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NewMusicWest 2006

I would love to be attending NewMusicWest this year. In fact, if you are reading this and could hook me and Rebecca up at the last minute, contact me! I’d love to run around the whole weekend with my minidisc and mic to capture some stuff for the podcast.

NewMusicWest offers emerging artists and bands a chance to showcase their talents to industry professionals from across North America and around the world. Once a year, Vancouver is invaded by large numbers of managers, publicists, label reps, A&R, and media. In 2004 alone, over 40 A&R attended, including representation from Sony, Universal, EMI, and many more. With 5 nights, 25 venues and over 200 bands, NewMusicWest is Western Canada’s largest and most successful music festival.

Basically this is like a CMJ or SXSW, and I would love to have total access to everything. So many bands performing around the city, and it all kicks off tomorrow.

Raine Maida from OLP will be the artist keynote speaker for the event. Being the OLP fan that I am(which was much more back in high school than I am today), I would be interested in hearing what he has to say about the industry. The guy remains about the same, but I hear the ego has changed.

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“We Always Wanted to Become Canadian”

Mates of StateAfter having the South show cancel out on us for last Thursday, the Mates of State show at the Plaza Club was an outstanding way to fill the void. One wouldn’t think that a little bopper club like that would be a good venue, but it turned out really well.

It seems like Kori and Jason are getting better and better with every album that they are producing. They’re name is getting to be a little more well known, so many people at the show on Friday knew the words to their songs, and the press is starting to catch on to their sound.

Dare I say it, but they are cute on stage. For those who don’t know, they are married. They took off from the midwest to make their way to the west coast of the U.S. During the show, Jason was saying how they always wanted to become Canadian, but they married each other. Looking over at Kori, “Looks like we married the wrong people.”

Their set on Friday was a little short, but some minor technical issues at the start of the performance might have had something to do with that. “Goods” was their second song with other cuts like “A Control Group,” “A Duel Will Settle This,” and “As Night As Now.” At least I think so. I should have payed more attention to the set list. Plus I’m not overly familiar with the latest album, and they played a lot of cuts off that one.

In the encore, Kori played the keys while Jason stood away from the drums to sing “These Days.” It’s that one song from The Royal Tenenbaums[imdb]. You know, the one that Nico recorded on the soundtrack, but Jackson Browne originally wrote. That was a pretty awesome highlight of the night.

I have yet to be let down by Mates of State. If you get a chance to check out their stuff and like it, go see them live. You won’t be disappointed. Don’t expect stage theatrics. They’re just really incredible to see perform.

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17inch MacBook Pro

I am very happy to see this product come from Apple. I currently own the first version of the 17″ Powerbook, so the fact that they are going to keep making laptops this massive makes me a little giddy.

The big thing to me is the inclusion of FireWire 800[wiki]. I use an external hard drive to store a lot of data and work from it as well. It comes in uber handy with audio editing. In fact, I record all my podcasts to my external. It never misses a beat. (no pun intended)

I’m far off from upgrading my current laptop, but this is at the top of the list for when I can.

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Sun Run 2006

Sun Run NumberWhat an incredible experience. The weather was great, the mass of runners were crazy, and I had a lot of fun. I walked with Rebecca to work this morning so we could pick up today’s edition of the Vancouver Sun to check out my time.

58 minutes and 26 seconds. I’m pretty happy with that. This was my first time ever running in an event like this. It seems to be pretty on par with the pace that I’m used to doing during my regular running routes. Of course, I took today off from my normal routine.

The one major complaint I have about the whole event was the waiting. The word was that access to the areas where you would be starting were going to be closed at 8:30AM, so Rebecca and I got in place around 8:20AM. I knew about the wave starts, but our group didn’t cross the start line until 9:44AM, or at least that was what my iPod told me.

I hate waiting in general, but it was the standing on the pavement that got to me. I could feel my knees getting sore and the lower portion of my back get a little stiff. It felt good to just start moving when we did start, but I didn’t feel really loose until I was around 3km in.

The route took us into the west end, through a slice of Stanley Park, up to the Barrard Street Bridge, into Kits and False Creek, and the home stretch taking us over the Cambie Street Bridge for a finish at BC Place. I parsed through the KatKam archives last night for the off chance that I could spot myself crossing the bridge. I found four pics that could be me. The one at 10:20AM seems most likely, but it’s hard to know. The clock on the KatKam could be off, and I was one of 50,000+ people.

KatKam - April 23, 2006: 9:45AMKatKam - April 23, 2006: 10:16AM
KatKam - April 23, 2006: 10:20AMKatKam - April 23, 2006: 10:40AM

The oranges and bananas they had at BC Place afterwards was awesome. With spring here and summer approaching, I think we’ll be making a better effort to stock up on fruit.

I wanna do more races like this. There seem to be a lot coming up this summer in Vancouver. We’re going through and picking some out. I might even be really brave and try a half-marathon. We’ll see.

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What Is It About TimHo Coffee?

I’m on a mission to figure something out.  What makes Tim Horton’s coffee so good?  Sure, it’s all a matter of personal preference, but I’ve found that it’s some of the better coffee that you can get compared to the other, bigger chain alternatives.

Is it the beans?  The way they brew it?  Something they put in it?  I don’t add anything to the coffee I drink, so I know it’s not about the cream or sugar either.

I’m looking to experiment in the near future.  I’ll bring some of their coffee home and brew it a couple different ways.  First I’ll try the straight up coffee pot.  The other thing I’ll try is via french press as well.  I have to find out if it’s something they do or just the coffee being good coffee.

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Running Vancouver With the Masses

Tomorrow will be my first running event of any kind.  The 10k Sun Run will go around Vancouver, and I’ll be in the group of 50,000+ making the trek.  The worst part of it is what we learned at the doctor’s office today; Rebecca has laryngitis.  She’s still going to get out there and walk it the best that she can, but I’ll be lonely without her.

I got a playlist put together on my iPod to keep me company in the meantime.  I’m excited and nervous.  It’ll be a lot of fun, but I’m unsure about what to expect.  We picked up our numbers and scoped out a place to meet up at BC Place today.

Wish us luck!

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RadioZoom Episode #87

In an effort to promote myself even more shamelessly, I’m going to try posting an update here for whenever I publish a new episode to my podcast.

Follow the link to go directly to the show notes for episode #87.

Recorded via minidisc, I sat down with Rebecca on our couch last night to chat a lot about lots of random topics. Most of them relate back to Vancouver, but we cover some other things as well. We talked about a lot, hockey being the main topic I wanted to have her on the podcast for. I hope I have all the links to cover the information that we shared, but that’s also what Google is for, eh?

We’re off to the Mates of State show tonight in Vancouver, so I play two cuts by them as well.

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Drinking the Flickr Kool-Aid

I’ve been debating it for a long while. I have all these random photos that I take, but not sure how to go about sharing them unless I invite the world over to go through my iPhoto library. Flickr seems to be the next best thing.

I hope to be good about adding what I can to it. My hope is to show off my experiences in Vancouver in the visual sense. Like it or don’t, I’m giving it a shot.

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ClearChannel Taking a ClearChance

ClearChannel is taking steps to compete with the rise of alternative media such as podcasting and satellite radio. It leaves me less than impressed, but I am curious to see if people take to it. A lot of it involves getting their audience to buy into HD radio.

With operating earnings essentially flat since 2002, Clear Channel needs to show it has a plan for the Digital Age — and that includes taking on satellite radio. The broadcaster hopes to have 100 digital channels up by September. Many are already on the Web, and the company is working with Motorola’s iRadio to send programming to cell phones.

I’ll plug HD and say that it’s great, you should really check it out, and there is a lot of neat features to it. I’ll also say that a simple radio to pick up HD is expensive. It’s a classic case of ClearChannel wanting more, spending more, demanding a lot from its listeners. Really makes you wonder how they are making any money, doesn’t it?

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Where’d the Radio Brothers Go?

I got curious and tracked down the Radio Brothers podcast today. They were just that. A couple of brothers who were in the radio industry that wanted to also get their foot in the podcasting realm around the same time I started.

I stopped subscribing to their feed a long time ago but got curious as to what they were up to currently. They last published an episode on May 30, 2005. I take that they’re not doing it anymore.

It strikes me as being interesting due to the fact that these were a couple of radio guys that let the podcast fade away. Ray Edwards maintains a blog that isn’t updated too regularly, but worth reading if you dig the radio.