Fyahhorns Continued ....

And on the trombone we have Duane Bonnick. It's nice to know a trombone player. I didn't know any prior to this so to have the only one I know be pretty good is a bonus. I love horns. Interesting fact about me: I used to play trombone in junior high. I wasn't as good as Duane.

Remember, Fyahhorns and the Brigade are at Humber College Lakeshore Campus Auditorium on April 1st, 7pm.

Gimme the Fyahhorns

So I'm playing as part of Fyahhorns and de Brigade on Thursday. Today I'll start introducing you to the Fyahhorns.

They are led by Kurt McIntosh on saxophones. He's a friend of mine I met while playing at church. I could tell right away he's the real deal. I like being right about stuff. He also plays flute. He wrote most of the tunes that are going to be played on Thursday. So be there. Humber College, Lakeshore Campus, 7pm.

Back in Business. Come out on Thursday.

After an unexpected week off, I am now back at it. Plenty has happened since I was separated from my precious Internet. But today I'll be talking about my Thursday gig.

It is Fyahorns and de Brigade week here at Inside Randall's Pocket.

Fyahorns and de Brigade will be playing the Humber College Lakeshore Campus Auditorium on April 1st at 7pm. No, I ain't foolin.' This is going to be an awesome show. The players are incredible though if you look at the roster you could probably call us the Long and McQuade Brigade.

I'll get into who the Fyahorns are, and who the Brigade consists of later this week. Stay tuned.

Unfortunate Circumstances

It turns out my Russian landlady is a real cheapskate and apparently unplugged the modem until she feels it is feasible for her to offer unlimited internet to her tenants again.

I think she grew up in communist Russia so I kind of understand that for her, unlimited means "Whenever she feels like letting us use it."

She lives in Canada now, but sometimes I wonder where she's really living.

So until she becomes a little more Canadian, which I believe is going to be around April 1st, the blog is on hiatus.

My apologies to my faithful readers, and we'll see you in April.

Go Tangara! Meet Her at the Roxy!

So I was looking for the Divine Brown intro song to Hockey Night in Canada when I came across this clip of "Meet Me at the Roxy." It's my favourite Divine Brown tune because I'm a sucker for old school sounding tunes. So I watched the clip, and lo and behold, there is my cousin dancing away opening for the Backstreet Boys. Good clip.

Go Tangara! Lights, Camera, and Affirmative Action

I was looking for the Divine Brown clip from Hockey Night in Canada earlier this week and I stumbled across a clip of my cousin. I'll get to that one tomorrow because I figured I should go in chronological order of events as I saw them.

Due to the amount of questions I got about them at my wedding, I'm just going to come out straight and say many people noticed the attractiveness of my cousins.

Anyway, the first time I saw Tangara was on my sister-in-law's computer screen as we were watching Degrassi TNG and the clips of her character Julie try to get into a sorority. The storyline in a nutshell is that the sorority is playing the two black girls off each other, and only picking one to get more funding from the university by having a black girl in the sorority.

Here it is:

And one more Hockey Night in Canada Intro

When one asks a question like "Who is the greatest Canadian rock band of all time?," one will not hear the word Nickelback very often. I know somebody out there thinks so and I'm sure they're loved, by someone at least.

Since all their music sounds the same, and they are not alone in this (ie. look up Hillsong in the dictionary), they got smart and decided to cover an Elton John tune, as Elton is one the baddest asses when it comes to good rock and roll.

Well CBC thought it would be a good idea to put this montage at the beginning of every Hockey Night in Canada broadcast that falls on a Saturday Night. There were a lot of montages for me to choose from on YouTube but I chose Hockeyman127's because I liked it the best. It's similar to what the CBC does but Hockeyman chose to splice together the songs and highlights from a bunch of intros and make it really awesome. Thumbs up Hockeyman, thumbs way up!!

Another Hockey Night In Canada Intro I like

I was never a real big fan of this intro until they re-did it a couple years ago with a female singer. It turns out that it is Divine Brown, she of "Meet Me at the Roxy" herself. She will be turning up in another post later this week. Stay tuned.

Hockey Night In Canada Re-Done

For the next couple days I'm blogging some good hockey stuff. Recently I have had multiple conversations about the new Hockey Night in Canada on TSN theme that was re-done by Neil Peart of the legendary group Rush.

If you have a complaint about Neil, don't talk to me because I won't have it. He has made a very successful career doing what he does by excelling in memory, orchestration, preparation, and technique. After inspiring hundreds of thousands of musicians over his career he crosses his talent over to the hockey world. It's very common knowledge that I love both Rush and hockey. So I was in a very good place when this next video became available. Enjoy.

It's all about the beards

My friend Aaron and I have beards, so I thought it was cool that he posted a picture of the "Influential Beards Throughout History." We were not on it.

Go Otis!

I was hanging with Otis alot in Niagara Falls last weekend because the other two in the band were suckered into doing a drama for this conference. Otis and I know better than to get suckered like that.

During this time I was asking him about his Vancouver Olympic experience. He was playing with Keshia Chante for a couple dates out there. He told me about it and showed me this clip on his blackberry.

I thought this was pretty cool, seeing my guy Otis out there in action playing on the big stage. Keshia will be appearing in this blog a little later. Stay tuned.

Daddy's Girl (Saturday)

Saturday started ok. I got a late breakfast when the rest of the band had to go for the early breakfast. Otis (drummer) decided he would come to the late one anyway. Which was nice until I realized that I was given the wrong time and should be ready to play in the morning in 10 minutes. My hair was a mess and I was still in my pj's. Of course it didn't take long for me to get dressed because I was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

Once again, we played really well so they asked us to play an 11:30 segment as well. This almost cut into my time, which would not be cool. But it all worked out.

Every year at Daddy's girl on the Saturday, I meet up with my uncle Andy because they don't want me at the girly seminar stuff. My uncle lives about 10 minutes from the Doubltree Resort and Spa so he swings by every year and we do different things.

In year one he took me to Mick & Angelos. Their wings are awesome. Then he took me on a great tour of Niagara Falls and which ended us up at the casino watching hockey all afternoon in the sports bar. We didn't gamble.

Year two we also went to Mick & Angelos. Then he took me to his place and he gave me his hockey gloves because I told him I was planning to play my first ever hockey season a month later. What an honour to wear those. He was a really good hockey player (goalie)so I am going to retire them after this season and buy new ones so I can pass them down even further. Then we picked up my wife at the hotel and went out for another tour, and pizza with Coor's Light at Clancy's.

Year three we also went to Mick & Angelos. Then we did a very cool thing and did a tour of all the hockey arenas in the Welland/St. Catherines/Niagara region. It was really neat. We also went under the Welland Canal to get to St. Catherines. Here's the clip:

Anyway, if my uncle wasn't there, this gig would not be as good. That's for damn sure.

Daddy's Girl (The Friday)

Daddy's Girl got off to a rough start for me. I was having one of those days where I just couldn't get going. My mind was not working properly. I had bills to pay and surprise errands to run, and somehow get to Niagara falls in time.

Even though I got out of the blocks real slow, I figured I left myself plenty of time to get to Niagara falls for dinner. I didn't make it there until seven. To make a long story short, it was the first gorgeous Friday of the year and everyone was bolting out of Toronto early. It took forever just to get through downtown and out past Mississauga. Oh well.

When I dropped my wife off at her parents for the weekend and finally got to the QEW and Trafalgar road, I realized I forgot all my clothes for the weekend. I only had my socks and undies in my toiletry bag. This means I had to wear the same clothes all weekend.

Well I got there at 7pm for a 7:30 start. We played great that night and were told we will probably be hired a couple more times this year.

We'll see how that pans out. Stay tuned tomorrow for Saturday.

Oscars Hot and Not

Being a musician, I appreciate fashion but am not always a good judge of it. That's why I love the Academy Awards. I get to have a completely irrelevant opinion on how people that are way to rich to deal with me, dress.

I'm going to keep it short. I have one winner, and one loser. They were determined by my greatest reactions to when I first saw them, both positively and negatively.

I will start with the loser. Like the winner, the first thought in my head when I saw her was "DAAAAMMN!!" Unfortunately for Sarah Jessica Parker, that's where the similarity ended. I think it was followed by me turning to my wife and saying, "what a train wreck. Is that Sarah Jessica Parker." It turned out that it was. I had so many questions for my wife but didn't ask them. Questions such as, "Would the designer of the dress have to lie and tell her she looks great when she really doesn't." Or more importantly "That's the girl from Sex and the City? Wow, I'm glad I didn't watch that show 'cause they lied." But enough about that.

Though the pictures might not do her justice, when I saw Demi Moore walk out to "Unchained Melody" and honour Patrick Swayze my heart stopped. I again blurted out "DAAAMMN!" but this time it was followed by "she looks so awesome." It was such a classy moment and her look suited it perfectly. That's why I decided she was my best dressed because she got the best reaction out of me.

Daddy's Girl

Today I leave for the better Niagara Falls, the Canadian side. I am playing a weekend women's conference at the Doubletree Resort and Spa. That is a fantastic time for me because one of my favorite people on planet lives in Niagara Falls, my uncle.

While the ladies are discovering their inner selves, I'll hopefully be "catching up" with my uncle, having a great time hitting the local spots of the falls.

Next week I'll have some pictures. Until then.

Free Agency

If you follow my blog postings, you should get an idea of some of the things I value most. One is family, and another is my free time. So as of this Sunday I will no longer be playing with the band in my church. There is just no time and due to having to work on Friday nights and Saturdays, I need my Sundays off to do things.

Playing in church is fantastic. Getting paid to play in church is even more fantastic, but you have to make sure there is balance in your life or else you will end up hating it. Now I can go visit my brother, parents, friends, and enjoy going out real late on a Saturday not having to worry about getting up early to play on a Sunday morning. My niece also wants to come to church and not have me up at the front the whole time. She seems to enjoy the time with her uncle as much as I do with her so now we can sit together instead of having her sit by herself.

I guess the plan is to play once and a while to spell the bass player at the church I will be attending in the future. I still don't know where that may be.

I am extremely thankful that the people I deal with respect me enough to make this decision for myself as opposed to incorrectly taking it personally and getting their hate on. Part of me will miss playing with these guys, which is good because we were really cooking up some great vibes a while back, but I am now also looking forward to the positive changes that leaving will bring in my life.

Paul Gilbert's Bass Player Quiz

A co-worker put me on to this hilarious website by rock guitarist Paul Gilbert. He was the guitarist for Mr. Big who had that corny ballad "To Be With You" some years ago. Don't let that fool you though, he is one bad-ass guitar player.

Because I am a bass player, I found this quiz on his site quite enjoyable. Take it here.

CBC and the Cuthbert Curse

On February 4, 2005 the CBC let go of one of their best employees for a reason that was not good enough for me. He was employed there for 21 years when it happened and it came as a tremendous shock to industry insiders and staff.

I can't count all the great sports calls that commentator Chris Cuthbert has given me over the years. There have been countless Commonwealth Games, Olympics, World Championships of something, Canadian football, and of course, hockey. His work announcing their NHL broadcasts was on par with the greats. I remember when he would always call the late west coast games every Saturday night for CBC. I hoped that every playoff game would go into triple overtime because I knew the longer the game went, the more he was going to give me a legendary call.

TSN was not as stupid as CBC so on June 1 of that same year they locked him into a long term deal. So flash forward to 2010 and what has happened.

The CBC (who dumped him) were outbid for the rights to broadcast the Grey Cup by TSN (who picked him up). I believe it was just this year he broadcast one of the best Grey Cup presentations I have seen in a looooooooong time.

The CBC (who dumped him) lost the rights to Hockey Night in Canada's theme song, only to be purchased by TSN (who picked him up).

CTV/TSN (who picked him up) wrestled the Olympics away from CBC (who dumped him) and broadcast a very successful Olympic campaign.

And because of the senseless cutting of a great employee, who got to watch one of the great hockey sportscasters call one of the most important hockey goals in the history of our country on their rival network (who picked him up)........

everyone at CBC (who dumped him).

What the hell is up with the music?

The greatest country in the world accumulated the most gold medals in the history of a winter games event. This means our athletes are BEASTS!!! This also means they know quality when they see it.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the music that accompanied these games. My disdain started with the "I Believe" song. CTV, which aired the Superbowl, showed the Olympic montage in EVERY, and I do mean literally every commercial break. So instead of talking E-Trade babies, clydesdales, and a cow, I get a little pip-squeak singing a song called "I Believe" behind montages advertising specific athletes, ironically none of which actually won gold.

Before I continue on to last night, I would like to say that the little lady that sings the song is quite talented and the attention she will get from this is warranted. The song is not the most terrible thing I've ever heard but when I am inundated by it over twenty times a day for over three weeks, it better be the best damn song I've ever heard. It most definitely isn't.

Now last night......

I didn't watch most of the closing ceremonies due to hockey fever. My wife and I were so excited by the gold medal win by the greatest country in the world we decided to play the world tournament feature on NHL10. So we played our round robin and then tuned into the closing ceremonies.

Thankfully, what I'm about to describe my American friends to the south didn't see. NBC may have done Conan O'Brien wrong, but they did the American people right by cutting away to their own programming instead of the crap I'm about to describe:

I missed the memo where the ceremonies ended and Nickelback came on. They were rocking hard but, it's Nickelback.

One would think that's a bad start but then came a clearly outdated Avril Lavigne. What phone does she endorse again, exactly, I don't remember either.

So then to make things interesting Alanis Morrisette shows up and sings a song I've never heard of. She has clearly gotten over the angst that the world knows her for and her song was beautiful. Unfortunately if was five minutes and my eyes were closing before the final choruses. Really, who planned this thing.

Then it gets really ugly. Simple Plan followed by Hedley. At this point I'm freaking out because Nickelback was probably the best act so far (Alanis was better but out of place). At this point there is no saving this train wreck so I get ready for bed.

I found it really disrespectful to the Olympic athletes that these artists were what we gave them as a "thank you" for putting on displays of world class athleticism.

So as the unfunny lady said as she greeted me when I turned on the closing ceremonies last night, "Sorry."