April 20 re-cap, a reverse jinx, a full band coming to a show in a city that can breath again

It was my Neighborino's  (Baboon Torture Division) live at the SRSS last week and the paparazzi was out in full force... you would have thought it was a royal wedding or something like that.  I saw Shawn Killaly working a big camera and all the old school SRSS peeps were out having dinner.

 What is Baboon Torture Division?  Let's just say that he band is well named as somebody near the back of the bar remarked.  Older English gentleman looked at me and asked very seriously "and what kind of music would this be called"... "how about baboon torture division"... "i could see that, I like the fact that they are not raging loud".

This is a more professionally produced video than the SRSS is use to, but do remember i have only Imovie, a program which is as useless as a 4 week old dead cat under your pillow.



It was Hixon's birthday so i made a cake:

Fortunately i caught the Neighborino's before they were leaving in the Co-op car to go to the show to give them the cake to bring down which saved me from racing down Broadway in a pro Scarb Jacket with a cake and a guitar trying to catch a bus to the skytrain 1/2 hour before showtime.



Later Hixon and myself played a few songs as a duo, him on the computer generated beats and I doing me.  We played the song "the flies"

I got to get me a screen cause the flies are getting bad
i need to pick up a mask cause the flies are getting bad
Please bring me a screen cause the flies are getting bad
I got to get me a mask cause the flies are getting bad

I am not a piece of meat to lay maggots on
I am not a fruit past due
I am not a lion

and then it gets a bit weird... legend has it that the people who wrote it were on acid and they were in a 4-track session in an apartment on the downtown east side in the summer with a window facing an alley with some bad smells, and of course the smells bring in the flies, and for some bizarre reason there were no screens on the window, so after they came back from the roof... which is a good place to collect ones thoughts the room was full of flies... just those ridiculous black shit flies that do circles and induce paranoia to the point where you try to torch the bastards with an aerosol can and a lighter... and then after a minor luxury pile couch singeing one had the idea that a screen might be better suited for ones needs. 

After that we did the song Internetting on Chatroulette

And then it was time for cake.

On Wednesday April 27 2011, we have a special guest to play a few numbers Jovana Golubovic and a full 21 Tandem Repeats compliment featuring Shawn Killaly on drums, Jason Jones on piano, Christopher Johnson on bass, Willingdon Black on guitar and SR as SR.

SR will be sporting one large side burn as a result of a reverse jinx he called for the stunning and most excellent Canucks game 7 overtime victory.

You see, having been born in 1969 in Toronto and then moving to Vancouver in 1994 I have nothing but hometown Stanley Cup failure on my resume. So on the verge of what looked like it might become an epic collapse i put the word out that if the Canucks can win this game I will play the SRSS with one large side burn, hoping that perhaps the Gods might choose my personal embarrassment as a source of comedy over the fiasco of all fiasco's. I don't think I need to go into how painful it would have been to lose to Chicago for the third year in a row for the city's hockey heart. A good OMEN happened picking up my daughter from school today... as i walked in a nice little girl and her mother complimented me on my fine sideburns... it was a random and sincere compliment of the sort that i have never received. I will miss my pro sideburns, but i will embrace my pro side burn and play with heart and soul. Credit where credit is due... the Canucks played a great game and i think tomorrows SRSS will be one KING HELL time.

I have the new records back and you can have one for the price you feel is reasonable... all funds go back into the project.

I'll buy a plate of Nachos for the table of sexiest one side burned people who come to the show... they can be fake.

Hot Damn our dreams aren't dead yet.

GO CANUCKS GO

Unscheduled Bulliten- open letter to the SRSS collective.

It happens every so often that I have to lay into somebody in the blog, and invariably it causes much distress... to myself and the victim.

You ever see The last lecture by Randy Pausche :


 For sure worth watching... I mention it because in the lecture Randy talks about his life dreams and what he learned achieving them or attempting to achieve them.  One of his goals was to play football in the NFL so he went out and was playing for the school team and one day the coach was really hard on him, kept working him over and over and as he walked off the field one of the assistant coaches noted that the coach really gave it to him, but then told him that that is good, because it means the coach still believes in him.  The life lesson is that when you are screwing up and nobody is saying anything then you know they have lost faith in you... when you do something badly and nobody is bothering to tell you anymore than that's a bad place to be.  He never made it to the NFL, but he learned a lot and did a lot of his best thinking walking in a field with a football in his hands

Unfortunately a lot of people go into art and/ or music so they can just do whatever the hell they want and not answer to a "Boss"... i have seen too many talented people pass on greatness because they couldn't be told anything by anyone.  Now i don't feel like a Boss but i do have to look out for the people i have invited out to play.  Lets create a hypothetical scenario... Say i were to invite a flute player out to play some tunes then i would feel responsible to make sure that the drummer doesn't play at 2 Million decibels so that the flute player can have a chance to shine.  So if the drummer were to play at 2 million decibels, clearing the room for fear of ear damage... and then after the show happened to say... "oh well i guess i got a bit excited, and i had been drinking all day so you know shit happens".  That person would need to be called out, or never called back for what they did to everybody involved... because it's not teamwork.  As they say there is no "I" in Team.

The pattern has always been the same when the blog has gotten me into hot water... It's one of the people that's in the crew who spends time talking about how we are trying to build something here and that we should put on more shows and "make things happen", but yet  come show time they do the thing they do that puts the rest of the team in peril and downs the plane...

Everybody has their strengths and there weaknesses, and at some point in time you need to figure out what are yours and how to play to your strengths and minimize your weakness for the good of the team.

It's not about me... i believe i have called myself out many times for "mind boggling errors", horrible singing and just plain "sucking turtle cocks".

It's OK to fuck up at the SRSS, just don't keep making the same mistake, or try to blame the mistake on other things.  I think it's great fucking up trying to do something unique... better than regurgitating some common pap plucked from the tree of commercial success.

We are a collection of people, and we count on each other to do right and be better. Putting on a live show is different because things happen on the fly... you can't always have somebody giving you the green light or the red light.  At some point in time you have to know the right call and make it, or we should just cancel the whole damn show and take up watching TV because that doesn't hurt so much.

When you play, or are even part of the audience at the SRSS, you have a very rare opportunity to affect the direction of the show... not a lot of people putting on shows will give you that opportunity.  But with that opportunity comes a responsibility to use that power for the greater good of the show and all involved.

In the end it's all just memories... lets make them memorable.

April 13 re-cap

The last couple of times Jacqui Brown played the Super Robertson Supper Show she brought the rock, but this time she has teamed up with John Burton to develop a different angle. John is one King hell musician and seems to be able to translate Jacqui Brown's songs into structures that allow her vocals to soar.



Good stuff for sure.

The Vancouver Canucks opened their playoff series vs Chicago, and all went well. John Burton was kind enough to allow Jason Jones to play his keyboard for a short set with the time remaining... a set in which we were "Fire-Maned".

"Fire-Maned"... a friend coined the term a long time ago... it happened that another friend was doing a set of some DJ music and i asked how it went and i was told... "oh he got Fire-Maned". I knew immediately what that meant... it means you are joined on stage by an surprise guest who feels it necessary to play a hand carved horn over whatever your artistic creation may be... and will not stop no matter how insane it gets. I remember the New Years Party where he grabbed a horn and inched towards the Jazz band and everybody took their spots with big goofy smiles waiting to see all hell break loose on the unsuspecting.

Basically I shouldn't have played that night, and I sort of felt that before the show... there was too much uncertainty, Jacqui wanted to play long so I should have just let them roll... but my neighbours were there and they wanted to hear a few of my songs. Also the SRSS and sporting events have a history of collision, and I'm fine with that. You never want to be a musician in the way of a sports fan... At least i don't want to be.  Remember the Olympics... 2nd supper show was a disaster as we pulled the screen up and angered a pack of Germans who wanted to see the biathlon highlights, but the week before a table of Slovaks came up huge during poem moment, and the last week was the night Canada eliminated Russia from hockey and Canada won a couple of bobsled medals and the town was on fire... we could do no wrong. The plan was to play behind the big screen so people could hear the music and see the highlights, but the crowd wanted to celebrate, and they would have none of that.

So i didn't know what to expect so I brought a Children's story to read over some piano improv:



Around the 2 minute mark we got "Fire-Maned" which worked out OK, but of course he doesn't leave the stage like a normal person might once the story is done... you are now a trio for good or ill. This is where i really played it wrong... I had it in my head that there were a few songs i wanted to try... But knowing that Fire-man is in full Fire-Man mode i should have aborted and tried something really experimental, or better yet just left the stage and let piano and horn jam out the rest of the show. I stayed hard on my course and buried us.



The strangest thing is that after the show when we are all sitting at the back of the bar hanging out all the talk was about how good the horn sounded... WHAT FUCKING PLANET ARE WE ON! I'm sorry... Please tell me how? Now i know that there is being positive and all and i get that, but if there was ever a person who doesn't need to be encouraged to storm other peoples art and impose his shit on it this is the one time... he sure as hell wouldn't tolerate that on his art. But yet we are there at the table, not talking about how good the piano was... even though the guy playing it had to transpose keys on the fly and did so expertly, but we are talking about how good the horn was... absolutely incredible!  It will be a good episode for the SRSS sitcom.  I want to be a nice guy and embrace the unknown more than anybody but this road is getting a little tired.  I meet professional musicians in town and they say.. "oh your the guy that plays the crazy horns"... i like the crazy horns, just not when I'm trying to deliver a pop or folk song.

For the record I don't hate Fire-Man, he is actually a very good friend and I have plans to live on a farm with him one day... and on that farm we will have separate music rooms e-i-e-i-o.

See the Legion of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra for the horns in their spectacular environment... it's great.  I'm more like the guy in that story "the cat came back"... only the cat is a horn.

Next week we have cake and Baboon Torture division, DJ Hixon and SR Jones, and  a screening of The Land of Deborah video "Pocket of Heaven".

April 6 re-cap and the obvious...

A Gold Medal for Amanda Jane Lee for telling the world she was playing the Super Robertson Supper Show. I believe there were 36 people enjoying a fine free evening of professional themed music.

Cam and Jesse came correct... suits, songs and graciousness. There was a minor mention of a certain flap of skin contained in the anatomy of a male member, but it was more of an acknowledgement of the burr put under their collective saddle in a certain bog over last months write up.



Amanda Jane Lee and Elda Pinckney came up and laid down fine version of a Be Good Tanyas song called "Littlest Bird". They did an original before that, but i missed capturing it on video because we had a lengthy turn over which is totally the fault of SR. Considering the amount of conversation that went into this show i failed to be on top of this issue. I was sitting beside Christina Rzepa and she had a good suggestion to make out a sheet of points for people who play the SRSS to see so they are able to know what they need to do... simple communication. My only problem with that is that I tend to be a real sucker for the option of the unexpected, but as a pro one should always be able to work the unexpected into structure. Anyhoo to make a long story mid-sized I shut off the camera to help give some suggestions on what to do, and then when they got going somebody else was filming the show and I would have had to walk in front of them to grab my camera, and since the song had started I figured that there was no point walking in front of the one camera that was capturing the whole song.



There was a lot of people eating Supper last week and I met a few new friends, some of them I see now make fine music in their own right. I must say, very pleasing seeing people taking in and getting into a free diner time show.

There I was in the back and the show was closing... I was happy not to play and I was enjoying the show very much so... but then I had an idea, so I presented my idea and it flew past the members of the SRSS April 6 security council and I was granted clearance. I grabbed Christina Rzepa, Amanda Jane Lee and Elda Pinckney and we tried an experimental version of the song Saskatchewan. I chose Saskatchewan because it tells of the journey of 2 people who moved across the country to start fresh because the legend of their collective Jackass was too great to overcome to ever be thought of as a "professional band". The comedy being of course, that they eventually decided they needed double neck guitars and then released the Chicken EP.
The song also has a repeating guitar line that I thought we could just sing instead... we added a few extra notes but that's what happens when you roll on the fly.



On April 13 2011, which happens to be my fathers Birthday, we have the wonderful and talented Jacqui Brown. It appears that she will be much more Jazz orientated than Rock orientated this time around. I'm not sure what i will do as all of my best drummers are unavailable and I was somewhat worried about what might happen with this show given that the Canucks playoffs starts on this night, so i didn't want to involve a whole bunch of people and then have the show pre-empted, by the game...

I do kind of want to read the Children's book "Giraffe's can't Dance", which tells the story of Girard, a clumsy giraffe who goes to the jungle dance party and gets laughed out of the dance circle to wander away sad only to look up at the moon, see it's beauty, and then meet a cricket who counsels him "sometimes when you're different you just need a different beat"... Girard listens to the grass and the trees and starts to "feel it" and starts dancing one king hell dance and then all of the animals walking home from the dance party see him dancing and declare him the greatest! The moral being everybody can dance when they find the music that they love.  Sometimes i think it is important to hit unsuspecting SRSS audiences with some fine life lessons found in childrens books like that. The only question is... Should i read it to a stuffed animal?

Canucks vs Hawks... huge game! And a chance for me to film a video for my new single "The Unthinkable Dream".

 

The Unthinkable Dream

Vancouver Canucks 2011 Playoff run

I have this hope in my heart but I don't want to say
Because the hockey gods don't play that way
A full 60 minutes one shift at a time
You play your game and everything will be fine

Might this be the year it happens
go canucks go
Might this be the year the stars align

There is talk on the street and noise in the bar, and a message from Hey Rock
way off afar
Solid in the net and all the other positions, this team shows the right disposition

Might this be the year it happens
go canucks go
Might this be the year the stars align

We all have different hopes and we all have different dreams but this one here has a common theme

Might this be the year it happen
go canucks go
Might this be the year the stars align

March 30 re-cap, and a pro woot woot...

The band Igloo featuring Tim Watson (Slick), Sandra Bouza (Mo) and JC really helped bring this Super Robertson Supper Show into the pro zone. Nothing like a totally solid rhythm section with a easy grooving songbird who's not afraid to fly in all kinds of conditions for a free Jam.

Hot damn... that's the word I should never use... "JAM" a very dangerous word for sure... everybody uses it so you can be sure of a misunderstanding anytime you make the rookie mistake of using the word. The only way the word "Jam" can get any worse is if you put the word "Open" in front of or "Band" behind it... and if that were to ever happen you would be better off just getting your testicle pierced and going home for a nice soothing ice bath.

I should present it more like... come out and play with me and I'll keep it real simple adding proper thought through words at the right time to give the simple grooves the rite to claim "song" territory... and if you can really play I want you to soar. Stage time is a scoobie snack to all those shaggies out there if you know what i mean, and if you use the word Jam you will have all sorts of stage starved hammerheads ready to plow you with a never ending blues number, a butchered cover or a fucking ballad of their personal heartbreak that they refuse to get over.

So if i were to say "Jam" this is what i mean:



A known song in A and B, with room to groove, a repeating chorus that singers can sing (words printed) and some verse sections that i think are unique, relevant and interesting. Personally i think it was a great version and king hell thanks to all the folks for adding their individuality and coming together... Slick, JC, jason, Mo, Jocelyn and a guy on guitar i hate to say i can't remember his name... his guitar battery was dead so you can't hear him, and the camera cut him off... random placement nothing personal.

I have been thinking about my band 21 tandem repeats in terms of this whole scenario with respect to the way i make and play music. Being a longtime 'band member" person i have spent the last number of years trying to pretend that we are a band in the traditional sense... meaning that when i apply for things i try to pretend we are this band with members, or set members for that matter, in some bizarre effort to fit into the mold. In the end of course it comes off like a lie, because it is, and i end up leaving the great untapped potential off the table for discussion... my greatest strength goes into the closet, hidden like it was some bastard child in the early 1900's.

What is my strenght?
I can take a group of people who have never met or played together up on stage and pull off a pretty decent live show on zero rehearsals playing simple songs i have written over the years that leave room for people to be involved. I just recorded probably the best record i have ever done with a group of fine musicians that i know and many have been part of the band for some time without any rehearsals or discussion... people had a few takes for sure.

Every SRSS i play could be thought of as an open audition to the band 21 Tandem Repeats for external cast members... it is actually brilliant... a fluid band, a cameleon band, a band not hindered by conflicting schedules... as Darth Vader might say "It is my destiny". It is interesting, when i first started the Super Robertson Supper Show i tried to play the first 4 years with the band... it was our rehearsal, and i thought we did great and then we hit the point where the band collectively had more children than members and scheduling conflicts arise, but with all things in life a new dawn is always upon us.

I never wanted to be anyone, Just want to be like myself:



This song was born in a moment back in London Ont. when i was still in university and i was discussing my future in rock and roll with a roommate. He happened to be black so he figured he would be the next Jimi Hendrix, and so the question would be "who would I Be"... should i be Keith Richards? I replied i don't want to be anybody i just want to be myself which brought ridicule and scorn on my ass because of course as a matter of music business principle you should be like somebody. It makes sense... Lady Gaga is the new Madonna... find the niche and fill it... i say this with respect to all those involved, it's just the way it goes.

so on April 6 2011:

Hi everybody,

It's that time of the month again...
Jesse and I are hosting the Super Robertson Supper Show Wed. Apr 6 @ The Railway Club. We're on 7:30 to 8:30, the kitchen is open, no cover.

This week our guests are...
Vancouver's talented Amanda Jane Lee
also appearing on the this weeks Supper Show SSRI's Jo Hirabayashi and Pup McKinney

If you're in the mood for some good songs and charming hosts come on down.
This weeks theme is Professionalism.

Kind regards,

Cameron and Jesse

You have to like this "professionalism" angle and Amanda Jane Lee has actually done radio promotion and invited hundreds on social networking.

And in the end it's all just memories.

Think positive, and your dreams are there for the taking.

SR