Posts tagged with "concerts"

was I more alive then than I am now

I try to sched­ule my time with peo­ple very care­ful­ly; with intro­ver­sion, there’s a del­i­cate bal­ance between iso­la­tion and over-stim­u­la­tion. I always make sure I get a lot of alone time between major events. The only prob­lem is that means I’m alone for too long when plans don’t work out.

On the oth­er end of the spec­trum is the fact that I can nev­er say no to peo­ple if I’m too busy. I’m the one with­out kids, so my sched­ule is a lot more open than most my friends, and I nev­er know when I’ll have anoth­er chance to see them. This is prob­a­bly why I’ve been film­ing for four days straight.

Luckily, this includ­ed a won­der­ful per­for­mance by the inim­itable André Bluteau, whose debut CD is out now, and which you should most def­i­nite­ly pur­chase after lis­ten­ing and sub­se­quent­ly lov­ing.

I added a touch of grad­ing to give the video a bit of creamy 1950s American din­er feel. I’m thor­ough­ly impressed by Apple’s Motion soft­ware, and the pow­er it has to cre­ate object-track­ing text effects. Text can add such a nice­ly sub­tle cin­e­mat­ic touch, though doing 3D trans­for­ma­tions to make words match the plane of a fore­ground object is an exer­cise that will make your eyes bug out.

Andrew Vincent live @ Raw Sugar Cafe

The only thing pre­vent­ing me from mak­ing out with this man was his green hat. Don’t, don’t, don’t cov­er it up.

Also head­lin­ing was Andrew Vincent, who opened his set with Girlfriend’s Dog, a song I first gave to Bronwen when we start­ed dat­ing. It was right before she moved in for the sum­mer, and she had Bear, who was also a Labrador Retriever.

Now I under­stand why I need to much time in between events. After the con­cert, I did­n’t fall asleep until three in the morn­ing, even though I was exhaust­ed. The strug­gle not be shy and intro­vert­ed drains me, but the sim­ple act of being around so many peo­ple leaves me inor­di­nate­ly ener­gized. It’s too much some­times, but I nev­er know what to think of that feel­ing.

Jesse Dangerously — Halifax Rap Legend (Live @ Zaphod Beeblebrox)

The last stop of the 1000 Crooked Miles was right here at Zaphod’s in Ottawa. The last song of the night was Jesse’s (who was head­lin­ing) with a per­for­mance of Halifax Rap Legend, the beat tak­en from his upcom­ing album.

I know of no oth­er rap­per who can use the expres­sion “rest­ing on your lau­rels” in their rhymes. I sus­pect this is why MC Chris once named him as the only rap­per he liked.

hugs

Hugs after the show.

Summer House Show with Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously

House show invitation, featuring Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously

Update: Sign up for the Facebook event!

Attention Ottawa peo­ple! I’m hav­ing an indie music con­cert at my house this sum­mer1. That’s right, it’ll be an inti­mate night of folk and rap songs with Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously. Remember these two from the con­cert I went to ear­li­er this year, where this awe­some and impromp­tu col­lab­o­ra­tion hap­pened:

You also may have read about Jesse in an Ottawa Citizen arti­cle last month, or seen Shane per­form­ing with Krista Muir over the last few years. Well, I want­ed to see both these artists per­form again, so I invit­ed them to my house. Not only will it be a night of authen­tic music (with anoth­er col­lab­o­ra­tion, I’ve been told!), but there will be free ice cream, and you’ll get to meet my cat, with whom you’ll fall in love2. Shane has also hint­ed that he might bring a spe­cial guest for the night. So come and meet the musi­cians, sup­port local Canadian tal­ent, and have a fan­tas­tic time.

  1. Click the pic­ture above to down­load the invi­ta­tion. []
  2. No, you can­not take her home. []

An Opera at The Met

When I watched Moonstruck in my uni­ver­si­ty “Music in the Movies” class, we stud­ied a scene where Ronny Cammareri (Nicholas Cage’s char­ac­ter) has a date with Loretta Castorini (played by Cher) at the Metropolitan Opera. She takes off her coat, and he says, “Thank you…You know it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Opera”.

In his face, you see that he’s not talk­ing just about the opera. After los­ing his hand and fiancée, he’s at the Met, arguably the most pres­ti­gious opera house in the world, with a beau­ti­ful woman in a black dress, and he’s missed this.

Even in the screen­play, there are set direc­tions for the scene when they arrive:

CROWDS OF PEOPLE in beau­ti­ful clothes fill the plaza cre­at­ed by the three great build­ings. A glo­ri­ous foun­tain filled with lights forms the cen­ter­piece. Behind the foun­tain, grand and splen­did­ly lit, is the mag­i­cal Metropolitan Opera House.

Ever since, The Met has been this place I’ve dreamed of attend­ing. Unfortunately, it’s in New York, and decent seats can cost over $100.

Orfeo ed Euridice

So when my local movie the­atre start­ed offer­ing live HD broad­casts of per­for­mances there, I decid­ed I should go. To ful­fill a dream in spir­it, if not in the flesh.

Continue read­ing “An Opera at The Met”…

Krista and Shane at 160 Workshops

This was by far the best con­cert I’ve ever been to in my life, and not just because Shane ded­i­cat­ed It’s A Drag to me and Julie (although that was TOTALLY AWESOME).

It was the inti­mate set­ting, chill atmos­phere and awe­some music that made it unlike any oth­er per­for­mance I’ve attend­ed. This pri­vate show was at 160 Workshops, a house that reg­u­lar­ly opens its doors for craft work­shops to bring peo­ple togeth­er in the Ottawa com­mu­ni­ty.

Shane’s songs are always best in small venues like this. They’re per­son­al and sub­tly strik­ing, and the acoustic sound real­ly brings that warmth across.

Shane did a mix of old and new mate­r­i­al, then took requests from audi­ence mem­bers, along with some par­tic­i­pa­tion on vocals, spoons, and cow­bell. There also hap­pened to be Canadian nerd­core rap­per Jesse Dangerously in atten­dance, and after some prod­ding, he pro­vid­ed rhymes for Girls by the Beastie Boys, along with beat­box­ing back­ground per­cus­sion for Les Ouaouarons.

And, of course, Krista Muir (aka Lederhosen Lucil) was the head­lin­er, pro­mot­ing her new full-length album, Accidental Railway. The album includes a huge map for a fic­tion­al town that Shane made, with names of streets and places tak­en from mem­o­ries of their tour togeth­er.

Other shows with Krista Muir and Shane Watt

  1. At the Workshop Studio & Boutique
  2. At Le Petit Salon des Arts
  3. At Irene’s Pub
  4. At 160 Workshops