Montreal Pop, Wiggle Waggle Walk, and a Weezing….

Friday October 3rd and it’s off to Montreal to play the Pop Montreal festival… I have to fly to Chicago, change flights, continue to Montreal, and hopefully have enough time to rest a bit before hitting the Stage at the Saphir at 8 pm. The rest of the band flew in a day earlier, so they’re waiting, exploring, getting a little of that French Canadian flavour. I end up on an early morning flight that gets delayed, so i miss my connecting flight, and end up spending hours in airports, and make it to the hotel around 3 pm, with a club check in time of around 5 pm. Exhausted and hoping for a second (or third – by this time) wind.

All is seemingly going well – we get to the club – the soundman is there – one of the other bands is there (the I Spies) – but it turns out we are all waiting for the “Headlining” band – Crystal Moustache – to arrive, because we are borrowing some of their equipment (i wasn’t about to fly a drumkit with me). We start at 8 pm – the band shows up around 7:30, so we have a real rushed soundcheck and then just start right up – with a broken drumkit, a few technical sound problems on the keyboards, no real monitor sound, and random floor / stage experiments with smoke machines and lights.

The crowd is very not there at this point…. we got a nice little write up in the Montreal Hour, and some good words in the official Pop Montreal description, but i think we were playing a little early and we are – well – unknown – in Canada – so a few more people started arriving by the time we were on our last song – and the I spies got a decent crowd, and the headliners pretty much packed ’em in. I don’t understand those crazy Canadians….

we had a few drinks, got our stuff back to the hotel, and wandered the late night streets looking around and then finding a little late night cafe  / diner for some much needed food – and in the process discovered the wonderful meal that is Poutine….

The next day we pretty much just explored – some touristy sights, some not so much. Old Montreal was kind of like a French reproduction of Vancouver’s Gastown, Some amazing architecture, and all the people seemed very friendly – we stopped in a couple of the Pop Montreal Craft / Record Swap  Fairs, i met my old friend Ralph, we chatted, then off to wander – hit a gallery, ate more food, drank some beer, and later hit a surreal and empty karaoke club.

Then bedtime and early Sunday wake-up to get to the airport and fly straight back to LA – exhausted, and happy to have made it out of LA, even though the show could have been better.

Back in LA – and Diesel is a little better, Shelley having stayed home to nurse and watch the dogs, but Kiku is now a little sick, so it’s to the vet again – and about a week of watching and worrying – but now Kiku is back to her hyper happy little self…

Friday the 10th – it’s Solley’s time again – with Tina this time, and then Saturday Shelley and I get up early to head of to the Wiggle Waggle walk at the Rose Bowl – part of the Punk Rock Rovers – Cosmo with us – and we rock the walk…

Cosmo did great – barely had to carry him at all, and he was a little nervous around all the dogs, but didn’t bark at all, and just seemed a little more shy than usual…. and found a few butts to sniff as well, which seemed to make him happy. You can find more info about this event here:

Wiggle Waggle

Then – home, change, and dinner at Daichan, and to bed early – ’cause we got up even earlier on Sunday to head down to the LaBrea Tarpits to do our volunteer work at the Super Adoption… a weekend overflowing with dogs… but it felt good to be doing good for all them pups….

Shelley and I drove around on our little cart – loading and unloading crates and dogs and merchandise for various vendors and pet groups – from about 7am until 6 pm – when we finally got the last of everyone loaded out – and weary and smelly and exhausted even more – it was dinner at 4’n’20 and then home, some Freaks and Geeks on DVD, and bed crash.

Now it’s wednesday – halfway through October – and we’re heading for halloween.

Last night we went down to the Forum – to see Angels & Airwaves and Weezer play – which was… interesting. I haveta say that seats at the soundboard are definitely a good place to be. sometimes a little special treatment goes a long way.  a long day, long night, and now back to work and getting ready to head up to San Francisco for a little visit with friends and a Pre-Tour Metallica show.

Popping Montreal and Modest in Modesto

First off, It’s September.

things keep moving on and on. I guess the big news is that the Black Kites were invited to play the Pop Montreal festival in October. it just sorta happened, and we’re all very anxious and excited. First – it’s ok, we’re playing Friday Night at the Saphir, at 10 pm. good time, but there’s going to be an awful lot of competition going on at the same time. I’ve never been to this particular music festival, but i’ve been hearing good things – so i’m hoping that regardless, there will be an audience.

and then it turns out there’s some voting thing going on for some of the bands – who’s going to play the Sirius stage. so we’re all – vote for us vote for us – and i guess it worked, because we started kinda down on the list, but when the “contest” ended on AUgust 30th – it was like this:

	Artist	Track Title	Pop
	Black Kites	What To Do In Case of Emergency	34
	Flufftronix	Shark Attack	31
	The Craft Economy	OK.Ciao.Bye.	29
	Black Kites	Glass Parade	27
	Rachel Margaret	Fade (Master)	26

that was the top 5. we still have No Idea what it means, but we’re hoping it means something good.

Yay Montreal!

but before that, and before now… lessee…

I left off – on my birthday. August 14th – it was Shelley’s birthday. Together, we had a joint “party” or i guess more of a very nice gathering – of friends on Saturday the 16th. Food from Porto’s, wine, beer, brownies, great people, great conversations, and everyone finally went home by 2 in the morning. it was good.

August 18th – the Black Kites played at the Silverlake Lounge – i really like that place, except for the drinks – the prices, and how the drink tickets don’t really work for anything you want to be drinking (at least – what i wanted to be drinking…) but other than that – it was a good night.

August 20th – Shelley & I went to Daichan with Nicki. always a great place to go, and the next night it was our first full band practice with Gabe – expanding the black kite guitar count to 2. Thinking it’s going to sound great when we all start writing new songs together. It’s always a bit awkward when you join a band and start relearning old songs… i definitely know how that goes. it’s the fresh and new songs that you all hit together that really tell you where the band is going to next.

Then a quiet weekend – dinner with Amy at Damon’s, practice, practice, work, work…

and on the 29th, our first show with Gabe – at the Echo Curio. very small, very very hot. but a good place to start with a new line-up. felt like playing at the practice space whith a bunch of friends hanging out –

(pic “borrowed” from gabe’s site…)

August 30th, off to Daichan again – with Audra & Brennan. Next night, Natalia and Amy came over – we had some food and drinks (Absolut LA… we love it!). Natalia took a bunch of photos of the 3 dogs and Shelley and I – for some artwork she is going to be doing – very interested and curious to see how it will turn out. It was a nice evening – all of us hanging out.

September 1st, Steven & Tomi stopped by for a little bit – and then the long weekend was over, and it’s back to that daily grind. Saturday the black kites head up to Modesto to play with the Solar Powered People, and that should be fun.

until then – it’s just waiting for some good Canadian news to come our way….