ersh

Reminds me of the old Local Rabbits promo shot. I think most bands have thrown around the idea of the "Sears" portait at one point or another. And, not to hijack the topic... sounds like a good show. Playing the Opera House is quite the time.

Hey Mary.... have a good one. Welcome to the club.

I'm a drink! Ersh -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ingredients: 1 part Vodka 1 part Beer Mixing instructions: Take 1 part Vodka and shake well with 1 part of Best beer you know. Creator/contributor's comments: It is really strong cocktail!

Visit the Canadian iTunes store to download the first single from WALL OF FIRE, free!! Woo hoo!

Awesome! That's gonna get it's own post.

Well, most of Canada. We're glad to be on the road with Joel this May. Starting in Quebec, heading West, and then back to Ontario, we'll both be promoting new CDs. WALL OF FIRE came out last week, and Joel's ASHTRAY ROCK is slated for an April release. Here's the dates...... May 3 Velvet Nightclub - Quebec City, Quebec May 4 Cabaret du Musee Juste - Montreal, Quebec May 5 Capital Music Hall - Ottawa, Ontario May 6 Festival Hall - Pembroke, ON (opening for Ron Sexsmith) May 7 The Townehouse - Sudbury, Ontario May 10 West End Cultural Centre - Winnepeg, Manitoba May 11 USSU Louis' Pub - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan May 12 The Starlite Room - Edmonton, Alberta May 13 The Canmore Hotel presents ELKATRAZ! May 14 Wild Bill's - Banff, Alberta May 15 Grand Theatre - Calgary, Alberta May 17 Sugar Nightclub - Victoria, British Columbia May 18 Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, British Columbia May 22 Jacks - Thunder Bay, Ontario (no JPE this show) May 24 Starlight - Waterloo, Ontario May 25 Opera House - Toronto, Ontario (All ages) May 26 Opera House - Toronto, Ontario See ya then!

Absolutely Mark! The whole spectrum of live music is completely covered. And with so many artists to see, it's like a 'choose your own adventure book' (without dying at the end of course.... I always seemed to die in those)

oh god. no wonder he didn't tell me.

We ate at this place called THE SHADY GROVE, and I asked my Texan fiend Kyle what I should have. With no hesitation he said 'Chicken Fried Steak'. I tried asking what the chicken part of it was (there was no chicken with it), but couldn't really get an answer out of him. He said I HAD to get the white gravy stuff on top. It was delicious. Crispy lightly battered steak with white gravy goop on top. Super heart attack dinner - definately the last one I'll eat in a while... but it was good.

Holy shit. I've been meaning to write a little review of my week down in Austin since I got back. [blurb]First off, Austin is a beautiful city - most residents will say say they don't feel like they're a part of Texas. The downtown core apears to be 97% bars - bars beside bars beside bars. And every joint turns into a venue during SXSW. Hey... you've got an empty parking lot? Put up a tent and it's a venue. No one's in that phone booth (or ATM booths they have down there!!).... it's a venue too. Quite overwhelming but suprisingly easy to digest.[/blurb] We started off the week with our own showcase. We played at the Whisky Bar at 10pm Wednesday night. Charlie Sexton sat in with us the whole show, playing a couple electric guitars, acoustic, and mando-guitar. It was awesome - added some nice studio sounds we hadn't reproduced live yet. So, first day there, first show, and now we're done. 4 more nights (and days as we were to learn) of drinking and music. After we dealt with our gear, Charlie took us to his favourite spot, THE CONTINENTAL CLUB, for some drinks, where I saw probably my favourite band of the whole week. It wasn't even a SXSW show - it was this Wednesday night house band upstairs in this Orbit Room-ish kind of place. Almost like a One Step Beyond, with different singers, horn players, old blind insane keyboardists and percussionists drifiting on and off stage. I didn't catch their name though. Lots of booze. Thursday afternoon, we caught EARL GREYHOUND on a back patio on 7th. They were pretty good... but after they finished we heard a familiar voice from the patio next door (there were at least 3 bands playing all withing feet of each other on different patios). It was Ron Sexsmith... so we went over, had a few and watched his solo set. US labelmate (Keifer Sutherland's IRONWORKS) Rocco Deluca sat in for a song and did his own set afterwards. We were hoping Jack Bauer himself would be there, as it was party for his label's distributor, but no luck. More beer. We tried to get in to the STAX review (Booker T and the MGs, Iassac Hayes, William Bell and Eddie Floyd) at Antone's but didn't make it... too big of a line. So we went to check out a set by CHARLIE SEXTON at his friend's Hot Rod Shop in the Southside. Dinner of Chicken Fried Steak, tequila and beer. Then it was off to catch Ian Maclagan of THE FACES. Fantastic! Friday afternoon should've started slow, but by 2 we were on a rooftop at a JANE magazine party, drinking free vodka and munching paninis in the sun, waiting for SLOAN to play at 6. Too many drinks later, Sloan played and they were great. On fire. I hadn't seen them since the Twice Removed tour. All these sets were around the 40 minute mark... nice and quick. After that we went to see Charlie play again with blues legend RAY SHARPE - famous for writing LINDA LOU, one of the most familiar licks in rock and blues history. It was more cool to have seen it than to actually watch it. We picked up a guitar from Charlie and went back to our hotel. The rest of night we saw John Hammond Jr, Land of Talk and Ron Sexsmith with full band. All good. We ended up at the Continental Club again and caught a bit of John Lee Graham. Pete played a solo set Saturday afternoon at a Nick Drake themed party at Cabana Halle, and we returned there later for more free drinks. Champagne!!! Woo hoo.... a nice buzz indeed. POWERSOLO from Denmark were playing in the tent. They totally won me over with their Jon Spencer hillbilly twang antics. Smoke smoke smoke! The night was going to be busy for shows....lots going on. First on the list was Gavin's choice, MASTODON. Fucking wow. They were Grrrrreat. They played an outdoor field show for a couple thousand people and were loud and fast. Then it was off to see the GOLDEN DOGS. I hadn't seen them before but had been hanging out with a few of the guys that week drinking. They had some sound issues, but generally kicked ass. Then it was off to see Charlie's own set at ANTONE'S. It was cool to see him play his own stuff.... but not necessarily my favourite kind of suff. Hi sbrother, Will Sexton played a bit with him that night. After Charlie, the TRAGICALLY HIP were playing the same room. 500 or so capacity.... I hadn't seen them ina room that small in a long long time. They're not my favoutite band, but they were on fire that night for sure. They sounded great and killed the crowd. Mastodon, Powersolo and the Continental house band (along with the insane amount of free booze and BBQ) were the hightlights for me. There was so much good music going on that there was a lot of incredible stuff we missed, but still had a very fullfilling musical week regardless. I can't say enough good stuff about this festival. Wow.

No way! I think I'll do my best to make it down to this show after we're done at the Capital. Wierd luck.

I didn't even see you there Mike! Did you shave your beard or something? It was pretty hectic though. Thanks dude.... we had Joe Dunphy who owns the studio we did the CD in mixing for us - he knows the sound we're going for. It was obviously the right choice as there were lots of good things said about the mix.

Saw Charlie at Antones, and then the Hip right after that. Pete saw the Stax review there... Booker T, Steve Cropper et all (that're living). A-freaking-mazing. See you tomorrow Mark!

Wednesday the 21st is the show. The cd comes out on Tuesday Mr Prost. As far as I know we're on at 9pm as well. Don't miss it! Austin was amazing.... Charlie played the whole show with us... we have some photos but no sound. And... we'll be in Ottawa on May 5th opening for Joel Plaskett at The Capital Music Hall, Mike. More dates on Pete's myspace. Good to be home.

Woo hoo! Just ripped it up in Austin and can't wait to get back for this gig.

Playing with Peter Elkas, Luke. I'll be there for a week. The line up there is SICK. Although I just heard about this Booker T and the MGs thing Friday night... might have to check that instead. I grew up a huge fan of BLUR and totally dig Damon Albarn's direction with TGTBATQ compared to his Gorillaz stuff.

I wish I'd brought my camera... got this pic off my phone though. Went to check out this nameless band (the cd is called The Good The Bad & The Queen... but the band has no name) last night at The Koolhaus. Awesome, awesome show. Paul Simonon of The Clash on bass KILLED it. They played their album, start to finish, with an unreleased tune as an encore. After really getting into the CD, I was quite impressed with the live show. I'm going to try to catch them in Austin this friday as well! I haven't seen a concert in a while that really blew me away, so I figured I might as well share my good times.

Tonight! Yeah wooo!

It's been finished since September, and we've been waiting and waiting...... but we'll finally release WALL OF FIRE to stores on Tuesday March 20th. A CD release show will follow the next night (Wed 21) at Toronto's RIVOLI. Initial reviews have been great so far, and we couldn't be more excited to release this disc! You can preview a few tracks (and request the current single!) at Peter's Myspace page. We'll also be announcing dates for a national tour in May with Joel Plaskett in the next few weeks as well! Yeah! Wooooo!

Two Hours Traffic are great!

Yeah... that sounds REAL shitty Mike. You'd better be on the beach at 9pm EST!!

We play at 9pm. The new CD, WALL OF FIRE, comes out March 20th too! We'll do a TO release just after that and do the country in MAY. Here's the listing for the 9th... Mar 9: Annual CHART-SHOE Magazine CMW Showcase MONTREAL ‘Kill The Lights’ @1:00, MONTREAL ‘LAND OF TALK’ @12:00, EDMONTON ‘CADENCE WEAPON’ @11:00, VANCOUVER ‘YOU SAY PARTY WE SAY DIE!’ @10:00 MONTREAL ‘Peter Elkas’ @9:00, VANCOUVER ‘Mother Mother’ @8:00. Doors 7:30 PM. $10.00 Adv @Tm-Hs-Rt-Ss. $12.00 @Door. CMW Laminates & Limited Wristbands welcome.

Shall do!

Sean's got a killer band these days too. Jer Little, Peter Chapman and Kieran Adams! Enjoy.

I can get you a CV Willy for $500... or 3 of them for $1200!!!.... basically same guts as a B3 in a bigger cabinet.