The Stills in Quebec (May 25, 27, 2009)
Quebec City, May 25
Today is a radio show in Quebec City. Win to get in sort of thing. Usually these shows are pretty brutal, especially on a Monday. It was going to be a long day too. I started with a meeting at 9:30am at Holt Renfrew about an in-store we have in a couple days, then the van rental was delayed which pushed everything back.... We were supposed to be in QC at 2pm. We left Montreal at 1pm. This doesn't work, but at least there are no other bands on the bill and we have lots of soundcheck time, so all should be good...
When we do finally get there, everything is fine, lots of time, no one's worried, it all comes together. Except we suffer from missing-promoter syndrome, just like in Regina a couple weeks ago. Great. Eventually I got the guy on the phone and convinced him that we actually did need the wine we asked for, as well as the beer, whiskey, money, etc... Fun.
After we finally got everything, I got the show started and it was actually great. There was a near full house of people that were actually into it, which is bizarre for a show where all the tickets are free. They stayed the whole time. The guys played great, partly because they didn't care at all, and everyone had a good night.
After it was all said and done, a couple of us went out for wings, got our orders in just before the kitchen closed and then went back to the hotel. Again, another surprise - old dump turned new and cool. We had a bottle of whiskey from the show, so we poured a couple shots and just sat back listening to jazz for the rest of the night.
Montreal, May 27
For the last month now, I've been working closely with people at Holt Renfrew in Montreal and the marketing team for John Varvatos, a men's clothing designer who does great things. Like get the old CBGB's and make it a store and have shows there every week. Amazing. So it's been fun putting it all together and today is the day.
When we got in, Varvatos himself was already there doing interviews, and once all that was done and we had soundchecked, everyone got to meet, hang out, have a couple drinks, etc... and everyone got along famously. Really nice people, all from NY, so it was cool for me to hang out with people I could actually see around town when I'm home.
The show was awesome. Everyone involved loved the band, thought it sounded amazing (nice), loved the the show. Everybody wins. As soon as it was done, we started organizing everyone to go out for dinner with all the Varvatos folks. We ended up at a place in the old port called Le Local, great food, great wine. It was pretty nice to sit back and just talk with everyone I'd been working with over the last few weeks. They treated us really well throughout the whole process and made life easy.
After dinner most people sort of scattered as they had early flights back to NY in the morning, but we got a couple of them to stick it out and go for drinks with us at Tokyo. Despite the fact it was not at all a bar that any of us wanted to be at, good times were had by all, everyone's keeping in touch, and we called it a night. I walked back to my hotel and crashed. No early flight for me, but I do have to make sure I'm up early enough for brunch at ArtJava before I have to go to the airport....
Today is a radio show in Quebec City. Win to get in sort of thing. Usually these shows are pretty brutal, especially on a Monday. It was going to be a long day too. I started with a meeting at 9:30am at Holt Renfrew about an in-store we have in a couple days, then the van rental was delayed which pushed everything back.... We were supposed to be in QC at 2pm. We left Montreal at 1pm. This doesn't work, but at least there are no other bands on the bill and we have lots of soundcheck time, so all should be good...
When we do finally get there, everything is fine, lots of time, no one's worried, it all comes together. Except we suffer from missing-promoter syndrome, just like in Regina a couple weeks ago. Great. Eventually I got the guy on the phone and convinced him that we actually did need the wine we asked for, as well as the beer, whiskey, money, etc... Fun.
After we finally got everything, I got the show started and it was actually great. There was a near full house of people that were actually into it, which is bizarre for a show where all the tickets are free. They stayed the whole time. The guys played great, partly because they didn't care at all, and everyone had a good night.
After it was all said and done, a couple of us went out for wings, got our orders in just before the kitchen closed and then went back to the hotel. Again, another surprise - old dump turned new and cool. We had a bottle of whiskey from the show, so we poured a couple shots and just sat back listening to jazz for the rest of the night.
Montreal, May 27
For the last month now, I've been working closely with people at Holt Renfrew in Montreal and the marketing team for John Varvatos, a men's clothing designer who does great things. Like get the old CBGB's and make it a store and have shows there every week. Amazing. So it's been fun putting it all together and today is the day.
When we got in, Varvatos himself was already there doing interviews, and once all that was done and we had soundchecked, everyone got to meet, hang out, have a couple drinks, etc... and everyone got along famously. Really nice people, all from NY, so it was cool for me to hang out with people I could actually see around town when I'm home.
The show was awesome. Everyone involved loved the band, thought it sounded amazing (nice), loved the the show. Everybody wins. As soon as it was done, we started organizing everyone to go out for dinner with all the Varvatos folks. We ended up at a place in the old port called Le Local, great food, great wine. It was pretty nice to sit back and just talk with everyone I'd been working with over the last few weeks. They treated us really well throughout the whole process and made life easy.
After dinner most people sort of scattered as they had early flights back to NY in the morning, but we got a couple of them to stick it out and go for drinks with us at Tokyo. Despite the fact it was not at all a bar that any of us wanted to be at, good times were had by all, everyone's keeping in touch, and we called it a night. I walked back to my hotel and crashed. No early flight for me, but I do have to make sure I'm up early enough for brunch at ArtJava before I have to go to the airport....
posted by t. at 2:09 AM
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