this is not the land of oz

screw you dorothy, there are lot of places better than home.

we played at the grand hotel last night in yarmouth with sleepless nights to perhaps the worst crowd i have ever played to (with maybe the exception of the crowd @ Fibber's in New Glasgow that one time we played there).

the bar was full when Owen & Gerry played, but by the time we got to our third song, the place basically cleared out. The entire crowd was probably 35+, with the exception of about a dozen of our friends. i was convinced that more people our age would have been out, i was wrong. i am ALWAYS wrong when it comes to the Yarmouth scene.

i assume that since a million indie musicians come from Yarmouth, and since a decent handful of them make it semi-big, that there is still a thriving scene in our hometown. last night proved that I am completely wrong.

it's sad to think that we can tour the country, that we can fill bars in Halifax, Fredericton, or PEI but when we go to our own hometown, the place where we grew up and fostered our musical beginnings, not only do we get no support, we get no crowd, and no appreciation.

for some reason i always think that we can overcome all this, because of how well we're doing outside of yarmouth, and we can bring this excitement back home and say "hey, look what we're doing, isn't this great?" and people will enjoy it just as much as we do. boy was i wrong.

a couple posters for some upcoming shows

The Estab - 2 Shows

this weekend, despite me being deathly ill, the establishment played two shows.

friday, i woke up and was so sore i couldn't move - so the whole day i pumped myself full of flu meds and eventually made it out to Pinky's birthday bash @ The Speakeasy which featured performances by Jon McKiel, The Superfantastics, and Pinky's new band, tentatively called Quikersteven, which features him, Mick from Broken Ohms, Turk from Contrived, and Virgil from Heavy Meadows. After that whole shindig, we ended up playing a short set of mainly new stuff - due to my intoxication level thanks to the flu meds, and pinky/deon's intoxication level thanks to beer, it was no doubt terrible.

Saturday night I was feeling a bit better, but still had the flu in my system when we played at this strange little bar beneath the Attic called the Chef's Room. It was part of a special show at the attic where 5 bands played upstairs, and 5 bands played downstairs. Given the obscurity of the location, the bands playing upstairs (On Vinyl, Motorleague, Shelter With Theives, The Nuclear & The Monoxides), our crowd downstairs was pretty decent. The room was pretty cool, it was a different atmosphere. It felt like playing in the lounge of a hotel or something.

There were some friends from afar at the show (at both shows actually). Nick, the drummer from The Inflation Kills hung out with us on Saturday night, and our new pals from PEI, Kerri & Jessi, even made the trip down for these two shows.

The Orphan Choir come soon...so excited. We finished mixing the tracks for our 7" this weekend too - so we're gonna put them to wax as soon as we get some sweet cash. wanna help?

The Establishment + $rocking 4 dollar$

it's been about 6 months since The Establishment has played $rocking 4 dollars$.

for those of you unfamiliar with this phenomenon, it's kind of like a wheel of fortune open mic. a bunch of bands play, and then at the end of the night they each get a chance to spin a wheel for prizes. the grand prize is cold hard cash. it starts at $200, and each week, if no one win's it it increases in incrememnts of $200. So if on week one nobody wins the money, then in week two the prize would be $400. If no one wins that week, the next week it's $600. Get it? Eventually, they cap it at $1000.

Last night was $800, so we decided to go down and try our luck - which, by the way, we have none of.

We played a brand new song that's basically not even finished yet, another new song that we've only played once and "Hypernetic," which will be on the 7" we're putting out.

We didn't win, nobody won. The $1000 next week would be sweet, but god i don't want to sit there for 4 hours again. But we need that friggen money...

Sleepless Nights + PEI

(thanks to Tony Dawe for these photos!)


Well well well. The day after we played Fredericton last weekend, I issued a challenge to the folks of Prince Edward Island. I said, "Dear PEI. Fredericton was amazing, you have a lot of work to do to beat them for the best place in the Maritimes to play."

I'm not sure if they won, I mean, Fredericton is ridiculous always, but PEI was nothing short of amazing.

The first thing we did when we got there was go to China Garden, best Chinese food in the entire world. It's a PEI institute, we have never not gone there on our trips to the island.

The show was swell. We played in a weird spot in Hunter's Ale House - up on this staircase/pedastal thingy. Anyways, Lenore played with us and they were great. Pineau's cousin Laura sings in the band, her vox blew me away. great singer.

We were without Mary because she has pneumonia, so the set was a little weird. it was loud as eff though. we rocked it out, had a good time, converted a bunch of curious non-believers i think. It was fun for sure.

After the show, we hung around the bar and chatted it up with some old pals who have been to see us before in PEI, as well as some Halifax-via-PEI friends, like Bible Van and Sarah LeClair who happened to be back on the island for the show.

Went back to our lieu de residence and hung out with some of our old/new friends. We also adopted a new Sleepless Nights mascot. He first came to us in a dream Pinky had last time we were in PEI, and this time he came to life. His name is Jamal:





he kept pinky up most of the night, kept asking him to play bee-ball and to listen to some run dmc. oh jamal, you're hilarious. he's coming on tour with us in march. he can't wait.

the next morning, we went to Pineau's parent's place and his mom cooked us breakfast. Love Pineau's mom. Then we picked up some glass-bottled pop and came home.

Can't wait to go back.

vote for the bands!

Every year, local Halifax independent paper The Coast does a "Best of Music" poll. If I may be so bold, I suggest you head over there right now and vote for any combination of my bands (Sleepless Nights or Establishment) in any of the fields.

Some major suggestions:
Best Artist/Band To Dance To: Sleepless Nights
Best Artist/Band To Be Blown Away By: Sleepless Nights/The Establishment

and this one is IMPORTANT:
Best Appearance on YouTube: The Establishment - How To Go On Tour in a Volkswagon Golf.

if you haven't seen this video yet, check it out on YouTube

We can win this thing!

Quiet Parade live demos

stuck a mic in the jamspace the other night during Quiet Parade practice, and we recorded some of our hits.

check them out on the MySpace

Sleepless Nights + Fredericton = Love

I know I've ranted about fredericton prior to this, but I have to re-itterate that it is by far my favorite place to play. people there are so receptive, and so amazing. and the crowd's are always great. if anyone from fredericton reads this blog, seriously, you're awesome.

Here's a video of some fun in the van on the way home yesterday. It was snowing, so it was a slow ride. And you just can't pass up Bon Jovi.

video!

As usual, we ended our set with Breathe Deep Tornado, and Cheval and Matt ended up getting into a "fake" scuffle.



I think people were either amused, or scared. Either way - super fun time!


In other band news, The Establishment has been writing some new - quite awesome - songs. Can't wait to get into the studio again...

fredROCKton

it's 5:33am - currently in fredericton.

we (Sleepless Nights) played an AWESOME show at The Capital tonite with the Fussy Part (love those guys).
huge crowd, good friends, most excellent times.

loud.as.eff.

awesome.

we went back to kyle's house for some guitar hero action and an american idol kareoke competition - though that's not as fun as it sounds (really, it's not).

now i'm at derek's because i wasn't going to sleep on the floor if i didn't have to.

today is mary's birthday, and her bf flew in from toronto today to spend some time with her, so we're heading back to the 'fax in about 4 hours.

time for some sleep!