Saidah Baba Talibah - The Album Pre-order

So there's only a couple days left to pre-order Saidah's record. From what I have heard, it's going to be incredible so I pre-ordered mine yesterday. I'm only slightly biased as we work with some of the same people. But is it bias if she's awesome anyway?

Here is the video for "A Place Called Grace."



Just a little more information on it. It seems that she has released the video with the music being from her "Phone Demos" release, which is fine and it sounds great. But be warned, the version on her debut album (S)Cream will knock you into next week. Don't say I didn't warn you.

A Kick of Mango

While my wife and I were driving home from her parents, she got a call from a friend of hers asking about our friend Chantel being in a McDonald's commercial. We had no idea what she was talking about until we saw the commercial ourselves.

Here it is:

Chantel is the singer on our left side.

Art Gallery of Hamilton

I haven't been to Hamilton in a while, but I was there Saturday to play the cocktail hour of a wedding. The venue was the Art Gallery of Hamilton. The nice thing about playing the cocktail hour is that you do not have people's undivided attention. It's all about atmosphere as friends and relatives have months of catching up to do in the hour or so before dinner. It's also never a bad scene as every wedding I've played has been a joyous occasion. I can't speak for everyone but I'm assuming that's how it's supposed to go. Thanks to Craig and LJ for making it out for this one.

amfAR Cinema Against AIDS Toronto 2010

Sunday I was at the Carlu playing for the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS Toronto 2010 fundraiser. It is put on by Dignitas International out of New York City.

There were stars abound but I didn't recognize ninety percent of them. Because I'm there as a musician and we had to stay in the green room for the evening I didn't get to speak to many "celebrities."

But because I know I'm going to be asked, I'm going to just list my "encounters" if you can even call them that.

In our soundcheck I met Cheyenne Jackson. He plays Danny on the show "30 Rock" and is also now on the show "Glee." He was also performing that night so we discussed where we were all going to be.

Also at our soundcheck, which honestly was more like a line check, I met the keyboard player for Ace of Base. I honestly didn't know they were still around. Again, just more professional talk as we were all making sure the backline people didn't misplace our stuff. I also helped the singer decide how to wear her top. She was having trouble with the belt pack so she allowed me to assist.

Team VAWK. Though Canadian and generally unknown internationally, Sunny Fong made a splash on the second season of Project Runway Canada. Because my wife is on the team that puts together his runway shows every fashion week, I knew he was going to be attending. He was easy to find and it was great to finally meet him.

Kelly Rowland made an impromptu appearance so she needed our green room to get ready. That was cool. Everyone is going to ask, but honestly it was kind of scary because one minute you're watching TV and the next minute a Destiny's Child is standing right behind you. No matter how beautiful she looks on TV, she's extremely beautiful one foot away in real life. So knowing all that, here's how I remember it going down:

Randall to Ms. Kelly: Oh I'm sorry, can you see the TV okay?
Ms. Kelly to Randall: Yeah thanks.
Randall to Ms. Kelly: I'll get up anyway.

Then we stood there and watched the VMA's for five minutes and I was wondering if Craig would have the balls to switch the TV back to the Cowboys/Redskins game. He didn't.

There were other celebrities but I don't really recognize them because they never look the same as how I remember them.

Slakah's B-Boy Beef

Well that was fast. There's news.

Slakah the Beatchild, who I think is probably one of Toronto's greatest young artists, released his video for the single B-Boy Beef yesterday.

My wife and I love the song. Here's the video.