Movie Buffed

Laura bought me a subscription to Zip.ca for my birthday/Christmas present this year. I now have access to many movies the stores in the Soo don't carry and/or I can't find online. Things like Sunset Bvld. (1950), Zardoz (1974) and The Rules of the Game (La regle du jeu) (1939). Right now there are 89 films on my ZipList.

Part of the fun is watching the street scenes of the films and seeing what life looked like back then. In that vein here is a youtube video of a street in San Fransisco in 1905. It reminded me of my days back in India where traffic is much less ordered and much more chaotic. Watch how many cars and horse & buggies cut across the track right in front of the train. I found it fascinating and fun. I counted three people who almost got run over in 7 minutes.



And here is London in 1927...in colour!:




p.s. Porter and Woody Sims are playing Searchmont this weekend. Sets start at 4pm-ish and 9pm-ish

Holiday Recap

Happy New Year! This holiday break has been action packed with many family gatherings and lots of food and good times. Here's what's been going on:

Porter was scheduled to open for Magneta Lane at Loplops but they hit some bad weather and couldn't make it. So that meant all the lights, monitors and sound men would be entirely for us. It was probably the best gig we've ever played. The place was packed with out-of-towners home for Christmas, Longfellow film crew and our friends. They were really receptive and seemed very into us. It was amazing. Crank sound made us sound awesome.



Rachelle joined us on the keys and was excellent. She is really talented.




New Year's Eve was a surprise 50th birthday party for my uncle.



His wife and kids held it at Tarentorous Sports Club. They put in a ton of work. The place looked great and there was plenty of food and drink.

We had put together a band to perform some of his favourite songs and practiced in Anthony's basement. Introducing "Rebbie's Rebels":



Bridget with the chimes:



Rachelle made us t-shirts for the big night :



Our setlist was "Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young, "Wildflowers" by Tom Petty,



"Atlantic City", "Dancing in the Dark" by the Boss...



and "I'm So Excited" with The Pointer Sisters:



Later on Anthony persuaded the bartender to give us the keys to the curling rink. We couldn't find the lights so we curled in the dark around 1:00am. It was a super fun night.



Last night we played Loplops again. The evening was being recorded by Catherine Taddo. Our perfomance wasn't as good as the previous gig so we'll see if she captured anything worth keeping. Porter's next gig is at Searchmont Resort Saturday, January 16th. We'll be doing an afternoon set and an evening set.

Life is good.

p.s. Blogger changed it's settings and my meager html skills won't allow me to resize the pics so if you're wondering why the pictures are all different sizes and over-lapping...well now you know)