bassmorgasborg!

wow,  crazy times.  we wish there were more hrs in a day but alas we meet again blog with so much of interest on our plate.

a recent summer evening gig at a private party with Those Handsome Hooligans was sweet.  not only was the pool and fire pit on prime display but we had a great time playing tunes in a laid back atmosphere and we led a wee open mic thang happen as well.  we brought peggy the amp out and she stood up to the outdoor test.  perhaps it was because we put here near a huge bolder to let the rear sound reverberate or perhaps she just loves to rawk!

the next day was an acoustic duo set with the lead singer of TooNice.  interesting just the 2 of us playing with no percussion and very little in the way of back up vox from yours truly.  a well attended store opening that responded well to the low key reggae vibe!

and now we get to the big part… we’ve gotten on the iphone bandwagon.  let just say that there are a slew of new gizmos that come out and they are here and gone in a matter of winks but we can forsee the iphone being one of those items that has legs, can have some amazing staying power and is well worth the investment.  in the last week alone, we’ve more easily been able to facebook, tweet, email and share photos in ways and speed we never could have imagined a few wks ago.  for instance, TooNice played a reggae fest this past saturday and we posted soundcheck photos of us and by the time our set was done, fans had  already commented on them. then we were able to tweet our progress from the festival to our night gig in newmarket.  we are now huge fans of the device and we’ve only just begun.  our next post will be done via iphone just to say we could do it and did it.  theres more more news but til then….  here’s a soundcheck pic from the iphone!

TooNice soundchecks in the rain at Reggae Muskoka 2011!

fly by July!

wow.  july flew by!  where to begin?  how about where we left off?

TooNice played 3 shows in the middle of the month.  the Friday was an intense hr long set at the British Arms in Barrie as part of the New Music Fest.  the joint was packed and much to our delight, ppl started movin and groovin the moment we started.  that is twice now we’ve played BA and gotten a great response.  only time will tell if we’re lucky enuff to play there again soon!  the Saturday was a full night at the Iron Horse in Cookstown.  just us and a few choice regulars made for an intimate and interactive evening.  great time and lots of tomfoolery!  we do recall having to swat a lot of mosquitos during our playing as we were nestled right near the patio doors.  the next night we were back again at the Barrie New Music Festival to play a 20 minute set during the awards show.  TooNice was nominated for “best reggae” and though we were the only act to play and not win, we got to chat and network with a lot of varied artists.  that made the evening all worthwhile.  if you like Sloan, u gotta check out Sweet Mack!  great band!

the following weekend was the triumphant return of Those Handsome Hooligans!  we were playing a mash up summer bash-bday party-buying a new house celebration outdoors.  but the rain made us start the evening inside and then we made the shift outdoors once the skies cleared up.  that was sonically odd to us as we got used to how the band sounded inside for a set and with the move outdoors not only was there more room to groove but we sounded so much different!  it made for a great evening of live music in a fairly spacey area beside a pool and a fire.  talk about picturesque! every1 in attendance was blown away by our hooligasm sets and much dancing was had. pretty much every1 said they could not believe how much of a difference it made having a real band play at a party. take that ipods! we were happy with our playing for the most part.  we hadn’t had much jam time in the lead up with members being away on vac etc but the tunes sure felt REAL darn good to finally let loose on!  we also played an epic set of 19 songs in a row that felt like 5 mins went by.  gather that must be a good thing.  we coulda played til the sun came up!

the last weekend of the month was back to reggae with TooNice.  we played a quaint lounge on the Friday in Woodbridge.  a few ppl danced but many regulars were away for the long weekend.  we made the most of it though.  we got to go over in a live setting a lot of material we hadn’t done in awhile.  that will help us in August as the band has many more high profile gigs on the radar.  one track nearly killed us and our finger tips.  time off followed by a lot of playing was finally catching up to our poor fingers.

looking back, july was busy month musically and to think we even squeezed some downtime and some horseplay in there too!  crazy!

sizing up the competition

bassballs!

july board

been busy.  just preppin for another weekend with TooNice and took a quick shot of the pedal board for this trio of shows.  welcome aboard Bassballs!  u sure are addictive!  next week we’ll post some thoughts on how the new pedal does!

The Heat in Sudz

just putting the wraps to a great weekend with TooNice.  we played a billiards hall on the friday in Toronto then hit the road for our longest road trip yet… to Sudbury for an afternoon matinee at a coffee shop and an evening show at a pub.  all 3 shows were great but for different reasons.  friday night was not so busy so as a result, we got to try out a lot of the new material we’ve been working hard on the past few weeks in a live setting without much at stake.  some were rougher than others and a lot was learnt about which songs still need more attention and which are stage-ready perfect. btw, the home-made perogies at ONCUE were to die for! highly recommended!

saturday in sudbury was a heckuva lotta fun!  the matinee was ridonkulous as the kids in attendance were in non-stop dancing mode, the customers were more boisterous than u’d think and we sold out of our cd’s!  we’ll not soon forget the applause we got at the finish of the show.  that was off the charts!

the evening show was well attended and we got a fair shake of ppl up on the dancefloor.  we even lent out our bass amp to one of the bands playing(our first time doing that).  they were a decent original rock outfit with a great lead singer.  anyways, we get the 200w amp back afterwards and all the dials were turned all the way up!  its no worse for wear (they only played 30mins) but we’ll defo be thinking twice next time we lend her out. our thx to dj bookshelf for keeping the vibe up inbetween sets!  so sweet! also sweet were the tunes that we played for the 3rd time in under 24hrs.  by far, the best sets of the weekend!

as for our playing, we made some minor mistakes at all 3 shows but we didn’t repeat any.  and that was our goal heading into the weekend… not repeating mistakes and learning from them.  we were also trying hard to stay concentrated at the job at hand while playing and not get caught up in any day dreaming, thinking about the next song or crowd watching. we’ve also started to incorporate some thumb playing on the bass with mixed results.  we haven’t practiced that style enough to be wholly comfortable with it yet but there is definitely a time when it is needed and we’ll be counting on that style of playing in the shows ahead for sure.  we are lovin’ the deep sound we get with the thumb!

below are a few pics from the downtown blues fest for the local food bank that we stumbled upon inbetween satuday gigs.  the band playing was called “mississippi heat” from chicago and they were playing some wicked tight blues!  each member was spot on and the sound for an outdoor event was excellent.  it was the best sonic suprise of the day for us and we wish we coulda stayed longer.

from alley oop 2 zimbabwe

11 tracks from our May 7th Yola’s show in Oshawa have made it online.  we dunno how long all of them will stay up but if u ever wanted to experience an entire TooNice set from the comfort of yer home, now is the time!  the sound is decent, the viz a tad blurry and there’s some guy on the bass in the freakin’ way.  mayday!  mayday!  enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/toonicereggae

Tone Update: after this weekend’s 2 hoppin’ shows at the Music On Main Street Festival, (thx Loretto and Tottenham!) the new tone settings seem to be better. at least for the short term we are satisfied. our Ampeg BA210 comes with 5 presets of which we’ve choosen the flattest setting and then we’re tweaking lows at 8, mids to 5, highs to 7 (all are ish’s) for a decent foundation.  after that we can do finer reggae bass tweakin’ at our fingertips on the bass itself on a song by song basis for what the next song requires.  in other bass news, we open up the case on Friday only to discover that we’ve worn a thumb print into the instrument right above the pickup!  at first our reaction was ACK!  then ah, cool. the thumb print symbolizes at lot of practice and fun at shows!

here’s a few phone pics of the venues from the Music on Main St. Fest.  also with the phone so the quality is meh but u get the point.  natty times and we never thought we’d ever be playing a bonafide country bar (Loretto) and on top of that, in a reggae band.  truly unforgettable!

catching up with tone

its been a busy few weeks on the bass.  after this coming weekend, it will add up to 7 shows in 5 weeks.  slightly more than the one every other week we thought we’d have when we started this whole learnin’ the bass business.  we’re not complaining though.  every show has been so memorable and for various reasons.  for instance, we played our first “dry” cafe event this past weekend and by the sounds of it, you’d have thunk ppl we’re getting sloshed.  the small but vocal and energetic crowd blew away many a bar crowd with their level of intensity. great times!

skipapalooza was also a great event.  we packed the joint with a crowd to see the debut of “Those Handsome Hooligans” and the return to the area of “TooNice“.  the 5th/last set is still a blur and we managed to keep the energy level up throughout. 3 regrets from the THH debut though:

1. not happy with how we played “come together“.  it was ok, but we would have liked to have played it better (more on this later).  maybe it was just too early in the set for our “A” game.  this has happened b4 to us on other songs.

2. having a blank out moment in the middle of one song.  too funny!  we still don’t know what the heck distracted us or what our mind changed to, but it sure wasn’t about the song!

3. not being able to share a drink with the other Hooigans post set as we had to get back onstage asap for TooNice.  ah well, thats what we get for booking both our bands on the same night!

Hooligans are busy on adding to our 30+ songlist and making promo material.  follow us now on twitter and also here’s a slice from our recent photoshoot.

Those Handsome Hooligans Promo Pic!

in our “spare” time, we’ve been attempting to bring our bass playing up a notch.  a lot of the songs we do in both bands we can either “get by” or is what we consider “sufficient“.  we’ve really been trying to improve on those songs in particular.  we’ve been noticing that the songs we do improve upon bring more enjoyment the next time we play them live.  perhaps it might have to do with the fact that by the end we’re not thinking that “geez, wish we could play that better” and instead the new thought is “thank goodness we learnt that song properly. it sounds so much better now!”

another issue we are dealing with this week is our reggae bass tone.  its slowly slipped into a murky mess in the past 2 shows and its gotten to the point that it needed to be rethought out from scratch.  it used to sound ok but somewhere along the way it changed.  all part of the learning process we gather.  so we took advantage of some free time the other night and just worked on tone until our ears couldn’t take it anymore.  we tried a slew of different settings on the bass, on the amp, on the pedals and mixed and matched til’ we couldn’t any more.  we think we’ve got it nailed down now though. we’ll see how it goes this weekend and likely that will be next week’s post.

last but not least, thanks to clashblog for posting our last post on the strummer nights on their website.  that was fantastic and much appreciated!

Strummer Nights 2011

Forget summer nights in Hamilton, Strummer nights are way better!

We were lucky enough to experience 2 straight nights of Joe Strummer songs at This Ain’t Hollywood this past weekend.  Great crowds (the first night was capacity packed, second one almost) and a way better experience than having to live thru an evening of Gorillaz or Big Audio Dynamite to get your 2011 Clash fix.  It was so good we already can’t wait for the next version on Good Friday and Easter Saturday of 2012.  There wasn’t a bad act amongst the lineup with a heap of supergroups, one-offs, reunions and special guests appearing.  Folk, Punk, Celtic, Rock, Reggae, Rockabilly, Thrash genres and everything in-between were all covered.  Personal highlight had to be seeing the Letdowns (ex-Wetspots) play.  Ah, so many good shows they’ve had and all the memories just came flooding back the moment they hit the stage!  Our fave song, Straight to Hell got a sweet treatment and hearing Burning Lights from the soundtrack of I Hired a Contract Killer was fantastic!  Top marks for The Saints Are Coming for bringing a great Celtic twist to some songs that we wish the video we took did more justice.

and speaking of video, this event got us thinking about investing in a better camera to take videos of live music with since our current setup is hit and miss. its just an everyday digital camera and not meant for live music.  ahhhh, there’s always a reason for more gear!

Here’s some pics and some of the best of the video evidence.  Visit our youtube site for all the vizness. More videos still being added as we post this.  Thanks for the memories Strummer Night #9, we’ll see u again for 10!

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Thinking about joining on online gym!

TGIF & ready 2 party!

Last nights show at On Cue Billiards was a great hoot!  the crowd was appreciative and we played a huge amount of Reggae!  we took and played  ppl’s requests which was a great feeling and the atmosphere was top-notch.  tankhouse was on tap though it was empty.  can’t wait to play there again soon!

on a personal note, we forgot one of our essential gear bags at home.  we didn’t realize this until we got to the venue.  luckily enough TooNice had spare patch cords so we could still play (though our movement was somewhat restricted) but the bigger issue was we didn’t have our cheat notes for some of the lesser known material.  ack!  what a stresser that was but alas we endured because we had to.  a few missed notes but a good time all around and forgetting the bag could have been a blessin in disguise.  could this be the end of cheat notes as we know it?  only time will tell.  there’s another show tonight!  time to rest up and join that online gym!

da waitin’ ends this weekend!

as we wrote in an email to a friend this past weekend “in regards to skipapalooza, we’ve gone from being excited to play it and lets just get this over with already about a 100 times.“

skipapalooza is of course the meeting of yours truly’s 2 bands in one night.  the reggae outfit, TooNice ends the evening and we’ve done numerous shows together.  BUT its the debut of our cover band, Those Handsome Hooligans that night. hence the excitment level and “lets just get this done already” line of thinking.

as was remarked during our last jam session, the guitarist and i have been trying to get this band off the ground for a year now.  its been a process that has had its numerous ups and downs and we’ve learnt a lot about ppl and ourselves during that time period.  and looking back, we wouldn’t trade a single experience to get to this launch point sooner.  it just took this long and sometimes ya just gotta be patient… and the patience pays off in spades this weekend!

here’s some rough vizness from a recent open mike test drive of the Hooligans in action.

 

xpect more pics/viz after this weekend!  let the face melting begin!

 

Free=TooNICE!

Our reggaeriffic band, TooNice has just released 2 songs from our debut cd for free download!  Check ‘em out at Soundcloud!  Sweet!