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the Spades in Ottawa Oct.29 & 30


Dr. J

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They are not a country band, they are straight up balls out rock and roll. CHECK THEM OUT!!! You will not regret it. Through their weekly gig at the Montreal House in Peterborough, The Spades have caught on as one of the hottest bands in town. I've wondered to myself how long it'll be until this band gets some major exposure.

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totally solid, energetic power trio. worth the trek. one of the best gems in eastern ontario.

word.

i'm listening to burning on fumes right now

The Spades cd from this year

there are some softer tunes like you are fuel , but the majority of the cd is

balls out rock n' roll

i think i'll spend my halloween night with The Spades ::

Peterborough, Hot Belly Mama's

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Yep, I'll be there with one other person... I'd say that you couldn't miss us, but I don't know if we'll have the dogs along with us or not. I have a feeling it'll be pretty busy/crowded/loud, and I doubt their ears (or tails) would appreciate it.If they're around, though, then we'll be quite obvious.

If not, and there's no room for an actual stand, then just look for the really ghetto-looking contraption with the dinky little mics on it. :-)

We're taping, but I'm not expecting much for results. It's going to be more of an 'equipment test' than an attempt at a brilliant recording.

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I'll be taping as well (est. arrival time: 9:30pm). My plan is to set at the back corner of the stage, where I hope there'll be AC power so I can use my good mics, mixer, and Nomad.

Come up and say hi, tibbsa; the more tapers in Ottawa, the better!

Aloha,

Brad

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Ottawa people, listen up: if you're not doing anything tonight, or if you are doing something but can fit it in your schedule to get to the Pour House, go see The Spades. arcane and I had our asses kicked hard last night. Highlights include a cover of "Stickshifts and Safety Belts" (a Cake song), a cover of "Words" (a Neil Young song), a really mellow Jayhawks song ("Tulsa to Tempe" or something like that) with some great mandolin, and a herd of Spades originals that are a blast to listen to.

And I think the recording came out pretty good. I'm hoping to give it a listen today, and if it's as good as I think it is, I'll be giving it out to people.

Aloha,

Brad

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I only made it down for the friday show. It was an average Spades show. The second set was stronger than the first.

A good mafia sting > words. Decent versions of marijuana, burning on fumes, parking meter, perservatives, the causeway (a new tune) was played okay.

Ya... if you haven't checked out this band make sure to do so. I've seen em upwards of 35 times by now.

For those people wandering what they sound like. Go to thespades.ca and listen to some music.

Basically, the Spades are a rock band that jams from time to time. Think of the intensity of a Neil Young solo mixed with more complicated changes and/or fast surf-rock licks and your getting some what of an idea, but... you still need to hear it to get your own idea.

I drove to peterborough for the halloween show. Glad to see Kevo was in town too. We carried a coffin around to a couple bars via a new orleans funeral. The empty coffin was followed by a group of music makers that ranged from slide whistles (ya kev) to bass drums and banjo. When the coffin finally made it back to Hot Belly Moma's James McKenty (guitar/voice for the spades) was carried via the coffin to the front of the stage where he got out and the band kicked into I Put A Spell On You (Hot Belly Moma's tradition). It was a better show than the one i had seen on friday... although James was telling me that the saturday show was spectacular and included some (in the opinion of the spades) best-versions of some of their tunes. Anyway, it was a fun weekend of music and driving and more driving.

Hopefully the spades will get a tour together soon. They usually play in ottawa around once a month, so if you live in the area keep your ears open.

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Sunday night was great! Every Halloween, a venue in Ptbo called Hot Belly Mama's hold the annual New Orleans Style Jazz Funeral -- a bar crawl with tons of musicians tagging along buzzing away to "When The Saints Come Marchin In" and getting juiced along the way! Some notable Ptbo musicians along for the ride were Washboard Hank, Andrew Nelles, Tom Reader (from the Silver Hearts), Ben Rough... (sidenote: Washboard Hank gave my slide whistle his seal of approval, noting "hey thats a good one!" --- which to me is pretty huge coming from the king of all one-man-bands)

I can't say enough about The Spades.. I picked up the new album on Sunday and I've been blasting "Burning On Fumes" ever since. HEre are some notable upcoming dates for them:

Fri Nov. 5 - MoHo, Peterborough - w/ The Golden Dogs

Nov. 20 - The Keystorm, Brockville

Dec. 9 - The Starlight, Waterloo - w/ Cuff The Duke

Also hopefully a Hamilton date in the works.

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Yeah no question about it...of the 2 Ottawa shows, the Saturday show was the far superior. Friday the sound mix was poor particularly for the 1st set. bradm mentioned this showed up in the taping as well. I'm sure Tibbsa found it the same. But Saturday night...holy whistlin' mother of rock & roll...things were back to normal. Great crowd as well. Lots of Hallowe'en fever.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Yeah no question about it...of the 2 Ottawa shows, the Saturday show was the far superior. Friday the sound mix was poor particularly for the 1st set. bradm mentioned this showed up in the taping as well. I'm sure Tibbsa found it the same. But Saturday night...holy whistlin' mother of rock & roll...things were back to normal. Great crowd as well. Lots of Hallowe'en fever.

Yeah, we had to bail near the start of the second set (such is the life when you live in the outer extremities and have to rely on the virtually useless bus system at that time of night). The first set was absolutely horrible from where we were, in that we almost had no vocals at all in anything but the quietest of songs.

Still, what we could make out of it was enjoyable. :)

Taping-wise... let's not talk about it, OK? That was a disaster. I'm not quite sure whether the problem was the mics, or if it was something further down the chain, but the word "distortion" certainly applies. (Not clipping, but distortion...)

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