No Band For You!

The last couple of months have  been ridiculously busy and stressful and I’ve made some recent changes to make sure I don’t wind up as some fat-ass stressed-out computer guy. First thing, and certainly the toughest, was I went on hiatus from our band. No plans on how long this will be for, or whether it’s permanent or not. I haven’t really had a sit down and heart to heart with my fabulous (and talented!) bandmates. It was a decision that had been brewing for a couple of weeks and I realized at our last rehearsal that my passion just wasn’t in it right now with everything else going on in my life.

It seems like life had become a treadmill that didn’t slow down and shelving my band commitments has helped slow it down. I’m still passionate about music and I want to get back into it, but I need things to simmer down first so I can properly put time into it.

The other big change (for me) is to disconnect from the online world. This weekend I went on a policy of checking email once a day, usually in the evening, and batching up all my email and reading in one timeboxed session. It’s easy to feel like you’re being busy when you’re twittering, facebooking and emailing constantly, but all you do is suck time which should be spent on more important things like chilling with friends or running amuck with my girlfriend.

So if you don’t see me on FB and Twitter or don’t hear back from my email in a timely fashion, that’s why. If something’s super-important and can’t wait (for example: DUDE – Guitar Wolf and Tegan and Sara are joining to form a new band!) then you can always text me.

Speaking of T&S, the new video for Northshore is pretty awesome.

Northshore – Official Tegan and Sara Music Video

Tegan and Sara | MySpace Music Videos

Sadly, there is no Guitar Wolf / Tegan and Sara band that I know of.

Okanagan and Singing in the Rain

Our four day weekend last weekend was fantastic! I wrote a bunch while in Okanagan Falls before we headed on a meandering drive through Osoyoos and down the Hope-Princeton to get home later that evening. I’ve never done the drive all the way down to Osoyoos and we enjoyed it very much, especially with our stop at Oliver Twist Estate Winery. Tasty. Very tasty. I’ve now got a bottle of their Pinot Gris in the kitchen waiting for a tasty pasta meal to be served up.

Vernon was fun too. Sharon got a quick tour and we’ll have to go back to check it out some more. We didn’t even get up to Silver Star to see the gaudy cabins up there. But we did make a trip to the Grey Monk winery for lunch on their patio, which I believe is one of the best in the Okanagan. The wine’s tasty too!

Sharon also got to meet my Mom’s neighbors, who are really cool, and their large dog who has grown up since I last saw him.

He still thinks he’s small enough for your lap!

This past weekend started off with a few beers on Friday night after work. Saturday was a little slow going as a result but I was in good shape by the time we were due to see Theatre Under the Stars production of Singing In the Rain! Excellent show. So much fun! We’re going to have to see more theatre like that. It did threaten to rain on us but it only sprinkled at times.

Sunday I managed to clear up my place after a crazy few months. I’m making some changes so things don’t get so ridiculous for me anymore. More about that in my next post.

Okanagan Falls

Sharon and I are having a picnic lunch on the beach in Okanagan Falls. The only breakfast places were these greasy spoon biker hangouts so we picked up some stuff from the new IGA and found a nice spot in the park on the shore of Skaha Lake. Today we’re going to go down to Osoyoos and then back to Vancouver on the Hope-Princeton with a stop in Manning Park to check it out.

We had a great visit with my Mom in Vernon. I’ll post some details and pictures tonight. Yesterday we took the drive down from Vernon to Pentiction with a stop in Kelowna to checkout the waterfront and then on to Summerland where I showed Sharon my old hometown. A lot has changed in Summerland. There’s more development and areas that were once open along Giant’s Head Mountain for us to explore as kids are now small suburbs. We did stop to take photos at some of the orchards and an old abandoned barn on the back road to Penticton.

In Pentiction we found the Tin Whistle Brewing Company and pulled in to check out the brewery and buy some of their local beers. It’s in a small building that houses all the brewing tanks as well as a corner for their retail store, which consists of a rack of t-shirts and a cooler full of their beers. They only sell the large bottles so we grabbed a handful and ran back to the car before the rain got too fierce.

There’s a canal that flows from Skaha Lake through Pentiction and people raft down it in inflatable dingys during the weekends in the summer. Unfortunately there were several dozen people on the canal when the thunderstorm hit and we saw clumps of people on the shore huddled underneath their dingys as the rain poured on them. They looked like wet cats!

Fortunately the storm didn’t hit Okanagan Falls and we found the last space in a campground called the Sun and Sand which sits on the shore of Skaha Lake. And now we’re up, have finished breakfast, and are going to hit the road.

It has been ridiculously busy

There’s been a bit of a crunch at work so I’ve been doing quite a bit of overtime. Between work, Sharon, the band, and administering the music room in our building, I haven’t had much time for anything else. Most evenings are booked and this morning is a nice clear 3-hour window for me to finally get the Saltspring Island photos online and catch up on blogging.

Saltspring was amazing! Sharon and I chilled right out for 4 days camped just off the water at Ruckle Park (the most beautiful campsite in BC). There was tasty food, much exploring, and a very laid-back pace to our days as we adjusted to “island time.” Met some interesting locals, checked out the market, and spent heaps of time investigating the different parks and beaches.

When I got back I wound up in an 80 hour week at work so island time quickly disappeared. This weekend I’m doing some kayaking with Dave and attending a BBQ in honor of our friend Trevor’s birthday tonight.

My sister made a quick trip west from Winnipeg last weekend and we managed to meet up in Hope for lunch at an excellent little restaurant called Home. Looks like she might be working for an airline company soon so she decided to take a bit of time to do some visiting and let Rayo, her husband from Dubai, explore some of western Canada. He’s a cool guy and I always enjoy spending time chatting with him.

Now I need to get my laundry done and sort out my gear for kayaking tomorrow.

Saltspring Island

In other news, Sharon and I are heading to Saltspring Island to celebrate her birthday, which falls on Monday. We’re not back until Tuesday and I’m expecting an amazing weekend of sun and a slow island pace.

So what’s been happening the last couple of weeks? Well… last weekend was  a whirlwind of action! There were gypsy bands at the Anza Club and $3.50 beers. First thing Sunday morning I woke up at Dave’s place and within 15 minutes we were on the road to Squamish where we enjoyed some fine grilled cheese sandwiches courtesy of Grilled Fromage, the “cheesiest place on earth.” It’s a nice hipster joint with tasty food and cheesy album covers (Tom Jones and Slim Whitman were a couple of my favorites) decorating the place. There are a few prominently-placed pictures of David Hasselhoff too.

After loading up on grilled cheese, we took Dave’s truck up into a forestry road past Squamish and got to chill out in the outdoors for a bit. Then it was our friend Kris’s BBQ for his birthday and finally into bed after a great weekend.

Next weekend is Kimli’s birthday and the “no pants” party that she has planned. I will be pressing my sexiest manties for the occasion.

The 100 Best Bands You’ve Never Heard Of

I remember an interview with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore where he talked about putting together a list of the 100 best band’s nobody’s ever heard of. I can’t seem to track down the article, sadly, but that quote has always stuck with me. In my time living in Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver I’ve discovered that every city has a stack of talented bands that never get heard of outside of a few friends and local music enthusiasts. I have a small stack of albums that few people have listened to, but I think have some of the greatest songs ever recorded on them.

One of my more recent finds was a band called Ask Alice. They were active in California a couple of years ago, put out an independently-financed album, and have since disappeared. I still throw that album on so I can hear 3 of the hardest charging punk songs I’ve been exposed to. Every time I listen I’m seized with the urge to put an ad on Craigslist, “drummer wanting to start loud angry punk band that makes people wet their pants in fear and awe whenever we play.”

Sadly, Ask Alice’s myspace page has disappeared and I don’t see twitter updates from them anymore. Hopefully they put together a new punk band that’s as good as the old one.

Domestic Bliss

There’s been a flu rampaging through our group of friends and I finally got hammered with it last week. Our band’s performance at Shan’s birthday was abbreviated since both Shan and Reilly were still sick. It was kinda nice to do a short 3-song set and both Shan and Reilly sounded great! We got a recording that we’ll put online when we get some time to mix it down. Keep an eye on the My Friend Lisa blog if you want to hear about it first: myfriendlisa.com/blog.

So this weekend I took it easy. Spent loads of time chilling out with Sharon and cooking a small mountain of food. Now I’ve got a freezer full of lasagna, pizza, muffins, and pita bread. Oh, and chocolate cake too!

Saturday night Sharon and I saw the John Butler Trio at the Commodore. Great show! Three incredibly talented musicians who play a diverse range of music. Imagine Ben Harper but a little more worldly. The drummer was one of the most talented I’ve seen and even had a steel drum to add melody to a couple of songs.

I’ve never been one to embrace domesticity but this weekend I wallowed in domestic bliss and loved it!

Frightened Rabbit

Saw Frightened Rabbit tonight. They rocked! Whole bunch of people I knew showed up too and we all got to hang out and chat.

Frightened Rabbit are an indie band from Scotland and while I don’t listen to their recorded stuff too much (it’s kinda mellow) I like seeing them turn it up at their live shows. So good!

In other news I’ve been thinking a lot about financial planning lately. There’s a site at getrichslowly.org that I read often. Tonight I stumbled across an article which I found best summarizes my idea of retirement: An Interview with the Millionaire Next Door. I’ve been making lifestyle changes, slowly, over the past few months to help get me there and I’m excited about my push for financial freedom.

Northern Voice

Today was Northern Voice day! I blearily stumbled into UBC in time for the opening keynote by Chris Messina. He had some interesting things to say about accessibility to the web and the issues surrounding privacy and accessibility.

The first session featured a couple of journalists talking about how they use social media in their work now. Really interesting session. I didn’t realize that they used twitter in the newsroom to pick up on developing stories although it makes sense. They had a good story about following up on a shooting by digging through the shootee’s Facebook page and finding out that he had all these biker gang connections. They even got in touch with some of the guy’s Facebook friends for interviews and pulled pieces of the story out of them.

This afternoon was a batch of sessions that were more Q&A about social media and how it was affecting different industries. Knitting, for instance, has exploded since everyone’s been able to connect online and we got the perspectives of three people who’ve made careers in the knitting world because of it. Right now I’m in a room where four artists are explaining how they put their material out and market it through social media.

On a side note I’ve been finding it strange to be back in a school. Up until a couple of years ago I used to make it a point to be constantly taking courses at night to learn fun things like accounting (yes, you read correctly, I enjoy accounting). In the last couple of years I’ve found I’m more inclined to read a book and get my hands dirty instead of following a formal course structure. Things are more interesting to me that way and I find I get more out of actually doing instead of reading about doing. Being back in a school reinforced that I’m not really a “school” person anymore since I don’t get the same value out of it as I do just jumping into something.

Tonight we’re going to hook up at a friend’s place for after-NV beers and Thai food. Then I’ve got to hop by Matt’s place for his housewarming. I’ll be curious to see his place, especially since it’s just a few blocks from where Sharon lives.

Catherine MacLellan and the Olympic Symphonium

Just returned from seeing two great bands, Catherine MacLellan from PEI and the Olympic Symphonium from Fredericton. It was almost more of a combined show since both bands played with each other for most of the evening. Catherine’s coming back to the Folk Fest which I’m going to with Sharon and I’m excited to see Catherine play again. I remembered her last song from her set at the Atlantic House and it was one of my favorites.

The headliner was pretty bad though. They were talented, but the singer was some dude who was dressed up like a fancy lad from the 30′s and when they began the first song he broke out this ear-splitting yodel! Good thing there weren’t any dogs in the venue or they would have been howling. So we fled after two songs.

Otherwise it’s been a busy night. Monday our band rehearsed and Reilly and Shan put together a MGMT cover. Sounds good. I’ve got some ideas from drums but I’m not yet talented enough to pull them off. Need more practice!

Tuesday was the ABC meeting for our Amenities Building that’s part of our complex. Since I’m administering the music studios I’m involved in these meetings. I also took on the role of secretary, not only because I look hot in a skirt, but it’s good to help keep the minutes organized. Organization is what I do best these days. After I returned from the meeting and writing everything up I met Dave for a beer at the Alibi Room. The Alibi Room is the best pub in Vancouver because they bring in an ever-changing selection of esoteric beers from BC. Dave discovered they had another specialty brew list of beers brought in from other countries and so he asked for it. The waitress dropped a notepad off with several handwritten pages of beers from all over the world! We went for a Scotish beer that had been aged in oak whisky barrels. You could smell and taste the scotch in the beer and it was one of he best beers I’ve ever tasted.

Wednesday I hooked up with one of my co-workers, a former co-worker, and their girlfriends for dinner at a fancy-pants place in Yaletown called Lupo. Delicious Italian food and amazing desserts. Totally recommended if you want a tasty night out.

Last night Sharon and I went to the Hollywood Theatre to see Crazy Heart, the story of a washed up country singer who’s an alcoholic touring whatever bowling alley or pub will have him play. Fabulous film! Very well done. I won’t say much about it other than it’s well worth seeing.

And then tonight: 2 great bands and one terrible one. But a great time was had even if I did have to hear that the Canucks got pushed within one game of elimination with a 7-4 defeat at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks, who put Vancouver out of the playoffs last year.

Tomorrow is the Northern Voice social media conference over at UBC. Should be fun! I enjoyed last year quite a bit. Then it’s our friend Matt’s housewarming.

Sunday I need to see about picking up the acoustic panels that have arrived at Tom Lee and installing them in the music studios in our building.

So a busy week! But good. I like busy… I feel more alive when things are happening.