A tale about music, ninjas and ukuleles.
On Sunday, I was supposed to have a jam session with one of my friends. But first, I was out with Donna.
We went to Fish Creek park because we wanted to visit Sicome Lake. However, all the crappy beaches in Calgary make you pay to walk barefoot in the sand, so we climbed a hill. I was in heels. We were excited to get to the top, eagerly anticipating an outstretch of canyons, or perhaps a far reaching forest... we got Deer Run.
For those of you who do not know what Deer Run is, it's a street. A crappy street in Calgary. Yeah. Scintilating and worth the climb.
As we descended the hill, we decided that our next adventure would be to go ukulele shopping. Donna is going to learn how to play the ukulele and we are going to start a band. We have a lot of bands, they are usually high concept, low talent bands. But this time with our new found marginal musical talent, we might actually play gigs that do not involve tricking our friends into coming to a party and then holding them captive as we wail out tunes from the 90s or regale them with spoken word anthems about Canadian celebrities. It's a Punk Cabaret Piano Ukulele band. The Feminist Ninjas. We play songs about misogyny and attack the patriarchy one ditty at a time.
But then we discovered that all music shops are closed on Sundays.
It was okay though, because my friend called about our jam session. He said something like, "I know we were going to play some Metric songs today, but I scored free tickets to Virgin Fest; so instead of playing Metric songs, let's go see Metric play songs." So we did.
I stomped around Virgin Fest in heels. Saw Metric, Shout Out Out Out Out and Billy Talent. We were aiming to catch Tokyo Police Club's set earlier in the day, but ran too late. It was a good time though.
I love Emily Haines. She was sounding a bit shakey during the first few songs, but then she found her groove. Damn, that woman has energy. They mostly played songs from "Fantasies", and I remembered just how very much I love their new album. Apparently, they've been playing acoustic gigs in Europe. Now THAT would be something amazing to see/hear. Unfortunately they did not play things in an acoustic manner, but it's a festival, what do I expect?
They played two songs from "Live it Out" and I was reminded just how much I do not love that particular album. It's just... loud. I'd say "Fantasies" is more in line with "Old World Underground", and I do so love "Old World Underground".
Meanwhile, another of my friends has graciously offered to host "Jaclyn Plies Us With Wine". This was a gathering that I had planned on holding while we were house sitting last month but never got around to it.
Basically, in preparation for my November piano gig at the University, I wanted to get more audience exposure. My theatre/recital/musical hay day has long ended, and I haven't done any performing for six years -minus the very small and intimate gig back in June. The more exposure, the better. I have to get comfortable performing with a piano, this is new an uncharted territory.
I was actually really bummed out that it didn't happen in July. Granted, my repertoire wouldn't have been up to snuff. I was lamenting the fact that now I had no venue, and my dear sweet friend said that we could host it at his place. I think he may just be doing it because my plan was to enforce a dress code and he is just dying for an excuse to wear his aramani suit. Never-the-less, "Jaclyn Plies us with Wine" is going to take place on the 21st of this month. I have under two weeks to get ready. I have to learn more upbeat songs; he's inviting a handful of people I don't know and while that's probably a good thing exposure-performance-wise, I always feel like I can get away with more bat shittery when I am surrounded only by people who are used to my insanity.
My repertoire is currently designed to make people want to cry themselves to sleep on their big enormous pillows, and I need to not bore these people who are not familiar with my quirks to death.
I'm going to ask my other friend to bring his guitar, and maybe we'll eke out some Metric songs. Hopefully we'll have a jam session beforehand just to know what we're capable as a duo. Our band is named "Stewart Wrote This Menu".
And, if Donna gets her ukulele on, we may debut one song by the "Feminist Ninjas" at the end of the night.
Oh life, did you know you're so weird and musical?
Jac.
We went to Fish Creek park because we wanted to visit Sicome Lake. However, all the crappy beaches in Calgary make you pay to walk barefoot in the sand, so we climbed a hill. I was in heels. We were excited to get to the top, eagerly anticipating an outstretch of canyons, or perhaps a far reaching forest... we got Deer Run.
For those of you who do not know what Deer Run is, it's a street. A crappy street in Calgary. Yeah. Scintilating and worth the climb.
As we descended the hill, we decided that our next adventure would be to go ukulele shopping. Donna is going to learn how to play the ukulele and we are going to start a band. We have a lot of bands, they are usually high concept, low talent bands. But this time with our new found marginal musical talent, we might actually play gigs that do not involve tricking our friends into coming to a party and then holding them captive as we wail out tunes from the 90s or regale them with spoken word anthems about Canadian celebrities. It's a Punk Cabaret Piano Ukulele band. The Feminist Ninjas. We play songs about misogyny and attack the patriarchy one ditty at a time.
But then we discovered that all music shops are closed on Sundays.
It was okay though, because my friend called about our jam session. He said something like, "I know we were going to play some Metric songs today, but I scored free tickets to Virgin Fest; so instead of playing Metric songs, let's go see Metric play songs." So we did.
I stomped around Virgin Fest in heels. Saw Metric, Shout Out Out Out Out and Billy Talent. We were aiming to catch Tokyo Police Club's set earlier in the day, but ran too late. It was a good time though.
I love Emily Haines. She was sounding a bit shakey during the first few songs, but then she found her groove. Damn, that woman has energy. They mostly played songs from "Fantasies", and I remembered just how very much I love their new album. Apparently, they've been playing acoustic gigs in Europe. Now THAT would be something amazing to see/hear. Unfortunately they did not play things in an acoustic manner, but it's a festival, what do I expect?
They played two songs from "Live it Out" and I was reminded just how much I do not love that particular album. It's just... loud. I'd say "Fantasies" is more in line with "Old World Underground", and I do so love "Old World Underground".
Meanwhile, another of my friends has graciously offered to host "Jaclyn Plies Us With Wine". This was a gathering that I had planned on holding while we were house sitting last month but never got around to it.
Basically, in preparation for my November piano gig at the University, I wanted to get more audience exposure. My theatre/recital/musical hay day has long ended, and I haven't done any performing for six years -minus the very small and intimate gig back in June. The more exposure, the better. I have to get comfortable performing with a piano, this is new an uncharted territory.
I was actually really bummed out that it didn't happen in July. Granted, my repertoire wouldn't have been up to snuff. I was lamenting the fact that now I had no venue, and my dear sweet friend said that we could host it at his place. I think he may just be doing it because my plan was to enforce a dress code and he is just dying for an excuse to wear his aramani suit. Never-the-less, "Jaclyn Plies us with Wine" is going to take place on the 21st of this month. I have under two weeks to get ready. I have to learn more upbeat songs; he's inviting a handful of people I don't know and while that's probably a good thing exposure-performance-wise, I always feel like I can get away with more bat shittery when I am surrounded only by people who are used to my insanity.
My repertoire is currently designed to make people want to cry themselves to sleep on their big enormous pillows, and I need to not bore these people who are not familiar with my quirks to death.
I'm going to ask my other friend to bring his guitar, and maybe we'll eke out some Metric songs. Hopefully we'll have a jam session beforehand just to know what we're capable as a duo. Our band is named "Stewart Wrote This Menu".
And, if Donna gets her ukulele on, we may debut one song by the "Feminist Ninjas" at the end of the night.
Oh life, did you know you're so weird and musical?
Jac.