna from Vancouver is a long trip when really it should only take a bit over 4 hours, and you'd be even more surprised to find out that it took us around 8 hours to make the trip. Well wonder no further for i will tell you how such a trip could take so long.

I'd woken up with premonitions about our journey on Thursday night as the last time we'd driven the Coquihalla we'd hit snow, fishtailed, put on our cables and then had them break about 20 minutes later. We still didn't have new tires, and now that i think of it we hadn't purchased new tires since we'd purchased our van in the spring of 2008. Since then we've taken our van on 4 tours, 2 all the way across canada. We've put about 45,000 clicks on our van since we purchased it and the tires weren't even new then. So tires, not fit for the journey, but we had purchased new chains.

Around 1 PM we saw somewhat of an omen. On a curb just of Main Street and Terminal a pigeon was lying on the sidewalk, flapping one wing and looking like it needed to be put out of it's misery. After our roommate Jarred, who decided to make the trip with us, declared it to be a bad omen, I said the we should probably knock on wood. Shawn was quick to correct me saying that it was kind of difficult to knock on wood in our van, where there was no wood. Save for the guitars that were in their cases, and us being far too lazy to open up the cases etc, etc. Plus we're really not that superstitious.

I made an off color joke, no pun intended, about the only way we could undo this omen is if we could somehow paint the bird back to life. I think acrylic and oil paint would be a bit heavy, much more suited for putting the bird out of it's misery. We'd probably have to use a light water color or the spray cans. But we needed to be in Kelowna by 6 and like I said, we're really not that superstitious...

We head for the highway and it's Friday so of course we hit bad traffic for an hour or so. After getting some gas and being relieved from the driver's seat by Shawn I hit the back seat for some sweet sweet nap time. I awake as the van is fishtailing up the Coquihalla. We immediately pull over and start to put chains on the tires. On the side of the road we quickly realize that our headlights have both burnt out. Our high beams still work but not one, but both headlights are burnt out. Looks like we're driving the whole way with our high beams on.

The next thing we notice is that it's cold. It's snowing, and it's really not as temperate as vancouver. Josh quickly jumps back in the driver seat announcing that he'll back us over the chains when we tell him to. We lay the chains out, josh backs over them, and we then proceed to struggle to get the chains hooked on the the tires.
Now two things make this difficult, or three, three things make this difficult. 1. It's dark and you can't see behind the wheel very well to hook up the chains, 2. your hands are freezing, cuz you're a city boy who couldn't have possibly thought about how cold it is in the interior and 3. you have to get that chain as tight as possible which is tougher than ever with painfully numb fingers. If you don't you'll hear a rickety tickety clackety clackety in your wheel well as you drive.

After much cursing and struggling with the cold josh opens the door and asks us if we want to borrow the gloves he's wearing. More cursing ensues as the hilarity of the gloves being on the guy who's keeping himself warm in the van. We finally get the chains on and depart. Moments later the rickety tickety starts up in the left wheel well. We stop tighten them a bit, continue on. Rickety tickety continues. We then proceed to stop and tighten the chains every couple minutes because we just cant get the chains tight enough. At some point we even improvise and use other metal clips to connect the chains and use a pair of wire snips to tighten the metal clips around the chain. Drive, stop, tighten, curse, drive, clickety clackety, stop, curse, tighten. This goes on for 2 hours.

It's now 630 and we're still on the Coquihalla, and we were supposed to be in Kelowna at 6. We text the owner of the Habitat, who thankfully gives us no stress and tells us to just get there safe. We love Quinn, he's the Best. Finally, after tightening the chain for the 9th time, we figure we've got it now, nipped it in the bud.

Wrong. We drive away and in moments we hear the loudest clickety clackety yet. We inspect to see that the chain has now broken. It's at this time that i must advise you, or perhaps you can deduce this yourself.
Don't buy chains. Or do, but if you can, just get winter tires. It's so much easier. Yes it costs a lot of money, but isn't hassle an expense??

In the end we just slugged it out with our old crappy tires. We arrived in Kelowna at 9, a half hour after we were supposed to go on, but Quinn the Habitat's proprietor, who really is the BEST, let us play a full set, and it was tonnes of fun. Ohbijou the headliner rocked as well, check them out.

So how do you paint a dying bird back to life??? I don't think you do it with paint. Unless it's that spray paint that jerry o'connell used to make himself fly in My Secret Identity. Great show. Wish it was still on TV.

Peak Showcases Night 2- GARRET KATO, TEA, WATC, SWEETHEART

2009-11-19T17:18:00.000-08:00

We made it out to every night of the Peak Performance Showcases, but brought our video camera to only some of the nights. Luckily, we did bring the video camera to the second night when Garret Kato, Tea, Sweetheart, and We Are the City took the stage.
Special highlights include, Sweetheart's worst Valentines day ever, Drinking Shots with Tea, Garret Kato's mad basketball skills and left handed layup, and footage of my personal favourite We Are the City Song, April.
Dom and TPB

Shopping With TV Heart Attack and Danny Echo

2009-11-14T15:19:00.000-08:00

This was my blog to the peak following our showcase at the Cellar on October 15th.
Below is the video that we finally edited down after all of our interviewing that night. enjoy...

love show days. I’m usually quite useless at whatever it is i’m supposed to be doing, be it work or preparation for the show. Thoughts like what we should say between songs, how I’m expecting people to react or what lyrics I’m having trouble remembering usually race through my head again and again. Thursday was no different from such show days, except for added brain rumblings brought on by a new random idea to become a rogue journalist for the Peak Performance Project.

Allow me to explain. I started the day off at the coffee shop, where I could actually get an internet connection, unlike our dilapidated house, and tried to herald in some more votes in the competition. Those two boy bands, the left and the city boys are handing our butts to us, and something needed to be done. So I was pestering family and friends one by one on facebook trying to remind them to vote if they hadn’t already, when Shawn messages me that he has to go get his hair cut. He’s already loaded most of the gear in the van, all i have to do is sort the t-shirts and bring them along with my amp and whatever is on the couch. Easy.

So I head back to the house to complete the sorting merchandise mission and pack the van. After doing the back and forth between sorting t-shirts, rehearsing harvest moon, counting t-shirts and re-rehearsing harvest moon, I’m struck with an odd image in my head. For some reason I imagine myself interviewing Kuba-Oms, but i’m not asking any questions. I’m just rattling off nick names for Kuba: Kubinho, Kuba Snack, Kubasa Sausage, El Kubano, Kubee Roo, Kubarrific Koobs and the Kubliminal Messages, etc etc. In my head, Kuba, who probably invented cool, is dead panning me to death. Now somehow from there I start thinking that it would be great fun to interview each peak performance artist. And that’s where my mind started racing, and all my physical actions wen’t on auto pilot. I grab paper and I’m jotting down questions, I’m role playing in my head, it’s embarassing and pathetic, but quite enjoyable when it’s going.

All of a sudden I’m out of time, I throw the merch, the guitar stands and the video camera, which will now be used for Rogue Journalism, in the van. Our van has been in rough shape as of late. So much so that the van starts to overheat on the 5 minute ride to the venue. You know it’s bad when the trip around the block to find parking gets you stressed.

I figured we’d be fine enough to get home later that night, but I hadn’t predicted my next blunder. After TV Heartattack sound checks, Josh asks me where my amp is. “Shoot”. I’d totally forgotten it plus the things on the couch that Shawn had told me to bring. Auto Pilot had obviously done me wrong. I want to rush but the van wasn’t in the mood. Within blocks from the Cellar the van’s temperature needle is peaking and I’m coasting whenever possible.

Don’t worry, nothing bad happens. I return on time for soundcheck and a magnificent night ensues. Rogue Journalist, Dominique Fricot, got his key interviews with Danny Echo and TV Heart Attack. And our set, well our set felt amazing. There’s something so comforting about looking out at a whole crowd of smiling audience members and seeing good friends dancing and singing along.

Let’s hope the judges were also smiling.

Until next time

Dom

We'll Do Anything For Your 50+ Votes - #2 Jenn

2009-11-10T22:19:00.000-08:00

It's time for episode two of "we'll do anything for your 50+ votes" at vote.thepaintedbirds.com .
our good friend Jenn decided to go full board and send out emails to all of her contacts as well as over 100 messages to a lot of her facebook friends. I know this because Jenn cc'd me on the messages. the next day we noticed a considerable jump of over 80 votes to our total, and we were over the moon. Thanks so much Jenn!!

Jenn requested that we'd send her several pairs of underwear, which we most naturally had to comply with. Here you see shawn holding up the treasured Painted Birds red undies with white print.

Now Jenn did request a few more than two pairs of underwear, it just so happens that we're sadly almost out. or i guess that's a good thing isn't it, it means the product has been selling. YES. But either way, we decided to throw in a couple of t-shirts.

So i wrapped Jenn's goodie bag up for her and went to the UPS store to ship it all of to her in Manchester, England. Hope you get it soon Jenn, we know a long winter is coming and nothing keeps you warmer than TPB undies and t's. Although after i did send it off, the UPS worker did notify me that postal services are going on strike in the UK right now....

Again if you'd like to help us out and get something in return it's as easy as sending the link
vote.thepaintedbirds.com
to your friends via facebook or email and cc'ing me (dom@thepaintedbirds.com) or including me or one of my bandmates in the message. remember to tell your friends of course to vote for "the Painted Birds". Do it and you could be as lucky as Jenn.

Or of course Jared...

Jared's Wine Tasting with The Painted Birds

2009-10-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

As I promised, we'll do anything for your 50+ votes. Our good friends Jared, who helped us out on facebook, myspace, and twitter wanted to do a wine tasting with us...So we complied.

Hope you enjoy

Dom and TPB

We'll do ANYTHING for your 50 Votes

2009-10-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Ok. Voting for the Peak Performance Project has started. If you haven't heard it's a big contest that the radio station the Peak 100.5 has put on for BC bands. We have made it to the final 19 bands. The winner receives 150,000 dollars and the two runner ups get a lot of money as well. To advance their careers of course. No limousine rides or alcohol binges, just recording, touring etc, i.e. career advancement.

Now a big portion of the competition is the fan voting and we plan on doing anything we can to win this portion of the competition.

I personally believe that Every Person has at least 50 votes for us in them. If you think about it, you probably have access to at least a couple different computers and internet connections to get you a few votes, but what you also have is a pool of friends and family that maybe haven't heard of us, but i'm sure if they had they'd love us all the same.

Now what i'm proposing is this. I and the Painted Birds are prepared to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING to get your 50 plus votes. All you have to do is forward on this link

vote.thepaintedbirds.com

to your email contacts or facebook friends or post it on your twitter or publish it as your facebook status for several days in a row or access any pool of contacts that you may have through your job, your church etc. Just make sure to tell them to vote for the Painted Birds. It's easy and it's super quick. Once you type in the address and are at the page it's literally two clicks, one for the painted birds, one 'submit vote' button at the bottom and you're done.

Like i said we'll do anything for those votes. This is our idea. If you're going to help we'll let you pick a dare, or a mission or any sort of possible task to complete and we will do it for you. (Dares tasks and missions of course can't be anything immoral and must be within reason of course. nothing too illegal, or lewd or defamating).

Requests thus far have been for us to perform an acoustic version of our new single "Wash Away", to have dinner and evening with the painted birds, and for us to provide music at one of our friends' wedding. Really if you can help us and you have something you'd like us to do we'll do it. To prove it we'll even film it and post it online for you and your friends to see, including of course a little personal thank you within the video. To make a request please send me your request and a summary of how you're helping us to dom@thepaintedbirds.com.

To make sure we know you're helping us out just CC or BCC me at dom@thepaintedbirds.com. If you're of course using facebook just include me or one of the painted birds, Josh Mcnorton, Shawn Berke, in one of your mass messages.

Again please message me at dom@thepaintedbirds.com if you have any questions about this.

Hope all is well with all of you, our good friends,

Peace and Love

Dom

Deitando Com Voce - A portuguese Lullaby

2009-10-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

Deitando Com Voce (Lying With You)

I don't have anything to do
Forgot the books that I should be reading
Lying with you,
My dreams go so well

You have a beach
At midnight
In the center of the city
with wind and sun
Where the waves that crash
Are the cars that come and go

Lying with you,
My dreams go so well

Nimbus Studio: Day 1

2009-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Back in the Saddle Again

2009-09-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

Having received some money from the peak performance project already the Painted Birds have decided to head back into the studio to record a new single.
The three of us met up with our old friend and past producer Shawn Cole for pre production last night and there was a great sense of desjavu. Once again we gathered around our living room floor with acoustic guitars and a white board and trimmed tightened up the arrangement of our next hit. It's exciting to finally go back in the studio. We hope you're all looking forward to this next release. It's gonna be a doozy.

Dom

Last day at boot camp!!

2009-09-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well my friends it's been an amazing week. I remember talking to Dom Coletta from tv heart attack before the camp and there was almost a sense of dread in our discussion. I can assure you that such a conversation seems ridiculous now. The food, the mentoring, the bands, the weather, the faculty, the performances, the creativity, all have been perfectly wonderful.
Today Dan Moxon, of bend sinister, gathered a group of us to sing and record a song he'd written to thank the faculty. Dan, I must admit, is a stupendously talented musician and his song was very beautiful. As he admitted he'd written the song to say than you but to also get some notice in the competition.
As final words from boot camp to my peers and colleagues I would like to say this. I was skeptical before about any sort of competition between musicians, but it seems that we've all learned to use the competition to motivate us to create more and more beautiful music. I think it's great. We're all here because we love making music and keep it going. Over the next few months use this opportunity to share your art with as large an audience as you can. I'd say may the best artist win, but I believe we are all winners for getting to take part in this.

God Bless

Dom

Inspired: we are the city

2009-08-31T19:03:00.000-07:00

Okay it seems as though amazing events are piling up on me now. We've been here since Wednesday, seen 3 groups of showcases of bands but it wasn't until last night that a group blew the roof off of this place. Until now we've seen acts follow the pop structure, verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus, and listened to faculty critique the showcases paying attention to priMarily if the song was hooky enough to be a hit song.
   Three nineteen year olds from kelowna who call themselves We Are the City, played a set that made these pop rules seem trivial and almost pathetic. I think Shawn verrault from wide mouth mason put it best when he said that We Are the City seem to inhabit their own universe. I've seen probably 4 or 5 concerts that were as compelling as their set last night. The songs were passionate, dynamic as heck, and tossed aside all the rules of common song writing. Some bands do this but I've never seen one do it with so much integrity, relevance, power and grace. I strive to be a musician because I love creating music but my love stems from the powerful emotional experiences I've had listening to Bands like radiohead, Tori Amos, pink Floyd, the beatles etc etc , the list goes on. We are the city entered the ranks of such greats in my mind last night.
   I guess what I should explain is that great music has transcendental powers, and I was definitely not alone in experiencing the transcendental powers of we are the city's music last night.
  I know this is a competition but I must admit that we were all severely out classed last night. And I'm not even jealous. Just incredibly inspired.

So to Cain, David and Andy, thank you so much.

Peace

Dom

Cougars and showcasing

2009-08-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

What an eventful day eh?
-A fifteen year old was eaten by a cougar and kicked out of the peak performance project
-our mentors and music business faculty challenged us to a hockey game in which they most certainly had their asses handed to them
-Jason from tv heart attack turned... 52 years old? and Toby from run the red light took a pie in the face because of it
-adaline, sweetheart and alexandra mailot all showcased and all played wonderfully
-oh yeah! We showcased last night and got it out of the way. It's quite nerve racking to do this. The show for one isn't like any show. All of our peak performance peers sit silently and watch while the faculty sit in the back and take notes on how you're doing up there. The worst part seemingly is the post performance critique where the artists stand at the front while the faculty members (American idol style) break down your performance. The more of these critiques I saw, however, I knew I had little to fear. The faculty isn't really digging into anyone, though I wish they were. I figure, if a critique is going to help us it's got to be brutally honest. That being said I have to apologize for perhaps being a bit to harsh in response to one of our critiques. But in my defense there was plainly no substance, content or thesis to the 'critique'. Plus when I get off stage the adrenaline's going and I feel like I could fight anyone if I had to.

The show case was great though. I plan to spend the rest of my lunchbreaks in the pool and playing disc golf

Peace

Dom

Speed Pool feat Hunger Strike

2009-08-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

First night
Reports from boot camp

Well it appears that the officials here are not going to be as militaristic as I thought. Really the only hardship we have to deal with is complete lack of cell phone reception. That was the hot topic of conversation for night one. "how can I get ahold of my baby?!?". This was what you could overhear every time you turned your shoulder. That and the ever so popular concern about no drugs or alcohol at the camp. These musicians just were not coping.
I personally was more bummed that we weren't getting fed on night one. As every person who has ever dealt with
ME knows, dommy go crazy when he no get the food.

2 highlights of night one. 1. Music bc announced that every band will be getting 3500 dollars to spend over the next while. Yay!!! Our money problem has been temporarily fixed. 2. Has anyone heard of speed pool? It's a rudimentary game that will soon be sweeping the nation. Invented by yours truly...I think. And Shawn. Rules are easy, two teams, one pool cue per team, normal game of pool but if the cue ball stops rolling on your turn, you lose your turn and the other team goes. Basically the results is a high speed, 'don't get poked in the eye' fun fest. Tpb feat adaline handily handed those (just recently) post pubescent boys from We Are The City their a$$es twice in a row.

Rematch tomorrow boys? Any way, I'm blabbering, the first day wAs also great. Very educational and we were very well fed.

Tah tah

Dom and tPb

Help Us Win the PPP!! - Time is Limited

2009-07-13T20:04:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone,

We wanted let you know about the latest opportunity we've been given by the Peak 100.5 and Music BC. The Painted Birds were recently selected as one of the top 20 finalists in the Peak Performance Project. The Project is designed to bring mid level bands and artists up to the National or hopefully International Stage level. In late August The Painted Birds and the 19 other finalists will go for a week long boot camp studying under the tutelage of many successful Guru's in the Canadian Industry. In the following months we'll be competing for the top 5 spots. All 5 will receive professionaly recorded demo's and the top 3 from those 5 will be awarded very hefty cash prizes to advance their careers. To learn more about the Peak Performance Project please follow this link.

http://www.thepeak.fm/pages/3459/the-peak-performance-project-

We'll be needing all of your help over the next few months to be as successful as possible in this competition. To start out we'd love to let the Peak know how greatful we are to be in this contest.

When you have a spare minute please call the Peak Phone at
604-730-6547
and thank them for including the Painted Birds in the top 20 and request our song "Colleen". When you call you'll be making a recording with your comments so don't be shy, or alarmed. Just let them know how much you love them, us and our songs. (smile)

As a pre-emptive thankyou I've posted another new song of mine that you might have heard in the Green Party campaign video I posted a few months back. I've always thought of it as my summer song, so listen to it before the leaves start falling out of the trees.

Time is limited, after all.

D

Stay With Me

2009-07-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

When i returned from visiting my sisters a few weeks ago, i have to admit that this video was the one i was most proud of. much like my fathers day tune, this song was written and performed while i was in a group called "Spark that Screams". for those of you that don't know, spark that screams was the group i formed with josh mcnorton before my year long hiatus in Germany that brought me back to start the Painted Birds. we were a 3 piece of two guitarists and a cellist, who one day joined forces with a drummer who was more interested in programming and sequencing electronic beats than playing conventional drums. the group existed as a 3 piece for probably 5 months before Gavin Dew, our beat machine, joined the group. that being said, there were two distinct phases of Spark that Screams: the first as a folk group and the second as a more spacey shoe gazy kind of depressing rock that would be it's final incarnation.

As the story goes, while we were still in our folk phase, we arranged to go into the studio with Tom Dobranzki of lotus child and record a demo with the 4 or 5 songs that we'd recently worked out. the song which we were the most excited with at the time was actually the one i posted on father's day, epilogue. a week or so before we would enter the studio, my life was turned upside down and all recording plans were postponed indefinitely. I'd just found out that my mother had passed away in a car crash in peru. Even after a long needed break in the interior I found it hard to rejoin the group for a while. I honestly didn't know if i'd ever be able to play music again.

that summer my sisters and i went on a vacation to savary island with one of our mother's best friends. the week we spent there was quite rejuvenating and as a surprise to me i managed to write two new songs while i was there, both which i'll be posting here. the first you can listen to above. the story is of a man who is so possessive of his lover that he convinces her to run away with him to an island where they can just be with each other and only each other. with time, however, the man's lover grows tired of the seclusion and escapes from him without his knowing.

i wanted to get a recording of my sister and i singing the song while i was in calgary last and when nicole started putting on her makeup during a run through i said, wouldn't it be great if you did that for the recording.

if you want to hear what spark that screams did with it full band there is also a recording of it at www.myspace.com/sparkthatscreams .

as always enjoy

dom
www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

Searching for a theme Song: Speedminton Championships 2011

2009-07-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

Ach, once again i have failed you my faithful readers. i came down with a bit of an illness this last week. a summer flu/cold of sorts. it sucked. who wants to be in bed with a serious headache when you could be out on the beach? exactly. i guess the other problem was that i actually kept on working, so it made the sickness time doubly sha-tay.

while i was gone two things happened one minor and one major. minor: we played a great show on saturday as part of jazz fest. the media club had asked if we could play it acoustic so shawn and i performed a lot of the numbers we'd been playing on our Acoustic Tour in April. thanks to all that came out, we hope you had as much fun as we did. All the acts were stellar, Adaline, haunting beautiful and charming as always. I think the highlight for me was crashing her stage to sing back ups on chemical spill. i love that song. it's so Tori ala Choir Girl Hotel. Yes, i'm that dorky.
the headliner, Kuba Oms definitely a fresh new face on the scene. Him and his band dropped the funky stuff and layed it on real thick if you know what i mean. Cuba explained right away that they were "about to get in the pocket, and it'll be difficult for y'all to stay sitting down". He was correct. there was some serious booty shaking.

Now the major thing that happened. A good friend that i know from my travels in Germany, Basti, contacted me the other day with news of the great sport SPEEDMINTON! I've never heard of this sport but it's pretty obvious to deduce that it's probably just really fast badminton? Basti explains that his faculty is organizing the 2011 world championships of speedminton in Berlin. Basti has requested some form of theme song, and I, of course, am much obliged. I mean what more hilarious theme song could i come up with than one for the, fingers crossed, Speedminton World Championships?!?

My favorite part is that Basti instructs me that he wants something with the dynamic from "Tease" and yet, the chorus of "I'm a Radio". Key words for the project are Champion, Speed, Berlin 2011, Competition, World, friends.

So here i go, I'll let you know what i come up with or any ideas i have along the way. i have....2 weeks.

dom

We're off to BOOT CAMP! Thanks Peak 100.5

2009-06-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

So 3 or 4 years ago, whichever year it was that i came back from Germany, i was determined to start a career in music. i was telling all my family and friends of my new plan and they, of course gave all the reactions from "way to go, way to follow your dreams' to "is there any money in that industry?", and to those doubters, i say, no, of course there is no money in this.

one very important relative/family friend of mine took her own course of action. this one day i opened up my email and i'd received an email from my auntie melinda which already had about 8 or 9 response emails on the thread. in her message she advised me that the Canadian Idol try outs were coming to vancouver on such a such date and that she vehemently believed this was the best option for my career, what with me wanting to be a musician and all. to further encourage me, melinda had cc'd all of our mutual friends and encouraged them tell me that i should audition.

of course in the 8 or 9 additional emails other friends and family continued this advice, but of course, i didn't really listen to any of this, as we all know canadian idol just isn't rock'n'roll. i mean look at hedley, right?

then again, i wouldn't consider myself rock'n'roll. i just never want to become part of that game. M

when josh told me, that he'd entered us in the Peak Performance Project, i had much the same thought (this is going to be like indie band idol). But now that i've actually read up on it, i'm stoked.

So yes, the Painted Birds were selected amongst 20 BC bands to enter in the Peak performance project, in which we will attend a boot camp at the end of august with many industry professionals who will whip us into shape and teach us the ropes of touring and image, and publicity, and how to do the splits in the air with or without an instrument strapped to you.

The prizes are immense, and actually the prize of just going to the boot camp is already pretty awesome.

So Yay! Be happy for us and many of the bands that we love, incl. we are the city, adaline, bend sinister, adrian glynn, the list goes on. WOOOO!!!

Dom

Father's Day - Epilogue

2009-06-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

Story to come. For now sit back and enjoy. And here are the lyrics if i tend to mumble from time to time.

Epilogue

Now, that I see you shining down on me
Is all this history?
And they come like rain, again

Today, was the day they took you away
So fuck today

I’ll show you things you never knew
Similar things that you would do
And since those roses turned from red
I’ve started talking to the dead

When I can see what’s in the air I breathe
I need you here with me
And we’ll speak in words unheard
For me

So only, tell me to go
I’m scared to choose if you
Have insight on just where I’ll fall
I’ll follow you
To short, and along way from reaching all
Your dreams (of ours)

I’ll show you things you never knew
Similar things that you would do
And since those roses turned from red
I’ve started talking to the dead

I’ll show you things you never,
Similar things that you would,
And since those roses turned from,
I’ve started talking to you..

I know, I’ll never be alone again
With you my friend
Today, you ask yourself how we could be
Alone in me
Did you program in this part
This trapdoor pop up specter in my heart

Now that I feel you deep inside of me
A sigh of deep relief
And we’ll float away, I pray.
Forever.

D

www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

Ode to Vancouver - Vancity Medley

2009-06-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

Ahhh... Sorry, yet again for the hiatus. I haven't had the equipment as of late to upload any more videos. This past week, however, i visited my two lovely sisters in Canmore and Calgary and I managed to snag one of their lap tops for long enough to knock out a few more tunes. So here's the first and stay tuned for a couple more oldies of mine. Songs from different life times almost. I'm trying to come up with a rhythm with this, a song and a story per week, i figure. That's the gist of the sidewalk if you haven't figured it out yet. I figure the two things i like doing the most are singing songs and telling stories. So if you like my songs and you like a good story, subscribe to my blog and join me on this adventure. (www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com).

This next song, isn't one of my own, although, i often feel as if it were. I think it was in the spring of 2008 when i came up with the idea to start playing covers of the people around me in Vancouver.

It must have been march or april when i first met Hannah Georgas. I was at the Railway club watching a group that i have since forgotten and Winston Hauschild walked in with this curly auburn haired girl. I'd heard some of her stuff on Myspace and I admitted to her that one of her tracks had really impressed me. Hannah shyly inquired if i wanted her recently completed EP. Being quite interested, I took one.

I had no idea what was in store. This girl seemed so modest, so green, so naive. Her CD had "Hannah Georgas EP the Beat Stuff" written in permanent marker and was neatly tucked in one of those white paper/plastic holders you use for your burned CD's like "summer mix 07" or "Radiohead b-sides".

"Cute" I thought.

The next morning while making breakfast, I decided to give her CD a spin. Before I knew it I couldn't stop listening to it. It was a fever, a sickness. For the next 2 days I played it over, and over and over again. If it ended, i'd get anxious and need to put it on again.

A couple of months later I was in Toronto with the Birds for North by North East. During an after party at the infamous Queen Street Studios, Shawna Beesley, AKA Adaline, snaked the guitar and started figuring out songs of the Vancouver musicians present. She played a bit of my song 'sidewalk', a hey ocean song, a said the whale song, and finally she sang a verse and a chorus from Dan Mangan's soon to be famous sing along 'Robots'.

It suddenly occurred to me. I needed to cover songs from my friends and the musicians around me. I don't know why but the urge was just too overwhelming. In my mind, playing their songs was the highest form of compliment that i could offer. It's a confession of my admiration for those around me and a thanks for their inspiration. A thanks for the days i've put everything on hold cuz i can't stop listening to Elias' 'Whale Watching', Hey Ocean's 'mama cries' or Moses Joans' 'Skin'. An admission that every time i hear Dan Mangan belt out 'Baskets' i feel the world stop. A confirmation that every time i sing with Adaline i feel as though if i died right then, i would die content...happy.

Later last summer the birds had an acoustic show and i decided to finally put together a medley. It all came together by chance and manages to work quite nicely.

So here it is, it includes sections of these songs.

Said the Whale - Curse of the Currents
Hannah Georgas - the National
Moses Joans - Angel or Marathon
Adaline - We've Got Something

Enjoy,

Dom

Party No-no's - 1. Calling up the no shows

2009-05-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

The Party No no's.

Shawn and I used to live in a house with an ever rotating cast of roommates for 2 or 3 years. Needless to say we became pretty accustomed to throwing parties which could result in running 'Beer Miles' around the house (not exactly a full mile) or a wonderful event known as 'No Shirt O'Clock.

One of the major concerns of any great party host is whether the party will in fact be a great party. Of course to have a great party one needs a good amount of people to attend said party or else you and your guests will be left with what is known as a 'dead party'. This happens from time to time, and it isn't your fault.

A way to avoid this is by insuring the presence of the Painted Birds guitarist, Josh McNorton. You, of course, have to give him free reign on inviting all of his friends, which you are actually already doing by inviting him to your soiree. I'd give you his contact information but I have been granted such rights.

What all party hosts must avoid at all costs is getting nervous when it's show time and calling all the people you thought were coming that haven't arrived yet. They're either on their way, or weren't gonna come anyway. If a party guest receives a call from the host asking "when you coming? Are you on your way? Where are you?" that party guest can be assured that the party they are heading to is a dead party.
Think about it, if the party is already getting down to it, no host would have the time nor want to call up the no show's. Therefore, as a guest if you receive such a call, steer clear, or understand what you are getting in to. The party could get going later, but it definitely has not started yet.

For the host i recommend complete avoidance of calling up the no show's. If you must, then call them implying that you need their help because the party is bigger than you expected. The host could perhaps ask the no show if they could bring some ice or some plastic cups as they didn't realize how many people would be showing up. The host could ask for more booze but it's better if whatever is needed is either cheap and or easy to bring.

I recommend complete avoidance of calling, however, because it can easily go awry. The other night for example I was on my way to a party when I sent a text to my good friend Nicky the Fish to see whether his so called 'shindig' had started yet. Nicky's response was that the party was just getting going and that i should bring girls. Having theorized earlier that the party would probably be a sausage party, I was then fully aware that the party was in fact a sausage party.

Contrary to this of course if i received a text from a girl who asked me to bring some guy friends, this could be a great sign. Although you have to of course watch out for the 'girls night'. I've been to these before, and i know they sound like just the most fun ever but in these occasions it's usually better to crash such occasions with a pack of your friends.

That's all i have to say on that now. I hope you can use my party advice in some way.

Dom

www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

Coming Home: Done in Victoria...for Now

2009-05-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well,

My time in Victoria has come to a close. About a week ago I was super excited to be back to Vancouver and have my space back, but now as it all comes to an end i'm a bit sad. it's always how it is when periods or phases in our life come to a close. It always seems to drip rain on such days, or if it's nice it still feels like it's raining.

The greens didn't win any seats but we promise to keep on working for the next 4 years until the next election. I thought we would at least get something. My candidate Adam Saab did very well winning 17 percent of the Vote.

What kind of annoys me is that we didn't even pass BC-STV for electoral reform. We were so close in 2005 with 58% of voters saying yes that i figured with all of the education in the last few months about STV it would have easily passed. But somehow the no side grew to something like 61%. Unbelievable.

So i plan on continuing with the video posts, but i'm not really sure how i'm going to do it. here in victoria i've had adam's video camera as well as his mac computer to upload and edit the videos on. I'll figure it out as soon as possible. Thanks for reading thus far.

hugs

D

(go to www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com if viewing from Facebook)

Adam Saab's Campaign Video! - Time is Limited

2009-05-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I took a couple weeks out of living in Vancouver to come to Victoria and be my very good friend, Adam Saab's campaign manager. Adam is running for the Green Party in the upcoming provincial election in the same riding as Carole James

Over the past 3 and a half weeks I've become a very big fan of the Green party and the principles they follow. I would have honestly come to Victoria to help Adam regardless of which party he'd have belonged to. He's such a good friend and I figure with time being so limited, who knows if i'd ever get such a good opportunity to hang out with my good friend and help him in his political pursuits.

What i really like about the Green Party and Adam's philosophy is that governance should be constructive or cooperative across party lines, and mostly that government should be addressing the roots of the problems as opposed to always applying band-aid policies to major problems which merely act as pain killers or soothers for the citizens of this province. With such band-aid methods we only see the problems resurfacing at a later date with greater strength a lot of the time.

But enough about my political thoughts. Check out www.greenparty.bc.ca and look into the green book they have posted on their site before May 12th if you're interested in what the Green Party has to offer.

I started writing this song on the ferry on my way to Victoria and have been humming it daily since i got here. i figured it would make a good soundtrack for the campaign video.

Enjoy.

Dom

p.s. vote yes on BC-STV as well people. It's that easy.

Happy Birthday Mel! - Sister Song

2009-05-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Keeping the birthday spirit alive this one goes out to my oldest sister, today she is 1/3 of Wayne Gretzky. I'll leave you to wonder if i'm talking about wealth, size, age, jersey number, or intellect... NO cancel that, i'll take intellect out of the possibilities. My sister is way smarter than Wayne Gretzky.

But i digress, happy birthday melly!. Love you oh so much and if i could "I'd do this every, every day". But not over the internet. At our house in Canmore. Or someplace else where we could be on vacation all the time and just have fun outside.

Doma

Happy Birthday Tim and Dan!! - the Ballad of...

2009-05-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

This song is a dedication to my good friends Tim and Dan. Happy birthday boys. You must realize that I wouldn't do this for just anyone. The first half is a cover of a song that Dan always asks me to play. I've never known how to play it, nor have i really wanted to, but i figure for a birthday i could learn at least the first verse.

And the second half, well you might recognize the melody from a Painted Birds song, but the words were re-written by Tim and I last summer.

This could be a career killer...not that i have one yet!

Dom

(if viewing this on Facebook go to www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com to view song clip)

Lots to Come!!

2009-05-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful blog followers,

I intended to put up a new song on wednesday but I've been working on a couple other projects that will be posted this weekend. Stay tuned for three new songs. One of which being a brand new song that i've recorded and will be using to make a music video for Adam Saab, the Green Party candidate that i've been supporting and managing the last couple weeks. Also, i've decided to do some more personal dedications to some of my favourite Taurus'. I have a whole bunch of friends who all just happen to be tauruses so i figured it be great to do a dedication to some of them. I mean they are my favourite, even though they have the hardest heads of any people on the planet.

I never even used to believe in that sort of stuff. And then i started noticing things.

Stay tuned, you'll have something new tomorrow, and the next day, and perhaps the next day after that.

Peace

Dear Music Industry - You haven't seen me dance

2009-05-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

I wrote this song to sound as if it were for a girl or a love interest, but it's not. Kind of like how Colleen is not about a girl at all.
As a side note the last time we played in Calgary one of my sister's friends asked if Colleen stood for something else that started with "C". Closest guess yet, but no, Colleen is not about cocaine.

I wrote this song about a year ago when i was pretty annoyed with how the birds and our debut album was received. I heard repeatedly from critics and friends that we were playing it safe. Other vancouver bands who 'seemed' like friends of ours were for some reason counting us out and supporting what seemed like every other vancity band but us.

We'd been pigeon holed and disregarded. Which you definitely have the right to do, but allow me to respond. You've only seen a glimpse of what's to come from me. And that's a promise.

I'd like to dedicate this one to my good buddies Brady and Riggsy. Riggsy who has always been the best of friends and loves this song. Brady who also chose this song as his favourite and always has the balls to just say what he thinks. And both for giving me the strength to stand on my own two feet.

Click if you are interested: Work of Recreation

2009-04-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

The last couple of 'gigs' i've done have been kind of discouraging. Standing on the side of a room, providing the back ground music for a political function. Nobody's listening, they're talking. Which is good, people should talk to one another, but it kind of makes me think "Am I wasting my time with all of this?"

The experience fueled a couple of things.
1. i figure here on my blog, or other places on the internet i can share my music, and if you want to listen you can, just click the song or the video file. Playing live sometimes i feel like i'm inconveniencing you people. well there's no need for that here. If you don't want to listen to the song you don't have to click.
2. while playing and singing as if nobody was listening i remembered an old song that i'd nearly forgotten about. I wrote it before spark that screams even. I played it for that band, and nobody was interested. Later i'd played it for shawn, and he also didn't show any interest. but i've always really liked the song so i figured, what better place to share it than here.

It was 2002. I'd just returned from Brazil, and started school at UBC. I was living with my sister in a 2 bedroom apartment on Commercial Drive and for some reason I had tonnes of energy to write songs. This one evening i decided to stare into this painting i'd bought in brazil and play guitar until i'd written a song for that painting. It was an age. I would have believed that hanging upside down until i passed out would allow me to tap into something deeper. As i said, it was an age. I only came up with the melody that night, and wrote the words the next day. The words don't really embody the painting but were more about my experience at the time with starting University. Make of it what you will. And click if you are interested.

Peace

D

Dom's in Victoria for a Month

2009-04-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I've recently run away from Canada's rainiest city to spend some time in Canada's sunniest city, Victoria. One of the band's best friends and biggest supporters, Adam Saab, has asked me to help him on his campaign in the upcoming Provincial election and i figured the idea sounded so crazy and fun that I couldn't possibly pass it up.

I'm taking this opportunity to do as many random acoustic shows and appearances as possible so if you're from victoria come out and see me and we can share a drink or two. I've already locked down two performances this week.

Thursday April 23rd at Green Party Headquarters (899 Fort Street) at 7 PM. Elizabeth May will be doing some form of book release and i'll be playing songs.

Friday April 24th Adam Saab is celebrating his birthday at Solstice Cafe (592 Pandora Avenue) and again i'll be playing a set of acoustic songs by myself starting at 2:30 PM.

The specifics are also listed on our myspace page (www.myspace.com/thepaintedbirds) under "shows".

IF anyone knows any open mic spots as well, i'm looking for them in the Victoria area. Let me know.

Peace and love

Dom

www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

We Hit The Road Tomorrow!!

2009-03-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

So tomorrow Shawn and I leave for Canmore, where we will kick off our 11 day tour in Alberta: Canada's greatest province. This will be the first time Shawn and I have ever attempted to tour without a band. We'll have our acoustic guitars and a piano, that's it unless of course we pick up a hitchhiker who wants to accompany us on the bassoon or perhaps a turntable.

The tour dates are as follows:

1 Apr Communitea Cafe w/ Ben Sures, Canmore
2 Apr Cheers North w/ Left on Windsor, Red Deer
3 Apr The Stettler Hotel, Stettler
4 Apr Ottoman Lounge, Medicine Hat
5 Apr Rose & Crown *free show*, Banff
6 Apr Better Than Fred’s *free show*, Grande Prairie
7 Apr Better Than Fred’s *free show*, Grande Prairie
9 Apr Taphouse, St. Albert
10 Apr The Pawnshop w/ The Sheepdogs & Raptors, Edmonton
11 Apr The Marquee Room w/ Raptors & The Sheepdogs, Calgary

Please spread the word to any Albertan that you know, that we are coming to town and to come out and enjoy an evening of the most serene and beautiful balladry.

If you're interested in getting on a guest list for a show or receiving free CD's or Painted Birds merchandise please respond to this post at dom@thepaintedbirds.com .

Hope to see you soon!

Dom
www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

So Sorry

2009-03-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

I apparently have to appologize for two things from our juno fest showcase.

1. i shaved my head. some tpb fans and friends said it was quite a shock to have me just show up without my curly mop. for the future, know that i have no hair now. i needed a change, please understand.

2. one of the bartenders at PUB 340 was pretty offended that i claimed one of our songs or one of the parts of our songs was kind of AC DC esque. She didn't take my light hearted nature as she "listens to a lot of hard core music and punk, and [we] definitely aren't hard core or punk". Thank the lord.

So, yeah, sorry bout that.

d

Douche Bag of the Year Award 2009

2009-03-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

I know i was telling y'all about Austin and SXSW. But i had to step back for a moment because i remembered a funny happening from our tour to Ontario the week before SXSW. The festival was called Canadian Music Week, or something like that. i think they changed it's name, but who cares really.

A couple years ago i blogged about a douche bag who came into the store asking for an expensive bottle of wine cuz he wanted to get laid. If this award would have been around then i would have awarded it to him, but i figure let's kick it off now. Being a musician and playing in a lot of bars as well as a wine store clerk, i run into a lot of silly idiotic people. It's here on the sidewalk that i like to make fun of them in print.

So the night after our tres poorly attended CMW showcase we had a show in Sarnia. Oft referenced as Canada's biggest dump. I severely disagree. All my experiences there have been fun. And if I had to name a dump it would have to be thunder bay, not sarnia.

The show was tonnes of fun. Because it was our last show we could all kick back and relax a bit, have a drink or ten and just party our buts off. The sarnia staff is always very giving and not only do they give us loads of free drinks, they also pay us well.

The douche bag in question was discovered after the show. He'd been sitting in the front, listening, which isn't douchey at all, but i find you have to converse with the meat head to figure out how ridiculous they actually are.

After the bar had closed down, Miles and I were chatting outside of our hotel across the way from Paddy Flaherty's. Miles is the drummer of the electro diva Christer who we were playing shows with in Ontario. He's also drummed for other great vancouver bands like the late Lotus Child and the currently amazing Hey Ocean.

As we were chatting over a smoke, some dude emerged from the bar and asked us for a light. We kindly obliged as Miles had one in his pocket. The dude proceeded to tell us how he was only in Sarnia because he had a court hearing the next day. Apparently some dude had punched his girlfriend in a bar the last time he was here, and of course "doing what a guy's got to do" he punched the guy out.

"What nobody saw was him hitting her, they just saw me kicking the crap out of him".

This made me apprehensive. I could feel nervousness between miles and i, i wouldn't call his chivalry douchery but i certainly wasn't stoked with him hanging around us at this point.

The dude starts mentioning that he needed a place to stay, perhaps implying, as we feared that he wanted to crash at our place. We wouldn't even go there, that's how people get murdered in hotels isn't it? He tells us that he was actually hoping to crash at the bar tenders house. Dude actually used to get down with her back in the day (miles and i cringe for the first time).

All the signs were there already but what really took our contestant to the new level was his explanation for why he always hit on girls who had their boyfriends right there with him.

"I'd say 3 to 4 times out of 5 she'll leave with me, eh. Also i practice MMA, you know mixed martial arts... like Ultimate Fighting. Yeah i'm gonna be in the UFC someday so i figure it's worth the practice" (Super cringe from miles and i).

This actually happened. I would fear for my life after writing this blog but i figure the winner this year doesn't really seek out the written word very often.

Stay in school kids, and stay out of jail. And stop watching ultimate fighting.

d

www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

Who the F##K falls asleep to Trance Music?!?

2009-03-23T18:17:00.001-07:00

DAY 1 at SXSW

I was nervous about South By South West. I knew the festival would be amazing. I had no idea about the sheer immensity of it, but I'd only heard cool things. What worried me was that we hadn't sorted out what instruments we would be playing for our showcase, and the cheap accommodations i'd sorted out were shady at best.

In between connecting flights I was attempting to get in contact with "Steve", a friend of a friend who lived in a student "co-op" house that could put us up for $20 a night. When i called Steve in San Jose he seemed to know who i was until i mentioned crashing at his place. I forget what he said exactly, but he seemed to express doubt that we could stay there, before our connection was cut off... I called back but there was no answer.

I called again and again but still no answer. The friend who'd hooked me up with Steve, Jon, was also not answering his phone.

I arrive in Austin with not even an idea of where I should be going. I was extremely well prepared as you can tell. The gentlemen at the information desk was extremely nice and even gave me a map of texas, recommending that I frame it when i get home and mark off all the places that i visit. I've since misplaced the map. Never been one for souvenirs, but it's not to say that i wasn't grateful.

I reach downtown and wander the strip in search of Josh and Shawna. The place was booming. A good 5 or 6 blocks of 6th avenue had blocked off traffic for the SXSW goers and the place was already packed with people. Even more impressive was that every 2nd or 3rd storefront was actually a live music venue. Coming from Vancouver who's venue list is limited and being constantly shortened, the sight was wicked. Walking from one end to the other i saw around 20 to 25 venues and there were still plenty of venues on other streets.

The thing that i hadn't yet learned was that not only did SXSW have between 17 and 18 hundred bands but there were also other music festivals running simultaneously, most free. The gorrila festival, for example, had it's own 400 bands. This resulted in live music around the clock and way way way too many dudes in tight pants, with shitty mustaches or patchy facial, token tattoos, and some form of hipster haircut (i.e. angular, combover and usualy greasy).

I wandered the festival with Adaline and Nat Jay, checking out bands and calling Steve every so often to see if he's answering his phone yet. Nothing.

Finally, at 10 PM, after catching Dan Mangan's first SXSW showcase, Steve picks up his phone. He's quite inebriated at a show somewhere.
"Yeah it's cool for you to stay there man" Steve says. "Just ask for the co-op advisor Rocio. She'll set you up as long as you promise to pay the $20".
I asked "Is she at the co-op right now?"
"Uh... I don't know, she'll get there eventually" he assures me.

Steve gives me the address for the co-op and tells me he'll call Rocio to see if she's there. Moments later i receive a text from Steve that says he doesn't actually have Rocio's phone number, "But she'll be there eventually".
GREAT. REAL FUCKING GREAT.

I send Shawn and Grant to crash at Josh's hotel room. I couldn't handle putting them through what i might possibly be about to put myself through.

The co-op was a mansion probably from the early 1900's or earlier that had in the last year been transformed into student housing. Rocio wasn't there when i arrived but Andrew a resident at the Co-op was nice enough to let me in and give me a tour. The co-op was pretty used to taking in tourists and musician tramps like myself.

Rocio showed up only a few minutes after me to let me know that the extra room was already taken. Another co-op housemate Marshall said, however, that i could totally crash on the couch in his room.
"Better than nothing", i think to myself. Plus, with so many other housemates, how could they possibly kill me. Too many witnesses.

It was after 12 and i figured i'd hit the sack. Plenty of long days on my feet left, might as well preserve my energy. Marshall made his way to bed only a little bit later. He checked his email and then after fussing with some cables he got the music going. Now, I probably can't classify it beyond electronic music but let's just call it Trance music, shall we? It was trance like, and it was LOUD. So loud that i assumed the other housemates would complain. The floor was shaking for pete's sake. But no complaint was made. They were all accustomed to Marshall falling asleep to floor shaking trance music.

I couldn't sleep through it. Pillow on top of my head or not, nothing would work. After over a half an hour of this i decide to make a move. I would either dial the volume down or just shut his laptop and quickly lay back down in hopes that he wouldn't wake up.
I put my glasses on.
I sit up.
The song ends.
Silence....
More silence.

"It must be a long intro or something" i think. Still more silence. Thank heavens, Marshall must have programmed only a certain amount of songs to play before it stopped.

I fall asleep for a bit but am abruptly awoken by a nipping at my heels. I turn to see marshall's dog Chewy staring at me. The couch was apparently Chewy's bed. Chewy was by no means miniature and I couldn't argue with him. I mean, at least he wasn't floor shaking trance music. I moved my legs and Chewy took his place on the couch.

After falling asleep for a short while again, i'm awoken, yet again by a rustling in the room. I open my eyes and there are two girls wandering around the room with flashlights. They whisper to each other and motion to me. One of them flashes her flashlight in my face.
"Hi, I'm Tara" she says.
"Hello" i respond as kindly as i could.
"Do you know where the DVD player is? We had a party last night and we had to hide the DVD player in here, and there's a movie i really want to see, Do you know where the DVD player is?"
"No, sorry". I've never even seen this room the lights on.

Marshall soon wakes up and finds them the DVD player. Marshall heads back to his computer. I get a terrible feeling in my stomach, and not even moments later my terrible feelings are confirmed. Marshall had started that terrible trance loop once again. 45 more agonizing minutes of trance music, while i shared a couch as a bed with Chewy, short for Chewbacca.
My SXSW journey had began.

D

www.thepaintedbirds.blogspot.com

Body So Beautiful Contest Winners

2008-08-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

The Body So Beautiful Contest has finally come to a close. We'd like to thank all the people who entered into the contest as well as those who took part by voting or requesting our music video at Much More Music. We had a lot of fun seeing what people came up with and were very impressed by all of the contest entries.

CONTEST OVERALL WINNERS

1st Place $500 Grand Prize Winner: Lara Kulczycki from Sarnia, Ontario (300 contest points)
2nd Place: Jacqueline Wong from Toronto, Ontario (134 contest points)

3rd Place: Kaley York from Salmon Arm, British Columbia (102 contest points)

HONORABLE MENTION PRIZES

These entries were chosen not for their point totals, but for their artistic merit. Hand picked by the band, each Honorable Mention winner will receive a $50 gift certificate to the Painted Birds' merch store. Redeemable at any TPB concert during our next Cross Canada Tour.

1st Honorable Mention prize: Cali Robinson from Vancouver, British Columbia (94 contest points) Everybody was truly amazed by air brushed logo on Cali's chest.

2nd Honorable mention prize: The Painted Beards, Brittany Bell, Lauren Bell and Braleigh Nelson from Summerland, British Columbia. (14 contest points) Let's just say that we had a good chuckle over this one.

3rd Honourable Mention Prize: Leala Selina from Vancouver, British Columbia (0 contest points).
We had to award this entry with something because, heck, it was the only video entry and definitely took a bit of work. If you're logged into facebook click on this link to see the video.

Leala's Music Video For Colleen

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME AWARD

We'd like to give Dallas Green (well known Canadian Musician from AlexisOnFire and City and Colour) and Jerry Riggs (lesser known Vancouver Sommelier) the better luck next time award. Sorry Dallas, it appears that while Jerry was convinced your moderate celebrity status would win him points in our contest, it sadly didn't work at all (0 contest points).

Brade in the Lucky Tree

2008-07-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

So this story goes back a bit, probably in the fall of 2007. So not part of our last tour in the slightest, but way before that. Shawn was out of town visiting family and Shane had not made the full move to vancouver yet, though he'd already made the decision to come.

A friend of the band named Jeff Denomme (www.hauntedzoo.com) was holding an art show with some of his pieces at a gallery up east hastings. Jeff had asked josh and i to do an acoustic set. So josh and i were happy to prepare some tunes acoustically, and because it had been so long decided to even throw in some old spark that screams tunes.

Kicking off the music that night was another acoustic performer by the name of Chris Brady. I remember very little of his set except for the fact that myself and others had claimed he was quite Jack Johnsony. My appologies to Chris and all other performers that I've shared the stage with. When i have to play a show i can't really concentrate or enjoy the other musicians' sets. I'm usually preparing mentally or I'm just too ADD to take anything in.

Chris Brady, however, did become more memorable during josh and i's set. Now i'd met Chris before but didn't know him very well at all. Having had a few too many beers from the bar, Chris became the loudmouth who started demanding songs.

"Play I'm a Radio!" he bellowed.
"I don't know if...." i started.
"Oh come on" chris broke in "you 'artists' and your never wanting to play your hits. You have to play it. It's your best song, get used to it".

Chris obviously wanted to hear I'm a Radio so we were happy to play it next. He even sang along nicely... from the audience.

A few songs later one of the strings on my guitar broke. Actually, I'd borrowed shawn's guitar for this show which makes this next part of the story even better. Or worse. A broken string was all fine at this point as Josh and i had planned that i would play a couple songs by myself at the end. So i took his guitar, and he somewhat foolishly laid shawn's guitar on the ground in front of where he'd been sitting.

Before i started my next tune, my good friend Will indicated to me that he was leaving. Now will's favorite songs have always been 'so beautiful' and 'colleen'. At this point in the evening, however i had not played colleen yet so i indicated for will and his friends to stay for one more song and started playing colleen. I luckily did not have to play colleen completely alone, as the song was apparently one of Chris Brady's other favorites as well. Brady half asked if he could join me and proceeded to sit down and sing into the mic next to me.

Now i love when this happens. Sometimes it's annoying because the drunky, kind of, well... sucks, and to just kick them off makes me look like an asshole. But Brady was great and that's ultimately what we want: people to participate in our music. The next song i played, however, was a new one, a favorite of some of my good friends who'd been standing near the front. And Brady did not look like he was going to leave anytime soon. Mildly annoyed by his falsetto chirps by the first chorus i looked over to my good friends. Painted across all of their faces along with some other listeners near the front, was a look that i would compare to how a mother looks when daddy comes home drunk and starts playfully throwing the baby a little too close to the ceiling.

I had to act fast, I saw my opening. At the end of the first chorus there was a 4 beat stop in which i didn't have to sing. I plucked the last note, casually reached over to the sound board, and pressed the mute button on Brady's microphone. The whole front row turned around to hide their laughter from what had just occurred. I had to laugh myself, but i felt like i'd been a bit of a jerk. All that guilt washed away, however, a few moments later when my muted drunken stage mate, Brady, spilled the remains of his beer into the sound hole of shawn's guitar. The one we had so foolishly left on the ground.

For months after this occasion some of my friends and I have dubbed doing foolish or idiotic things as pulling a chris brady. That and sometimes you might have heard us just utter the name as a quasi swear word... sorry chris.

Now a few days ago I had the opportunity to hang out with Chris again, and learn that these were just extreme circumstances. During our hang out Chris and i played some songs, and he showed me some of his recordings, and I'm honestly floored by one song so much that i've decided to write this whole story in it's honor. If you have a moment check out Brade in the Lucky Tree at www.myspace.com/theluckytree and listen to the song EYES. I can't stop listening to it. And if you're still interested listen to HOLDING THE SUN as well.

dom

The Scandalous Topless Photos on Facebook

2008-07-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

I must quickly back paddle in this story to not only share with you some good times we had in Toronto but also clear up some semi scandalous photos from North By North East that have been posted on facebook.

Well not really scandalous, but for some reason I've appeared scantilly clad a couple times now tagged in a photo with our dearest friend Adaline. My sister likes to give me a hard time about such things, claiming that it could harm my future career. Say if i were to become a politician, but in my defense i can't see myself being a politician.

I can't really say much about the photo's from Kamloops. I had probably taken a few too many doses of silly when Corey and I decided that there was no reason for us to get our swimsuits wet and sweaty in the Marshall's sauna. It was or first day of tour and it would be a while before we could clean our clothes, so therefore, we thought we'd just do as they do in scandinavia... and go naked. When it comes to the part where I was parading around the Marshall's house in a towel with them and other house guests present, I have little excuse but that i wanted to make myself at home? Though Adaline was there, I have no one to blame but myself for that set of photos so sneekily taken by our band mom Cathi Marshall.

Adaline, however is completely to blame for the Toronto photo's. It was the night of the crazy show we had at the Hideout that i've likened to a scene from Coyote Ugly. I started the show drenched in sweat so when we hit the after party at Queen street studios i needed a new shirt. So Corey lent me one of his.

Now, perhaps, this next part is where i might have brought this whole fiasco upon myself. But you be the judge. Our good friend Bechara had reclined himself on one of the many leather couches at queen street studios with his head resting on a coffee and a plastic cup balancing on his forehead. As he created quite a scene, I jokingly told him to stay still as i wanted to sink my cell phone, free throw style, into the cup from about a 10 foot distance. Bechara protested as i started the countdown from 5. 4----3-----2---. All of a sudden Bechara jerks himself forward, and swooosh. He's spilled a cup full of red wine all over his very nice white shirt. Being quite like myself, Bechara wasn't pleased about the wine stain on his shirt, but he also wasn't too concerned about spending the rest of the after party with no shirt on.

So this amuses me greatly. It's one of those situations, where i can't be blamed, but really was the one to blame. Enter Adaline who had been at the after party all along. This is the part of the story that I hate to tell, because really there is no segue. No lead up, no reasoning. I walked up to Adaline said something completely non-confrontational and she threw a cup, that she perceived to be empty at me. The cup as you may have assumed was not completely empty, and i now had a red wine stain on the shirt that corey had lent me.

Feeling the camaraderie, I then joined Bechara in the minority of people shirtless at the party. And it was during this period that those scandalous pictures of me on Facebook were snapped. So really, you tell me who's to blame.

dom

Family Reunion in Montreal

2008-06-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

Now where was I. Well I’m not really sure so I’ll start in Montreal. It’s funny, I keep on raving about how great our hosts have been all across the country. A lot of them last minute deals where they most willingly take us in and end up feeding us and giving us fresh towels for our showers etc…

Montreal was a bit of the opposite. Our hosts had invited us months in advance, but because of our continuous delay in getting to Montreal, and my failing to call and warn that we wouldn’t be arriving for dinner, our hosts decided to leave us to find our own accommodations.

We’d originally planned to get to Montreal a day early so we could explore the city, but Toronto had been so much fun with late night to early morning after parties that we decided to stay an extra day.

Arriving at the venue I was greeted by an old familiar face that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I’d meant to contact my half brother Rob earlier but being on the road and having little internet access it had completely slipped my mind. It was strangely emotional seeing my brother after not seeing him for 14 years, and receiving little more than a facebook message from him in that time. It was great to see him again, but it’s funny how such a long period of no contact can leave two people with very little to talk about. You’d think there would be a mountain of topics to cover in catching up, but I’d assume that sometime after 3 or 4 years the mountain disappears.
It was wonderful to see him. I was very self-conscious on stage as my brother had originally gotten me into music. He taught me how to play my first 3 or 4 chords on the guitar. He’d taken me music shopping when I bought the first CD I ever owned.

Rob and his partner Lynn took Corey and I in for the night and gave us a bed to sleep on. It was another night of debauchery until sunrise.

We awoke in time to grab some ‘legendary (you’d be surprised how many things we’ve seen on tour have claimed to be legendary) montreal smoked meat before we headed off for another show in Ottawa.

Half way Point

2008-06-14T13:26:00.001-07:00

It seems that in the prairies and places of canada where there was little and little going on it was much easier to give you guys updates. Toronto and the surrounding area has been good to us.

We just played a killer show last night at the Hideout in Toronto. We'd been accepted into the "North by North East" festival just this week and managed to pull a really good slot at 1 AM on friday night on Queen Street. The audience was off the hook. We were sweating, throwing water at each other, girls were dancing on the counter top of the bar, and rumour has it one of our band members even got a kiss in the middle of our song. Now i wouldn't call us a party band, but when people want to party we'll make the most of it and that was splendid.

This week we also had a great experience at the Trepid House in Waterloo. The venue is a house that the owners have converted into a venue by hooking up speakers in every room, so that no matter where you are, the living room, the magic room (yes there were several magicians in this house), the pirate room (equipped with pirate costumes and everything), the plant room or the attic art gallery, you could always groove to the music.

We were lucky enough to share the stage with a newfy band called HEY ROSETTA, which everyone should check out. We were all humbled as hell. The cops had shut down the concert after we played and we all thought that it was over. Hey Rosetta, equipped with mandolins, cellos, violins and acoustic guitars just played an acoustic set and man was it awesome.

We also managed to get some new recordings done in windsor with a friend of josh's. We're talking about temporarily posting them on our myspace and facebook pages so stay tuned for those. I can't promise anything. we're still talking about it, but i think we could swing at least a couple for your listening pleasure.

Off to montreal tomorrow, and then the final stretch back across canada.

hope to see you soon

dom

Working for the Weekend: Part 2 Guelph

2008-06-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

As much as i whine about my perceived failure of shows, the one thing i can never complain about are our accomodations. We've had people welcome us into our homes all across the country and we have had such a good time with all of them and thankfully saved a lot of dough that we would have been forking out on hotels. Guelph was no different.

In london i gave my buddy jerry a call to see if he could hook us up. Jerry lives in Van city, but studied in Guelph and assured me that he could hook us up. Jerry gave us directions to a place called Atmosphere in guelph where we would meet up with our first contact Mike who would give us the key code for the house that we would stay at. (Starting to sound top secret to anyone?). Well when we got there, Mike had no idea who we were, I guess we didn't have the correct response to his 'Roses are red violets are blue' riddle. All was quickly sorted out with a couple phone calls, however, and we headed apprehensively over to the house.

Upon arriving our doubts were quickly vanquished. Aaron, on of our hosts, greeted us with "Hey Painted Birds! i'm a huge fan. you guys want a beer?". Aaron and his roommate Ola assured us that they would come to the show but needed to get up early for work the next morning. Their noble ambitions were soon forgotten, as following our show at about 2:30 in the morning Aaron said screw it and ordered us and a group of people back to the house for more partying.

The show was pretty good. Leighton managed to zone out for most of my solo and only come hug me for the very ending which was again hilarious. Starting in London and continuing on in Guelph, Sarnia and Windsor, we've started to include a newer song called Seashore in our encores. It's probably one of my favourite works. There's of course an oceany seafarer feel to it which i hope will someday be belted out by a throng of people who have lost all self control and have no fear of dancing or singing in front of their friends.

Dave from Bedroom biography ensures me that we should record it in Toronto so you might hear a version of it sooner than later.

stay posted

Dom

Working for the Weekend: Part 1. London

2008-06-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

This last week was a go go go non stopper. 5 shows in 5 days, which is standard for the regular working folk but our first stint non stop rock this tour. i made the comparison to corey the other day that this week kind of felt like a volleyball tournament i played in when i was in grade 10. we'd started this tournament off by beating the best team in the province, penticton ( a group of genetically engineered youth whose minimum height was that of my own), and then went on to lose every other game in the round robin that weekend.

In this comparison, the steroid pumped brute was the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, and every other loss was a rapid fire of southern ontarian cities: London, Guelph, Sarnia and Josh's hometown of Windsor.

You'll have to excuse what may seem like my constant negativity. Looking back at Northern Ontario, there was a great amount of success and reward in the shows we played. The same can definitely be said about our last 4 of 5 shows. Touring for me is a series of massive ups and downs. The highs are super high and the lows are super low. It seems that i'm confronted in each show with either success or failure.

The Horseshoe in toronto was, of course, a massive success. Two sets of hands were not enough to handle the mad rush of people who approached our merch table. Having started off on a Tuesday, which is of course not really a night that people go out, with such good attendance, i got my hopes up, figuring this week would be amazing.

Getting my hopes up seems to be one of my biggest enemies, however. London was fine. The venue treated us astoundingly well. The pub's guests all loved us. It's just that despite all of their efforts to promote the show, including posters and handbills on every table and even our biography by the entrance, I wanted more people there. But that's me. Want want want, and never get enough.

London was the first night that we would share the stage with our good friends from Bedroom Biography (www.myspace.com/leightonbain). Bedroom’s frontman Leighton is a long time good friend of the band. At our first show Leighton would start a tour tradition of the onstage hug. Needing to leave suddenly near the end of our set, Leighton walked up to me in the middle of a guitar solo in our new track Is it Fate and gave me a hug. The guys all insisted on giving him a hard time, and Leighton and his sidekick Dave insisted on continuing the tradition at every subsequent show in Southern Ontario.

Now there's usually one ‘crazy’ who ends up making our night. they're usually into the sauce and sometimes a bit too touchy feely. in london it was steve. Steve was the anti heckler. if he would have been booing, trash talking, or making Pearl Jam requests he would have been a heckler, but Steve was more into the loud obnoxious compliments from across the bar. On Wednesday Steve worshiped the Painted Birds. Our crowning moment was when he told us that our CD would be the soundtrack to his family’s bonfire that weekend. I hope they roasted a pig on a stick and fired their family guns into the air. I’ve always wished that such activities would take place to our music.

We rested our heads at an old roommates house, and got ready for day 3 of the work week, guelph.

Dom

Legendary Indeed

2008-06-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

before i proceed i just want to thank you guys for commenting on the notes. it's good to know that there are people out there who are reading this. so thanks.

the horseshoe last night was splendid. so much so that i might even take my previous comments back about it being questionably legendary. our last 3 shows had been kind of downers, and the horseshoe was so great that all our previous worries seemed to just melt away.
a fast set. 30 minutes. only the current hits were played. some new ones, ocean, is it fate, some album numbers, colleen, clouds.

i don't know, when it's good i have little to explain but merely that, it was great.
for those of you from toronto, we'll hopefully be getting another gig for north by north east next week.

and for those others of you across the country, check out the latest body so beautiful contest entry from Lisa Holmes. We're still waiting on many more entries every one so send them inp.s because it was entered as i wrote this up, i'll add leighton bain's photo entry as well.

as for those painted beards. tsk tsk. i'll have nothing to do with those copy cat sorts.

From Shoe to Shoe

2008-06-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

normally it's 'sault' ste. marie, as in 'soo' but our videographer mr. fischer started calling it shoe at one point. the reason for which escapes me. of course being as impressionable as i am, i had to follow suit.

the drive through northern ontario had been described as a snooze fest by people who had been there before. my sister even skipped this part of the country by bussing from winnipeg to toronto when she biked across canada a few years ago. i'd given her a hard time, but having seen it i can't really blame her. but who am i kidding, i was sleeping.

the venue in sault ste. marie, the lop lops, looked good. a hip lounge kind of feel. seeing the venue, i worried that we might be a bit too loud, and this fear was confirmed as we sound checked our selves a few hours before the show. the owner told us we needed to turn down.

now i like challenges, especially when we are forced to overcome such challenges with creative thought. we returned to the venue just after 10 PM to find a couple large groups who appeared to be at the venue for their social engagement and not the Painted Birds show. to keep from driving them out with our rock and roll we decided to play an acoustic set filled with our mellower numbers. now at this point i wish i could report that our scheme worked and we won them all over. but i must be honest with you. after about two songs, the large group of women that had caused our concern started filing out slowly. Which led me to think 'why am i catering to these people if they don't even care'.

We came back with the rock after our break and we won a number of them over.

after another 8 hour drive we spent a day in Toronto catching up with old friends and wandering around aimlessly from bar to bar. Today it's the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, which as far as i'm concerned is only 'legendary' because the smart owners decided to put legendary before the name. So i've decided to change my name. from now on refer to me as the Amazing Dominique Fricot. soon it won't even be questioned and wham i'll just be known as that without any justification.

looking forward to southern ontario

Dom

Almost alone in the Peg and the Bay

2008-06-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

There comes a low point on every tour. I hope we've passed ours. On Vancouver Island it was having one of the best show of our lives at UVic and then having a majority of the crowd walk away on us in Nanaimo the next day for us not being heavy enough or mosh-able. While our hosts in Winnipeg and Thunder Bay were wonderful, the crowds were well... non existant. But i musn't be so negative because both nights had serious turn arounds that left a smile on my face.

We played last in Winnipeg after a band called All Your Friends, who's audience decided it was too late to stay out and listen to music after they finished playing. So we were left with a table of other musicians who were touring through, our wise and noble videographer, Corey, our host Mike, and a couple other random people.

Faced with such a meager serving of audience i find it hard to get positive. The few who were there would consistently drag on applauses for almost uncomfortable amounts of time. The mood started rising.

Then in our last song, a new one called Ocean of a Sea, the musicians all jumped to their feet and danced in merry revelry. It somehow made the whole night worthwhile. And i thank them for that.

Thunderbay started off depressing. The ending of our winnipeg show was good enough to improve the night but not enough to keep me on a high for the next day. The owner at the bar warned me that Thunder Bay had gone through an economic recession and people just weren't going out anymore. Later we asked the sound guy if people came out to shows and he smirked cynically.
"Sometimes..." he said.

As we're supposed to start playing, there is nobody more than staff in the room. Josh recommends that we do some songs twice as we need to work on them more than others.
"Great" i think, "We came all this way to rehearse".
We go through a couple of tunes like this, and then all of a sudden to pair of eyes peer through the window at the back. The next thing we know there are 3 people at the bar. They tell us that they thought we sounded good from the road so decided to come in for a beer.
Shawn turns to me, "now we have a show. Let's play a show for these people". About ten other people walked in and once again our spirits were lifted.

Then it was off to Sault Ste. Marie. We're still going. Don't try and stop us.

Dom

The Hospitality of Drumheller Buffalo

2008-05-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

So we've arrived in good hands in winnipeg. Tuesday seemed to take forever, as we waited and waited for our van to get fixed. By 7 we'd had dinner at the Fischer and Lynch residences and we were off on the road for Saskatoon. The weather had finally gotten better. sunny and clear, unlike the cloudy rain for the 3 days previous, that the locals all claimed we brought from Van city.

The setting was ideal for my introduction to the prairies. Clear sunny skies that would later set up a perfect sunset. Stopping for gas in Drumheller, we decided to climb a Hoo Doo. Josh originally recommended that we make the ascent, but as I got to the top i noticed that we had lost josh at the bottom and it was only Shane and I who remained on the top of the beast. The view was intense, that's all i can say.

As we were leaving a group of youth were staring at our van as we crossed the parking lot. I noticed that one girl was eagerly gripping the bottom of her t-shirt as she waited for us to pass by. Surely enough, as i'd expected, the girl flashed us and man... was that a privelidge? This is the life of a travelling musician perhaps.

Our trip through the prairies was filled with buffalo sightings (real buffalo, not drumheller 'buffalo'), long open flat fields, the unofficial naming of our tour (GUYS MONTH OUT!) and our van (yet to be released as we are still arguing about it) and a stop in Saskatoon where April, an old acquaintance of mine from high school took us in for the night. We are very lucky to have so many people across the country helping us out.

We arrived in Winnipeg late last night where Corey's friends Mike and Sarah and their lovely children Finn and Nolan took us in. Their hospitality, like everywhere we've stayed so far, has been awesome. One thing i've noticed though, is that it seems that everywhere we go people want to load us up with booze. It's like "oh the band is here, time to party". Which i love, though i don't know how long this will last as every where we are people want to party. When do we get a rest? No scratch that. We're fine,

Keep it coming,
Dom

Mechanical Problems in Cow Town

2008-05-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

we've been delayed here in calgary and it's been rather expensive. we'd been noticing some steering issues on our recently purchased Ram Van since we bought it a couple weeks ago but we figured it was just that the steering needed to be aligned. So before we brave the prairies we figured we should get that fixed. We dropped the van off at Canadian Tire (good business) yesterday for it to be fixed first thing this morning.

i wake up today to find out from shane that our ball joints are shot and need to be replaced. not my favourite way of waking up considering that's a whole whack of cash more to throw down on a venture that is already losing money. feel my bitterness and stay clear of SEA FUN ENTERPRISES in Victoria. It's the little that i can do in my anger. They'd provided me with all this proof that they'd had the car fully checked over but somehow they'd skipped over the alignment and the ball joints.

Well actually the blame should be placed more on myself for not taking the van to a mechanic myself to have it looked at, but heck, i was rushed. We had to get back from the island for music video meetings and work etc... and they claimed it didn't need to be checked. So lessons learned here in full, never trust a used car salesman (oh my god that's even one of the 10 commandments... or it should be), always go through with checking things over yourself, and never make any big purchases in a hurry.

We're now waiting to head off to saskatoon on our way to Winnipeg where we play our next show and meet up with shawn. He is in Vancouver working his last couple shifts, waiting for me to call him with good news for once.

dom

TPB live at SAIT

2008-05-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

We always seem to be making the long trip from kamloops to calgary and arriving late for our load in and soundcheck. something about the hour time difference and those rockies i tell you. or maybe it's the fact that we end up partying like maniacs at the Marshall's residence until 3 or 4 in the morning, enjoying the sauna and parading around their house in a towel, (just some members of the band that is, please Cathi don't post pictures of such tom foolery on the web).

i also shouldn't talk about being late for a gig on here. a promoter in whitehorse told us not to post such things on our blog because it showed that we were unprofessional, but you know what, he can shove it. i'm trying to tell some form of a story here.

anyways, calgary this time was kind of like our last show in calgary where we weren't too well matched with the bands we played with. not that i have anything against such heavy metal or screamo, i just don't think our fans can really make the leap to the other bands and vice versa of course. but every one was positive, and all the bands and fans were really nice and receptive, so it ended up being a good night.

highlight of my night was definitely hearing from Shane's friends about how much they were pissed off that shane wasn't in the first 6 or 7 podcasts, and how they love us live but just wish our CD sounded as good as our live show. Great feedback, and yes we are attempting to one or two or three up ourselves next time around. recording is an interesting skill that we're still working on really hard. just waiting for the time and money to do it over again

Dom

we love kamloops

2008-05-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but every time we come here, it's great. Actually i have a good idea of why we love it here. The Marshalls, Mike Turner, and a host of their friends and other fans, who come to the leisure loft, (the great little venue that we love to call home) and totally listen and enjoy our music.

We kicked off the tour wonderfully, short drive, followed by a great show with Adaline. i'm pulling her up for more songs, now. who knows how long until she's so huge, that sony or nettwerk or whatever won't allow her to appear on stage for less than several thousand dollars.

she's truly lovely, and pulling her up for sidewalk without having it preplanned, felt truly like music. for the moment, and a spontaneous as it all should be sometimes.

we go on alone to calgary today. come one come all

dom

Music Video Shoot!

2008-05-13T13:57:00.001-07:00

So we spent mother's day cooped up in an office space converted into a 50's style prom sauna. i say 50's prom because the video is shot in a 50's style with us wearing very classy vintage suits with the hair to match. i say sauna because man was it hot in there. i guess that's what happens when you block all the light and air from coming in the windows with dark blankets, light subjects with state of the art film lighting and have the smoke machine going full blast before every shot.

i am perhaps telling you too much info, giving away the surprise, and i may also sound whiny. i have nothing to whine about, however, because the experience was awesome to say the least. we were all extremely glad to have chosen our good friends to complete the task: Corey Fischer who produced the video (corey does so much for the band, our podcasts, our epk, our myspace page among many other things, and he's also coming on tour with us in may and june, selling merch, filming fights and taking part in the cruelest of hijinx), Lindsay George who filmed the whole thing, i believe they call her a DP or director of photography but i'm probably wrong as i understand little to nothing about the film world, and Mark Ratzlaff who directed the video. We have to send our sincerest of thanks to these three, who's professionalism was astounding to all of us. The 10 or 11 hours of filming in the 50's prom sauna and waiting around to film went by super fast and was tonnes of fun.

We're also extremely grateful for all the other people who took part doing hair, makeup, costumes, the girls who were in the video with us and the long list of gaffers, grips and other people behind the camera who worked their butts off all day doing a great list of things i could never truly comprehend. So again thank you all so much, i was extremely skeptical going in, but you have exceeded my expectations and i hope that we can all work together again in the future.

As for you others out there, we should have a lovely music video for your viewing pleasure very soon. Shall i tell you which song it is for?? mmmm... i may just leave that out for you to guess, or perhaps you have already heard rumours. In other news we will be running a facebook contest for our cross canada tour that we hope will be good fun to take part in and will also have some good prizes for the contestants who want to win it bad enough. Check out our tour Dates below

Dom

FULL TOUR DATES:
May
23 - Kamloops - The Leisure Loft
24 - Calgary - The Gateway (SAIT)
29 - Winnipeg - The Lo Pub
31 - Sault Ste Marie - LopLop Lounge & Gallery

June
3 - Toronto - Horseshoe Tavern
4 - London - Bristol Pub
5 - Guelph - Jimmy Jazz
6 - Sarnia - Paddy Flaherty's
7 - Windsor - Phog Lounge
10 - Burlington - Red Rooster Vintage Cafe
11 - Waterloo - Trepid House
12-14 - Toronto (NXNE) - TBA
15 - Montreal - Bar Spectacle L'Escogriffe
16 - Ottawa - Zaphod Beeblebrox
19 - Winnipeg - Royal Albert Arms
20 - Regina - O'Hanlon's
22 - Saskatoon - Lydia's
24 - Grande Prairie - Better Than Freds
25 - Edmonton - Urban Lounge
26 - Calgary - Sled Island Festival
27 - Kelowna - Doc Willoughby's
28 - Salmon Arm - Salmar Classic Theatre
30 - Vancouver - Biltmore Cabaret

so apparently...

2008-04-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

so i left the last one hanging a bit........... accidently of course.

Shawn told me the other day that his relatives were quite worried about our troubles in toronto. well have no fear, quite sorry bout that. everything with the lost cash box and the merchandise or whatever it was, was totally settled and sorted out in good time.
the whole finale was honestly so anticlimactic that i totally forgot to finish that story for you guys.

you see this happens often with me. i pick something up, interest my self in it for a while, maybe play with it, or get lost in it, and then i put it down and forget about it. it's disappointing.

sometimes because i feel i'm leaving so much good stuff on the back burner. but i can't control it. there's so many started songs, unfinished ideas that i'm actually excited about, but never get to because of filing taxes, grocery shopping, or staring at the wall and wishing i had more time to do things. not writing on this wall for example, i've been planning to respond back for over a week now, and i'm sorry i never got to it, but other things came up.

also, you never asked back about our problems, so i just figured you just didn't care.

careless, careless, careless...

love you baby, bye bye
see you in the morning

Gong Show in Ontario

2008-03-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

We've been in Ontario for 3 days and 2 shows already, and though the shows have been great, this trip has been a gong show since the get go. The four of us had booked flights out to Toronto from Vancouver. We figured we could bring clothes and our instruments and rent the amps and drums for the 10 days that we are here.
We had arranged with our good friend Corey Fischer, the man who has been crafting all of our podcast episodes and film related work, to take us to the airport for our flight at 9:50 AM. At about midnight the night before we left i had this conversationg with Corey over google chat regarding the time and place we were going to meet. Shawn and I had decided that we would all meet at our jam space at 8 AM.

me: Just make sure you guys get there at 8 sharp

Corey: i pick the vehic at 8 so itll be like 815ish

me: who's manning this ship?

Corey: I am, Sir!

me: that's the stupidest thing i've ever eard

Corey: i pick the vehic at 8 is the stupidest thing youve ever heard?
have you even watched yourself on these podcasts?? Lightning? come on!
like im supposed to wiz through these $3600 pants?

me: our flight leaves at 9:50 you're picking it up at 8?

Corey: ill get ya there, big daddy

me: you'll actually get down there at 8:20 8:25 at earliest
we'll take 10 or 15 minutes to get the stuff ready and on the go
shane probably didn't even pack his cymbals yet
traffic jam = minor= we miss our flight.
how do you like them apples??
3600 dollar pants!!
okay. i'll trust that you'll get us there
but if we miss our flight
ooga chacka ooga chacka...

Corey: ok, im picking it up at 730
i cant stop, ooga ooga oooga

me: when you hold me in your arms so tight
baby you know, yeah you turn me on

So that was settled. The next morning Shawn and I arrive on time at the space. At about 8:10 or 8:15 we send off a couple of texts to the guys threatening them in jest, but still completely confident that they're just around the corner and we have nothing to worry about. Shane calls me immediately, and informs me that they had had some trouble getting on their way that morning. Josh had apparently slept in and when Corey went to Josh's to pick up the van card key, he was unable to reach Josh because he sleeps with his phone off. We normally use Josh's zip car account when transporting our gear around town as none of us own vehicles. As shane was talking to me he was still about ten minutes away, and without Josh in the vehicle because Josh still wasn't ready to leave. We would pick him up on the way back.

When Corey and Shane arrived we packed the SUV as quickly as possible but realized upon completion that we still had far too much gear for all 5 of us to fit. I call Josh and tell him that he has to catch a cab, and we head off for the Airport. We arrive just after 9 and breathe a sigh of relief. Josh hasn't arrived yet though and he still hasn't arrived at about twenty after 9 when we finish checking our luggage. Josh calls me and tells me to ask the check-in clerk what the latest time he can check his luggage in is.
"I can't even guarantee that your guys' luggage will make the plane" the clerk tells me.
"How close are you Josh?" I ask.
"Not very" he answers.

The three of us board the plane and make our way to Toronto. We luckilly have our first night off so Josh just has to make it their by the next day. He rebooks his flight for an hour and a half after ours. Everything is fine and OK.

That night we meet up with some of our good friends in Toronto and freeze our faces and hands off in their much crispier climate. The next day we have a show at the London Music Club and Josh had arranged for us to get a ride with his good friend Leighton Bain who we were slotted to play Windsor with on the following night (www.myspace.com/leightonbain). When he arrives, Shawn comes back into the apartment and shotguns a seat...

Now i knew that we had quite a bit of gear already that would be a tight squeeze, but with Leighton and his girlfriend and the four of us, there were 6 people to fit in a 4 seater van. The crowdedness of this van made the space in the van of our first tour seem like luxury. Shawn and i stacked suitcases on our lap and between our legs because we were lucky enough to get seats. Shane and Josh had to find their place somewhere between the guitars and merchandise on the floor of the back of the van. To add to Shane and Josh's comfort was a mild traffic jam that added about 45 minutes to our 2 hour journey. The upside is that we were not caught by any cops and thus escaped from paying any fines for seatbeltless passengers.

Our show in london was shockingly good. We were slotted for a free show before the blues jam night there. As we walked into the empty room 15 minutes before we were supposed to stop i figured we'd play for the servers and the manager. But by the midpoint of our set the room was filled with an older crowd raring to play mustang sally and old BB King covers. We toned our set down to suit the smaller room and the older crowd and were extremely well received. Though one old timer in the front row did mildly heckle and beg for us to get roudy. We complied and ripped through an aggressive version of Lullabye.

The real gong show high was in windsor though. We rented gear at Long and Mcquade on friday and had a show that night. As we were leaving we realized that we had somewhere lost the blue duffel bag that contained our guest book, the album samplers that we had put together for Canadian Music Week, and our cash box. Normally the float has a good 50 to 100 dollars in it, but as we'd been storing our excess cash in the bottom of the box for some time, we don't know how much money we had in their, and Shawn assures me that it was probably a fair amount. We narrow it down to two places that the bag could be: the London music club or Leighton's vehicle. We meet up with Leighton for the show and he assures us that it is nowhere to be found in his van. No word back from the London music club yet but we'll keep you posted.

As for our show in Windsor that night, as we set up right before our opening act is to take the stage, we realize that my amp barely makes a sound, and Josh's sounds like a violent mechanical fart whenever he turns it on. It appears that we are totally fucked. Josh has luckilly asked one of his friends to bring an amp for him to try so we have at least one amp that works. We start playing the songs that we can do with only one amp, and finally after Colleen and All I Can Do Josh's friend Rob shows up with a couple more amps for us to use. Crisis avoided barely.

So yes, this has been the gong show of our trip. And it'll just keep getting better baby.

dom

Day 10: Salmar Classic Theatre

2008-01-29T13:31:00.000-08:00

I usually feel bad for the people who canvas for green peace or hand out the metro newspaper. I feel bad because their job is to stand still and pester the people walking by with "Do you have a moment for green peace today?" or "Metro Newspaper!". While I feel sorry for them, I'm also one of the pedestrians who is annoyed by their presence. We use tactics like talking on our cell phone or avoiding eye contact to make the encounter as painless as possible. Sometimes we even lie/admit that we are late for work and can't stop. We use same tactics with pan handlers, because that is what these people are employed to do: beg.

Shawn and I saw the other end of this stick/panhandle before our show in Salmon Arm. Ticket sales for the show hadn't been as high as we expected so we resorted to the age old tradition of begging. Positioning ourselves in front of our old high-school's main entrance we waited for the final bell to chime. As the rush of students charged towards us, we learned how hard this art form really is. "Concert tonight at the Salmar, tickets at the door, Painted Birds.. 10 dollars.." the pitch hasn't been mastered yet. Most just walk by understanding that anybody trying to give you something for free is probably giving you something that you either don't want, or will eventually have to pay for. A few kids who are unlucky enough to make eye contact, admit defeat and take the handbill. Their loss is hardly a victory for us, however.

Finally I change my objective and forget about the hand bill, inquiring "Do you like live music?" or anything that can start a conversation. My empty hands seem less suspicious and I finally get some biters. Some kids recognize us, telling us that we went to school with their older siblings or took dance lessons from their mother. The whole experience was quite humbling, albeit exhilarating. By the end our skin had grown so thick that we could have cared less if they ignored us or not. The negatives were so out-weighed by the positive reactions that we felt accomplished.

After we headed over to the Salmar Classic Theatre. The room had a lot of significance for me. I can remember back to when that was the only cinema in town. I can remember going to see movies like Mighty Ducks with my dad, or forcing my sisters to drag me along to see Fern Gully with them and their friends. Bringing along your little brother was always an uncool thing to do. I also saw my first few concerts in this theatre including Moxy Fruvous, who was mind blowing, and 54 40 who I have always adored. The stage is huge, the curtain is glorious, and the nostalgia is wonderful but also horrible to surround myself in.

We load in, set up, go through sound check and head back stage and wait and wait and wonder. Shane announces to Shawn and I that we need to talk. This makes me nervous, I wonder as we come to the end of this tour, "Is Shane quitting the band??". He calms me by telling me that he wants us to chill out. He feels tension with us, for reasons he takes to be that this is our hometown and we have placed pressure on ourselves accordingly.

"Breathe. Take a deep breath, slowly" he says. Shane is a god send in more ways than one. Backstage is above the rear of the theatre and we watch our opening act Water Mark perform their set. They remind me a lot of Shawn and I at their age. Pumped full of excitement, conviction, nerves and confidence. Jared had told me before they went on that their last song had been written the night before. "Yup", i think "that was us".

Shawn turns to me as we peer at the audience "Nobody's here".
"Don't worry" I say, it's too late for any of that.

The audience sit in their comfortable theatre chairs for our first two songs. I see grimaces from friends of my mother's, perhaps too old to enjoy rock music. As they all sit and stare I have no idea what anyone is thinking. Finally, Shawn, another godsend, announces that everyone should come to the front and crowd around the stage. Amazingly, a lot of the kids comply and all of a sudden a theatre that seemed empty feels crowded as they all pile around the stage.

This was the golden turning point. Our next song was Colleen and everybody was bouncing up and down. From there on in, we didn't want it to end. It's truly amazing how in less than five seconds, somebody can say something that will change the situation from being painfully mediocre to perhaps one of the best feelings of your life.

At one point I noticed that 5 guys and girls in the front were singing along to every word of I'm a Radio. What truly perplexed me was the fact that i didn't recognize any of them. I wondered for a second, turned back to the microphone and forgot the words to the song.

I could go on to continually tell you how awesome it was to play our songs for and with all of the Salmon Armians, and enjoy the whole experience together, but you really just had to be there.

Thanks to everyone who helped make that show my favorite to date, especially Watermark, the 5 SASS students who helped us with tickets and merch, and Brian Coffey for doing sound and doing it well.

Peace

dom

Day 9 cont: Late Night Eats in Canmore

2008-01-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay again. Went on vacation and got lazy and then well you know how it is. I promised to tell you about Salmon Arm, so here it is.

We'd had another late night in Canmore, as you might remember. After we'd put everything away (this task was lightened by the fact that we didn't even bother taking our merchandise out of the van) Josh went to bed and Shane, Shawn and I were once again, starving at 3 in the morning. Canmore, however was less equipped to serve us food at 3 in the morning. According to Derek the soundman our only option was the gas station, and i was not looking forward to a bag of chips or one of those vacuum packed sandwiches. While on the road i find i get sick of mainly two things. One is bars, you've been paid with enough beer and shots that on your off days you just want some tea and maybe a hot tub. The second thing, is crappy fast food or junk food from gas stations. We were lucky enough on this tour to have a few stops where our hosts provided us with delicious and healthy home cooked meals (thank you's to: Lynch family, Saab family, Fischer family, and Marshall family). On this occasion we found out that there was also a Tim Horton's nearby, which filled our hearts with elation.

I don't know why this always happens, but i was once again the sober one, and, therefore, had to drive. On route to the 7-11 my two drunken companions are both convinced that they know where we are supposed to be going. I have a pretty good idea of how to get around Canmore because my family owns a house there, but they insisted that we had to go this way, and then, no, the other way, and then, no we were right the first time. We ended up driving down the main strip about 3 or 4 times, both of them telling me where to go and then getting mad at me when we ended up at the wrong place. I finally, quite angry at this point, told them to shut up and let me try and find the Tim Hortons. You will most likely see all of this on our forth coming video podcast series, incriminating them of debauchery and poor navigational skills. At the point in which i make a U-Turn at a red light, please understand that it was almost 4 in the morning at this point, and our film maker Mr. Corey Fischer probably played with the color in the video to make it look red. It was actually green.

After nearly throwing Shane out of the van, with his camcorder, we finally arrive for some delicious soup and sandwiches. After we have been fed we completely forget about the tension that had just arisen, and go back to being the fun loving band that we are.

Dom

Day 8 and 9: His name was Derek from Canmore

2007-12-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

Now it's tough enough to get people out to shows as it is. You're coming in from a different town, you know people who know people in the town, but all you can do is notify them and hope they pass on the word. you're best hope right now is to use facebook and myspace to the best of your abilities, but you're busy with several other shows. and your friends never pass the word on as well as you hoped they would

After another day of rest at the Lynch's in calgary we arrived at the venue, the canmore hotel, on wednesday night. now i'd heard crazy stories about this place. Some say that it's 'the place' for indie bands to play in canmore.

Warning sign #1: outside the door of the bar there is a chalkboard/sandwich board with the heading "what's happening tonight?" We read it to learn that apparently the event was 4 dollar high balls? "no mention of the band? mmm that's strange". Inside a bunch of guys are playing pool and on the other side of the bar there is a hall with a good sized stage at the front. in front of the stage the hockey game was being projected on a big screen, but only 2 or 3 people were paying attention.
Warning sign #2: As we looked around the bar we noticed several posters for bands that were coming to the bar. it appeared that this was 'the bar' to play in town. "but wait, where is our poster??". Josh thought this was exceedingly strange too, as he had confirmed with the 'Ho' when they recieved the posters. Not a single poster of ours, however, hung from the walls.
Warning sign #3: Much like the sandwich board outside, there was another chalk board inside the bar that listed the goings on for that week. On the board they had clearly written what bands were playing on tuesday, thursday, friday and saturday. our beloved wednesday was of course left blank.
Sign #4: As the icing on the cake, when we started to load the stage some long haired dude hobbles on over to greet us. "Hey are you playing a show tonight?" he slurs jovially.
"Yes", we respond.
"Oh!!" he laughs, "it's a good thing i stopped by, i was about to head across town and continue getting drunk with my friends!".

The long hair was Derek our sound guy for the night, and probably our saving grace. You could just tell that things weren't going to work out that night. There was a strange apathetic feeling in the room. So when Derek asked me if i partied before i played, in the same way ricky fitts asks lester burnham in american beauty, i responded, "not usually, but i do tonight".

Armed with a cannon between us, Derek proceeded to tell me a series of disjointed stories. Derek was just one of those souls you'd hope and expect to find on the road. Definitely a kind hearted fellow, Derek continually appologized for his odd ball sense of humour, though we were both laughing the whole time. Derek's shining moment came when he told us how to deal with the crowd at the "Ho". I kind of need to show this in person, but essentially a band best reel them in with simpler straight forward numbers and then, when they weren't expecting it, shock them with something insane.

Derek's imitated this musical insanity by swinging the guitar he had fetched from his quarters in a slap shot like manner at our faces. Shawn and i were on the floor.

We hit the stage with about 6 or 7 people on our side of the bar. Somewhat discouragingly there was a line of people at the bar at the back, kindly turning their backs to us the whole time and watching the game or conversing with their favourite local bar tender. We decided to play our whole repertoire as the stage was nice, and we were having fun all the same. From behind me i swear i heard shane yell out between every song, can someone get me a beer. Which as it was happening, i of course did nothing to help but thought to myself, "can somebody just get this guy a beer already". As he stumbled off stage at the end of our set i was relieved to know that Josh and the bar tender were in fact fetching our boy beers, perhaps, everytime he asked for one.

With about 4 songs to go, our film-maker corey's brother and his friends show up. They kind of saved the day. We just wished we could have had them the whole time. Ah well, such is life. Canmore was in the least an adventure, and a dip that made peaks like broken city and salmon arm that much more special.

dom

Adaline is beautiful

2007-12-11T22:01:00.000-08:00

I've forgotten to mention this for months now. Our dear friend Shawna who's musical project goes under the name Adaline has just recorded a wonderful and preciously beautiful rendition of Silent Night. You can hear it and download it (download it if you have a myspace account) at www.myspace.com/adalinesmusic .

Adaline also sang prominently on one of our own songs on So Much for the Rain. The song, East of Eden, is also on her myspace page so check them both out, as they are both splendid tracks.

dom

Days 5,6 and 7: Broken City

2007-12-07T15:37:00.001-08:00

Being that we couldn't do Regina, we had a couple days off before our 2nd calgary show. After slowly making our way to calgary we spent a nice couple days relaxing with Shane's family. The Lynch's are totally sweet. At times i felt bad for how much i was relaxing but they assured me that it was totally cool.

On our second night off we talked about perhaps hitting the town and going to a bar. The thought of drinking alcohol or hanging out in a bar on our day off wasn't appealing to any of us. Instead we had a taboo death match. Taboo, for those of you who have never played, is like pictionairy with words, but you aren't allowed to say 5 words or terms that you would probably use to describe the word you are trying to get your teammates to guess. We decided on playing girls vs. boys: shawn, shane and i against shane's sister allison, leah and josh. You may be able to sense my bitterness from losing. Josh and the girls beat the boys, though it was by a narrow margin.

Mcnorton was somewhat of a machine at this game. He and shawn are both quite fierce competitors, though josh tends to be a bit more 'confident' in his table talk. Josh and I used to play doubles tennis against zach and tom from lotus child, and josh's major contribution was definitely his trash talk. His trash talk is one of those things that you love to have on your side but when you're going up against it, it's a completely different story. On another of our longer drives, josh proposed that we play a game of "name bands that start with the letter __". Josh's presented his suggestion by opening with "i will start of by saying that i will definitely win this game". To his ego's peril, he did end up winning the game.

After two days off we were very eager to hit the stage again at Calgary's Broken City. As you may remember our first Calgary show left something to be desired. Broken City definitely made up in all areas that Stetson's was lacking. We managed to bring down a good amount of people for the show, and we played like we didn't care what people thought or felt. I was pretty stoked to have Shane's sister Allison join me for East of Eden. I'd like to send a big thank you to Allison Lynch, as it was truly a pleasure to have her beautiful vocals on that song live. I would also like to send a big thank you to the whole Lynch family who housed and fed us for a good few days, the food was delicious and i can't wait to hear that Christmas album Gaby and Frank.

It's great, we have shawna in BC, Allison in alberta, pretty soon we'll have somebody to sing the duet wherever we go. That or we'll just be able to bring somebody on tour with us.
The night was smashing, and if it weren't for the fact that we later had one of the best shows of our lives in Salmon Arm it would have been by far the best show of the tour.

Edmonton Pic's

2007-12-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

We must be at least 5 songs in, Shane isn't wearing a shirt. (Shane's shirt taking off statistics calculated bi-monthly courtesy of Corey Fischer, his best friend and our resident film maker)

After our day of shopping at West Ed, we stop off at our good friends the McAllisters. This is Brandi. I actually married her and her husband Matt off, but that's another story completely. The McAllisters like to watch ultimate fighting (UFC). Me and my musician friends, unfortunately, can't stand watching UFC. Although i did kind of enjoy watching shawn and josh painfully wincing as they witness some brazilian getting the crap kicked out of him. He put himself in the ring, i think that meant he deserved it.

Day 4: The murder Capital of Canada, Edmonton

2007-12-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

For those of you that are perhaps starting to get tired of my negativity, perhaps I should have warned you that these three consecutive shows would be kind of the low point of the tour. Actually, no. There were lower points, and stetson’s and edmonton both had great parts about them too.

We had booked a billiard hall to play in Edmonton, and because the Edmonton band that had agreed to play hadn’t responded to our emails in over a week, we invited Alpha Baby to come up to Edmonton with us, which was once again awesome. Our invite, led to them inviting us to Regina on the following night. There was the half hour or so of us being ecstatic about flying by the seat of our pants, but that was later crushed by the fact that we couldn’t go over a certain amount of miles on our rental van, and the fact that the gig was a fundraiser and therefore a massive money losing venture. Sorry regina, we promise to be less practical about our decisions next time.

A cloud was unfortunately cast over Edmonton shortly after we played. I remembered hearing yelling and witnessing the commotion of 5 or 6 guys running towards the door of the establishment. A friend of mine told me that it was a fight, and this was quite common in Edmonton, the murder capital of Canada. Alpha Baby and Shawn allerted me lately that during the fight someone had pulled out a knife, and after chasing eachother around our parked van somebody got stabbed in the abdomen. I heard the story shortly after seeing the trail of blood that led from the front doors into the bathroom of billiard hall. As far as I know the victim survived, so not all was lost. Definitely, however, not a highlight of our trip.

Our next two days were days off, so led by shawn, our former edmontonian, we headed to West Edmonton mall for a day of leisure, and shopping(?) I cut the latter down to a minimum as I can’t really stand shopping.

dom

Day 3: Calgary (tpb vs. Dilbert and his motorcycle gang)

2007-11-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

We awoke at the marshall's house an hour later than we had planned. this didn't mean much to us at the time, but it will later in the story. i, personally, awoke satisfied that i had been made D.D. the night before.

about 20 minutes after we finished our set, shawn announced that we were doing another round of jaeger shots, and because i had been left out of the first round or two, it was just easier for me to continue NOT drinking. a disappointment at first, but i wasn't really in the mood for debauchery. or girl chasing for that matter. so i left it up to them. a couple hours later we had somehow been led, (this must have been the girl chasing) to the bar next door that was allegedely closed, but for some reason didn't stop us from entering and was still serving my comrades drinks. after we sat around and waited for the two no show's (the waitresses from the commodore) i finally convinced shawn and shane to get some late night eats with me.

really it wasn't a tough time convincing them to go and get food. with both of them, late night treats is almost always a must have. upon arriving at denny's (the only establishment in the interiour other than tim horton's that is open all night) shawn demanded that we order him the biggest thing on the menu. this is quite common. shawn's eyes tend to be a bit bigger than his stomach. he'll plow through most of his meal, and then upon admitting defeat, as he did on this occasion, he'll sprawl out on the table and show no noticeable sign of life but a single finger that will still attempt to answer your questions. i'll leave you to decide on which finger that is.

Shane on the other hand, manages to remain as energized as he was at the beginning of the night. perhaps this is why we call him stallone (or sly). no that actually has nothing to do with it.

getting home at 4, i laugh at the likelyhood of us actually leaving by noon as we had planned. i awake to the sound of eggs on the frying pan coffee being brewed and i am so glad to remember that i still have to go for my sauna. needless to say, we took our time with leaving kamloops and didn't get on the road til about 1:30.

now i'd done this once before, and that was forgiveable cuz we weren't actually leaving the province. but to forget about the time change when we were on our way to calgary is just ridiculous. we were lucky for two reasons, sly drives like an animal and the venue didn't actually need us there for a sound check. so us rolling in at a quarter after nine was actually just fine.

we were psyched to meet up with our boys from Alpha Baby (www.myspace.com/alphababy), a kelowna band that we had already shared the stage with twice in the summer. great guys who play great music, so simple but remarkably hard to find. alpha baby was slotted to play first with us going on second and some calgary band going on third.

now normally i'd give a shout out to all the bands. but this band made a good run at trying to ruin our night. now to set the scene the venue was sketch. one of those hotel bars that you could still smoke inside of . there's some kind of acronym for such bars but you'll recognize them by their electronic gambling machines. as i said we were supposed to go on second. josh had booked the show with the promoter, and our set was slotted for between 10 and 11:30. Right after alpha baby rocks out an amazing set, we start setting up and this tall guy who kind of looks like the human representation of the comic character dilbert starts telling us that his band is on next. i'm confident that he is wrong. shortly after josh comes back from a brief meeting with dilbert and the promoter we find out that we are actually on last. turns out dilbo is good friends with the promoter and he can get his way. now i can see where they were coming from. nobody really wants to play closing slot on a weeknight. there's a good chance that everyone will be gone already.

what really annoyed us, though, was that dilly and his boys managed to make sure that most people headed home by playing the most obnoxious plug your ears crap bar rock imaginable. people were standing up and leaving in their first song. the rather nice looking crowd that had gathered on this thursday night basically dwindled down to shane's 20 or so family and friends, and a couple members of shawn's extended family. now i understand that music isn't exactly easy. i at no point claim to know what i'm doing. but when you have no consideration for your audience whatsoever, stay in your jam space and flex your muscles. it was like dilbert and his dudes were sitting around revving their harley's and trucks in a parking lot, and "no, sorry boys, we weren't impressed".

when we finally hit the stage at 1, shane regained my strength and positivity as he would do on many occasions on this trip by giving me one of his pep talks and assuring me that this would be a nice concert for family and friends, which it definitely was. the audience welcomed us by gathering around the stage and singing along to a lot of our songs, most notably 'intimate mistake'. highlight of the night was probably francis joining us on stage and providing the egg shaker for our newest song 7 Days.

we crashed late that night at a friends house in calgary, and could sleep in late cuz edmonton was only a couple hours away.

dom

Back to the Present for a second

2007-11-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

Fear not, i will return to the telling of our BC Alberta Tour Tale briefly. We just played the festival of Guns festival here in town and i felt like posting a few things. Mostly the pictures that our photographer and former roommate Erin Pasternak took.
As for the festival, i've never heard so many people be confused by a name. Plus a lot of people who really didn't like the inclusions of 'guns' in the title. And where the heck was Charlton Heston? i think nerve magazine should really re-think this festival if they want to have any credibility whatsoever.
My sarcasms aside, the show was small and intimate, and definitely a good time. Thank you to all of you who came out and supported. I made a comment that may have seemed like a slam on Elton John, and it was. I appologize, i do like EJ it's just that i was raised to dislike him and think all of his songs sound the same. Now that i've grown up, i've learned that i was wrong. i appologize.

dom

Day 2: Kamloops

2007-11-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

we were pretty happy about not having a huge commute from Kelowna to Kamloops on Wednesday. After having breakfast we finally gave our good friend Ara at the River, the radio station in Kamloops, a phone call. The last time we had been through, Ara had done an interview over the phone with me to plug our show. I remember being quite amused as we'd talked for about a minute before we 'started' the interview, at which point Ara turned on his radio voice which caught me quite off guard. I've called friends at their office jobs before and it's always quite amusing as their professional voice always sounds so serious or mature compared to their everyday voice. Radio personalities, however, are in a whole new ballpark. His voice was alive. Or comparative to Russel from still water's guitar sound; incendiary.

Since we were only a couple of hours away from kamloops and we could make it there with time to spare, ara suggested that we do one of our songs acoustic on the air. After the interview and song Ara's final comment was "How bout you give a good shout out to your boys!" Now my instincts told me to either yell out enthusiastically "Yeah boys! woo hoo", or wait for the rest of the band to do the same. I instead froze up and had to ask him what exactly he meant. Apparently this was my cue to introduce the rest of the band, which i did immediately after he clarified. the boys all laughed at me for my cluelessness, though shane did admit that he was also confused by the question.

later as our opening band played we overcame the ever returning anxiety of whether people will come or not. a good amount of people were piling into the commodore, (remember this is kamloops, not vancouver) and we were quite optimistic. that optimism, however was unfortunately somewhat squandered when we had to set up our stage. i have described the stage we played that night as something you might see in a safety manual, a diagram of a work environment in which there are several obvious hazards that you are supposed to label.

our diagram would have included a stage that was sliding all over the floor leaving a huge gap to fall into in the middle of the stage, cords hanging from the wall, leading to the sound man who was behind us and thus, couldn't hear his mix at all. shawn's favourite element that from where he was standing his bass was perfectly close-lining anyone on their way to the bathroom, or running orders to and from the kitchen. to top it off there wasn't enough space on the stage, so setting up felt kind of like loading the van on the first day again.

i had high hopes for kamloops that were somewhat let down by several external factors. i guess i realized for the hundredth time that when my hopes are too high i usually end up disappointed, and also that larger crowds don't always guarantee more enjoyable situations. we were once again battling against conversation, and it didn't help that we were playing in an echo chamber built out of tin.

i'm being far too honest with you again, though i must say that kamloops did give us one of our biggest highlights and that was hanging out with cathi and trevor marshall again, our good friends from our last trip. (i believe this is a... 'shout out'?..) their hospitality and good spirits were rejuvenating, as was their sauna. we'll see them again soon i hope.

dom

Tour Beginnings: Kelowna

2007-10-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

October 16th we headed to our jam space in gas town to load the van and head to our first gig in kelowna. we don't have the funds yet to buy our own van so we have been borrowing from our friend matt mc'd of the local act shukov, or renting for shows when we have to. for our last tour it was quite the task finding a van that could fit every one and everything that was still economically feasible. we ended up renting a mini van and using my sisters car. for this tour we definitely had to cut down on gas prices, we also needed all four of us inside one van bonding and getting used to each others' smell and/or idiosyncrasies .

my good friend Zach from lotus child had given me a tip that we could rent a certain "grand caravan" that could fit all of our gear in it, as he and his boys had done a similar tour in the same vehicle. feeling over confident about his suggestion I rented said 'grand caravan' and tried our luck. needless to say after about 20 minutes of shifting things around and looking at about 25 cubic feet of equipment and about 15 cubic feet of space, we started pitching things we didn't need.
pedal board, gone, 2nd lap top, chucked, josh and shawn could share. Back up bass, left behind. Shawn's suggested that we share his duffel bag for our clothes as that would cut 3 bags down into 1. along with half of my shirts, i decided to toss my school books as well.
It took us about half an hour to design a configuration that would fit all of our essential gear and merchandise. it wasn't comfortable but it worked. we had mountains of stuff in between the left and right hand side of the vehicle which on a rough corner would shift and fall on the person who was sleeping. but again, just more fun to be had.

we arrived in kelowna with time to spare. we were playing a good venue downtown, close to the water called doc willoughby's. i came to the realization at this first venue that as a touring musician you are paid in about 4 different currencies. one is of course the door money, which from my experience they always seem the most reluctant to give you. the other three are accomodation, which any touring artist normally needs unless they have friends in the area, and lastly food and beer. beer is great, though i kind of hate how they've established it as a method of payment. for one, and i know this sounds a bit whiny, i hate how it perpetuates the stereotype that we're all here to play a show get drunk and party etc. if anything, the painted birds are horrible at this. ok that was an outright lie, but there will never be any mud shark stories about us, and i'm not too interested in snorting cocaine off of strippers as every one assumes.
after about four shows i don't want any beer, i'd rather not even be in a bar, and we'd rather just take some money instead, but, alas they won't give us that.

kelowna managed to do a 360 from our last experiences there this summer. kelowna was packed last time, so much so that i had friends who were waiting to get in who missed the whole show because the bar was at capacity. you'd think this would be great, but i felt the show was lost in confusion. i think we successfully connected with 2 or 3 people, one of which was some guy who told us he wanted to put our music on his "ski-do" video, and wanted a free CD because of it. a good ploy i felt. a packed house is close to always great, but on this occasion we were battling with a crowd who was way louder than we were. mcnorton, however, did tell me after the show that he thought it was our best show ever, so maybe i had just missed something.

kelowna this time was a practically empty room. (what could we expect for a tuesday night in the fall?) by the time we started the crowd had filled out to about 30 or 40 people, and they were all ears. from start to finish we played our set to a virtually silent audience. they greeted the end of our set with cheers for an encore, and a last call bell, that really confused me as it was still before midnight. the bar tender, however, assured me he was just trying to make more noise.

we loaded out and went to our hotel across the street. perhaps one of my favourite shows of the tour, mainly because i was so surprised at how good it went. the next morning we were off to kamloops, where more adventure awaited us...

a sort of homecoming

2007-09-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

Whoa. two months. where on earth does the time go. We've been busy, and we've also been relaxing. August was home to one of the most intense tours known to man. 6 shows in three days. A short little jaunt up to the okanagan with tonnes of ping ponging from salmon arm to kamloops, to salmon arm, to kelowna to salmon arm, you get the picture.

The whole experience was of course tiring, but exhilarating. Each venue offering a completely new environment and space to explore. From a wide open parking lots, to a crowded coffee shop like wine bar, to restaurants, to (and this was definitely the highlight) playing our own stage at the salmon arm roots and blues festival. each venue seemed to have it's new set of rules, the do's and dont's so to speak. we were lucky enough to have our good friend Shawna of Adaline ( http://www.myspace.com/adalinesmusic ) in kelowna to perform East of Eden as it was originally intended, and while i swear the song would have killed on any other night the bar scene in kelowna didn't really seem into simply listening. their loss i guess.

My personal highlight was kamloops which was a gong show in the best way possible. as we entered the coffee shop slash wine bar i knew that something had to change. i figured it was the set list, as it just seemed like we'd be far too loud for this tiny little space. receiving resistance from my compadres i resigned to leave things the way they were. 3 songs in, however, i noticed an elderly lady sitting right in front of the speakers with her elbows way above her head, her hands doing everything they could do to stop the sound from coming into her ears, and a painful grimace on her face. the lady was chris', (our opening act http://www.soundclick.com/chrisbrock) grandmother. i decided we had to insert some of our more mellow tunes, and from then on in the night was great.

a big thank you for all that came out. we're finalizing a tour as i write this to return to the okanagan and continue on into alberta in mid october. check our myspace for more updates.

dom

scary with a dash of excitement

2007-07-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

only 4 days remain before we officially release our debut album. until now we've leaked a few copies here and there to friends, and though i'm always nervous about how people will react to our work, this week seems to hold something greater.
i sat down with shawn the other day and we talked about how the critics would react to the album. i've developed a mentality that i hope will protect myself from any sort of emotional injury, though i know that i'll read every little bit and analyze until i'm blue in the face. the way i look at it, the worst thing to happen would be if they give it a passing grade like a 3 out of 5. Of course we're going to be happy with a 5 out of 5 and a 4 out of 5 isn't a 5 out of 5 but at least it ain't a 3. (now that i've said this i will knock on wood and wait patiently for the 3)

why do i hate the number 3? it's not the number, and it isn't mediocrity even. the way i look at it, if they hate it and give it a 1 or a 2 at least the album evoked a response. 3 or a just passing grade seems too indifferent to me. it's like when you hear someone complaining about how much they hate something. chances are you'll hear them talk about it a few times over and after a while you'll start to wonder if the person is in denial and actually liked it... a lot.

i may have just listened too well when my sister explained to me a long time ago that the true opposite of love wasn't hate but indifference. hate and love seem to be sitting right next to one another in the spectrum of emotions. with the right nudge you can quickly turn one into the other. furthermore, if somebody hates it there has got to be somebody out there who loves it. it's science.

besides they're reaction to the music, even if it does receive a positive response will we be able to pull it off live? with integrity? and will people come? these my friends are the doubts of a rookie recording artist days before his first official release.

at the same time, things have never been better. we're on a great bill this thursday and it seems like people are excited to come. we're heading home to Salmon Arm for the Roots and Blues festival which should be a great time, not only playing at a great festival but seeing a lot of old faces. i remember when i got back from Germany i bought tickets mainly to walk the fair grounds and see what old friends i could run into. it's a small town like that. we'll be rushed this time with shows every day in neighboring towns so it'll be brief but we'll make it good.

so yeah, things are a little bit scary right now, with a strong dash of excitement, but i guess those things are supposed to go hand in hand.

dom

How's about you drink 6 cases o' me, Joni?

2007-06-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

"Phoebe wanted me to go out, but I said 'These guys just finished their CD, they really want it tonight, and I'm not going to deny them that!'"

One of the many, many reasons I love our design team. They get it.

Aren understands that to the concierge at the front desk of his building, this is just a pile of 6 cardboard boxes, but to us, this is two years of diligence, panic, excitement, apprehension, euphoria - the utmost of emotion and intimacy. This is how Seth Rogan felt watching the baby crown in "knocked up" (which, I'm sure, was quite a bit different from how I felt watching that particular scene in the movie = how to make one of the most delicious leading ladies in hollywood lose all sex appeal in one shot...ok she lost it for like two minutes, but let's get back to the point).

There's something to be said for having music in a tangible form. I guess this is why I spend all day pushing paper in a record store. I really just don't get iTunes, Limewire and the like. Granted this is the future, and like my Grandma embracing the internet, I'm sure I'll fall in line eventually, but I'll miss being able to sit on the carpet in front of my speakers, flipping through the pages of some random OLP album and wondering if Dom will ever be able to pull off the "chicken" rock pose as well as Raine Maida. I'll miss knowing that Siamese Dream sounds like three different albums if you play it on CD, cassette and vinyl. Most of all, I regret knowing that at some point in the future, no one will care that our CD features the most beautiful artwork I could have imagined, or that it has three different covers (on cardstock), or that I won't get to spend mountainous amounts of time scheming and planning (and learning) with Phoebe & Aren...phone calls, e-mails, and many a meeting of beer and tasty delights at the Irish Heather or the Six Acres (you should all go here; the beer list is monumental).

Either way, our album is pressed, signed, sealed, delivered. I'm excited as hell to share it with you all. I can't wait to hear which tracks win out the "this one's my favourite" race, and which ones get utterly rejected.

Many, many thanks to Phoebe & Aren (Glasfurd & Walker), who took soooo much time out of their crazy busy schedule (designing for real clients, like MTV) and without whom this process would have broken me.

Cheers.

~S

certain agitators...

2007-06-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

so i'm about to delve into something that is no business of mine, predominantly because it is political and what do i know about politics?
sitting on the bus yesterday i picked up one of those free disposable mini newspapers you can find anywhere these days, except, perhaps, inside garbage cans.
after finding out that paris hilton is once again in prison (or out of prison, i forget), i flipped to this article on Prince Harry. Harry, the bad boy and my favourite royal family member, had allegedly been out partying on the same night that the 150th british soldier had been killed in Iraq.
I always hear these totals. And frankly, besides them only ever being totals of Western soldiers killed, they always sound surprisingly low. And yet somehow, Bush, or our local newscaster or whoever is reporting such totals, is always overcome with such shock and dismay.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not in support of more American or British soldiers dying in Iraq, or Canadian soldiers dying in Afghanistan, or anyone dying for that matter. But why haven't I heard totals of Iraqi soldiers or civilians killed? My gut told me, the totals would be a lot greater, and after reading the BBC article below, my gut was right.
A research team from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated last fall that Iraqi death totals were in the neighborhood of 655 000. It is just an estimate, but at least the school bothered to take notice of how the Iraqi's were doing. And, furthermore, if they are drastically wrong, oh let's say they accidentally doubled the totals. There's still over 275 000
Iraqi deaths compared to... wait for it... 3500 American deaths, and let's not forget 150 Brits.

It's kind of like we're complaining to the kid who's failing math for the 3rd time that the teacher screwed us over and gave us a B+ instead of an A! 85%, looks like little Georgey won't be getting the super soaker 7000 from mommy after all. better luck next time kid.

link pasted below
dom

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6040054.stm

re-writing

2007-06-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

i helped a friend read through the first draft of his movie script with a couple of readers the other evening. half way through we started giving him some compliments, to which he said "thanks guys, and seriously if this script sucks, tell me because i'd kind of like to make a career out of this, so if its bad please tell me".

hearing this and reading on, i was reminded of something my old professor Stephen Heal once said in a scriptwriting class. he said, "there is only one thing that separates good writers from great writers. great writers are good re-writers". of course, Mr. Heal had said this when all the students in his class, including myself, had failed to do any rewriting on our scripts as he had assigned. which perhaps made his lesson have even more impact.

i think that's the thing with this business of art. or any kind of vision that we want to reify. my friend had the foundation for something great, the real question was if he had the perserverance to hammer and chisel and fix this thing until he was blue in the face, and this thing was perfect. it gives us simple people hope. we don't need to be mozarts, who's manuscripts were allegedely flawless, perfect first drafts. we just have to have the determination and the patience to work on it until it's perfect.

it also reminds me of one of the songs on the album, which i will in no way claim to be perfect.
in the middle of shawn' and i's writing period two autumn's ago, shawn, when i was away, decided to rank our first 15 songs. this was upseting to me cuz how on earth could i compare my, or our, babies in such a way. needless to say i eventually came to terms with it, and made my own ranking, which i didn't like but i could deal with. at the bottom of both of our lists was a song, that we pulled out of the rubble, rebuilt and improved enough to make it on the album.

so, in a way i'm glad he made the list. the song may have just fallen by the wayside if we wouldn't have admitted to it needing all the work.

anyhoo, go back to your lives

d

The Suit

2007-06-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

I work at a wine store, which deals mostly with fine wines, but also supplies the more “economical” hooch (dirt cheap wine) and coolers. We in the industry, or my colleagues Andrew St. Cool, Jerry and I label said drinks as “loser juice”. The reason for this being that loser juice is largely bought out by the people who come in once, twice or even five times a day to buy their daily get drunk treat. The spectrum of loser juicers is pretty broad. At the bottom of this spectrum you will find ones that stand outside our door pan handling until they accrue the 2 dollars they need to buy a single cooler and then repeat. Other ones you would guess have stopped eating completely to fill their bodies with whatever nutrients you would find in an 8 dollar bottle of Almond cream sherry.

As icky as some of these patrons get, on Wednesday a man with a suit and an American Express came in and out grossed all of them. It was a slow hour so when he came in he was alone and under the magnifying glass of St. Cool and myself.

Sweating like a pig in his finely cut suit, he taps me on the shoulder.

Suit: Hey buddy, I need you to get me a FABULOUS wine

Me: Ok, how much are you looking to spend.

Suit: Doesn’t matter I need it to be fabulous.

enter St. Cool

St. Cool: How fabulous do you want it?

Suit: Honestly?... I want her in bed.

St. Cool: Oh so you’ll need high alcohol then.

Suit: Will that work?

St. Cool: oh yeah, should do the trick. So how much do you want to spend?

People often give us really evasive answers to this question, but really it saves us a lot of time. We can get you a good bottle of wine for $13, and we can get you a great one for $25… or $400. The options are endless. The man in the suit chooses to beat around the bush

Suit: Look don’t dog me, but don’t puppy me either.

(What on earth does this mean? please i need to know)

St. Cool: I’ve always been more of a cat person, so you’re gonna have to be a bit more concrete.

(The final Verdict!!)

Suit: Like 28 or 30 bucks.

I wish I had one of those shocked as heck emoticon faces. Not only was this sleaze bag trying to coaxe some woman into bed with his wallet, but he wasn’t even even spending the standard sleaze bag amount, which is $50 dollars for you sleaze bags in training. Cmon!

So St. Cool runs and picks him out a french syrah in his price range, keeping in mind that he wants a wine of at 14 or 15% alcohol and starts to ring him up. The icing on the cake is that when Suit tries to pay with his American Express, we have to tell him that we only accept mastercard or visa. To this he says

Suit: Oh I gave all my credit cards to let her to go shopping with.

The suit then leaves the store sans bottle of high alcohol wine. Hopefully his mastercard, visa’s 3 thousand dollar shopping trip were enough to get him somewhere. Deep down I hope it was the curb.

Dom

Aquafina vs. Dasani (title bout)

2007-05-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

The thing about the Vancity music scene, more than any other city I've lived in, is that every show feels like a gamble. It's never really possible to determine if all of the friends and friends-of-friends-of-friends you invite to your performances are willing to give up the violent appeal of the Granville St. nightclub to come see music at it's source. Seeing a band live is like drinking from a glacial river, whereas the majority of people in the city seem intent on their filtered & purified bottled water (yes, by night I'm a poet). Which I am sure as hell not knocking (did I mention that we just finished a record to rival Evian?). So I've decided that the obvious way to combat this is to do a show at one of these aforemention Granville nightclubs, create a web of confusion in which you include options A(concert) and B (nightclub), and mix them up with the ridiculously familiar (S of S, anyone?) and such a potent kick (donkeys) that potential attendees are powerless to resist.

We played the Plaza last week to the most receptive crowd that we've had, strong proof that everything I wrote before this is utter, utter bullshit. We didn't play every song perfectly (as I always hope we'll do), but we played most of them pretty well. Josh didn't fall over, although his recovery from the one fall was the most rock'n'roll moment I've ever experienced. There were a mountain of our fans there, and a mountain of potential converts. Even considering that we had nothing in common with the other act, apart from possession of guitars, I think we had a fairly good success rate in that area. Either that or Josh brought 100 new friends that felt obligated to tell me they loved the set. (as we all know, this is entirely possible. I swear he breeds people like chia pets). Highlight of the night: a handfull of fans in the front rows singing with us for "intimate mistake". Probably doesn't hurt that most of them just did the same on our record.

By the way, the album is mixed, mastered and EPIC! And I'm usually a humble guy. We've decided to be horribly selfish and keep it to ourselves for the time being, but, as is always the case, I'm sure most of you will come into contact with it soon enough. We'll keep you posted on the various happenings, album-wise.

And thanks to Dan for coming to the show, standing front¢er and belting along to songs he's never heard. This man IS character.

~S

Honey and lemon

2007-04-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

so it's been a while. i appologize.

does anybody else ever have a letter or email to write that you put off, and the more time you put it off the more substantial you feel the letter or email has to be?
my brother did this to us for 3 or 4 years once. he called up one day and admitted that he'd been there by the phone listening to us leave messages on his answering machine, but was too embarrassed to pick up the phone.

i was suffering the same thing, but i figure its better to just jot a couple things down than write you a novel size account of what we've been up to.
we're nearly done. i have one day left of lead vocals to do, and then we're on to final overdubs and background vocals.
i've developed a serious addiction to hot water with honey and lemon. someone told me last year that it was good for the throat. i'd somehow blown my voice out before our first gig and needed a quick remedy. it seemed to work pretty well, so when dr. boss and i were talking about how we were going to knock off so many vocals in so few days, the answer was honey and lemon in hot water.
actually it was honey and lemon tea, but i the fool, knowing not to buy caffeinated tea, as caffeine dehydrates you, went across the street and purchased the first herbal tea i saw. sleepy time.
the fellows were quite amused. we unfortunately don't need any snoring takes on this record. maybe on the sophmore edition.

Dr. Boss is totally beating me up in there and i'm loving every moment of it. He somehow manages to rule with the iron fist, but not do it in such an abrasive way as my father used to.
Reminds me a lot of one of my first great teachers, mr. Stephen Heal, who sadly passed away last month. Heal knew how to pull the full extent of one's gifts out of them. For this and so much more i will greatly miss him.

It's nice how at key times, I can be reminded of such greatness, and Boss definitely does that.

We're nearing the end. Our baby is nearly born.

dom

Back to the Real World

2007-04-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

I swear the world stops when we're in here.
It doesn't, I just stop really interacting with it.
There are no windows and the only time we leave is to get sandwiches at the market across the road.
Needless to say it's a shock when we find out that it's still light outside or it's already dark.
And there's no internet and no landline phone (which there never seems to be anymore, i'm against cell phones by the way).
I go home at night for 2 hours before I pass out, to realize that my room is still a mess and I still have nothing in the fridge to eat. In brief stints, I love this.

We've just finished our first four days of recording, straight through easter weekend. Guitars, guitars and more guitars. Everything is sounding amazing. The first time i did this when i was 16 with shawn in a crappy little studio in Salmon Arm, (i say crappy cuz of the engineer and the quality of the equipment, but honestly it was much larger than the one we are in now) we had all these visions for how it would sound, and the recordings fell short time and time again. This time, the visions have only gotten bigger and our producer Mr. Cole or Dr. Boss, manages to blow us away and exceed our expectations time and time again.

Surrounded by the "O" of amps you can see in the picture below, Dr. Boss can do anything, i repeat everything. And that's not mentioning his ability to time and time again bring out a new toy out of his seemingly endless closet of tricks and contraptions.

I'm quite interested to see what will make the album. The list of songs we are recording is basically split into two breeds of songs. Both sides of the painted birds. There will definitely be some crossover, but it's interesting to see what gets picked in the end.

As a challenge i dare anyone to pick the 10 from the picture below that they think will make the album. and it doesn't matter if you've never heard the songs before. 10 from the list, on our comments board. Winner gets a copy of all the songs that were recorded including the ones that won't make the album.

Dom

Lab Monkey Beginnings

2007-04-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

Mr. Cole is able to give Josh and I the endless options that we desire for guitar sounds.

From the outside in: Lab Monkey Studios. this is where the magic happens.
Shhhh don't telllll.. when josh and i were in portugal 2 years ago we actually joked about naming our band that. shhdon'tell.. it never stuck, but we still laughed about it.

these are what we have to choose from. the song list that is. the empty boxes need to all be filled in before we're done here. we've got work to do.

Recording @ Mushroom Studios

2007-04-05T23:02:00.001-07:00

TPB Mar 31 recording @ Mushroom, originally uploaded by rinlee.

click the photo for more pics from the guys recording at Mushroom Studios, March 31.

Flickr

2007-04-05T23:00:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

badger, badger, mushroom MUSHROOM

2007-04-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

the time just didn't seem to stop flying. we'd already scheduled to track drums and bass at Mushroom studios on March 31 and April 1st for a couple months, and the dates seemed to be flying towards us.
it was totally up and down. one week i'd have the fear, the next week i'd be totally confident. we didn't get in to do pre-production with our drummers until 2 weeks before which made most of us nervous minus our producer Shawn Cole. he assured us that we were in good hands, and after this last weekend i can confirm that he was quite right.

as calming as he was at the time, there was still songs i felt we were going in unprepared for. segments that weren't doing what i wanted them to do. time signatures that weren't coming together. 3 days to go and i have the fear again. great, i'm going in with the fear.

on friday, the day before we went in, i decide that the world is out to get me. i'd just found out that my employers decided to give every one of my colleagues a yearly bonus but me, and a handsome one at that, a professor does basically the same thing and marks me lower than the rest of my group on a group presentation, and my buddy from Shukov, Matt McD, phones me to tell me that the amp that i'd lent him is apparently broken. a fact that was quite new to me.
"you're having bad luck with guitars" he says. Nope i'm having bad luck in general.

It may seem as though these are only three small things, that coincedentally occured all on the same day. And looking back they are. But at times like this, i think a lot of us start thinking about all the stuff that's gone wrong, and all the reasons to feel sorry for ourselves.

The shit storm didn't stop the next morning. the van we'd arranged to borrow needed to be jumped. Berke and i already knew this, so after we'd stopped a couple different cars to jump us and we couldn't even get the engine to turn over we really start feeling like idiots.
"man we're really professionals. we're spending an arm and a leg to record this album at one of the best studios in town and we cant even get our equipment there". I mention how much each of our fathers would be shaking their heads at us right now if they could see us.
"with good reason" shawn agrees.

after renting two van taxis to move everything, we amazingly arrive ahead of schedule. from this point on, though i'd never have believed it, everything was great. i forgot all of my anxiety. drums sounded amazing, bass was tight, and the whole experience was a blast. i'll post photos when i get my hands on them.

if i had to make any more comments that it was awesome, and the days were long, but stressful and tiring in that wonderful kind of way, i would only be letting you in on what songs we are doing and what's happening to them. no i think i'll leave you all waiting. i will say that mushroom's piano is the silkiest object i've ever laid eyes on. All I Can do sounds 10 times better because of it, not to mention Shawn's (from notes from the underground and the doers...yes there were 3 shawns) new drum parts.
And as per mcnorton's demand we took a couple takes of the song for which this blog is named, just in case. twas a nice not to end on.

a thanks to nico and shawn and our publicity people pasternak and fischer.
onward to lab monkey, an equally creative environment, just not quite as prestigious or comfy as mushroom.

dom

this is where thoughts go

2007-04-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

i have to just put something down here so we're not working with a blank slate. then i can write something serious. this is just a throw away. i do this when i write lyrics, other wise i'll just stare at the blank page for hours, and feel liike crap when i finally look at the clock. which happens around every 5 to 7 minutes. there. that's probably enough.
thankyou for your patience,

dom