Hello, all my dear friends! As some of you may know, last spring I worked with an exceptionally talented photographer (and all-round wonderful person who is definitely among the positive bright lights in this universe of ours), Dawn Bourgeois. Some of the photos we did are in my gallery. Dawn has recently launched her website for Naked Eye Imaging. I encourage you all to go have a look at www.nakedeyeimaging.com. I highly recommend her if you're looking for a photographer, because working with her was a fantastic experience.
What else is new around here? Well, winter seems bound and determined to have its last hurrah... or what we can only hope is the last of it! It snowed yesterday, oi. It all melted today, thank goodness (well, I'm probably happier about this than Pico is, he seems to adore the snow... make that eating the snow!), but it still feels like autumn out there right now, rather than spring. I know, in a couple of months I'll be talking about how it's humidex 48°C. ;) "Happy medium" generally lasts for about two weeks! Still though, I'll take the humidex 48°C over any kind of windchill factor... although I have a whole lot of sympathy for anyone without central air in that weather, when the air is that saturated. Been there, done that, they will have to get past me first to ever take away my central air. ;)
It's been pretty quiet this weekend. Just catching up on some sleep, playing with Pico, etc. I never did post about the David Usher show on Thursday night, did I? As always, he never disappoints. Although a very "hot" show, literally -- David: "I feel like we should all be wearing white towels are something!" (in reference to an earlier laughing, good-natured comment about Zaphod's being like a sauna, which was a very apt comparison)... Someone in the audience: "Toga!!!" David (laughing): "You know, I have no response for 'toga'... I think in the entire run of shows we've had, that's the first 'toga'!" -- it was also a very fun, funny and all-round great show. I've said to several people that I think it should be mandatory for all new/emerging singers to catch a David Usher show, to observe how well the craft of being a superb front person for a band can be mastered. It's a different level of audience engagement, and truly marks the difference between playing to or for and audience, and playing *with* an audience.
I'll leave you all with a pic from the show, right after he'd been sitting down on the floor with all of us, and began taking a stroll. Happy Sunday, everyone (or Monday if you're on the other side of the world).
The David Usher show. And today, the release of his new album, "Strange Birds." Yay! Okay, so I have a confession to make. As much time as I've spent around the industry, whether it be writing promo materials for musicians, designing websites, or just hanging with some artistically-inclined friends, I think I'll always still get a bit of that teenagery, enthralled feeling when it comes to a David Usher show. And I love that.
The why has a lot to do with the time of my life when I became seriously interested in music, particularly Canadian rock and alternative. The year was 1994, and I was 14. There was this band, called Moist, just breaking on the scene, with a CD called "Silver" and a video for the single, "Push," respectively recorded and shot on a small budget. It mattered not: the boys from Kingston, based then in Vancouver, delivered big sound, high energy, and a very cool, very attention-grabbing, and as a result, very popular black and white video.
I first heard songs from the "Silver" CD in my grade nine geography class. My teacher, Mr. C., was guitarist Mark Makoway's uncle. (Only back then it was spelled "Makowy." :)) And so it began, my first favourite band and my love for Can Rock, as I became the girl who knew the words to almost every song playing on local station Rock 94 (Thunder Bay, where I grew up), who could always be found glued to MuchMusic or listening to her Walkman or Discman (ah, the time before mp3s, m4as, m4ps and iPods). I remember how excited I was, several weeks before the sophomore album "Creature" came out, sitting in a booth at Subway on Memorial Avenue with some friends, and hearing "Leave It Alone" for the first time, as it played on the radio. I'd never heard it before, but I knew just from the voice -- that of David Usher -- that this was the song.
I remember then, that this was the year that Moist was to hit T.Bay on its tour. It was supposed to be at a venue I was underage for (I was 16, and drinking age in Ontario was 19), but there were some promises from Mr. C. that those of us who wanted to go could get around that. However, due to illness, the T.Bay show was cancelled. It would be four years, a first David Usher solo release and a third Moist album later before I would catch them live, in their hometown. A club show at A.J.'s Hangar, with tickets bought by my boyfriend at the time as an apology for a knock-down, drag-em-out, yelling match of a fight-over-the-phone we'd had while he was briefly on the road playing some shows and I was at home in T.Bay, visiting family for the week.
The how and why of my being at that show matters not. I was there, and I had the time of my life. For the first time in years I think I was edging on "fangirly." Anything that could inspire that kind of feeling and that kind of being "in the moment" by that point in my life and exposure to the industry was something truly special, particularly for a girl who was now accustomed to the usual weekend (or weeknight) routine of sound check, go for dinner, come back, ward off the "hey, are you here by yourself?" opening pickup intros of the bar scene while the people I was there with were on stage (if I wasn't also there with other friends/significant others of other band members), hearing the same sets over and over again... shows and the club scene as a significant other and friend of those playing was routine for me by then, so I revelled in feeling that engaged and enthralled.
This would be the only time that I would see Moist play. Soon after, the band went on hiatus and David Usher returned to the scene with a second solo album, "Morning Orbit." For this tour, a then-friend, Chris (whom I now haven't seen for years!... but I will forever remember as being the person who, upon my first moving to Ottawa, gave me a huge hug and assured me that I had a really great support network of friends here in this new place, if I ever needed them), became the tour drummer for David's live band. While I was lucky enough to be visiting family in T.Bay when they made a stop there, with myself and a friend guest-listed for the Coyote's show, I think the most memorable of all shows had to be the Barrymore's show, later in 2001. Mainly because of the light sabres (don't ask), and Chris deciding that mandatory shots of straight vodka out of plastic cups in the bus kitchen would be a good idea, post-three-melonballs at the show (with my dinner that night having been all of half of a bagel, as I'd had an evening class and had written a mid-term before going straight to the show), and further drinks at The Collection afterward.
I didn't drink for about a year after that night. And my alcohol tolerance has never again been what it was, although friends are currently insisting that they will have to build this up, seeing how I'm trying to move to Oz and all. Now there's something that David Usher and his band are probably not usually credited for -- inspiring sobriety. ;)
(An aside: I remember when Chris got married, at a popular live music venue here. First, it was a little surreal walking inside and seeing it all decked out for a wedding; second, Kevin (keyboardist from Moist) was one of the ushers, and seeing how I'd had a massive "crush" upon the guy when I was 16 (hehehe), it was one of those more bizarre moments, to say the least!)
The last time I caught David Usher live was in, I believe, 2003 -- a show at the Capital Music Hall when it still had some construction going on, and prior to it relocating to its present location and being renamed the New Capital Music Hall. And now, here we are, 2007 and I'm looking forward to the new CD, "Strange Birds," released today, and to Thursday's show.
Twelve and a half years later, and I still love the music, and continue to hold a special place inside for all members of the band who inspired my interest in and passion for this industry. Thanks, guys. Muah!
Officially, my puppy now listens to me. When he feels like it. ;) No, just kidding, he is very sweet, smart and well-behaved! Last night he had puppy school "graduation"... see the picture below. He knows sit, down, let's go, come here, leave it, stay (along with things from home, like off, upstairs, downstairs, outside, inside, shake a paw), high five, high ten, roll over, and to sit when people greet us, rather than jump all over them. (Most of the time, heh heh.) They grow up so fast!
I present Pico the graduate... March 16, 2007. He is eight months old!
And gaining in the frozen limbs category for this winter's Arctic Hinterland Climatic Tournament of "How Low Can You Go (Mercury)?"...
Huzzah! Environment Canada has ended its windchill warning for the region, as it is now a balmy -35C with windchill, by comparison to this morning's -42C.
And by "balmy" I mean, while eternally grateful to have been born and raised in a first-world nation, is there no way to relocate this part of the continent closer to the equator? Something involving chain saws, duct tape, Rick Mercer, the cast of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and the collective brainpower of all of our mechanical, aerospace and electrical engineers?
Nothing is impossible, my friends. Nothing. And if you say it is, then clearly you have not read Tommyland and/or adopted the credo that if someone tells you it can't be done, they're lying. There is ALWAYS a way.
