Last week we spent the better part of the holiday Monday crashed out on a beach. We also hit up Raw Canvas for their weekly open mic. We went with our friend Jason from Calgary who got up and did a few songs as well. Jason sings ‘feeling alright’
Josh grabed some video of us with his iPhone so i am going to share that with you here
My Friend Lisa (well 66% of us anyway) went out to take in Open Mic night at Raw Canvas in Yaletown. This is the first performance in front of complete strangers that we have ever done. Miranda Grabbed a clip or two from our table. It was scary and absolutely exhilarated all at the same time.
Here we have a series of attempts at an epic ‘My Friend Lisa‘ photobooth photoshoot.
The Idea: Simply we wanted to have Darren & I jumping up as high as we possibly could at the exact same time with Shannon standing in front sporting an epic rockstar pose. This seems like it should be simple enough, right? WRONG!
Above: This was the absolute best photo out of all our many futile attempts to jump at the same time.
Below: Me cursing out Darren for being a bad keeper of time, while Shannon laughs :)
Above: We try it again
Below: We simply give up and move on to the obligatory Rock Star band pose.
All in all fun!
Oh and yes Darren isn’t wearing any pants. Why because he is the drummer, and drummers don’t wear pants. :)
Last week we were having our usual Thursday night jam session when I busted out a new camera I just bought that does video! Naturally we had to film ourselves rocking out, so after some quick setup we did just that. This was filmed in four complete run though’s and then small shots of some individual parts. That’s it, that’s all, nothing super fancy, nothing particularly amazing, just us jamming away on film.
Let us know what you think of our foray into the world of video, & stay tuned for the possibility of new awesome My Friend Lisa videos.
We made you wait for the last song but here it is. Song four of our awesome drunkin stairwell antics. This is another original My Friend Lisa song Titled Every End.
Thanks for following along with us! We have some exciting recording news on the horizon so stay with us to find out what and when is in store for My Friend Lisa!
It’s been quiet on the MFL front for the last while. Not to worry though because there’s been plenty of jamming and some bumbling, amateur attempts at recording. Slowly we’re putting together a few songs and we hope to have some stuff out in the coming months. Once we get the whole recording thing figured out we’ll be releasing more and more frequently.
The other awesome bit of news is we have a permanent rehearsal space now! First rehearsal (not counting all the noise that Reilly and I made on Sunday morning) is Wednesday night. Now we can play as loud and long as we want without paying a pile of money for rental spaces or worrying about offending the neighbors.
The story of the jamspace is that I (Darren the drummer) bought a condo in an artist live/work building that has music rehearsal spaces in a separate amenities building. There’s also a big pottery studio, photo darkroom, wood shop, metal shop, and a gym! It’s a pretty cool spot and I’m excited to be in it. The big score was the music space. Now we can just stumble in and play without hauling piles of gear everywhere.
Watch while our drummer Darren (or the tiger of time as he doesn’t like to be called) takes us on a short tour of the current My Friend Lisa Jam Space.
This is a new short that can also be found in the video section
Last week I sat down at my electronic drum kit and made a concerted effort to figure out drum parts to all our songs. Since we’ve been jamming in different places, with different gear every week I’ve been changing my drum grooves to work with what I had available. When we’re in a space like Rockspace I’ll have a full Pearl Export rock kit to bang around on with my sticks. Prior to my buying a drumkit I’d been using brushes to play a snare and hi hat behind the band. Without a bass drum you’re limited in your drumming repertoire, not to mention your sound is radically different without the low end pulse. Now that I’ve got a drumkit and it’s been re-skinned and tuned up we’re a little more stable in what we can play with.
Because of noise restrictions I’m still playing with the brushes at Reilly’s place. Once I’m settled into the new condo we’ll be able to have proper jams in the rehearsal rooms downstairs and I’ll be able to use sticks again!
Today was another new setup when we parked ourselves on the beach at English Bay for a public rehearsal. The idea was to get used to playing in public by doing some casual busking-type performances. I found myself back to the snare and hi hat combo without any bass drum. At first I expected the drums to be pretty weak, but as we started playing I thought it didn’t sound so bad. I stuck with the brushes and was able to coax some alright sounds out of the snare drum. The work I’ve done to nail down the grooves I’m going to use paid off, even when my setup is different. I’m still using the same rhythm but the particular drums I hit are changing.
What I’m beginning to think about is getting a Cajon, which is a box that you sit on and strike with your hands to produce percussive sounds. They’re portable and have a full range of tones from low bass slaps to higher, snare-like slap sounds. Once I’ve finished throwing money into this condo purchase I’ll have to start hunting around for one of these guys. It’s going to make it way easier to do these spur of the moment pickup jams.
I bought a condo and it has music rehearsal rooms as part of the building amenities! No more $19/hr jam space rentals for us.
Last Thursday I was getting a look at this place so I missed out on the first half of our rehearsal. When I returned (excited as hell – it’s a very cool place) I found Reilly and Shan halfway through writing a fantastic sounding song. Miranda (Reilly’s other half) had come up with a concept around her grandparents move from the cultural mecca of post-WWII London to the backwoods near Edmonton, Alberta.
Slowly I got pulled into the brainstorming session for lyrics and rhymes to use for this new song. I was hesitant at first; my previous attempts at writing lyrics were terrible and it’s left me a little apprehensive of putting my ideas forward. A few years ago I was the “singer” in a band with some friends and I quickly discovered that I have no talent for either singing or lyric writing. My opus had been a song called “Space Cat” which featured me shrieking the words “space cat” and “it’s a cat on crack” over and over while the song bounded along.
Now that I’m not the primary songwriter I’ve been having loads of fun with these collaborative sessions. I’m feeling more confident after this last jam although it’s unlikely I’ll ever try writing a song from scratch. I’m just happy to throw my ideas in where I can and stay focused on coming up with drum grooves to match all the cool parts pouring out of Reilly’s new Gretsch guitar.
So I bought a new guitar & not just any old guitar! I bought a Gretch 6120 Chet Atkins Special which is pretty much my childhood dream guitar. I always wanted a hollow body like a Gibson or a Gretsch but the 6120 was my favorite out of everything that I can remember. Originally because it was orange, but as I did research in to the guitar (which was quite an ordeal in 1992 it involved guitar magazines and listening to my moms old 8tracks of Mr. Atkins himself.) I discovered the sound was just so perfect in so many ways. I remember this one time we made a road trip into e-town which happened once or twice a year. Being that we were from the north we headed straight to West Edmonton Mall. In that mall was a Mr. Entertainment near the ice rink. This was my first real music store adventure (prior t0 that I would buy my strings and picks at the local Radio Shack) I bought a chord book, a book of “alternative rock” song tab (which i still have today) and a set of guitar strings for my Harmony. They had an original Gretsch 6120 in the case and stood and stared at it for 10min before my mom insisted that we leave. I remember looking at that vintage price tag of $10,000+ and as a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere Alberta that pretty much was the same as saying it was $100,000,000, the difficulty was they weren’t made new anymore because Gretsch was basically run into the ground and the original blueprints and prototypes were lost in a fire the year I was born, so there was only vintage to be had.
Lament.
But alas after cat-scanning, x-raying, and doing other fancy stuff to a bunch of the old 6120s lent to Gretsch from people like Randy Bachman they managed to remake the long lost blueprints of some all time legendary guitars. From that we get this glorious reissue!! it is so pretty, and it is a complete dream to play! Open chords sound genius, and I have to say this guitar matched up with the crate (thank you again Tracey you rock) is a marriage made in heaven. I love it. Shan & I ad-hoc jammed it up a bit on Saturday after breakfast and well pure genius!!
