These guys may have played in the shittiest venue of the whole festival, but that didn’t get them down. The part that sucked was the fact that they had to turn people away at the door because the place only had a capacity of less then 100 people. Anyways the show was bloody hot! It was packed and rough. Some kid decided to “stage dive” off of the sad excuse for a speaker stack (a folding chair with a Peavy from the 80s stacked on top of it). He looked bad ass while doing it, but kicked me in the camera lens. I don’t appreciate that, so the next time he went to do it I pushed him off the speaker and mouthed the words “f*** off!” to him. He was a little bit pissy but I don’t care. The glass I was holding is worth more then his annual income. Ok thats my rant, I’m done now. Every other kid there was safe and had a good time, except maybe the one kid that head butted Hutton in the face. Hutton felt it after the performance so I’m sure the other kid felt it too. Other then that awesome show!
Kingdoms‘ new album Daughters of Atlas hits stores Sept 29 2009 while they are out on tour. Check the Myspace for shows in your area.
Another wet year for Rock The Mill. It didn’t have to be canceled this time! All of the bands played and everyone in attendance had a good time. The Junction played a ton of older songs as a kick back to Rock The Mill 4 years ago when it was still in Mill Race Park across the river. I’m currently wearing their highly fashionable black and blue t shirt.
This year I took care of the the advertising and graphic elements of the festival again. Check out the posters, backstage passes, t-shirt and a few photos of the Junction and Kingdoms. T shirts printed by Adam at Factory Arts.
Took some photos for Tim the other night. He wants to revamp his websites for both The Grub Hub and his 3 partner ice cream stores Indulge. Check out the site here. Grub Hub Indulge The photos aren’t up on it yet since I still have to shoot the shots for the Indulge locations. Anyways check these out.
This past weekend I headed to Downsview Park in Toronto for Edgefest. A good friend of mine recruited me for the job of Assistant Stage Manager and Talent Wrangler for the A Stage. So along with friends Zach and Kayla, I spent the day running around finding bands and making sure they were on the deck when the stage manager, Biscuit, wanted them there. (Thats his real name apparently)
Friday was a beautiful day! The sun was shining, it was warm and everything was dry! Saturday it rained. Not hard rain. Just enough rain to make everything wet and turn every grass surface to mud. A light mist covered everything on the stage decks so amps and keyboards were wrapped in plastic. It sucked. However, even with rain and mud the crowd ate it up! I did manage to get a break around 7 o’clock and go see Moneen on the side stage. They played an extra long set with some Alexisonfire covers. Bad ass.
Metric Drum Kit
The field after the show. Around 1 am.
Best 150 bucks you can spend on boots
This past Sunday I woke up early and headed out with my brother to wash his car. We went out to Valet Car Wash in Cambridge for the best car wash in town. The stalls there have the best options and the best price. $6 for 20 minutes with all the foam brush and tire cleaner you could ever want.
So after a car wash we drove over to Rona to meet up with some guys. It probably looked rather strange with 7 Infiniti G35 sedans and coupes sitting in the parking lot on a Sunday morning, but these guys don’t care. They are part of a club that they take quite seriously. They all belong to an online forum called G35Driver.com and guess what? Thats right you guessed it, they all drive G35s. Now to be honest I hadn’t really noticed G35s before my brother bought his, but now I see them everywhere. Its like a clique in high school! G35 drivers will give a little head nod to each other when they see each other in the street. Just a little sign that says “yep we know our cars kick ass”.
At 9:30 am, seven Infiniti G35s pulled out of Rona and headed onto the 401 towards Toronto. We were headed down to a meeting in Newmarket where there would be another 30 or so G35s waiting. It was fun to drive 7 of these cars down the highway together in a line. Some people we passed noticed that there was 7 cars of the same series passing them, they were the ones with the big smiles on their face. It was mostly men that had the smiles. Anyways take a look at the photos and see how cool these cars are. I want one now…
You can check out the other photos here in a flash gallery.
This Sunday the guys from Lifestory: Monologue headed out on tour. I have known these guys a long time now. They were actually the first band to put me on a guest list to take photos of them at a club. I still have the red wrist band with “VIP” written with a sharpie on it from that show.
It was May 15th 2006 at the Ebar in Guelph and I remember it well… (Insert wavy video effect and blur edges of screen to initiate flashback mode) They were opening up for Moneen. I’m not gonna lie, I was there to see Moneen, and my gawd what a show Moneen put on. But thats not what this story is about. Talk about Moneen stuff later. So maybe I “used” Lifestory: Monologue to see a band I liked for free. Can you really blame me? It was sold out! Wouldn’t you take a free pass to a concert for a band you had been dieing to see? Yeah thats right! You would take anything that has the word FREE attached to it! Jeez… Sorry. That was me justifying my actions to make me feel better about the situation.
The Lifestory guys opened up the night as the “local support act” but even at this point they already had a strong following of fans that came to every show. This band wasn’t just part of the Guelph music Scene they were “it”. They were the community that the music scene is all about. They truly wanted everyone to be friends and to enjoy themselves at their shows. (Exit flashback sequence and return screen edge focus)
And thats how it felt at every show I saw them at from then on in.
I just looked up some Lifestory stats on my one archive hard drive :
Total shows I have shot – 8
Total frames taken – 1178
Super Fun Math Time! You can just skip this silly boring crap if you want.
Lets go over what Lifestory: Monologue owes me in wear and tear on my equipment!
Lets say I only used one camera body while shooting that 1178 photos. How about a Canon 20D. Its (apparently) rated for 100,000 shots on the shutter.
The Canon 20D new cost $1399.99 when it came out. Round up to make it an easy $1400.
So each shot on the shutter costs 0.014. Yes thats cents. 1 cent per photo. And you thought digital photos were FREE!
0.014 x 1178 = 16.49
So Lifestory: Monologue has eaten up a whopping 16 bucks worth of my old 20D’s lifespan.
Guys, I accept payment in the forms of cash, food, and high fives.
END MATHY STUFF
So there! I love the guys in Lifestory: Monologue and I would love to be stuck in a van with them for 2 weeks while enjoying the beauty that is Eastern Canada! Maybe they will take me with em next time!
Here are some photos from the Schwaben Club In Kitchener Ontario.
My friend Graham Wright recently confessed that he has no computer skills what so ever. So he asked me to make him up a website that was clean, simple , easy to navigate and easy to update. I think he lied to me though… His recent “songs of the week” sound like they have been done in a pro studio. I was at his house the other day and it turns out he is making these recordings in his room on a Macbook. He has way more computer recording skills than I have.
Check out his blog at www.grahamwright.ca/blog to read funny stories about his travels on the road with Tokyo Police Club, and his recent musical instrument purchases.
You can aldo head over to his site to download his Free EP “Lakes of Alberta” which I think is an amazing collection of idie folk songs.
You can catch Graham and his Tokyo Police Club friends at this years Hillside Festival in Guelph. The Graham Wright Good Times Fun Band however will not be there due to scheduling conflicts.
As a teaser campaign for the Novels project I have made several notebooks with the Novels promo on the front of it. Inside these books will be the press release as well as a DVD with an intro video that Wade Vroom has edited up. These will be mailed out to specific addresses of writers and over all cool people that we want to get the attention of.
