I am the champion

It looks like I'm going to walk away with the cup again this year.  After last rounds picks, where I went 3-1, I am now at a total of 8-4.  That's pretty good.  I cannot be caught.  Congratulations to me because I'm Canadian and that makes me automatically awesome.

My picks for the next round are:
New York over New Jersey
Los Angeles over Phoenix.

I am certain at this point that Los Angeles is going to win the cup so that will be my pick for the final as well.

NHL Playoff Predictions Round 2

After the first round I went 5-3 and am tied for the lead with a blogger out of Nashville.

Because I am moving and do not have time to really elaborate, here are my picks for round two:

New York over Washington

New Jersey over Philadelphia

St. Louis over Los Angeles

Phoenix over Nashville.

Good luck to all.  By the next round I will be blogging in a new city.

It's That Time of Year Again

Here are my predictions for the first round of the NHL playoffs. I will post my score against the other bloggers at the end of the first round. Stay tuned.

Eastern Conference

New York over Ottawa

Boston over Washington

New Jersey over Florida

Pittsburgh over Philadelphia

Western Conference

Los Angeles over Vancouver

St. Louis over San Jose

Phoenix over Chicago

Detroit over Nashville.

Best of luck to the regular participants.

Canadian Music Week #4 - Revivaltime Tabernacle

This wasn't an official event from CMW but it may end up being the most productive. I wasn't even going to mention it but someone captured it on video, and the next thing I know I'm getting texts and other electronic new media inquiries about the CD.

On Sunday, March 25th I played what may appear to be my first ever gospel live recording with the Revivaltime Tabernacle Combined Men's Choir. A gospel choir CD is something I've always wanted to play on because I love gospel choir music.

Back on July 7, 2007 I played on a live recording put together by my former church and though the band played phenomenal, it never got finished. So I'm hoping the same thing doesn't happen with this Revivaltime project. I would like to have a CD I can give to my parents and say I played on. Especially a Christian one.

I was going to let this go but the guy filming it put out a bit of a re-cap/commercial on YouTube. The only problem was when I placed a link to it on FaceBook a bunch of people thought we played the song in the background, which we did not. So here is an edited version of the events of March 25th. Out of respect to the videographer, I will post a link to the full version here.

Canadian Music Week #3 - Tom Jackson

Friday I played bass in the house band for clinician Tom Jackson. Lori was in contact with him and we ended up being his backing band for this clinic. This was a good job. We ended up being in one of the massive conference rooms at the Fairmont Royal York. It was a huge stage and the sound guys were pros. I believe they were from Metalworks. I was secretly hoping I would bump into Omar Davis this week but I never did. Oh well.

When you look at this picture you can see my bass (yellow) to the right and you can see my pedal board directly in front of the Marshall cabinet. There's a bit of red there to see it.

One of the highlights for me though, was catching up with Craig (drummer). One of my best friends, we don't get to see each other too often with our schedules being the way they are.

Canadian Music Week #2 - The Slakadeliqs

After I finished playing Lori's show at the Supermarket I eventually made my way over to the Garrison to see live debut of The Slakadeliqs. This is a project of Slakah the Beatchild's that he put me on to at least a couple of years ago when I played with him in Detroit. I was also in the video for Love Controls the Sun for my one second of MTV glory. This is one of my favorite alt-pop projects to ever come out.

Another reason I was there was to see Ayah perform a tune with The Slakadeliqs. My wife put together her look for the evening so I had to be there regardless to pick up the accessories from Swarovski and Doc Martens' boots she was wearing. I also play with Ayah from time to time so this was the first time I saw her perform without me being on stage.

The review in short The Slakadeliqs (and Ayah for that matter) looked great and if they event was more suited to alt-rock than hip-hop it would have sounded just as great as they looked.

Here's a video I took of Call Me Your Friend from the show:

Canadian Music Week #1 - Lori Nuic

My Canadian Music Fest 2012 started off on the Thursday playing for Lori Nuic at the Supermarket. I have played with Lori and her brother Anthony for some time now and always enjoy it. Once again it gave me a change to play with Craig and Anthony Wright as well.

Lori has a new album coming out in May called Flaws of Attraction. You can check out what's going on with her on her site. Here is a picture courtesy of Janet Turner (L-R: Anthony Wright, Craig's drumstick, my elbow, Lori, Krystal, and Marcia).

Add Producer To My Credits

Saturday I got to do something that I've never done before. I got to produce the Fyahorns and the Brigade recording of "No Contingency." My job was to specifically produce the horn section. David Rudder had produced the vocals but the guys wanted me to do the horns because: a) I play in the band so I was involved in the recording process from it's infancy b) I love horns sections and soca/calypso c) my musical background is pretty strong for this kind of thing, and most importantly d) because they're good friends of mine, I'll show up if there's beer and a bucket ah dead.

I loved the experience because I got to be the boss. Being the boss is awesome. But I was a good boss as the one thing I did though was encourage open discussion on parts and takes because I wanted the horns to feel comfortable.

I'm going to assume it went well because we ended up watching videos of Destra and Japanese soca artists for a couple hours after the takes were done. My favourite clip of the evening was when we discovered this Japanese singer named Barbie who sings soca. I can't believe I knew the song, the rest of the guys couldn't either but they weren't shocked when I started singing all Rita Jones parts and tooting all the horn parts.

Here's the Japanese clip:

Good times. Apparently there's a date to be made in April for round 2.

Those Barrie Creatures

Saturday I had a job up in Barrie subbing in with a cover band. As per usual they are lots of fun, mainly because I don't have to do it every week. As with every job, there is always one thing that stands out. This job it was the amount of women dressed similar to Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft character when it was minus ten degrees Celsius outside. No jackets. To be clear, I always appreciate the effort people make to come to any event I play, be it church or your local drinking establishment. But this one had me baffled. It wasn't just one or two crazies, it was ALL OF THEM. I later just shook it off with the thought of if I were playing in the Ontario Hockey League, I would ask to be traded to the Barrie Colts.

First Show of the Year - It Was a Good One

Hi everyone, I hope the start of the year has been good to you. Here is a phone clip (courtesy of my wife) of us rocking out to a Kravitz tune on Friday night. It features the two guitarists kicking rock and roll ass.

Guitarist on the left is Chris Caddell. Guitarist on the right is Ricky Tillo. Ed Mortenson and myself are 1) barely in the video, 2) holding it down for these superstars because that's what we love to do.

I would like to point out that though the sound on the video sounds pretty good, I think it has to do with how clean these guys play. They are really top drawer with that stuff and left a lot of room. Though it was loud and awesome it was one of the few times I didn't feel myself competing or pushing to hear myself.




Enough said. Bring on the next show.