More Canadian Music Week

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Day 2: If you don't have anything nice to say...

Day 3: I finally got to see Bend Sinister at a place called Comfort Zone. I say finally because for over a year I shared a jam space with them while working with Marty Zylstra on various music projects, but of course that means we never were there at the same time, though based on the instrument setup I'd been curious about them from the start. They have a nicely curated modern-but-classic-rock glam-prog sort of sound, and as a keyboard player I am doubly interested in how they use various keyboard sounds in their very high-energy upbeat show. I'll be seeking them out again soon here in Vancouver, from where they also hail!

I think the main thing working against them was the venue they drew in the CMW stage lottery. The sound system there was quite good, I'm not sure how much of it was supplied by CMW - but Comfort Zone, while not quite shit-hole status, had too low a stage and almost no lighting, so any band playing there would have trouble shining, or even being seen. Also I walked by the bar several times while looking for the bar, because it was covered in signage hawking cigarettes, wristbands, glowsticks and other junk, I thought it was a merch booth (no taps??).

After CZ my mate Dan from The Record Room and I went to the Dakota Tavern - which somehow I forgot how much I love - to see a few more acts. I was happy to meet and see The Sumner Brothers, a band fronted by two Vancouver brothers that take turns sounding like Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen. Very laid back set from them, excellent songwriting and a very accomplished, intentional sound with a bit of that American roots twang (paired Strat and Telecasters, lovely.)

My personal highlight, however, was The National Parks from Utah. These guys were FANTASTIC! With keys, fiddle and acoustic guitar in the band the are well-placed in any mixtape alongside Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Of Monsters & Men, etc - but they are no emulators. They have superb arrangements and songwriting, and they have crafted a sound and show that really shines. A five star pick. Look them up.

 

Sadly I probably won't get to see much else of CMW this year as I have to return to Vancouver to play my own shows this weekend. So many of the people I know are jsut getting into town for the week, I think they've been missing out!

Don't fear the REAPER

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(note: I am fully aware that the majority of blog entries on this topic share the same article title)

There is so much to learn about REAPER!  The scrappy DAW alternative that has been slowly building is reputation over the last 10 years is so incredibly modular, customizable and flexible that to go into it without having a goal in mind of how you want it to work for you is almost counter-productive. It's best to bend it to your will, to mould it in the image of the DAW you want it to be, the DAW you'd like to use.

There are plenty of useful (and some not terribly useful) resources but I can't see anything more valuable or educational that Jon Tidey's The Reaper Blog with articles, tutorials and inks to workshops and personalized training - it's the gateway to a community of power users that revel in sharing their expertise. It's worth any price, and secondary to buying yourself a proper REAPER license (which is kinda sorta not totally necessary but HOT DAMN should you ever do it - SUPPORT)  it is wholly deserving of a contribution to the tip jar. Jon was good enough to visit a meetup I attended at the Centre For Digital Media a few weeks ago and do an intro talk to REAPER. He's an excellent sales pitch and makes it all seem very accessible.

And who doesn't like a good acronym? 

REAPER: a Rapid Environment for Audio Production, Engineering, and Recording. 

Heh. Sure.

SoundCloud

York, ON M6C 2N2, Canada
in

I finally moved on an ages-old suggestion by

Threeboy

to jump on

SoundCloud

and do some audio dumping. I've put up some of the back catalogue of musical and aural things I've come up with for various

TrueNuff

projects of the past - I don't think it'll just be final stuff though, I want to throw up some of the bits and pieces, the works-in-progress that make up the vast majority of the things I've actually recorded.

If it weren't for the deadlines of things like the video projects I don't know if I'd ever release anything as final. Perhaps I should rename my personal studio to "Development Hell."

J.Rai's sounds on Soundcloud

Beer Pop/Music

in ,
As I mentioned previous a couple weeks ago while I was in Vancouver visiting I hung with the TrueNuff boys and did some video-ing. While I was there James also showed me the newest addition to the merch store: a Cute little Japanese "safety bottle opener" they labeled as the "Beer Popper." We wanted to shoot some kind of commercial clip for the new item (even though by the time it went live they'd already sold half their stock!) We did land on an idea of something in the vein of Vince "Offer" Shlomi of ShamWow and Slap Chop fame:



What we ended up shooting was an improvised informercial pitch spot in that style. With a little clever editing on the dudes' part it came out this way:



Now one of the best things to ever happen to the Slap Chop brand was a killer video and music remix by the now-much-better-well-known DJ Steve Porter that was known as "Rap Chop"



So as an exercise in what I figured was inevitability, I thought I'd beat out the a) request for me to try doing a remix and b) the other fans that might just do one first anyway, and do my own. I wasn't going to do the auto-tune/vocoder stuff of the other one, I just wanted to edit, beatmatch and slice. While trying to make some drum beats for it though, I realized I was trying to replicate the beat from The Soulsonic Force's "Planet Rock" - so I figured screw it and I just decided to do a Mash-Up, which seems to be all the rage right now anyway (or at least it was, it may be on it's way out yet.) Here it is:



Doing the edit was a lot of fun and I forgot how much fun it was - I hope to find other little things like this to have fun with coming up.

New opportunity, new show, new challenges.

OK, so at least I've got a contributing gig here in Toronto now. A month ago I got into the Musical Director apprenticeship program at Second City. Great news! I also got a regular job to support my entertainer-artist-no income habit. Also great news, right? Well...

My new job required I spend some time out of town for a few weeks - the same few weeks that were the beginning of this great program at Second City. As a result, I was unable to start - but I will be getting involved in the spring when it starts again, meaning I can take some classes, study some shows and hopefully get to play very soon.

In the meantime, work is good and I'm playing a regular gig, the "Carnegie Hall" improv show on Wednesdays at the new Bread and Circus in Kensington Market in Toronto! The new location is at 299 Augusta Ave. and we helped play the grand opening of the place this past Saturday. Our regular show is Wednesdays at 9pm - we'll be on this Wednesday Dec. 10, and then on a hiatus until January - but then every Wednesday in 2009!

The show is a production of "The National Theatre of Canada" and features, nay, stars, Matt Baram, Ron Pederson and Chris Gibbs, with various guests of excellent talent. Shows so far have been terrible fun and hugely hilarious!