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)

After the After Christmas Party

Happy New Year! Coch's Corner was pretty full for the event. Optimistically, I'd say the evening was a 2/3 full glass of beer. The Octoberists were up first. We provided quite the challenge to mic as all our instruments were either feeding back or too quiet to rise above the din of the bar. We played very well but didn't sound great as a loud bar isn't our natural habitat. We'll have to get a gig at a coffee shop, the art gallery or the library again.




Woody Sims played well this night. We only messed up one song which Tom promptly scratched from the line-up permanently. Here he is with his stern face:



Terrance was in fine form with his beautiful guitars and tasteful effects:



John belted out the tunes with his powerful voice (and powerful shirt - haha):



Scotty kept the bottom solidly under us with some sweet grooves:



And I hung on for the ride with some meedeelee-meedeelies:



The crowd was into it:


We even had a semi-reunion of the Road Rockets:




Here they are jamming on John's Original "Jimmy":




Overall a great night. Thanks to family and friends for coming out. Thanks to Rob for the pics.

Bottom's Up Leap Day Gig

Once again, thanks to our supportive friends we brought the Bottom's Up Lounge to capacity. It was a rollicking good time. I ended up playing in all three sets because the Road Rockets needed a bass player (Jake was in Chicago). The Neil Young cover band F*!#In' Up was super fun! And GDH was a blast too. Thanks to Rob for the pics.

The Road Rockets:


Rob on the skins:

C-dogs rockin' it!

Anthony and Dave laying down a solid foundation for F*!#In' Up
Shane and his trusty tele:
Joe and his trusty rawk stains
After a good setup the (fake) Tele Deluxe played amazingly well:

Adam buys me the best t-shirts:
Awarded best in Show:

Rob even took some video of us playing Built to Spill's "The Plan":

The Octoberists in October at Loplops



Friday night was a mixed bag. On the positive side, the place was packed and full of energy, Amber and Cliff sounded excellent (as always), many friends came out to cheer very loudly and Jacob and Lily were very entertaining.

On the not-so-positive side I had a rough go of it. We had a tough time getting the mix right, a lack of practice left me ill prepared for the evening and during a favourite song of ours my guitar was seriously out of tune. Oh well, I still had fun.

Don't forget about November 3rd at Bottoms Up. Carl is still playing but Shane had to drop out due to his being out of town. I think Tim is going to step in to fill the empty set. Laura and I will be playing many instruments (8? 9?). It should be a logistical nightmare to pull off. Crash and burn or soaring high, it will be entertaining nonetheless.

p.s. Thanks to morningjane for the video. (ie: screen cap above)

The Revue

The Octoberists show was a good time. I have no pics and for some reason I just can't get the video to split or even get vid caps from it so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Mark played about four songs (extended versions) including my request for "Rocket".

Lindsay fit in a set of beautiful slide blues on a National guitar before he had to go to a gig at Loplops.

And we played for about 45mins. We did pretty good considering we hadn't jammed in years (4,5?). I would like things cleaned up a bit before the gig we are hoping to get at Loplops sometime in late October. The crowd was small but made up of well wishing friends. Thanks for coming out.

Friday Recap

I would consider the Bottoms Up Lounge show to be a success.

I couldn't play a guitar solo to save my life that night but my singing was good so I'll take the trade off. The rest of the band and all our guests (Laura, Sarah & Carl) were spot on.

It was the first time we ever had people in a line up waiting to get in. (I know, the B.U.L.'s capacity is around 60 but it's still cool that people will wait in line to hang out with you and possibly listen to the music.) We received many compliments on the music and judging from the comments the volume level was perfect for our set. (see my worry from the previous post). We covered "Hanging on the Telephone" which went off pretty well. Anyway, on to the pics:

Anthony with the set list shirt:

Shane multitasking:
GDH band shot:
Singing:
Shane works the crowd:


The Road Rockets had their own special guests:

Three fifths of the Woody Sims Tree-o rocked out to a surprise version of "Cortez the Killer":


So thanks to the Bottoms Up Lounge for having us and thanks to everyone who came out.

One Of Those Days

Well Friday turned out to be one of those days. I broke a light in the gym of a school I was supply teaching at. Fluorescent bulb shards raining down on children below. I was trying a full court buzzer beater. Luckily no one was hurt. (Obviously I didn't make the basket.) On the positive side the kids loved it.

On to the gig at the Canadian - I wanted to use my Garnet Rebel Reverb (early 70's vintage amp) so I put the head on the hood of my car as I was loading up. (Stupid, I know.) It slid off and smashed one of the 6L6 tubes in it. I had it replaced yesterday with a new one but it just doesn't sound as awesome as the vintage one did. It might just be my imagination though - I'll have to listen to some old recordings to compare.

The turn out was pretty good. The place was by no means full but it was far from empty. There were probably about 50 people there (which would look full in say, the Downbeat but the Canadian is much bigger.) So thanks to all of them for coming - and sorry for what they would be subjected to at the end of the night.

The Road Rockets opened the night with a roaring set despite the less-than-stellar mix (sorry Sound Guy - the master was too loud as were the drums. The guitars were inaudible and when I went up to play banjo with them you didn't even turn my mic on. WTF?)

Rob got to play his brand new kit:

T got to play his brand new drumstick:

Carl belting it out with Jake in the background:

I forgot to give my camera to someone for pics so there were none of GDH's set. I had a great time during this set and we sounded pretty good despite having only jammed once since our last gig in January.

After that Anthony BEGGED me to let his friends come up and play a Tool song with him. I resisted but finally consented and sat in on bass. I had no idea what I was doing but it ended up pretty good (if you like that sort of music).

And then "The Train Wreck" occurred.

We decided to cobble together a bunch of cover songs the Canadian regulars would enjoy - "Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen, "The Hockey Song" by Stompin' Tom, the theme to "The Golden Girls" tv show, "The Weight" by The Band, "Purple Haze" by Hendrix, you know, killer stuff!!!

If you take a look at the following pics it looks like we're rockers. Well, looks can be deceiving. We got all the rock poses down but we failed to learn the songs.

We played 7 or 8 songs and managed to seriously f*&% up all but two of them. I'm not talking about those flubbed notes that people don't notice. We had major breakdowns in almost every song. It was the worst musical presentation I have ever had the misfortune of being involved in. I was seriously embarrassed and pissed off. On the positive side, we were pretty entertaining in the "must look at this car crash" sort of way.

Ah well, "live and learn" or some other such trite cliche.



Saturday night had the Road Rockets playing the first and third set while the Woody Simms Trio was sandwiched in between. The crowd turnout, the sound mix and the musical performances were a bit better than Friday night.

Woody Simms sounded excellent (as usual) and I had more than a few people tell me "I really like these guys". The new tunes came together nicely.

Oh and I forgot my camera so no pics. And the weather prevented Professor Matt B. from making it all the way from Wisconsin.

Quick Weekend Post

Well, Friday's gig was a great time for myself. I think the people there enjoyed themselves as well. There were quite a number who attended. I thank everyone who came out and Mandora who put it all together. I ended up getting only 3 pics (seen below) 'cause I opted for the cheapo batteries and that is all you get with them, I guess. Carl was nice enough to video tape it so if I can figure out how to cut it up into youtube acceptable chunks I will post the better songs.

The house-warming was a success. We had many generous friends attend, bringing many beautiful plants and tasty liquors with them. I think we had about forty people in all. Hooray!

And finally thank you to everyone who wished me a happy b-day. It was very kind of you to remember.


Here' are the three pics I got. (Woody Sims, Woody Sims and the Animal)

The Canadian Review

Friday night was a great turnout with many friends and family home for the holidays. Thanks to everyone who came out. Saturday was good too!

The Road Rockets started things off in fine form with a solid set of almost all new material. Here's Carl with his new strat:
(click pics to enlarge)

Our set (GDH) was very enjoyable (what with my rowdy relatives whooping it up and all). We recruited Carl to play bass for us so I could play my lovely guitars more. He did an admirable job.

Love those pics of my guitars!:

I also got the chance to play the banjo live for the first time:


The Woody Sims Tree-o ended the night with a stellar set:


Both nights we had special guests. Laura lent her trumpet talents to "Holland, 1945":

And Adam F. sat in on lap steel and guitar both nights with GDH, the RRs and SHED. He sounded freakin' amazing! His band, People For Audio(based in Montreal) just completed their second (?) album and should be releasing it soon:






SHED closed out the show Saturday night. We sounded pretty good for having Eddie arrive in town that day. The manager offered us a monthly gig there. All in all an excellent weekend. Thanks again to everyone who came out!