Cosmic ChrisC

Heavy MTL is on August 10th and 11th, so maybe they'll play that fest. Lineup will be announced on Monday March 25th.

Hahaha. Right. That's what happens when you drink too much Budweiser.

Since there's no metal at Bluesfest this year, looks like I'll have to get my fix here: Rockfest plans a monster event for its 8th year! Montebello, March 19, 2013 – The Outaouais Rock team is proud to announce the complete line-up for the 8th edition of the Amnesia Rockfest, now the biggest rock festival in Quebec. The festival will kick off with a series of indoor shows from June 10th – 16th at the Montebello marina in the Outaouais region. Main outdoor festivities take place June 14th and 15th. THE LINEUP Among the headlining bands are the popular Chicago rock group Rise Against, the legendary Californian punk rock bands The Offspring and Social Distortion, the provocative kings of rock Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson, and the always outstanding alternative metal band Deftones. These bands will play alongside the likes of the previously announced Rancid and Lamb of God as well as Pennywise (back together with the band’s original signer), Dropkick Murphys, Anthrax, Killswitch Engage, Lagwagon, Transplants (with Travis Barker of Blink-182), The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (playing in Quebec after a 16 year absence), Millencolin and many others. In addition to a significant enhancement of the three existing stages, Rockfest will introduce two new “international†stages that will focus on cult favorites and rare bands. Taking to these stages include the reunion of Black Flag, which will play under the name FLAG, Bad Brains (after an 18 year absence in Quebec). Screeching Weasel (after a 30 year absence in Quebec) Sick Of It All, Biohazard, Discharge, Subhumans UK, Mad Caddies and many others. Rotating with the main stage, the « Québécois » stage will host the pillars of Quebec’s alternative music scene. Several of these now defunct bands are reuniting solely for the Amnesia Rockfest : Groovy Aardvark, Men O Steel, Roller Starter, Cryptopsy (with the band’s original frontman Lord Worm), Ghoulunatics, Arseniq33, Capitaine Révolte and Vulgar Deli. Also scheduled to reunite are : Grimskunk, Mononc’ Serge, Kataklysm, Matt Smashers of Planet Smashers, Obey The Brave and a punk Karaoke at the end of the night as well as many others. Finally, the emerging stage will offer the best of local and international bands. Many surprises and secrets await festival attendees. In total, over 150 bands will take to the stages during the event. It cannot be left unsaid that camping zones and festival grounds will be expanding the week leading up to festival as will indoor show venues (the lineup for indoor shows will be released in the upcoming weeks). There will be numerous activities taking place over the course of the event including rides, a rock and roll museum, a haunted house, buskers and fire spitters to enhance the carnivalesque and festive atmosphere. TICKETING Weekend passports are now available exclusively with advanced ticket sales in limited quantity on the Rockfest Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pnrockfest. Tickets for general admission will go on sale Saturday at noon at www.pnrockfest.com, in Amnesia stores and on the Admission network. Passports are available at the affordable price of 79$ + taxes and service fees, which comes out to 0.53$ a band! With the already generated enthusiasm and this year’s solid line-up, the team thinks that for the first time in its history, the festival will be sold out! Please note that VIP packages are also available as well as bus packages from Montreal, Quebec City and other cities. ABOUT ROCKFEST Founded eight years ago by a 17-year-old ‘kid’ from Montebello who wanted to transform his small village into a rock paradise, Rockfest has expanded considerably in the past few years. It is now known as the biggest rock festival in Quebec and one of the two largest festivals in Western Quebec. Known for its impressive lineup, affordable tickets, party vibe and pristine location alongside the Ottawa River, Rockfest has generated over $4,000,000 in local economic repercussions. The festival recently won the Loto-Québec Sponsorship Award at the Quebec Festival Convention for its partnership with D-TOX/Amnesia. Amnesia Rockfest – 8th edition June 10-16 2013 June 14-15 : Outdoor festivities starting at noon June 10-11-12-13-16 : evening showcases Marina de Montebello (111, rue Laurier) All ages

Looks like it's open: Noon till 6 today live traditional Irish tunes, $10 cover. 830 till late Fiftymen $15 cover.

Where's the rock n roll?

Lynn Saxberg writes about Lance: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/music/Obituary+Lance+Matthews/7733564/story.html

I am the DD every time we go to SP; that contributes to Ollie's love of the venue I am sure.

The prices for some of the packages for the Brooklyn show are insanely high. The cheaper seats were $170 (I think?) which is reasonable but those probably sold out really quick and I betcha there were only a few of those at that price. I loved the Stones show here in Ottawa at Lansdowne Park (can't remember when that was). We also went to see them in Montreal and that was the most I've ever paid for a show...$300 a ticket! I didn't like that show as much as the Ottawa one. It felt very corporate with too many men in suits around me.

wow...impressed by that person's organisation skills; I never think of bringing coolers.

Does anyone know if it's sufficient to just bring the number on the receipt? I forgot to forward my tickets to work to print out and I don't have a printer at home and it's Friday and... yeah. You sent me an e-mail at work a while back asking me to print it, which I did and it's stored safely...somewhere.

This page needs to be updated: http://www.mavericksbar.com/events.html The show is on Saturday the 27th, not Friday the 27th, right? Until just now, I thought it was on Friday.

Yeah, well Toronto is not California. Dead/jam music still attracts good crowds in California, well, at least it did 10 years ago. I saw New Riders in Toronto probably 8 years ago or so and it was a very small crowd. Further in Ottawa a couple years ago?...sad attendance, as was Widespread Panic.

Oh darn, I read on another site that Beyond the Pale won't be at the Brewery Market because they don't have all their permits yet. Boo hoo.

Will we indeed be able to taste a BTP beer at the Ottawa Brewery Market tomorrow? Saturday, October 13, from noon to 8pm. List of breweries here: http://brewerymarket.com/ottawa-brewery-market-will-be-the-largest-one-yet/ I think Union 613 is supposed to be there with some fried chicken too. Outdoors, at 1000 Wellington St. West, at the corner of Irving (current empty lot of the Wally Becker garage) A few more details here: http://www.ottawamagazine.com/restaurants/capital-pint/2012/09/27/capital-pint/

I'll be missing The Watch in Ottawa/Gatineau because Ollie and I going to the Who instead. Did you ever see the Watch? They are impressive!

Happy Birthday!! Good to see you for 5 minutes at the soon to open Beyond the Pale Brewery last weekend!

There's a little something going in the windows above Lauzon Music: CHERYL PAGUREK & MICHÈLE PROVOST – HINTONBURG ZONE – 1345 WELLINGTON ST. WEST IN THE WINDOWS ABOVE LAUZON MUSIC ‘Flashcards’ Flashcards: a game of musical word-image associations. Hmmm. I like the free shuttle buses between Hintonburg and the Market! This could be fun to do in between hitting some pubs. I still haven't tried Brothers Beer Bistro on Dalhousie.

Give the city gyms a try this week...for free: City hopes free week at fitness centres boosts enrolment By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen September 14, 2012 Less than five per cent of Ottawa residents are enrolled in a city recreation program.OTTAWA — In an effort to attract visitors to its underused gyms, the city’s offering a free week’s worth of workouts and classes at many (but not all) of Ottawa’s public fitness centres. The free week runs from Sept. 17 to 23 and includes group classes in aquafitness, cycling and callisthenics, plus the use of solo fitness equipment. Earlier this year, the parks and recreation department reported that it was having trouble keeping up with private gyms and recreation centres, which can adjust fees and offer incentives whenever their markets soften a bit or they want to attract more people — by offering discounts on membership renewals, for instance, or when a second and third child are registered for a summer activity. The city’s system was more rigid, with fees set by city council once a year in the budget. In the private sector, the department said, it’s “common practice to offer promotional discounts to increase participation or facility use during non-prime hours and to encourage sampling of new services through complimentary passes,†which the city couldn’t do. The most recent report on city recreation programs, which covered the first quarter of the year, found that registration shrank markedly from 2010 to 2011, and slipped again in 2012. Two years ago, about 5.5 per cent of the population was registered in a city recreation program; by this year, it was 4.8 per cent, and the public programs are only about two-thirds full. The department spends about $135 million a year and makes $60 million of that back in fees, so sliding enrolments are a serious problem. So city council gave the department the go-ahead to try new things, such as the upcoming free week. The fitness centres involved are: Bob MacQuarrie Recreation Complex (Orléans) Goulbourn Recreation Complex Hunt Club-Riverside Park Community Centre Kanata Leisure Centre Nepean Sportsplex Pinecrest Recreation Centre Plant Recreation Centre Ray Friel Recreation Complex St-Laurent Complex Splash Wave Pool Walter Baker Sports Centre

Like, for example, don't expect aerobics classes to be like this! That's the chick from Frasier!

Yep, I fully support city gyms. Cheap! And rarely overcrowded. No meat heads there at all. I've been going to a city gym near my work (central east end of the city) for years and have taken spinning, yoga, pilates, aerobics classes and liked them all. I was scared of the aerobics at first, imagining 1980s moves and attire but it has evolved since then and seems more manly now.

Happy Birthday Mike! You better be having tons of fun right now!

Some of you might be interested in this: Chamberfest 2012: The beating heart Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry finds the music in the rhythm of life BY LYNN SAXBERG, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN AUGUST 1, 2012 The Warhol Dervish Chamber Music Collective Warhol Dervish What: The chamber music collective that will perform music by Richard Reed Perry that was written to correspond to the peformers’ breathing and heart rates. Perry will appear as a guest on double bass and piano. When & where: Aug. 4 at 10:30 p.m., St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts, 310 St. Patrick St. Chamberfest runs until Aug. 9. For more stories, reviews, and ticket information, see our Ottawa Festivals guide at ottawacitizen.com/festivals Take a deep breath. Feel your heart beat. Now listen to the music. That’s what Richard Reed Parry wants you to do when you hear his new chamber-music compositions at Chamberfest Ottawa on Aug. 4. With his regular band, Montreal’s indie-rock darlings Arcade Fire, gearing up for a new album, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Parry has been exploring the softer end of the musical spectrum in a way that will make listeners tune in to their own bodies. Over the last few years, he’s written a series of commissioned pieces based on the players’ breathing and/or heart rate. The avant-garde composition cycle, Music for Heart and Breath, will be performed by the eclectic Montreal-based chamber music collective, Warhol Dervish, featuring Parry as a guest on piano and double bass. “It’s a collection of pieces where uncontrolled body impulses are what controls the music, in a way that’s not computer based,†said the 34-year-old, a graduate of Ottawa’s arts-focused Canterbury High School, during a recent phone interview. “It forces the players to actually be in synch with their biological involuntary rhythm, and it’s kind of a beautiful concept.†The musicians must wear stethoscopes at times, and it’s important for them to play with a gentle hand so they can hear their own pulse. Parry describes the result as sensitive and delicate, but challenging for the musicians because it goes against their formal training. One of the first things classical musicians learn is to control their breathing. “There’s instructions that go with every piece, and the instructions have to do with not thinking about it in a performative sense, but in a listening sense,†he says. “I don’t have a lot of dynamics built into some of the pieces, and they’re instructed to follow what is there. It’s okay if your breathing is stronger, you play a bit stronger, and if it’s shallower, then you follow that. That’s the length of your notes and that’s the volume of your notes.†Parry has been writing the pieces over the last four years, the first originally commissioned by a festival of innovative chamber music in Cincinnati. Other pieces were commissioned by Kronos Quartet, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and New York’s Y Music ensemble. While the Ottawa performance is only the second time the entire cycle (except for the symphony piece) will be featured in one evening, there are plans to record the works this summer and release an album next year. “I’ve been slowly creating the thing and moving forward with it, but now it’s at the point it’s a proper collection of music, it’s all bound together by this conceptual process and the technique of playing to body systems,†Parry says. “It’s exciting because it’s kind of a new way of writing music. It’s an idea that hasn’t been done before.†The initial inspiration struck him years ago while studying music at Concordia University in Montreal. “A lot of the music I was learning at the time was totally unrelated to the body. It seemed very not related to the body in a lot of ways. It seemed like it was highly intellectual, kind of disconnected music. I found myself not being able to relate to it in any kind of intuitive musical way. And so I think the idea popped into my head, ‘Okay, what would be the opposite way of writing, the opposite experience to what I’m having right now. What would be the most intuitive and the most organic?’ “It just kind of occurred to me that using the involuntary subtle quiet rhythms and musical elements of our individual daily experiences seemed like it would maybe tap into something instantly. You tell somebody that’s what the music is, and they can personally relate to it on a fundamental physical level.†One of the challenges of the composition technique is that the pieces change slightly each time they’re played. “Because obviously everybody breathes at a different speed, and everybody’s heart beats at a different speed, the pieces are constructed so that it stays in sync with itself over time,†Parry says, “but obviously it’s a little different every time it’s played. And it’s always different between rehearsal and performance because breathing and heart rates get a little faster. It always seems like it’s a longer concert than it is when we’re rehearsing.†In concert, part of the beauty of it is that members of the audience find themselves becoming aware of their own breathing and heart rate. “People start to get really excited because they feel their own hearts and breathing synching to what’s going on,†Parry has observed. “They kind of find themselves drifting in and out of synch with the players, and the players find that, too. It’s a really beautiful, quiet experience where everybody’s on a similar page.†It bears little resemblance to the soaring rock music that Parry creates with Arcade Fire, the Grammy-winning band formed by the husband-and-wife duo of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne. Their fourth studio album is due next year. “It’s definitely the extreme opposite of Arcade Fire’s world, which I think has been part of the appeal for me. What’s the most quiet and most delicate and most internal music that I could possibly make as a performer? How could the experience of performing be opposite from the rock band experience?†At the same time, however, the intuitive approach has informed his rock-band performance. “There’s definitely a goal of awareness,†Parry says. “This particular music has the goal of bringing you more in touch with what’s going on when you’re performing, and even overriding your normal performative posture or responses.†© Copyright © The Ottawa Citizen

Happy Birthday!!! You got some sunshine, some heat and some thunder and rain today. Woohoo! And the crickets outside my house are making music. Hope it's a great day for you!

Steroids huh. I've been drinking their Punk IPA these past fews days. Really liking it.

we are rewatching it now. not a good idea to watch tv at the end of a Bluesfest evening.